Clare Mulvany 23/04/2024 Clare Mulvany 23/04/2024

Trusting in a Return

Perhaps the silence is only ever an invitation into what really wants to happen.

I keep watching the sky for the swallow’s return. ‘Have you see any yet?’, I ask a local villager. No sightings here, but in other parts of the country, one. The slow return. I need to know the cycle is not broken; that the miracle of these tiny remarkable beings making their way across a continent — across mountains and desert, borders and seas — have made it to their other home, this island on the edge of a continent, offering haven.

The swallow’s return is one of those rhythms in the year I’ve come to rely upon as a marker of continuance. Mid-April I search the sky for darts of forked, swooping brilliance. After wintering, its signalling a summering, with the energy of bloom and birth. It reminds me of cycles and the mystery baked into it all. I take such reassurance in the return.

As in nature, so in life: to trust in the return. It’s been a wintering patch in this tiny corner of my creative life, not the wintering of darkness, but wintering of another kind, of composting. Lettings things fall, allowing time to decompose the constituents. To sense into what wants to be reconstituted is a fecund kind of darkness, too easily overlooked or mistaken as absence. Without the detritus of the harvest, the soil from which new growth emerges can not be sustained.

I am being, perhaps, metaphorically abstract. What do I mean by that in practice, the trusting in the return. Basically, it’s been a quiet patch, in work, in words. Most of the time I have tried to share anything, I’ve had a ‘rabbit in the headlights’ moment, set against what the world is facing and moving through, at times so destructively so. As someone who has relied on words to help them navigate complexity and has taken on an identity as someone capable of articulating responses, my words have felt muted, inadequate and radically falling short. They are only words, after all, and I am only one. I’ve shown up at marches, vigils, protests, but I find myself totally wrung out with tears. What use are tears, I tell myself, feeling somewhat ashamed. Social media too has felt like a minefield, and frequently, not a safe space to share, not just a response to the horrors, but creative output too. I know I am not alone in this.

I see the ‘rabbit in the headlights’ mode in every classroom and teaching space I’ve been in or hosted in the last year. ‘I am only one, and what use are tears/ words/ sadness/ shock’. For some, I see the sense of outrage combusting in anger which has no direction, or snap judgements; students operating on high voltage energy, not knowing how to direct it, or themselves. For others, like myself, there is a desire to retreat. As a response, in learning spaces, I bring in more reflective time, and breathing practices, and I try to create space for meaning making, then afterwards, I need to withdraw too.

I saw this coming in me months ago, and gosh, do I resist. Who am I without the platform/ identity/ role- small as they are, but clearly I am not immune to hitching my identity to the sways of productivity culture and staying relevant. And yet, continual output just hasn’t been an option for me and I realised my activism needs to show up in different ways right now. The introvert in me did some cartwheels when I took my foot off the pedal a bit. The detritus can fall, it was saying, and part of you can too. Time to compost. I just did not expect there to be so much.

And so, over the last year, I’ve intentionally tired to embrace the space, and the silence, which as freelancer who never quite knows when the next ‘gig’ is coming from, is excruciating. My newsletter became more sporadic, my social sharing too. I haven’t wanted to make the full move over to substack yet. I definitely have not wanted to be on X, and defiantly not tiktok. Then, in the midst of all this, one of my dearest soul friends and creative mentors died. Her death so premature filled me with a grief so strong it was as if an equally powerful wave of love moved through me. It is amazing what happens when we allow ourselves to be composted by love. Words started returning, ideas, energy.

Jennifer was someone to whom the creative life was one of the greatest mysteries and miracles, to which she dutifully served. She’d literally put on a pair of working overalls, and headed to her studio each to mine the creative wells for source material. A filmmaker and creative visionary (although she’d hate for me to have called her that — but to me she was), she taught me, among many things, the power of creative cycles and needing to listen to the dream, then follow it. The dream — the creative idea which won’t go away, the calling, the stirring, the story which keeps tugging, the imagination’s tide. Her own film ideas had seeded themselves in literal dreams, then he showed up to her creative practice with devotee levels of steadfastness. The first in her ‘cycle’ of three film, She Sings to the Stars, is completed, and the script for the second film which she had been working on for the precious few years I knew her, was in its final stages of completion. Now that she is not here to complete it, I am not sure that film will ever be made, but in one way it also is —because she listened, brought the story to the page, gave life to the dream. That was Jennifer Corcoran.

After her death, I had a ‘now or never’ moment. A story which had been following me, was tapping, loudly. A bonkers, beauty, wildly erratic story. Now or never, I told myself. And in I went. In the imaginational realm, I’ve found worlds and characters so real to me they feel like companions. In there, is a dangerously beautiful place, which expands my sense of what is real, and possible, of this world too. I know what I’m working on is my own ‘cycle’ of stories. Book one is in a semi-decent draft phase, and daily I am trying to coax it into shape. Book two and three are emerging, slowly. It was this story that took me recently to Mexico, and this story which is leading into places I never thought I’d venture. It’s terrifying. It’s beautiful. I’m listening. Perhaps the silence is only ever an invitation into what really wants to happen.

I am about to go for a walk with Milly. The sky is open, clear. I’ll look up and ask I’ll myself ‘Today?’ Perhaps I’ll see a swallow. But it not today, then soon. Soon. I am trusting in a return.

Writing Prompts:

Perhaps the silence is only ever an invitation into what really wants to happen.
What is your relationship to silence? What is silence inviting you into?

Your now or never.
Write about a ‘now or never’ project you have brewing. Is there a book in you? Or a creative dream? What does it look like? What is holding you back?

**Hello. I'm Clare**

I'm a writer, educator and facilitator, living in beautiful West Cork, Ireland. I love to share resources and learning to help harness the regenerative power of words, place and story. I hope my work offers nourishment for mind and soul. Thank you for being here. Clare x

Clare Mulvany 25/03/2024 Clare Mulvany 25/03/2024

Mexican Wanders

There were miracles everywhere. The trees looked autumnal, flanked not with falling leaves, but beating wings, the flames of Monarch butterflies, in their hundreds of thousands, giving rise to something closer to awe I could not name. How do the Monarch’s make the 3000km journey from Canada to arrive, four generations on, to the same Oyamel forests in Michochan, Mexico from which their great-grandparents took flight on their own epic journey north? It was raining wing and mystery in those hills. My heart is pulsing differently now.

Then there was the flight of a flock of pink flamingos overhead, traveling in a perfect V, their necks elongated in elegance, traveling down the Rio Celestun on which our little kayak prevailed, just, in the deceptively strong current, granting us the privilege of witness. We paddled until we met a flock of about 60 of these long-legged wonders feeding on crustaceans from which their colour derives.

Then were was the sea waters, azul, clear, and the waters of the caves- crystalline. A terrain of limestone, much like the Burren of the West of Ireland, which, given its propensity for porosity and erosion creates the conditions for over 6000 cenotes, or sink holes, sacred watering grounds, seven of which my body felt like it pilgrimed into. Submerging, there was a sinking in, held by mother and nature, and the ever renewing force of water. Surfacing my world and understanding of magic was rebirthed.

It was a month of travels populated with such explosive beauty but not without witnessing explosive tragedy too. The Maya Train, a project of the current president, designed to bring more tourists, and therefore pesos/ dollars/ euros/ yuan to the Yucatan peninsula, a land so rich in biodiversity, and so primed for migratory species, that to do anything but preserve and restore is a devastation. But, sadly, shockingly, the railway project is ploughing through virgin forest, its wildlife scattering for cover, its people’s voice going unheard, and countless trees being felled in the name of ‘progress’. It is a scar on the landscape, not just of the region, but in our own collective efforts to preserve and reserve. I’m still reeling, and so angry, and aware of my own complicity- my presence there counted as another tick in the tourist numbers. Justification. But the wrong kind of just.

And it was in this month I encountered protest, as thousands of women took to the streets against the waves of femicide and violence against women in Mexico. There was an anger, at times rage, being lashed in graffiti against walls and monuments; a visceral aggravation to attest to the larger social fabric which at times feels like at war with the feminine. To be in that power, and that anger, felt daring and electric, which still simmers in my veins wondering where next to move.

I think the best kind of travel is as much an inward journey as an outward one, taking us to new aspects of ourselves, questions perhaps, or capacities and even challenges. Here, in meeting the wider world we encounter ourselves so we can return altered in some way, and renewed. And so, as my month of travels still churn, with colour, taste, smells, learning, I am still trying to unpack it all, giving space and shape for the words and experience to land. My hope is that it continues to shake, with wonder and repulsion, spurring me onwards, onwards, onwards, in words and in story and in action.

Clare Mulvany 31/01/2024 Clare Mulvany 31/01/2024

Burren Winter School: A Story in Layers

Over the few days of the Winter School, I see the participants getting to know each other better, and being in this layered learning together. I can’t help but play with the landscape as metaphor too. The Winter School has become a haven in the fissures of our global fracture. Here are 22 participants gathering to pause, learn, regenerate. They represent 15 nationalities. There are singers and scientists, social entrepreneurs and sociologists. There is a medic from South Africa, a young family from Afghanistan. They are from Palestine, Cambodia, Nigeria, Japan, Germany, India, Ireland. They are all people who want to be part of writing a new story: This is Ireland. This is us.

You can listen to this story below (10 mins)

The Burren landscape is full of cracks. Fractures and fissures divide the limestone, which, as we walked across the stone slabs on a cold, crisp January morning, were rendered both beautiful and dangerously slippy. The light that morning was as if Yeats himself had laid down the heaven’s embroidered cloth, but we were also were being warned: thread softly.

We had gathered as part of the Suas/ Stand Changemakers Academy, a 6 month learning programme designed to support young changemakers with the learning required to both navigate the fractures and fissures of our world, and gain skills to build, repair and advocate for a better one. I have been fortunate to be a part of the design of the programme and was now in attendance as a facilitator at their Winter School through my work with Thrive School. Our home base for the week was Common Knowledge, a regenerative learning centre, rooted in the Burren. On this wintery morning, as the rocks and cracks told their ancient story, we were being guided on a place-based learning walk with Áine Bird, from the Burren Beo Trust, another organisation which seeks to connect people to the landscape and its care.

Bearing the fossilised memory of millennia, on first glance it can be easy to read the story of the Burren as one of erosion, but, as Áine points out to us, on deeper reading, it also tells a story of protection, conservation and preservation. What we learn instead is that the system in which the landscape evolved is a complex interweave of narratives: human, ecological, agricultural, religious and cultural. To understand the full, systemic story, we must understand the relationship between the layers.

‘Live in the layers’, another poet, Stanley Kunitz has counselled, and so: the layers. When we put on an ecological lens we learn that the fissures are home to some of the rarest plants and insect life in the country. As the rest of Ireland becomes increasingly depleted of its biodiversity, it is landscapes such as this that become both habitat havens and critical species preservation hubs.

Next layer: reading the landscape as a sacred text, we learn of the large cycles of worship which have played out on its altar. From pagan rituals, to early christian oratories, from holy wells and places of pilgrimage, time and ceremony have marked meaning and myth into the stone. With eyes in search of the sacred, we see the sacred.

Then with the eyes of an agriculturalist, we learn of the complex, interconnected relationships between man, bovine, plant and place; how the landscape- this place of sanctuary for marginal and rare species only is because of relationship. Take the cow, for example. As the wintering herds graze, keeping back potentially encroaching hazel bush, so too do they distribute seeds and nutrients to enable the flowering of rare spring bloom. Wild flower meadow and cow literally sustain each other. What dies, becomes, and what becomes feeds a wider circle of life. The key is in finding a balance between the elements: hazel bush, grazers, cows, plants and the right timing of the seasonal movement of herds to enable the plant life to flourish. Here communication is transhuman- man, animal, plant and place all in dialogue in to ensure mutual flourishing.

Next layer. With the eyes of the historian, in a single frame we can see the parallel of past and present. The mounds of an ancient Fulacht fiadh- thought to be an old cooking pit, now sits adjacent to a concrete watering trough for cattle. Just out of frame, there is also a famine house, its crumbling walls telling part of the larger story of how a community faded into decline through the systemic interplay of colonialism, economy, land rights and food sovereignty.

Each layer offers more readings. Each reading, brings up its own set of questions. The landscape is a living text, only fully decoded with open eyes, open minds and open hearts. So, in a complex layered system, and particularly as changemakers, we need to ask questions which probe into each layer, questions such as: Whose needs do you prioritise? Whose wellbeing is centred? What story is given voice? Who is not being heard? Without understanding the layers and characters in the narrative, we risk telling, and preserving, only a partial story. Story, we learn, is central. Without story, we may just fall through the cracks.

We begin our days in circle. The circle is a container to hold the learning and each other, as we meet our edges and our hopes. I invite in our difficult questions, and our uncomfortable quests. How can we learn to navigate them if we can not support each other to be brave enough to ask them. Our questions are so we may learn to move through the layers of self and the systems we inhabit, to live more vitally and more fully, for all of us.

On our opening night, as the winter light falls back to a breathing dark, we light a gathering of candles in the centre of our circle. It’s an acknowledgment of the darkness in our systems, in our midst. A soulful young man from Palestine reads a poem from his people, in English, then in Arabic. The poetry travels as remembrance and witness. We leave the silence rest for a few moments, then we give the night to poetry.

The poetry salon comes into shape by way of gathering around candlelit tables. I speak a little to how poetry can open us up to insight and meaning making, which otherwise may remain out of view. I’ve choose a selection of poems which speak to the inner quest for purpose and value, and how we may travel. ‘Start close in’, came words from David Whyte, words which teach us how and where to listen. ‘To know kindness as the deepest thing inside, we must also know sorrow as the other deepest thing’, offers Naomi Shihab Nye. But let us not forget to rise, says Maya Angelou, nor forget to feast on our lives, reminds Derek Walcott. As each poem arrives, the salon participants share their responses. They speak to the questions the poems deliver or expose, and to the memories the words may evoke. Poetry is opening a door, and we step through.

Over the few days there is also project work. The participants have been assigned teams, and given challenge briefs by a range of community partners. They learn about design thinking and root cause systems work to build solution prototypes. There is an ideas to action cafe, to help them design and evolve their own personal projects too- a project which will nudge them to develop the changemaking skills they are seeking to strengthen. Then we add a buddy system to help sustain the process beyond the School.

Another morning, still threading softly, we go on a silent Imram- a mythic Celtic walk out into the layered landscape which helps us listen to ourselves and our questions more fully. ‘Everything is connected’, says a participant as she begins to see in relationship and not in silos. ‘When I am quiet, memories can rise’, says another as he gets in touch with the regenerative power of nature’s wisdom, and it’s beautifully dangerous awakening too.

Then there are games and laughter, and career talks and delicious food, and by night, we fall back to story and song. Inspired by The Moth Storytelling movement, we tell stories of rupture and relief, of courage and confidence, and even some of pure embarrassment. The stories are torches, illuminating pathways of connection. Later there is a night of song and dance, and making room for what happens when we feel free to offer whatever talents or gifts are seeking to be shared.

Everything is connected, yes, and so are we.

That winter morning as we walked down from the Burren with the light cascading in ribbons of honey and awe, careful of our footing, Yeats words came back to me, and I spoke them aloud.

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

My dream, I realise, is this new story in the making. As we thread softly alongside the fissures and the cracks, as these young people, and myself, learn to listen to the layers of story, as we try to build the skills, and moral muscle to straddle the divides, I can’t help but feel expanded, connected. The dream is in the layers and in the rising. The dream is in the writing and the telling. But it’s also in the circle, with a light at the centre. And they are it. We can all be it. It’s all connected.

Clare Mulvany 23/12/2023 Clare Mulvany 23/12/2023

A Winter Blessing

Under candlelight and flicker, guided by the spirit of poetry, and the tradition of Celtic Blessings, a group of Poetry Salon participants created a collective blessing for the world. In an act of daring, gentle beauty, as each participant was reading their line aloud, I imagined the ripple effect of their compassion and care spreading out, illuminating pathways through these dark times.

Below the blessing, with an invitation. What line would you add?

Here was ours, written on Winter Solstice, December 21st 2023, with participants from Ireland, UK, Spain, Portugal, US, Belgium and Switzerland

Below the blessing, with an invitation. What line would you add? (you can add in the comments below)

Here was ours, written on Winter Solstice, December 21st 2023, with participants from Ireland, UK, Spain, Portugal, US, Belgium and Switzerland.

Collective Blessing, written by Salon participants

May we allow ourselves rest in the “in between”.
May we remember that we belong to each other.
May we honour the self in ourselves and each other.
May we be the mystery keepers at the crossroads of our senses.
May we pull down the curtain embroidered by those who would keep us apart to quell our power.
May our current darkness birth life and light in the world and in us.
May the people of Gaza have clean water, shelter, medical care, enough to eat and freedom to live without bombs.
May the cycles of life fall gently on you, may your storms be few with many shelters.
May we all the remember our hearts being blessed.
May we accept the protection of our wild waiting kin.
May there be light to open humanity’s dark mind and see what really is.
May we become a sanctuary for ourselves and for others.
May we all turn towards the love in our hearts, and from this place of peace, bless love as the guiding force in the world.

21 December, 2023.

Available Now

**An Intentional Year**

Focus on what matters most, and create an intentional 2024. Guidebook and an Intentional Year course now available

Clare Mulvany 20/12/2023 Clare Mulvany 20/12/2023

Winter Solstice Prompts

But what does it mean to cultivate hope?

One of the origins of hope is pause. To sit still in the fullness of our lives and give ourselves back to the magic of joy, generosity and to the dream of better days to come- for to be hopeful is to have belief in the possibilities of the future, as individuals and as a collective.

The word solstice comes from the Latin, meaning, Sol (sun) + Sistere (to stand still). And so, I invite you to take a few moments of pause, to sit with the questions of the turning of the season, still honouring the dark while calling in the light, a way to cultivate your own sense of hope in these turning times.

December is deep upon us and here in the Northern Hemisphere the days are short and the nights are long. However, celebrated around the eve of the 20th December, the Winter Solstice is a turning point in the year, where a reversal in the light happens and the days begin to lengthen. It is not surprising then that many ancient and religious festivals take place around this time of year, for the solstice represented a renewal of hope and a reminder that the light would return and with it the warmth required for the seeds of new life to germinate. As the light arrived our ancestors knew the tide of the year would turn too.

In ancient times in Ireland, this magical turning was reflected in the architecture of the day. Newgrange in Co. Meath is perhaps the best known example of this, when, at dawn, the soft winter light is tunnelled down a long passageway to light up a burial chamber. It’s a remarkable feat of science and engineering, and hints to the mysticism and magic embedded in their honouring of the natural cycles of the year.

Christmas has long been associated with magic. Santa, flying reindeer, presents left under trees are modern day embodiments of these ancient practices of honouring this time of year- a time of giving thanks, of joy, of hope and yes, magic. And yet, for many Christmas is a hard time, the financial pressures of an overly commercialised festival, the missing of loved ones and absent friends, or even the deeper struggles to find a home in the wider place in the world, can all be amplified at this time of year.

Switching on the global news headlines does not seem to help either- one would not be alone in giving oneself over to cynicism. Hope then, in these days of uncertainty and fear becomes even more powerful and more urgent.

But what does it mean to cultivate hope?

Prompts for honouring the dark:

This is a time of year when the light is beginning to lengthen again. Before welcoming the light, take a moment to honour the dark time of the year.

Consider spending the evening without the use of electric light. As the dusk settles, take a few moments to sit in the darkness.

What does the dark represent to you?

What does the dark have to teach you?

For the ancient celts, there was a deep recognition that life begins in the darkness. The earth’s new life comes only after a period of hibernation and rest.

Are there areas of your life that are still craving rest?

What aspects of your life want to hibernate?

What can you do to honour this need in yourself- is there something you can release?

Prompts for welcoming the light

Suggestion: write/ contemplate your responses by candlelight.

What aspects of your life are coming into light right now?

What do you need to shine a light on?

And prompts for cultivating hope

What does hope mean to you?

How can you cultivate hope in your life right now?

How can you help to share a sense of hope or light with those around you?

Happy Winter Solstice, and perhaps I will see you at the Special Winter Solstice Salon, on Dec 21st.

Blessings for the Season.

Clare x

Coming on December 21st…

A Solstice evening of Seasonal Poetry, Journaling and Seasonal Ritual.

Online, December 21st. 7-9pm GMT

Book your tickets below, offered on a sliding scale.

Salon Tickets

Available Now

**An Intentional Year**

Focus on what matters most, and create an intentional 2023. Guidebook and an Intentional Year course now available

Clare Mulvany 16/12/2023 Clare Mulvany 16/12/2023

Things I’ve loved...

A round up of books, films, places and learning resources- the best of 23.

It’s been a big year, and like every year, it brings its twists and turns, challenges and delights. On the delight end of the line, here are a round-up of some of the books, films, places and learning spaces which I’ve loved in 2023.

Schull Library

Libraries are treasuries, and librarians are treasure keepers. We are so very fortunate to have the most wonderful librarian in our local Schull library, Alan, who is a guardian of mind and hearts, recommending books to idea wanderers in need of nourishment. (I also promised I'd put him top of my list, and I now hope he is suitably embarrassed/ chuffed!. You are brilliant Alan, and thank you for all you do for the community)

Books

I dove into the magical world of Children's Books this year, and gravitated towards authors whose words straddle age categories, and genres.

Katherine Rundell has proven to be a stellar delight, catering to the child in all of us. Impossible Creatures was both mythic and wondrous. I also I particularly loved The Golden Mole- a series of short pieces by impossibly wondrous creatures too, written for an older audience. Back in the kids worlds, The Wolf Rider's wolves and lead character of Fedora have also stayed travelling in my imagination, while Vita from The Good Thieves’ feisty spirit and verve added dimension to how young girls are characterised in fiction. I’m now looking forward to reading her book, Super Infinite, about the life of John Donne. Short Note: I am a big Rundell fan.

Another delightful discovery this year was the work of Kiran Millwood Hargrave. I relished the world of The Girl of Ink and Stars, while her two collaborations with her artist husband, Tom de Freston blew me away. Julia and The Shark and Leila and the Blue Fox, and the gothic descriptions in The Secrets of Bird and Bone. Her adult fiction book, The Mercies, is on my to be read list.

Philip Pullman's words have been filling my world with the possibilities of imaginal realms. I did not read his books growing up, and so am only coming to them now, which, while regretally late, is a gift to the imagination itself. I traversed the world of His Dark Materials, and, in audio versions, have been captivated by Michael Sheen's readings of The Book of Dust and my current listen, The Secret Commonwealth.

And Wow. Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Road was hauntingly beautiful.

Other books which stood out for me this year included Feather, Leaf, Bark and Stone by the impeccably talented artist and writer Jackie Morris. It came at a time when I needed soul solace, and it snuck in under the covers of my darkness, offering balm and light.

Jay Griffiths is both rebel and sage. A Love Letter from a Stray Moon was the poetic prose which straddles both, with the life of Freida Kahlo as the medium. Why Rebel is a powerful manifesto for protest.

Anna Jones, A Modern Way to Eat and One: Pot, Pan, Planet. I was in need of some new veggie inspiration, but these have been a total revelation. I even have a new found love of cauliflower.

Anna Swir's poetry, Talking to My Body spoke to the mystery in ways other words have never reached.

Rich Rubin's The Creative Act, offered ways into the creative process, which opened it up to both the sacred and the beautifully ordinary, with a twist of zen.

Music

Allison Russell has been on repeat (and I can't wait for her gig in Dublin in January)

And Aukai offered a sonic backdrop much of my writing this year.

Film

Watching An Cailín Ciúin, The Quiet Girl on Cape Clear Island as part of the Fastnet Film Festival was a definite year highlight let alone a film highlight.

American Symphony, a documentary which carries us into the exquisite and raw love shared between Jon Baptiste and Suleika Jaouad shows how even the hardest possibilities of love makes us expand.

Swimming

I have spent many hours this year in, on and around water - as ever a place of enlivenment. A huge shout out to Sarah McKnight, swim coach (@sarahseaswimming (who literally takes a village to the water) @westcorksauna has also been a huge asset to our West Cork watery world.

Thrive School

Over at Thrive School, it has been a year of much facilitation, teaching, collaboration and learning. Grateful to having some brilliant co-conspirators in particular, The Brave Lab, Stand/ Suas, and Global Action Plan International, and for my work in Trinity College Tangent, UCD Innovation Academy, Dublin City Council, Jigsaw- The National Centre for Youth Mental Health, and The European Commission.

Travels

Over in Oxford I was impressed with how The Pitt Rivers Museum is examining its colonial legacy and making more transparent efforts to narrate a more nuanced history of how their collection of archaeological artefacts have come to be.

While over in Amsterdam I loved the sensory explorations and interminglings of their 'Everything is Connected' exhibition

Also cycling in Amsterdam! A city which does bike infrastructure properly (please take note Dublin, and Cork, and... )

Learning Spaces

I found myself both hosting and participating in many various and powerful learning spaces this year.

The Wolf Willow's Imaginarium, hosted by Vanessa Reid and co, highlighted new ways to navigate complexity through engaging with our intuitive and sensory selves. And Kaos Pilot and L&S Shakers, offered insight into using facilitative tools for progressive dialogue. I loved the panels Kerri Ni Dochartaigh curated for Climate Action Day in Dun Laoighre.

Grateful also to the team and my classmates at Kingstown College, Dublin, where I completed a Professional Diploma in Coaching and Mentoring.

In my own hosting, the Poetry Salon, continued to shape, inspire and nurture offering a poetic sanctuary in a turbulent world. The Intentional Year cohort, offered a rhythmic way to check in with our deeper selves, while Writing Wild, brought us the wild edged in ourselves, and the natural world. Looking forward to lots more in 2024

Friendships- human and more than human.

I have listed many resources in this post, but perhaps the ones I have loved the most is the network of friends, human and more than human, that circle and enrich my life many folds over. From the little robin who visited my front door daily for months on end, to the four-legged woof whose companionship is bordering obsessive, to the many wise, funny and supportive friends, near and far, who inspire me, guide me, pick me up, and travel this creative - if sometime circuitous- road, I want to say, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Coming Up…

Clare Mulvany 04/11/2023 Clare Mulvany 04/11/2023

Grief is another word for love.

I do not know what it is to lose a child, but I know what it is to grieve. In the social media squares I share a quote, or a headline, or more numbers of the dead. But what I am really trying to say is: my heart is breaking.

The children’s bloody and tear stained faces scroll by on the screens. The numbers go up. Around them there are justifications, pontifications, the weighing of sides.

What would happen if we really let our hearts break, allowed those numbers in, gave them their names back, their lives, their loves? What would happen if we collectively allowed ourselves to crack open and grieve what we have become?

You can listen to this piece here (4 mins)

The children’s bloody and tear stained faces scroll by on the screens. The numbers go up. Around them there are justifications, pontifications, the weighing of sides.

I spent the week working on a children’s book I am writing. It is about wildness and connection and the imaginal realm. It is about wonder, and joy, and figuring out how to solve problems systemically, collectively, human and animal kin alike. It is about not having a singular hero or narrative. It is about love. The children in this war, any war, will never read this book. Nor any other. They will never be able to let the wonder in, or let themselves imagine what they want to be when they grow up. For war is a denier of the best of what we can be. For we, humanity, we are engineers, imagineers, pioneers. We, humanity, we are filmmakers, firefighters, farmers. We are scientists and song-writers, poets, philosophers, educators, homemakers. We are parents, daughters, sisters, lovers. And once we were all children with hopes and dreams. Some of us are lucky to still have them.

So, no, I do not know what it is to lose a child, or be in a siege, or have my future denied because of a rampage or a bomb. But I do know how to grieve, to lose a loved one, to cry with a loss that it aches to breathe. I do know what it is to live in a world which denies itself the possibility of its own flourishing, its own becoming, all because it insists on bombs and blood and sides and the justifications of taking lives in the name of protection or vindication.

The numbers rise and my heart breaks that bit more. My heart breaks to grieve, to cry, to hold the worst humanity has to offer, and to try to coax it back to love, to believing again.

I am writing a children’s book for the future, because I have to believe in the future. I am putting my grief in there. I am putting my love and my broken heart in there. Because I want children to know what it is to wonder, and what it is to dream. Because sometimes we have to imagine the beautifully impossible to believe in the beautifully possible. And I am hoping my heart still has room to break, so I can let some more grief in. Because I know that a broken open heart is a birthplace for the possible. Because I know that grief is another word for love.

#ceasefire

Clare Mulvany 04/07/2023 Clare Mulvany 04/07/2023

Instructions for Creative Unblocking

Instructions for Creative Unblocking and Learning from the Creative Process.

As I embark into some new writing projects this summer, the following list contains my learnings about the creative process I want to my future self to remember. Like the application of the earning, this list is a work in progress. So, for the times I am feeling stuck, blocked, fearful or small, dear Clare, please remember…

Creativity is like lifeblood, always flowing with its own pulse and rhythm. Even when you can’t see or recognise it, trust that below the surface it is forever in motion. And just like with a heartbeat or pulse, you can tune into that rhythm with consciousness, attention and pause. Creating is an act of surrender to a deeper beat.
Remember: You create because it is something which brings you most alive to the hidden undercurrents of connection, ideas and relationship. It brings meaning to the ordinary in ways which render everything extraordinary. Life is better in creativity mode.
The beginning of each writing/ creativity session is the hardest part. Make the beginning easy. Lower your expectations and allow yourself to enter slowly. Let kindness be your guide.
Keep booking creative meetings in your calendar, blocks of unmovable time. Even if you don’t write/ paint/ make immediately, keep showing up. Something always gets impatient and shows up eventually too!
If one tool feels blocked, use another. If you can’t write, then paint. If you can’t do that, then dance. If not that, then move. Move in whatever way feels nourishing. The movement begets movement, so everything else can flow.
Remember: your job is not to make ‘good’ work. Your job is to make the best work that only you can make. Whether others think it is good, or not, has nothing to do with your creativity. What matters is that you keep seeking to make your best work yet. Then repeat again and again and again.
Trust the strange imaginings. Trust the voices in your head. Trust how characters show up in the middle of the night to whisper details and twists. No matter how mad it all seems, these are the gems which makes the work all the more distinctive, and mysterious too.
You don’t write poems, you walk into them. Your task is to be ready to catch them at any moment. Then the craft of shaping them can begin.
Remember: creativity is a co-creative process. It’s between you and the source of life itself. When you commit, life shows up too. May the dance always be about to begin.
You are never going to get ‘there’. That’s the point. ‘There’ is an aspiration, designed to keep you learning, growing, changing, exploring, evolving. ‘There’ will always move depending on your capacity. Remaining proximate to ‘there’ is a better destination.
Poetry is the place to figure out the silences. Listen. Then, listen to the silence below the silence, and write from that place.
If you haven’t reached the chaos, you haven’t gone deep or far enough. Chaos is an indicator of the wild life within a project. There are tools to help carry your through. Use them.
Every book, every poem, every photo has an original essence. The craft is to reveal that essence in as light and beautiful way as possible. There will be many attempts to reach it, and each draft can bring your closer. But mostly the essence keeps some of itself hidden- that’s the mystery, which is also the beauty. Keep working your way through the layers.
Time is not linear. What happens in flow can defy natural order. Sometimes you only need five minutes for your best work to happen. And you always have five minutes.
Leave room for the blanks.
Photography is ‘drawing with light’. What gets exposed is a matter of choice, and craft. Light is both an instrument of revelation and restraint. Less is often more. As with images, so too with words.
When in doubt, swim. When still in doubt, walk. If all else fails, just keep showing up to the blank page. It is an ocean and a mountain too. Keep moving.
Nothing will ever be fully finished. At some point you need to decide to stop so new work can arrive in too. Be willing to gift your creativity to the world, knowing there is more to come.
Making your creative work is a love letter to your deepest, most tender self. Keep making. The love letter isn’t finished yet.
To be continued….

New Writing Wild Writing Workshops

One Day workshops in Schull, West Cork.

New date announced: July 23rd and August 27th. Bookings via Arran Street East.

Clare Mulvany 04/07/2023 Clare Mulvany 04/07/2023

Moments to Remember

Falling in love with photography again, one beauty at a time.

Falling in love with my camera again, and what it helps me to see….

New Writing Wild Writing Workshops

Clare Mulvany 04/07/2023 Clare Mulvany 04/07/2023

The Island at the End of my Road

A short trip to Long Island, West Cork.

A short trip to Long Island, West Cork, the island at the bottom of my road. I am so grateful to the Clare who decided to move to such a beautiful place, and to all the inhabitants- human and more than human kin- who make it all possible and serve with a dash of wonder.