Clare Mulvany 06/11/2024 Clare Mulvany 06/11/2024

Samhain Salon Spellbook

Samhain Salon spell book by participants of Clare Mulvany’s poetry salon.

Approaching Samhain, we gathered.

The zoom squares are in rows, but if I could re-arrange them I’d put them in a circle, full of candles, and in the very centre, on this occasion, I’d place a cauldron. Instead, I carry my large computer monitor downstairs so I can be around my own fire and candles and books, and I place a metaphorical ‘cauldron’ in the centre. It’s where we’ll concoct some spells later.

We are calling in from Ireland, France, US, UK, Switzerland, Scotland, Spain. Not a huge group, 15 perhaps, and every person feels to me like a guest who has come with gifts, of their time, their attention, and openness.

In most poetry salons, the guests bring poems with them to share, sometimes their own, but mostly from poets whose work they admire, or poems which have stirred or provoked them in some way. We read the poems together, twice. The first reading is like a greeting, and the second is for it to really arrive- a duel entry into our minds and our hearts

The Samhain salon is a little different. I curate the poems based on themes, then offer journalling prompts, weaving in seasonal reflection, from which, so often, insight arrives.

As Samhain is a time for thinking about thresholds and liminality, poems from Leanne O’Sullivan and Paula Meehan brought us to thresholds into the otherworlds at Autumn’s end and at at holy well. A poem from Ceaití Ní Bheildiúin had us encounter the Cailleach herself, the hag, ‘the essence of weather’, ‘tearing violently at the roof’, helping us tap into the fierceness inside us, and our own capacity for change. Annie Finch’s poem, ‘Samhain’, led us through Samhain night like a ‘seam stitching darkness like a name’. And then there were the spells, Finch's again, and from Doireann Ní Ghriofa, both which offered templates for our own incantations which were were about to create.

As the salon spun, I invited guests to write down words from the poems which caught them, these were to be our ingredients into which we’d place, or fling, our own words into the metaphorical cauldron, to see what spells might emerge. Transformed in our own imaginations and forged with our own ink, as the night drew to a close, we read our spells, our poems, from the Samhain night of encounter, and thresholds and the energy of liminal times. It was simply beautiful.

Afterwards, I gathered the spells, and made our own little spell book, which I share, with blessing.

After reading, you may even want to write your own ‘spell’, which I would love to read if you care to send along. (send to clare@claremulvany.ie)

In these dark times, may these spells offer wisdom and wonder for your own path ahead, into the night.

Onwards,

Clare. x

Coming up this Month

**Poetry Salon- 10 November**

A hour to gather around poetry and reflect on its meaning and wisdom. Donation based tickets here.

**Writing Sanctuary- 17 Nov**

An hour of journal prompts, sharing and connection around the power of words and the ritual of creativity. Tickets here

**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 28/10/2024 Clare Mulvany 28/10/2024

Samhain and the Gift of Descent

Samhain, Puca Parade, Schull, West Cork

(You can listen to this piece here - 8 mins) Please forgive the croaky voice as I recover from a bad cough. But perhaps it adds to the liminality!

For weeks the villagers gathered. One brought old boxes, another brought fresh, pliable willow. One gathered clam shells, another brought washed up fishing nets. As evenings began to dim, the making commenced. Schull’s Puca Festival theme this year was ‘The Raising of the Lady Charlotte’, a fishing boat which sank off the West Coast of Cork in 1839. Nine sailors lost their lives and as the sails of the 2024 Lady Charlotte were hoisted over main street, it was as if the ghosts of their story are still haunting the shore.

The Samhain parade was a resurrection in many forms —of the Lady Charlotte story, but also of tradition, keeping up the playful mythic marking of the threshold into the dark cycle of the year, a time of liminality, which access to the otherworld is cracked open and souls are said to pass through. The underworld in the Celtic imagination is always just below the surface; veiled thin and pressing, and particularly so at Samhain. Masked or veiled, cloaked or covered, who is from the living realm and who is from the dead are questions which still invite mystery and mischief; questions which the Puca parade carried so well.

I had been away for a few weeks, so sadly my creative contributions to the event were limited to cutting out a few boat shapes and making circles from the willow, which would go on to be fashioned into fish. But every hand that helped made the street come alive in myth. A class of school children were transformed into a school of fish. There was a shoal of techno jellyfish (made from umbrellas!), a compass, a telescope, a ship of drunken sailors, a silver angelfish made from an old tent, huge skeletons rising and me, in the parade mix, holding a giant blue octopus tentacle, primely positioned for tiggling under the chins of onlookers, or even better, scaring young children, not to fright but to wonder and delight.

Samhain. The ritual is reviving, at least here in West Cork, where the following night, the next village over were having their own celebrations. And later in the week, a few villages further. Like a string of rituals, hung up to air out the old, and welcome the new. I think the place is the better for it.

Like any decent tradition, it goes deeper though too. Samhain, the initiation festival of the Celtic Calendar, the start of the Celtic year, positioned not at a time of rise, but at descent. Here in the Northern Hemisphere we are moving into the dark season, a time of release and decline, heading towards a wintering of being, the great fallow, and the slow - if we can let it. For ever season holds its gifts, and its invitations. The gift of Samhain goes beyond the playful parade or the night of trick or treat, and into the gift of the dark descent itself, which is also its invitation. What if, it asks, we allowed the darkness to take hold, if we allow ourselves the initiatory rite into its dark passage of slow time and the unknown? What might we find there? And how might we return?

The role, symbolism and questions of decent are not unique of course to the Celtic lineage. Scan any of the great mythologies and we find parallel underworld trajectories. Inanna, the Sumerian Goodness descended through the seven gates of the underworld only to be stripped bare, slain, then resurrected once the domineering masculine was rejected. She returned, like all devoted descenders, transformed. Persephone too descended, not from her own volition but from force. It was a brokered deal from Zeus which split her time between the dark and the light, the summer and winter, the masculine and feminine- in other words, she ascended to mirror the dual nature of existence, learning to straddle polarities and dichotomies, and learning to live between. In Maori tradition, we meet Hine-nui-te-po (The Great woman of the night), the Goddess of the dark, who is tasked with receiving the spirit of the dead into the underworld. It is here that out of force and will, she kills her father/ husband who, without consent, had tried to enter her, serpentine, through her vulva. She subsequently killed him with a set of piecing obsidian teeth in her vagina. If ever there was warning, let this be it. In Inuit mythology, we meet Sedna, Goddess of sea and marine creatures who, with parallels to the selkie stories of the Celtic lands, is flung to the ocean by a controlling father, sinks, grows a tail fin, has her hands frozen off, and her fingers turn into multiple sea creatures. The depths may be violent, but they are fecund too.

As the great myths continue to teach us, the underworld and the feminine are deeply, and often, deadly, intwined. What must die in order for the true power to rise? What must be slain? What transformation awaits those that dare descend?

While there is death, so too is there retrieval- of limbs, perhaps, but mostly of power or the force which ultimately emerges to restore balance and order; to allow the cycle of time and nature to continue. As the news cycles spins yet another dark spin, I can’t help but think that within these old stories is a pattern which offers their own gift of questions for these dark times we trying to navigate. In this larger cycle of time, what might we be invited to retrieve? What maps might the underworld- the world of our ancestors and mythologies, of old rituals and traditions offer us now.

As I walked along the village street, among the willow fish, the techno jelly fish, beside the haunting ghost ship and the giant squid, as crowds gathered and were filled with awe, a moment of ‘collective effervesce’ as the philosopher Emile Durkheim would call it- a feeling of social cohesion in a moment of shared purpose, knitting social structures together, I couldn’t help but think: much. It can offer so much. Like questions: what if we are only just be realising the true power of the myth or story as a map, as path, as psychological reframe? What if these stories and their honouring of the old cycles, is a way of restoring and rebalancing what holds us apart, within ourselves, and within the natural cycles of time and death and rebirth? What if the ritual is a threshold, a bridge to our transformed return; equipped with true power and the wisdom from the depths. The descent, the threshold, the liminal, the giant octopus, the community. We step across. We shapeshift.

Coming up this Month

**Samhain Salon- Oct 30th**

An evening of poetry, writing and ritual to make the Samhain season. Tickets here.

Clare Mulvany 18/10/2024 Clare Mulvany 18/10/2024

A Writing Spell

A little story on the nurturing space of the blank page.

Dublin got me in a frazzle this week. I tend to pack in a lot when I am here. This week I’ve been teaching in Trinity College, running a facilitation workshop, having some private client calls, preparing for a facilitation gig, seeing friends, visiting family, working on some writing projects and not tending to the thing that helps to keep it all together: the blank page.

By yesterday afternoon, I was tired and feeling out of sorts but couldn’t quite place why. Then I realised, just how many days had passed. It was nearly a week since I journaled properly. Time to active the ritual!

I took myself to one of my old haunts, Fallon & Byrne, a fancy food hall with a wonderful window bench, where the buzz of the city can whirl around, and where you read for long spells, sipping on tea. The bench was full when I got there, so instead, I reluctantly positioned myself in the centre communal bench, feeling a little more exposed, and took put my journal. My writing was a ball of scribbles, erratic waffle, notes to self, and general spillage of brain buzz onto the page. I hadn’t really paid much attention to the couple opposite me, until packing to leave.

‘You’re writing’, the man said, rather obviously, but with a kind curiosity in his voice.

‘Oh, just a bit of waffle’, I replied.

‘You don’t see many people writing by hand these days’

‘It helps me think’.

‘Good for the brain’, he said, ‘connects things’.

I could sense he was speaking from experience. ‘So, you write too’, I stated, knowing the answer already.

That little sentence unlocked a brief but beautiful conversation. We spoke about the power of poetry, what one gains from it, and our favourite poets. We talked about the rich Irish literary tradition and how lucky we are to be proximate to it. We spoke about ‘flow state’, and how writing can bring us to a place in ourselves which otherwise remains unseen, un-nurtured.

As we spoke, it was like we had shared access to an ancient secret, right at our fingertips, amplified through poems and the magic of laying sentences. I took my final sip of tea, shared a knowing smile, then left, two strangers off to meet the blank page in their own intimate directions

Leaving the cafe, notes scribbled, a tender buzz had replaced the frazzle. Instead was the page, and a shared connection to what can happen there. I raced back to where I am currently staying, and spent the night deep in a writing project until it was way past midnight and the page had swallowed all the hours like a spell.

…

Your Writing Spell

If you are feeling a little frazzled too, here is a ten minute writing spell for you.

I recommend writing by hand for this one. If you have a favourite journal and a pen you enjoy writing with, all the better.

Set a 10 minute timer, and go…

Imagine that writing on a blank page is a form of magic spell.

Write about the power writing can hold for you.

Describe the alchemy of words by transforming thoughts into stories and ideas.

Write about how do you think this might change you?

Coming up this Month

Sanctuary: Next Session October 20th

**Sanctuary**

This is a monthly guided writing gathering online. One hour of supportive journaling practice, in community . Find out more and book tickets here.

Samhain Salon: October 30th

Clare Mulvany 07/10/2024 Clare Mulvany 07/10/2024

In a field by the oaks near a church on the hill.

You can listen to this piece here, and at the bottom of the post, you will find a series of creative prompts to support your refections.

October has come with its attendant twists. The season turns towards the dark; migrant swallows have fled from the skies; leaves are in their dance to fade. As the evening draws it’s cloak, it’s an open passage to the night, where fires spark and long awaiting stacks of books, ideas, poems and stirrings sit in anticipation of witness, of writing. As spring sends postcards from the other side of the world, I twist a leaf from the Celtic calendar and let the turning inwards commence. It’s like permission from the skies to arrive at the blank page; to let it do it’s tricks on me. For it is here, I am ever more convinced, that the stories which are written there, and the cultures that they shift, the world is made.

I’ve been thinking more than ordinarily about the role of art, literature and poetry in these dark times. I’ve been thinking of is necessity, and absurdity. I’ve been thinking how stories are like the thread, holding things in place, just about. I’m thinking, sometimes we need to pull the thread tighter. I’m thinking, this is one of those times.

Last month, I travelled up to Co. Wicklow to attend a festival called ‘The Shaking Bog’ — a community led curatorial treat, gathering artists, writers, film-makers, musicians, performers and educators for a weekend to honour the nexus of art and nature. At the centre of it all was a nested set of questions: what if art could, as the organises urge, ‘reawaken and illuminate our often forgotten connection to the natural world - to biodiversity, heritage and place, but also to our deepest impulse to belong, to nurture and to care’.

And in the centre of it all, what I found there was something akin to a word I don’t use lightly, nor without some corresponding nuance; a word which is so often over subscribed, yet undervalued. Hope.

In finding hope, found something else there too: an affirmation of the collective power of art in the dark times, and by that I don’t just mean winter, but these days as a whole, in which I need not remind you of the nexus of complex political crises, biodiversity collapse, of homelands and heartlands in turmoil. It’s heavy out there.

Yet, yet…

There is a church on a hill beyond the woods, where for a while the church is more than a church. The woods are home to the sessile oak. In the aisles of the church as the people speak of efforts to protect the oak, they know they are also protecting themselves. In the church on the hill by the oak, there is a man speaking about his encounter with a grey whale, and how the encounter with the eye of that great creaturely presence was an encounter with a sentience beyond the depths of soul. In the church on the hill there is a poet. Her hair is white with wisdom and she wears it braided down her back, so much of it to carry. Her poems are weavers of a different kind; of mythic incantations to the feminine divine, and to the muse herself, embodied. The church on the hill is full of listeners. On a dark star studded night, poetry has a new altar in the hearts of the seekers.

The alter plays host to other music too. There is the master of the fiddle, who spins tunes which speak to the power of place and the landscapes which shaped them. Between the pulpit and a cross, there is a travelling song collector, who has been gathering the tales and stories from a time when song and story were currencies of understanding larger cycles of time, place and collective memory. The church is not about the church.

And so it continued.

In a postbox near the church on the hill there is a short film about the oaks and the mountains and the valley which shapes the soul of the place. In the centre in the woods, the children are printing on bunting, learning a new way of making patterns, and there is man hand-building bat boxes.

The culture starts to shift in churches on the hills, and bat box building and new patterns in the hands of children.

In a field by the valley, the sun emerges and sets the leaves to golden. The song collector leads us into circle, suggests we take our shoes off, tells us about perception in the souls of our feet; about how we have forgotten so many of the wayfinding ways. He tells us about finding our footing through sensory perception with our whole selves, and invites us to place blindfolds on. We put our hands on each other’s shoulders, and like a tight braid, we are guided to an open field, which we are blind to now, except we are not. Our ears are our eyes. Our skin is our guide. The field is breathing around us, so alive to itself it is singing its song of welcome.

The field is where culture shifts.

In my toes I follow the grasses. There are stories in my feet. In my ears I follow a drum. Someone is calling us. In my bones I feel the old way. In my skin I let the song carry. In my eyes, in my eyes, in my eyes.

I am a young girl, blindfolded, being led to her death for speaking out.

I am a refugee, walking across a border to save my life.

I am a mother, leading her child across a threshold to the unknown.

I am a young girl, from a country so carnaged through an ill-justified story of politics and progress that I can no longer carry the weight of my belonging.

I leave the blindfold on.

In a field by the hill by the oaks by the church, I can feel all these things because of the field on the hill by the oaks by the church. I can hear the music of the fiddler. And I can find the map in my feet again, because of the blindfold from the story-gatherer.

The ground is the place where new stories are born. And the church, and the song, and the hope.

Culture shifts in these moments. Poem by poem. Note by note. Step by step. Not one. But many.

In the centre of it all, of the church, of the field of the blindfold, I walk into a new nest of questions. It starts with what if.

What if we flooded the world we stories of valleys and oaks and women who walk across borders. What if there were stories of whales with eyes so deep with soul they can change a life forever. What if it was not just one church on a hill, but many. What if it was not just one story collector, or poet, or song, or homemaker for bats. Not one rung of bunting. Not one weekend.

What if the story was so collectively strong it could tear down policies, the ones that make the women flee. What if the story was so empowering, that it could make a valley fill with oaks again, which became a policy, which became a new culture of planting, not just oaks, but other life-giving things. What if there were more of us; the song-carriers, the story givers, the planters, the fiddlers, the print makers, the people who open their churches, and homes and hearts to let the story in.

What if.

As the dark takes over the day, I light a candle and hear the fire crackle. The page is blank and inviting me to walk into it.

I am finding my way, pulling the thread, blindfolded.

It’s how I know the culture shifts.

Creative Prompts

Below are a series of thematic writing prompts, based on this piece.

I recommend you pick one of the themes, and then spend 10 mins writing. It can be helpful to set a timer. The prompts might be small reflective pieces for you, or may spark a longer cycle of explorative writing.

The Story-Gatherer:

Think about yourself as a story-gatherer, tasked with collecting stories to pass down the generations.

What key narratives or themes would you collect? What transformative stories from your own life would you include? What songs, books, films would you add to your collection?

The Church by the Oaks on the Hill.

Think about a place in your life, where you feel deeply connected to nature or creativity.
What draws you there? How does that place speak to you? How has your connection to it changed or evolved over time. What is the story you tell of that place?

Whale’s Eye:

Reflect on a moment when you encountered something vast and awe-inspiring—whether in nature, in art, or in a moment of deep connection with another person.
What did that experience reveal to you? How has it shaped you, or shifted your perspective?

The Nest of What If Questions.

Think of your creative life embedded in a nest of ‘What If’ questions.
What would those questions be? What themes emerge from the questions? How can these questions be a guide to you?

.. .

Gratitude

A huge thanks to the organisers of The Shaking Bog Festival.

To the fiddle-player, Caoimhín Ó’Raghllaigh

To the poet, Paula Meehan.

The the song-gatherer, Sam Lee.

The the whale writer, Philip Hoare.

And to the field, and the oaks and every living creature in between.

Want to sustain your own writing process? I have a several ways to support you

Poetry Salon: Next Session October 13th

**Poetry Salon**

This is an hour of reading, listening and savouring to poetry. Find out more and book tickets here.

Sanctuary: Next Session October 20th

Samhain Salon: October 30th

Writing Mentoring

There are many people reading this who know they have a book or writing project brewing but are not sure where to begin, how to structure it, or lack the courage and confidence to bring a draft to the next level. My writing mentoring packages are here to support. From private one-to-one workshops, a three month intensive, or a year long engagement, I hope your writing and story has a chance to grow.
Find out more here

Clare Mulvany 29/08/2024 Clare Mulvany 29/08/2024

When No is a Secret Gateway to Yes

When no is a secret gateway to yes.

You can listen to this piece here:

When no is a secret gateway to the real yes.

The morning sun still holds the promise of summer, yet there is a distinctive autumnal turn. The ‘back to school’ vibe is real, with its corresponding prepping mode. September always feels like a new start for me — my work is still connected to academic cycles, but my psychology is too. Come late August, I become squirrel, furrowing, burrowing, plotting and planning to give myself a good foundation for what are traditionally busy months ahead.

As a school kid, I loved the opportunity to get new stationary and the ritual of covering my new school books. I seem to need these physical triggers, to mark a new clearing. At the weekend, for instance, I did some tedious but deceptively pleasurable tasks. What was a fridge in desperate need of defrosting, now ordered to a ‘capsule wardrobe’ of condiments. I was never going to eat that ferment really. But alongside the physical sorting, there is the mental sorting. In the time it takes to clear a fridge, there is space for review, reflecting on learnings and reconnecting with priorities to buttress the months ahead.

In looking back, I have a chance to think about this past summer, one which held an incredible opportunity and incredible challenge. The opportunity: to take on the running of a beautiful building (cafe/ pottery studio/ learning space) in the village where I live, and develop community events and learning programmes. The challenge: exactly that!

So, trying to put into practice what I teach, I set about applying design methodologies to the task. There was so much learning in the process. From engaging in deep listening approaches, using community participatory practices and ultimately listening to my instinct, after almost three months of research, I realised on a fateful dark night of the soul, that while a wonderful prospect, the opportunity was not for me. There are moments in life you have to give a full yes, and there are moments in life where you have to listen to a full no. Embarking on the process, a strong values-driven yes, led me into the possibility, but it was a gut instinct, body based, no, which led me the decision to not to proceed. Sometimes no is a gateway to the real yes.

I’m so glad I tried. And I am so grateful to people, the place, and tools that have helped me. It was not the summer I expected, but it was a summer of learning, then letting go with confidence in the process which underpinned the path which took me here. (Given the richness of the learning experience, I have written more about the process over on Thrive School- which I hope might be a useful resource to those embarking on their own projects)

So, the real yes. Isn’t that always the challenge, and the opportunity.

I don’t think our yes is ever singular, or crystal or static. Our yes can speak in whispers, nudges, bringing us closer towards that idea, image or story that just won’t loose grip. It’s not always linear or logical. It requires listening. Sometimes over and over again.

For me, that yes starts in my journal. There are scribblings, sketchy inklings, allowing ideas and longings to land, perhaps for years, letting them ripen, grow, find ground in my psych and soul. The ideas which keep repeating, the desires which keep rising, over time, these patterns become evident on the page.

The listening is supported with ritual. Yesterday, I took a wander down some overgrown paths, on the hunt for blackberries. The picking is such a marker of the season, both in its turning and its gifts. As I was picking, with the birds and the waves as sonic companionship, I was thinking of the privilege and power of such space, of where I find myself. I was thinking of the preciousness of time, and how to use it wisely. I was thinking of hope.

There are so many needs in the world right now, so many causes and urgencies, no one person can bear. At times I find myself numbing, blanking out the news and the social feeds of another tragedy. And there is one part of myself which shames me for doing this- how can I turn away, how can I be so removed, from my place of privilege and vantage. Another part of my brain knows that the numbness is a protective mechanism from grief. It’s how the limbic brain has learned to be animal: fight, flight, freeze. Freeze can be strategy for survival. The challenge with freeze though, it’s cold and solid and immovable, and it too requires defrosting.

Plug out, remove the clutter, replace only the essentials, leave space.

Who knew that lessons from deep cleaning a fridge could be so valuable.

Alongside the briars, there are fruits, ready for picking. In a quiet, unplugged solitary afternoon, I pick enough to fill a small container. A few are bitter, but they are mostly sweet, products of time and weather, just enough sun to ripen. I return home, invite a friend over, bake a blackberry pudding, and together we eat the season, letting the inky berries stain our tongues, leaving them longing for more. So we have some.

Later, I take out my journal, and can see the patterns more clearly again, these inky stains of longing. My pen meets some questions.

What am I longing for?

When that question is exhausted with ink, it’s time to go to the next one:

But what am I really really longing for?

And when that one is done, the next:

But what am I not giving myself permission to really long for, but secretly do?

This last question, it is hard, and revelatory. For me right now, it plugs me into long held ambitions around my writing, teaching, owning a home, and travel. It also brings me to questions about how I am using my voice to speak up and out about injustices, and climate, and the issues I care about. It demands that I focus and keep on dreaming. It demands that I keep going, even when the path ahead is uncertain. Longings are not tame like that; they make us become more of ourselves, so we can continue to bring our gifts to the world. Secretly, they have our back. And when we let them, perhaps not so secretly after all.

Your ten minute writing practice.

What are you longing for?

What are you really really longing for?

What are you not giving yourself permission to really long for, but secretly do?

Want to sustain your own writing process? I have a several ways to support you, online or in-person

Sanctuary: Next Session September 22nd

West Cork Writing Workshops

**Final in the Summer series.**
Live a New Story. September 7th, Schull, West Cork.
Learning about the art of personal narrative writing in this one day workshop. Book your tickets today.

New Writing Mentoring

Clare Mulvany 27/08/2024 Clare Mulvany 27/08/2024

There are Rivers in the Sky

There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shark

This was one of those reads: a story which grips and takes you under. Straddling centuries, travelling the course of two rivers, the Thames and the Tigris, following intertwined lives across continents, and then one epic, poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Elif Shafak has conjured worlds and ideas with such beauty and depth I could have drowned. ‘There Are Rivers in the Sky’ helped me sink into thoughts about the clutch of colonial influence, the patriarchal shaping of historical and cultural narratives, and I think most crucially, about erasures: whose voices are we missing, who gets pushed to the margins and whose story ultimately gets to be told.  

Through it all I learned about hydrology, cuneiform script, Yazidi traditions, the Mesopotamian Goddess of writing, Nisaba, while being brought to bear witness to the brutalities of genocide and the intergenerational traumas which ripple as a result.  While aided by the vast scope of her research, I think what makes this book so rich, is the quality of Shafak’s heart; clearly one which goes beyond the realm of description and instead into empathy- seeking to place herself, and the reader, into the lives of the other, so we may each be returned expanded, richer, shaped by the very forces of storytelling through which she captivates.

 As I closed the last page, I know I’ll be travelling with her words and characters for a long time yet, grateful for the writers who lead the way, and for the stories masterfully crafted in their stewardship.

Clare Mulvany 03/07/2024 Clare Mulvany 03/07/2024

What Beauty Might We Yet Create?

A 5 minute writing practice and prompt.

Something a little different today. A five minute writing practice for you.

Here is a piece of my own writing, followed by a prompt, where I accompany you in your writing.

Grab a pen, paper and comfy spot. And press play!

July has come, with its attendant blooms and night songs. Dawn comes early too, and the chatter of the birds rises me. It is not the only the birds keeping me awake though. It is all the questions which are spooling in these times of uncertainty and change. Yet, it is the birds which give me courage. The butterflies too. And between every curl of foxglove, the darting swoop of swallow and wing. Yes, it is beauty which gives me courage, and nature’s insistence on becoming all it can be.

Recently I was editing a piece with reference to swallows. Moments later I walked upstairs, and there was a swallow sitting on a picture frame, shocked and surprised, both of us —an awe of encounter, and then, on my part, a flurry to open all the windows to encourage flight back to the skies again. This tiny remarkable being who has the will, power, stamina, determination to cross continents, cross deserts and mountains, seas; straddling its place in the world. Between Ireland and South Africa, a home in two parts, and an entire mystery of migration in between.

I wonder sometimes what would happen if we all stopped for a moment and pondered the true marvel of even a single blade of grass, or just one flap of wing; how the world might be different; how we too might insist on crossing continents, opening to our full bloom, rising in the early morning to let our song out. What would we sing? What beauty might we yet create?

…

The Prompt:

What beauty might I yet create…

Want to sustain your own writing process?

This summer I have a several ways to support to, online or in-person

Sanctuary: Next Session July 20th

**Sanctuary**

Next session: Sunday July 20th. This is a monthly guided writing gathering online. One hour of supportive journaling practice, in community . Find out more and book tickets here.

West Cork Writing Workshops

**Come to West Cork this summer.**
Next sessions 6th July, 14th July or Aug 3rd
Across the summer I have a series of beautiful writing workshops planned, in Schull and in Leap. From nature writing to learning the art of personal narrative writing it’s writing + nature + west cork. What’s not to love. Book your tickets today.

New Writing Mentoring

Clare Mulvany 05/06/2024 Clare Mulvany 05/06/2024

Writing as Assemblage- and Overcoming Rejection

On writing as an act of assemblage, overcoming writing rejection and the transformative power of the creative process…

You can listen to this piece here…

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.

- William Stafford

In personal narrative writing I’ve come to understand that the story is never singular. It is more layered and mosaic than anything chronological or linear. If anything, writing our story is an act of assemblage. It is about learning how the pieces may thread together to create something new which holds an adherence to truth (for it is only there that we get to the really transformative material). But there is also a call to beauty, asking us, ‘How can the story take shape in a new, artful way? What else might I uncover? From what, or whose, other perspectives might this be written from?

Holding out for duality, plurality, and beauty, opens possibilities not just within the narrative arcs, but in also in the writer themselves, a measurement of ‘success’ which is often outlooked when gauging the value of the writing process and outcome.

Publication is so often used as the final benchmark of writing success. Yes, it is one way to measure, but it is also such a small measure which the commercialised world thrives on. So many people try, are rejected, then stop writing. But we loose so much when external indicators of success are taken as the gatekeepers into one’s own power and potential; ones own story.

The publishing world is an industry driven by the judgment and validation of market forces and profit margins- it is an industry after all, with it’s own metrics. There are disruptors within the industry for sure (I love what Unbound Books are doing for instance, or The Pound Project), but as someone who has submitted many book proposals, and received many rejections, I am grateful that I understand the value of writing for my own growth, curiosity and creativity outside the limited bounds of these external markets.

When I was looking for a publisher for my own memoir which I wrote as a rite of passage/ ritual for my 40th birthday, the resounding response from agents and publishers was ‘we love this, but we don’t know how to sell it’. I came very close with several publishers, but in the end they choose not to take it on. I’ll be honest, the rejection was hard. With multiple doors opening, then closing, it felt raw, particularly with writing so personal. I had to remember: it is the book they are rejecting because they cannot see how it fits into their market, for now. It was not my writing or me they were rejecting. That shift in perspective has kept me going. I love writing too much to stop because of market forces. It is too much a part of how I navigate this world to give up.

I put the memoir down for now (I may come back to it again later), and I just returned to my journalling practice, and kept going. Page after page after page, and slowly something new has been emerging. I work with publication in mind, for sure, but I also work with my own creativity, imagination and love for the craft in mind. The process in and of itself is a gift I give to myself, one which continually helps to strengthen me, change me, show me a way forward, enrich.

Writing, particularly writing personal narrative, demands that we pay attention to the truth, lies, half-truths, and influences which mould and make us. In the assemblage we get to make the links and connections we otherwise would not have noticed, and ultimately I believe we can meet ourselves and therefore others, with more compassion and nuance. Whether one is published, or not, is not the final measure of success for me. Am I being true to myself? Am I listening? And I learning? Am I being of service? These are more interesting questions for me to help guide the process. Writing personal narrative- whether in essay crafting, in looser journaling form, in that sense, is a medium in which the transformation of self can be both moderated and witnessed. The words are the mould makers and the mould breakers. The words themselves are the alchemist’s thread, which I will happily follow. Where they will lead, I have no idea really, but it is a journey so worth taking.

Want to spark or sustain your own writing process?

This summer I have a several ways to support to, online or in-person

Sanctuary

On June 16th ‘Sanctuary’ commences. This is a monthly guided writing gathering online. One hour of supportive journaling practice, in community . Book tickets here.

West Cork Writing Workshops

Come to West Cork this summer!

In July, August and September, I have a series of beautiful writing workshops planned, in Schull and in Leap. From nature writing to learning the art of personal narrative writing it’s writing + nature + west cork. What’s not to love. Book your tickets today.

New Writing Mentoring

There are many people reading this who know they have a book or writing project brewing but are not sure where to begin, how to structure it, or lack the courage and confidence to bring a draft to the next level. My writing mentoring packages are here to support. From private one-to-one workshops, a three month intensive, or a year long engagement, I hope your writing and story has a chance to grow.

Find out more here

**Summer Writing Workshops, West Cork. June-Sept**

Join me for a series of writing workshops in Schull or Leap, West Cork, Summer 2024
More information and bookings

Clare Mulvany 28/05/2024 Clare Mulvany 28/05/2024

One of the scariest places

One of the scariest places in the world is…

What is one of the scariest places in the world?

It is a question I often ask students. I get a range of responses from sniggers to specific locations. ‘My grandmother’s knicker’s’, a student once said, to which the room took a collective gasp, then broke into hysterics.

‘How about the blank page… ‘ I offer.

They look at me as if I’m half mad.

But it’s true. I believe the blank page is one of the scariest places in the world. But it is also one of the most exhilarating, wondrous, powerful and transformative places there is. It’s a place not just where stories and books are born, but lives too. It’s a place of homecoming, connection. In times of loss, it can be a place of solace, and in times of joy, a place to celebrate.

The marriage of ink and page is a loyal companion to action and insight. The data confirms it: commit an intention or a goal to the page, write down specifics with a deadline, and it is more likely to happen. Writing is as much about making the world, as it is narrating it.

I’m sharing all this because I’ve been in a reflective space around the power of writing in my life. I started writing a regular journal when I was 11 and have kept one ever since. That’s a lot of blank pages. A lot of mundanity and lists too, yet when I look back on those pages I see the origins of my ideas and the evolution of how my creative life and career have mapped around them. I’ve seen that it is the habit of returning over and over to the page which has been the bedrock not just to my creative life, but to my career as well. The blank page + a pen + regular habit =…..

….

This summer I’ve lots of ways for you to engage with writing and supporting your own creative habits.

Sanctuary

On June 16th ‘Sanctuary’ commences. This is a monthly guided writing gathering online. One hour of supportive journaling practice, in community . Book tickets here.

West Cork Writing Workshops

Come to West Cork this summer! . In July, August and September, I have a series of beautiful writing workshops planned, in Schull and in Leap. From nature writing to learning the art of personal narrative writing it’s writing + nature + west cork. What’s not to love. Book your tickets today.

New Writing Mentoring

Find out more here

Clare Mulvany 07/05/2024 Clare Mulvany 07/05/2024

Frida

Frida Kahlo and the creative urge. On visiting Casa Azul, Mexico City.

Her image has been iconified. Across Mexico City there are unibrow emblems, tote bags, Frida mugs — the commercialisation of her image which makes my stomach churn. So, it was not surprising that my expectations of visiting her home were low, a surprise which was upturned and delightfully uprooting.

As the sun beamed down and those blue walls blazed back, entering Casa Azul, Frida Kahlo’s home in the Coyoacán neighbourhood of Mexico city, was like entering into a creative dimension from another era. Walking through the rooms she walked in, the kitchen she cooked in and standing beside the bed she painted from, there was a lingering, tangible sense of her presence. Displayed alongside her original artwork, were some of the callipers she had to wear, post accident —wooden, stiff, and distinctly uncomfortable. This juxtaposition of the vibrant art and the evidence of her pain rendered both more real and sudden. She wasn’t just living through, but radically creating through the pain. She was, in that sense, a literal tortured artist whose legacy of originality, vibrancy and creative edge-pushing has emboldened the world, rightfully, to her memory.

Entering the grounds, I paced myself slowly. The gardens in were flooded with large, sturdy cacti and colours so vibrant they would make blushing tame. I gently made my way through the outdoor spaces, then into the tight sequence of rooms. Colour and life stirred around me, and a new appreciation, and awe, quickly gathered pace. Upstairs, coming upon her easel and art materials, a wave of energy moved through me, which in that moment felt entirely hers, mystically so. It was as if her spirit was still sweeping through the space with a singular urge: create. My body quivered on the fine line between tears and excitement. What was this I was feeling? Was it coming from her? Or from me? Her wheelchair added another reminder: it’s all possible. The next room, her bedroom. On top of a large poster bed she had fashioned a mirror and an easel, propped in such a way that she could paint while lying down. Despite the pain, the painting proceeded, not I sensed, only as an act of creation, but as an act of endurance too. She painted on her body casts. She painted on her body.

In the room, also, her ashes. Was this the source of that feeling I had by her easel? Her creative energy still moving about the place, touching those who come to visit, nudging them somehow closer to their own acts of creation? Frida, reaching from the past with a reminder that the process of art making is one of the most redemptive, transformative acts there is.

I have no desire for a unibrow mug or tote bag — but the emblem of Frida is emblazoned, and her spirit- real or imaginary- still going strong with that singular urge alongside it: create.

Writing Prompts:

Prompt 1

Have you ever had a sense of an artwork or an artist still speaking through to you from an other era? Write about the feeling you’ve had standing in front of that artwork. What happened inside you? Write about why it was a powerful experience for you, and in what ways it has influenced you.

Prompt 2

Write about an artwork which inspires you. What is it about the piece that resonates with you? What message does it still carry for you now?

Some photos of the gardens…