Our 4-month deep-dive program exploring the ancestral wisdom traditions of Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, and Cornwall
With song, story, lore, and hands-on crafting workshops, including a package of materials lovingly gathered from these lands.
Mondays & Thursdays
1st December 2025 – 30th March 2026
Teachers have been featured in
Many of us are drawn to
“the old ways”... but why?
What timeless wisdom can we draw from the past to help us live a more connected life now?
Why is it that Celtic culture — and other earth-based, ancestral traditions of these lands — hold such a particular draw and allure for so many in these times?
We have gathered 35+ well-cultivated teachers who will share living threads of the ancestral traditions of these isles.
Over four months, we’ll gather around the proverbial hearth, forming a supportive community to drink deeply together from a well of ancient wisdom that is still vibrant and evolving.
Each month, we’ll receive old stories and teachings that have guided generations, and hear whispers of ancient voices echoing through the old languages and songs.
Through ritually held online spaces and hands-on crafting classes, we’ll celebrate the turning points of the Wheel of the Year.
As we journey together into the otherworld to remember the old ways, we dream the future we wish to plant in the soil of the Earth, for the generations to come.
What's Included
This course is an in-depth study and nourishing gathering, where we will learn and grow together, untying the knots and reweaving the threads.
Crafting Bundle
When you register for Season 3 of Voices of Celtic Wisdom, you’ll automatically receive a special gift – our crafting bundle!
We’re excited to offer a brand new bundle of handmade, artisan craft goods from the heart of the Celtic isles posted straight to your door.
Gathered with care, this collection supplies all essentials for our 5 enriching crafting workshops throughout our course, with the exception of the Brat Bhríde embroidery class.
Over 4 months we will engage in a deep and rich exploration
of earth rooted ways and cultures of the W.I.S.E. Isles, offering nourishment for our own sense of connection and belonging.
We will be joined by wonderful elders, musicians, crafters, and storytellers who will share from the well of ancestral wisdom of these isles, awakening remembrance of ancient, yet timeless, animistic cultures and ways.
This course is an in depth educational study as well as a practical and experiential journey, intended to warm and inspire you during these dreamier, darker months in the Northern Hemisphere.
We invite you to gather with us to learn old songs, stories, and teachings, and to physically craft your own Brigid’s cross, deerskin pouch, and handwoven cloth.
May this series touch your heart and inspire your connection to place, your unique voice, and your path of purpose and expression.
“If we have no stories, we have no past. If we have no past, we have no future”
-Seoras (George) MacPherson
Our Path Ahead
Leading Values
The songs and stories shared in this course are intended for participant’s own personal education, healing and enrichment. In the traditional way, may we receive them, integrate them and allow them to live through us, before we consider sharing with others.
We honor the path that each teacher has walked to cultivate and carry these songs, stories, crafts and traditions that they share with us. By joining the course you agree not to replicate, alter or dilute the content, unless given permission by the teachers themselves.
We welcome the ongoing exploration and conversation around the appropriate ways to receive and honor these teachings. We see this as part of the education this course aims to provide – bringing awareness to the respectful ways to connect and learn from these traditions.
As if we were gathering together around the fire in the old way, may we come bringing our full presence. We invite you to have your video on and make a space where you can fully be with us, receiving the gifts of this wisdom.
Those who feel drawn to explore the living threads of Celtic culture and pre-Roman traditions of the lands of modern-day Scotland, England, Ireland, Wales & Cornwall
Those who wish to learn old songs & hear old stories – to touch, feel and craft with your hands using materials sourced from these beautiful lands
Those who feel a sense of longing for “home” and desire to explore these themes through the Celtic lens
Those who are inspired to connect with ancestral wisdom and remember “the old ways”
Through the songs, stories and crafts shared by our guest teachers, may the living reality of earth and ancient belonging be rekindled within you.
Classes are on Mondays & Thursdays starting @ 10:30am PT / 1:30pm ET / 6:30pm GMT and lasting 2 hours each.
1st December 2025 – 30th March 2026
Week 1
Mon 1st Dec
Opening Call w/ Hanna Leigh & Lana Lanaia
Re-Membering the Celtic Wisdom Traditions
w/ Angharad Wynne
Thurs 4th Dec
The Medicine of the Four Directions: A Living Cosmology of the British Isles
w/ Sam MacLaren
Week 2
Mon 8th Dec
The Celtic Wheel of the Year: Remembering and Restoring Ancient Rhythms
w/ Mari Kennedy
Thurs 11th Dec
An Cumha – Grief, Longing & Power
w/ Oonagh O’Sullivan
Week 3
Mon 15th Dec
Seabheann Wisdom & Rivers of Grief
w/ Phyllida Anam-Áire
Thurs 18th Dec
Winter Solstice ~ The Longest Night and the Rebirth of the Light
w/ Lana Lanaia & Phyllida Anam Aire
Week 4
Mon 5th Jan
Dreaming the Land
w/ Angharad Wynne
Thurs 8th Jan
Seven Keys to A Magical Life: Reflections on Elderhood
w/ JJ Middleway
Week 5
Mon 12th Jan
The Living Landscape & Seeing Through Ancient Eyes
w/ Lana Lanaia
Thurs 15th Jan
Community Hearth Call
w/ Sarah Long
Week 6
Mon 19th Jan
Story Mapping the Celtic Isles: How Story is Born of the Land
w/ Donald Smith
Thurs 22nd Jan
The Celtic Otherworld
w/ Danú Forest
Week 7
Mon 26th Jan
Salmon of Wisdom
w/ Aoife Lowden & Dougie Mackay
Thurs 29th Jan
Meeting Brigid the Celtic Goddess through the Teachings of the Cauldron: Weaving the Slí Bríd (Brigids Cross)
w/ Anáire Teresa Swan & Croilán Greta Pattison
Sun 1st Feb
The Goddess/Saint Brigid & Making Your Own Brat Bhríde
w/ Rita O’Loughlin
Week 8
Mon 2nd Feb
Imbolc & the Spark of Inspiration
w/ Simon de Voil
Thurs 5th Feb
Ancestral Voice Reclamation
w/ Hanna Leigh
Week 9
Mon 9th Feb
Prehistory and Practice Entwined: Exploring the Origins of Textile Craft in Western Europe
w/ Nicole DeRushie
Thurs 12th Feb
The Sacred Marriage: A Union Between Hand and Land
w/ Rosemary Riedel O’Brien and Jules Varnedoe
Fri 13th Feb
Celtic Romance Tales: True Love as Initiating Force
w/ Ama Verdery
Week 10
Mon 16th Feb
Awakening the Dán: Tending the Symbols of Your Creative Destiny
w/ Jen Murphy
Thurs 19th Feb
Dreaming with the Ancestors
w/ Tara Brading
Week 11
Mon 23rd Feb
Vocal Healing: Imbas & the Land’s Voice
w/ Cáit Branigan
Thurs 26th Feb
Community Hearth Call
w/ Sarah Long
Week 12
Mon 2nd March
The Holy Grail: Codes of Living from the Celtic & Arthurian Worlds
w/ Caitlin Matthews
Thurs 5th March
Returning to Our Land & Becoming Good Ancestors
w/ Mac Macartney
Week 13
Mon 9th March
Cultural Revival & Dùthchas – Reciprocity
w/ Àdhamh Ó Broin
Thurs 12th March
Our Wild Kin: Honouring the Deer & Crafting a Leather Pouch
w/ Jessie Watson Brown & Lucy O’Hagan
Week 14
Mon 16th March
Celestial Cycles and Pilgrimage
w/ Chris Park & Charlotte Pulver
Thurs 19th March
Equinox Embers: Druidic Practice for Spring Renewal
w/ Eimear Burke
Week 15
Mon 23rd March
Tending Ancient Seeds for the Future Generations
w/ Aoife Lowden
Week 16
Mon 30th March
Closing Call & Celebration
w/ Hanna Leigh, Sarah Long & Lana Lanaia
Many may have forgotten the old ways, though gratefully there are those still keeping the skills, stories and songs alive, and others of us who are relearning them.
May our time together help us to remember our inherent belonging to earth and ancestral wisdom.
Re-Membering the Celtic Wisdom Traditions
An introduction to the deep roots and greening shoots of the native spiritual traditions of the British Isles.
Angharad has spent much of her life exploring the landscapes and lore of the British Isles. Since childhood, she has followed her feet along pathways back through the portals of ancient myth, folklore, song and poetry of Britain, and particularly of her native Wales.
Today, she draws together the fragments of our tradition, that can help guide and sustain a living spiritual practice, connected to this land and her creatures. She shares her learning and explores understanding and contemporary practice through retreats, storytelling gatherings, ceremonies, dreaming circles, writings and pilgrimages. These are conceived as radical acts of re-membering our soulful, deep humanity and re-weaving ourselves back into fully engaged participation within the web of life.
Angharad is a member of the Wisdom Keepers: Reigniting Ancient Ways collective and creator of Dadeni, a programme that explores the native spiritual traditions of Britain. She is a founding member of ‘Animate Earth’, an international animism collective of teachers, facilitators, thinkers, scientists and writers. She regularly speaks at events and festivals across Europe on these and related matters. Her first English language book, Wise Women – Myths and Folklore in Celebration of Older Women, a collaboration with Dr Sharon Blackie was published by Virago in October 2024.
The Medicine of the Four Directions: A Living Cosmology of the British Isles
The Celtic Wheel of the Year: Remembering and Restoring Ancient Rhythms
Mari will guide you around the Celtic Wheel of the Year, revealing it as a sacred map, a living mandala, and an ancient medicine for our changing world. Together we will explore the deep ancestral rhythms woven through the eight festivals—rhythms that call us home to reconnection, remembrance, and the restoration of what is wise, wild, and whole.
Mari is a global gatherer of women, an Irish Celtic Cyclical Wisdom Guide, Integral Facilitator, meditation, breath work and embodiment teacher. Her work weaves ancient esoteric indigenous wisdom with modern science in service to a more beautiful post patriarchal world she believes in emerging through us now.
Her work offers a path of sacred remembrance and restoration for a new paradigm. Re-membering ourselves as cyclical beings, as fierce forces of nature; each of us an interconnected point of sovereign power in the Cosmos. At the heart of her work is a reweaving of the lost Goddess consciousness back into our lives, to resurrect the forbidden feminine and bring it into right relationship and sacred union with the masculine.
Over the past fourteen years she has created Next Stage Celtic Wheel, a body of work that weaves nature’s rhythms, mythology, archaeology and Celtic consciousness into the Celtic Wheel of the year through an evolutionary lens. Since 2018 she has gathered a community of women from all over the planet on her Next Stage Celtic Wheel TRIBE, a year-long journey of ritual and remembrance through the Celtic festivals.
An Cumha - Grief, Longing & Power
Oonagh is a multidisciplinary artist, ritualist, grief-tender, singer, embodiment guide & festival maker from West Kerry, Ireland. She blends her deep love for the human heart & body as part of the web of life, with song as prayer to create spaces of remembrance, connection, expression & belonging. She enjoys weaving threads of tradition, mythos, ritual and storytelling into her art making. Oonagh has been teaching yoga & somatic practices and holding group spaces through classes, workshops, training & retreats for 8 years.
She holds an MA in Ritual Chant & Song from the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, where she specialised in the use of ritual song in Irish pre-Christian grief ceremonies called An Caoineadh/keening. Her interest lies on how to contemporise these ancient ways through our bodies and voices during this crisis of unprecedented individual and collective grief. Oonagh loves creating meaningful communal spaces of embodied artistic exploration for co-regulation, creative alchemy and social change.
Grandmother Remembers
The old Seabheann or wisdom women in Celtic times were Anam~Áire which translated means Soul Carer. They watched with the dying and traveled with the soul after death.
For this workshop, Phyllida will share wisdom gathered from her life experience, and some old rituals and blessings she has witnessed as a child, from her ancestors who were Irish Seabheann.
Together we will explore how sacred memory unites us with the whole of Creation; why we love to be in Nature, and how we literally fall into love with the feminine energy in all.
Phyllida Anam Áire is an 82 year old Irish grandmother. She comes from an ancestral line of deep trauma. After boarding school in the 60s, Phyllida trained in Montessori, and then entered a convent. Her study in Theology and doctrine taught her a lot; not about God, but about dysfunctional patriarchal indoctrination.
Having finished her studies in humanistic psychology, Phyllida trained and worked for ten years with Elisabeth Kübler -Ross MD. After ten years working with Celtic Consciousness in Germany, she moved to Edinburgh to be with her son and grandchildren. Phyllida still shares her “Teachings from the Cauldron”, which is a combination of humanistic psychology and Spiritual wisdom.
Winter Solstice ~ The Longest Night and the Rebirth of the Light
As the Winter Solstice arrives ~ the shortest day and longest night of the year ~ we step into a liminal pause where the sun appears to stand still for three days, inviting us to rest, reflect, and prepare for the returning light. This is an ancient rhythm that has guided us for millennia.
In this session, Phyllida and Lana invite us into a ceremonial space, as we tune into the energies of winter solstice and the journey through the longest night, to the rebirth of the light.
Phyllida Anam Áire is an 82 year old Irish grandmother. She comes from an ancestral line of deep trauma. After boarding school in the 60s, Phyllida trained in Montessori, and then entered a convent. Her study in Theology and doctrine taught her a lot; not about God, but about dysfunctional patriarchal indoctrination.
Having finished her studies in humanistic psychology, Phyllida trained and worked for ten years with Elisabeth Kübler -Ross MD. After ten years working with Celtic Consciousness in Germany, she moved to Edinburgh to be with her son and grandchildren. Phyllida still shares her “Teachings from the Cauldron”, which is a combination of humanistic psychology and Spiritual wisdom.
Lana is a musician, and facilitator of retreats, ritual & healing spaces. She lives in the Scottish Highlands, and her lineage is woven through many lands.
Lana has been studying and working with earth wisdom traditions & sound healing for over 25 years. She has a deep love for these holy Isles of Albion, her ancient places & wisdom. She has spent many years journeying to sacred sites, living in wild places, questing and communing with the land, sea & sky.
Lana’s work, through retreats, ritual, and sound, is an invitation to return to wholeness, to reawaken the songlines of the soul, and to enter into deep communion with the Earth as a living, breathing being.
Dreaming the Land
An exploration of the deep dreaming of the Celtic lands and practices to open to the wisdom and whispers of the land on which you stand.
In this session, we’ll explore the rituals of the animist hunter-gatherers who repopulated these Isles at the end of the last Ice Age, the cult of ancestors that inspired the tomb builders of the Neolithic, what we know about the Druids and what lived on in the poetry and myths of their descendants, the mystical bards, who shared breath myth and poetry with the early Christian saints.
We’ll lift up some of the exquisite, fragile threads of this deep mystical and magical tradition, and undertake practices to bring central concepts into experience and ponder how the Brythonic tradition’s teaching about our kinship with all beings, within the seen and unseen worlds, can inform a contemporary spiritual practice today.
Angharad has spent much of her life exploring the landscapes and lore of the British Isles. Since childhood, she has followed her feet along pathways back through the portals of ancient myth, folklore, song and poetry of Britain, and particularly of her native Wales.
Today, she draws together the fragments of our tradition, that can help guide and sustain a living spiritual practice, connected to this land and her creatures. She shares her learning and explores understanding and contemporary practice through retreats, storytelling gatherings, ceremonies, dreaming circles, writings and pilgrimages. These are conceived as radical acts of re-membering our soulful, deep humanity and re-weaving ourselves back into fully engaged participation within the web of life.
Angharad is a member of the Wisdom Keepers: Reigniting Ancient Ways collective and creator of Dadeni, a programme that explores the native spiritual traditions of Britain. She is a founding member of ‘Animate Earth’, an international animism collective of teachers, facilitators, thinkers, scientists and writers. She regularly speaks at events and festivals across Europe on these and related matters. Her first English language book, Wise Women – Myths and Folklore in Celebration of Older Women, a collaboration with Dr Sharon Blackie was published by Virago in October 2024.
Seven Keys to a magical life: Reflections on Elderhood
JJ is a Druid elder in, “the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids”, which he has been actively part of for nearly a quarter of a century, frequently in a mentoring and teaching capacity. He is parent to four grown up children; six grandchildren and two step children.
JJ is an experienced celebrant, ritualist & poet weaving a unique magic into weddings, funerals and naming ceremonies. He is often asked to assist in creating a holding/ritual space at ceremonies honouring the eightfold wheel of the year.
JJ has participated, within a spiritual capacity, in various radio programmes, including Radio 4’s ‘Beyond Belief’ and Radio 2’s ‘Good Morning Sunday’. He has produced three CDs and a book of poetry.
JJ is passionate about Sacred Earth songs, singing the land alive through prayerful vibration. Within his circle, he often shares teachings and story, along with creating spacious periods of stillness.
JJ embodies a potent, deeply healing and inspirational space filled with heart resonance: For the land, ourselves and the wider community.
The Living Landscape & Seeing Through Ancient Eyes
TBA
Lana is a musician, and facilitator of retreats, ritual & healing spaces. She lives in the Scottish Highlands, and her lineage is woven through many lands.
Lana has been studying and working with earth wisdom traditions & sound healing for over 25 years. She has a deep love for these holy Isles of Albion, her ancient places & wisdom. She has spent many years journeying to sacred sites, living in wild places, questing and communing with the land, sea & sky.
Lana’s work, through retreats, ritual, and sound, is an invitation to return to wholeness, to reawaken the songlines of the soul, and to enter into deep communion with the Earth as a living, breathing being.
Story Mapping the Celtic Isles: How Story is Born of the Land
TBA
Donald Smith is a lifelong storyteller with Scottish and Irish roots. He has published widely on Scottish literature and storytelling, and was founding Director of the Scottish Storytelling Centre. He is currently Director of the Scottish International Storytelling Festival. In 2023 received the Hamish Henderson lifetime achievement award for services to Scotland’s traditional arts.
Donald was born in Glasgow and brought up in Stirling. He has been based in Edinburgh through his working life. Donald is married with five grown-up children and seven grandchildren.
The Celtic Otherworld
TBA
Danu Forest is a traditional beanfeasa or wisewoman of Irish and English heritage with over 30 years’ experience in the Celtic tradition. Born with the second sight she is a natural seer and is the author of several books including ‘Wild Magic’ ‘Celtic Tree Magic’ (Llewellyn) and ‘The Magical Year’. She holds an MA in Celtic studies and is a phd student researching the Celtic Fairy Faith.
The Salmon of Wisdom
Dive into the world of the Fianna, the ancient tribe of hunter-gatherer warrior poets of Ireland and Scotland. Aoife and Dougie will lead us into a journey of myth, ecology & druidic wisdom.
Aoife Lowden is a facilitator and guide, working intimately with land and ancestral relationship to co-create spaces of healing & remembrance.
Aoife offers regular ceremonies, sacred site ritual/pilgrimages, gatherings and ancestral celebrations. Her deep passion for her Irish/Scottish Gaelic heritage is woven throughout her offerings including traditional music, dance & storytelling.
Aoife’s work has for the most part been held in her homeland of Ireland, however she has recently moved to the Scottish Highlands where she lives and works as part of a land-based centre & community project (The Sheiling Project/Collective)
The Salmon of Wisdom
Dive into the world of the Fianna, the ancient tribe of hunter-gatherer warrior poets of Ireland and Scotland. Aoife and Dougie will lead us into a journey of myth, ecology & druidic wisdom.
Dougie is a native Highland storyteller with a passion for tracking key aspects of ancestral cultures through mythology, lore and story. A professional storyteller for over 12 years, he has been mentored by some of Scotland’s finest seanachies, seeking modern applications for these timeless tales.
His recent show ‘Animate Lands’ allowed a deep dive into the Fianna cycle, gleaning aspects of the older animistic culture once thriving on these islands. It was described as ‘a fresh and joyful take on Celtic lore and Scotland’s landscape’. On his Myth as Medicine course, he explores a cycle of northern myths with a group of students, tracking the treasure within each tale and offering exercises to journey with each story and touch the medicine within.
Meeting Brigid the Celtic Goddess through the Teachings of the Cauldron: Weaving the Slí Bríd (Brigids Cross)
The Celtic festival of Imbolc is a celebration of the goddess Brigid. Imbolg is one of the eight Celtic festivals that honour the cycle of the sun. It is on the threshold between Winter and Spring, where fires are lit to honour Brigid and the return of light, warmth and birth.
Brigid is known as the Goddess of Healing, Inspiration and Poetry. She has manifested many times through history, the most memorable being Saint Brigid of Ireland, recognised for her healing abilities.
In the Teachings of the Cauldron, we learn to recognise Brigid as an archetype of soul within. She is associated with the sacred elements of Fire, Earth and Water and waits patiently for us to come home to her heart fire, where she stirs her Cauldron, the container of life.
We invite you to join us in a two-hour Imbolg ritual, where we will share some of the folklore surrounding Brigid as well as supporting you to experience your relationship with her. Through the weaving of a Sli Bríd (St Brigids Cross) and the sounding of a Guth or sacred Celtic mantra we will guide you into the wisdom of your bones, to re-heart you into the indigenous lineage of peoples who ununderstood and lived in harmony with the rhythm of nature.
Drawing on her own healed and integrated ancestral lineage, Anáire has embodied the way of the Seabhean (wise woman). She is apprentice to FiléDia Anam Áire and holds space for the Teachings of the Cauldron.
With her roots firmly in Celtic Consciousness, she is an Anam Áire (Soul Carer), Nurse, Therapist, Celtic Soul Midwife and Celtic Shamanic Practitioner.
Working closely with the dying and supporting those on their healing journey, whilst devoted to her own path of healing and integration. She holds deep reverence for the land and all who inhabit it, and this is evident in her work.
Meeting Brigid the Celtic Goddess through the Teachings of the Cauldron: Weaving the Slí Bríd (Brigids Cross)
The Celtic festival of Imbolc is a celebration of the goddess Brigid. Imbolg is one of the eight Celtic festivals that honour the cycle of the sun. It is on the threshold between Winter and Spring, where fires are lit to honour Brigid and the return of light, warmth and birth.
Brigid is known as the Goddess of Healing, Inspiration and Poetry. She has manifested many times through history, the most memorable being Saint Brigid of Ireland, recognised for her healing abilities.
In the Teachings of the Cauldron, we learn to recognise Brigid as an archetype of soul within. She is associated with the sacred elements of Fire, Earth and Water and waits patiently for us to come home to her heart fire, where she stirs her Cauldron, the container of life.
We invite you to join us in a two-hour Imbolg ritual, where we will share some of the folklore surrounding Brigid as well as supporting you to experience your relationship with her. Through the weaving of a Sli Bríd (St Brigids Cross) and the sounding of a Guth or sacred Celtic mantra we will guide you into the wisdom of your bones, to re-heart you into the indigenous lineage of peoples who ununderstood and lived in harmony with the rhythm of nature.
Croilán Initiate of Brigid is apprenticed to FiléDia Anam-Áire (Phyllida) since 2019. She is guardian and teacher of the Teachings of the Cauldron (Celtic consciousness) and is a teacher of Gutha (sacred Celtic mantra).
She has worked as a psychotherapist for over 25 years and leads groups in
Sacred Rage Dance Rituals/Expressive Grief Tending. Latterly a performer and teacher of contemporary dance, and yoga.
With devotion to healing, integration and presence, she engaged in decades of Shamanic experiencing, Dzogchen (Tibetan Buddhism), Atman teachings (Hinduism/Yoga Philosophy). She has latterly found roots in the indigenous lands of the human heart and loves to meet you here.
Imbolc & The Spark of Inspiration
TBA
Reverend Simon Ruth de Voil is an ordained interfaith/interspiritual minister, trained to be a sacred presence outside the conventions of traditional religion. As a sacred musician, spiritual mentor and worship leader he incorporates chant, ritual, storytelling and mindful practice to create a space for profound connection and sacred witness. Simon provides music for worship, ceremony, and prayer in a wide variety of churches and non-religious spiritual communities. He particularly loves to create music for meditation, healing services, and rites of passage.
Simon is also an experienced workshop and retreat leader, drawing on 15 years of study, training, and practice that grew from his time living and working in Iona Abbey. Although influenced by many traditions, Simon’s spiritual path and teaching is deeply rooted in Celtic Christianity, the wisdom of the earth, and in the Scottish land where he’s spent most of his life.
Ancestral Voice Reclamation
Imagine a time when our people sang together…daily and often. This class is a guided journey into remembering spontaneous singing as a natural part of being human on earth, and a space to listen with our bodies for the songs and sounds of our ancestors singing through us. We will engage in a simple song-writing practice using ancient words. Come and enter the stream of ancestral voices. No prior singing or songwriting experience necessary.
There will also be space in this session for rich community sharing of the stirrings and inspiration that have emerged throughout the course thus far.
Hanna Leigh is a Singer-Songwriter, Voice Doula, Weaver, and Devotee of this precious, living Earth. She was raised in California (Chumash territory) though in recent years have spent extensive time residing on ancestral lands in the Celtic isles. Her people migrated to the U.S. several generations ago from England, Scotland, Norway, Germany and the Netherlands.
She has been leading singing circles for over 10 years, in communities around the world. She loves to support people in overcoming fears around vocal expression so they may open to the natural power and beauty of their singing voices.
Celtic Romance Tales: True Love as Initiating Force
Romance plays a profound, leading role in Celtic myth and folklore. In this class, we will enter the beguiling terrain of the Celtic love story, where love at first sight is a given, treachery looms large, sexual conduct is decidedly roving, and happy endings are rarely the point. While entertaining in and of themselves, we’ll explore the deep, ancestral wisdom hidden in these tales— on what it means to be human, how to pursue our soul’s destiny, and the art (and challenge) of becoming forces of love in this troubled world.
Ama Verdery is a rite of passage guide, aspiring bard and initiated bhean feasa (medicine woman) in her Celtic ancestral traditions. A second generation Scottish-American with British, Irish and French ancestry, she continually works to love, heal & respect the lands of Turtle Island while re-membering the wisdom-ways of indigenous Europe. She is devoted to guiding women into profound encounters with their gifts, power and soul’s calling, through monthly classes and 1:1 mentoring. Her greatest joy is helping all humans fall in love~ with their lives, this blessed Earth and the magic all around us.
Awakening the Dán: Tending the Symbols of Your Creative Destiny
The Old Irish word, Dán means poetic endowment, artistic skill, a calling, destiny, or fate – a soul’s unique gift. We discover our dán by following our soul.
Our souls communicate to us through the symbolic, through the realm of dreams, myths, folk and fairy tales, poetics, the arts, synchronicities, moments of mystery that reveal themselves to us if we are attuned enough to catch them. These symbols provide us with information about our dán. Remind yourself as you read these words of a piece of art that captivated you without you fully knowing why. Or a particular image or symbol that you were obsessed with as a child. Or a word from a myth that wanted to live in your mouth. Or a dream whose image followed you around all day like a night twin.
Our ancestors left a trail of symbolic mystery across these islands, symbols that 5,000 years later we still do not fully understand, yet they activate an energy within us. It’s paradoxical – we know and yet we don’t know, we feel the energy, we feel the magic, but what does it mean?
Jennifer Murphy is an Irish mythologist, anthropologist and founder of The Celtic Creatives. A Dubliner born and bred, from the time she could talk, Jen’s grandmother Frances O’Sullivan filled her ears with tales from Irish myth and folklore, fuelling a now 40-year fascination with the stories of her lineage. Jen’s apprenticeship to following her soul’s breadcrumbs has guided her formal studies in Medieval Irish and Celtic Studies, Anthropology, and Jungian Psychology. Jen supports people to remember that they have a shining soul, to dream Celtic spirituality into their modern lives by making the Celtic soul a living aesthetic—centring the soul in the everyday experience of life—through mythwork, dreamwork, and the body.
Dreaming with the Ancestors
In this workshop, you’ll be guided to connect with the wisdom of your wise ancestors through listening and dreaming. The Celtic cultures have a strong connection to dreaming, divination, and divine inspiration (called Imbas Forosnai in the Irish traditions). Through these kinds of sacred practices, we can create meaningful connections to the ancestors who hold important wisdom for these times.
You’ll experience a guided journey to connect with the spirit of your lineage, and Tara will offer guidance about how to continue dreaming with the ancestors.
This is an invitation to reclaim an ancient way of knowing that lives in your bones, and receive ancestral inspiration in your daily life.
Tara Brading is a women’s educator, storyteller and songstress, focusing on uplifting nature-based feminine wisdom & ancestral teachings from Ireland & England. She’s been on a journey of remembering and reclamation for over ten years, honoring the earth based feminine wisdom left in her blood and bones.
Vocal Healing: Imbas & the Land’s Voice
TBA
Cait Branigan is an Ordained Priestess Hierophant of the Western Mystery Tradition, a Bean Feasa (Shamanic Practitioner) and Healer working within the traditions of Ireland. She works with individuals at her healing centre in Co. Wexford. She also teaches groups and conducts ceremonies throughout the country and internationally, work which includes Women’s Mysteries, the facilitation of Rites of Passage and sweat lodges within the Irish Tradition. She is an Ovate with the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids and a member of the Fellowship of Isis.
The Holy Grail: Codes of Living from the Celtic & Arthurian Worlds
In this session, we will explore Celtic and Arthurian codes of living as a basic prerequisite for living with compassion, reciprocity and truth. Without virtue, there cannot be any quest: just as, without a sense of fracture, we cannot seek healing. We will discover the guardians who maintain the borders of the quest, and enter the world where the Courts of Joy maintain the Grail of hospitality, which underlies both ancient and medieval traditions. This eternal myth is one that is very much calling to us in our own time. We will begin the process of formulating our own code of living as a means of going forward upon our own spiritual quest. We will visit the Lady of the Fountain in meditation, asking her to guide our steps.
Caitlín Matthews is the author of over 85 books, including The Art of Celtic Seership, The Celtic Book of the Dead and The Lost Book of the Grail. She is acknowledged internationally as an authority on the ancestral spiritual traditions of Britain and Ireland. Caitlín is a co-founder of the Foundation for Inspirational and Oracular Studies (FÍOS), which is dedicated to the sacred arts that shape the landscape of the soul, via vision, dream and memory. This foundation hosts masterclasses with exemplars of living, oracular and sacred traditions that are rarely recorded in writing, or given an honourable place in modern society, but which form the bedrock of ancestral culture heritage. She lives in Oxford, UK.
Returning to Our Land & Becoming Good Ancestors
TBA
Mac Macartney is a writer, visionary, teacher, thought leader, TED talker and the founder of Embercombe.
Cultural Revival & Dùthchas - Reciprocity
Have you ever wondered about living indigeneity in the north-west fringes of Europe, what Gaelic ceremonial practice might look like, or whether land-based ritual has a practical application in today’s world?
Through ‘Dùthchas Beò, Revitalising Reciprocity With The Gaelic Landscape,’ Àdhamh will share an investigation into reciprocity and relationship with the living earth through the interface of Gaelic language and culture.
Àdhamh Ó Broin is a Gaelic tradition bearer and activist of Irish and Highland Caithness heritage who has spent 15 years documenting and revitalising the native language and lore of Central Argyll where he grew up, embodying its value system and bringing his children up as first language Argyll dialect speakers.
Àdhamh joins us on behalf of Dòrlach, a Scottish micro-charity which seeks to encourage intercultural solidarity across minoritised peoples worldwide and a return to indigenous practice in Gaelic Scotland. Through his work with Dòrlach, Àdhamh has visited dozens of Gaelic elders across the Highlands and Islands, recording Gaelic lore and vocabulary which would otherwise have been lost to time.
Over the last decade, Àdhamh has also had the privilege of stepping into ceremony with dozens of guests from all around the indigenous world; the Maori of New Zealand, the Mohawk of Six Nations Ontario and the Karajá of Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest to name but a few. These experiences have assisted and inspired the process of re-establishing a working, reciprocal relationship with the land whose dialect Àdhamh has diligently retrieved from extinction through long hours spent with the last of the areas’ native Gaelic-speaking elders.
Celestial Cycles and Pilgrimage
Pre equinox prayers rising with the quickening life force of spring. Marrying old lore and new. Ever deepening connections to the natural rhythms of the seasons, the sun, moon and stars.
Chris Park is a Druid and artist immersed and versed in the lore and wisdom traditions of the Isles of Britain and Europe.
He lives in a luxurious hedge with a wayward family surrounded by beehives on organic farmland in the Vale of the White Horse, U.K. There he researches and teaches old ways and new, incorporating experimental archaeology, woodland crafts and organic architecture.
A prolific beekeeper, he teaches skep making, skep-beekeeping, mead making and apitherapy, lecturing to beekeeping associations and other societies upon related subjects. Often seen extolling the virtues of honeybee medicines.
He is of Welsh, English and Scottish heritage, with over twenty five years experience of druidry, cunning-folk and craft practices, and has been an active member of the Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids since 1997. He hosts ceremonies and gatherings in a sacred grove at home. With different hats on he is a professional storyteller, a musician, celebrant and ceremonial piper.
Celestial Cycles and Pilgrimage
Pre equinox prayers rising with the quickening life force of spring. Marrying old lore and new. Ever deepening connections to the natural rhythms of the seasons, the sun, moon and stars.
Equinox Embers: Druidic Practice for Spring Renewal
Eimear will share about her journey on the Druid Path. Through story, the harp and guided meditation she will explore how living in tune with the land and the seasons, and deepening one’s connection to myth, creativity and the wider community of nature, can bring a deeper and more sacred relationship with life and self.
Eimear is the Chosen Chief of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD) and lives in Kilkenny, Ireland.
Eimear has private practice as a Counselling Psychologist and her interests in Druidry and psychology have led her to act as a Celebrant, helping people to design and enact meaningful rites of passage. She is licensed to perform legal weddings in the Republic of Ireland and can also offer non legal ceremonies.
Eimear has a deep love of the ancient Irish tales and has a passion for storytelling. She brings the old tales to new audiences, and – while remaining faithful to the stories – often examines them from new perspectives, so that listeners experience them as fresh and relevant. She particularly enjoys showing people the sacred sites of Ireland and telling the ancient tales right where they happened.
Eimear is also a Priestess dedicated to Danú in the Fellowship of Isis. She is an Arch Druidess in the Druid Clan of Dana and a member of the Noble Order of Tara.
Tending Ancient Seeds for the Future Generations
TBA
Aoife Lowden is a facilitator and guide, working intimately with land and ancestral relationship to co-create spaces of healing & remembrance.
Aoife offers regular ceremonies, sacred site ritual/pilgrimages, gatherings and ancestral celebrations. Her deep passion for her Irish/Scottish Gaelic heritage is woven throughout her offerings including traditional music, dance & storytelling.
Aoife’s work has for the most part been held in her homeland of Ireland, however she has recently moved to the Scottish Highlands where she lives and works as part of a land-based centre & community project (The Sheiling Project/Collective)
These wonderful crafters are gathering beautiful materials for you as part of the physical welcome package.
The Goddess/Saint Brigid & Making Your Own Brat Bhríde
Rita O’Loughlin from Portarlington has always been passionate about art, heritage and communities. Her love for Brigid and her cloak (Brat) and her firm belief in the magical healing power Brigid represents, were borne out over many years of upcycling and embroidering preloved scarves to gift to family and friends as Brat Bhrídes.
Rita has brought this award-winning initiative @mybratbhride to many festivals, schools and community centres the width and breadth of Ireland.
The aim of the project is to revive this ancient tradition of the Brat Bhride, a healing scarf left outside on a branch on the eve of Imbolc/Brigid’s day and imbued with Brigid’s energy as she passes over the land. It was then kept in a special place in the home so that it could be used for its healing power throughout the year.
Prehistory and Practice Entwined: Exploring the Origins of Textile Craft in Western Europe
In this 2 hour session, join scholar-practitioner Nicole DeRushie to learn about the earliest fibre traditions in European Prehistory with a focus on the British Isles.
Participants will additionally be guided through the making of plant fibre cordage – a skill as old as humanity itself – using flax in a gentle and supportive online community of practice.
Nicole is an ancient textiles scholar-practitioner and author of international bestseller, Bog Fashion.
With a background in bushcraft and outdoor education, she links textile history to the land, and promotes it as an immersive aspect of environmental connectedness. She lives in Oxford and additionally works in local museums.
The Sacred Marriage: A Union Between Hand and Land
Join Rosemary and Jules on a journey with the Oak, yarn, loom and story.
For thousands of years our ancestors have connected to the land through their craft and way of life.
In this time of great remembering, we will come together to weave in the round, thread story into our hearts and adorn ourselves with a sacred and ancient tool.
Rose will guide us to warp up a hand made Willow Circular loom and weave with Devon wools alongside Oak and Madder hand spun and plant dyed thread.
We will ritually place our Oak weaving needles, hand crafted by Jules, onto a length of flax string that can be worn as a necklace and taken out into the land to be worked with in the wild.
Our offering will include a telling of an original story inspired by the Oak and its rich symbolism and meaning.
You will craft your webs of land and beauty as we share our words.
Our focus will be on the motif of the Sacred Marriage which is found in Celtic Lore and how these craft based ways can bring us into deeper connection with the Earth.
Rosemary Riedel O’Brien is a multi disciplinary Artist specialising in hand spinning, weaving and natural dye techniques.
Rosemary’s work is inspired by the Earth and her elements. She works with heritage slow craft processes to combine ethical materials, spirituality and creativity- an alchemical combination that forms the foundations of her bespoke textiles and workshops that are rooted in reverence.
In 2019 Rosemary completed a 6 month Hand Spinning and Weaving apprenticeship at the Bright Moon studio with Artist Maker Imogen Bright Moon, in South-Eastern England. She has since gone on to create a number of seasonal collections and offer weaving tuition and weekend craft rituals.
She has been working consistently with commissions since completing her apprenticeship. Her unique approach emphasises the importance of the intention, symbolism and hidden meaning that each hand woven textile can represent within a persons life.
She lives near Dartmoor, England and continues to deepen her practice.
The Sacred Marriage: A Union Between Hand and Land
Join Rosemary and Jules on a journey with the Oak, yarn, loom and story.
For thousands of years our ancestors have connected to the land through their craft and way of life.
In this time of great remembering, we will come together to weave in the round, thread story into our hearts and adorn ourselves with a sacred and ancient tool.
Rose will guide us to warp up a hand made Willow Circular loom and weave with Devon wools alongside Oak and Madder hand spun and plant dyed thread.
We will ritually place our Oak weaving needles, hand crafted by Jules, onto a length of flax string that can be worn as a necklace and taken out into the land to be worked with in the wild.
Our offering will include a telling of an original story inspired by the Oak and its rich symbolism and meaning.
You will craft your webs of land and beauty as we share our words.
Our focus will be on the motif of the Sacred Marriage which is found in Celtic Lore and how these craft based ways can bring us into deeper connection with the Earth.
Our Wild Kin: Honouring the Deer & Crafting a Leather Pouch
Join us as we follow the ancient deer trails through these lands. Searching for the tracks of the deer-honouring traditions of our ancestors, and the emergent culture of honouring, responsibility and reciprocity.
Together, we will craft a pouch from deer leather – with antler and thread, to wear, to carry, offerings or keepsakes, to hold prayer and gratitude and remembering.
Every part of these materials holds the deep intention of honouring the beauty of these wild kin. The supple leather is locally sourced wild Dartmoor deer skins that were hand-tanned with the barks of trees from this land. The antler from wild Red and Fallow deer who roam the forests and moor.
While our hands tend thread and leather, our hearts can climb atop the stag’s back to ride a journey through sharing myth, folklore, language and culture of our deer ones.
This offering emerges from our years of ceremony with the deer in Ireland and Devon.
Jessie Watson Brown is a traditional hide tanner, ancestral crafter, educator and ceremonial space holder. Her roots are deep in the granite and mossy land of Dartmoor, Devon – where she grew up and continues to live and work. A landscape full of lithic reminders of those who came before, creative community, and ecological riches – all of which inspire her work.
Jessie’s work weaves together craft and nature-based skills with heart, ceremony and animism. Her offerings focus on honouring life and death, remembering the skills of our ancestors and stepping into our place in the web of life with responsibility, practical reciprocity and a deep commitment to unlearning colonial ways. She is particularly guided by the Deer as teachers, trail-makers, beauty-bringers and by their abundant generosity.
For 10 years Jessie has run a small hand-scale tannery in a stone barn on the moor – tanning mostly deer skins with natural ancient techniques using tree barks, smoke and fats. Jessie sees tanning as a gateway to relationship and kinship with the more-than-human world.
Our Wild Kin: Honouring the Deer & Crafting a Leather Pouch
Join us as we follow the ancient deer trails through these lands. Searching for the tracks of the deer-honouring traditions of our ancestors, and the emergent culture of honouring, responsibility and reciprocity.
Together, we will craft a pouch from deer leather – with antler and thread, to wear, to carry, offerings or keepsakes, to hold prayer and gratitude and remembering.
Every part of these materials holds the deep intention of honouring the beauty of these wild kin. The supple leather is locally sourced wild Dartmoor deer skins that were hand-tanned with the barks of trees from this land. The antler from wild Red and Fallow deer who roam the forests and moor.
While our hands tend thread and leather, our hearts can climb atop the stag’s back to ride a journey through sharing myth, folklore, language and culture of our deer ones.
This offering emerges from our years of ceremony with the deer in Ireland and Devon.
Lucy Ní hAodhagáin/O’Hagan (They/She) is the founder of Wild Awake Ireland, an organisation which seeks to rekindle cultural and ecological resilience through the restoration of ancestral lifeways in Ireland. Lucy works in the fecund liminal zones between the cultural, ecological and spiritual, weaving together ancient wisdom with the dream of decolonial futures.
Born in Béal Feirste, Lucy now makes home beneath the watchful gaze of An Mhucais mountain in the Donegal Gaeltacht, all the while deepening their love of the Gaelic language by harvesting seaweed from the rocks, following the tracks of deer, and gathering ancestral foods and medicine through the seasons.
Handwoven Willow Looms
Willow and rush basketry, rush chair seating, willow and rush grower based on Dartmoor, Devon.
She has been working as a basket maker for over thirty years. Her making practice is deeply rooted in place, ecology and respect for the land, with her home on Dartmoor a constant source of inspiration. Making with her own material has always been important to her, alongside teaching and tending both the land, and young people to follow in her footsteps. Particularly close to her heart is teaching children heritage craft skills and nurturing an appreciation for the wealth of natural material on their doorstep. Her teaching is not purely technique focused, and aims to cultivate a reciprocal relationship between the maker and the wild world that has given us this ancient craft.
She makes baskets that are unique, beautiful and useful. Her influences include her early teacher Joe Hogan and the Irish west coast styles, including creels and skibs. Her designs arise in response to the colour and variety in her willow, and a desire to keep these qualities alive in the finished basket. She believes in leaving the door open for quirks and surprises during the making process, in letting the material have its voice.
Her wide variety of teaching experience includes work with Exeter University, Schumacher College, The Old Way, and various annual children’s camps as well as privately run courses at her home workshop. She is a Yeoman member of the Worshipful Company of Basketmakers and a founder member of Basketmakers South West.
Hear From Past Participants
Prices in GBP (£) are approximate and adjusted based on the exchange rate at purchase, and any bank currency conversion fees are not included. Because our organization is US-based, we can only accept USD ($).
This in-depth, 4-month long course is the result of months of development and reflects significant commitment from the organizers, teachers, and participants alike. At approximately $28 (£21) per two-hour session, you’re investing in a comprehensive & rich learning experience which includes a beautiful bundle of handmade, artisan crafting materials shipped to your door.
If you’re interested in joining but cost is prohibitive, we offer limited tuition assistance for those in genuine financial need.
Learn more and apply at the link here.
Community Hearth
w/ Sarah Long
~ January 15th @ 10:30am PT / 1:30pm ET / 6:30pm GMT
Community Hearth & Song Weaving
w/ Hanna Leigh
~ February 5th @ 10:30am PT / 1:30pm ET / 6:30pm GMT
Community Hearth
w/ Sarah Long
~ February 26th @ 10:30am PT / 1:30pm ET / 6:30pm GMT
Community Hearth & Closing Celebration
w/ Hanna Leigh, Sarah Long & Lana Lanaia
~ March 30th @ 10:30am PT / 1:30pm ET / 6:30pm GMT
This offering is happening online through Zoom, with teachers joining us from several different countries.
Each workshop is 2 hours in length
Yes. They will be recorded and sent out soon after each class.
No. The nature of the content delivery is that you purchase the entire course.
You will have access to the recordings for one year from the start date of the course.
No, all levels are welcome.
No. There will be a Q&A time during each call, though no one will be “put on the spot”.
No. Due to the delivery of course content, all sales are final.
