Postcards from The Hedge - Dispatch 5
‘Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field.
I will meet you there’.
― Rumi.
Welcome to our fifth dispatch of Postcards from the Hedge.
This month's care package has been prepared by our Bealtaine team Kathy our founder along with, Maria, Vanessa, Kieron and Julia, our co-faculty at the Hedge School.
Dear Ones,
As we move into a new season and cycle at the Hedge School we are grateful for the gifts of Bealtaine and for new partnerships. Our Scoil Scairte is blossoming.
We were delighted to design and lead a three-part series in collaboration with the brilliant Sharon O’ Grady and James Harrald at Galway City & County Arts Offices on The Art of Collaboration. We hosted a 3-part conversation about creating meaningful artistic engagements and shaping the future of collaboration in Galway on the west coast of Ireland. Thank you to all of the artists, creatives and culture makers who travelled with us and to our inspiring ‘artists-in-residence” Ruth Smith, Fergal Scahill, Joe Caslin, Erin Quinn and Ceara Conway. It was a joy to welcome you all to the Hedge School family.
Meanwhile we hosted a beautiful Spiral, ‘Returning to our Senses’ for 3 weeks to welcome the portal of Bealtaine. This Spiral was led and held by five humans and one mystery. Kathy Scott and Kieron Concannon planted in East and West Ireland, Maria in Athens, Vanessa in Montreal and Julia Hoffmann in Berlin. We travelled wide and we traveled deep. Míle Buíochas. to David Whyte, Noirín Ni Riain, Damien Dempsey, Ian Mackenzie, Alixa Garcia and Lyla June Johnson.
For this dispatch we have asked our 2 guest faculty, Kieron and Julia, to share their experience.
“It is in that interdimensional energetic field, bounded by the deep ecology of the Hedge School that I have found pathways to my ancient past and to my ancestral future. In so doing I have found the fellow travellers I didn’t know I had been seeking.
Hedge schools were born of extreme times, in a process that invoked both an ancient and emergent natural wisdom and resistance - the wisdom of the community and not the lone wolf and a resolve to reach for the future we wish to claim rather than the one that is thrust upon us. We gather together in the shelter and nurturing embrace of the hedge to discover myth, magic and meaning, and to reaffirm all that makes us human.
Welcome white-thorn warriors, pilgrims, storytellers and the singers of song, you recall the old world as you build the new and we delight in your company. Until the next time!”
Erin go Bragh – Slán go fóill.Kieron
This piece of music is titled ‘Yeras’ and it translates as “Dream" and was played on the Duduk bu Kieron at the Hedge School. The Duduk is an ancient Armenian double-reeded instrument made from apricot wood. It is estimated to be around 3000 years old. The apricot tree is believed to be the only fruit tree that Noah took from the ark and planted on Armenian soil after landing on Mt Ararat (part of modern day Armenia).
Kieron Concannon, Hedge School faculty
From Julia
The invitation came unexpectedly, “Would you join us, and bring your visual practise to Hedge School?”. I had been toying with the idea of joining one of the Spirals, having sensed that a certain atmosphere would be invoked in me. I said yes, and embarked on an adventure that took me into the invisible within me and on a collective adventure with others- a journey of imagination and conversation. Although we were behind our screens, I could sense how we were all together around the Bealtaine fire, which held us in a mystical power.
To me it felt that we found each other through our stories and conversations across our lives, challenges and perceptions. We came together and created our very own “rhapsody of sound and senses”. I sensed within me that we were truly there, looking at the Irish night sky together.
Our imaginations were further unleashed by a number of extraordinary Guides who catalysed our conversations and opened doors for a special kind of sensemaking. We looked at the world, the missing peace with our home - the Earth. We looked at the worlds within us: The attachments we carry, the judgements, the doors we might still want to open within ourselves. There were moments when I stopped capturing words that usually accompany the images of my visual practise: What was, just was. In all its beauty, in all its sadness, in all its power. A new kind of fire within me was lit….
Julia
It has been an honour to travel with you all through time out of time. And remember David Whyte’s powerful words shared with us from Coleman’s Bed
"Live in this place as you were meant to and then, surprised by your abilities, become the ancestor of it all."
Beir Bua agus beannacht,
Kathy, Maria, Vanessa, Kieron, Julia and all at the Hedge School
Announcement
‘Gather round me women: Druidigí thart, a mhná'
As we navigate global uncertainty, The Trailblazery hosts a series of curated online experiences for women who need inspiration, encouragement, and connection in the times ahead. On June 2nd the Moon Medicine online series co-presents a live experience that explores the role of women and the use of lament and song in ritualising personal, local and global experiences of loss.
‘’Gather round me, women’’ will be led by Kathy Scott, (Creative Director of the Trailblazery) and Ceara Conway (visual artist, vocalist) with guest luminaries Angela Bourke (writer, Irish language scholar) and Marian Dunlea (Jungian analyst, somatics practitioner). This virtual gathering is part of the Feminist Supermarket at Ormston House, kindly supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.
Hedge School Highlights
Put on the kettle, make a cuppa and watch some golden moments from our Hedge School guides who remind us to mind ourselves, each other and this place we call home
Recommended Resources
Here are a few watching and listening pieces inspired by the Hedge School to mind you this week:
Places to visit
Kieron Concannon | https://www.kieronconcannon.com/
Julia Hoffmann | https://mosaics-circles.de/portfolio) / instagram (@juliamosaique)
Videos to Watch
The Hill of Uisneach with Marty Mulligan | The sacred centre of Ireland
President Michael D Higgins | Media Article
A Poem for Water - Lyla June | Short Film
Articles to Read
David Whyte Questions | Oprah
Lyla June | Reclaiming our Indigenous European roots