The Nudge│Dispatch 6
Welcome to The Nudge | Lughnasa 2022
This seasonal care package has been prepared by The Trailblazery team.
Share The Nudge with someone you love
Dancing as if language had surrendered to movement - as if this ritual, this wordless ceremony, was now the way to speak, to whisper private and sacred things, to be in touch with some otherness. Dancing as if the very heart of life and all its hopes might be found in those assuaging notes and those hushed rhythms and in those silent and hypnotic movements. Dancing as if language no longer existed because words were no longer necessary...”
- Brian Friel , Dancing at Lughnasa
Dear Friends,
We are delighted to prepare our latest care package for you, The Nudge, to coincide with the great festival of Lughnasa on August 01. This was a time of great celebration and thanksgiving for the ancients of this land. We will be taking some time to pause, reflect, give thanks and rest during the month of August/ Lughnasa here at The Trailblazery HQ
Lughnasa is one of the four great fire festivals of the Celtic year, celebrated with plenty of special Lughnasa rituals and symbols. It is the threshold into a new season of the harvest, marking the end of Summer and the start of Autumn. The name Lughnasa means the ‘Assembly of Lugh’, the great Celtic God and the hero Lugh is at the centre of the celebrations. The festival of Lughnasa celebrates the richness of the harvest, victory over darkness and the fruits of that victory. It was a time when the Tribes assembled to honour and give thanks to the land for a bountiful yield which would sustain them during the dark winter. The festival brought some days of rest and respite before the heavy work of harvest would kick off. The energies of this time are gathering, appreciation, joy, wildness and exuberance.
May the Force be with you
Celtic mythology centred on the dance of opposing forces – light and dark, good and evil, birth and death, planting and harvest. The story of Lugh is an archetypal myth that has cropped up in many modern stories; probably the best known version around today is the original Star Wars film. George Lucas, was inspired by these opposing forces in Celtic mythology and morphed the Sword-of-Light-wielding Celtic warrior Lugh into the light-saber-wielding Star Wars hero Luke Skywalker.
Dancing at Lughnasa
George Lucas is not the only writer who has been inspired by the importance of Lugh in Irish folk tradition. On April 24, 1990, Dancing at Lughnasa premiered at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Written by Brian Friel, the play summons back the memories of the end of the summer of 1936 on the eve of the celebration of Lugh, the god of light and fire and music and dance, the women of the house share strong bonds of love and courage in moments of joy as well as loss that the memory of them.
A special Lughnasa Gift from us to you.
Create some special time to honour and celebrate this festival of Lughnasa. By clicking the button below, you'll receive access to a very special Immram journey into the portal of Lughnasa led by Kathy. This experience is 26 minutes long. Find a comfortable space to lie down, relax and receive.
WHAT'S ON
TONIGHT
Hedge School | Lughnasa call:
“About Trees | Finding our Roots in order to Rise”
Join us online TONIGHT (Sun 31 July) for the last call in our Summer Programme for Hedge School - a cultural immersion to mark the feast of Lughnasa. At 7pm Irish time, we will host “About Trees | Finding our Roots in order to Rise” where we will be guided by Katie Holten {artist, activist, author and creator of The Irish Tree Alphabet} with music by Caimin Gilmore {musician, composer, instrumentalist}.
Cost for tonight’s event is €33, with a season ticket with access to the recordings of all 3 calls costing €88. If you can’t attend live tonight, the 90 minute call will be recorded and sent out within 24 hours.
Journal Prompts to inspire you at Lughnasa
🌸 What are you enJOYing at this time?
🌸 How do you source pleasure in your life?
🌸 What gifts are you harvesting?
🌸 What challenges are you releasing?
🌸 What would you like to amplify?
🌸 What are you celebrating?
🌸 What are three things that are unique to you that you appreciate about yourself?
🌸 What is the gift that you bring to the world and is now ready to be
harvested?
🌸 What are you most grateful for at this time?
🌸 What are you saying yes to?
What’s coming up over the next
6 weeks at The Trailblazery:
As the Great Wheel turns yet again, we are invited to pause and remember what we have traveled through together. We are excited to let you know what we have coming up for you over the next 6 weeks here at The Trailblazery.
Moon Medicine
Our monthly gatherings, which moved online in 2020, align with the lunar cycle. We meet around every Full Moon and welcome inspiring guest luminaries to share her story, experience and wisdom with us. We also invite extraordinary musicians and performers to play at our gatherings. This is an opportunity to illuminate and celebrate our creative life force and sovereignty.
We are taking a little break with Moon Medicine for the month of August, but tickets for our September gathering will go on sale on Friday, 26 August. Cost is €25. We offer a limited number of free spots each month for those who need it.
If you haven’t already, you can sign up to our Moon Medicine mailing list here to be informed of all upcoming events.
Recommended Resources
Here are a few reading, watching and listening pieces to nourish your senses in the days ahead:
♪ Listen: For your ears
Music for meditation and relaxation at this time of year
Lughnasa Album
✦ Smell: For your Nose
This collection from Wild Grace in honour of Lughnasa - the harvest festival in Ireland - celebrates slow beauty, the ebb + flow of the Earth's rhythms, and the harnessing of Summer's fire.
Lughnasa Collection
✯ Watch: For your eyes
Watch the screen adaption of Brian Friel's 'Dancing at Lughnasa' led by Meryl Streep. Women are at the very heart of this much-loved play, set in Co Donegal in 1936 during the Celtic harvest festival of Lughnasa. Famously, Friel dedicated it to his own aunts, “those five brave Glenties women”.
❤ Read: For your heart
The Festival of Lughnasa by Máire MacNeill
The Festival of Lughnasa – subtitled: A Study of the Survival of the Celtic Festival of the Beginning of Harvest, written by Máire MacNeill and published in 1962. It’s one of the most comprehensive works on Irish folklore that we have yet come across.
Celtic Rituals by Alexei Kondratiev
This is a wonderful resource on the essence of the festivals and the rituals of the Wheel of the year
✬ Connect: For your Soul
Nights of Grief & Mystery - Orphan Wisdom
Nights of Grief and Mystery with Stephen Jenkinson comes to Ireland in September. "Concerts for Turbulent Times" they surely are. We aren’t poets, maybe, but the evenings are poetic. They are musical and grave and raucous and stilling, which probably means they are theatrical. They are nights in which love letters to life are written and read aloud. There’s some boldness in them
❤ Touch: For your pleasure
'Fite Fuaite' is a high quality woven piece of textile art that artist Eimear Alice designed for her final year project, as a visual response to this term which means 'intertwined'.
EnJOY these days - may the brightening light be yours.
Thank you for walking this path with us,
Beannachtaí agus Beir Bua
Kathy and all at The Trailblazery