Samhain is the beginning of the Celtic New Year, the point of turning at which the cycle of life begins again, after the harvest comes the incubation from which all new life emerges.
It is also the day on which the veil between the worlds is at its thinnest, when the spirits can come visit us most easily and when, perhaps, we can see into their realm.
Else where this has become Halloween, and for most of us passes with no more significance
Where better to be on this important day than in deepest Ireland, not far from the seat of the Irish Kings of old, with 49 people who want to help create a new dream in Ireland and in the world.
I’ve got to tell you about Agnes, Dervilla, Luarena and Mary, four Sisters of Mercy, a religious order of Catholic women who give their lives to serving the poor. Since 1821 this order have been serving the disadvantaged, first in Dublin and then rapidly expanding their ministry into places of need around the world. More recently these women have had the insight to include our increasingly poor and needy planet in their work. So when they found the work of the Pachamama Alliance (Bringing forth an environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling and socially just human presence) they saw this as a thoroughly modern and necessary expression of their ministry, encompassing their compassion for the oppressed and excluded,, their newly found concern for our environment and of course their knowing that at peace with ourselves and whatever we regard to be the source of life we can attend to these other needs.
So the four sisters had trained to deliver the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium and taken it into their communities across Ireland. Just a few months and 11 events later they had 45 others inspired to train up to take the Symposium off into their own communities – and a waiting list of 20 or so more.
Our timing was auspicious indeed; we convened on Samhain, studied all the next day, All Saints Day, celebrated mass and studied more on All Souls Day and finished the next day as the sun set on autumn splendour. In these days we shared, sang, danced, laughed and cried and brought through as committed and deep a group as I have seen anywhere
The space was soon full of love, community, song, Irish wit and an abundance of poetry; we had a container in which all experienced a deep sense of connection, belonging and the birth of a new possibility for the individuals and for the group assembled. Once again it was clear that planting deep roots will serve us well in creating a unique and powerful expression of this work in a new country.
The group named themselves Aisling na Cruinne – which translates from the Gaelic as the Dream/Vision of the Universe (its pronounced Ash-ling na crin-eh) – what a vision.
