about
the natural school of art
how it is unfolding and becoming
What might we discover on your journey that gives you a spark; the spark of your creative curiosity, the spark of reconnection to something that might have once been very dear to you, the spark of insight which your attention to nature gives you? What can help you to nurture that going forward? When we lead with the heart the rest will follow.
I’ve walked a unique path of working within the mainstream education and health systems, while also embarking on one of energy healing, pilgrimage, listening to and simply being with horses.
I’ve received the wisdom of an oral tradition while also being a student of film, BA in Fine Art and an MA in Arts and Engagement in practical and academic contexts. I have built up useful frameworks and resources. I have felt and received from the spaces in-between.
I have learned to listen to my heart, and apply my practical mind in service to the heart.
For the past few years The Natural School of Art has been a safe container for me to grow, explore and listen to and learn from the communities I have worked with.
It is my intention for it to be a safe container for you too.
A space where you can listen to the quieter voice of your being and express yourself with this voice.
Can you speak with nature in your voice?
How do you move in the world this way?
My intention is to walk with you, and facilitate your own connection to your creativity in as deep a way that is right for you, being held by Nature as a co-facilitator. I am not here to teach you any dogma or to train you as a shaman or medicine person. That is not what I am called to do in this stage of my life, if ever. It is simply something that supports me, in my service to you as creative facilitator.
Nature Arts Facilitator, Shamanic Guide
meet siobhàn madden
What would it be like to really witness and hold space for another this way?
Begin by making a mark with a horse/deer hair brush, the leaves and the ink of the berries or the pigment of the stone.
let me hold this space for you
What would it be like to take away one sense? Would your other senses deepen?
What would it feel to experience your creative energy this way?
Chapters of My journey
A year after I finished secondary school, I was ready to start college. During that year off from studies, I did a Thursday evening portfolio preparation in NCAD. I just didn’t feel ready however. At the time I drew realistically and I wasn’t relating to contemporary art. There was no spark there for me just yet and I stopped going to the classes. Four years later, I had a renewed zest and began a new portfolio completing it in a very short time period.
But before that happened, I was drawn to the moving image, storyboarding, narrative, cinematography. I loved writing stories and visual language and so I decided to do filmmaking. Although it wasn’t a degree, and I did have the points for a BA if I wanted to, I decided to first do a Higher Diploma in BCFE (Balleyfermot College of Education) during the years 2010-2012. There weren't many options in filmmaking in Ireland, and I loved that BCFE did 16mm filmmaking; so actually shooting on reels of film- very old school!
I also loved how practical it was. It was a very fun experience. I actually love reading and research so I also enjoyed the essay side of it; I had the opportunity to explore surrealism, psychoanalysis, art direction and Carl Jung’s theories of archetypes and the collective unconscious through the lens of films. I was fascinated with the unseen world and how art allowed this to become visible.
When I finished, it felt too early. A flatness began to fall over me as I fell into a routine of working and going out. I wasn’t nurturing my creativity at all. I was feeling depressed some days and anxious on other days. I continued to read and journal however which gave me some solace. I wrote bits and pieces but everything seemed really fragmented.
Drawing became non-existent.
Art Education Journey (HD, BA, MA)
Julia Cameron’s ‘The Artists Way’ really helped here in uplifting me out of a rut.
In September 2014 I went back to college- this time to do my BA degree. I got the idea in November 2013 as a surge of excitement and clarity only 3 months before the portfolio deadline. So I dove into it. I really found the spark and did my portfolio for NCAD at home from the dining room table. I met with my sister's friend who is an art tutor for guidance, to make sure I wasn’t going off track, to check off my stuff and of course for inspiration and encouragement. I handed in the portfolio just in time. I was over the moon when I got the acceptance letter. The sense of accomplishment was very nourishing.
I valued the space and time I had at NCAD. I learned frameworks that I found supportive, and I encountered tutors who deepened my practice and those that hindered my practice. Both were learning curves. I could really reflect on the approach that nurtures creativity, and see clearly the approach that does not value it as sacred. I did have to spend a good bit of time healing creatively afterward, as unfortunately my last experience with a tutor was not so pleasant (I later learned he had actually been let go due to a volume of complaints over the years)
In my approach with others, I believe that seeing creativity as sacred, allows the space for this to be nurtured and grown. We might think of something sacred as very serious- but sacred does not mean the absence of play- for in fact play nurtures the inner child which is sacred.
Going in, I had planned to choose Fine Art Media, thinking this made sense after beginning my college life in Film. However I felt the desire to work directly with material as I found this more grounding for me. So instead of moving into the digital realm, I went ‘seemingly backward’ into the area of Fine Art Print. The first moving image came from print techniques after all!
Nurturing Creativity
After I completed my BA Honours Degree in Fine Art Print in 2017 I followed an interest in working with others through art. I was inspired by my research into Joseph Beuys and his ideas on social sculpture, energy dialogue and heart thinking. I was also inspired by older women artists around me such as the late Barbara O’Meara who worked with their communities in a very healing way through art. I trained with Jole Bortoli of Art to Heart ‘Working creatively with adults and children through the arts.’ which I found a very valuable experience. I also shadowed Jole during a 6 week programme at a Rehabilitation centre.
I had met someone on the course who was a Forest School Leader. She loved hearing my story in connection to my childhood stones, and had lent me a book called ‘Inspiration in Stones’. When I returned the book, I also left with a seed of curiosity about Forest School which I decided to train in 2020.
I birthed The Natural School of Art just before this which served as a holding space even for me, as I practiced my own art, continued my education and designed and delivered workshops in my local area.
In September 2022 I decided to do an MA in Arts and Engagement at Crawford College of Art and Design. For years I was considering Art Therapy. However this MA was really what I was looking for and it was very new; only in its second year of existence. It was at the intersection of health and education and rather than therapy in a clinical setting, it focused on working in social, community, health and educational settings.
It nurtured well-being and making visible people’s journeys and stories through art as well as highlighting social issues through art. Socially engaged art also seeks to provide these opportunities to people who may not have considered themselves an artist- practicing the very real human right to create, with people from all walks of life, abilities and socio-economic backgrounds. I chose arts and well-being as a speciality and eco-arts practice which really spoke to the container I had set up for my practice with people. It also fed my mental stimulation and love of research, reading and learning. I completed my MA in June 2024.
Early Beginnings of The Natural School of Art
During the period of time where I felt really in a rut after I had finished my course in film, I began receiving energy healing through the form of Reiki. The reiki practitioner told me that I had a lot of intuitive and creative energy and she strongly felt I had a future with healing or creativity or both combined. She asked me if I would like to be initiated into level 1 Reiki. This was a really profound experience for me. It was soon after this that I had the surge of energy that was right for me at the time- the idea to do a portfolio and go back to art school.
In divine timing, I did my level 2 training straight after handing in my portfolio in February 2014. The date for day 1 was literally the very day after the portfolio hand in. After this initiation, I kept having visions of animals.. Which was interesting! I had first heard of shamanism from a part irish part native american man whom I had met at a film festival I went to in Poland as a student in BCFE. He saw my wolf and feather tattoo and said that it was shamanic. He asked me if I would like to go to shamanic meetups in Dublin and asked me to say my name and email into a dictaphone.
I never heard from him however and I put it out of my mind. Around the time of the animal visions, I saw an image of a wolf at the Mind, Body and Soul exhibition at a shamanic stand and it returned to mind. I started to look up courses and was intrigued by one called Slí an Chroí (pathway to the heart) which was founded by husband and wife John Cantwell and Karen Ward. I liked that balance of male and female and I saw that there was an ‘Intro to Shamanism’ experience coming up very close to where I lived in Dublin City which I decided to venture on at the age of 23.
Introduction to Reiki
The experience of sitting in that circle, the wisdom shared, the connection to a stone and a journey to a power animal really stayed with me. I decided to invest in the medicine spiral training. It began in September 2014, as did my BA in Fine Art. The shamanic teacher John Cantwell told me that it was quite the norm for a person training as a shaman to also train as an artist ‘They drink from the same well’
The medicine spiral went on throughout the seasons of the year and I received deep medicine from the natural world.
I continued on to the Healer’s Spiral the following year but chose not to do the certified training. I wasn’t there to learn energy therapy and work with clients at the young age of 24 and 25. I still am not now, 10 years later. I was there for healing for myself and I spent many years since, integrating and reconnecting with some wonderful soul parts that had returned home to me.
Animal communication levels 1 and 2 is another energy healing which I had trained in 2021, that I now see integrating in my work as an artist in this space through my Heart Art offer.
In June 2024, I began a 10 year apprenticeship on the Beauty Way with the Temple of Eiriu. This path was first born in Ireland from the teachings of a part Native American (a mix of Navajo and Hopi I believe) part Celtic woman, who brought a reconnection to the sacred relationship with the land to Ireland decades ago. This will slowly unfold over time, but right now I am right at the start of my journey with this. I was given the medicine name ‘Horse Dreamkeeper’ by my teacher Dragún.
Shamanism, Animal Communication, The Beauty Way
When I was a child I was a real pony lover. I went horse riding every week, had a huge pile of pony magazines and posters on my wall, read a lot of horse themed books like Heartland and The Saddle Club and dreamed of a place like Heartland when I was an adult; a place where people and horses could heal.
When I was about 16 years old I started swapping my horse riding lessons for trips into Naas to see my friends. I lived in the countryside and I depended on lifts into the town to hang out with my friends. So horse-riding fell away and interest in boys and ‘normal teenage stuff’ took over. I was definitely a moody teenager. Although I was full of jokes, I was also very miserable and struggled with my mental health and well-being. I really lost a huge part of myself. Luckily at this stage I still had my connection with art to keep me going.
In 2016, I went on my first pilgrim experience with Brigid’s Way along the Curragh. I kept finding little toy horses on the route. One of them was the exact same one I had as a child. I feel like this was such a direct connection to my childhood and what I loved as a child that this experience paired with a soul retrieval I received around the same time from one of the other ‘tribe sisters’ on the Healer’s Spiral path, fed some very positive ideas. With another surge of inspired energy, I went on a workaway to Tuscany in Italy to care for a herd of horses at a Natural Horsemanship Association.
My Beginnings with Horses
It truly was instant reconnection. The peace and serenity was so palpable that first sunny morning with the horses. It felt like the birth of a new baby. Fiona was the first horse to greet me, standing still next to me. I was there, standing still with this herd and time felt slow and full. I still feel so full in moments like this with the horses. Interestingly Fiona is an Irish name. I also had a toy horse I had named Fiona when I was a child. She was a yellow My Little Pony with pink hair. Although Fiona was of course not this colour- I myself certainly did sport both pink and bright yellow hair during these years!
I ended up adopting Fiona in 2017 and as soon as I had finished my BA that year, I went straight back over to the herd. I became very conscious of my body language and energy in relation to horses and I really found so much solace in their silent language. I chose not to go to my graduation and instead spent my time in Italy enjoying the cooler weather of November and the orange leaves with the herd on the rolling Tuscan Hills.
At the very beginning of 2018 I began volunteering at My Lovely Horse Rescue in Ireland. I heard about it from a video of a horse named Polly who had fallen into the Dublin Royal Canal during Storm Opheila in October 2017. When I wasn’t in Ireland at the centre or working, I was back with the herd in Italy.
Meeting Fiona
I took multiple trips that year- taking advantage of cheap Ryanair sales. I am sure my carbon footprint in 2018 was not so good. In the centre I gave reiki to a horse named Lorraine who was scheduled to be euthanised under the vets recommendation. It was actually Polly who seemed to almost guide me into her stall.
She had cushings, was prone to laminitis, had poor motor condition, her back was dipped from overbreeding and her leg was not set correctly from a break. My intention was to give her some Reiki for comfort. A couple of days later, a volunteer reached out to me and told me that she broke out of her stall, was moving around fine, willing to socialise with other horses (although quite fiercely at first) and had a new zest for life. They asked me to continue reiki with her and asked the vet to give her another chance. From working with Lorraine I was intuitively led (I think it was Lorraine!) to learning Zoophamacognosy (animal medicinal knowing) and it was from her self-selection with herbs and oils that she is the first recorded horse to be cured of Cushing's disease. Sounds unbelievable but it is indeed true!
Herself and Polly got on and so they were kept together. In fact they have been living with me in the West Wicklow Hills since 2020! The year I also became a mother.
In 2021 Fiona became blind…quite suddenly. I raised money through go funding for wooden fencing for her but I could only raise enough for bamboo poles and 2 years later they looked like they were redy to fall down. At this time too, there was a real shift in the dynamic, Fiona had separated herself from the herd and I felt a sense of closure during my visit to the Tuscan herd in September 2023. With the help of family and an animal communicator Fiona travelled all the way to Ireland where she now lives in the West Wicklow Hills.
She is ready to teach people through her presence a new perspective of being with horses.
Horses & Healing
It was Lorraine, whom I call Rainbow, who brought me to a deepened relationship with plants. From working on her (and indeed Polly was a huge part of that) I learned about plants medicinally. I was so sensitive to the essential oils, I was also so intuitive.
I just seemed to know, to hear almost, which ones to offer.
I could also feel it in my body what the horse wanted me to offer. I don’t think I’m as sharp with it now as I was in the beginning because I didn’t keep following the path directly. Or maybe because a tap had opened and it flooded into awareness at the beginning- a bit like when I had all those animal visions before I started my shamanic training. Through the offering, I learned what plants were often selected for what and I dove into this through training with Whitethorn Herbals.
In the first training- Equine First Aid, I slept in a tent in the middle of the stone circle at the site in Sligo. I dreamt rather vividly of Yarrow which I find to be one of the most powerful healing plants. Yarrow pointed like an arrow to the achilles heel, (with the latin name Achillea millefolium) shoots right to the root of a problem both emotionally and physically.
Introduction to Healing with plants
Another kind of Yarrow- Yarrow ‘Golden Cloth’ with more fern like leaves was the first dye plant we put in the dye garden patch on Summer Solstice 2023 in Tearmann Community Gardens, yielding a rich shade of yellow and attracting the mascot of the garden- the ladybird.
Indeed my art practice brought another layer of attention with plants- through form, mark making, fibre and colour extracted. The unseen language I had experienced with the horses and plants was becoming visible as well as felt. The olfactory was a common thread in both and it was becoming clear that plants were a bridge between horses and art in my life.
I grew up with a father who knows so much about plants- it is his passion and he teaches both children and adults about plants through environmental education and gardening. I believe things I didn’t think stuck as a child, did seem to come back to me. I have much to learn so I don’t consider myself an expert. I am however surprised that I seem to retain information about plants better than I thought. Sometimes I can get confused as an expert which I need to keep reminding people that I’m not! I do have some knowledge to share in educational and Forest School Settings however and I am happy to do so. I encourage you to share what you know too. For I believe we inherit more knowledge than we think.
Through Forest School training and experiencing the learning games myself, I also learned a whole lot more about plants and trees. I was able to apply this knowledge in other settings- even when I found myself as a hiking guide during 2022 and as a pilgrim guide. I think walks are a great way to talk about plants as we pass by so many on the hedgerows that we could normally just zoom by.
Plants and Art
My very first job was filling a few Saturdays, filling in for a friend as an art assistant in Art Zone.
When I finished secondary school I wanted to take a year break before deciding what course I wanted to do in college. I got a job as an SNA at my former primary school when I had finished my secondary school education. I helped out in the third class assisting two children with ADHD. The teacher of the class asked me to take over Friday Art classes. From day 1, I felt the aliveness in providing inspiration with a reflective element, first in connection to colour. There was a freedom in following my own intuition and the interest of the children.
In the second year of my Higher Dip in Film, I also did my FETAC training in Health Care. I got a job as an On Call Health Care Assistant. This suited me as a student in particular as I could choose the days I was available to work. In fact it was normally night shifts when I worked. This has always been something important to me- choosing my own work schedule. During this time I also had paid gigs as a Hair model and a cinematographer. These were never things I went out of my way to get but I was always delighted to work in creative ways.
There were pros and cons to the role of Health Care Assistant. I liked hearing people’s stories, providing comfort in small and big ways, and on quiet nights I was even able to read my book. However a lot of the time it could be 1:1 with very restless patients who did not want to sleep and often due to dementia didn’t know where they were and it wasn’t always easy to provide comfort. It was a challenging job and I did it for nearly a decade until an injury from work from quite an aggressive patient resulted in healing from trauma and miscarriage. I took a long period of time off work and had sensory-motor therapy to heal.
Working in Health Care
From that point I felt like I wasn’t helping in those situations. There was nowhere for these people to go and there was no outlet in the midst of the night. I wanted to create a space where I felt I could help with my service. It motivated me to take a closer look at my life and begin to form something I really wanted to offer and create in the world with my work. I reached out to a woman named Maureen Simon whom I had met in 2016 at a shamanic gathering called ‘Rising of the Heart’. I remember she had given me her card after she saw a short art video I made in relation to journey and sense of place. She said she felt like I had something to say and share and to contact her sometime. So I did- 3 years later in 2019.
Through her soul-led coaching she got me to dig deep through reflective questions she called ‘Soul-Work’. The name The Natural School of Art came to me after a vision quest in the presence of horses. I shared it with her and all the components of the soul work felt like it was clicking into place. I also moved at my own pace with this.
In 2020 I delivered my first workshop with a Moon Mná theme of Brigid’s Fire Blessing which I held locally in the Lalor Centre Baltinglass. I was truly enlivened afterward. I did have to cancel an intro to nature art and well-being workshop which I had booked to run in the Fumbally Stables, Dublin. The most life transforming role came to me that year- becoming a mother to Ayla. Over the following 2 year period, I mainly focused on early motherhood, though also completing Forest School training including the 6 pilot sessions. I also tested once off workshops called ‘Wild immersions’ and ‘Inner Goddess’ (both through nature art) in response to the late Barbara O’Mearas series of Goddess paintings inspired by women she knew.
I tended to my practice; creating brushes, natural inks and paints, mark making, wild clay vessels etc. I also kept The Natural School of Art alive that year with my series of podcast episodes called ‘Liberate a Horse-Liberate Yourself’.
Soul Coaching + Becoming a Mother
For bread and butter in late 2021 I took a Winter job caring for horses. When the winter had passed, I took a job as a gardener and hiking guide at a peaceful rural holiday retreat. I wanted my bread and butter jobs in this period to be ones that still served my vision with The Natural School of Art in some way. The experience got me back into the community again after Covid and focusing on early family life. I enjoyed the immersions through the woods, sharing knowledge on plants and trees, hearing people’s stories, connecting with Nature and sowing seeds as people unwinded into their getaways.
The place was going to sell however, so I had to leave the job but it was right when I began my MA. I delivered my first 6 week block of Playful Pines Parent and Toddler Forest School in this period, and worked further with preschools with Christmas Nature Arts and Crafts supported by Wicklow Childcare. I also did a bit more video work.
I took a job for a couple of seasons at a local homeschool Forest School. I was delighted that in all of these Forest school experiences during the time I was able to bring Ayla or go to her myself in her own preschool. I had done a case study as part of my MA on the reggio emilia approach and I could experience the real practical case of this through my work in preschools and observing how my daughter found meaning through mark making in her toddlerhood and preschool age.
My work with the community began to seed and sprout when having received the Seed funding Award with Creative Places in 2023.
I was delighted to dive straight into an Artists Residency with Respond Housing with support from Wicklow Arts Office and Creative Ireland once my MA was completed in 2024 I also got on the Heritage in Schools panel and began work with them in January 2025. Another exciting project came about this year with natural dyes and direct provision groups.
As my daughter begins school, myself and The Natural School of Art also step into the next level of offerings, weaving together collaborations with other locals and applying First Class education and professional experiences since this container was born.
Leading to Community Work
In 2016, while still an art student, the year I completed the Healer’s Spiral, and the year I reconnected to horses and in a whole new way too… I also embarked on a pilgrimage. The first was experiencing a one day route with Brigid’s Way Route 9. Walking across the Curragh, in this beautifully held way, feeling the soft earth under my feet, chatting with others we all meet together on this journey in a particular space and time, passing through, soul to soul, feet on earth, spirit present. I kept finding little toy horses. Perhaps it was because I was on the Curragh where horses race, and young children may have brought their toys to play and left them behind. In any case it was me who kept finding them. The woman next to me said ‘I think these are for you…I message’. One in particular sparked a direct connection to childhood. It was a toy I had when I was a child.
These little totems did indeed spark my reconnection to horses and real life in that same year, 2016. From this year to 2023 I made repeated visits to the Tuscan herd. As I adopted one of the horses, Fiona, I made these trips to visit her. Whenever I embarked on this journey I felt like I was stripping away many things. Looking back on it, it felt like a quest, a quest to a holy place. The holy place for me was the sacred time I spent with these horses in the hills and the distance I went to visit them each time. The majority of time I spent with them was totally immersed. I would spend hours just standing with them and moving with them. I went weeks without going on social media. It was very personal to me to pair it as a pilgrimage, but that's what it was. It was spiritually fulfilling, it was stepping into a relationship in a new and inspired way with not only myself, but something much bigger than myself.
Brigid's Way
For the first 4 years, mid September around Autumn Equinox, I ended each long stay by voyaging down to the South of Italy and getting a boat across to Ginostra. A very small roadless village on the active volcanic island of Stromboli. It was an art journey ‘Journey to the senses’ held by Jole Bortoli of Art to Heart.
I can feel the memory of the light enveloping me, the white stucco houses, prickly pairs and donkeys with luggage. I can smell the coffee and the food, I can see the veranda with the smell of geranium and the view of the other Aeolian islands underneath and mirroring the cluster of the pleiades star constellation ‘The 7 sisters’. I remember getting so engrossed in painting. There was no judgement, there was space. Real palpable space to make art and in the presence of others, held so beautifully. Jole knew just when to step in, and when to stand back.
Each year the experience was described by the group as an ‘Art Pilgrimage’.
In 2018, I stayed a few days extra myself, I remember listening to a song by Xavier Rudd called ‘Gather the Hands’ and as I danced across the open veranda that night, I turned around at the exact moment the words sang ‘Sing for love, sing up the heavens let it rain down on us all’ and I saw the volcano erupt for the view on the balcony with lava springing up like fiery star dust as if in slow motion and falling down again in slow motion at ‘let it rain down on us all’. It was a moment that took my breath away and stayed with me. The volcano actually erupted many times that night and I stayed up until all hours. Every 15 minutes, normally it was blocked from view, and you had to walk up and around the mountain to a viewing point where you may or may not see it, depending on the size of the eruptions or go by boat to see it from the sea.
Italy
The following year in 2019, there were two really big violent eruptions which killed a hiker. It also killed the wonderful donkey Rocko who had travelled our stuff up all those years. It opened up another crater. It wasn’t too long before our Art to Heart experience, the usually 10 minute eruptions were higher than normal and there was a lot of falling ash still happening over the island.
Jole made the call to move this trip to one of the other islands- Fillicudi. On the way back towards the mainland however, I got off the boat at Ginsostra and met my boyfriend at the time, who was waiting there by one of the smallest ports in the world. Our little apartment was up even higher that year and with the new crater open we got a repeated full view show of eruptions. You could even see the eruptions from the bottom of the village square. The marvel on that first night was seeing the moon rise from through the crater. Moonlight and fire at once. It was magical. The following year it was Covid and there have been no Art to Heart trips since. I haven’t been back since, but it will always stay with me. The volcano was named Iddu and people accepted that they lived close to death. There was a liberating peace in that acceptance and a closer relationship to life.
My time with Art to Heart on Ginsotra really inspired the creation of The Natural School of Art and it is my intention to hold space to connect to wonder, beauty and the senses and a space free of judgement to make art.
Volcanoes
Looking back on the first Brigid’s Way experience, I recall that I volunteered on the spot to be a sweeper that year- the person that stays at the back with a flag to make visible that we have everyone on the walk.
Volunteering for Brigid’s Way raised itself again to me through an email invitation to become a ‘Brigid’s Way Firekeeper’, keeping the metaphorical flame lit for this ancient pathway. I volunteered to lead Route 7 of the walk which I did in 2022 and 2023. The route was the theme of Wonder, Beauty and Enchantment and it began at a forest that I spent a good bit of time at when I was a child- Donadea Forest in Prosperous, Co. Kildare.
In 2025, I volunteered to lead all 9 routes of the pilgrimage spread out over 9 months so from February 2025 to October 2025. This has been a consistent thread of value to me this year amongst much change. I have met some wonderful people and heard their stories and developed a deeper relationship to pilgrimage. I know this experience will continue to deepen and unfold long after we arrive at Brigid’s Fire Temple in Co. Kildare. For me this is a commitment, a vow to step into a relationship with land, spirit and self. It coincides with the ceremony of Vision Quest I went on this year as part of my Apprenticeship. One of the mantras that stayed with me during this night long quest was ‘I walk with beauty, I walk with heart’ . I can feel the embodiment of this as I walk on pilgrimage. In the role of a leader, I commit to this as a vow also ‘I lead with heart, I lead with beauty’.
Walk with Beauty
In August of 2025, I went to my ancestral land of East Clare. My Uncle Ger Madden brings people on his boat each day to Holy Island on Lough Derg. Myself, my Dad and my daughter went with him on his boat to Holy Island. This place ignited a deep remembering in my bones; honouring pilgrimage. It is a place of pilgrimage, which includes a pattern around monuments that pilgrims used to walk each year- a movement ritual. I felt a renewed and deepened value of my role as Brigid’s Way Firekeeper, leading the pilgrims on the 9 routes. I came across a Brideóg (a Bridgid medicine doll) holding space in the tree by the Women’s Well. It was at this well that the remembrance in my bones really began to stir.
I am excited to now team up with Nicky, who has been on so many of my previous offerings, and who has joined me as sweeper on each of the 9 routes this year. Nicky is a walking tour guide of the untamed places on our local hill Kilranelagh. It is this hill that I lived on for a couple of years. I labored the birth of my daughter here and first became guardian to the mares Polly and Rainbow. I also hosted a number of wild art immersive workshops here. Fiona now lives at the bottom of this hill and it is across from where the woodland journeys are currently held.
This hill holds so many sacred and ancient monuments, captivating folklore and a wildness that is enchanting. We are looking forward to meeting the Wild Pilgrims for an art-making guided journey.
People in the past used to go on a long spiritual voyage, pilgrimage, and at the end of the route, they would take with them an item which would hold the energy of their voyage. Something became blurred in the years where the voyage became more focused on the destination and on the object attained.
It is time to restore the relationship to one where walking in the present moment with intention to unfold, is one of a living relationship with land and spirit that continues long after the destination has been reached. The art making and the totem do become anchor points, but not an object of trophy.
They become part of the unfolding energy dialogue of your journey.
Full Circle
