SUNDAY 27TH NOVEMBER 7.30 - 9.30 GMT LONDON / 2.30 - 4.30 EASTERN US
Join me for an evening honoring the oldest deity in Gaelic belief, the Cailleach. We will use two folklore stories of the Cailleach as a way of honoring and engaging with our grief.
The Whirlpool of Corryvrecken
With a guided story and drumming your invited to enter into the churning waters of the Cailleach’s Cauldron, the Whirlpool of Corryvrecken. This is the place that the old crone visits ever Samhain to wash her plaid, as she lowers it into the waters she performs her age-old ritual of bringing the land into winter. The symbolism of the water offers a breaking down as well as a reforming as a ritual of rebirth and a perfect place to bring your personal threads of grief.
2. The Shrine of the Cailleach
For the second story we will gather at the Shrine of the Cailleach, Tigh na Bodach in Glen Cailleach, near Glen Lyon in Perthshire, Scotland. You’ll be invited to join the women as the stones of the shrine are packed up for the winter. This is an invitation to add something to the shrine, which will be held in this sacred site for the dark months.
Then following this story will will move into some music for our keening circle and personal lamenting.
I’ll share my own personal story of my relationship with the Cailleach, from meeting her in the lands around Loch Lomond when I was around 13 to now when she is my midwife for menopause. I’ll also discuss how we can work with the Cailleach as a midwife in general and as our inspiration for a new world.
CAILLEACH ORACLE DOLL
You’ll take some threads of inspiration from the stories and weave them together in making an oracle doll from sticks, stones or bones, embellishing with wool, shells or feathers - or whatever materials you have access to.
This is your connection to the Cailleach as well as acknowledging the Old Woman of the Land you live on. A ritual to tend to your doll throughout the winter months before her renewal at Spring Equinox.
Cost
The cost for attending this gathering is £25, which is $USD 29.50. Prices are in USD $ but you will be charged in your local currency.
Once you sign up you’ll receive an email with some class details - things to bring, oracle doll information as well as the Zoom invitation. You will also be sent a reminder email the day before the class.
PLEASE NOTE you will be emailed class information to the email you used for PayPal. If you wish the information to be sent to another email please contact me here
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Your Guide
Jude Lally is an artist and writer with a background in Human Ecology. Her work explores connection to the land through art, story and ritual.
A Radical Doll Maker viewing her art as part of a practice that stretches back to the first dolls fashioned from bones and stones – such as the Woman of Willendorf. She uses dolls as a way of connecting to ancestral figures and exploring the wisdom they represent. As a painter her work is born between the worlds and she creates ancestral figures whose images incorporate local soils.
Through Cultural Activist she draws upon the rich tapestry of her heritage offering ancestral practices such as Keening, which when used in a modern setting can help to honor the grief we feel for all that is happening in the world. In using keening in this cathartic way she uses gestures of ritual which help inspire to work in creative ways in acts of resistance, working towards a restorative culture.
Her tradition is the Ancestral Mothers of Scotland which is born out of her deep rooted connection to the land. She lives on the West Coast of Scotland on the banks of the River Clyde, near Loch Lomond.