Cailleach

In the final episode of the system thread, I explain why, for the most part, I have kept politics and specific affiliations out of exploring system alternatives. I attempt to integrate several of the previous episodes in this thread into a vision of empowered community adaptation and innovation that includes all voices and addresses hierarchical and power imbalances.

I read the final chapters and bring the story to its conclusion. I then reflect on what I was trying to explore through the creation of this narrative when I wrote it, and what I would perhaps change today, and invite creative collaborators to get in touch if they think there's merit in working together to further develop the ideas contained within the novel.

Final interview of the series by request from some listeners, is with Mike Cahn, my partner in life and many projects. In this episode, he tells us about his "aha" moment when he began to consciously question the mainstream system and its values, while also talking about some of the things in his upbringing which prepared him for that moment and guided him where to go afterwards. We then talk about how our shared journeys led to the foundation of Carraig Dulra.

Samhain is a time of letting go. The leaves fall and sap stops flowing. This meditation draws you down to rest, where things can flow underneath like the stored fertility in the soil and the unconscious dreaming of winter.

Gathering in ideas and materials throughout the year, this final episode on practical skills encourgages a stock-take of existing materials and projects, to see what you have in store and what you have enjoyed doing. It then suggests a few more ideas for crafts and outdoor work for winter days and nigh

I have been using development as a frame for exploring what is optimal and what happens if there are interruptions or barriers. In this final episode, I summarise the phases of development that I've covered so far using Piaget stages and finish up with the later stages of adulthood that I am sitting between now in my own life.

In this final episode, I conclude my explorations of where my formative years have brought me, almost up to date with parts of my life that are still playing out today. You can read more about the trips I reference: Visiting people and projects in Europe while WWOOFing Driving to Mongolia for charity and visiting projects

In this final episode of the thread about those that have lived on the islands of Ireland since humans first came here, I sum up the themes explored. The common thread is adaptation and integration with the changing landscape and ecology and human migrations.  This is something that we must continue today to face our survival challenges. After all it is because of our ancestors adapting to survive that we are here today.

In the ancestors thread, I am not looking to replicate the vast work by scholars of Ireland, who know a great deal more than me about the many peoples that came to our shores over millenia. I do lean on snippets of their knowledge, as I try to imagine the lived experience of our predecessors through the lens of the resource base and annual cycles. In this episode, I discuss the diversity of diet for forest dwelling hunter gatherers and the change to farming culture. I touch on harvest time exchanges and storing up to prepare for winter, and the accounting or calling to account of another year's growth that evolves with agriculture.

In this interview with Steve Golemboski-Byrne of Lackan Cottage (recorded a few years ago), he shares his journey from the career and life he left to create a permaculture lifestyle and livelihood. Steve now inspires an empowers others to consider resilience, off-grid living and community connections.

This episode follows my journey as a young adult as I continue to explore and find niches to grow into.  I return to the US to study art therapy and develop my relationship with Mike when I graduate we also get married before moving to Ireland where I try to pioneer art therapy in different organisations. We decide to stay, settle and start a family. I explore the forces that influence our choices in these years and the moment we begin to resist where they have led us and how we set off with kids and a dog in a campervan for a year. 

This short meditation is about gathering in your own harvest of a day, a week, a month, a season or a year. It aims to help you notice, celebrate, appreciate or let go. As things come to fruition in your life, whatever form they take, what can be gleaned?

When harvest is in full swing, the practical skills are linked to its abundance. In this episode, I start with simple seed savings and preserving methods, and then share some of the creative crafts associated with autumn that I did with my children.

Jules begins her right of passage on her own, but when she joins the community of women, Rowan is witness to it all and hears a magical story.

This thread has focused on alternative structures and frameworks to bring about system change, in particular, regenerative systems. In this episode, I explore how a foundation in the basics of ecology and ecological intelligence can support this work.

Continuing through the lens of development to help identify needs that may remain at any stage of life, this episode explores young adulthood.  I focus on the impulse to both create and to seek out expression of others. The sound and stories of each generation come to life as they face the challenges of becoming adults. In addition, I explore the need for personal adornment and display, through examples in nature such as the little Bower bird and its collecting of bling to show off to prospective mates.

First fruits - time of harvest's beginings: for me, it helps to tune in to what our ancestors knew through the same patterns of seasonal activities on this land. I explore more about lughnasa and some of the wild celebrations that came about during the life or death harvest season when the community would know whether the crops would be enough to sustain them for another year. Listen notes

As I grew into young adulthood in the late 1980s in Ireland, I found refuge from the prevailing social norms in the experimental space of Limerick Art College. My first two years drained my pockets and my self so much that I took a break to au pair in America, gaining new perspectives and a life companion. On return to Limerick, I started to get involved in environmental, but especially social change, encountering feminist activism as a volunteer in the Rape Crisis Centre. Listen notes

I've been learning, collaborating, teaching and having fun with Hannah Mole of Earthcare since I met her while teaching Greenworks Permaculture courses more than 10 years ago. I appreciate her avoidance of dogma by continually questioning any bubble or worldview. At the same time, Hannah's actions in the world of Permaculture contribute to land and community regeneration in Ireland. Listen notes

Drawing on the energies of first fruits celebrated at Lughnasa, this meditation seeks to help you nurture, appreciate and harvest anything that is fruitful in your life at any time of year. Listen notes

One of the things that I appreciate about traditional crafts is the thriftyness of finding a use for every part of materials from nature. In this episode, I talk about the strawy parts of plants left over when seeds and bulbs are harvested. Lughnasa crafts often involved the use of these. I also share some ideas of what to do with the first fruits of harvest, using preserving methods such as dehydration, jams and freezing. This is the last chance to plant for winter crops, so  I give some pointers for avoiding weeds and what else to do in the garden to help your harvest be abundant. Listen notes

As the two main characters spend time together, after their meeting at the river, their conversation explores their opposing worldviews of technotopia vs a nature spirit based culture. They arrive into the gathering of women as Jules prepares for her young women's rite of passage. I look back at this story from my present vantage point and try to articulate what I sought to explore with it. Listen notes

The episodes in this thread are a kind of recipe of ingredients for a regenerative community-led, just society. In this episode, I discuss the Co-operative movement, because it holds nuggets of wisdom about how collaboration can be structured and fair shares distributed. Listen notes

In each of these episodes in the Wellbeing thread, I'm using thoughts about developmental stages, and the needs that emerge in them, to highlight needs that may still be present for adults. In this episode, that path is getting closer towards adulthood, as I explore the stage of life when children leave childhood and begin early adolescence. This is a stage characterised by testing elements of identity and ability in a wider world and beginning to receive ever-expanding feedback from that world. Listen notes

Claire Templar came to Ireland inspired to find a new lifestyle in a cottage in the west of Ireland. This interview is from her early times there, after just 20 months. You can get an update on where she has got to since at Wild Acres Farm, by following her updates on Facebook and Instagram.

Baby teens and their mentors, finding the way into identity exploration is the territory of this episode. It may help if you are looking to have some perspective as a parent or someone working with that age group or perhaps the lessons from that time might help your current wellbeing foundations.

How have we used means of exchange over the centuries and where money came into the story is explored in this episode. What do money and manure have in common and how what are the alternatives that build community in use around the world and in Ireland today?

Continuing on the edges of real world magic, and how Jules can use ungated awareness to try to heal and connect to Rowen, the story continues.

Linked to the thread on Ancestors, I decided to explore the pratical skill of working with plant fibres and wool and the basis for understanding how to play with them for all manner of craft work. This episode also follows the stage of garden care as summer growth comes in: Chop and drop and weed control and planting out bigger plants.

Solstice is the traditional time, as the sun stands still, for us to stop and stand still too. This short mediation can be used at any time of year or day or week that you need to stop and tune in

As I finished secondary school and prepared to step into the adult world, I took a formative trip to Nigeria to visit the home of a school friend. I came back and spent another summer working in the North, before finally entering the den of iniquity and wildness that was 1980s art college life.

When we think of the images associated with our past, the colours of the landscape weave through the people, their dwellings and their clothes. In this episode, I explore why that is, through the lens of fibre. The fibres that come from plants and animals, how they led to traditions of spinning and weaving in particular.

As children grow, their observation of the world deepens. They absorb what they see around them, and bring their own logic and wisdom to their interests and passions. As I walk listeners through this stage of development, I flag places where as adults we might need to return to a child's view to examine our biases and influences for personal growth. This vital stage of childhood re-examined may help us check we're on the right path to maintain interest in our own life stories. Listen notes

We go back to the intuitive instincts of our young protagonist Jules as she senses something of Rowan's journey towards her. I discuss my intention in the development of her character as representing real, rather than Harry Potter, magic in the world for young readers. Listen notes

In this short meditation, I invite listeners to find the energy of early summer and tap into it to map what is growing to life within them. Listen notes

In the garden, this is considered the time of "hungry gap," but wild perennials and tired brassica leaves can be turned into delicious pestos. In this episode, I also touch on homemade cosmetics to feed the skin like any other organ. I then delve into a fascinating world of taking care of our own shit, as I explain how to make and manage a compost toilet. Listen notes

If our beliefs arise from the how the world is structured, how might that influence not only our views today, but our views of the past? In this episode, I talk about some of the revisions archeologists and historians are beginning to make about the gender of ancient remains, now that from this vantage point, they can see the biases of their original catalogers. I think about the diverse gender designations in many ancient cultures and explore the story of the peoples of Ireland through this lens. Listen notes

There is a principle in Permaculture called "Stacking" that refers to the efficiency in natural systems of elements carrying out more than one function or making use of energy in multiple dimensions. This interview with Morag was carried out while Morag interviewed me for her podcast Sensemaker in a Changing World. We covered a lot of ground, exploring Morag's work in Australia and around the world from refugee camps to indigenous people regenerating vibrant food systems. I asked Morag about decolonialisation and the permaculture ethics she applies in this work. The audio of this episode just focuses on Morag's answers, but if you want to hear the full recording of the two of us, it's available on her podcast. Listen notes

There are frameworks designed by systems thinkers that can help us understand where we are and navigate an ever-changing context. I discuss two that I have found helpful: The first is David Holgrem's system diagram for the change between pre-industrial and current systems, where the producers and those with power over resources became increasingly distant from each other. The second is Dave Snowden's Cynefin framework for navigating simple, complicated, complex or chaotic situations. These help me to know where I am, and as Snowden says, to go from confused to aware that I am confused, and steps to move between states. Listen notes

In this episode, I talk about our family's increasing privileges and our move from Dublin to the countryside of Wicklow. I juxtapose the cultural worldviews I experienced through travel and diverse friends with 1980's Ireland, where women are oppressed. I touch on my experience of gender and sexuality and State control of female bodies. Listen notes

Playmates, objects of play and natural play spaces are the focus of this episode in the Well of Being thread of the podcast. It continues to explore both what might be optimal conditions for young human development, and what we can learn from children at play for adult health and healing. Listen notes

Continuing with an examination of how we could redesign systems for harmony in people and our planet, this episode continues with some of the Permaculture principles, but also introduces Sociocracy.  This is a system of alternative governance and decision making that distributes power and resources across a group or community. Listen notes

This episode explores how resources in the novel's world are exchanged, and follows Rowan's journey through new communities of the Isles. Listen notes

In keeping with the release date of Spring equinox, this episode gets into more detail about seed sowing and how to build herb spirals or herb walls close to your kitchen. Listen notes

As this meditation is being released at the Spring Equinox it using the theme of renewal and balance. From underneath things can come back to life, energy tapped into for renewal and is inspired by imagining the life of pollinators, birds and Spring flowers. Creating a nest a space for growth and then holding patience to see what will come as we turn towards the warmth of Summer's energy. Listen notes  

Illustrator and Tattoo artist Denise (they/she) talks about their journey to a small-holding “in the middle of nowhere” in Tipperary. Almost financially inaccessible to a combined budget with their partner. They got it “cheap” because it had a cottage ruin and had been used as a dump by farmers for years. They tell of the lengths they are willing to go to deal with rubbish to let the land breath again. Listen notes

Having moved to the South of Ireland from Bangor in 1978, I tried to fit in to my new surroundings in South County Dubin.  This episode talks about the nuances of that challenge for my young teenage self. Listen notes

As this podcast uses the Celtic cycle as core pattern for releases of each batch of 8, this episode delves deeper into that pattern. It examines how our relationship with the land and nature brings with it a connection to our ancesters' seasonal wisdom. Listen notes

I start to get more deeply into permaculture in this second episode of the thread exploring the alternatives to systems through new thinking. I draw some links to indigenous wisdom and explain some of the principles that make up the permaculture framework and how we have been applying them on our piece of marginal Wicklow hillside at Carraig Dúlra permaculture demonstration site since 2007 (where you can also find information on the courses we run there).  For more information and resources about permaculture, go to the listen notes

This second episode in the thread about development and sources of well-being delves into crawling and toddling little humans. I wonder what we can learn from this stage, when children become copycats and start to explore what good clean dirt and objects there are in their surroundings with increasing independence. I suggest that we can rekindle and regenerate this experimentation to help find our own creative adult mental health. Listen notes

This thread in the podcast series can be listened to as a kind of guided mediation-observation-connecting-practice and support. This is the second meditation episode, but can be listened to in any order and more than once if it's helpful. I believe that we can all tap into our own inner wisdom that comes from our life experiences and perhaps even from our species memory.  This mediation is a guided imagery journey to help find your inner guide and communication from one part of yourself to another.