Caroline welcomes Seán Pádraig O’Donoghue
Poet — Herbalist, author of “The Forest Reminds Us Who We Are” (July 2021) speaks to the “hunger people feel for connection with the natural world, and offers a new way to connect with nature wherever they live.”
Seán Pádraig O’Donoghue is an herbalist, writer, living in the mountains of western Maine. He weaves magick and science, poetry and physiology with plants and charms, thus creating radical possibilities.Prior to becoming an herbalist, Seán was a political organizer in movements for peace, human rights, and global economic justice, and a freelance journalist documenting the human and ecological impacts of U.S. policies in Latin America.
He grew up near Boston, a short distance from where his great-grandparents first landed when they arrived from Ireland. Since childhood, he has been an avid student of Irish history and folklore. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1996 with a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing.
from the forward of his book:
“Seán is an exemplar of a modern successor to the Draoi of pre-Christian Ireland, weaving magick and science, poetry and physiology with plants and charms, thus creating radical possibilities. As Carl Jung exhorts, learning the traditions of other cultures can enrich us, but we gain power and insight from aligning with the deep roots of our own heritages, particularly, in this case, the folk traditions of Europe. Known by specific indigenous names in each culture, they are distinguished by initiated lineages, offer a panoply of medicine and magick, and are the ones who provided medical care for most folks throughout history. Looking back, it becomes all too evident that there is a big hole in our medical history.
If classical physicians of the past were treating only the elites, who was providing medical care for most of the population, especially in the rural areas, hamlets, and small towns where most people lived? Hidden between the “educated” physicians and the unnamed of family self-care, they would gather and prescribe herbs, use enchanted psalms, counsel with astrology and divination, clear curses, invoke mates, and help with a variety of problems of family, home, and farm.”
* * * * *
Mercury / Hermes
So how splendid that Bardic Mercury be so evident,
Sun in Mercury’s Gemini realm,
as is Mercury stationing retrograde
to Direct on 22nd 3 pm pdt, after Solstice *Sunday night the 20th…,
as Jupiter stations retrograde that morning….
Our Messenger self prepares to go forth,
as our story-telling self goes back into the realm of collective culture,
to seed human culture with manners of engagement…
participatory animism, sane reverent common sense…
that all be acts of reciprocal blessing
And Sun squares Neptune – woo-oo-ooo-ooh,
respectful conversing with faery world recommended.
that or lost in enchanted woods –
take your pick…
Spiral Pattern Carved into a Moss Covered Granite Boulder in Wistmans Wood.
Dartmoor, Devon, UK
Putting clothes on inside out is encouraged
before stepping forth into Dartmor as a reversal magic token of respect,
so as not to be tricked into quicksand…
And on the other side, Sun squares Moon in Virgo in 12th,
opposite back swoosh to Neptune…
So linguistic precision guides the Vision.
And the Virgo Mercury reports in from the ancient realms,
the Doctrine of Signatures,
Knowledge via conversation with the plants, animals, rocks, spirits….
John Duncan’s “Riders of the Sidhe” (1911)
and our guest be kinned, to the likes of myself,
by being ancestrally connected to Ireland
via Massachusetts Irish grandparents, Ivy League Heretics
with the Sun square Uranus…
Mercury stations on his youthful Moon in Gemini…
New Moon eclipse (June 10th) on his South Node
(the old skin we are bringing to the Council, to give modern expression…
And his North Node 19+ Sagittarius is the “resolve climate crisis degree…”
“beauty wherever there is healthy flow…”
Golden Opening, Mara Berendt Friedman
* * * * *
and some words from ancestral-ally Loren Eiseley
“Though men in the mass forget the origins of their need, they still bring wolfhounds into city apartments, where dog and man both sit brooding in wistful discomfort.
The magic that gleams an instant between Argos and Odysseus is both the recognition of diversity and the need for affection across the illusions of form. It is nature’s cry to homeless, far-wandering, insatiable man: “Do not forget your brethren, nor the green wood from which you sprang. To do so is to invite disaster.”
“We are rag dolls made out of many ages and skins, changelings who have slept in wood nests or hissed in the uncouth guise of waddling amphibians. We have played such roles for infinitely longer ages than we have been men. Our identity is a dream. We are process, not reality, for reality is an illusion of the daylight — the light of our particular day.”
