Pilgrimage: Ireland on One Foot
This was to be our ninth pilgrimage to Ireland. But, I was bitten on the foot by a poisonous snake, a copperhead, so we chose to cancel. If we had left sooner we would have been in the land where … Continued
Visiting Ojibwe Family: Gakina Awiiya – “We Are All Related”
When my husband and I set out on a pilgrimage, I write my hopes and intentions for the trip, but the actual theme of the pilgrimage often emerges during the journey. My hopes for this second visit [see first visit … Continued
Community, Art, and Landscape: Ireland Reflections
Here are some reflections on our 2017 pilgrimage to Ireland in which we realize that it is the intersection of community, art and landscape that creates such unparalled beauty. Our first morning home from Ireland I awoke with this dream: … Continued
Visiting Ojibwe Relatives and Ancestors
My husband and I have known for some time, ever since we received notice from the BIA and a genealogy chart, that he is descended from Ojibwe people on his father’s side, but we didn’t realize he had any close … Continued
Choctaw Monument: Honoring Irish and Native American Ancestors
A Dances of Universal Peace dance, the Choctaw and Irish people, a sculptural monument, and a humble ceremony. How do these all come together? Here’s the story: Two of our beloved DUP leaders, Larry Taylor and Lynda Aiman-Smith, created the … Continued
Gratitude Ceremony
In September 2016, on the last day of our five-week pilgrimage to sacred earth-spirit sites in Ireland, we wanted to make a gratitude ceremony. On a beach that has very colorful stones, near holy Mt. Brandon on the Dingle Peninsula, … Continued
The Farmer Fairy’s Stone
One of the primary intentions of our recent six-week pilgrimage, first to Scotland and then to Ireland, was to visit EarthSpirit sanctuaries in these ensouled landscapes. We hoped to find portals to the Otherworld in order to contact renewing, healing, … Continued
New Year’s Reflections
Confession: I’ve never been into New Year’s as a spiritually potent time, not like I’m into the solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarters, because it always seems like an arbitrary date, unconnected to the power of season. Yet it is a social … Continued
Sherkin Island
In southwest Ireland there are many beautiful islands in Roaringwater Bay, the homeland of my O’Driscoll ancestors. We took the small red and white ferry to Sherkin Island to make a little pilgrimage to Cow Strand. I had fallen in … Continued