“Moon Medicine - a lunar love in. Over the years, The Trailblazery events have been the source for all sorts of new ideas, but now they have come up with an ancient one...”
☾✩☽
The Trailblazery presents Moon Medicine – a monthly gathering for women to coincide with the Full Moon cycle of 2021. This is an invitation for women who are ready to harness their inner power and reclaim their wild feminine nature. Our mission is to support women to rise and lift each other up along the way. Thank you for answering the call and walking this path with us.
On Wednesday, June 2nd at 7pm, the Moon Medicine online series hosts ‘Gather round me, women : Druidigí thart, a mhná’,
This virtual gathering is part of the Feminist Supermarket at Ormston House, kindly supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.
‘Gather round me, women’ will be led by Kathy Scott, (Creative Director of the Trailblazery), Ceara Conway (visual artist, vocalist) with guest luminaries Angela Bourke (writer, Irish language scholar) and Marian Dunlea (Jungian analyst, somatics practitioner). During our time together, we will explore the role of women and the use of lament and song in ritualising personal, local and global experiences of loss.
The ancient ritual of the Irish wake held another ritual at the centre known as Caoineadh or Keening - the Irish funeral lament. The word keening originates from the Gaelic caoineadh meaning “crying”. This was an Irish traditional vocal ritual artform, performed at the wake or graveside in mourning of the dead. The keening women (bean chaointe) paid respects to the deceased and expressed grief on behalf of the bereaved family. Keening was an integral part of the whole process of undertaking and was performed either at the wake, funeral procession or interment as sometimes during all three. It was a skilled ritual artform at the meeting point between life and death, and received due respect, including payment.
Ceara Conway: “In this new spiritual paradigm and post Covid era that we find ourselves in, what kinds of practices can we create to support our experiences of loss and community led grief? How do we prepare ourselves for our own death and dying? ‘’Gather round me, women’’ is an invitation to gather together to explore these questions through song, knowledge sharing and somatic practice".
Kathy Scott, Founder and Creative Director of The Trailblazery shares:
“I am completely ‘over the moon’ to collaborate with Ceara and two of Ireland’s great female pioneers in their respective fields Angela Bourke and Marian Dunlea. The cycle of grief is an alchemical process that has the capacity to transform the trajectory of our lives as individuals and as a collective. Caoineadh is a lost art that once served as a ritual to help the soul travel from the world of the living into the spirit world—while also helping the living bereaved as they adjust to new realities, roles and relationships. When we explore the life cycle touchpoints in Irish folklore, we can see the importance of the Medicine Women in our ancestral past from the Bean Feasa, to the Bean Ghlúine and Bean Chaointe. Moon Medicine is a circle that exists to encourage and inspire women to reclaim this power today”.
MEET OUR JUNE GUESTS:
About Ceara Conway
Ceara Conway is an Irish contemporary visual artist and vocalist. She creates innovative experiential performance works that utilise traditional and contemporary songs, music and visual art to explore social issues such as the ecological crisis, migration and feminist concerns. www.cearaconway.ie
About Angela Bourke
Angela Bourke has studied caoineadh extensively, publishing many essays in Irish and English about the women who practised it and the poetry they made. Her first book was Caoineadh na dTrí Muire: Téama na Páise i bhFilíocht Bhéil na Gaeilge (Angela Partridge, 1983)—on Irish-language songs about the Crucifixion, with the Virgin Mary as bean chaointe (keener).
About Marian Dunlea
Marian Dunlea M.Sc., IAAP, ICP, is a Jungian analyst and somatics practitioner who has been leading workshops internationally for the past 30 years integrating body and soul. She is head of the BodySoul Europe training programme, part of the Marion Woodman Foundation. www.mariandunlea.com
About Ormston House
Ormston House is a meeting place for the arts in the heart of Limerick City. They opened in 2011 as a Cultural Resource Centre to create new opportunities for artists and arts workers. Their core question is: how can we support artists better? For further information and queries, you can contact them at info@ormstonhouse.com
About Moon Medicine
Moon Medicine was initiated by The Trailblazery {Hedge School, Census of the Heart, We Need to Talk About Ireland, Rites of Passage} in 2018 in the light of Repeal and the rising momentum of women worldwide speaking out, stepping up and reclaiming their power. Our mission is to help women to remember, embody and reclaim their authentic powerful selves so that together we can rise and lift each other up along the way. In 2019 the Moon Medicine Global Academy was launched - a year-long online training programme for women which expanded our Moon Medicine circle to include women all over the world.
Our live Moon Medicine gatherings weave together a range of feminine teachings blending ancient wisdom with cutting edge developments in the fields of epigenetics, quantum physics and neuroscience. We explore the gifts of the lunar cycle as a map of empowerment for women’s wellbeing. We draw from a deep well to find practices and resources that support women’s self care and the care of this place we call home. To find out more visit TheTrailblazery.com
Investment:
We believe that Moon Medicine should be available for women from all walks of life especially in these circumstances so we have created a range of sliding scale payment options for anyone who needs support. Advance booking is recommended as spaces will be limited. We appreciate your support in these times so please pay what ever feels appropriate. Please click on link below or book your spot here.
You will be sent your zoom link on booking your spot for the gathering. Please keep it safe as you will need it to join the event.
Special Rate €25 : drop-in rate per gathering
Free Spots : we have a limited number of free places for anyone who needs them right now.
☾✩☽
Book your spot
Testimonials:
Kathy Scott has been traveling the world as a passionate student and brave pioneer of practices that bring people into intimate contact with their creativity and power. As a teacher, she beautifully weaves together all that she has gathered into a rich and generous offering. This is a deeply nourishing and powerful brew, especially for women.
Annie Ryan, Artistic Director Corn Exchange
Kathy Scott creates an utterly transcendent yoga experience. I attended her recent Rising Feminine Medicine Yoga Programme and it exceeded any expectations that I might have had on a mental, emotional, energetic and deeply feminine level. Her classes are packed full of wisdom, kindness, practical yoga asanas and meditative exercises that flowed off the mat with me and seamlessly threaded into my days for the rest of the week. Kathy elegantly weaves a powerful depth and breath of experience into all of her classes. Such a restorative weekly tonic. I couldn't recommend her more highly.
Nadine McCarthy Performance Consultant
Kathy Scott is one of a kind. She has a rare and special gift of teaching, her classes are unique, authentic and raw. Kathy has a wealth of knowledge and wisdom and brings together the most beautiful blend to her teachings . She offers unique pearls of women’s wisdom and deep feminine sensuality into all of her classes. Without doubt the most nourishing and beautiful classes I have ever gone to. Thank you Kathy for sharing your gifts.
Michelle Drury, Auriel Yoga Studio
Kathy Scott blazes a new and exciting trail using yoga as a way of expressing her higher purpose in this life. She has the powerful ability to align with Source in a way that allows this magnificent energy to flow in her, for her and through her. This invariably enables you to reach into the very core of your own being accessing the Divine feminine power that lies deep within you. Kathy is an embodiment of that wonderful feminine energy that has the potential to rise within us all.
Judith McAdam, Author, Theologian, Kinesiologist and Spiritual Life Coach
About Me
Yogi, Curator, Creative Entrepreneur and Cultural Acupuncturist; I have been practicing and teaching yoga for over 15 years. I have trained as a teacher in the Kundalini, Sivananda & Anusara yoga methods and am committed to continually developing my practice and teaching. I am deeply influenced by the teachings of Elena Brower, Rod Stryker, Paramatma Siri Sadhana, Michaela Boehm, Thomas Hübl, Tara Brach and many more luminaries on and off the mat. I recently designed Rising Feminine Medicine - an ongoing alchemical practice inviting women to free their mind, open their heart, come home to their body and reclaim their wild feminine nature. I am currently participating on an ongoing tantric training with Michaela Boehm called The Wild Woman’s Way.
I am the curator and founder of many creative projects and enterprises in Ireland including The Trailblazery, the ireland : iceland project, The Wonderlust Stage at Body & Soul. I am currently creative-in-residence at Trinity College Dublin. I support creative entrepreneurs to clarify, strategize and share their unique vision with the world by offering a professional mentoring programme that activates and elevates their trailblazing enterprise. I recently trained with Thomas Hübl as part of The Pocket Project – a global movement dedicated to deepening our understanding of collective and intergenerational trauma.
You are warmly invited to join our free Discovery Circle ahead of Tending our Roots: a 3-week immersive online journey through the season of Imbolc, or i mbolg which translates as ‘in the belly’. Bígí linn - Join us.