We didn’t plan it. It just happened. The way so much has happened in these last weeks. The Magical Mystery Book Launch Tour was aptly named.

My book is now in fifteen independent bookshops across Ireland. Yesterday, as we made our way through County Cork, our final stop would be at the Kenmare Bookshop. The very bookshop where my sacred journey with Irish spirituality began some twenty years ago.

It had been my first visit to Ireland. I was with my Dad. And as we planned our adventure, I mentioned that I had heard about stone circles and was curious. Could we visit one? We did. And the energy of it and my seeing the ghostly figures of ancestors caught my attention. So we wandered into this shop where I asked Ann, the owner, if she had books on these megalithic places. I wanted something more than mere archeological recordings. I wanted something that spoke to the mystical meaning of these sites. Well, she didn’t have such a book. But there was one, now out of print, that I might try to find. Through finding a used copy of the book, I found Jack. For it was Stars & Stones, the book he created and illustrated with Martin Brennan. The ground breaking book on the alignments and sacred nature of the megalithic sites that have now become standard stops on our Sacred Ireland journeys. In fact many of Jack’s illustrations in that book are now in mine.

As I once again stepped through the door of this bookshop, so many wonderful memories flooded back. Ann has since died and her son, John, now owns the shop. It was a delight to share this story with him. And to have him be so excited to carry the book.

Bookends. It was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com