Beannacht
Judith – judith@stonefires.com

When people have been in Ireland with me and are getting ready to fly back to the States, I always talk with them about reentry. Having been in a different energy, on so many levels, it can be jarring to step back into, as my husband names it, the default world. And now, with the energy of anger and fear that is palpable in this country, reentry has become even harder.

It’s such a dramatic shift from Ireland where people just generally hold an energy that welcomes an encounter and conversation. No fear. No judgment. And I have to admit that here in the States I’ve been carrying this place of caution and apprehension. Wondering whether those I encounter support our current administration. Wondering if there’s going to be an outburst of hatred. Wondering, and it’s hard to write this, whose side they are on. For we have become just that polarized. A polarization designed to feed fear and anger and hatred.

Spiritually, I know there is no ‘other.’ But sometimes it’s hard to remember that walking through the grocery store. So many people are so angry and unhappy. 

Within this trauma created by the horrific and unspeakable actions of this administration that are attacking pretty much everything so many of us value, we wonder what we can do. Yes, we will vote. But beyond that it seems so overwhelming. Where do we start?

I am choosing to invoke a bit of the Irish spirit. I’m choosing to go out of my way to engage. To make eye contact and smile and say ‘hello’. There is generally an immediate shift in energy. Perhaps because I’m just a fuzzy haired old woman and not very threatening. But it matters not. What matters is that in this I am declaring that I will NOT see you for you may have voted for. I will NOT be afraid of your politics. I will see you for your humanity. I will see you for that light within you.

Because it works. Because it’s one thing I can do. Everyday.

Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com

I realize I’ve written about them before. But they are no longer a misty specter hovering on the horizon. They are here. It’s clear that many of them have been hiding in plain sight, but now they are emboldened. And their destruction is breathtaking. It’s of legendary and mythic proportion, a story right out of Irish mythology.

Myth is much more important and true than history.
History is just journalism and you know how reliable that is.
Joseph Campbell

The Fomorians. Let me introduce them in the words of author John Moriarty who’s book, Invoking Ireland, is a brilliant read.

Ireland was in a sorry state at the time. A terrible, spectral people called the Fomorians had come ashore and there was now no river or valley or mountain or plain that wasn’t the worse for their coming. They were spectral not because they didn’t originally have bodies. Spirit gone bad in them had sucked and aggrandized their bodies into its hectic hunger for supremacy over all things. … and in all of this their leader and exemplar was Balor, he of the evil eye.

Spoiler alert. For those not familiar with this legend, the Fomorians are vanquished. They are defeated by the Tuatha Dé, the Divine Tribe, who are known to this day as the People of Peace, People of Light, The Shining Ones, and The Good people. 

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

We are currently engaged in just such a mythic battle of good and evil. A battle of epic and increasingly global proportions. I am hopeful that this presence of evil will be vanquished. Perhaps the Tuatha Dé will emerge once again, as promised, to help us out. Perhaps not. But with or without their mythic assistance, we must step up. We must embolden the Light we hold within us for there is great power in it. Standing in that place of power, together we can shine a blinding Light and vanquish this evil darkness. We can win this mythic battle.

Indeed, we must.

An Tuatha Dé Beannacht,
Judith – judith@stonefires.com