Month: December 2022

Rest and recuperation and Christmas mayhem

This won’t be news for those of you on my mailing list (and if you’re not, you can sign up here) but I spent 2 days over my 3 day Christmas break in bed with a migraine. This, as you can imagine, put some spanners in my plans for reading and staring at the telly for hours on end – neither of these activities are really possible with a migraine. Neither is scrolling through Facebook, just fyi. Or putting up the Christmas tree. I mean, I had to wear sunglasses driving home on Friday evening from work. In Ireland. In December. I should’ve known something was up.

But you know something? I’m taking it as my body telling me I needed to just completely shut down and now engage my brain at all. Sometimes, paying attention to these little hints from the body is important. So remember that plan I had for the Christmas break? It got cut down even further.

For the first time in known memory, my darling husband put up the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve for me. He did a great job, although my photography skills don’t do it justice! Picture below shows our (fake) Christmas tree that I’ve had for at least 13 yrs, with tinsel, baubles, etc in colours of gold and red. And some reindeer lights, cos why wouldn’t you!! It also shows a set of shelves covered in junk behind the tree and a set of crutches leaning against the door, cos we’re just that kinda house.

A picture of my Christmas tree that made it up in spite of the odds! And I still managed to rest and put up some other decorations as well.

I managed the Christmas shop on Sat morning. The fridge resembled a game of tetris for a while but it’s emptying out slowly now. And yesterday I came back to work cos we’re on shutdown. In the mean time, I did manage to get the videos recorded for the 30 Days of Brigid. And all while wearing the same top as well, so some of the merriment from the August course won’t be there this time. We’ll make it up in other ways though. And I managed to complete the journal I’ve been planning for this for months as well. I haven’t quite figured out how to make it typable, but I’m working on that. For now, you can print it out and write all over it!

And yes, got all this done while recovering from a migraine and “resting”. I think I need to redefine what I mean by a rest! However. I am taking this weekend off because I will be going up home to the Mammy and Daddy for New Year’. I’m taking a four day weekend the following weekend where very, very little is planned at all. That might be my “lounging around, reading, staring at crap films on the telly and eating stuff” break from the world. I may take a drive over to Tramore to enjoy some sea time. I may break into my Christmas books – most of which I haven’t even ordered yet! We might finally watch the Hobbit films that have been on the Sky box for a couple of years now…

But what I’m doing right now, most of all, is listening to my body. Cos I can feel the aches and pains starting to build up. A lot of it is because of my current long commute and the time it eats into. It eats into my movement time, cos that’s my least favourite time of all… But that time is necessary if I’m going to keep said body in use for another 40-50 yrs. I was stiff this morning because I did a lot of walking in work yesterday. And I have another 2-3 days of this before shutdown is over. With the days getting longer, I may need to revisit some of my “run up to the end of the year” survival tactics.

Remember around Samhain, when I said that that was the time of year I put aside for dreaming the new? Well we’re moving into Imbolc energy now, in my world. It’s time to start planting seeds and setting things up to make those dreams happen. Some of it I’m doing, but other bits are falling behind. There’s a challenge for you so: what things do you need to start thinking about putting in place to be in a position to plant seeds by Imbolc? Cos that’s my challenge for the coming weeks…

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…

Or is it? I know – there are a whole load of think pieces and “how to make Christmas stress free this year” type pieces coming out at this time of year. And honestly, I worry about some of the advice given. I mean, I’m not sure when I’ll do the food shop this week, never mind get a facial or a relaxing massage. So I’m going to share what my Christmas period will look like.

I’m working until 3:30 tomorrow (23rd December) I may or may not be putting up some Christmas lights or a tree after I finish work, but who knows how my energy will be. My husband isn’t in any condition to put up decorations, so we may just be lighting a few extra candles instead of decorating the house, and you know what? It’s not the first time we’ve done this. It’s ok. We survived. If decorations aren’t your thing – skip them.

On Christmas Eve, I’ll probably be doing the shop for the week. My aim would be to get to Lidl as soon as it opens and stock up for the week. There’s only two of us, we’ll probably have duck on Christmas Day, we still have crackers and napkins from a few years ago – be grand. For the rest of Christmas Eve, I’ll be recording the daily videos for the upcoming 30 Days of Brigid course, starting on 1st January. I have to pre-record the videos, because otherwise it’s too much stress on me. At least if I can set things up a week in advance, I can relax and adjust as needed and pay attention to what support people need during the course rather than worrying about uploading videos. Hopefully I can get the back broken on the 30+ videos in one day, so I can leave them to upload overnight.

On Christmas Day, I’ll be preparing the Facebook posts and emails etc for the course, linking them to the videos and making sure the words are alright and I haven’t accidentally written a curse instead of a prayer. I’ll also be spending a good portion of the day snuggling on the couch with my darling husband, although we haven’t decided what DVDs we’re going to watch this year. I may see if I can persuade him to a rewatch of True Blood…

On Stephen’s Day, I’ll be finished up the 30 Days of Brigid stuff and hopefully managing some more hours snuggling on the couch. Or sleeping. Or both. I can multitask, y’know!

On the 27th I’m back in work for the annual shutdown, 3 days of highly organised, safe mayhem on site, where my job is to spend the days walking down jobs and making sure permit conditions are adhered to. And to be available for people to bring me issues to solve, concerns to listen to, that sort of thing. I rarely have to come up with solutions you understand – people mostly want to just talk through the issue and get support for the decision they make. But it means for the 27th – 29th, I’ll be busy.

On the 30th, I’m hoping to work from home, and keep an eye on any start up issues after the shutdown. That evening, husband and I will be heading up to my parents to see in the New Year with them. Also hoping for some dedicated sleeping time here as well – Mam has already given me a piece of Christmas cake, some mince pies, Christmas pudding and her extra special, Bailey’s chocolate biscuit cake, but there’ll be more goodies for the New Year as well. Mam is an amazing cook and baker and she goes all out this time of year, so it will be a lovely time.

We’ll be back home on the 2nd January at the latest, back into work on the 3rd.

I mean, we don’t have kids, we don’t have too much visiting to do (for those wondering my husband’s parents are in the UK and we’ll hopefully get over to them in the New Year sometime – we ruled out travelling at Christmas years ago!) but it’s still hectic with little time for rest. So we’re cutting back on the non-essentials. We have a tradition between the two of us that on Christmas Day we have our starter for breakfast, main meal for dinner and dessert for tea/supper cos that suits us. And there won’t be a great deal of fancy prepping either – I like cream cheese with lemon juice and red onion wrapped in smoked salmon for starters, husband likes eggs of some description. Main meal is a roast duck with spuds, carrots, parsnips and gravy – basically, if it can be thrown in an oven to cook, I’m ok with that. Dessert will be some of that lovely biscuit cake or Christmas pudding with brandy butter or ice cream. If I’m feeling really energetic, we might get custard with it. St Stephen’s Day is leftovers day. Microwave day. Possibly even takeaway day if things get really bad.

We deliberately reduce our social engagements and our housework and all the rest of it at this time of year, because we know we’ll be exhausted. And this took a while to arrange for ourselves. But it’s still busy, because of the minimal days I have off work this year. So things like decorations may not happen. And you know something – that’s ok.

Everyone talks about the importance of the real meaning of Christmas, but when you take steps to allow yourself that rest, that reflection time and that has a knock on effect on the outward symbols of the season, people start to worry or give out or not like it in general. So here’s my advice to you this Christmas – be strong for yourself and your family. Hold the lines you need to hold to make it as good a Christmas for you as you can. Ask Brigid for help – she’s usually more on the seeping through boundaries side, but she’s good at holding the really important ones – think of the forge, and the hammer blows and the shaping of things to work for you. Here’s the energy we need this season.

Brigid, at this season, help me and my family, by blood or by choice or by circumstance, to create the holiday we need and want this year. Help us to establish and hold our boundaries against the creeping tide of expectation and other people’s wishes. Help us give ourselves the gift of a period we feel happy about rather than exhausted by.

The strange ways the work can take us

Recently I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos from someone called Love 518. It’s a wonderful channel, where a hairdresser takes people’s hair that has been matted, or untended for a long time and she carefully unmatts it (no I don’t know if that’s a proper word, but ye know what I mean right?), tends it carefully and sends them on their way feeling some pride in themselves again. She is also really careful with her people, offers some amazing masks to allow them to keep anonymous and gives them hairstyles they love and feel good about.

Why would I think a random hairdresser in Miami, Florida is doing the gods’ work? Well, she’s giving people back their respect. She’s giving people a new start. She doesn’t give a damn how or why the hair gets matted, she regularly says none of us know when we might have a bad run of luck or have mental health issues, her aim is trying to give people back their hair. She just accepts people as they are and where they are and move on.

And hair is something that’s really obvious when there’s something not right. Skin is easy enough to keep clean and looking semi presentable, but hair… well hair can go wrong very easily. All it takes is a bad week and the knots get amazingly difficult to get out. Add a few weeks, a month, a few months, and hair gets really messy and difficult and a big job to tackle, and sometimes -well sometimes that’s just too damn much to face into. And so, it gets worse and worse. Now my hair isn’t too curly, ( I think I’m about a 2B according to this evaluation) but it still knots easily, and knots are the first step to matting for me.

But I don’t need to go to the hairdresser regularly to keep control over my hair, I can throw it into plaits when I need to, it’s easy enough to deal with. Added to which, I like it long because at least I can throw it up in a pony tail as well. But I like my hair. There are times when my hair is the only thing I really love about my body. (Don’t worry – there are times I can love other things as well) My hair is my crowning glory and I love it. So, I can completely understand how the work that Love 518 is doing is Divine Work. As far as I can tell, the hairdresser is Christian, but the faith doesn’t matter if what you’re doing is the right thing, in my opinion.

People deserve their self respect and hair is a massive part of that. Recognising that, and then moving to do something to help people – it’s amazing. This hairdresser spend days, 12 hour days on people’s hair and the transformations she makes for people are amazing.

I could rhapsodise for a while here, but go check out her videos. To expand the point – I don’t know if this hairdresser realises what she is giving back to people, but I hope she does. For women in particular, hair has long been considered a “crowning glory” (see the Bible, 1 Corinthians 11:6 and 11:15) and cutting the hair or shaving the hair has been long been a punishment for immodesty or vanity or whatever. Hair can be used to make a statement, it can be a way to identify ourselves or hide ourselves, to stand out or to blend in.

Sometimes, doing the work doesn’t mean lots of praying or fasting or deprivation or whatever else we think of when we think of spirituality. Sometimes, doing the work means taking the skills we already have, taking the work we already do, and pushing it out to help those who need it. What I mean by “pushing it out” is by looking at those skills and talents and work and seeing how we can use them to make this world a better place. Maybe that means you affect one person’s life, maybe it means you affect thousands of people’s lives. It doesn’t matter. To leave the world a better place than we found it is a good thing in general.

For me – engineering is my job, teaching is my work. So I share the way I think about things here, on my email list, in the school, in the facebook group, on the facebook page – all in an attempt to do the work I have to do and to make this world a better place. Mind you, engineering is also my work, cos why have just one bit of work to do – I work for a very practical and efficient deity! Persuading more women into engineering and making sure the ones already in engineering get the supports they need to keep going are also part of the work I do. My work will never be as clear as the work that hairdresser is – the changes I help people make are more private for a start, and sometimes I won’t ever know what changes are actually made, but I have hope. And that keeps me going.

Today, it’s a cold, freezing day in Ireland and I’ve had a tough weekend. I’m going into work tomorrow to face a shitstorm that because of reasons I wasn’t able to sort out over the weekend. But I can and will deal with it and in doing so, I will make the path clearer and easier for the women coming after me. It is unlikely I will have someone weeping on my shoulder because I made a fundamental change to their appearance that helps them to make them recognise themselves again. I have had people be thankful for my teaching and support, which is lovely, but it’s also important to realise that I don’t do this for that feeling, as awesome as it is, and I need to be careful to not depend on that feeling either. That was lies a lot of pain and badness.

I went down a potentially dark path there, but it’s important to recognise that it would be really easy to come to depend on people telling me how great I am, and that’s just not healthy for anyone. Don’t get me wrong – if something I say helps you or affects you or you just want to reach out – please feel free to do so. But it’s down to me to manage the me side of that interaction. And the me side needs to recognise that my feet need to stay firmly on this earth and not be rising up pretending to be something I’m not. I know already my daily practice tomorrow will be a brief gesture towards the east as I get into my car in the morning, long long before the sun rises. I might include a prayer on my way to work and while I’m in work asking for help and for support throughout the day. There’s a chance I’ll remember to say thank you tomorrow evening when I get home safely.

So, I’m not some genius guru with all the answers. I can’t fix all spiritual problems as easily or patiently as Love 518 solves hair problems. But I can help people along the way. I can help with small things (like the 30 Days of Brigid class coming up in January). I can ask the questions to get you thinking. Actually, I usually ask the questions here that get me thinking. And then work them out in the words here. I can help disentangle a problem or a spiritual issue with words, the same as Love 518 does with her combs, her brushes, her hands, her products, her knowledge… but really, it’s down to each of us ourselves to maintain once the help has been had. Just as it’s down to me to make sure I’m not claiming to be something I’m not and I’m making sure I keep up to date on my knowledge for Brigid, for engineering, for my own practices… It’s down to all of us to look after ourselves, whatever that looks like for us. If someone comes to me for help – I’ll give it if I can. If someone keeps coming back asking the same questions, getting the same answers and not working on it – well Brigid lost patience at times so I figure she won’t mind me losing it as well 🙂

That’s not to say anyone needs to be nervous about asking questions. But when someone has put time, work, effort into helping – make sure to do the work you need to do to get the best out of that help. Now there are times when you ask for help (indeed, times when I’ve asked for help) and you’re not in a position to act on the help, or you recognise the value of the help, but you just can’t fit in the work to use the help – honestly, that’s grand. Say it! I had someone say to me a few month’s ago that they very much appreciated the offer of a scholarship but they knew they wouldn’t be able to pay attention to the course right then, so it would be unfair to take me up on the offer. I love hearing people be honest with themselves and me like that. I respect it, I appreciate, it shows self knowledge and awareness.

So where am I going with all this rambling? Watching the Love 518 videos really has me thinking about how I can further help people – and I have a few new ideas coming up. It also has me thinking of ways I can reach out for help for myself as well, in both practical and spiritual terms.

And if anyone can spare a prayer or a candle tomorrow to help me through a tough work day, with challenging weather conditions (for Ireland anyway!) , I’d appreciate it!!

Signs and symbols

This morning, as I left the house and drove down the hill, I saw the most gorgeous fox disappearing into the hedge ahead of me. Well, they were crossing the road in front of me, not that I was driving into the hedge. I’m not that bad, even at 6am…

It reminded me of Brigid, although she was on my mind anyway since I’d just done my “face towards the east and spend a second thinking of her before getting into the car” activity. And then I started thinking about signs. Now, of course, with her links to the clever fox in the hagiographies, foxes always have me thinking of herself, but that doesn’t mean they’re actually a sign of something at all times. This fox was just going about their business. And, I know we had a set of four cubs earlier in the year in the back yard. (It was pure gorgeous watching them play and sniff about and generally being cubs…) So, it’s highly unlikely that the fox was there as a sign to me.

But how then would I be able to interpret a sign or symbol from herself? It’s a fair question. And please remember, interpreting symbols and signs is a personal thing, but what I’m offering here are some ideas to determine if something is a sign or symbol or not.

Well here’s the thing. If an animal or a tree or a piece of the natural landscape is just living away, doing its thing, then it’s probably not a sign, unless it’s for you to live your life as well. If said animal or tree or rock is acting a bit strange – well it could be a sign, but it could also be that the animal is sick, the tree is reacting to something you can’t see or sense, the rock is having an existential crisis… The world doesn’t revolve around us, much as we’d want it to. So, my first thought after thinking “Was that a sign?” is usually pure skepticism. I look for ways for the sign to be natural or an ordinary event, rather than a sign just for me.

But maybe there’s more to it. Maybe you’re looking around and you’re thinking, “Orlagh, I’m in Antarctica, there are no foxes here and one’s just come wandering around the house”. OK, that might be a sign. Or a very confused and lost fox. I’d still be hanging on to skepticism for a while longer. And I’d be seeing if I needed to help said fox, cos if it’s in Antarctica, the only continent where foxes can’t be found, something’s gone wrong somewhere!

I’d look for back-up confirmation (probably after I figured out what on earth the fox was doing in the middle of the ice and the snow!) I’d use a pendulum, cards, prayer, meditation, ogham, whatever other divination tools I had at my disposal to help support the sign I received. And, as I have said before, the more drastic the action to take, the more confirmation I’d look for. I’ll be honest – I usually take the mere presence of my favourite chocolate in the supermarket as a sign I should buy some – which is handy, cos it’s always there! But when it came time to move home from England? I thought long and hard about that. Changing a job? I thought long and hard about it. Moving house? Again, I thought long and hard about it. Wearing a dress instead of trousers – ok, that one takes a little less though.

But you get the idea. If the sign you’re looking for is to completely overhaul your life, change your career, move to the other side of the world – I wouldn’t necessarily be doing it on the basis of one sign. I’d research, investigate what the possible outcomes were, determine how realistic this is and work from there. Now sometimes, we need to work on faith. I mean, when I set up this blog, the school, etc, I was working on faith that it would be a worthwhile endeavor. And it has been – I’ve improved my spiritual life, my physical life, my emotional life… it’s been a really great experience so far and I have hopes that I can use this blog and the school to replace my day job and be able to devote my life more fully to Brigid.

Which would be awesome – but in the meantime, I still need to put food on the table and a roof over our heads. So, working on it!

If you have a crow appear to you in my area – that’s not a sign, the damn things are living in half my chimney pots and sound like people tramping over my roof on a daily basis. If a bald eagle showed up – I’d look into a bit. They’re not known for their Irish journeys too often. If you’re meditation or journeying and something random appears to you – be cautious. Don’t take everything at face value. Check out who or what you’re dealing with. Check how honest and straightforward they are. Irish deities tend towards the straightforward by the way – subtle as a sledgehammer to the face most of the time, to be honest. So if you ask out straight, “Who are you?”, you don’t tend to get the “I am the wind and the air, I am the light at night, I am the whisper in the darkness”. You tend to get “I’m Brigid. Now here’s what I need you to be doing…”

Well that’s my experience anyway. But if you ask someone their name and they reply with “You may call me X” then you can almost be certain their name isn’t X. Or at least now their full name. If they start down the “You may call me Master” just get out of there. No good will come of it.

But you know the most important part of interpreting signs and symbols? Knowing yourself. Be aware of yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, your faults, your areas of awareness, your areas of lack of awareness. Have a think about ways you respond to flattery, to cajoling, to oppression. The better you know yourself, the easier it is to deal with signs and symbols. the better you know yourself, the less need you have of signs and symbols. The better you know yourself, the harder it is for other beings to pull the wool over your eyes.

So spend some time getting to know yourself. Reflection isn’t often promoted in modern life, but it’s a worthwhile exercise. Now, this month’s Patreon offering is a short exercise to help you get to know yourself a bit or maybe highlight areas you might want to pay attention to. You can sign up for as little as a fiver a month. Otherwise the 30 Days of Brigid in January might help explore your relationship with herself a bit more and build that deeper connection to herself, so maybe signs and symbols might not mean as much.

In the end though, how you interpret signs and symbols is really up to you. It’s a deeply personal process and while I can help you discuss things and think things out, really, the meaning of what you see, hear, touch, smell, taste, sense is up to you. Smelling roses – I think of St. Therese of Lisieux and Mary. Smelling lavender – I think of my Nana. The sound of a range being cleaned -I think of my other Nana. The smell of Sweet Afton cigarettes – that’s Grandad. All deeply personal. It would be very strange if smelling Sweet Afton cigarettes made you think of my grandad, unless you’re a cousin of mine, in which case, hi!

Do the work and the signs and symbols mostly take care of themselves. And beware of mysterious messages. Seriously – it’s probably someone up to no good!!