So I started this blog in 2016 after I’d been for my first Ayahuasca retreat (three nights on the gooey jungle juice) and the shaman bird facilitating it asked me if I had one (a blog). I’d gone to the forest in Amsterdam for three days and nights on the occasion of my 35th birthday… Read More Praise be to plant medicine, skater freaks and Skin from Skunk Anansie’s wee dog
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be… Read More Elemental self-care: You are a motherfucking village, motherfucker
We shall not cease from exploration/And the end of all our exploring/Will be to arrive where we started/And know the place for the first time TS Eliot When I attended a talk last year by a shamanic practitioner sharing his experience of mental illness symptoms sometimes being indicative of a kind of (painful) awakening to one’s true… Read More Are you mentally ill or are you waking up?
When you wake up in the mornin’, baby, look inside your mirror You know I won’t be next to you, you know I won’t be near I’d just be curious to know if you can see yourself as clear As someone who has had you on his mind A beautiful soul in my life who… Read More Music, massage and man’s best friend: my current ways to mental wellness
I always remember a friend arriving back in London after two weeks traversing Scotland in a camper van, figuratively stoned on the power of the slowing down that had happened to her during the trip. When your mind already runs a million miles a minute, being in a city like the UK capital obviously isn’t… Read More Into The Wild yes, but I draw the line at killing a chicken
‘Because we are also what we have lost’ – Amores Perros Another year, another November and as I move house and unpack my stuff I find one of the last cards my brother sent me before he died on 11.11.11. Featuring a quote from the Mexican movie Amores Perros that, when I first read it, I… Read More Spirituality, shadow monsters and suicidal thoughts
‘Did you see his man bag? You don’t get many of them in Omagh. Fabulous taste in clothes.’ – my mum on my psychiatrist I’d mainly encountered psychiatrists in a professional capacity until this Summer when I got one of my very own, after the proverbial wheels came a bit off and primary care services… Read More That boy needs therapy (Ranagazoo, let’s have a tune)
First thing’s first: that word, cailíní, is an Irish one and it means women (or girls – I mainly remember it from Gaelic classes at my female-only school when the teacher was telling us to shut the f**k up and listen). So Cailíní Secret refers to the secrets of Irish women, as sourced and compiled by fellow… Read More Cailíní Secret: No One Is Alone In What They Feel
The world is but a great Bedlam, where those that are more mad, lock up those who are less – Thomas Tryon, 1689 The glorious Wellcome Collection in London is currently hosting a free mind-fuck, I mean exhibition, which kind of charts the evolution of mental health care via the story of the notorious Bedlam. AKA… Read More The world is but a great Bedlam
When I committed to going at least once to ‘Dynamic Meditation‘ as a gesture of support towards a friend fundraising for a good cause, all I knew was that it was something to do with movement and an alternative to the sitting meditation that I, like so many, find challenging to the point of avoidance.… Read More Slaying my monkey mind
Relaja la Raja 