“The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all our most pleasing responsibility.”
Wendell Berry
This seasonal care package has been prepared by Kathy and the team at The Trailblazery.
Táimid ar bĂs, we are excited to share our seasonal care package The Nudge with you as Autumn approaches here in the northern hemisphere.
As I write, it feels as though we are witnessing extraordinary collective effervescence, shared joys and sorrows as we navigate change at a breathtaking speed.
The Autumn Equinox is a time of harvest and as the Wheel turns from Lughnasa towards the Equinox, we are reaping the bounty of our inaugural Scoil Scairte Summer School. What began as a wild experiment surpassed even our wildest dreams.
MĂle mĂle buĂochas to everyone who believed in us and helped bring it to life.
At Lughnasa, the nation gathered to celebrate Mayo Maigh Eo finally breaking the 75-year curse and bringing the Sam Maguire home after a riveting All-Ireland football final. And last week, Croke Park became the stage for another electrifying moment of shared pride as Katie Taylor stepped into the ring for the final fight of her remarkable career. In front of more than 83,000 people, and millions watching around the world, she fought her way to a fairytale ending becoming a three-time undisputed world champion.
Katie’s story is a reminder of what becomes possible when a young girl dares to dream and meets that dream with faith, discipline, courage and perseverance. She blazed a trail where there was no path before her. In this, her story connects with the lives of women such as Dolly Parton and Gloria Steinem, whose passing within days of one another reminds us of generations of women who widened the possibilities for those who came after them. In their very different ways, each challenged the boundaries of what a woman could be, create and become.
Now we are celebrating our friend Manchán’s new book launch, Seeing What’s Hidden, and the wisdom he continues to gift us since he left almost a year ago ar shlĂ na fĂrinne. I could feel his luminous legacy as I held the book in my trembling hands.
And yet, alongside these extraordinary moments of joy, the devastating losses keep coming.
We are witnessing catastrophic floods in Nepal, an accelerating climate crisis, and the growing environmental footprint of the data centres powering the rapid expansion of AI. Beneath these unfolding events runs a deeper current, one that asks us to pause and consider not only what we are building, but who we are becoming as ancestors in training.
We mourn the passing of Wendell Berry, whose life and work continually called us back to land, community and what he called the peace of wild things. His words feel especially resonant at this threshold between technological acceleration and our responsibility to the living world.
And still, there is beauty.
At Scoil Scairte, Pat McCabe, Woman Stands Shining, a Diné elder, reminded us of Hózhó, The Beauty Way of walking in harmony and right relationship, remembering that our wellbeing is inseparable from the wellbeing of the world around us.
She invited us to remember our Original Beauty: to place ourselves, again and again, before the truth of life, and to become available to the ways Spirit may be calling us to serve. She encouraged us to remain open to “outrageous proposals from Spirit.” To listen beyond what we think is possible. To allow ourselves to be surprised by what life is asking of us.
“We come from Original Beauty.
That is the baseline of Mother Earth.
That’s the baseline of our breath.
That’s the baseline of Cosmos — a benevolent creation.”
Her words have stayed with me, a reminder that beneath the noise, urgency and uncertainty of our times, there is another way of orienting ourselves towards beauty, reciprocity and right action.
Amid the current conversations surrounding Ed Sheeran and Macklemore, and the questions of solidarity and complicity that have emerged around artists speaking up for Palestine, many Irish artists have chosen to withdraw in solidarity with Macklemore and the Palestinian people.
At the heart of these conversations lies an invitation to look honestly at where we stand in relation to one another, and to consider not only what we believe, but how those beliefs are embodied through our choices, relationships, actions, and non-actions.
We are being asked, individually and collectively: what is ours to do?
How do we take right action? How do we practice solidarity - dlĂşthpháirtĂocht?
Perhaps this is the work of the Equinox: to discern what we are harvesting, what we are consuming, what we are composting, and what we are willing to stand for. To hold joy and sorrow, hope and grief, and find the greater whole.
Can we walk The Beauty Way with compassion, courage and right action?
Beir bua.
I ndlĂşthpháirtĂocht,
Kathy
Autumn Equinox, or CĂłnacht an FhĂłmhair as Gaeilge, marks the turning of the year, a moment of balance when day and night are held in almost equal measure, before the gradual descent into the darker half of the year.
This year, the astronomical Equinox, one of the four great hinge points in the seasonal cycle falls on Wednesday, 23 September midway between Lughnasa and Samhain.
Our ancestors understood these thresholds through their relationship with land, sky and sun. More than 5,000 years ago, structures at places such as Loughcrew, or Sliabh na CaillĂ, the Mountain of the Hag, were carefully oriented to the movements of the sun. At the Equinox, the rising light enters the ancient cairns, connecting the earthly and celestial worlds.
This is a time of harvest, when communities would gather as a meitheal, supporting one another to bring in the fruits of the land and prepare for the colder, darker months ahead.
The Equinox invites us into our own turning. From this moment, the outwardly expansive energies of summer wane, making way for the inward, descending energies of the dark feminine. In the Celtic understanding of the year, we move from the lighter half, samos, towards the darker half, giamos.
As the leaves begin to fall, we too are invited to turn inward: to gather what has ripened, give thanks for what has nourished us, and release what is ready to fall away. The invitation is to pause, observe, digest and embody this threshold moment and honour the great cycle of life, death and rebirth as we begin our descent towards Samhain.
3 journal prompts to inspire you:
🍂 What have you been cultivating?
What seeds have you sown this year, creatively, relationally, personally or collectively? What is beginning to ripen, and what can you acknowledge and give thanks for?
🍂 What are you ready to compost?
What has completed its cycle? What no longer serves the life you are becoming, and how might you transform rather than simply discard it?
🍂 What medicine will resource you for the darker half of the year?
As the Wheel turns inward towards Samhain, what practices, people, places, stories or rituals will nourish and sustain you? What will help you stay rooted in beauty, relationship and right action?
What's coming up at The Trailblazery:
As the Great Wheel turns, we are invited to pause and remember what we have travelled through together. We are excited to let you know what the future holds for our community here at The Trailblazery.
Homecoming
One spot has opened up for my Samhain Retreat on the lands of An Chailleach Bhéarra. Our home will be Dromgarriff, a sanctuary of wild beauty nestled within ancient oak woodland on the shores of Glengarriff Bay, on the west coast of Ireland.
We will honour the turning of the Celtic year, listen for what is ready to be released, and make space for what wants to emerge.
Over six days, we will weave together:
🌀 Seasonal ritual and ceremony
🌀 Sacred site pilgrimage
🌀 Irish wisdom teachings
🌀 Somatic and embodied practices
🌀 Creative exploration
🌀 Stories, song and fireside gatherings
🌀 Community, reflection and deep rest
There will be time to walk the land, listen, swim, rest, explore and simply be.
If you've been feeling the pull to reconnect with your dĂşchas, to step out of the noise and into a deeper relationship with yourself, this wild land and a circle of women, then this is your invitation.
If you'd like to know more email hello@thetrailblazery.com and we'll be happy to answer any questions. And if your heart is already saying yes, you can begin the application process here:
3 curated resources to mind your life and nourish your senses in the days ahead:
🕯️Reflect: For your soul
Enjoy this Equinox poem by Kathy, celebrating this moment of transition and the harmonious dance of opposites. As the Great Wheel turns and Autumn Equinox approaches, we honour the cycles of birth, death and rebirth. May this poem nourish your soul and help usher in the abundant blessings of the Equinox.
✨Watch: For your eyes
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Teacht an FhĂłmhair - Clare Sands & Liam Ă“ MaonlaĂ
Over 48 hours, Clare Sands and Liam Ă“ MaonlaĂ recorded this primal musical pilgrimage by fire and candlelight, following wherever it led until birdsong broke their trance, returning them with old ghosts by their sides.
đź’šLove and Solidarity: For your heart
Seeing What's Hidden: Uncovering Ireland's Ancient Ways of Knowing by Manchán explores how ancient Irish culture retains deep resonances with other indigenous worldviews. Especially the way of perceiving land, language, nature and spirit as inseparable. In Seeing What's Hidden, Manchán implores us to look again so that we too might rediscover our cultural inheritance and chart our course forward from here.
EnJOY these days - may the fading light be yours.
Thank you for walking this path with us,
BeannachtaĂ,
Kathy and all at The Trailblazery
