“When we turn our gaze toward the plant world,
it gives us insight into the composition of our own being.”
Hilma af Klint
This seasonal care package has been prepared by Kathy and the team at The Trailblazery.
Dear Friends, Kindred Spirits and Anam Chairde,
Táimid as bĂs - we are excited to prepare our monthly care package, The Nudge, for you as we step into the vibrant season of Bealtaine.
At this bewildering moment as we face the fragility of the place we call home, we are called to remember our wild selves and the wild world that sustains us.
In many Indigenous cultures, there was no word for “nature,” because there was no separation. The wild was not something “out there,” but a field of belonging. This is something we have forgotten. And now, we find ourselves needing a map to guide us back home.
The Wheel of the Year is more than a calendar, it is a cosmology. An ancient rhythm of time that honours light and dark, death and rebirth, descent and ascent. Within the Irish imagination lives a mythic consciousness where heartbreak and enchantment coexist, where polarity is not a problem but a portal. We are invited to live within the tension rather than resolve it.
Having steeped in the dark, feminine energies of Giamos, Bealtaine marks a turning point, cor cinniĂşnach, into Samos, the bright half of the year, where the masculine principle comes into fuller expression.
© Appassionata
Yet what we are witnessing in the world today is not balance, but brutal excess. The dominance of patriarchal, “power-over” structures has left deep imprints, splitting body from spirit and masculine from feminine. This rupture has been internalised, embodied and normalised. What is unfolding now is not new, but a revelation of what has long been hidden in plain sight.
Within the wreckage, we encounter the wounds of a “motherless” culture.
But the Great Mother cannot be erased. She endures as a generative force within all of life, guiding the creative cycles of death, birth and rebirth.
When we attune to the cyclical intelligence within our own bodies, we recognise her everywhere, in the turning seasons, the waxing and waning moon, the pull of the tides. These rhythms stretch far beyond us, into the spinning Earth, the orbit of planets, the birth and death of stars.
A vast choreography of ebb and flow.
To remember this is to recognise ourselves as part of it all, interwoven, fite fuaite, into the web of life.
As the Great Wheel turns, mar a chasann an roth, toward Bealtaine, we are invited into a relationship that honours the beautiful dance of masculine and feminine and celebrates the creative forces moving within and around us.
In the aftermath of the First World War, the Swedish mystic-artist Hilma af Klint turned her attention toward the plant world. In her Nature Studies (1919–1920), she chose wild flowers and plants as her teachers. After the devastation of the first World War, she sought renewal. She wrote, “When we turn our gaze toward the plant world, it gives us insight into the composition of our own being.”
Hilma perceived the wild world as alive and inseparable from human existence. She understood that “beyond the flowers”, were gateways into other realms of knowing and being. You can view a selection of her botanical drawings here.
Bealtaine is the season of bláthú, blossoming.
May we notice what is unfolding within and around us.
May we remember our belonging to the wild world.
May we restore the balance between masculine and feminine, within and without.
In bloom and beauty,
Faoi bhláth agus faoi mhaise.
Kathy
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© Grace Wells - Bealtaine, Embodiment
Bealtaine: An Ancient Map for Flourishing
In ancient Ireland, flourishing arose when life was lived in right relation: with time, with the land, with one another, and with the unseen forces moving through all things. Flourishing was not passive fortune, but was cultivated through conscious participation in the great web of being. Bealtaine, the great threshold festival of early summer, offers a living map of how life blossoms.
Our ancestors recognised the power of liminal times, those fertile in-between moments when transformation becomes possible. Dawn and dusk. Doorways and crossings. The meeting place of one season with the next. Bealtaine was one such threshold, when the dark half of the year gave way to the bright, and what had been gestating beneath the surface moved into form. Hawthorn blossomed. Fields awakened. Bodies opened. Desire and creativity blossomed together.
Ritual and ceremony were ways of participating consciously in this turning. At Bealtaine, cattle were driven idir dhá thine, between two fires, for protection, purification, and vitality. Water, too, held power. Holy wells were visited, flowers were offered, and the first May dew was gathered, and splashed on faces and feet, as a blessing of beauty and renewal.
© Anhelina Osaulenko
One of the deepest teachings of this season is the Banais RĂghi, the sacred marriage of sovereignty. In ancient symbolism, the rightful ruler entered into right relationship with the Goddess of the land through symbolic union. This was not about domination, but devotion. It taught that true prosperity can only arise where there is reverence, reciprocity, and care. Power severed from love becomes barren. Strength joined with wisdom becomes generative. The land prospers when masculine and feminine principles are in right relation.
Bealtaine was also a traditional season for handfasting, when unions were blessed in freedom and entered with intention. Often a bond made for a year and a day, it offered a sacred period of partnership after which a couple could choose to remain together or part in mutual respect. It honoured love as a living choice, renewed in truth rather than bound by coercion. Love itself was seen as part of the health of the wider community.
And at Uisneach, the sacred centre of Ireland, great fires were lit and people gathered in assembly. A reminder that blossoming is not only personal. We flourish together, or not at all.
The Irish song Thugamar Féin An Samhradh Linn (“We have brought the summer with us”) is closely associated with these seasonal acts of welcome and celebration. Below is our friend Anne Walshe's recording of this beautiful song.
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© Anne Walshe - Bealtaine (feat. Layv)
3 journal prompts to inspire you:
🌸 What within me is ready to blossom now, and what conditions of care, courage, or commitment would help it flourish?
🌸 What needs to be purified, released, or renewed in my life so that I may meet this next season with greater vitality and balance?
🌸 How might I come into deeper right relationship with myself, with others, and with the living world in the weeks, and months ahead?
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.
Creative Mentorship
Once a year, we open the doors to Kathy’s Creative Mentorship programme, with spaces available for one short cycle each year. We are delighted to announce that some spaces will be opening up this Autumn.
Designed to guide you through seasons of change with clarity, depth and soul, the creative mentorship pathway offers grounded structure, intuitive guidance and heart-centred support. Whether you are aligning with your next direction, expanding your creative expression or amplifying your impact in the world, this is a space to be deeply supported in your evolution.
For almost twenty years, Kathy has worked with cultural creatives, teachers, healers and visionaries who are ready to bring more meaning and integrity into their work.
This journey is designed to help you align with your dán, your soul’s calling, and to anchor your next stage of growth and support you in bringing your work into the world as an act of service. If this calls to you, you can join the waiting list here to set up a discovery call.
3 curated resources to mind your life and nourish your senses in the days ahead:
♪ Listen: For your ears
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Let the wild world into your eyes, your voice, your heart. Conceived and commissioned by Folk by the Oak festival, Spell Songs is a musical evolution of both The Lost Words & The Lost Spells books by acclaimed author Robert Macfarlane and award-winning illustrator Jackie Morris; creating a listening experience that intersects music, literature, language and art, as a call to reawaken our love of the wild.
✯ Connect: For your soul
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In times that ask us to stay rooted, inspired and connected to deeper currents of meaning, we’re sharing the work of visionary artist Hilma af Klint. Long before abstract art was widely recognised, Hilma af Klint was creating extraordinary paintings shaped by symbolism, spirituality and an expansive inner life. Her work continues to resonate with us today.
An upcoming exhibition of her work will open at the Grand Palais in Paris, before travelling onward to Ireland. If you’d like to explore her world more deeply, you can visit the Hilma af Klint Foundation website.
♥ Read: For your heart
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EnJOY these days - may this shimmering light be yours.
Thank you for walking this path with us,
BeannachtaĂ,
Kathy and all at The Trailblazery
