âThis season invites us to trust the darkness and stillness of winter, embrace being rather than doing, surrender to what is, and sink deeply into our own being, awaiting renewal and rebirth.â
Dolores Whelan, Celtic wisdom keeper
TĂĄimid ar bĂs â we are excited to share our seasonal care package The Nudge with you as we enter Samhain here in the northern hemisphere.
Dear Ones,
In Ireland, our ancestors honoured the cycles of life through ritual and relationship with land, sea and sky. We have inherited a rich mythos from the ancients in the form of monuments, mounds and sacred sites built in harmony with the cosmos.
We are approaching the threshold of Samhain, the great turning of the year in the Irish seasonal calendar. The harvest has been gathered and the light is fading. We enter the dark half of the year, what the old Celtic calendar named Giamos, a time associated with the ancestors and the thinning of the veil between worlds.
As you read this today, Venus moves from Scorpio back into Libra, asking us to honour what we truly value before we begin again. Even our clocks turn back today.
Samhain invites us to remember the great cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Beneath the surface, in the darkness of the cauldron, something is always being transformed.
At this moment, many of us brace ourselves as we descend into darkness. But what if we could also embrace the potential for renewal that dwells within it?
We cannot welcome the new without making space for it to arrive.
In these threshold times of death and rebirth, we are both death doulas and birth midwives. Our work is to tend the space between what has been and what is yet to come.
This Samhain, I stand at a threshold of my own.
For fifteen years, I have devoted my life to The Trailblazery, creating cultural experiences, conversations and communities that invite us to question the stories we have inherited and imagine new ways of being human. Through The Trailblazery, Moon Medicine, Hedge School and Scoil Scairte, we have explored cultural memory, ancestral inheritance, embodied wisdom and our great capacity for collective transformation.
The Trailblazery - 10 Year Celebration Video
I know deep in my being that this body of work is ready to evolve. There are threads to follow, patterns to make sense of and vital questions that need more time and space than the pace of everyday work allows. It is time to remember what has been created, recognise what has been learned and listen for what might be asking to emerge.
And so, as we enter the witching hour of Samhain, I am taking a sabbatical and stepping back for a season.
Venus traces the same pattern every eight years. The last time she made this retrograde passage was autumn 2018, when I was in Beara and Moon Medicine first came through. Eight years on, as I prepare to return to Beara with a coven of wise women from all over the world, she returns to the same part of the sky.
The wild world has always been my greatest teacher. She shows us that shedding, hibernation and composting are essential to the health of our ecosystems. We need to remember this wisdom in our own lives, too. To rest, digest and metabolise experience. To make meaning and restore our resources.
Life is calling me to retreat so the next cycle can unfold and unfurl.
In Irish, codladh geimhridh a dhĂŠanamh means to hibernate, to enter winter sleep. And I love the word codlatĂĄn, for a hibernating creature.
This coming season, I am intentionally reshaping the rhythms of life, devoting deeper time to rest and reflection. I am listening for what wants to emerge next on the path of my own dĂĄn, a word that means poem, gift and destiny.
I am honouring the path. I am walking the talk.
And it is absolutely terrifying.
As the writer Jason Kirkey reminds us,
âIn Samhain what we find is ultimately not an initiation into an Otherworld but an initiation into a deeper perception of this world. We might at this psychic depth find ourselves initiated into a deeper way of being human.â
Image Credit: Lucy Campbell
I feel I am entering an initiation into uncharted realms. I can sense shimmers of what is ahead, and I know this requires me to slow down so my soul can catch up.
The past 15 years has taught me that wintering is not an interruption of life, but an essential part of the cycle.
Deep down, I know we are all being invited to remember another way of creating. Not rooted in urgency, productivity or constant output, but in depth, presence, alignment and right relationship.
This Samhain, I am choosing the fertile darkness. To compost what has been, and to trust the intelligence of the in-between.
Idir ĂĄit.
I also find myself reflecting on the first anniversary of the passing of my dear friend ManchĂĄn, who has gone ar slĂ na fĂrinne. It is hard to believe that a full year has passed since our gathering at Uisneach.
As the ancestors draw near, I am reminded of the enduring gifts of those who have gone before us and of our responsibility to carry their wisdom forward with care and courage.
We are all ancestors-in-training. What we choose to meet, heal, integrate and embody now will ripple far beyond our own lives. The invitation of Samhain is not simply to let go, but to become more conscious participants in the great turning of the wheel.
As we cross this threshold together, may we find the courage to go further down and further in: to honour what is ending, to rest in what is unresolved and to meet with wild imagination whatever is waiting to be born.
Until we meet againâŚ
Beir bua â with victory,
Kathy
Samhain marks the beginning of the Celtic New Year, the cross-quarter fire festival between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice. It is the festival of the Dead, a time of initiation into the darkness of the womb and the tomb.
As the veils between worlds grow thin, life and death intertwine and the unseen stirs close. Our ancestors honoured this threshold as a time to reflect, release and begin again, to shed what no longer serves and to plant the seeds of new potential in the fertile dark.
In Irish mythology, we meet the Cailleach, the Great Crone and Creatrix, guardian of the land and Queen of Winter. She calls us to descend, to rest and to remember that darkness is not an ending but a beginning - the alchemy of death into new life.
Samhain invites us to listen deeply, to honour the ancestors and to enter the mystery with courage and reverence, trusting in the wisdom of the dark to guide our becoming.
Credit: @gaia_files
3 journal prompts to inspire you:
đŻď¸What is your relationship like to the darkness?
đŻď¸How can you bear witness in this time of collective wintering?
đŻď¸What practices and allies can support you to enter into the season of Samhain consciously this year?
whatâs 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
Tending Your Flame
At Samhain every hearth fire in Ireland was quenched. A great fire was then kindled on the Hill of Tlachtga in County Meath and from that one flame each household carried home an ember to relight its own hearth for the dark months ahead.
As the veils grow thin and the Cailleach, Queen of Winter, calls us to descend, Samhain asks not only what we are letting go, but what we are keeping alight. What is the flame you will carry through the dark? And how will you tend it until Imbolc, when the light returns and it is ready to blaze again?
The Path of the DĂĄn
Before entering her sabbatical, Kathy is opening a small number of 1: 1 Creative Mentorship places. These spaces are for those standing at a threshold in their lives, feeling called to deepen into their work, gifts, purpose or next chapter. Places are limited, allowing for deep attention, thoughtful guidance and dedicated support through this season of transition.
If something in this invitation resonates, weâd love to hear from you. Simply email Hello@thetrailblazery.com to express your interest.
3 curated resources to mind your life & nourish your senses in the days ahead
đśListen: For your ears
We are delighted to share SlĂ na SamhlaĂochta (The Way of Imagination), a beautiful posthumous work by ManchĂĄn Magan, created in collaboration with Simon O'Reilly and Myles O'Reilly. Blending spoken word, music, mythology, landscape, and the wisdom of the Irish language, it offers a deep journey into the Gaelic imagination and the mysteries of An Saol Eile (the Otherworld). It is a fitting companion for this season of threshold-crossing, inviting us to slow down, listen deeply, and reconnect with the enduring power of story, place, and imagination.
The record is available for purchase or streaming. We also encourage you to explore the background story behind the recording and its origins at the Hedge School Festival.
đRead: For your heart
The Book of Genocides is a powerful and immersive graphic novel by award-winning artist Dana Walrath that confronts readers with some of historyâs most devastating atrocities. Drawing on the visual traditions of documentary comics pioneers such as Joe Sacco and Art Spiegelman, Walrath traces ten genocides, from the First Peoples of the Americas and the Holocaust to Palestine and the Rohingya of Myanmar. By weaving these histories into a single work, she exposes the systems that enable genocide while illuminating pathways toward resistance and change. Both deeply unsettling and profoundly moving, the book reveals genocide not only as a historical reality but as an ongoing human crisis that demands awareness, reflection, and action.
đWitness: For your soul
Our dear and mighty sisters, Ăine Tyrell and Growler (Dee Mulrooney), will take to the stage for Daughters of the Cailleach. This promises to be an unforgettable evening of song, storytelling, spoken word, and fierce feminine wisdom. There are two opportunities to see these powerFULL MnĂĄ le chĂŠile:
- Friday, October 30 at 8 PM at Bandon Town Hall, County Cork
- Saturday, October 31 at 8 PM at The Mick Lally Theatre, Galway
Hailed as âa forceâ with a live presence that is both âelectric and intimate,â Ăineâs performances are renowned for their power, heart, and ancestral depth. Growler, the theatrical alter ego of Dee Mulrooney, is a drum-banging alchemist and storyteller with âa tongue like a lash and a heart of gold,â leading audiences on transformative journeys through humour, grief, resilience, and healing.
Together, these two forces of nature are sure to conjure a night of wild magic, courage, and soul-deep connection. This is an event not to be missed.
May this Samhain season serve you in alchemising your pain into purpose. May all beings know peace.
Thank you for walking this path with us.
BeannachtaĂ,
Kathy and all at The Trailblazery
