Pilgrimage – Week 1: Dublin
On hermits, forests, full moons, and the tender flame of enchantment
Dear Friends,
Greetings from my hotel room in Dublin, Ireland. I write you with my window open to the blustery night air, the voices of Spanish tourists echoing up the brick garden walls.
As some of you may know, I’m currently on a pilgrimage in honor of the Hermit year. I’ve come to understand the cultural relations with trees in my ancestral homelands of Ireland and Scotland.
My doctoral dissertation is about the spiritual impact of deforestation on colonial cultural formation, and ritual as a potential intervention into settler colonial relations with the land.
Just today, right as the National Museum of Ireland was closing, I happened upon an exhibit that somehow folded all my quests into one.
“Glendalough: Power, Prayer, and Pilgrimage,” is an exhibit about a hermit, St. Kevin (I prefer his Irish name, Naomh Caoimhin. Better, right?).
He lived in the 7th century, was suckled on the teat of a white cow, made apples grow from willow trees, and is always depicted holding a raven.
Did you know that 1,000 years ago thick forest covered 80% of Ireland, but by 1950 forests were decimated to 2%, the lowest forest cover in Europe — mainly due to colonization.
Anglo Norman forces hacked down the great woods all around Glendalough, where St. Kevin had slept in his cave. Basically the destroyed the forests to cripple the community who treasured them psychologically, spiritually, and materially.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
The Trump administration selling off public lands to line the pockets of corporate profiteers fills me with panic and dread, a small taste of the agony of loss Native Americans have been experiencing for centuries.
The constant assault on the land is beyond exhausting, it’s horrifying. For hundreds, if not thousands, of years, the forces of greed have relentlessly pillaged the earth in effort to control the people and “resources” who lived here.
But, my pilgrimage has given me cause for inspiration.
While Ireland’s forests had been depleted to 2% in 1950, they’re up to 10% now, with more major forest rehabilitation projects happening all the time.
Forest rehabilitation happens because humans desire it, they work for it, they care about it.
The Irish language too was once forbidden, the children beaten for speaking it, and now Irish is written on every street and museum sign in the land.
No matter where we come from, our ancestors have faced famines, genocides, betrayals, wars, plagues — and yet, despite all of it, they have managed to preserve the aspects of culture that give us life and hope.
We still have prayers, music, fragments of rituals. We still have folk knowledges and the sacred springs paved over are still there waiting to be rediscovered.
Week 1 of my pilgrimage has reminded me of all the ancestors who carried forward sacred knowledges, no matter what the cost or difficulty, for future generations. All that we know and have now, we have because of them.
I wish to be one of those ancestors. To preserve the sacred knowledges and create new ones. I want to live so that no matter what horror the Kyriarchy brings, the future children of the earth will still have enchantment.
My goal with Mystery Cult is that together, we will keep the flame of enchantment lit, close to our hearts, and never let it go out.
Keeping enchantment is alive our duty, and it will give us purpose in the times ahead.
With love,
Amanda
P.S. Our Full Moon in Capricorn Ritual will be on Thursday, July 10th at 12pm PST / 3pm EST / 8pm GMT (please note the earlier time)…
…we’ll call this the “Keeping Enchantment Alive” moon. Our work will be to recognize what sacred flames you are tending in these difficult times, so you can honor and practice your ancestral tools of enchantment in your daily life. This will be a daytime ritual for those of you in the Americas. I hope you can join us!
P.P.S. Come to Scotland for magic on July 26th!
Don’t forget, on July 26th I’m holding a one-day workshop with the poet Rebecca Sharp in Edinburgh, that will be all about devotion, poetry, inspiration, and ritual. Please come! And tell your friends! Find out more about it here.