One Spot Open: Ireland Tour & Retreat
Dear Friends,
As we make our way toward the summer solstice on June 21, I am startled by all the light still pouring in at 8:00 at night here in Santa Cruz, California. What a liquid amber gift for the soul! I remember endlessly long summer nights in Ireland, where the sun does not set until almost 10 pm. Jean and I are actively preparing for my Ireland tour and writing retreat this September, and are both thrilled to be returning.
Please note that due to a cancellation, we have ONE SPOT OPEN for the “Landscape of Soul & Story” Writing Retreat and Tour,” September 8-19, 2024. For those who would like to attend with another person or as a couple, we would also be able to make that work.
We are spreading the word about this opening widely. So please let me know as soon as possible if you are interested. Also, please send this notice out to those who you think may be interested.
Keep an eye out later this week for one of my favorite essays, “On Dreams and Fairies: Meeting Bere Island,” about my first visit to the gorgeous, rugged and isolated Beara Peninsula in the far southwest of Ireland.
Beara is one of the parts of our Ireland tours that participants love the most. This year we are staying in Castletownbere, an ancient town that in many ways has not changed much in two hundred years.
Mobile phone shops have shown up, intermingled with housewares and hardware stores, the fish market, a tall imposing church, B&B’s, a grocery store, restaurants, gift shops, small clothing shops, and of course, terrific pubs—which are famous for their traditional music, fun and Irish dancing.
Our fabulous Beara Peninsula guide Carina McNally first joined us in 2019. She is native to the area, a writer as well as a guide, and speaks movingly of the Cailleach Beara, one of the oldest living mythological beings associated with Ireland. Carina writes, “The Cailleach is one of the original great land Goddesses. The ultimate Earth Mother, she was the source of fertility and female power, and a protector of wild nature.” Carina is passionate about exploring the transition from a land-based goddess spirituality to Christianity in Ireland.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F458fefb7-9682-4232-b5c4-6e4b5c040f81_3469x3024.jpeg)
Once again this year, Carina will bring us to many spectacular sacred places in Beara, including the stunning Uragh stone circle.
Personally, as we live through this precarious year, it is a profound solace to me that I will be returning to this rich and storied landscape soon.
Here is my prayer. In these times of unbearable suffering, violence, genocide and starvation, may this summer solstice bring a reminder of the organic, earthy core of our lives. At essence, we are all creatures of the light and the sun and the moon and the Earth. We live in a gorgeous world offering us her beauty again and again. May we come to understand the bounty of our inheritance. May we relinquish all boundaries, lines and definitions, all that does not value protection of each other, all humans, everywhere. May we love and protect our planet and all her glorious animals, every single intricate species that our mother Earth has spun out in her effortless web of beauty and grace.
Peace and blessings to you - and this I truly mean, and do not say lightly…
Carolyn
All photographs by Carolyn Brigit Flynn.
You can find more on our “Landscape of Soul and Story” Tour and Writing Retreat in Ireland this September, including itinerary, guides and resources, accommodations and testimonials here.