Vincent Hely Celebrant

This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

From his books, Benedictus (Europe) / To Bless the Space Between Us (US)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

County Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

Thank you to Stuart Holly for the interview with me a couple of weeks ago published in The Clare Echo.

Delighted to have been the “sequel wedding” Celebrant for Kayla and Steve, even more special that it features in the summer edition of brides of Munster magazine👰‍♀️💍
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Those special bonds…….

Life and Soul Celebrations -
Weddings, Vow Renewals, Funerals, Ashes Scattering, Baby Naming Ceremony’s
Visit: https://www.lifeandsoulcelebrations.com

Thank you very much to Chris, Stacey and Elizabeth at Shannon Crematorium for their welcome, professionalism and support shown to me today as I conducted a service for a wonderful character from Co. Mayo. RIP.
A beautiful setting and a wonderful place to say goodbye to your loved one.

A visit to Tobar Chrónáin today in the heart of the Burren. Perfect and peaceful. While there got to hear the Cuckoo for the first time this year. Class.

Tying the knot. — Credit - Anja Kolic Photography
What a wonderful day 😊

Stillness is vital to the world of the soul. If as you age you become more still, you will discover that stillness can be a great companion. The fragments of your life will have time to unify, and the places where your soul-shelter is wounded or broken will have time to knit and heal. You will be able to return to yourself. In this stillness, you will engage your soul. Many people miss out on themselves completely as they journey through life. They know others, they know places, they know skills, they know their work, but tragically, they do not know themselves at all. Aging can be a lovely time of ripening when you actually meet yourself, indeed maybe for the first time. There are beautiful lines from T. S. Eliot that say:

'And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.'

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from the book, Anam Cara,
25th Anniversary Edition.
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Lough Inagh, Co Galway, Ireland - January 2024
Photo: © Ann Cahill

JOURNEY OF THE SOUL

One of the qualities that you can develop, particularly in your older years, is a sense of great compassion for yourself. When you visit the wounds within the temple of memory, you should not blame yourself for making bad mistakes that you greatly regret. Sometimes you have grown unexpectedly through these mistakes. Frequently, in a journey of the soul, the most precious moments are the mistakes. They have brought you to a place that you would otherwise have always avoided. You should bring a compassionate mindfulness to your mistakes and wounds. Endeavor to inhabit the rhythm you were in at that time. If you visit this configuration of your soul with forgiveness in your heart, it will fall into place itself. When you forgive yourself, the inner wounds begin to heal. You come in out of the exile of hurt into the joy of inner belonging.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from the book, Anam Cara,
25th Anniversary Edition.
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/anam-cara

County Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

Deep within every life, no matter how dull or ineffectual it may seem from the outside, there is something eternal happening. This is the secret way that change and possibility conspire with growth. John Henry Newman summed this up beautifully when he said, "To grow is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often." Change, therefore, need not be threatening; it can in fact bring our lives to perfection. Perfection is not cold completion. Neither is it avoidance of risk and danger in order to keep the soul pure or the conscience unclouded. When you are faithful to the risk and ambivalence of growth, you are engaging your life. The soul loves risk; it is only through the door of risk that growth can enter.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his book, Anam Cara,
25th Anniversary Edition.
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/anam-cara

Cong Abbey, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

'For a New Beginning,' from his books 'To Bless the Space Between Us' (US) / Benedictus (Europe)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Sunrise at Lough Inagh
Connemara, Co. Galway, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

Give yourself time to make a prayer that will become the prayer of your soul. Listen to the voices of longing in your soul. Listen to your hungers. Give attention to the unexpected that lives around the rim of your life. Listen to your memory and to the inrush of your future, to the voices of those near you and those you have lost. Out of all of that attention to your soul, make a prayer that is big enough for your wild soul, yet tender enough for your shy and awkward vulnerability; that has enough healing to gain the ointment of divine forgiveness for your wounds; enough truth and vigour to challenge your blindness and complacency; enough graciousness and vision to mirror your immortal beauty. Write a prayer that is worthy of the destiny to which you have been called.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his book, Eternal Echoes
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Doolin, Co Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

https://www.facebook.com/story.php/?id=100044567163571&story_fbid=884164566412441

ANAM CARA

In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. One of the fascinating ideas here is the idea of soul-love; the old Gaelic term for this is anam cara. Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and cara is the word for friend. So anam cara in the Celtic world was the "soul friend."

In everyone's life, there is a great need for an anam cara, a soul friend. In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away, you can be as you really are. Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home.

The anam cara experience opens a friendship that is not wounded or limited by separation or distance. Such friendship can remain alive even when the friends live far away from each other. Because they have broken through the barriers of persona and egoism to the soul level, the unity of their souls is not easily severed. When the soul is awakened, physical space is transfigured. Even across the distance, two friends can stay attuned to each other and continue to sense the flow of each other's lives. With your anam cara you awaken the eternal.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his book, Anam Cara,
25th Anniversary Edition.
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/anam-cara

Fanore Beach, Co Clare, Ireland - 2023
Photo: © Ann Cahill

I can guarantee you’ll be even more proud of our beautiful Banner county after attending this fantastic show. The research Diarmuid de Faoite has done to bring the wonderful irish songs from our county back to life that were lost and how he has given a platform to newly composed Irish songs from the county - he deserves to be honoured! An-bhrodúil chun páirt a ghlachadh!

Ag teacht go dtí glór!!! Bígí linn - ceol, craic, Gaeilge, damhsa agus amhráin an Chláir!! 💙 💛

Scaip an scéal - spread the word le do thoil!

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