Wise Woman Workshops
May 28th-30th, 2010
Dromahair, Leitrim, Ireland

Workshops Descriptions

Facilitator Biographies

Embracing Our
Sheela-na-Gig

Ancient symbols of a woman's power and freedom, Sheela-na-gigs were once found all over Ireland up until the time of the Reformation.

We will be exploring and expressing this ancient architype so that we may embrace our power as Women.

Allowing ourselves the opportunity to access the wild and often hidden side of our nature.

Amantha Murphy

Co Kerry

amantha@eircom.net

Web: www.celticsouljourneys.com

Amantha Murphy teaches ‘The Way of the Seabhean’ as well as workshops on Ancient Irish Goddesses & Pre-Celtic Shamanism, among others. Amantha began her work as a medium 39 years ago and moved on to trance-mediumship by the time she was 22. Amantha has on-going workshops in the USA as well as Ireland. She also works with individuals.

Amantha has been running Sacred Pilgrimages successfully in Ireland since 1992.  Amantha's focus and workshops are very much focused upon The Way of the Seabhean,  pre-Celtic Shamanic teachings and Healings, Sacred Ceremony, the Celtic Wheel and Rites of Passage for Women.

Amantha is available as a Dula (one who is with women when they are giving birth, especially home-births). She also performs commitment ceremonies.

Amantha is the mother of four and Grandmother of four, which she considers to be her greatest act of beauty.

Journey to your Power Woman - A sacred, playful journey of spontaneity and imagination. 

Awaken and connect to your inner wisdom and deeper self. Step outside of the ordinary reality and awaken the unique power that lies hidden within each of us.

Journey, create, perform your essence message, step it out into the world.

Warning : This workshop contains hot colours and happening energetics.

Sherrie Scott

Creative Energyworks

Mermaids Healing Arts Centre

Rossnowlagh, Co Donegal

+353 86 081 1217  

flowingtide@hotmail.com

Sherrie Scott is an experienced group facilitator, costume designer, and energy practicioner who has facilitated creative self empowering workshops since 1999.

Her energy medicine works with the chakra system and herbal remedies to help people break-through the old patterns that no longer benefit them. The impact cleans the energy field. This work is on a one to one basis.

Sherrie’s work has grown into a tapestry of celebration, weaving ceremony and energetics, creativity, colour and costume, story and song, movement and groovement, herbs and scents, rubs and scrubs, all created anew with each new group.

African Drumming and Singing

Intercultural African drumming and singing workshop. An exploration of tribal rhythms from the tribal cultures of planet Earth.

Debbie's workshops are designed to reconnect people to their own ‘pulse of life’ through drumming, dancing and song.

The aim is not only to share rhythm and songs from various cultures but to re-awaken our own tribal healing rhythm and create an environment of respectful co-operation. In this way we also foster creativity, flexibility and spontaneity, and show people that it is possible to belong and to feel connected to each other and to a community in a safe and fun-filled way.

Rhythm succeeds where words fail. For this workshop we will be creating a sacred space using a healing rhythm to celebrate and explore the deep beauty that lies within each of us.

Debbie Beirne

Co Roscommon
094 986 0495 or 087 6326610

ruachrhythms@gmail.com  

I love to knit. I knit a lot. Small things mostly - poems rather than novels - gloves, hats, socks, scarves - things that keep the extremities warm. I knit with love, and I know that warms the wearer as much as the wool. I knit flowers, leaves, gnomes, and more recently sheela-na-gigs.  Knitting, as a traditional craft, has huge meaning for me, but more than that - I believe knitting can change lives, even save lives.

After a recent earthquake in Italy, I heard an elderly woman released from under the rubble many days after the quake being interviewed on the radio. When asked how she had kept herself calm while she was trapped under debris, she replied that she had just got on with her knitting.

Poetry has this power too. Another old woman trapped under rubble after an earthquake in Iran, said that she had kept herself alive for 10 days until she was discovered by reciting poetry.

I say, start reading and writing poetry now - and don’t go anywhere without your knitting. You never know when you might need these wonderful tools.

In this workshop we will knit two together, pass over slipped stitches, make poems, share stories. Throw away the pattern books and learn how to make it up as you go along – in knitting as in life. Learn how we can Knit the World Better!©

Ruth Marshall

Co Clare 

061 473866  

ruth.a.marshall@gmail.com

Born in Glasgow, Ruth has lived in Co Clare since 1986. She has been editor/publisher of Network Ireland holistic magazine since 1994. She has been a folklore collector, hat-maker, puppeteer, teacher of creative writing and sacred dance, and is mother to a 20 year old.

Author of “Freeing the Spirit” – a collection of traditional games, and “Celebrating Irish Festivals” – a hands-on guide to Celtic festivals and seasonal celebrations, with stories, songs, games, crafts, recipes, Ruth is also known as a poet, storyteller, healer and facilitator of The Transformation Game.

She celebrates a spirituality rooted in the earth and crowned with stars, and is passionate about the healing potential of craftwork, poetry and story and the power of the spoken word to effect change in our lives and in the world. Her next book “Knit the World Better!” – will be an empowering pattern book for personal and planetary transformation.

Creative Writing

A writer is someone who writes.

Genius is available to all of us. 

It is in each one of us, waiting to be evoked, enabled, supported and celebrated.  This is the philosophy that attracted Orfhlaith to the AWA (Pat Schneider) method of facilitating creative writing workshops. 

In a safe environment, all writing is considered fiction and newborn material is treated with the gentleness that it deserves.

This workshop is suitable for new and established writers.

Órfhlaith Ni Chonaill, M. Phil

Writers Ink

Strandhill, Co.Sligo
087 2799108
Web:www.writersinksligo.com

Órfhlaith Ni Chonail completed a Masters in Creative Writing at Trinity College, Dublin and holds a Creative Writing Workshop Leader certification from Amherst Writers & Artists in Massachusetts.

Her novel "The Man With No Skin",was the recipient of IPPY (Independent Book Publishers') and CIPA (Colorado Book Publishers') Awards in the United States in 2006. She has just completed her second novel.

Órfhlaith has facilitated creative writing workshops since 2001, including The Lismore Festival of Travel Writers. She works with community groups and organises writers retreats at Holy Hill Hermitage, where she provides one to one mentoring. She also holds the Strandhill Writers Summerfest each July.

Órfhlaith is a founding member of the Wise Woman Weekend.

Letting Go – Stuck in the Muck

We all feel stuck sometimes – up to our knees in the muck and unable to take a step in any direction! We long to let go of something, or many things: old habits and patterns, difficult memories or out-dated ways of relating. Well, make a start right here. First we will celebrate our stuckness, because now we recognise it we can use it to motivate us towards change.

Then we can make room for ourselves right here in this moment, because this is where we find the real path to letting go.

Using movement, discussion, laughter, drawing, writing, play, ritual and visualisation this workshop will help you to identify where you feel bogged-down and how to move towards your dreams.

Once we begin to pull away from the sticky stuff, we are able to imagine the life we want, create some goals and start that transformation from stuck in the muck to flying free.

Rachel Webb

Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim

rachelwebb@live.ie

Originally from the UK, Rachel has lived in North Leitrim since 1994. Having studied psychology and spiritual development for many years, she has a Diploma in Hypnotherapy, has just completed a Diploma in Counselling and Psychotherapy and will complete her degree next year. Her deepest interests lie in our spiritual connection with the natural world and an integrated approach to self development that includes lightening life’s journey and plenty of love, pleasure and fun!

Her work is based on the belief that we have within us the resources we need to deal with life’s challenges, but sometimes need help to discover our strengths and abilities.

Foraging for Food and Medicines in the Wild

We have wild animals and wild plants and they have qualities of tenacity, independence, opportunism and spontaneity we could do with ourselves!   

Foraging for them is easy, with a few provisos – like chemical free sites.   The hardest bit is learning to recognize them.   Judith makes this as easy as she can, with stories and anecdotes and useful bits of information throughout walk, or talk. 

She recommends the books that will help – just two to get you started.   She is passionately in love with her siblings, the plants - so much so that she starts each day with gratitude to them for all the ways in which they sustain our lives.   Join in and let some of her passion become your own.

You may find it useful to take notes and pictures of the plants identified during this walk and come prepared for the weather.

Judith Hoad

Inver, Co. Donegal

074 9736406
judithhoad@gmail.com

Judith Hoad MIAMH (hon),MIAMMH (Hon), Dip.Shen Tao, ITEC. Herbalist, Vibrational Medicine Practitioner (Shen Tao Acupressure, Flower and Gem Essences), Journalist  (Organic Matters, Local Plant ) and Author of "Need or Greed, Our Practical Choices for the Earth", " This is Donegal Tweed", " Healing with Herbs", "Hoad's Herbals - Remedial Skin Creams - The Recipes". Judith is currently writing a book about herbs and has nearly completed a manuscript on the topic of practical sustainability.

Judith offers Home and Hearth- Side Skills and Living Earth Apprenticeship workshops at her self sufficient home in Donegal and gives talks and workshops throughout Ireland and abroad on a number of topics.

Judith helped organise the Bury Me Green Conference 2005 and provides advice, supplies and services for those interested in alternative burial. Judith's artist husband of thirty eight years , Jeremiah Hoad, was returned to the earth in 1999 in a manner that honoured his ethos. Jeremiah called Judith a ‘Subversive Realist’ - and she still is.

Judith is a member of the core group of Donegal Transition Town. She is also a great grandmother, and a founding member of the Wise Woman Weekend.

Zaar North African Healing Trance Dance

Trance dance is spontaneity in the purest sense.
Here is wild abandon,
freedom of spirit,
ancient healing.

The Zaar is North African/Middle Eastern trance dance healing ceremony, traditionally performed by women when one of their community gets sick.

It has ancient roots predating any organised religion and reaching back to the dawn of history. A Zaar is traditionally held to bring about healing of physical, psychological, emotional or spiritual problems by means of drumming, singing and wild ecstatic dancing. It also plays an important community role as a social gathering for sharing and mutual support.

In this workshop which is based on the traditional music and movements, you will be guided through a relaxation meditation and some gentle stretching, followed by an exploration of what is naturally emerging from our bodies in response to music. A series of very simple traditional movements will them be added to this, which encompass the whole body, helping to break habitual patterns and release blocked energy.

Although you will be encouraged to try out the traditional movements, the whole workshop is very freestyle, with the emphasis on listening to your body and taking things at your own pace.

The experience of a Zaar generally leaves the participant feeling grounded, centered and relaxed refreshed and cleansed, with a deeper sense of connectedness.

No previous dance experience necessary

Please bring a yoga mat, towel or blanket as some floor work is involved.

Amber Elderfield, PhD

Co.Galway

091 446 661

amberelderfield@hotmail.com

Amber has had an unusual number of careers including research scientist, artists model, organic gardener/environmentalist and corset maker.  She also has 18 years experience of North African/Middle Eastern Dance including 9 years as a teacher and workshop facilitator, and 7 years experience as a healer, currently training at the Barbara Brennan School of Healing Europe.

Amber has a great passion for North African Dance and gets a lot of pleasure from sharing that passion with others, and facilitating them to find and express their own passion and joy. 

She is a sensitive and encouraging teacher who believes that dance is for everyone, even those who claim they 'can't' dance.  She also believes that we all carry an ancestral memory of dance, and that we need only to listen to the music, not with our ears, but with our hearts and bodies, and to trust what is naturally emerging from within us.

Painting from the right side of your brain

"Once I painted like Raphael, but it has taken me a whole lifetime
to learn to draw like children."
- Pablo Picasso

This workshop is designed to access the right side of the brain.  This allows for creativity to pour onto the page with the confidence and joy a child displays while engaged in artistic activity.

The first part of the workshop is made of a series of exercises allowing the attitude of the participant to shift from an analytical, linear and sequential mode to a more perceptual, global and sensorial mode.

The second part of the workshop is about painting whatever inspires you (and with a theme of Sheela na Gig inspiration will be flowing abundantly), you will choose the path you paint.  On your own or with support from Merovee you will explore whatever moves you at that precise moment.

 Painting with the right side of the brain is very much about the here and now.  You do not need to know to paint at all, at all, at all.  But if you already do, then you may discover a new dimension to your creativity.  All you need is an open mind, to be present to yourself and ready to be touched by your own ability.

All Inner Children Welcome! And if you haven't met yours yet, well you never know who you might meet. 

Merovee Guerin

Westport, Co Mayo

087 213 9856

Merovee2@gmail.com

Mérovée is an artist living in the west of Ireland, seeking inspiration in the landscape and the cycles of nature.  She weaves fibres, textiles and many other materials. 

She facilitates art workshops in diverse media, seeking to let people rediscover the pleasures and single-mindedness children display while creating. She is interested in how creativity contributes to the process of change and healing.

She is interested in community art and thinks that keeping art in the community (rather than putting it in art galleries and being the field of experts) enriches the community at a basic level, in everyday acts and objects, in ways of being, expressed by one and all.

A Taste of the Tarot

Learning to work with the tarot is fun and easy and a way to tap into your intuitive side.

Being able to receive and understand life messages for yourself is a gift available to us all.

This workshop is for total beginners and will cover the history of the Tarot, how to use it appropriately, explanations of the Major and Minor Arcana, and examples of different spreads.

Jan McEvoy

Stralea, Keash, Ballymote, Co.Sligo

graniaom@hotmail.com

Jan McEvoy B.A, and part completed Masters/D.Phil in Early Medieval Studies and FETAC level 5 in Art & Design.

Jan has lived and worked as a teacher in Ireland, England, Libya, France and the USA.

She has been reading the Tarot since she was a child and facilitates Tarot Taster parties.

Jan has been attending the Wise Woman Weekend since it began and we welcome her aboard this year as a facilitator.

Meditation: Power from the inside out

Happiness in life comes not by manipulating what you want to achieve but by paying attention to something seemingly unconnected with it.

The most important thing in meditation is not to try to solve the outside problem, but to taste the present mood of peace and joy and happiness that is flowing inside.

The problems we are surrounded by can not always be removed, but our inner attitude can be changed. When we meditate we can achieve inner harmony and peace.

By learning to control what is on the inside, you have more power over what happens on the outside.

This workshop will be a grounding and energising visualisation with gentle guidance from Miffy, who will provide a safe space to explore your inner world.

Miffy Kyles

Be Still Workshops

Co Donegal

miffykyles@gmail.com

Miffy is a Reiki teacher, has a diploma in Counseling, Psychology and Therapy in the Community and a Practitioner Diploma in Business and Life Coaching.

Miffy facilitates workshops in stress management, creative visualization and affirmation, natural healthcare choices, natural food choices (effects of artificial additives on behaviour and development), relaxing with baby, positive family living, and time for me.

Miffy advocates lowering stress levels through relaxation, meditation, natural diet and lifestyle choices and a positive mind-set to obtain optimum health & well being! This is the foundation for all her work.

Her workshops and seminars are aimed at  parents, carers and bereavement groups,  school students and their parents, women’s groups, community development groups, company staff and members of the general public.

Pathways to a better future

 “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing.”

Climate change, the end of cheap oil, and the credit crunch are coming together to create the ‘perfect storm’.

This  workshop provides a powerful framework for understanding the time we live in and for defining the collective choice we must now make as a species.

You will learn why the feminine qualities to create, nurture and cooperate are of paramount importance at this time.

Based on principles of permaculture we will explore right relationship with our planet and those who inhabit it. Permaculture is a system designed to work like nature does. At its essence is about getting the maximum yield for the least amount of effort. (Marella says “It’s like trying to teach your Grannie to suck eggs.”)

Climate change is warning us that we must change. Peak Oil indicates that we will be forced to change anyway.

It is clear that we cannot rely on so called national or world 'leaders' to sort this out on time. We must respond as individuals, families, and as inter connected communities.

During the workshop you will partake in simple, yet effective activities that will allow you to embrace your power, influence change in your communities, and self nuture as you journey on this path.

You will learn that meaning is found in discovering our place of service to the whole, that to end poverty, heal the environment, and secure a peaceful and abundant future we have to accept that all living things need a fair share of the Mother Earth that sustains us.

It is not necessary to be involved in the transition movement or permaculture to benefit and learn from this workshop.

All you need is an open mind and a desire to be the change you want to see - to make a better future for yourself and/or your children and grandchildren.

Valerie Whitworth

Omagh, Co Tyrone valwhitworth@btinternet.com

www.valeriewhitworth.co.uk

Marella Fyffe, MSc

Omagh, Co Tyrone marella.fyffe@googlemail.com

bananarambles.blogspot.com

Valerie Whitworth obtained her art degree from Camberwell College in London. She reflects that her final degree show “is still a kind of secret garden for me, a blueprint for my vision of bringing together personal art, community and environment in one creative whole.”

In addition to exhibiting her own paintings, Valerie has worked as a community artist for twelve years in Omagh. She had just moved to Omagh when the Omagh bomb went off. Instinctively she understood the need for healing in the community and organised an art festival to help alleviate the pain in the shattered community.

Valerie is a multi talented artist and workshop facilitator. She facilitates labyrinth workshops (having trained with Dr Lauren Artress), gives singing classes using the Natural Voice Technique, and runs creative healing workshops based on The Artists Way. She has facilitated business groups, intergenerational community art and music projects, worked with school children on projects such as planting and weaving a three-circuit labyrinth, and is active with carnival arts – having directed two large scale pageants for St Patrick's Day Festival in Dublin.

Valerie, who has Permaculture Design Certificate, is drawn to the transition movement because creative thinking is at the heart of the movement. It brings together many of her passions and interests; creativity, community building, and the environment.  It is not about campaigning against things, but focuses positive energy on getting things done, with creativity and a sense of play thrown in.

Marella Fyffe has a MSc in Environmental Decision Making, a Permaculture Design Certificate, certificates in Conflict Transformation and Principled Negotiation. She is a graduate of the Mastery Foundation School for Leadership and is a Fellow of Messines.

Marella has a passionate interest in environment and community and this interest has been a reoccurring thread through out her life. In addition to running the family owned landscape management company and, until recently, an award winning eco hostel, she teaches organic growing, edited the Organic Guide to Ireland, was the Network Coordinator for the  Greenbox Eco Tourist Project, Environmental Education Officer for the Devenish Partnership Forum, and recently opened Glenhordial Permaculture Farm, the first permaculture farm in Northern Ireland.

Marella has been a big support to the Wise Woman Weekend, taking part in the filming of the inaugural weekend and was the first woman to jump over the Bealtaine fire. Welcome back Marella.

 Marella and Valerie set up Transition Town Omagh (a voluntary organisation)  which provides a framework for people to come together with the shared concerns and work towards building a sustainable community.

Marella and Val are ordinary women doing extra ordinary things and they want to help you step into your power.