Lauren The Hermit

Well this is a mess

I am a renter, I did have my own house once but I gave it away to my ex when I escaped my old life. I didn’t want legal wrangling and the shackles of my past, I wanted to be free. This could have possibly been a silly move but I had no idea what the future had in store for me, I just knew I was ready lace up my Converse, pack my car and get the hell out of dodge.

Then the accident happened and I no longer had the energy that being free required. I couldn’t work, I couldn’t create, I couldn’t progress towards anything meaningful. I had to become a vessel that just about kept my essence contained (but only just). I was now at the mercy of society, the welfare state and the fucked up energy of Capitalism. Capitalism who was now telling me I was worth nothing because I was no longer ‘productive’ (in that awful soul destroying way that Capitalism deems productive).

My time in Ireland, a time that was supposed to become a fresh start (and in some ways it was) became a slog of recovery, anxiety, suicidal ideation, dealing with a fractured sense of self, a loss of vitality and living in insecure accommodation at the whim of landlords.

I don’t need to tell people trapped in the cycle of renting how insecure it feels. How landlords want to do the bare minimum but will still collect the rent. Houses full of damp, mould, single glazed windows that freeze on the inside in the Winter, old carpets and holes in the roof (yes my current house lost roof tiles in December ‘24 and still haven’t been replaced). BUT you stay where you are because you love the surroundings or because there’s not much better out there, it’s scary to leave where you live because even though it’s owned by someone who would put Peter Rachman to shame, it’s still better than ‘out there’.

‘Out there’ has spiralling rents, lack of options, an insane amount of competition for each house and don’t even get me started on Mr and Mrs ‘no pets allowed’. There’s many reasons for it all being such a shit show but no social/affordable housing being built, lack of leadership regarding rent caps and also the second home/Air BnB effect. Greedily hoovering up cheap housing, doing it up and then pricing people out of the areas they live in.

And this is where we are right now, being given notice to quit where we live for no apparent reason and frantically trying to find somewhere to live. I’m not ashamed to say I’m frightened. We are looking at potentially being homeless. Not a place I expected to be but a place where any of us could end up through a series of events beyond our control. I’m sad, angry and scared. I’m also ready to poke in the eye anyone who says “you’ll be fine” after they learn about what’s going on. No emotional investment, no empathy. Just trotting out a platitude. This usually comes from people with money, who don’t have to worry about insecure housing or who bought their house for 50p in 1975 and have no idea how hard it is out there now.

I’m not fine, not at all.

I’ve also noticed this insecurity around housing has made me feel like I don’t belong anywhere else too. The communities I’m part of, that took a long time to find and build due to being autistic and brain damaged, feel distant and shut off. I feel like I don’t know how to belong anymore. Factor in some juicy autistic burnout and I want to just give up.

This is not a happy or optimistic post, it’s where I am right now. Being pushed out of an increasingly selfish society because I’m poor and disabled does not feel good. I don’t feel safe. I feel like people just want me to die. To not exist. I am an inconvenience, something not to waste resources on. I am in no doubt that I would be among the first to be put against the wall by frog eyed Farage and his ilk.

When having a secure roof over your head is a luxury instead of a basic fundamental right, there’s something very very wrong.

“Until then, you have to live with yourself”

The line above is from ‘Hell is round the corner’ a Tricky song from 1995. It popped into my mind today, an ear worm, the warning bell that the remainder of my September is going to be…well…hell.

I didn’t think I’d have to write about this again. The month in 2012 when my skull was drilled into and my brain was drained and my Self was drained and my energy was drained. But Tricky blasting on repeat on my internal jukebox and the fact I’m crying at the birds singing or at me dropping stuff on the floor or the adverts being too long on the tv means I’m currently in the territory of anniversary effect.

I used to write about this on an old blog I had, which focused on my recovery from near death and brain injury and really thought that this year I’d gotten away with it.

Not likely, the body remembers, the brain remembers, the essence remembers. Being an old hand at this makes it slightly easier, I’m aware of what is going on and know I have to buckle in and ride out the storm but that doesn’t stop it being painful and sad and exhausting.

This time of year is double edged for me, I love the early Autumn, the heavy, lazy sunshine, the slowing down yet aliveness of everything as it dies ready to lie fallow for the Winter to come. This metaphor is not lost on me, the Autumn also represents my heaviness and my time to die. I spent some of Autumn 2012 in a coma, in hospital – a liminal state you could say. This was also whilst I was moving countries, moving lives and starting again – a self imposed liminal state.

To wake up in a hospital bed hooked up to tubes with no idea of how you got there, whilst worried loved ones pace around is a surreal experience. To think about what I endured whilst unconscious is also a surreal experience. A film that played out, that starred me but I have no knowledge of what transpired during it.

September, a time of delicacy, being made of gossamer, feeling so sensitive to my own pain and everyone else’s. A time to move slowly, to honour my feelings and to become part of the earth once more. The Shadow beckons, the dark goddess, an old friend but one who will hold my toes to the fire once more.

I will emerge eventually, hair askew, face pale, forever changed, in ways I yet still don’t fully grasp but as sure as the leaves will wither and drop, I too become compost for the new growth to come.

The cave calls the hermit again and it’s time to enter.

The view of a ridged cave ceiling. It is solid rock and dark apart from the beam of torchlight that lights up the section on the photograph. There is a thick ridge running running along the centre of the ceiling that is almost pointed where it meets.

The longing

”Down to Earth then sinks the sun”

It’s here again. The time of the year when the fingers of the coming Autumn tap me on my shoulder. When the sky feels heavier and the sun slower. A time, for me, of remembering trauma and of slow feet, fast tears and …something else.

I felt it today when I was out in the garden and covering up my cold frame until the next growing season begins again in Spring. A feeling in my chest, that spread through the rest of my body. A feeling that I know intimately but also have never really owned. As I pottered around with the last of the evening sun warming my face and arms, the yearning began. It’s a strange nostalgia, a sense of things slowing down and getting ready to sleep for the Winter to come, a picture in my mind of a Winter spent being burrowed and cosy and rested. A nostalgia for the waning sun bathing the land around me in subtle yellows and oranges as things get tidied and gathered. It’s a real visceral sadness, like the feeling you get when you’ve been to an amazing festival and know that you now have to pack up your tent and go home to face another normal week, leaving behind the magic of what you have just experienced.

This feeling of nostalgia isn’t really rooted in any real life experience, I didn’t grow up in some little English village where we drank ginger beer and got up to escapades amongst the stone cottages and wheat fields, I grew up in suburbia on the outskirts of Manchester, but when we get to this point in the year, my heart suddenly reverts to this yearning. It’s a bitter sweet feeling. One laced with love but also incredible melancholy. A very heady mixture. ‘Day is Done by Nick Drake is the perfect musical materialisation of this sensation.

I don’t really know what purpose it serves to have my brain start to pump out this intoxicating mix but it brings with it an awareness, something that I’m tippy toeing to reach and almost touching, like I’m just about to discover the meaning of it all and then I get drawn back into reality. Those little slots of time outside of time are when I feel at my most magical and at one with everything. It’s a time of looking outwards and feeling actual proper contentment but the moment I look at it, it feels me looking and it slips away.

As it arrived today and I turned my face into the lazy sunshine, I got a sense of gratitude and wonder. Look how beautiful it all really is, a voice in my head told me it’s plain really, the tree dropping its leaves doesn’t question the cycle, it doesn’t try to cling on to what needs to be let go of. The Earth carries on with its trip around the Sun, no fighting itself to stay in the warmth. They know everything is as it should be. They trust the process.

A reminder for me, for us all. Magic is in the lack of resistance. Stop pushing, stop hankering for what can no longer be or what no longer is needed. KISS-Keep it simple, stupid.

Singing to the Sí

At the start of the year I decided what little tasks I’m going to do every day (energy permitting) to build up my routine and become more ‘present’ in the world. It’s a handful of things that range from ‘get dressed’ (when you’ve spent many years horizontal in bed with the curtains closed and dragging yourself to the toilet, then ‘get dressed’ is a step), to 5 mins of Irish to ‘exercise’ (a little 7 min low impact routine). Recovery is not like it is shown in television and films, you do not get out of your hospital bed after being at death’s door and start to skydive in two weeks.

Recovery is slow, it is tough, it is cruel and it takes you to places you never thought you could go.

Some days I manage all my tasks (of which there are 8). Other days, not so much. The task that has managed to stick and become an important and welcome part of my day is my morning stroll. I pick a Tarot card, then take it on a walk. I walk the same route every morning and talk to myself about the card, how I interpret it, how it’s relevant to my life in some way and mull over its relationship with the one I picked the day before. It’s a great little practice that seems to be the best way for me to learn the cards as well as getting some fresh air.

A few days ago I went to an online Treadwells lecture about Psychogeography. It was run by the very friendly and knowledgeable Julian Vayne. Julian talked about the different facets of Psychogeography and gave us practices to use whilst out and about to connect and *see* the landscape more. To change your behaviour when you walk and notice how the space you are in affects you emotionally, to become part of your journey and not separate from it.

This chimes very well with me, being an Animist, a massive tree hugger and nature becoming a big part of my life and recovery. A lot of my magickal practice is also about working with the genius loci. I have admittedly being feeling very stuck of late, magically flat. Feeling out of ideas about how to progress my practice and have a more magical life.

Then came the synchronicities. Jumping around the podcasts I listen to, one after another, there were different guests on different shows talking about connection to the land and how they view ‘place’ and how it intersects their life. As well as that, the next books I had to read on my book pile were all about ritual and reconnecting to the land and then Julian and his lecture came at the right time too.

The message I was receiving over and over again was about keeping things nice and simple. I think I always look for the whizz bang, the huge revelation, when I know that this is not the reality of magick, at least not for me.
As I listened to each teacher I realised I was already in magic, I was already doing the things that kept me right with the land and myself. I talk to trees and rocks and yes, they do talk back. Sometimes I can look at a plant and it will tell me its name (this is not a 100% hit rate), literally, I will look at a plant and wonder in my head ‘ooh that’s lovely, I wonder what it is’ then I will ‘hear’ the name in my mind. This is not a thing to write lightly on the Internet, I’m aware how ridiculous it sounds.

My takeaway from this past week has been to stop looking for the big mystic experience and continue to collect rocks that ask to come home with me or say hello to the trees as I pass. With this in mind I went on my walk this morning with the Ace of Swords and began to utilise some techniques to disrupt my usual stroll, I stopped every now and then and looked around and up to see if I could notice anything different. I zigzagged along the road, I noticed new wild flowers and I finally stopped and sang a song as loudly as I could towards the Sidhe that sits in a field next to the house.

Standing in beautiful surroundings, singing noisily and unashamedly from the heart, blue cloudy skies with the warm wind whipping around my head – what is more magical than that?

A photo of native countryside hedging with a burst of small white star-shaped flowers growing out of them. The flowers have thin spiky stems. — The hedgerow is full of Meadow starwort.

A close up of a small wild flower. The heads are lilac coloured with deeper purple veins in the petals. They are on top of a thin stem — I also found some tiny Greater cuckooflowers springing up from the verges.

Liminal, Liminal, Liminal

”Time is contagious, everybody’s getting old” – Damien Rice

*You are being warned, there may be liberal use of the word ‘liminal’ in this post.

Last night I had a dream, and in part of it I was talking to a stranger about the circular nature of time, how nothing is really new because everything repeats ad infinitum. We talked about how even people repeat (not in the DNA someone’s child sense but in the ‘shop that does faces only has a certain amount of faces’ sense).

Then I woke up and a thought struck me about my upcoming birthday and ageing and the generations. I was talking to my sister a few days ago and we mentioned that both our partners were turning 50 this year, how we ourselves are getting there. I said “Gen X is getting old”.

Do I want to get old? No, not really but I accept its inevitability and try to see the value of wisdom that age brings as well as finding power in becoming the Crone (I have written before about ageing as a woman so I won’t repeat myself here ). I remember when I was in my teens in the mid 90’s (hitting 18 in 1995 was such a sweet spot, I feel sorry for people who missed it) I would look at people who are my age now and think how old they were. Now I’m here myself, I look in the mirror and see the same face, a little softer round the edges, less taut, but in essence the same face and ponder on how ‘ewww old’ I must look to my Gen Z/ Alpha nephew and niece even though in my mind and brain I am still youthful and vital and progressive.

Generation X are a great generation (generally speaking, I know I can’t lump everyone in the same boat) we are down to earth, funny, had the best music and we were fighters because we went through some stuff. We were known as the forgotten generation, the latchkey kids, the last to climb trees and wander outside to play (I will put a caveat here that the older millennials also experienced this, we have a lot in common geriatric millennial friends). This was a liminal generation, the ones who existed during the coming of the Internet. The early adopters of mobile phones and chat rooms. Factor in the liminality of these changes along with the liminality of being a late Gen Xer and crossing the boundaries when the generation changed from X to Y, I truly think it was a magical time. There was something in the air in the 90’s that can’t be explained or replicated. We liked weird shit, all my peers at that time were into UFO lore, magic, the supernatural and it’s carried through with us into our older years. A time of discovery, pushing boundaries, experimenting with psychedelics and a feeling of community. It also explains why I’ve finally found my Tuath of a disparate group of beautiful weirdos consisting (mostly) of Gen X/milennials via Vayse.

I may be being biased, I am after all part of Gen X so of course I will say we were wonderful, but I also have the advantage of actually being there, experiencing it and I know it was special. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t perfect, there were things that needed to change, bad stuff went on as it always does but it was bloody magical.
There’s a word in Brazilian – ‘Saudades’. It’s has no definite translation but it means yearning, sweet nostalgia, melancholic longing for something beloved. This is how I feel when I remember the 90’s.

Back to my theory on cyclical time, I have a crude (unscientific) theory that cultural changes occur in 30 year cycles. The 60’s, the 90’s and well, we are due our next one very soon (if it’s not already started). Then Gen Z and the Alphas can, 30 years from now, write rambling and nostalgic posts about what a magical and turbulent time the 2020’s was.

There’s some comfort in going through these cyclical loops because we know that they resolve even when it feels like all hope is lost. It is one big repeating ritual. This however, is not an excuse to sit on our laurels, we still need to agitate, to push, to create, to be magical and strive for better for ourselves and each other. I just hope that this cycle brings people back to the unknown again, a curiosity in the other. That the materialism (both types) that has dominated becomes obsolete as we peer back into the abyss and see that actually it’s rather interesting.

This is me in 1995, 18 yrs old at a festival somewhere.

The end and the beginning

I’ve not written anything for a good long while, I’ve been sitting on something that I wanted to write about before anything else but it just wouldn’t come out. It wasn’t ready. After brewing for a few months today is the day! I have no idea how this will be structured so I’m just going to write and let it tell it’s own story.

Last year my sister sent me a book for my birthday (or Yule, I’m not too sure). It was called ‘The electricity of every living thing’ by Katherine May. I found it to be a lovely but confronting book about Katherine’s plan to walk the South West Coast Path in England and as the journey progressed it intertwined with her realisation and acceptance of a self diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC). The book brought forward for me something that had been quietly chiming in the back of my mind for many years and it brought it forward rather loudly.

I always wondered why I felt like an alien, why my mum always jokingly said I was ‘an oddball’. Why I just struggled with a lot of things. I was drained by people, places, noise, light and chaos. Why I was never able to maintain friendships and why work always made me depressed and anxious and I could never stick at it.

The next domino that fell was due to another book, ‘Unmasking Autism’ by Dr Devon Price. I bought this one out of curiosity, ‘just to see’. Well I did ‘just see’, I bloody well ‘just saw’ myself. I was finally able to affirm to myself that yes I am Autistic (informed self diagnosis is valid within the community and often the only avenue available to people due to the difficulties around diagnosis).

At this stage, I had to think about whether I wanted to pursue a medical diagnosis. For me, I wanted to be sure, I didn’t want to be self diagnosing and becoming part of the community if what I thought wasn’t true, I had a big case of imposter syndrome and didn’t fully trust my own conclusion even though this has been something I have questioned for a long time. But I was bounced around so many therapists and psychologists as an adult and given 5 runs of CBT which never worked, there is an emerging school of thought that CBT is less effective for Autistic people (CBT is thrown at most things and I was craving something more targeted and personalised, I never truly felt that the root of my issue was being looked at). I remember saying to this myriad of professionals that something was being missed, that there was something deep down that needed addressing and not one of them considered Autism. Who was I to argue? I wasn’t the one with degrees in Psychology right? and that then gaslit me into thinking that I was just inextricably broken and there was no solution.

It’s easy to see why my diagnosis was missed, I was female and born in the 70’s (in fact, I read somewhere that Gen X are considered the missing generation regarding neurodivergence diagnosis). Apparently, because girls are socialised differently due to cultural gender norms we are better at ‘hiding’ our Autism, we’re dead good at being quiet and polite and compliant (more patriarchal bullshit). Also, the diagnostic tools used are somewhat outdated, initially Autism was considered a thing that middle class white boys had, so all efforts were put into diagnosing that group, and women, people of colour, trans people and anyone who doesn’t fit into that group were (and still are) sidelined.

I was nervous approaching my GP about getting diagnosed, partially due to the above but also because I’m 46, what the heck am I thinking? Is it too late? But I knew I needed to know. So I psyched myself up for two weeks to make the phone call for an appointment and when I went the Dr had the look of a rabbit in the headlights, I don’t think he really knew what to do with me. After a convoluted series of events that involved being referred, then getting a letter that they needed more info, a form sent to me by the GP meant for him but he sent to me to fill in (I had no idea how to do this, it sent me into a panic, don’t do this to Autistics please), I was finally accepted but the wait was three years.

This is where the privilege of diagnosis comes in, the NHS is a wonderful thing but the mismanagement of it has led to life altering waits for services. There are some people who don’t even get through the first hurdle to get on the list and then those who do have to wait, all the while their heads swirling with anxiety and impatience and frustration. If you do finally get to the top of the list you then endure a fairly bizarre outdated diagnosis process aimed at young boys. Not ideal.

So I went searching, I joined a forum for Autistic people and asked about diagnosis. They pointed me towards the Adult Autism Practice who use a Neuro affirmative approach to diagnosing adults. This is a service you pay for (again a privilege, if you have the funds) I paid in instalments which was a little easier. Was it expensive? For me? Yes. Was it worth it? Absolutely. My sessions were compassionate, affirming and informative.

I was officially diagnosed in August this year, when I was told that “yes, you are Autistic” I burst into tears. I finally knew who I was. The itch in the recesses of my brain had been scratched. Everything made so much sense to me. My childhood, my struggles as an adult. It was so freeing for me.

Diagnosis brings with it many feelings, I was happy, sad, angry and these feelings still continue as I work through years and years of struggle and masking. If only I’d known who I was when I was younger maybe I would have made different decisions and been more comfortable in my own skin. I am aware of the stigma involved in diagnosis, I am Autistic, I have always been Autistic and will be Autistic forever. This will travel with me throughout the rest of my life and will be met with varying reactions as people have their own stereotypes around what an Autistic person looks like and how they behave.

Autism for me isn’t something I’m ashamed of, I know from my brain injury that I’m dis-abled by society. I know now I always have been. That brings up great sadness for me. Put into a box and silenced before I even truly got going. I take comfort in knowing I can now tell the young me, the little girl who couldn’t understand the world, that she was beautiful and valid as she was. That the world wasn’t ready for her but she made it through anyway.

My name is Lauren, I am Autistic and I am now finally ready to claim my space.

Close up of a woman in a yellow knitted hat with white ghosts on it. On the brim there is a Neuro pride pin badge (the infinity symbol in rainbow colours).

Asleep and awake

Where have I been? I last wrote something in April this year, I was on a roll getting ideas and generally enjoying writing again and then I disappeared. Did An Mórrígan claim me when I went into Her cave never to return to the apparent world?

Unfortunately, no, nothing that exciting I’m afraid, I flatlined, energetically, physchologically and emotionally. I’ve spent the past few months feeling prone, prostrate and deflated with no inspiration to speak of. There has also been something bubbling along that has taken most of my mental capacity these past months that I won’t talk about right now but may explain soon.

I did however get my visit to Uaibh na gCat, the cave of the cats, the home of An Mórrígan. On the morning of the visit I was jangly, nervous and jittery, my nerves tap dancing in my brain and body. I’ve no idea why I was so strung out by the thought of the day ahead but there we go, the body does what it wants.

I enjoyed the tour of Rathcroghan given by the visitors centre https://www.rathcroghan.ie/ but I was there for the main event, a trip to the Otherworld. It was my pilgrimage for the year. I’ve been dying to go to Oweynagat for a long time but was never well enough to make the journey.

As we approached the cave all my jingle-jangle from earlier just dissolved away

A photo of a small cave entrance. It sits amongst Green trees and bushes.

I looked into the womb-like entrance and could not wait to enter. As I sat there waiting, there was a voice from somewhere deep in that cave, urging me to ‘come in, come in’. An affirmation of finally doing this at the right time, in the right headspace.

In small groups of 4 or 5 we began our descent into the home of An Mórrígan, some people turned back at the entrance, not yet ready to descend. I had an offering in my pocket of a small dram of whiskey (it would be rude to visit without a gift) and soon it was my turn to slide into the entrance. The floor was wet and thick with mud and the walls were glistening with moisture, it had that deep earthy smell that appears after a rainstorm. It got darker and darker as we descended and I got more and more comfortable in the dark, all enveloping environment.

The metaphor of the cave is not lost on me, it reminded me of my transformation after trauma. I used to be scared of caves, the darkness in them always different to the dark of night. It is more solid and heavy somehow, more likely to have things creeping out of it to touch you on the shoulder. This time however, I had no fear, I have seen true darkness and spent my own recovery in the Hermit’s cave. I have sat in that darkness and embraced it, which enabled me to contain it within. It no longer scares me.

We reached the end (a rock fall prevented us going deeper) and stood in the cool darkness of the entrance to the Irish Otherworld.

This was the time for us all to turn off our torches. There we were for a minute or so, silent, bathed in that deep darkness. I tipped out my whiskey for An Mórrígan and ensured She knew how grateful I was and what a privilege it was to be in Her home.

Did I have a big revelation? Was I spoken to by An Mórrígan? Not that I’m consciously aware of. There was no Great Queen emerging from the darkness, no mystery breeze that blew through the cave. But as always with these things, they work away in the background, they slip through your subconscious and mould into something. Only months later when change has occurred in your life are you able to track it back to a ritual or a pilgrimage or that scrappy bit of throwaway magic you did off the cuff.

What I realise now is that my visit to the cave put me into hibernation again, to prepare me for what is to come. I am just rising again after months of waking sleep. My practice has evolved and become more tangible and consistent, I am getting ready for…something.

The Road to nowhere

When accident and trauma reduced the space I could exist in, it took something from me, something that I took for granted when I was abled and brave. The freedom to move, to trek and to wander. I could just get up in the morning and decide that I was going to lose myself somewhere and I didn’t have to think twice, now everything is done with careful measures of how much I have got in my battery, what I may need that energy for, how much I can spare? and how long will this keep me out of action if I do it? Is it worth the drain I will experience? It keeps my sphere of exploration very contained and very carefully managed – it is what it is, I can’t change it so I live with it but my word, it’s so annoying.

I recently sat down and did a little bit of brain dumping about my relationship to my body and nature since my accident and it made me really examine those thoughts and feelings that I honestly thought I’d mastered. I realised that the trust I lost in my body after my accident hasn’t really returned. I relied on my body to keep me moving, to be strong and fit and then it broke and I never really trusted it anymore. This affects how I move in the world and how much (or little) I physically push myself. I stopped appreciating my physicality, how powerful I can be even though I’m only small. I noted how little I look in the mirror since my accident, how I lost touch with my body and my outer shell because I felt that it was irrelevant and pointless in my smaller bubble where I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to see a person I no longer knew looking back at me.

I looked at my relationship to nature and how that has evolved. Don’t get me wrong, I love nature, I love being outside with the trees and the plants and the mountains but where nature had been a source of joy and adventure, especially when I was young, it was now ‘therapy’, a place I went to feel better and get a bit of exercise. How sterile this has made my friend. I appreciate everything nature contributed to my recovery but I have lost that abandon I used to feel in nature. The woods were a place to hide and climb and discover lost worlds, now they are a sensible stroll through and then back home before I get too tired. This is not how I want to exist in the outdoors, not at all.

I also find being outside confronts me, it reminds me what I lost, what I lack, so I don’t take the time to be ‘in’ it. How heartbreaking this is for me, for the child within who would wile away the hours wandering through pathways and along hedgerows, talking to birds and jumping across streams. It made me realise I need to find my magic again.

Whilst sitting wall staring through recovery I would often get notions, notions that were far beyond my capabilities. Notions were a blessing and a curse, they were a nod to hope, to rising again, but also a frustrating smack in the chops of my reality and how it was tying me down. I had a notion last year to do a pilgrimage, I wanted to just walk to some undefined location and see if I could find bits of me that I had lost along the way. The idea of setting off (like The Fool) with my rucksack, some sturdy boots and a map was one that enthralled me. Reality told me, I couldn’t just go for days and hope for the best, it had to be carefully planned, with lots of rest and time. There were lots of St Patrick walks around here but these hold no interest for me, I am not concerned with the cultural colonisation that St Patrick brought (why Ireland celebrate this terrible man I have no idea, but this is a whole other post for another time). I just couldn’t find what I was looking for, things were either too long, too far or too remote.

So that itch remained unscratched until I read ‘Listen to the land speak’ by Manchán Magan. In this book he has a chapter on Oweynagat where he talks about his yearning to undergo a rite of passage, a journey of inner discovery and he travelled as far as the Himalayas to find it, little knowing that on his own doorstep in Ireland there was such a place. I’ve known about Uaimh na gCat (Cave of the cats) for a while, the famed home of the mighty Morrigan, a place of spiritual and emotional transmutation and this is where I got excited, I’m going on holiday in June to Sligo and will be a mere half an hour away from Rathcrogan where the cave sits. So this will be my pilgrimage this year, I will be entering the cave to shed skin, to look into the abyss, to lose and find myself. I’m no longer afraid of the dark, it’s time to find the mirror and stare myself in the face again.

A black and white image of a the inside of a small cave

The Invisible woman

I can not believe that it’s almost the end of January, I have been silent, waiting for inspiration to strike, getting through what can only be described as the sweaty armpit part of the year. What a grind late December through January feels like. Even though my birthday is in January, it’s a day of popping my head above the oppressive parapet before retreating again until Spring.

Speaking of which, Imbolg is on its way and it’s definitely currently wrestling with the tail end of January to burst forth into the world. Imbolg. A time of new beginnings, new ideas, changes in direction. The main thing though that stands out for me about Imbolg is the sense of hope it brings. There’s just something in the air right now that despite the quagmire of shitty politics, just feels buoyant and free. An extra layer of fresh, light air above the grey smog.

Recently, I’ve mostly been pondering on my invisibility, not literally, I think I’m still visible and solid. I mean symbolically, I’ve been metaphorically invisible for some time now, it normally happens to women in their late 40’s onwards where they begin to report feeling ‘unseen’. It’s actually got a proper name ‘Invisible Woman syndrome’. Imagine that, a syndrome created just because women commit the sin of ageing. As I edge a little closer to 50 I am in the age group of becoming a little bit opaque.

Living as we do in a Patriarchal society, where youth equals beauty and that equals interest, being an old lady renders you surplus to requirements. There is of course the argument, that our existence as women on this earth and our right to take up space, go beyond the realms of the male gaze and maybe just maybe, we’re all complete whole people who do and think and say lots of different and amazing things regardless of whether the patriarchy takes notice.

My invisibility comes from circumstance, I disappeared from view at 35, as soon as I became disabled, traumatised and sad. Society is not set up for the differently abled, unless we are ‘inspirational’ then we can just go away and let everyone else get on with it, thank you very much. As soon as my ‘worth’ dropped in terms of productivity then I was boring/lazy/less than human* (*delete as appropriate). Almost as if my ideas, my voice, my intrinsic value became null and void. For someone with issues from childhood around being silenced and invalidated, this was a huge grief-filled mess to get my head around. Again, worth being measured by output and whether or not I’m working my arse off, in a shit job I hate for no money, is a patriarchal capitalist construct, whose sole job is to strip all of us of joy and freedom (I’m beginning to see a pattern here, it’s almost as if the patriarchy is really bad for us).

Going from someone who was perfectly abled to being dis-abled was an eye opener for me. My circumstance changed me but it’s society who disabled me. A society unwilling to make reasonable adjustments so we can get equity. A place where you are not seen and are treated as ‘broken’ because you are not typical (even though most typical abled folks are sick and sad and burning out because of, well you know, patriarchal capitalism). The pandemic is a prime example, people unwilling to wear masks and as a result, throw their immunocompromised comrades under the proverbial bus because the message everyone receives is that “disabled people are less than and therefore do not matter”. As I said, SOCIETY DISABLES US. ‘

Lucky me, I have the invisibility bingo, female, older and disabled . Do I just continue to get more and more ‘thin’ as the years go by until I shrivel away for ever, or do I use it to my advantage? I can use my invisibility to slip through spaces and places without being seen, I can say, wear and do what the fuck I like without eyes judging me, urging me to be polite and fit into the mould of ‘woman’ (whatever that means). What freedom this is, what joy to avoid the tut tutting and the expectations.

In the words of the wonderful Mona Eltahawy “I refuse to allow those who don’t recognize my full humanity to expect politeness of me”.

Absofuckinglutely

A black and white image of a woman walking away from the camera. She is walking along a tunnel of trees and shrubs

Living on the Edge

Happy Alban Arthan all! Winter Solstice is upon us and the light is returning. It doesn’t feel much like it right now, still so dark and cold, but slowly, slowly, minute by minute, the days begin to stretch out until before we know it, it’s Spring Equinox and we’re all about the light and the sun again.

As discussed in my last post, I was going to do a ritual today to mark my Irish citizenship and root into the land I now call home. I completed it this morning and it brought to the fore a thread I have been tentatively unwinding and following recently.

A black and white photo of items on a rug on the floor. The items are a cast iron pot with smoke coming out of it, a lit candle, a lighter, an Irish passport, a large stone, a homemade wand and two pots with dried Vervain and Meadowsweet respectively. — The ritual begins!

But before we follow that thread, we need to rewind back in time slightly, after my accident, one of the things I lost was my friends. Let me tell you, when the shit hits the fan, everyone disappears. There are a stoic few who remain to climb the mountain with you and they are priceless, but the majority float away like dust in the wind. There are many reasons for this but the biggest one is that they just can’t deal with whatever monstrous debacle you are going through. This was a hard lesson for me initially, I got promises of ‘keeping in touch’ that were quite frankly….bollocks.

I’m over it now, I’ve accepted the fragility of humans and our relationships and to be honest the years of human-free time I’ve had in recovery have been much needed. I have two close friends (who are both in England so we connect via computer), my partner and our two lovely doggy children and that’s the extent of my social circle.

Now, here we come back to the thread, I’ve recently been feeling a need for community, I try to dip into communities that are in areas of interest for me and every time I’ve come out disappointed. Especially when I’ve gone into places where I’ve expected more enlightened folk and found it full of…well…wankers.

I’ve always been an edgewalker, even when very young, I didn’t want to fit in, I couldn’t fit in. I wanted to do things differently or the opposite way to everyone else. This has been a constant motif into adulthood, I’m a weirdo, I like weird things; High strangeness, magic, the paranormal, Druidry, Veganism, talking about death, graveyards, folklore and tarot. I’m also politically left (not centre left, not liberal, proper left). Now, don’t get me wrong, I know that people exist out there who also like these things, I’ve found a lot of lovely connections on Mastodon (open source social media place, come find me at Lauren the Hermit) but when it comes to actual flesh and blood, standing in front of me and talking, it is non existent. I know, I know, I live in the middle of nowhere in a place that is still coming to terms with the trauma caused by its own civil war and colonisation and ‘ruled’ (I say that whilst laughing) by out of touch, shouty, older, white Christians. People like me are well hidden and scattered to the four winds and finding like minds is hard.

As a result, I’ve resigned myself (quite happily) to the fact that I’m in a small gang and that’s ok.

Until recently that is.

I have just finished the Foundation training to be a Death Doula, an experience that I went into with a dash of my usual cynicism and with my barriers up. It was around week seven on the course that my walls began to break down, the class watched a short video of a dramatisation of someone’s death in a hospital. It showed the differing reactions of their loved ones and the aftermath as they lovingly prepared the body after death. It was soundtracked by this

https://youtu.be/avabPY3XgRc

And I just lost it, full on snotty crying that burst out of me. A triggered memory from my recovery when I played this song all the time mixed with a feeling of “when I die, there’ll be nobody there” a revelation that I need community. Death is not done in a vacuum, it is having a community around us that helps us to have a good death. The funny thing about that moment is that sharing my vulnerability with my classmates allowed my heart to open like a flower. From then onwards, for the rest of the course, I was open and let the love I felt for that community flow.

This brings me back to the beginning of this post, during my ritual today whilst I journeyed, the importance of community was hammered home, whilst seeking to root into my ancestry, the land that is home and fully embracing my Irish heart I know I need to find community here. I was told by voices linked to the land that it was time to come out from under my cloud of safety and sadness and to begin finding joy. To be free-hearted and to stop taking things so damn seriously. I have had to be serious for so long, to recover, to heal my soul, to protect my fragile heart that there’s a part of me now just dying to be let loose with abandon, a part that was always pushed down (by me and others).

This Solstice with its new beginnings and returning light is a perfect time to begin this new path ( the fools journey has been discovered!) this coming year will be a time for the Hermit to forge community, in joy and in love.