Inside the ‘Hell-Mouth’ of Ireland (video)

Ireland is known for its sacred places, most thankfully are visible from above ground! Ali Isaac shares her experience and a video of her honouring of Samhain by entering into the mouth of Oweynagat.. It is an experience you can share by following the link at the end of this extract.

nearly didn’t go. I had a handful of essays on the go for uni at the time, but it was Samhain, and Treasa had been kind enough to invite me a second time, and I couldn’t believe it was already a year since the last time I was there. That was a euphoric experience, and I wondered, how would it be second time around, now that I knew what to expect.

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Sliding into the mouth of Oweynagat.

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Oweynagat is an incredibly female site, in its physicality, its mythology, and in its energy, something I was immediately struck by on my first visit, and so it felt right that this was a women-only experience. Queen Medb was born in its dark depths, and the Morrigan is said to use the cave as a conduit between this realm and the Otherworld.

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This is how Queen Medb describes the cave in her story from my latest book, Mavourneen:

 

“There is a cave at Cruachan. Its small dark mouth yawns at your feet beneath a shroud of hawthorn bushes, and is never lit up by the sun. You can slide your way in, if you dare. The only way is supine on your belly, sinuous as a snake in the thick blackness, or on your back, enclosed so closely that the rock wall brushes your skin as you pass, the weight of the earth pressing on your consciousness, on your lungs, filling you with the fear of rockfalls, of demonic creatures which burst through from the Otherworld, of the terrible Goddess of strife and death we call the Morrigan, of the dread that once inside, you will become trapped, unable to ever return to the surface.

Head over to read the rest of the post thanks Sally

via Inside the ‘Hell-Mouth’ of Ireland (video)