Jade Circle Ireland

22/05/2021

I'm tickled pink to invite you to this FREE jade circle to celebrate the Strawberry Full Moon in Capricorn with me! 🍓 🌝

Blending Taoist practices with Red Alchemy Menstrual Cycle Awareness, we will embrace the season of summer in all its blooming glory

In this safe, nurturing space, you will attune to the natural rhythms of your body and the phases of Grandmother Moon in this Tao (way) of feminine empowerment

What to look forward to:

❤️ A short interactive talk on the Jade Egg Holistic Practice created by my trailblazer in women's health and wellbeing, Anamarta.

❤️ Easy to follow yet effective meditations to regulate emotions

❤️ cultivate inner harmony, spreading to your outer world as you experience self- love and self- acceptance

❤️ Kuan Yin Chi Kung exercises to promote grounding, hormone health and flexibility for the whole body.

❤️ A gentle, safe space to rest and revive body, mind, heart and soul.

❤️ Moon magic ritual


Give yourself and your body some love with this ancient wisdom for modern women.


This Thursday 24th June
From 7:30- 8:30 on Google Meets.

What to have:

🌝 Somewhere comfy to sit
🌝 Some incense or sage
🌝 A candle
🌝 Coconut oil


To sign up, drop me a line: [email protected]

Looking forward to sharing this nurturing space with you,

Love,

Dee

08/03/2021

Happy International Women’s Day! In this interview, my inspiring trailblazing teacher and sister Ana Marta talks about her journey into self healing after being diagnosed with an early menopause, and how she felt called to share that healing with other women. And I’m so glad she did! Obrigada, amiga! 💚🌹💚
Self love is the first love. It’s the oxygen mask we have to put on ourselves before we can safely do so for others. Far from selfishness, it’s an act of selflessness but the self must be honoured and nourished first. I love the Jade Egg Holistic Practices which make self love fundamental with clear visual and visceral meditations, healing sounds to regulate emotions, Kuan Yin Chi Kung for grounding and becoming centred in your power.
We’re all on out own journey and going at our own pace. It’s so heartening to have a sisterhood to share that journey with.
So, on this day for women, celebrate your divine feminine. Stick the kettle on, get comfy and let your soul sing with joy.
Love and blessings to you all ❤️🌹

Anamarta shares eloquently about her journey from a hormonal dysfunction and a diagnosis of 'early menopause' to having a healthy menstrual cycle again and becoming an internationally acclaimed teacher of Taoist practices and the Creatrix of the J...

20/02/2021

The Sheela na Gig: An Ancient Goddess of Life and Death?

Sheela na Gig’s are stone carvings of women exposing their ge****ls which are found mostly on church buildings associated with the Normans, however they have also been found outside Ireland and many believe they are vestiges of older, Pagan iconography.
There has also been some support for two carved figures found on Boa Island, Co. Fermanagh to be considered as part of the Sheela na Gig family and one of these carvings is believed to be pre-Christian.

Sheela na Gigs can also be considered to display postures indicating meditative positions. A connecting and similar argument has been put forward for the Cernunnos figure found on the Gundestrup cauldron.
Scholars have noted the association between yoga positions and iconography relating to Hinduism and a possible earlier Proto-Indo-European spiritual discipline.
There is also evidence that these positions can be helpful for pain alleviation during childbirth which would mark another interesting function of the icons.

Until quite recently the academic consensus, while leaving some small room, tended to favour the idea that Sheela na gigs had been created by the Normans around the 11th century.
Sheela na gigs have been found in high numbers in Ireland and Britain, as well as Western Europe. This would, indeed, seem to play into the Norman hypothesis.
The difficulty with this is that the theory must then discard or ignore pre-Norman figures.
Comparative scholarship within anthropology and archaeology has shown that the archetype of the Sheela na gig can be found worldwide and at far older dates.
The Goddess, Lajja Gauri, is a good example.
51449414@N07/5633364680/" rel="ugc" target="_blank">https://www.flickr.com/photos/51449414@N07/5633364680/
An even older representation is the so called 'squatting woman' found at Gobekli Tepe, dating to 9'500 BCE at least.
https://www.pinterest.ie/pin/12525705192085532/

In the image for this post I have included both a 12th century Sheela, as well as a figure that dates from over 8’500 years ago. As you can notice, even though the style of carving may be different, the symbolism and gesture are the same.
This ancient 'Foremother' figure pictured was found at Lepenski Vir, Serbia and has been dated to roughly 6'500 BCE.
She was the most prominent 'goddess' found at this site and she seems to have been associated with wombs, water and birth.
Marija Gimbutas has also written about the correlations between this figure and the frog goddess of Egypt, Heqet, who was also a protector of pregnant women and birth.
This is an important clue in the original identity of the Sheela na gig.
This figure may even date back further to the Palaeolithic where we have bone engravings of frog/ toad women. These carvings are interpreted to represent regeneration and the cycle of life.

Seeing the Sheela na gig as an updated representation of a goddess who was a protector of pregnant women would certainly seem to make sense. Not only do we have a direct relationship to ancient goddess carvings, but to a specific goddess who has been documented as being evoked to assist at births.
The problem of course is looking back over such a vast distance in time and expecting interpretations to have remained the same. Even today we can see how diversified opinions can be when it comes to symbolism and archaeological viewpoints.
Is there any reason as to why Christians would have placed representations of a Pagan goddess on their buildings?

Well, we have a better understanding today about the repression of the wise-woman tradition in all of its manifestations. In a previous post I have written about the suppression of women sorceresses, the bean feasa and the older earth goddesses themselves. The expression of women’s sexuality is another reason why Sheela na gig’s might have been placed within church structures: it would be a way in which to visually curtail this power and assert its ‘sinfulness’.

There is another theory that the placement of the Sheela within a church was to protect the weakest part such as a door or window from evil. In this context there is both a practical reason as well as a magical transference reason for including the Sheela as part of the church. One interpretation of this is that the power of the Sheela was now trapped by the power of Christianity.
Ironically, similar figures from the Republic of Palau in the western Pacific called Dilukai were also placed over doorways to protect against evil but when Christian missionaries arrived they propagated the idea that the images were to shame immoral women instead. This has a similar ring to the previous Irish interpretation of Sheela na gigs.

Speculating about this is one thing but do we actually have any other historical precedent for the deliberate misinterpretation of ancient pagan deities by arriving Christians?
Actually, we have much more than that.
In a letter sent by Pope Gregory in 500AD, Christian missionaries and monks were told to curb the violent attacks against pagans and their places of worship.
https://oxfordindex.oup.com/.../authority.20110803100337215

One might wonder what kind of atrocities were being committed if the Pope had to issue such a letter, but that's a subject for another day.
In this letter, the Bishops and monks are encouraged to instead Christianise the sacred sites and swap pagan idols for Christian saints and counterparts.
This would indicate that a process was in place long before the Normans arrived to change the meaning of idols from representing the more ancient gods and goddesses to something else entirely.

So, does this mean that all Sheela na gig figures are original, ancient carvings?
No, I don’t think so, but some might be.
What it does indicate, though, is that there is an even stronger case today for the antiquity of the *motif* represented in the carvings.
Many previous interpretations of Sheela na gigs came before the new findings and information relating to the goddess figures of Lepenski Vir, for example.
Seeing the Sheela na gig as an ancient goddess of regeneration seems much more viable today than a few decades ago.

(C.) David Halpin.

07/02/2021

03/09/2020

01/09/2020

Love this ❣

Imagine yourself as a young girl of five or six years old.
Your mother calls you to come to her special place by the alter, asking you to bring your favorite dolls with you.
Your Grandmother is already there, together with your two aunts, your older sister, and your three girl cousins.

Your Grandmother invites you all to sit in a circle. She lights a candle and says: “We are all here today to tell you about your Gift as a Girl.”

You are excited, and a bit nervous, when grandma puts her palms on her lower belly, and says:
“I am a woman. I have a Womb.”
Your mother, your aunts, your sister, and your cousins -- all follow. One by one they place their palms on their lower abdomen, and say:
“I am a woman. I have a Womb...”
“I am a girl. I have a Womb...”

Your grandmother nodes at you: “You are a girl” she smiles.
“And I have a womb?” you ask tentatively, not quite understanding what this means.

“Yes, child,” your grandma says, “and your Womb is Magic!”

Your eyes light up as your grandmother continues:
“Every girl has a womb. It is formed when she is in her mother's womb: her mother's belly. And so it was... that when I was in my mother's belly, my womb begun to form. Inside my tiny baby girl's body, inside my Mom, my womb grew millions of eggs. Each of them magical. Each of them like a flower seed. Each of them could become a baby after I am born, and grow, to become a woman.”

“After many years, One out of my millions of eggs -- became the flower which is your Mom!
And so it was, that when your mother was in my tummy,” your grandmother goes on “my womb, there grew millions of eggs in her womb. One of them was the egg that became You, my child!”

“We are like a Daisy Chain!” grandma says. “Each one of us has a womb that magically grows eggs, like a field that can grow flowers -- many years later, when we are women.”

“Our flowers can be babies, or they can be anything we make up! Songs, dances, stories, dreams -- they all grow in our magical womb. They need quiet and dark, like flower-seeds in the dark belly of Mother Earth. Only when they are ready they will be born into the sunshine.
When it's time -- our babies will be born to be people, or books, or songs, or dances... Because as girls we have a womb. And we can create anything we dream of inside our womb!”

“Now go play, child,” your grandma says, “and whisper this secret to your dolls: they are girls too, and they all have a magical womb!”

“Go and play with your girl friends in the fields. And when harvest time comes, and the moon is full, we will sit here again, and we will tell you about the magic of the Moon...”

It’s Never Too Late for a Womb Initiation!
Click Here to Learn More:
https://www.deannalam.com/womb-initiation/

07/08/2020

Fantastic free Kuan Yin Qigong class tomorrow with Ana Marta. Two tone options: 9.30am or 6.30pm. Classes last 1h15 and will leave you grounded and energized ready for whatever happens!

If you want to Learn Something New, Develop, Evolve and/or Master your Qigong practice, and take it as a Health and Self-Healing Re-TREAT in your Tao (Way) of Feminine Empowerment – This is for you!