Shamanic Practitioner

09/01/2026

The Irish Remembered

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🗣️ One of the plainest words in English for being annoyed came out of Irish, and to begin with it meant being deafened.

Bother. It surfaces in English writing in the early eighteenth century and, tellingly, nearly every one of the earliest writers using it was Irish born. The likely source is bodhar (BOW-er, the first part rhyming with cow), meaning deaf, and bodhraim (BOW-rim), to deafen. To bother somebody was to talk at them until they could not hear any more. 👂

That is a far better word than the one we ended up with. Modern bother is mild and vague. The Irish original is a precise complaint about noise, and anybody who has ever been cornered at a wake by a great talker knows the sensation exactly. 🤐

The same root sits inside bodhrán (BOW-rawn), the drum. A skin pulled tight, and a name that means deaf. Whether the drum is called after the sound it makes or after what it does to the people in the room is a question that will keep an argument going all night. ☘️
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08/30/2026

08/30/2026

When our eyes are graced with wonder, the world reveals its wonders to us. There are people who see only dullness in the world and that is because their eyes have already been dulled. So much depends on how we look at things. The quality of our looking determines what we come to see. Too often we squander the invitations extended to us because our looking has become repetitive and blind. The mystery and beauty is all around us but we never manage to see it. When the imagination awakens, the inner world illuminates. We begin to glimpse things that no-one speaks about, that the outer world seems to ignore.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from the books, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace (US) / Divine Beauty (Europe)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Cottage Window, County Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

08/26/2026

Reverence sometimes means letting beauty stay where it belongs and carrying the gratitude of having met beauty. Not every beautiful thing is meant to be taken kept or claimed. Some encounters are offerings meant to be witnessed than gathered. When we allow the feather, stone, flower or shell to remain in its place we learn that presence itself can be enough.

🍃Shamanic Journey Invitation: Where in my life am I willing to honor beauty without needing to bring it home with me? This journey invites a gentler way of meeting the world, where appreciation does not require possession.

Text on Image: “Not every beautiful thing needs to come home with you. Sometimes reverence means leaving the feather, stone, flower, or shell exactly where it was and carrying only the gratitude of having encountered it.”

© DailyShaman 2026

“DailyShaman” reflects a way of living, not a title claimed; walking between worlds to offer an inclusive, modern spiritual experience.

08/26/2026

There is nothing to fear in the act of beginning. More often than not it knows the journey ahead better than we ever could. Perhaps the art of harvesting the secret riches of our lives is best achieved when we place profound trust in the act of beginning. Risk might be our greatest ally. To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast a critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be ripening. There can be no growth if we do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different. I have never seen anyone take a risk for growth that was not rewarded a thousand times over.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

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

County Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

08/19/2026