Charlie woke up from a deep sleep and turned over on his side, realising that he’d woken before his alarm, and had some more time to rest before getting up. He’d gone to sleep early the night before, after a couple of episodes of his favourite tv show. It’s a dark, exploratory series about a family battling with the depths of their emotional worlds, while interacting with interdimensional beings. It’s mix between Succession, Dune and Father Ted. Silly, iconic, otherworldly and deeply relatable. It always gives him ways to reflect on his own life, and way of viewing the world. Such creative writers on that show. He imagines them having late-night writing sessions over takeaway chines food, out of those little white cardboard boxes with red chinese script on them, typical in 90’s american tv shows, writing and laughing and ideating until 1am or 2am in the morning, gripped by their craft and their camaraderie.

He loves the dreams he has after watching it. Profound, realistic and potent, they consistently have him waking up as if he’s just entered another realm. Luckily, he no longer wakes to the feeling of tightness in his chest, or a pit deep in the bottom of his stomach, dreading his job and his day. There’s a lightness to how he wakes now. No longer does he lie awake at night, tossing and turning, wondering how he ended up in that soul-sucking job, in this cramped apartment, wthl all this responsibility and weight on him, all for something he didn’t care about. The endless memes he sees online about Millennials and Gen Z sarcastically quipping how they feel like they solely exist to increase shareholder value, hits him a little too deeply every time he sees it. He used to live that life too. He used to ruminate: “Why did he study an arts degree? What use is that in a world that thrives off numbers, and computer code and building things.” Why did he follow his passions of philosophy and writing and acting and music, it all led him to nowhere. He used to watch his friends buying houses and having children and going on exotic holidays and watch with wistful envy and soul-churning self-pity. It wasn’t their success that bothered him, it was the realisation that he wasn’t living a life aligned to his values in any way. He was working for a multi-national corporation that treated him more and more like a cell on an excel spreadsheet everyday. Quotas and performance plans and quarterly targets. Holiday day requests and reduced sick-day pay and team lunches with Mike from finance and Cheryl from HR.

Luckily, that life seemed like a distant memory now. Of course, sometimes he missed the camaraderie of the office and the regular paycheque, but nothing compared to the taste of freedom and the autonomy he felt each morning when he got up. Now his job was working for a boutique branding agency, working with small restaurants, bars and coffee shops around the city, and he loved helping bring people’s new ideas to life. An Australian-style flat-white specialist cafe, or a locally-sourced-catalonian-charcuterie eatery, or a local art shop providing a space for local crafters to showcase and sell their work and run workshops from. His work no longer was about growing the coffers of silicon-valley tech bros and their investors, it was about making local peoples’ dreams become a reality. He loved seeing their eyes light up when the colour palette and logo he created shone from the page and transcended the clients wildest expectations. He loved when the money hit his account after a client paid his invoices. It wasn’t anywhere near what he was earning for ‘ABC Corp’ but the money felt so different. He had earned it by utilizing his unique gifts to the universe. He found such creative satisfaction from his work, and loved the intersection of his passions, his hobbies and his livelihood. Sometimes it was tough to switch off, because he would get lost in the finer details of the font on a menu or the nuance of the way the wooden floor reflected the Scandinavian lighting in the hallway in a restaurants bathroom design. But he had taken time to learn ways to switch off from his work, and spend time with his young family. His partner had gently suggested that he learn ways to self-regulate and wind down, because she could see him toiling for hours over minor details, and she felt his frustration and deliberation deeply. Plus, outside of regular work hours was for quality familytime, and they had similar shared values around boundaries between work and family and partner time. He appreciated her keeping him accountable. After all, he had become adept at clearly communicating his own needs in the relationship, and she loved seeing him grow emotionally and heal the wounds he had from watching his parents argue and bicker so much. They had come a long way from their time working late nights in their respective corporate jobs in the hipster but also kind of rough part of the city for large American companies. They had escaped the grind of ladders and company all-hands meetings late on a Friday evening and once-a-year trips to Miami for sales kick-off. Life looked so different now and they both breathed a sigh of relief when they thought about their old lives for longer than a second.

Charlie kissed her and rolled over to put his foot on the carpet, and his hip clicked halfway down, a satisfying release after six or seven hours lying horizontal. His calves were still a bit tight from his run on Saturday by the beach with his runclub. But it was a nice feeling; muscles utilised and exercised. He’d make sure to go easy this morning at his gym class, his next fitness event was only twelve days away. And even though he wanted to get a good time in the event, ultimately he was doing it for fun, and wanted to feel fresh in the lead up to it. Plus, he was on school run duty today, so the twenty minute walk there and back to school would be a nice little refresher for his joints and tendons. He wasn’t in his twenties anymore after all.

What had changed so drastically since his time working his high pressure job with a great salary but no space or time for thinking or being or feeling? He’d had a panic attack at work one Thursday evening preparing for a big presentation to the directors about his team’s sales pipeline. He hadn’t had one of those since his teenage years, and it caught him off guard. What was worse was that it was in front of a few of his team members and he felt so ashamed that they’d seen him like that. He’d become so good at masking his more difficult emotions and winding down with a few beers of glasses of wine in the evening. He secretly loved the feeling of being hungover on a Saturday or Sunday morning. It was the only time he’d let himself relax and not go a hundred miles an hour. He’d never get blackout drunk or come home late or anything like that, but after a while that lifestyle took its toll.

It happened at about 7:30pm in the Yeats room in the Harcourt street building. He and a few of his highest performing sales reps had agreed to do some final last-minute preparation for the board meeting the next day. He knew he could count on Jane and Iarla, they’d been at the company just about as long as he had, and knew the product and the industry inside-out. They’d been consistently-performing reps over the past number of years, and even though the team was going through a rough few quarters with their territory, he knew they’d be able to help. But with the US directors here, and his partner going through IVF treatment for their next pregnancy, and the financial burden he was feeling from their new mortgage, it all got too much for him that evening. He was spitballing ideas for the last few slides with Iarla, while Jane refined the numbers they were reporting on, when he felt the heat rise in his chest. It reminded him of when his grandad would give him bear hugs when he was five. There was a tightness around his chest, and this time, it was like grandad had squeezed him for a little too long and a little too tight by accident. He wasn’t letting go. The constriction then moved up to his throat and he couldn’t catch his breath or speak any words to describe what was happening to him. His face started to get red, and that’s when the other two noticed something was wrong. They got him a seat and a glass of water, but nothing seemed to alleviate the panic that was setting in. His heart started to beat faster and faster and he worried that he was having a heart attack or an or a stroke. That was all so irrational because he was clearly a healthy, fit young man with no history of any physical issues, but this seemed serious. The room began to get smaller and his breathing began to deepen and quicken and become more pronounced. Luckily, after a couple of minutes, he caught his breath and started to regain some equilibrium. He didn’t pass out or anything, but it was enough to make him take stock of how he was living his life.

He called his friend who was a doctor and got into see him the next day. Luckily, it was close to the office and he wouldn’t have to take time off. The presentation wasn’t until the afternoon and even though he didn’t sleep well that night, the fact that he had an appointment booked set his mind at ease. He chatted with his partner about it and she had listened to him and comforted him and together they discussed some ways he could address it. She had been noticing him being more distant and vacant recently at dinner with the kids and on weekends with their friends. She could tell his mind was occupied and could feel him tossing and turning at night, but wasn’t quite sure if she should say anything, she didn’t want to push him away or scare him. Ironically, she was relieved this happened, because it gave her a window to communicate to him the concern she felt, and together they discussed what could have caused it. The presentation went fine and over the next few weeks him and his doctor ran a few blood tests to see if they could get to the bottom of it. Nothing showed up as abnormal, so his friend suggested he see a therapist. He hadn’t been to Therapy since his college days and didn’t really have a good experience that time. He had expressed and anxious and lost and depressed he felt to the student nurse and she immediately suggested that he go on medication and started to recommend some pharmaceuticals that could help him. That terrified him. He didn’t want to be medicated and somewhere deep inside him knew that someone shouldn’t be recommending drugs after such a brief twenty-minute conversation like that.

He did a few sessions with a psychotherapist and together they discovered how much pressure he was feeling. From work, from his boss, from society, to keep up with the expectations of his parents and his school friends and the seemingly endless Linkedin posts of people getting new jobs, making twice as much as him and in new shiny AI companies. From talking, he felt the tightness in his chest release gradually. After his therapy sessions, he’d feel lighter, more malleable, more reflective about his life and his patterns. It wasn’t always easy, but gradually the tension in his chest lifted and his family could feel the difference when they were around him. He was softer, more present, he smiled more. He took a few weeks off drinking and even though it was difficult not to release some steam with his colleagues on a Thursday or a Friday, he started to notice how much fresher he felt for his family at the weekends, and how it was a little easier to get out of bed on a Monday morning. His job still didn’t light him up at that point, but it was more manageable.

Once he found some space, he started exploring ways he could switch off better. He rediscovered running. He found a coach and together the explored ways he could use more of his skills and passions in his job. Fast forward a few years and his waking up actually looking forward to work. He’s got a few lists clients in his design agency who he loves working with and he finally feels like he’s living a life where he recognises himself. His family life has transformed. And eventually his partner made a shift in her career too. Of course, there’s still the daily struggle of juggling work and family and bills and energy levels, but he’s actually become fearful for that panic attack all those years ago. It sent him in a journey towards a life much more aligned to him, with more ease, more joy and more peace. That’s the power of self exploration, and the power of working with people to discover more of our inner gifts.

Have you ever felt like there’s an invisible force guiding you or directing parts of your life? Has there ever been a significant coincidence in your life that seems to defy all reason and logic and scientific thought? To me, that’s a sign of the limits of our minds, and a presence of something divine. Something both bigger and infinitesimally smaller than us, working mysterious magic. Sometimes it seems cruel, the cards it deals us, sometimes with a cosmic sense of humour. There’s always lessons to be learned. I love the definition of Karma, as the law of cause and effect. That resonates with me.

I was raised catholic, sent to an all-boys catholic school. There were priests as teachers and a chapel on the grounds and communion and confirmation and confession. The church and the education system have been interwoven with each other ever since the formation of the Irish state. Home rule was Rome Rule. DeValera in his wisdom of the time, gave the church unchecked power on this land. And it sadly led to the abuse of countless children at the hands of the clergy in Ireland. Mother and child homes, where women who got pregnant out of wedlock or who were just too outspoken of the system of the time, were sent to these slave labour houses. Their children were forcibly removed from them once they had them, often murdered. Boys were sexually abused by priests. Over 300 hundred men have come forward sharing how they were sexually or physically abused by priests in Blackrock College, my alma mater. The abuse of the church is very close to home, to all of our homes.

It’s almost too tragic and horrific to write about, but the truth must be spoken in order for us to come to any semblance of collective healing about the whole systematised coercive chaos of the catholic church here. The faith in the church in Ireland has dwindled ever since. And rightly so, in my opinion. The remnants of the church still looms large. In order to gain entry into some schools, a child must be baptised. Kids are taught from an early age how to go to confession, how to make up sins and confess their apparent innate sinfulness. It’s ludicrous really. It’s sad. As I write about spirituality, this must be mentioned. It’s part of my story, it’s part of our collective story as a people. My auntie was in a mother and child home and my cousin was born there. It wasn’t long ago, the last “Magdeline Loundry” closed in 1995. It’s no wonder that we have a collective trauma and grief about religion and spirituality in Ireland. We’ve voted for women’s right to choose, and for gay marriage and, as a society, in general, attitudes have shifted techtonically in the past number of years. The change keeps coming.

Now that that’s out of the way, I see a massive gap in our society for a connection to the divine, without the mediation of organised religion. As the philosopher Alain de Botton writes, we’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Of course, the first analogy that comes to mind is one violent towards children, that seems to have been the mandate of the catholic church in Ireland for long periods of our history.

But what about gaping void that has been left since we rid ourselves of those constricting, restricting beliefs? Where does that lead us? What does it leave? We no longer have the church as a thread tying the fabric of our society together. While Sunday mass was a way to inculcate the masses into the doctrine of the church, it was also an enforced day off from work, a day for the community to gather, a day for family. We’ve lost that for the most part. In place of the church, we’ve embraced americanised capitalism, where the invisible hand of the market is our new lord and saviour. Through financial gain and the promise of financial freedom, we are toiling away to give ourselves a life of more ease and joy and generational wealth, or just survival. In place of the church, we have foreign direct investment. Big Pharma and big tech have swooped in as our churches, our daily bread.

Where does spirituality lie in all of this? Well at funerals and weddings and baptisms, whether done under the auspices of the church or not, we our own mortality. And that begs the questions - what’s next? What awaits us when this body ceases to function, and the shell of our human form is shed, leaving our soul to ascend or descend or reincarnate or dissipate? The question is almost so big, it’s hard to shape words around. But there’s something here, something sacred that sits at the centre of it all. Surely there is. When you “look into a child’s face, you are seeing all the human race” a beautiful line from Christy Moore in his song - How Long. It’s a recognition of our shared humanity. Our shared plight on the planet earth. Our shared mortality and the precious glint in our eyes, our ability to breathe and communicate and influence others. Where does it all leave us? With big questions that seemingly don’t have answers.

It’s in the mystery of those questions where spirituality lies for me. When I breathe and allow my body to soften and relax in my seat or my bed and I feel the sensations of my hands or my chest rise and fall, I notice the life force that is inside us all. A heat, a pulse, a flow of blood and breath and life that oozes out of us, of its own accord. That’s mystical, the very fact that we exist and persist. The resistance we feel from our clothes against our bodies or our bum on our chair or our chest or back on the mattress of our bed. That feeling tells us we’re alive and when we notice our breathing we find that there’s some life force inside us that’s animate, without our doing. Whether we want to or not, our body wants to breathe. It happens naturally. That begs another question for me - who or what created me? Who imbued the plants with life and the flowers with colour and the raindrops with watery wetness? Even those who discovered evolution, placed some divine source at the centre. At the beginning. I love how many indigenous cultures around the world place importance on every being, see diving creation personified in every life form; plants and rocks and soil all have animism. Sacredness imbues every form.

Who made love so effervescent and sacred and sensual and sensuous. Who crafted our form of clay and created our minds and our thoughts and our way of being? They say man lives two lives, and the second one begins, when he realises that he only has one. That’s a scary thought for some. It was for me. When I began to realise that I was in a sort of hypnosis of societal and familial expectations. That my thoughts and ambitions and abilities weren’t necessarily formed by me but were given to me by my family and surroundings and society. Whether it’s a random assortment of molecules and atoms and quarks, or stardust or divinely created muck, there’s something innately mysterious about being here. And when we sit with that question long enough, rather than answers, it gives me impetus to do certain things - To live with love in my heart, to feel the fresh rays of the sun in the morning or a breeze on my face. To love and care for animals and my fellow humans as best as I can. To trace the mystery of the cosmos so intricately into me, so that I bend and shape myself to live a life that’s meaningful and refreshing and love-filled to me. There’s energy in my body that I’d like to use and utilise and experience to the best of my ability. That means, first of all, protecting and caring for the vessel of my body. It holds me. My psyche, my mind, my very essence is interwoven with this skin, each element of me. How do I do that? What food should I eat and is it ok to eat the flesh of animals? Where does my food come from? How do I ensure that I’m not carrying around traumatic memories in my body? What led me to ask that question?

In Buddhist thought, I’ve learned of our inherent buddha nature - Bhodhichitta. The inner core of gold inside us, that experience or thought cannot touch, a pure essence of ourselves that’s present, no matter what we’ve done or what mistakes we’ve made. It’s present in all of us regardless of our nationality or race or religion. Like Christ-consciousness or the spiritual nature of us all - that Sufi thought espouses. Each religion, in its most mystical, esoteric, gnostic forms, points to a shared spirituality and divinity within each person. It must be cherished and cultivated and allowed to blossom within this lifetime. I don’t know if heaven or hell exists, but I’ve been on earth long enough now to witness people who are experiencing heaven and hell on earth on a daily basis. Whether through addiction or abuse or war or torture, hell is being acted out on this planet moment by moment. There’s also incredible, indelible moments of grace present in every day. A baby being born, taking their first steps, saying their first word, there’s magic all around us, the colours of the plumage of a bird, the sound of the rain, even in our pain there’s mystical magic that’s hard to explain. In our grief exists love, in our tears lies a release and peace and joy, in our laughter there is sadness and in our pain and suffering there is grace and a portal to God.

Spiritual practices that have resonated with me, are moments where I’m allowed to tap into the inner nature of myself. My dream-state, the presence and feeling of my body on my yoga mat, the internal psychotropic realities envisioned in plant medicine ceremonies. In communal moments of rapture like a large crowd at a music gig breaking into collective song. Or a group of kids getting along. When we express forgiveness or fear or frustration or sadness and our bodies react and our loved ones around us step in and step up, there’s a spiritual grace to existing. Magical moments of life, that tell us that it’s worth living.

Sensitivity to Life - that’s one definition of spirituality that I really like. It removes the gate-kept concepts and esoteric precepts. It humanises and democratises spirituality. How present can we be? How sensitive and compassionate can we be with another person? How caring and caressing each other’s lives can we be? Can we love more freely? Can we transform our inner light to a place that’s silent and free of form, accessing more of a connection to our inner divinity. In meditation, I’ve experienced states so profound and painful that I dissolve and the moment erases like all time dissolves into one. Or in times of joy and play, I’ve felt present and purposeful and allowed the magic of the world to manifest all into one. In conversation with a friend or a family-member, I’ve felt the world slow down and we both bask in the magic existing all around us. That’s a form of spirituality. A reverence for life. Can some form of spirituality save us from the plight of pain and suffering that seems so prevalent in life? Can spirituality elongate our pleasurable and desirable moments? I’m not sure if that’s its purpose. I think it’s about feeling it all, and living anyway. Enduring and embracing the alluring, ever changing nature of reality, with curiosity, compassion and luminosity. Maybe through connecting more deeply with ourselves, and with the living world, we can embrace the spiritual reality of everyday life more wholeheartedly. Let’s see.

Last year, my hero died. Manchán Magan was reposed in the chapel of Gonzaga college and Ireland’s free thinkers and artists and musicians and Irish speakers filled the rafters of the chapel. I stood in the crowded entrance, and then outside, listening to the eulogy of his partner Aisling and his Brother, Ruan. I heard Liam O Maonlaí play music in his honour and poems recited in his name. It was a rousing, emotional, sad, but beautiful occasion for a man that has had a massive impact on large swathes of the Irish population. A gentle maverick, he wove his love and passion for the Irish language, with Gaelic mythology and environmental wisdom together in a beautifully synchronistic way that captivated audiences and listeners and readers. He’s a big reason why I moved home to Ireland from Canada shortly after Covid. He lit a fire inside me and warmed my inner sensibility that’s so indelibly connected to this emerald outcrop on the outer fringes of Europe. I had the pleasure of briefly meeting him twice, at an event at UCC about magic mushrooms and plant medicines and their connection with indigenous wisdom and healing. I also met him at Hometree’s annual conference, a non-profit set up to restore Ireland’s native woodland. Both times he spoke in front of a packed audience and was enigmatic, captivating, alluring and charming, all while imbuing an endearing humility and impish sense of humour. I devoured his books, podcasts, tv shows and talks on youtube. They were like a big deep breath of fresh air after hours in a stuffy room, or a cool glass of water on a hot day. They were a balm to my soul. His words weaved their way through my very being, enchanting the sinew and muscles between my bones and my flesh, unearthing an inner longing that I didn’t know I was carrying. They gave me respite from an existence where I didn’t feel seen. He instilled hope, while maintaining a critical eye on the status quo of our world. He had a sense of humour while also being encouraging and enthusiastic, while also having a dose of realism. He held his own hypocrisies with grace, while encouraging us to live more in between this world and the other world. Ceantar agus Altar.

I met Manchán in a dream on the night of his funeral. I was going to call it a visitation, but it was more like I was visiting him, than him visiting me. I was at his going away party, his sendoff in the clouds as he was about to float into the abyss, and the place was crowded with music and dancing and jovial delight. It was a dreamtime party celebrating his life, honouring his passing out of the world of the living, into the next. I saddled up beside him on the edge of the dance floor and thanked him for allowing me to be here, celebrating with him and his friends. We danced and chatted and I asked him, could he send me a message in the waking world, to remind me that this really happened, to show me that while we both know this is a dream, it’s still very real. From somewhere, I plucked the image of antlers. I know where I got the idea for antlers, but that’s another story. I asked him, if he was going to show me a message, to show me antlers. Then I’d know this really happened.

The next day, when going for a walk in my favourite forest trail, up in Roundwood, near the reservoir, I looked up at the pub across the road, as I walked out of the cafe where I had just used the bathroom and had a coffee, and there sat two sets of antlers on the side of the pub. I was floored. Not a deer with antlers, just the antlers. It gave me a wave of reassurance and reverence, for the mystery of existence.

A week or so later, in Sligo, on my way to a wedding, I stopped by the megalithic monuments at Carrowmore and Carrowkeel. Places I’d learnt about through the writings of Manchán who had reanimated the mystique of our ancient past. In the tourist centre, I got chatting with the receptionist, an amateur archeologist and historian himself, who, in a moment of distraction, while chatting with some tourists, pulled out deer antlers to show us. I was in shock. Apparently, bits of antlers were found in the tombs that date back thousands of years, 6,000 or 8,000 years if my memory serves me correctly. I had never held antlers before, and it was just one week since my prophetic dream. The connection was flabbergasting. Another feeling of wonder, and awe and connection flowed through me. The mystery of the connection between the realm of dreams, of the dead and of the living sat in my body for the rest of the day, even while I caught up with my Irish and Canadian friends at the wedding. I held the mystery inside me like a glorious light, a beacon to anyone who felt safe enough to share it with. We shared stories of how our dreams, and signs from passed loved ones keep us connected with the world outside of what we can see. Butterflies, feathers, shards of light, packets of quavers, for any Peter Kay fans.

That world lives increasingly more on the surface for me. As I continue on my life’s path and explore alternative modalities like yoga and meditation and spirituality, I’ve come more in contact with the beauty of all these worlds, inside and outside and around me. Around all of us.

After completing my yoga teacher training, just outside of Girona in Spain, I spent a few nights in the old town of Girona, in an Airbnb. It was nestled right at the centre of the monastery. The 13th century building was in was a converted house that used to be monks’ quarters. I had left the confines of the yoga school and entered the belly of the beast of the catholic church. For three weeks I had been meditating on the image of Krishna and activating the Kundalini serpent energy inside my spine, that’s so often talked about in the world of Yoga. Breathwork and bodywork was performed to engender healing inside us, while we learned the anatomy of our bodies and studied the ancient Sanskrit names of poses and internal energy systems. All this would have been sacrilegious for the catholic church, who villainised the image of the snake. The serpent was driven out of Ireland by saint Patrick after all, which I believe, signifies the attempted eradication of ancient pantheistic religions from this land. Women were vilified during the middle ages by the church. Their herbal medicines and remedies were outlawed as a form of control and genocide and an attempt at consolidating power.

While I slept, on the first night in my new place, I dreamt that I swam deep down in a public pool, with local men who were challenging me to races and jostling for power and authority in the water. I swam deep under the surface to escape their testosterone-filled foray, and began to hear distant cries deeper within the dark corners of this pool. I dove down deeper, to investigate, holding my breath, and utilising the increased lung capacity from my yoga training and all the swimming I’d been doing in the previous years. The cries I heard became louder and louder. It was all the women who had been murdered and burned by the church during the inquisition. And in the dream, I came to the realisation all the practice and work I’d done to explore my own consciousness, I’d accessed a realm where those women could be heard. I woke up in a cold sweat, panting, lying in the converted monastery, envisioning the robed monks who once would have inhabited this very room, arising for their daily duties in the monastery, cleaning, praying, singing. They would have been chastised for any deviation from the strict supposed sanctity of the sacrament. I had gone to depths far deeper, more profound, more subterranean than their restricting religion could ever allow. And I was seeing through the veil of their subjugation of women, and accessing their cries, their terror, their pain. It was a seminal moment for me, feeling the pain caused in God’s name, and the scary reality that we’ve living in, in the embers of that catholic flame. We must continue to dismantle any horrors in the name of any church, and use our own locus of wisdom to discern righteous indignation from mass manipulation.

My dream showed me how we’re still living in a world on those foundations. And with all our progress, there’s more work to be done, to transform us out of that horrific situation, where men in robes dictate our plight, at every turn. Now men in suits fire rockets and missiles. The outcry of us all is that the miserable horror must stop, while we learn to be gracious in our transformation of all this muck. My dream showed me the recent history of that terrible power, wielded on the most vulnerable, and how our world now still preys on the weak, for power. We must engage in conscious action to transcend this and protect our people. By our, I mean us all, the plants, the trees, the children, men and women, and black and white, muslin, sikh, hindu and christian, We can learn to live in harmony, interconnected, with wisdom.

Can our dreams guide us, from perdition towards freedom? Can they be a moment of sanity amongst all the external noise and screens and fast-paced nature of our society? Maybe. Only you can know as you explore more of your own inner reality.

I often dream that I’m still on the rugby field. The first place where I felt special and capable and notarised for my talents and effort. That’s a lie, I had many little realms of real agency and capability. But the rugby field became my identity. In my teenage years, that was my path, a child steered towards success throwing a ball around, running on grass, bashing into others and kicking balls through posts. It’s where I found identity and notoriety beyond my calamitous inner world of soft sensitive boyhood. Now, when I achieve something and feel that satisfying feeling of success or a job well done - I often dream of playing a good game of rugby. I used to think it was my subconscious showing me the path I should have gone down. But with some introspection and learning, I now see it as some inner part of me’s only way to give praise. A stilted, silent part of me that learnt for years to receive praise after a Saturday well played. And I need to acknowledge and be gentle with myself that that’s often the only way I can hear deep inner satisfaction sometimes. Maybe one day success and satisfaction will come into my dreamstate in another way. But for now, I’m gentle with that way of communicating, and accept it for what it seems to be - A profound congratulations.

John Moriarty’s most famous book is called “Dreamtime”. It’s an exploration into the realm of consciousness that we all inhabit, inherited from our forebears, through generations of battles and plagues and war and famine, through renaissance and revelation and scientific exaltation. Through all of our collective knowledge and wisdom and books and science and senses, he comes back to the ancient, shamanic, indigenous, wisdom: The land dreams us. We are the dreams of the earth. We are living in the dream of the cosmos. Have I lost you yet? Good - let’s get lost together, and discover what we can find in the wilderness of dreamland, the dark forest holds many treasures. Our ancestors new this, that’s why they created myths and legends and stories and prose, to try tell us of the mystery before us and within us. Moriarty’s book traces lines and squiggles through eons and generations and tribes and Christian theology, and looses us and finds us, right back where we began, at one with the mystery of existence.

I’ll leave you with the story of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. A boy lies asleep with his sheep in the Spanish countryside, dreaming of the ancient, far-off Egyptian pyramids. There he dreams of gold buried. When he wakes, he leaves the small abandoned, roofless, church with a tree in the middle of it, and sets off on his journey. He goes on an epic odyssey to find the treasure, buried for him at the pyramids, on the recommendation of a local shamanic-healer-come-gypsy-woman. He travels through southern Spain to Africa, where he gets robbed of all his possessions, works at a crystal shop and joins a travelling party across the desert towards Egypt. On the way he learns all about the world and alchemy and his inner world. He learns to speak Arabic, he falls in love with a local woman in the desert oasis, meets guides and villains, and ultimately, he’s guided towards his treasure. As he digs for it, right near the pyramids, he realises he’s come further and closer than he ever imagined to his goal. Suddenly, three bandits come by and beat him up and rob him and threaten to kill him, unless he tells them what he’s doing. He tells them of his dream in the church without a roof and a tree in the middle, and the odyssey he took to get here in search of buried treasure. One of them scoffs - Silly dream-follower, how foolish. One bandit laughingly recounts of his own seemingly meaningless dream he had recently, about a pot of gold under a tree in Andalusia in Spain, right under a tree, in the middle of a roofless church. How foolish it would be to follow the messages of our dreams. The boy is shocked by what he hears. He immediately know what he must do. He manages to escape the bandits, travels all the way back to where he left, many moons before, and finds the treasure, buried right at the spot where the whole journey began, under the tree in the middle of the roofless church. Indeed, how foolish to follow the message of dreams. Or is it?

Where do our dreams lead us? With a new perspective on a particular situation, or a depth of understanding that we might have otherwise been ignorant to. Maybe they are a wake-up call, or a poke or prod at something we’ve been ignoring. Maybe they’re signposts or sirens or both. Whatever they are, I’m listening.

“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.”

The visceral images of death and decay and terror ring through my ears, as they did when I first encountered them as a teenager. The futility of war, the pain and suffering of bombings and gunfire, and the glorification of defending one’s country, is completely lost on me.

In my lifetime, we’ve see the war in Yugoslavia, the Iraq war, the War on Terror, and so many more. Now we have what looks like the beginning of world war three. Angry Boys at the helm of the western world, talk of destruction and defeating the enemy like angry, aggressive pre-teenagers. I don’t pretend to understand the complexities of the macro-economic, socio-political roots of the current conflict in the middle east. I don’t pretend to be an expert on military strategy or holy jihads or christian fundamentalism or zionism. What I do know is that the outer reflects the inner.

Where are we at war with ourselves? What inner hatred do we have that’s projected onto the seat of another’s universe?

I sit here in this warm house, typing away at my laptop while missiles are being fired across boarders, in Palestine and Iran and Lebanon, and that abomination regimine from Israel.

Whatever harm done to Jewish people during the past century does not justify their eradication of thousands of women and children in Gaza and the West Bank. The terrorised have become the terrorist. Rather than learning peace and compassion from their plight, they’ve turned the rancid hate-filled actions against them on the Palestinian population in the past 50 or so years. And the cycle of hate and violence continues.

The music of war rages on. Bombs and sirens and missiles and screams, a cacophony of images flood our screen, until they were censored away, and the palestinians died in the dark. While some in the west, sent boats and aid and money, they were blocked at nearly every turn, told that they were supporting terrorists. The collective manipulation and misinformation is rife. Who am I to say I know what’s right? Where am I at odds with the people in my life? Where am I at war with parts of myself? How can I begin to heal and see people with compassion, not projection? Can I learn to love myself and the world despite all this negative attention? Despite all the rage-filled actions, and revenge and destitution. Is there a glint of light through all the baggage of confusion?

I’m reminded of the Isreali Mother, who after learing of her child’s death, pleaded that his murder would not be used as a justification of revenge. She pleaded with the powers that be to stop the cycle of violence, to stop the justification of vengeful, hateful actions. But it wasn’t listened to.

My favourite spiritual teacher, Ram Dass, talks about this extensively. He went to peace marches during the vietnam war and civil rights movement in the 60’s and the 70’s in America. He felt so much anger and frustration from the protesters, the hypocrisy of fighting fire with fire leads to mutual damnation. Gandhi peacefully protested the English and wanted them to leave as friends. Does this most recent Ayatollah’s death signal anything other than the beginning of another endless war between humans? Why can’t we be friends? I feel so childish asking that question. But why does it have to be any harder than that? Can’t we just sit and talk and refuse to build armaments and defence mechanisms? Am I stupid for wishing that things could be different? Maybe I’d prefer to live in a world with hope of the human condition. Maybe I want to believe that we can be free of all this perdition, partition and patriotism

.

We have learnt so much about trauma and psychology, we have seen the benefits of yoga and meditation for large swathes of the population in countless studies. We have held conferences on healing and innovation. We have walked towards the future with AI and new renewable materials. Why does it sometimes feel like we’re walking towards oblivion? The next elements of our world must be forgiven, and we must learn to soften into the garden of our own wisdom. Can we sit with each other and transform the present and the future with some semblance of truth-telling, sharing and persistence living?

I suppose, what all this is trying to say, is that we can’t let the actors of the world, who’re fighting with each other, make us believe that their example is the summation of the human condition. We must believe that forgiveness is possible and that truth can be told without the need for retaliation. I recently watched “Argentina 1985” about the legal conviction of the Military Junta who dissapeared and tortured and killed thousands of people in Argentina during their military fascist dictatorship. The democratically elected government that came after them, convicted the perpetrators and leaders of the massacre, through a trial, where the truth of the victims’ were told, and the legal process was used, instead or violent retaliation. It was both tragic to hear their stories, and uplifting to see a new form of action taken, rather than more war or killing.

What in our control in the curent situation? In our personal lives, we can take up the mantle of our relationships and speak with love and compassion. Even in conflict, we can hear from our own mouths, the love within the words of boundaries and be compassionate at breakneck speed with our emotionally aware abilities. We are all one humanity, the earth and the plants and the trees, are here to support us loving and creating and flourishing, not destroying and killing and subverting the truth. Life is for joy and lovemaking. It’s for expressing our gifts, not for anything other than truth-telling and visions of beautiful sunsets and mountains and rainbows. When will all the war stop? I’m a 35 year old man, but I have the heart of a child, we all do, deep inside - naive and loving and striving for flourishing. The more we can heal ourselves, the more we can enact a world with love and reckless peaceful abandon - growth and healing and giving. Please join me in our collective healing. Alongside all this war, despite this war, there’s space for forgiving. Together we can heal ourselves, and tell the truth. Please, listen.

There’s no certainty what the insights or takeaways or outcomes will be, as a facilitator, we come with an intention, and we set out a vision for what we’d like to the outcome to be. And it’s our job to keep things somewhat on track. To ensure the path is laid, and if it’s strayed from, it’s our responsibility to bring us back on track. But those sidequests, those diversions and digresions can be where the gold is. It’s the level of trust and adept mastery of the facilitator, that allows for the magic to happen. That’s where it’s both an art and a science.

There’s clear goals and parameters, as well as outcome and desires, set out by the leader of the team or the owner of the business. The beauty is allowing those needs to be present, while also allowing for magic to happen, for the true magic of facilitation to flourish. During my time with The Soar Foundation, we were taken through a 1-year initiation into the science of facilitation. Concurrently, we were taken on personal journeys of self discovery, where we were asked to bare our souls for the benefit of the group and to get a true insight into the power of this work, while learning how the mechanics of a three-hour workshop function. What levers and stories can pull the attention of the room, make everyone feel safe and included, while also giving the room an experience that will facilitate growth within each individual. A science. A process. A mechanical conveyer belt of wisdom. Compassionately and non-judgementally delivered with care and attention and gentleness, to allow the outcomes to be palatable and done kindly enough to also have emotional benefit to the participants. That process opened my eyes to the structure behind the magic of a workshop. Complimenting that with my Dad’s intuitive style, gave me a rare and beautiful education in holding the energy of the room for the benefit of everyone in it

Since then, I’ve worked in multiple corporate jobs. In Ireland and Canada, selling to the UK and America. Working with customers in South Africa and New Zealand and Australia. The full gamut of the english speaking world, a veritable education in the human condition. Not to say I know everything, far from it, but it gave me my own perspective, with multicultural context and vision. I saw facilitators at work from a participant’s perspective, in sales trainings and emotional awareness trainings and in workshops and retreats and in 1-1 sessions. I saw the beauty of intuitive work, tapping into the wisdom of our bodies and our psyches.

How can we tap more into our creativity? how can we hit flow state more easily, where time gets lost to us and we’re deep in work passionately and so presently that we both lose ourselves and find ourselves amongst the action of the work and concentration and clarity.

So what’s the point in facilitating a workshop? Well it depends on the goals set out by the leader. It could be to increase team cohesion, it could be to improve communication or resolve conflict or guide the team towards their ultimate potential. It could be to prevent conflict or resolve a conflict. It could be to create a safe space for people to voice their concerns or passions or opinions, to slow down and listen to the voices who are maybe rarely heard. It could be to transform the interactions of people in the team from frantic and fractured, to present and compassionate and focused and free of judgement, momentarily. To show that it’s possible to live more authentically and joyfully and more aligned with ourselves, express more love and live more coherently. That’s the power of facilitation. It’s not therapy, but it can be very therapeutic. It’s not AA, but can reveal addictions or aversions or compulsions or negative habits or actions. It can reveal love and trust and care, it can show our brilliance more clearly, it can allow participants to express their appreciation for one another, without the fear of being seen as disingenuous. It’s a place where truth can live freely. And of course, to allow us to live our everyday lives more truthfully, without fear of persecution or prosecution or judgement, to show us our inherent humanity, behind the masks of society. The masks that protect us and shield us from one another, momentarily getting a chance to be taken off.

It’s a space where the truth can come out, however beautiful or ugly. In a safe space. Where the repercussions aren’t the same as our normal life, where we’ve built a collective trust amongst the group, that what is said is for the benefit of all, no matter how seemingly truthful, potentially hurtful, things are said with good intention. And that’s the responsibility of the facilitator to mention and to manage.

So, how to experience the magic of facilitation? Work with a facilitator, bring them into your company. Trust them to manage the difficult reality of humanity with care. Caress the beauty of your team, with the magic of serene presence and allowing. And watch the magic unfold. See how your people light up. Or maybe they realise they shouldn’t be there, and their actual passions lie elsewhere. Trust that what’s meant to happen, will happen. And work closely with the facilitator to set your ideal outcomes, biggest challenges and brilliant ideas. And collaborate with them, sit in the room with them, and watch the magic happen.

As I sit here in my cheap, city-centre hotel room, right in the middle of Edinburgh, looking out over the hotel bar courtyard, and into a quintessential Scottish laneway with a narrow outdoor staircase, I’m reflecting on the past 14 months. It’s been a journey of self-discovery, as all my life experiences end up being. I stopped drinking, finally did my yoga teacher training, set up my own business, went on social welfare for 9 months, took mushrooms, was intensely in therapy, moved out, left a business, sat in silent meditation for ten days, all in the intervening time between being arrested, and getting acquitted. It’s been one hell of a journey.

It all started at my friend’s stag party. We were in a bar and a guy grabbed me by the crotch, quite forcefully. This is after multiple other attempts to force himself on me. This was the third time in the space of twenty minutes that this guy groped me. We thought he had left the bar after the second time, and we breathed a sigh of relief. But he snuck up on me, and did it again. I punched him to protect myself against further attack. My friend stepped in. He landed a few punches. We got arrested. The police officer on duty wouldn’t listen to our story. Took us straight to a jail cell each, an hour outside of Edinburgh, because the police station was full in Edinburgh that night. We stayed there for the rest of the night, all day Sunday, until Monday morning, when we were transferred into the courthouse jail. We didn’t get to see the judge till 4pm, right after we saw a solicitor. Once the solicitor heard my story, he was shocked at what happened. There’s evidence and witnesses that I was sexually assaulted multiple times, and I was still arrested. We have a case here. Ultimately we didn’t need it. When we submitted our evidence of the guy’s multiple attacks of me, our witness statements, witness statements of people at the bar, as well as cctv evidence, the crown prosecution realised that my “not-guilty” plea stood up, and they accepted it. Why didn’t they look at all this 14 months ago when all this happened? Why did I have to come back to Edinburgh multiple times for processing? It all took so long. A relationship ended, I transformed so much of my life in that time. It all had such a massive effect on me.

Interestingly, there’s been a lot of grace from this process. Getting assaulted forced me to look at myself and my behaviour. I didn’t victim-blame myself, but I did look at my drinking and my actions at the time. Sadly, I left myself open to a predatory attack while I had my guard down. Alcohol turned off my antenna to threats, made me less aware, less sensitive to the reality around me. I vowed not to allow myself to be so susceptible ever again. And a few months after the incident, alcohol and I parted ways. For the better. My creativity increased. I started writing again. I moved out of my parents’ place. I felt more free than I ever have in my life. Amazing friends came into my life. My work flourished. I started setting boundaries with loved ones, I had more energy. I began to be softer and more gentle with myself. I also pushed myself to live a more joyful life, out of my old comfort zones. I swam 12 kms down the river Shannon. I played a lead role in a Dance musical with my local dance group. I started posting more on social media about the work I do. I wrote more. I created more. This year has laid the foundation for so many things. It’s interesting how such a dark time and situation, actually bore such sweet nutritious fruits. The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice, as our good friend Kendrick Lamar so famously raps in one of his songs. My vegan friend also says that the darker berries often hold more nutrients. Well, spending two nights in a jail cell, eating jail food, interacting with police officers, coming in contact with so many jail regulars who clearly suffer from addiction and intense trauma and have multiple offences, was a very dark experience. But the fruits have been profound. Nutritious, beneficial even. Going to those depths lowered the bar inside me for what was deemed a successful life. It gave me perspective of the beauty of freedom. The joy of living. Previously I had suffered on-and-off with depression and anxiety. This didn’t cure those symptoms or experience by any means, but it gave me a deep perspective for my life. It showed me that joy can be found in the simplest things. That all those voices comparing myself to the success and happiness of others, was not serving me. Sitting in that cell, with no windows or phone or toilet seat, with no control over what I choose to drink or eat, gave me clarity on the precious privilege of everyday freedom. This isn’t to say life isn’t hard. Of course it is. But sometimes these situations can create a gulf between where we once were, and what we think now. How I see the world has completely changed.

A weight has certainly lifted. For this past year, no matter how good I felt, or what I achieved, I had this weight sitting on top of me, inside me, around me. The reality that I could be wrongly found guilty of assault, for punching this guy. Or could be back in jail. All that was very unlikely, but I couldn’t rule out the possibility. It was a date in the diary that I knew was coming, the court date, but I didn’t know when. It took a year of radio silence before we got the official summons. That was a year of uncertainty, knowing I’d have to return to Scotland, but not sure when. Knowing I’d have to potentially face a judge and a prosecutor and a jury, for a situation where I was the victim, and be under scrutiny. Luckily, it didn’t come to that. Once the prosecution took a look at all the evidence submitted, the day before the trial, they saw that there wasn’t a case against me. Clearly one punch to the face, to a man who approached me, got up close and sexually assaulted me, was not to be seen in court. Why did they wait that long to do so? Why did they put us through all that? I don’t believe it was malicious on their part. There wasn’t mal-intent, but we got a glimpse into the justice system and how often, the weight of the burden of proof, is on the individual, and the system works against them. The police, the officers on duty, the judge sometimes. It can all go wrong for people. Thankfully, I got off Scott-free, in Scotland, ironically. But not without a massive weight hanging over me for over a year. Not without months of therapy processing being the victim of a sexual assault. Not without a relationship breakup, being unemployed and the PTSD from being in handcuffs, and in a cell, treated like an animal carted from prison to a jail cell, in chains. It was quite inhumane. It gave me so much more empathy for anyone who’s fallen on the wrong side of the justice system. It showed me how so easily it could work against thee. A drunken mistake, a difficult childhood, poverty, addiction, being left behind in society, all reasons why a person would act out, steal, be violent, to process the pain inflicted on them by their environment. It opened up my window of tolerance.

I feel freer now. When the solicitors came out of the court room, after lots of back-and-forth that morning and said that they’re going to let me off, I was shocked. I thought it was going to trial. I thought that any chance of it being thrown out was over. I was preparing myself for testifying, for hearing the lies peddled against me. But that wasn’t to come. I called my mum. Texted so many of my friends. Got back to my hotel room and started writing this.

I’m staring at the Edinburgh staircase in front of me. These walkways make up the narrow. warren-like structure of this hilly city. The cobbled streets, stone buildings, Edinburgh castle. The whole place oozes historic richness. Colonial rule and order and structure. One of the British empire’s crown jewels. Whiskey and tartan and kilts and haggis and the fringe festival and warm cosy pubs and cafes. Historical walks and pub crawls and stag do’s and ghost trails. The medieval castle is a marvel. On top of a giant basalt outcrop of rock. Beheadings and hanging of tribal rebels, Jacobites and supposed criminals at the Grassmarket over a span of centuries. Burning of thousands of women accused of being witches. The church showing once again its malice and capability of true terror on humans. Kirks and friars and British ancestry. There’s fountains of knowledge embedded in the rock. The Battle of Culodden, when the Scottish clans united against the crown to take back their country. William Wallace. Robert the Bruce. Their fight for liberation rhymes with our Irish emancipation struggle from British rule. Sadly they haven’t found freedom from the empire yet. But together, our celtic rituals and music and language rings true. You won’t kill off a culture through genocide or torture because it lives on in our very nature. Sean nos singing and bagpipes and Uilleann pipes. Poitín and whiskey and stout, all deeply interwoven with our culture. I say that as a man who no longer drinks alcohol. But liberation often needs libations. But we’re not fighting for Guinness. We fought for our freedom to make our own stand in this world. To have a say on how we partake in the foray of life. Maybe one day Scotland will be free of British rule again. Maybe one day we’ll have a united Ireland. All I know is that today, I walk freely.

The air feels fresher. The streets have a brightness to them, even on this cold, grey, wet February evening. There’s a whole shift in perspective happening inside me currently. What possibility does the future hold for me? I don’t exactly know. I’ll continue with sobriety anyway. That’s given me an access to myself that I never knew was possible. I’ll continue writing. I enjoy that. I’ll move forward with my own company. Let’s see where that takes me. I’d like to live closer to the sea. I’d like to travel more freely. India. Bali. New Zealand. Japan. Do more yoga and meditation. Retain equanimity. I’ll continue to eat mainly vegetarian food, my body is responding well to that. I’ll write a book one day. I’d like to start a family. This perspective shift has brought me into adulthood. I’ll thank my cherished friends and family who held space for me, comforted and supported me through this whole experience. You’re gems and diamonds and angels. You guided and lifted me; mentally, emotionally, spiritually, sometimes even financially.

.I’ve begun to stand up for myself. This man assaulting me has made me realise that I didn’t have any protective walls up. People were walking all over me. And while I was living open-heartedly, some people were taking advantage of me. Now I’ll continue to open my heart to the world, but protect it simultaneously. Joyously and with humour I’ll more masterfully prevent situations like this, tapping into my sensitivity. I’ll speak my truth, even when it’s uncomfortable. I’ll stand up for the injustice around me. I’ll pick my battles, focus my energy.

As I look upon these stairs, I see mothers with prams, college students, tourists, people commuting to and from work, and I see the beauty in the mundanity of it all. The dirty, dreary, pokey, narrow throughway, is a highway, and a portal into a new reality for me. I’ll walk through it. And into a new life. The foundations are laid. The future awaits. Sláinte agus Soaoirse. Health and Freedom. Betwixed and between. On this earth I walk freely, that’s something to bask in. Something to celebrate. Thanks for reading.

Anyway, back to Kunik. I miss the beautiful soft smell of her coat. The furry, curly caress of her muzzle. A golden doodle. She loved walks and being off-leash in the old-growth forest and feeling the warmth of our bodies while she slept at my feet under a table or on the couch beside me. That love, the trust she placed in us, the unequivocal love. The tender licks or cuddles or sniffing of our hands for treats. It all comes back to me, on days like this, wintery and wet days. The pacific north west and irish winters feel profoundly similar, damp, grey, fires on indoors, hats and raincoats and mist by the sea. The familiarity might be one reason why so many Irish migrate to Vancouver, and to British Columbia in general. The Pacific north west weather rhymes with Irish weather. Rainy winters, with their summers being hotter and dryer. Hence the forest fires

There’s a nostalgia alive inside me as I wade from my apartment to the coffee shop, through the rain and the wind. The scene is familiar, it brings up strong emotions for me about my life in Vancouver. When I would wake up first thing in the morning, and rub my eyes and start moving in the bed. I would hear her paws and nails scratch against the wooden floor in excitement. Clamouring for purchase to scrape her body from under the bed, to right beside me. The promise and excitement of a walk or an early-morning pee or her favourite treats, rushing through her body in excitement. She’d joyously, impatiently, endearingly, tear-jerkingly, be at my side at all times. I write this in the mists of memory, I feel all that love rise up in me. It’s still there, three years on, after leaving Canada and going through a breakup.

I’d wake up and let her out the back door to the little garden with astro turf. She’d sniff around the plants and muck and would relieve herself. I’d encourage her to go quickly to give myself a reprieve from the cold. Back inside I’d have some water, maybe make a coffee and find my meditation spot on the couch. Warm and cosy with a little blanket. She’d nuzzle up against me, beside a thigh, she’d snuggle close, paws wrapped up and her nose tucked under them, a little white ball of cotton wool or cloud, warmth gorgeously up against me. I’d bring my focus and attention to my breath, easy as my body was so comfy on the couch, in our basement suite, which was quite spacious and bright for a ground-level dwelling. After twenty minutes or half an hour or so, I’d get up and she’d wake up, again filled with excitement - walk time! I’d get dressed and don my raincoat and water proof shoes and maybe hat and gloves, depending on how harsh the Vancouver seaside swells affected the gusts and the breeze and the precipitation in our streets. She had a little yellow raincoat too. To protect her thick curly fur from becoming absolutely drenched. And off we went. Ten minutes towards the local park and grass running track, where the dogs of the neighbourhood gathered, regularly before work and on the weekends. She’d meet her friends and chase balls and wrestle and run and run and run. Chasing after poodles and retrievers and pugs and pomeranians, doodles and labradors and lurchers and alsatians. Inclusivity is a given in the dog world. As long as you are friendly and playful and full of energy and not aggressive, you’re welcomed in their gang, a stunning insatiable gathering of loving and loved canines, a gift of love and energy.

After a period of time, we’d make our way home, trudge through any mud and gather ourselves, before hosing her paws or drying them with her towel, to clean her before reentering the little warm haven in east Vancouver, a hipster, bohemian, sometimes grungy gathering of artists, full of industrialised studios and music venues and bars and restaurants. A multi-cultural neighbourhood filled with Koreans and Mexicans and Irish and eastern-europeans. It was slightly grungy and a bit grubby but I always felt safe in that little corner of the city.

I look back at that time of my life with fondness. And also with nostalgia and sadness. As that chapter closed, I closed off the possibilities of that life. I fought it for quite some time. So much of it felt and looked so right from the outside. But I was in a lot of pain. Homesickness, distance from my family, so far away from familiarity, my tribe, the land that birthed me, my cousins and parents and sister and aunties and uncles. I just couldn’t face a life 3,000 miles away from all my friends and family. Since I’ve come back, I love driving through bray or greystones and spotting familiar faces from lifetimes ago, feeling a sense of home, my heart is at ease amongst these surroundings. My shoulders are a little less scrunched and bunched, braced because of the reality that no family was there to hold me, in that far off city. I feel held here, by the people and the familiarity and the energy. But on rainy winter days like this, on a lazy Saturday morning, I’m brought back to Gravely Street, as I quietly get up to bring Kunik out to pee. There’s so much grief for her. But it’s those morning walks that live so vividly in my body. I no longer am sent into a spiral of sadness and regret and guilt when I remember it. I now know why I made the decisions I did. My soul and spirit brought me back here, to Ireland, to Wicklow, the land of fairies and forts and sacred wells and green green green. To my small little box apartment, it’s not about materialism, it’s about proximity to my friends and family. A future that’s visible and feels real and a vision for a life that’s appealing and closer to my cousins in cork and my godmother and my aunties and uncles and parents. My school friends, college friends, a life in Ireland, while not easy, with the cost of living and the housing crisis and the economy, is the land that for so many years, pushed me away, then began to call me. And my energy feels settled here, secure and safe and at ease. The grief of leaving Vancouver has taken years to ease. Maybe there’ll always be a sadness within me, a grief, soft memories of love and dogs and rain and mountains and trees, bigger and older than I’d ever seen. Now I write this, to understand it. It takes time to heal. It takes time for our body and mind to catch up with our soul’s decision, to heal, to make it real. While also moving forward, to create a new life of zeal and appeal and love and sometimes it feels almost surreal. Thanks for reading. I hope this helps you heal, from whatever grief needs to be named, and know there’s love and peace on the other side. The only way is through. Acceptance and forgiveness. That’s the way through.

I’ve experienced burnout a couple of times. It was only the most recent time that I learnt the term “Burnout”. Up until then I thought I was broken or too sensitive or weak or not good enough. So I left jobs and relationships when they got tough or too much or I couldn’t figure out another way to survive than leave and start again from the ground up. People generally don’t realise they’re on the road to burnout until it’s too late. Our competitive culture that has traditionally glorified work ethic and endurance and grit and strength, convinces people that to rest or go slowly or gently is somehow inferior, naive and not good enough. When the term burnout is finally used, to describe the inability to move, or listlessness or lack of energy that is completely and utterly apparent to everyone around us, that’s when we finally pluck up the courage to surrender, and call our predicament what it is, complete burnout.

What does it feel like? It’s kind of like the exhaustion of depression or the debilitation after long-form anxiety, a nervous system that’s been at breaking point for too long and must collapse in order to recharge. It’s a complete loss of self, often done through service. Giving, giving, giving oneself to a cause or community or family or a company without realising the need to look after oneself. It’s leaving all our own needs safely on a shelf in the attic or the spare room or the good room and allowing them to gather dust, while we look after everyone else.

My most recent burnout happened during Covid. I was working for a fast-growing technology company and I was the founding sales rep on the team. Our team and revenue were growing quickly, along with the demand for our product and the rapid growth of the online-course market during covid lockdown after lockdown. I was consistently on top of the sales leaderboard, well we didn’t have one technically, but I had one in my head. I was intimately defining myself with being the best, most successful, hardest working sales rep. An example to others and the guy anyone could come to with answers. I had no boundaries. I was taking eight, thirty-minute sales calls a day with customers. All of our calendars were jam packed. I wanted to help them, make sales and make hay while the sun shined and the world shut down. About 18 months into the job and a month or so into the Covid furore and fast-moving demand for our product, I got an ear infection. It was a clear sign from my body that my nervous system saw no other way out from all the calls and busyness and blindness to my own needs, other than making me sick. It knew that illness was the only way I’d slow down. I took a few days off work. And when I got better, I went straight back into my old routines. I had no idea how all this high octane working and living with little balance or brevity or beauty had any connection with the health of my body. I was tunnel-visioned. Money equals safety, or so I thought. So the more I can earn, the more at ease I’ll feel. After a few months of this, with more money that I ever had in my life, I felt sad and empty and miserable. Maybe I need to move apartment. That gave me temporary reprieve, but quickly as I settled in and got into my new groove in my new place, the same feelings of emptiness reared their heads. I felt a little dead inside after a day’s work. I was moving further and further from my reasons for living. Hours and hours in front of a screen was becoming more and more meaningless. There was nothing wrong with the company or the people who I worked with or the mission or the vision I had for my customers or my life or my work. It was that I had completely lost sight of the things that make life bright. Deep, personal relationships and conversations and love. Time in nature, connecting with God within and above. Art and music and movies and movement. Proximity to my family and childhood friends and viewing life from a lens of compassion and trust and forgiveness and joy. I had become so focused in our social distancing and on our company’s mission that I lost sight of my own reasons for living. It was nobody’s fault. It was an unfortunate cocktail of an international epidemic, social distancing, and dangerous political messaging, no knowledge of boundary-setting and a complete ignorance to the mind-body connection. All that time, I realised that I was slowly outgrowing my current situation. With life during covid looking like it was ending, my soul started screaming that it’s time to make some important decisions. With seemingly little time left, how do you want to spend your days? Slaving away selling software in your small apartment, thousands of miles away from your family, or using your energy to be of service to others and do things that light you up and bring you joy. I didn’t have the self-awareness or somatic connection that I do now. These questions, while loud in my system, sounded muffled and hard to understand. I had slowly, unbeknownst to me, drifted further and further away from a meaningful life to me. I started waking up in the middle of the night with panic attacks and anxiety. I’d toss and turn for hours and slowly descend into past mistakes and miniature failures. By daybreak most days, I was completely exhausted. I had been ignoring my body’s messages for so long that the only way I’d listen was if my sleep was disturbed. That put everything in perspective. Because without weeks and weeks of sleep, my mind and body couldn’t function. I was left bereft of any passion or joy or autonomy. My therapist asked me how I like my coffee, I couldn’t answer. After so much time denying myself of my own needs, I’d lost all sense of my own preferences and preferred way I like my beverages. If I couldn’t decide on that, or where I went for a walk, how could I decide if it was the right time to leave my job, or move to another country or drop out of our system completely. It all felt so all-consuming, blurry and baffling. I felt like a zombie and it was certainly ego-rattling. I walked passed homeless people on the street and feared I’d end up there. Even though I had ten’s of thousands of dollars in my account. I was irrationally spiralling. It was scary and disorienting.

That’s what burnout feels like. That’s how it felt to me anyway. It was confusing because I thought I was uprooting some old wounds of depression or anxiety or latent brokenness, but really I was living a life where I was performing in ways that had worked for me in the past, but had kept getting me into situations like that. Lack of boundaries, no idea when or how to say no, no expectation-setting, or lowering bars or success metrics. It was all-out war. Winner takes all. Covered in a charming demeanor and irish accent and pleasant language. I was competitive to the core. There were winners and losers. Going through burnout helped me see things different. It gave me more compassion and empathy. It showed me that’s not how things work. There’s an uneven playing field and some don’t have the same tools or supports or foundations as others. And by constantly competing and defining myself by success and clean eating and external metrics of success, I drove myself into the ground, and had a full meltdown. My body protested.

It turned out to be a blessing. I took three months off work, on sick leave. That was hard to swallow, because I had never done that before. But my body and psyche were so exhausted that I started fantasising about leaving this planet. That’s when taking three months to spend time with my family didn’t seem so drastic to me. It had to get to suicidal ideation before I listened to the severity of the situation. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone, no matter their history, no matter their station.

I called it Burnout. People understood. An acceptable and digestible word in the corporate world. An illness of the ambitious, the type-A, the men and women who’ll run through walls to prove their worth and work long weekends and extra days, to feel worthwhile and valuable and valued. Burnout showed me that we’re all worth so much, no matter what we contribute. It gave me a completely different lens of life. I saw how addiction is the attempt to remove deep pain, how everyone has hurts and pains, and we must treat each person with empathy, and we must do our best to care for one another, because it’s impossible to know what each of us is carrying around.

As I write this, I feel gratitude for the experience now. For my boss who called it burnout. For my parents for taking me in. For the system for paying me half-pay, while I recouped and found my spark again. How I regained my life again. It led to somewhat of a spiritual awakening in me. That intense pain and suffering brought with it grace. The surrendering that needed to happen in my intense situation, brought a faith that remains today. It brought a faith of the intelligence of the cosmic collective unconscious to give us the messages that we need, regardless if we’re listening or not. Through signs and songs and illness and injury, there’s constant messages for us, when we’re open to receiving. I took all those messages, from a life of misalignment, and went back to do another qualification. I studied coaching, my lifelong passion. I ended up training as a yoga and meditation teacher. I spent ten days in silence, living like a monk in county Clare on the west coast of Ireland. I travelled far and wide to spend time with old friends. I made difficult life decisions. I became better at setting boundaries, at saying no, at tapping into the wisdom of my body before blurting out an answer. I saw the love all around me. I saw the beauty in nature and plants and the trees. I stopped drinking alcohol and experimenting with plant medicine. It’s been a journey. Life looks very different now. I’m more conscious when I need time to myself to recharge my batteries. I’m getting to know the people and the activities who nourish me. I eat mainly vegetarian and swim in the sea. I hold safe spaces for people in my coaching practice and watching them blossom and align to their authentic selves nourishes me. Let’s see what’s next in this strange winding path of self-discovery and little epiphanies. I’m open to what’s guiding me. Let’s see what happens and where the twists and turns take me. I’ve surrendered to source, I now let the universe and my body and peoples’ energy guide me. I meditate and am more present to the day to day reality of each moment’s decisions and that protects me. It grounds me. My friends hold me. I create space for them and together we’re lifted up. Source surrounds me, as it does all of us, when we open to it. I do my best to live openheartedly. Protecting my energy and giving love honestly when I feel called to, and together me and the people in my life laugh deeply and cry regularly. We write, go to plays, see live music, appreciate nature and hibernate in the winter. Life looks different. It feels different. That’s good. We’re meant to grow and change and evolve and transform as we age and mature. With time and life situations, we’re shown more and more of our own impermanence, our own delicate existence, our own precious, perfectly poised bodies in this vast cosmic star-strewn universe. Thanks for reading these words. I hope they’ve evoked something in you. Sláinte. Health to me and to you.

Boundaries are beautiful because they protect our energy. They set guardrails and parameters for our focus and our creative flow. They clarify to our co-workers and loved ones our capacity. They ensure that we can be present and show up with our full selves, lovingly and compassionately and in the moment. In our workplaces and families and society, boundaries are often overrun by obligation, tradition and expectation. The liberation we feel when we start setting boundaries is a profound act of self-love, defiance and determination to live a life authentic to ourselves, which benefits all around us.

How do we start setting boundaries? How do we tap into our inner wisdom and revel in our own majesty? Let’s explore more:

The rule-breakers and line-crossers must be stopped. The slow creeping in of opinions of well-meaning warriors must be kept at bay. We get to choose and accept help, when we’ve asked for it, when we’ve consented to it.

This has been one of the hardest things for me to learn about boundaries. I didn’t realise that my boundaries were being continually crossed. It’s easier to see crossed lines when there’s anger or aggression or coercion or manipulations. It’s harder to see it when the intention is benevolent. In my life, there were no line to be crossed. They didn’t exist. They were hard to see among the mist of uncertainty and unexplored self-respecting certainty. If they were there, they were blurry. I didn’t know how to draw them. I was a big open book that didn’t know how to say “no”. I didn’t realise that I could choose who I open up to, who could read my pages.

I didn’t realise that my boundaries were being crossed because I didn’t have any. My mind was swimming in a big open sea. There were opinions and advice being given to me freely. Judgements were placed upon me. And I didn’t know how to pick them up and put them back outside of my vicinity. Outside my realm of personal space. Back where they belonged, near the other person, the advice-giver, back with all their own opinions and programming and visions of life that didn’t align with me.

The easiest boundaries to set were the obvious ones: Don’t insult me. Don’t speak disrespectfully to me. Don’t touch me please, or grab me or push me.

Simple.

The hardest ones were when people offered to help me. Even if I felt capable to deal with a situation myself, the constant stream of other people’s opinions could influence or mar my own inner wisdom. Maybe it was a parent or sibling or friend or mentor or boss. Realising the importance of bobdaries, was a difficult lesson to learn. Because when I started to set them. I did so clumsily. I used aggressive language or emotionally shut down. Or said it with a scowl or a frown. Or got emotionally heightened and allowed myself to be dragged into argument. We all have to start somewhere. And now I set boundaries compassionately, with more emotional awareness and less deregulation, more peace and clarity. Slowly, I’ve gotten better and gentle saying “no thank you” with compassion and love and without disparity. “No” is a full sentence has become almost cliché, in the circles I’m in anyway. But that’s where we can start. I love the book where the guy in the bowler hat says “I’d prefer not to” and everyone thinks he’s crazy. “How dare you decide to do what you want to or by simply articulating your preference. How selfish and absurd and radically rude and antisocial. How dare you decide to act be outside our social conventions and guilt-driven, shame-filled activities done out of duty.” The whole book centred around this character. Bartleby, that’s his name. A profound counter-cultural genius wrapped up in a little book by Herman Melville. Give that book a read or a google. Well, you don’t have to take my advice. I love what Ram Das says on this topic. Listen with your own heart, and if it resonates, great, if it doesn’t that’s ok!

Boundaries don’t control someone else’s behaviours. That’s rules and that’s controlling. Boyndaries don’t set bars for people to meet, that’s expectations. Boundaries sets the standards for how you’d like to be treated. And people can meet that standard or not. It’s their choice. Simple as. Then it’s up to you if they remain in your life or not. Don’t get it mixed up with controlling somebody or complaining constantly to someone who doesn’t live up to your ideal vision for them. That’s not boundaries. Boundaries are your standards for yourself, nobody else.

That brings me on to an important boundary-related topic. Do you have boundaries for yourself and your own actions? Do you live intuitively and respect your own wishes? Are you upholding your own standards behind closed doors when nobody is watching? This is the deep work on boundaries. The boundaries we hold for ourselves, with ourselves.

For me this has been cutting out things like alcohol and pornography. Not in a holier-than thou way, more in a, those things don’t make me feel good and aren’t good for me in the long-term way. And the more I set those standards for myself and the more compassionately I speak to myself, the better I am at accepting and loving and trusting myself, and the better I am at accepting love from others.

The love you see from others is directly proportional to the love you give yourself. How do you speak to yourself? Are you gentle and kind to yourself like you would be to a small child or a puppy or good friend? That’s how we need to treat ourselves. We transform through love and compassion and small steps of growth. contrary to popular convention, we don’t change or growth through constant shame or guilt or self-beration. An aberration. We grow through love. Boundaries are an act of self-love and actually a profoundly adept way of loving others authentically. Boundaries protect our energy. They show us that we love ourselves. They show us that we respect ourselves. They’re difficult, but like anything new, with practice, we become better and it gets easier. Thanks for reading. Happy Boundary-setting!

Namaste Agus Sláinte,

Brian xoxo

I went on an overnight camping trip with two really close male friends of mine. We packed our food and tents and torches and tarps and made our way a few hours north of Vancouver towards Whistler and deep into the Coast Mountains. Deep into the lands that were originally occupied by the indigenous peoples of Canada, namely the Squamish and Lil’wat Nation peoples. I felt a deep connection to the first nations people of BC while living there, and especially on this camping trip. While in the midst of our 4 to 5 hour mushroom trip, looking up at the stars, I could see constellations that looks so similar to lots of the indigenous art I’d seen while living in Vancouver, and felt a profound presence and reverence for the peoples of that land during the whole experience.

We hiked a couple of hours in the hills and trees of this stunning old-growth forest with ancient redwoods and pine and sycamore and spruce and douglas fir. A treasure trove of natural life was flourishing in the national park. Lichen, moss and fungus all grew abundantly on every rock and tree. The smell of the air was filled with pine and pure presence of the natural world. It felt a long way from my tech job in the city, hours staring at a screen all day. This was what being alive felt like.

I also love the natural feeling of hunger while hiking. Snacks taste just so much better taken out of a backpack after a few hours sweating and huffing and puffing up a hill. The simplest peanut butter and banana sandwich or trail mix or little square of dark chocolate or fruit tastes so potent and pleasurable. Like the scene in the movie Ratatouille where the main character starts to experience synesthesia and sees bright colours in front of him the first time he tastes grapes and cheese for the first time. That’s what eating snacks while hiking tastes like to me. It’s almost a spiritual experience. The best spiritual experiences that I’ve had are profound moments of presence, where the mundane is transformed and some sensation or thought that I’ve had a thousand times turns into a temporary rapture or revelation of the magical mystery of existence, and the fact that we’re even living or breathing or being at all feels miraculous.

That’s what happened when I took the mushrooms. We set up our tents, took an evening dip into the freezing cold lake, changed into warm dry clothes, made a small fire and had a beer cracked open. This is back when I drank alcohol. And as the sun was setting, and we were basking in the dimming light of the dwindling day, my friend Mitch opened the pack of mushrooms and we laid them out on a rock. An altar to our impending journey. I said a little poem to bless the mushrooms and the experience, well, to bless us on the journey we were about to go on. We divided them equally and chewed. Now we wait, we chat, we listen, we feel.

All felt normal and usual for about thirty minutes. Then suddenly, as the sun began to set and shine its orange and yellow light more directly on the hills of the valley we were in, it was like somebody immediately turned up the colour contrast on the television. Suddenly, unexpectedly, miraculously, I immediately realised the beauty of the colours of the natural world all around us. The vast array of shades of green and gold that spanned the valley. On every rock, it looked like some cosmic being had splattered each one haphazardly with fluorescent paint: yellows, greens, oranges, lichen was talking to me through the striking colours as it danced on each rock. Has this lichen always been there? Brilliant, bright, fluorescent shades of colours filled the valley. The rock right beside us looked like it belonged at a rave with glow in the dark paint. Was it the setting sun that was making the colors pop so amazingly to me? Was it the mushrooms taking to me through my eyes and through the natural beauty always present in nature, constantly communicating with us? Lads, do you see what I’m seeing? Look at all these fantastic colours? The cacophony of crazy kaleidoscopic chaos around me was almost overwhelming in its beauty. I think the mushrooms are starting to take effect, Brian. Wow, is this what it feels like? Amazing!

We laughed and I could see the lads get amused at how quickly they were hitting me. I felt a slight sense of trepidation from them but also an excitement. When would they start feeling it? We decided to take a short walk over to the glacial waterfall that was feeding the crystalline lake, to fill our water bottles and take our chance to explore a bit more of this stunning valley while we still had some natural light. The odyssey of a mere 100 meters was an adventure of magnitude and joy for me that I’ll never forget. As I walked on each rock,. I noticed the vast array of colourful lichen that it was supporting. Apparently lichen only grows abundantly when the air is clear and free of lots of pollutants. This was probably some of the purest, most stunning natural settings that I’d ever been in. I’d never seen such a vast collection of this beautiful organism. I’ve since become a bit of a lichen nerd and learned that it’s this strange and unique organism, a one of a kind blend of both fungus and bacteria, it’s not one or the other, but a mix of both. An anomaly in the universe. A miracle. I was certainly appreciating this miracle of ocular ostentation. What a crazy and class creation.

We got to the waterfall, filled up our water bottles. The water tasted like diamonds. Like the water from a fresh-water iceberg, if that even is a thing. The water from heaven. Cool, crisp, fresh, pure, pristine. We met fellow hikers. Turns out they were from Mexico. I started speaking Spanish with them and I think that’s when the mushrooms hit my friend Tim. His mind was blown that I was communicating in this alien tongue. He had no idea I could communicate in any other language. A trippy experience for us both.

We somehow managed to get back to our small campsite, a perfect little outcrop of rock and soil jutting into the lake, with no other space for tents. We had that little section to ourselves. Mitch our fearless leader, remembered that we had lots of food and before nightfall it would be important to put the food in the bear traps. So that bears wouldn’t smell the food overnight and try to come into our tents. Good idea. Odyssey number two. This time darkness had befallen and there were the last vestiges of sunlight hitting the upper edge of the valley. We’d need our headlamps. If not for the way, definitely for the way back. Mitch led the way and Tim and I followed. We giggled and whispered in the back, trying not to be too loud to wake up fellow hikers who’s tents we were passing, on the way to the bear trap. I stopped momentarily to investigate the branch of a pine tree. The closer I looked in the dimming light, the more the majesty of the cosmos unfolded to me. There seemed to be infinitesimal fractals of green goodness and symmetrical patterns making up this tiny part of the tree. The fibonacci sequence crossed my mind, the smell of the ferns found me. I was transfixed. Tim looked back and laughed wryly at how intensely the mushrooms were taking effect for me. He mentioned how lots of these trees are mother trees and beside them you’ll see a small tree that’s sprouting from the roots of these bigger trees. What? That’s incredibly cute and cosmic and mind boggling. I looked around me, momma trees and baby trees everywhere. I looked up into the valley, thousands of momma and baby trees. I thought of my own mother. BABY TREES, wow. What a concept. How beautiful nature is. What a stunning self-perpetuating perplexing miracle life is.

This went on and on. The insights, the hilarious moments laughing with and at each other. The majesty of the mountain unfolding again and again. The greatness and the goodness and groundedness of the natural world, of life itself, has never left me. So resilient, yet fragile, so interconnected, and beautiful. So profoundly fascinating. Our existence is terrifyingly short and irreconcilable with the logical mind. A true life changing experience. While I write this, the feelings are being relived inside me. Catharsis. Creative bliss. Consciousness manifests.

The second proper time I took mushrooms was on a plant medicine retreat in the mountains between Lisbon and Porto in Portugal, roughly two years ago. I had come across a plant medicine shaman and had a call with her. I’d realised that these little fungi friends were fun but also powerful. They made me look at lots of areas in my life and forced me to make foundational changes. This time there would be a lot more intention. No alcohol or coffee or meat for about two weeks beforehand. We needed to prime our bodies, and rid them of toxins before going on the journey. We arrived in the mountains after renting a car and driving an hour or so from the airport. Vegetarian dinner that night and a meeting with the facilitator to talk about our intentions, fears, expectations and any illnesses or mental/emotional hangups that we were bringing into the space.

Then, the evening of the second night, we cleared out the living room, laid down yoga mats and our blankets and pictures of loved ones and maybe a totem or two from nature and our trusty stuffed animals and got comfortable for the experience. The sun was setting amongst the portuguese hills outside, and the light was orange and yellow coming into the candlelit room. Incense was burning and the temperature was comfortable and balmy on that early autumn, later summer quiet evening.

We began the ceremony with setting our intentions aloud to the facilitator/shaman annd out into the room. She came over to us one by one and blew tobacco up each nostril with a wooden pipe. Rapé. A sacred plant of the andes that is used by shamans to purify the body and the mind and bring the initiant into the present moment. The perfect purging of our airways to begin the ceremony. Snot and mucus and tears ran down our faces with the intensity of the foreign substance blown forcefully into the deep recesses of our sinuses and what felt like into the front of our brain cavity. A true test of our surrender to the experience. Elemental ecstasy, not so much, an affronting jolt into the here and now, absolutely. Next, we chewed dried Rue seeds, an MAO inhibitor, that would intensify and elongate the effects of the psilocybin mushrooms. Bitter, hard, not pleasant. Then we received our cups of clear, warm liquid tea with chunks of translucent mushrooms in it, with a blue hue that was seeping into the water. There was also a yellow colour from the lemon juice that had also been squeezed into the concoction. Lemontekking, a term popular in the plant medicine and psychedelic space, speeds up the interaction of the psilocybin in the body and is quickly converted by the body to psilocin. Then I asked if I could go to the bathroom, I didn’t want to have to pee while I was tripping balls. Yes. Ok run downstairs and back. The other participants were already lying down with their eye masks on. I was encouraged to finish quickly. Then I lay down, pulled the soft material of the eye mask over my face and giggled with excitement about what I was about to experience. I could already see some colours and geometric shapes behind my eyelids and the music was already taking on a transcendent quality to me. It had already begun.

I had been waiting for this moment for about 8 years. Ever since I first heard Aubrey Marcus talk about his Ayahuasca experience in the Amazon on the Joe Rogan podcast, I had been fascinated by the psychedelic nature of plants. I’d always been somewhat of an explorer. Walking 900 kms of the Camino de Santiago for 32 days after my undergraduate, travelling in Latin America for 8 months in my late twenties, living in Kathmandu, Nepal in my early twenties working with a non profit and taking a meditation course with Tibetan monks. Living in Canada for 5 years. I had always been curious about the areas of the world that were exotic and novel and far flung to me. Now it was my mind’s turn to explore new territory, to traverse the depths of my unconscious and caress the cosmos within. Climb through old beliefs and discover what more wisdom and insights lay within. I can feel the earthy, chewy texture and taste of the mushroom in my mouth as I write this. Cleaning around my teeth and gums to make sure I had imbibed the full compliment of the medicine that was given to me. I wanted to experience something. And Oh boy did I.

I can’t give a linear description of what happened next. It’s all a bit of a blur. I remember hanging upside down over the bannisters of the stairs at one point, trying to find an adequate stretch for tense muscles in my body and having to be gently coaxed back to the ground by the facilitators. I remember a full ego dissolution moment where my mind and body and soul dissolved in a kaleidoscopic array of colourful geometric shapes and feeling the most profound and intense feelings of love and acceptance of freedom I’ve ever felt. I surrendered to that feeling and felt like I was falling into an infinite unfolding pattern of geometrical shapes. I could see some of the room around me behind these shapes and sat in the euphoric bliss for a few moments of life-altering ecstasy. Then, as the feeling kept increasing in intensity and pleasure and bliss, I felt the benevolent and loving energy of my sister with me. Wanting the best for me, supporting me on my journey. Beautifully. In that moment, it felt like the feeling would never end, and I’d constantly live in this state of unending bliss and harmony and love. That’s the moment when it became all too much. My body and mind in its current state couldn’t hold such love and peace and perfection. I was promptly and abruptly brought back into the room, and all the mistakes and misdemeanors and misdirections I had taken in my life came back to me instantly. It was a sobering, sacred moment of my humanity. All my imperfections and inflections and insurrections and inconsistencies and hypocrisies were put under a spotlight. Who did I think I was coming out here and doing plant medicine? Get a real job. Come back to reality. Live normally. You’re a fraud, a failure, a phony, a philanderer and a child in a man’s body, living in La La land of your own making, and you’re a laughing stock to your friends and family and the world. What a joke.

That was dark. For about two hours I lay on the floor motionless, sweating profusely with all the heat of the inequities in my psyche. I lay face down, barely breathing. Afterwards the facilitator told me that during those moments, part of her was scared for me. For my wellbeing, for my safety. Was I still breathing? How long will this last?

I fell asleep. When I came to, it was the early hours of the morning and the intensity of the journey was over. The facilitator was laying out fruit to help us come down and integrate the journey. We tended to the fire. I asked if I could help. This is where I had another moment of clarity and insight. I was left to my own devices to build the fire. But I don’t know how. A man came over to me, saw my inadequacy, had a little chuckle to himself when he realised and compassionately and tenderly took me step by step through the stages of building a fire. It was beautiful. I felt a fatherly energy from him, even though he might have been younger than me. I was the boy, he was the dad, patiently and purposefully showing me how to build a fire. At that moment, it all became too much. The beauty of his tender teaching, the realization of the amount of time I had been thinking things in anger and frustration and shame. It all came over me. I weeped and weeped. The moist sweat of my shirt from the intense purging of the dark experience was met with my tears streaming down from my face. It all came together at that moment. A part of my inner child was getting what it always needed. Patient, gentle instruction. Guidance and clarity and clear steps to success. The realisation of what I’d missed, and what I’d gotten, along with the gratitude for all those insights, struck me. The cry was beautiful, heartfelt, and gentle. A purging, a realisation. An emotional release of intergenerational proportions.

The next day we were woken up by the facilitator and told that we’d be in silence until lunch. We’d eat breakfast on our own. Holding the experience with gentle reverence. I was delicate. What had I just experienced? Was I ready for all that? Did I do anything to hurt anyone or embarrass myself or any irrevocable damage? I went pretty deep last night. There’s parts I don’t remember. It reminded me of times of heavy drinking. There had been many in my teenage and college years and throughout my twenties. A familiar feeling of fear. Not nice.

The next day, strength and confidence returning, we decided to spend a few hours by the lake. Swim in it and come back for dinner. It was beautiful to be back out exploring the portuguese countryside. A chance to be normal again. That night at dinner I expressed that I had craved a cold crisp beer that evening as the sun was setting while we were driving through the town back to our small stone cottage. At that moment, even before I finished my sentence, a massive painting fell from the wall in the room where we had tripped the day before. It startled all of us. The next week, in our integration call, the facilitator mentioned that she thought that might be a message for me about my relationship with alcohol. I abstained from drinking for another few weeks. To care for myself and allow the delicate nature or the post-retreat reality softly grow stronger in me. I’ve mentioned it in my Substack about alcohol. But in those weeks after the retreat, I felt like I had shed multiple layers of skin. I felt so sensitive to other people’s energies. To their joking comments. To their snide remarks, even if playful. I noticed how people treated each other. It was like a veil had been lifted and I could clearly see the hurt that everyone was walking around constantly and projecting onto each other. The depravity and calamity of it all. I was this little delicate bean amongst it all. How would I function amongst this? Is this why I left Ireland in my early twenties? Because I was unconsciously feeling all this pain? We’re a post-colonial country, we can’t speak our language, we’re heavily dependent on alcohol as a society and we were ruled by the catholic church psychologically and physically up until only a few years ago. We’re collectively healing as a country. And I was feeling the hurt of all of that. And found it so overwhelming, along with all the personal insights and clarity that I’d gotten about how I was living my life. It was all so intertwined. The pain inside me, the pain in society. A mirror.

After that, I didn’t go near mushrooms for about 18 months. And I’m sure you can see why. That was intense! Handle with care. They are not a party drug. And certainly not addictive. I wouldn’t be going back there anytime soon until I had integrated and understood that. Since then, I’ve learned the importance of integration after using plant medicine. The insights are great, but it’s in the actions that we take in our lives where the work happens. How are we showing up? How are we behaving in relationships? What stories are playing in our heads and our hearts about ourselves and the world? All that needs healing. Therapy, changing and mending relationships, setting boundaries, removing unhealthy patterns and substances in our lives. Delving into the reason why we feel so unhappy or unloved and giving ourselves the medicine we need. Sleep, nourishment, exercise, friendship, authenticity, love, truth, trust. That’s where the work is. The medicine shows us what’s there. Shows us the potential of all the love and goodness we can feel. And shows us what’s blocking us there. Then it’s up to us to take up the mantle, put in the work, take action and live our lives congruent to our values, our beliefs and our truth. That’s where the liberation is.

And as Ram Das says, the Harvard psychologist who famously revolutionized the psychedelic movement in the US in the 70’s, psychedelics show us the door, meditation and spiritual practices allow us to maintain that equilibrium, peace and love throughout our lives. And that’s the journey I’ve been on these past few years. That’s why I recently took my first Vipassana retreat. You can read about that here. Thanks for staying this long. It’s a pleasure to have you on this journey. Namaste agus Sláinte. Brian