My heart is ...

....definitely in Ireland.

our backyard…

Being in Ireland was a life-changing experience. I wanted to share the insight my month in Ireland gave me.

It had been years since I had been back to my family home, my father's family land on the Dingle Peninsula (I was 17 years old and I'm 41 now as I'm writing) and even way back then, I knew I wanted to live there someday. I thought about it in my 20s but I was scared to go alone and I just couldn't find my grove. I didn't know myself and didn't want to leave my friends and family. In my 30s, I met my love and became a full-time stepmom basically overnight when his ex was deemed unfit to raise the boys. We were not in a good place financially, jobs were low paying and the shock of being a caretaker suddenly of 3 small boys 4,6 & 8 was enough to put all dreams and vacations on hold.

Now that the boys are basically out of the house, it's hard not to think, is now the time? My daughter is young and would pick up the language and customs easily. She already has friends there and 3 of them are just up the road. My husband fell in love too and we are still homesick for Ireland and cannot wait to return. Every day, we bring up something we miss. Mostly about Chef Brown Sauce...lol . We may just move there someday if we can release the guilt of leaving everything and everyone. I can't imagine being so far from everyone, especially my parents, but I guess it's what they did moving here to the US to have a better life. It's such a hard thought to be away from friends and family but it also feels awful to not be there and I miss it so much! I feel I am in the wrong place.

Anyways, I wanted to share some little details from my travels, the Intuition Building Retreat I co-hosted, and the revelations that were revealed to me.

The journey began...

our backyard…

We arrived in Dublin and made our way to Galway first. The first 2 days there were spent in Galway to visit family and work through the worst of the jet lag, saw my mother's old home and stomping grounds, found my grandparent's gravestones to pay respects, had tea and cookies at my Uncle's home with my cousins who just make you feel so loved and at home.

We traveled to Kerry from there, my husband bravely driving a stick shift on the opposite side of the car and road than we are used to. We had a few adventures on our 4-hour journey and finally landed in Dingle, my favorite lil town, to have a bite before we settled to our home on the ocean about 8 miles away across the peninsula from town.

I started crying driving up. I feel like the luckiest person on the planet to have an ancestral home on a cliff in the most beautiful area of the "Wild Atlantic Way." I can't believe it took me so long to come back home!

The backyard of my family home is literally on the ocean with a steep cliff no less! I can't believe my grandmother raised 5 boys there! I wish I could ask her how she did it. I bet she has some stories.

Off to the left on the horizon in the backyard view is The 3 Sisters mountain peaks, they never cease to take my breath away. I always thought my 2 sisters and I would have a business there with their namesake. There's still time I suppose!

To the right of the harbor, an ancient watch tower sits and a view of a neighboring village below it. You can see the small beach next to that village at low tide. Mt Brandon is up in the clouds on the front view of our home. It's the 2nd largest mountain in Ireland and it's often in the clouds. Dooneen Pier is just a short walk away and you can see the waterfall flowing from the creek next to our home after a good rain from there. It's breathtaking. It was so incredibly grounding and healing.

We had so much fun, I never felt more alive, and healthier, went for daily walks, picked flowers, looked for stones & shells, and fed the cows next door (who were all pregnant btw!) We explored, walked to Kilmalkedar church ruins, spent some time at my grandparent's graves, tuned into ancient Ogham stones, and walked to Ballydavid to go to Tigh TP Pub to have a pint of Guinness and some fish & chips. We went to see Beehive Huts and other ruins. We loved going into town and wandering around, having a pint at Foxy John's (a pub and a hardware store) finding street art, quant alleys, lil' rivers running through town with secret gardens, seeing the sights, eating real food, everything was so fresh and affordable, everything tasted better, my body felt better. My mind felt better, and my soul felt at home.

Do not be surprised if you see us move there!

I also saw my husband in a new light, seeing him relaxed and happy. I saw my daughter happy, active, and being creative with her new friends. I also had many revelations about the work I am doing. More on that later...

The Retreat...

I also co-hosted a healing retreat with Sierra North where we worked on healing, building, and strengthening intuition. Ireland is known to be a place where the veil between worlds is thin so there's a long history of Celtic Seer's. The Seer had strong intuitions, typically had visions, and knew about plants and wisdom from other worlds. We tapped into our inner Seer and it was awesome! I learned how to further tune in, trust my inner voice and use various Celtic methods of divination too! I can't wait to host a Celtic intuition-building workshop someday soon!

I cooked for 7 people and the food was a hit! I was so nervous so I was very happy everything turned out so well. Many said it was their favorite part of the retreat! I think the food quality in Ireland helped me a bunch though. Everything was so fresh!

During our travels, we hired a guide and we had the most amazing driver Ryan. Be sure to hire Dingle Shuttle Bus if you go on a tour of Ireland. He was the kindest, most knowledgeable, timely, patient person and brought us to the most beautiful views. He and his family tours all over Ireland and are all lovely! Highly recommend!! We went to Eask Tower, Kenmare Stone Circle, Killarney National Park, Lady's View, Torc Waterfall, Muckross House, a horse carriage ride through the forest to Ross Castle, then Muckross Abbey to see the 400-800-year-old Yew Tree known as the Tree of Life or Tree of Immortality. We went to Ventry Beach, Inch Beach, and Slea Head, and spent the day at the Blaskets Islands and saw hundreds of seals on the main beach. So cool!

I saw so much and I could go on for days about it all but the biggest takeaway was the clarity the trip gave me.

One night I was by myself before the retreat began and I was watching the beautiful sunset. I asked for guidance on what I could do now that I no longer could do in-person doula work. I did some deep meditation and listened closely.

Being there had given me lots of time to think about what moves me, what makes me, and what fires me up. What cools me down, what do I love, what no longer serves me?

The news in case you missed it...

I have been nervous to say it out loud but I am officially halting doula services for good. It’s been a beautiful but tough 4 years supporting families. I have some health issues that are exacerbated by a lack of sleep and physical stress. Lots of injuries that are not healing well. It’s passion work and I will miss every minute of seeing life come into the world and watching parents become parents. I’m so lucky and grateful for those who trusted me to witness.

But I won’t miss seeing people being blindsided by obstetrical violence. I won’t miss seeing birth being messed with for others' convenience and timeline. I won’t miss seeing people getting lied to, coerced, forced, straight-up abused by the medical system. It's a really big business you all and it's time we wake up and start learning our rights and start trusting normal mammalian birth (eh hemm...I can help with that!)

My goal has always been to educate so that no one has to feel the way I felt during my pregnancy, birth, and postpartum, the way many of my clients have. I tell the truth, I teach the truth, I share my tips and I’m so excited to continue my true passion work. EDUCATION!! (and coaching!!!)

I love sharing information from what I’ve learned from being a witness to Birth and from all the classes I have taken. I have taken pre-midwifery courses, HypnoBirthing, breath work classes, mindfulness, meditation, reiki, tons of doula courses, and early parenting courses all to share, to teach, to expand others' minds. To help you understand holistically how to navigate pregnancy to pre-school. My greatest teacher was Birth itself. Birth is the true teacher for certain. I love sharing its wisdom.

So I asked my guides for help envisioning my next step and what came through so clearly and loudly was the Community Prenatal. It's a group village prenatal to help pregnant moms create their village BEFORE they are in crisis mode. Not to say motherhood is a crisis, but often when we need help we may not have our team in place which then can make it feel like a crisis. When you have your mom friends, you're good. They got you. You got them.

It will look like this:

Everyone comes in, grabs some tea or a yummy mocktail, has a seat, and chats until it's time to start. We open with a check-in/ introduction and move into a guided meditation. Then we have share time, where everyone gets their time to speak with no fixing or advice unless you ask for some. Then a group reiki session to help close that portion of the meeting and we move to learning time which is where we eat potluck style and listen to either a guest speaker or myself fielding questions about anything pregnancy, birth, and postpartum from you all.

I think it's a beautiful way to make some friends, get your village set up, learn some things, get some healing, relax from a long week, and be with like-minded people who you will grow into motherhood with. So be sure to share with your pregnant friends and become a part of something really beautiful and really healing. So excited for this Irish download to come to fruition.

Registration is required so be sure to share this link! 1st Friday of every month from 5:30-7:45 pm Community Prenatal