What is Teallach?

'Hearth' - Shelter in the Darkness

I began developing Deepening the Senses as my approach to inner work in 2016. It initially began as a Weekend Residential ‘Deep Dive’ Intensive in the Burren in Co. Clare. It gradually grew from there to include In-person Day Retreats and International Online Workshops. In those early months of development, I was trying to get to the heart of the work. What was the intention? What was the essence of the work? What name can I give that?

The word Teallach (pronounced Tal-yak) was what I kept returning to.

Hearth in Celtic Society

Teallach is the Irish word for hearth. The hearth was always of central importance in Celtic society. The cottage was built around the family hearth. Turf burned there continuously day and night. It provided warmth and nourishment and was a gathering place at night for storytelling, music, mythology, and song. Fire and the hearth were always central in the symbolic rituals marking the festivals in the Celtic Calendar - Samhain, Imbolc, Bealtaine, and Lughnasagh.

Fire and the Celtic Festivals

Samhain is the ancient Gaelic festival that marks the end of the harvest season and the beginning of Winter. It is the beginning of the ‘darker half’ of the year. Samhain was also the time to remember and honor our ancestors. Some Neolithic passage tombs in Ireland are aligned with the sunrise, around the time of Samhain. The fires were extinguished at Samhain, and people lit their hearth fires from the new flames to symbolically mark the winter crossing, burn away the old, and welcome the new.

At Imbolg (meaning 'in the belly'), the Goddess Brigid was celebrated on the first of February. It is the return of light coming out of the winter period. Symbolically, fire is associated with transformation. The goddess Brigid was the keeper of the flame. In Gaelic tradition, Brigid is a daughter of the Dagda. She is a fire goddess with many solar traits. She is, amongst many things, the patron of the bards and a goddess of poetry and inspiration. She is a goddess of healing, midwifery, smith-craft, and the keeper of the hearth.

by Jeanie Tomanek 

The Celtic Festivals of Bealtaine and Lughnasagh were also celebrated by lighting fires. This is the time to celebrate the harvest. The farmers would drive their cattle between bonfires to cleanse and protect them before putting them out into the fields. Deepening the Senses Programs are held at these pivotal times in the Celtic Calendar.

Fire as Archetype

Fire was deeply meaningful in ritual and symbol for these Celtic communities. Tending the symbolic fires of our own lives is the inner work of the soul. Those archetypal fires have different meanings and qualities at different stages in our personal stories, depending on what is called for and what is needed. Fires of change can be blazing fires that clear out the old ground in preparation for new growth. The fires of sheltering care and soothing warmth are what we symbolically light when attending to grief, loss, suffering, and hurt.

The hearth symbolized a lot in the psyche of our ancestors. It symbolized an open place for hospitality to all. In Iron Age round dwellings, the hearth was in the center of the house. It was the symbolic sheltering from the harshness of the world outside.

Deepening the Senses - Illuminating The Darkness

In Deepening the Senses, there is a symbolic ‘coming in’ from the darkness outside to return to the hearth, to the metaphorical place that illuminates the darkness. As human beings, we yearn to make meaning out of the darkness.

Crossing the Threshold

As a ritual, each Deepening the Senses workshop begins by marking the crossing of the threshold from the outer world into the inner world of the soul. The inner world moves at a slow pace. It does not follow chronological time but is more of a dream-time rhythm. During Deepening the Senses, we drop down into the body to what Jung called the ‘subtle body’, which speaks to us in metaphor, symbols, and images.

Here, we symbolically 'walk between worlds' calling on the wisdom of the ancient Celtic world's ancestors, the gods and goddesses, sharing Gaelic folklore, mythology, stories, old songs, poetry, and ancient practices. When we listen to myths, we step into a timeless world, out of the rational concrete, into the symbolic life. This softens our ability to be more receptive to our inner environment, the energies of life, and the archetypal patterns living through us.

Because of trauma, connection to the inner landscape is often shut off. The nervous system is primed only to survive. During these workshops, and especially the ‘deep dive’ small group intensives, we become curious about our own intuition and sensations as they arise in the body; what images might be emerging? What might these images mean for our own individual lives? What are they pointing to on my personal journey?

A Symbolic Returning to the Hearth— home

This work is a symbolic return to our own inner hearth, guided by the wisdom of the ancestors, myth, and story, and the inner world of symbols and imagination. This poem by Elsa Gidlow speaks beautifully to the keeping of the hearth in our lives.

Chains of Fire (excerpt)

I know myself linked by chains of fire
To every woman who has kept a hearth.

In the resinous smoke
I smell hut and castle and cave,
Mansion and hovel.
See in the shifting flame my mother
And grandmothers out over the world

Gra agus beannacht,

Eileen