deepening the senses | ireland 2027
Walking Between Worlds
Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld
Sacred Time • Landscape • The Inner World - October 8-15, 2027
The Burren • Co Clare • Ireland.
A seven-night retreat on the western edge of Ireland, where the ancient limestone landscape of the Burren meets the Wild Atlantic.
Here, the light is rarely still. Mist moves in from the ocean. Rain passes across the limestone. Clouds open suddenly to brightness. The Atlantic appears and disappears, silver one moment and dark the next.
Over the course of our days together, we will become attentive to these changes - to the movement of weather and light, to the textures of stone and water, and to the subtle ways the outer landscape begins to speak to the inner one.
Walking Between Worlds is an invitation to inhabit this landscape slowly. Not simply to visit it, but to let ourselves be affected by it. Here, the Gaelic Otherworld draws close, in story and landscape, dream, myth and imagination, inviting us to listen to what moves at the threshold between the outer world and the inner life, and to the deeper currents of ancestral memory carried through story, place, and belonging.
An Invitation
In Irish folklore, the Otherworld is not separate from this one. It exists alongside the everyday — revealed through mist, music, dreams, threshold moments, and encounters that subtly alter perception. To meet the Otherworld is to enter a different way of knowing.
This series offers a mythopoetic and psychologically grounded space for reflection, inner listening, and symbolic exploration. Through story, image, ritual attention, and ancestral imagination, you are invited into a deeper relationship with inner life, meaning, and the numinous.
Rather than offering techniques or prescriptions, the work supports a slow unfolding — one that honours psyche, body, and soul, and invites presence, curiosity, and creative engagement with what emerges from within. Here, myth and folklore become a language of the psyche, offering orientation when life feels disoriented, fragmented, or disconnected from deeper meaning.
The work unfolds gently, inviting curiosity, reverence, and deepened presence.
The Otherworld, Individuation, and the Numinous
In this series, we explore Carl Jung’s concept of individuation and the role of the numinous in psychological transformation and trauma healing. We encounter ancestral ways of seeing and being in the world — what W. B. Yeats described as “the condition of quiet that is the condition of vision.”
We peer into the realm of the Aos Sí — often known as the “faeries” — approaching their imagery not literally, but archetypally. Through ritual attention and symbolic curiosity, we explore the transformative energies of the unconscious and the numinous as they live within our own inner world and daily life.
Rooted in Irish Myth & Ancestral Memory
This work is grounded in Irish mythology and folklore — not as story alone, but as a living language of the psyche. It unfolds as a visceral, visual meditation on Ireland and its indigenous wisdom, designed to stir the senses and awaken the imaginal life.
Through image, story, symbol, ritual attention, and embodied reflection, we engage the symbolic world to explore how the past continues to shape the present, what has been carried through lineage, and how unconscious patterns may be brought into awareness and gently transformed. Themes of loss and grief, rites of passage, initiation, and transformation are held as part of this inquiry.
In Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld, Irish myth, language, and folklore offer a way of encountering the numinous not as abstraction, but as lived inner experience.
The Shape of the Journey
Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld unfolds through six interconnected courses, each approaching the Otherworld from a distinct mythic and psychological perspective. This series is held as an evolving, living journey.
The work is shared through live, online international gatherings that invite collective presence, reflection, ritual attention, and imaginal exploration. Following each live gathering, the material becomes available as a self-paced online program, allowing participants to return in their own time and rhythm.
Each course includes an orientation to creating sanctuary — an intentional hearth-space that supports rhythm, safety, and presence. Courses may be taken individually or as part of the full six-part journey, together forming an imaginal and initiatory arc of individuation, ancestral healing, and symbolic deepening.
You are welcome to enter wherever you feel called.
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Embarking on the Mist Filled Path
A Journey of Individuation, Sacred Time and the Numinous
ONLINE SELF-GUIDED COURSE
Explore the journey of individuation, encountering the shadow and hidden Self through Jungian psychology, ancestral wisdom, and the mystery of the numinous.
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Bridge to an Unseen Shore - Bean Feasa
Wise Woman and Mediator of the Gaelic Otherworld
ONLINE SELF-GUIDED COURSE
Explore the Bean Feasa as healer, seer, and wise-woman, journeying between worlds through Irish folklore, ancestral story, and depth psychology.
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Lamenting the Dead - Bean Caointe
The Keening Woman
Irish Ancestral Rituals of Death, Grief and the Gaelic OtherworldONLINE SELF-GUIDED COURSE
Explore the ancient Irish tradition of keening and the women who held the threshold between the living, the dead, and the Gaelic Otherworld.
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A Door into the Dark
Bean Sidhe - ‘Woman of the fairy mounds’ (Banshee) - Chaos at the Threshold -The Cailleach, Samhain and the Supernatural.
ONLINE LIVE COURSE
Explore Samhain and the dark half of the year, encountering the Bean Sídhe and the Cailleach at the shifting boundaries between the living and the Gaelic Otherworld.
NEWEST! Live Workshop 25th October 2026! BOOK YOUR SEAT!
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#5
ONLINE WORKSHOP
TBA 2026
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#6
ONLINE WORKSHOP
TBA 2026
Who is this series for?
Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld Series invites a slow, soulful engagement with inner life — one that honours myth, folklore,symbol, ancestry, and the numinous as living guides in times of transition, loss, and becoming. It is held as an immersive, reflective experience, offered with care, spaciousness, and respect for each person’s pace.
Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld may be for you if…
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You feel drawn to Irish mythology, folklore, and the symbolic imagination as ways of understanding inner life and ancestral ways of knowing.
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You are drawn to depth psychology rooted in ancestral ground and seek a soulful, embodied path shaped by symbol and myth.
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You are navigating a time of transition, loss, or questioning around identity, belonging,meaning or direction.
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You yearn for a more creative, authentic way of being and a deeper, more vital relationship with your inner world.
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You feel called to explore liminal states — dreams, thresholds, moments of awe, and the spaces between worlds.
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You carry grief or wounds that feel older than your own story and sense the presence of ancestral memory or trauma.
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You have been touched by the numinous through nature, myth, or mystery and wish to explore its role in healing and transformation.
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You are engaged in personal or therapeutic work and seek a depth-psychological, mythopoetic lens rooted in ancestral wisdom.
This series is offered as an educational and reflective experience, held in care and spaciousness, and respectful of each person’s pace and process.
What is the Jungian Concept of Individuation?
The Jungian concept of individuation is a lifelong process by which a person becomes their true, whole self. So often in our lives, due to difficult early childhood experiences, past limiting belief patterns, trauma and intergenerational trauma, we can experience a disconnection from our authentic, embodied soul selves. These aspects of the self go into the shadow, the unconscious, a deeply rich, inner terrain, a symbolic otherworld, where they are repressed, as a way to fit in. This disconnection often results in feelings of anxiety and sadness, a lack of vitality, and low confidence and self-worth and an overriding feeling that something is missing. An unlived symbolic life.
The more we cultivate a relationship with the inner world, the more we can open to new possibilities and creativity within ourselves, deepening our own psychological depths, and having more courage to step into life, more compassionate to ourselves and our place in the world, allowing us to continue to journey towards a more embodied, fuller authentic life.
What is the Gaelic Otherworld?
Our Gaelic ancestors had a deep belief in the Otherworld. A realm that was believed to exist alongside our human realm. It is broadly depicted as having two main locations, beneath sources of water, such as springs, lakes, the sea and certain islands, and underneath the ground, such as in mounds and hillsides also known as ‘fairy mounds’ or Síd.
The otherworld is occupied by a supernatural race known as the Aos Sí, or, Sí, or most popularly known as, the fairies. This is a supernatural race that lives alongside humans and shares the landscape. They were not the winged figures we see in Disney movies. They were very much thought to live life, as humans do, in an unseen parallel world. In ways, symbolically, it can be seen as a metaphor to our unconscious depths, a realm that we are familiar and yet not familiar with, ‘below the visible world’, a realm that lives alongside us, with its archetypal motifs, and has influence in our day to day life.
What do we mean by the numinous?
The numinous (from Latin numen, “divine power”) refers to experiences of awe, mystery, and sacred presence. The numinous are the experiences beyond rational comprehension that are sometimes both terrifying and deeply humbling and beautiful. It is where we connect to a felt sense of something vaster and greater than ourselves.
Numinous experiences awaken a sense of greater purpose or belonging, whether through nature, myth, the cosmos, our ancestors, art, or spiritual encounters. This dissolves isolation and reaffirms our embeddedness in life’s web. This reweaving of meaning is deeply and inherently healing for the psyche.
This series is an odyssey of the soul and spirit, a journey of transformation and personal discovery, with sweeping images of the Irish landscape, music, myth, poetry, folklore and Jungian Depth Psychology supporting you in returning to the metaphorical well, healing this wounding and guiding you towards deeper belonging.
Begin the Journey
If you are new to the series, the journey begins with Embarking on the Mist Filled Path,
the opening course in Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld.
Embarking on the Mist Filled Path
The Journey of Individuation | Sacred Time and the Numinous
This foundational course offers orientation to the liminal landscape of the Gaelic imagination — introducing the mythic sensibility, inner stance, and symbolic language that shape the series. Early on this path, we meet the shadow — the hidden, unconscious parts of ourselves cast out, exiled, or forgotten. Together, we’ll explore how the shadow is shaped in childhood, how it carries the imprint of family and ancestral story, and how turning toward it with compassion and curiosity becomes a gateway to greater depth, freedom, and inner truth.
In this course, we explore Carl Jung’s concept of individuation — the unfolding path toward wholeness, authenticity, and the deeper Self. Early on this path, we meet the shadow — the hidden, unconscious parts of ourselves cast out, exiled, or forgotten.
Bridge to an Unseen Shore
Bean Feasa | Wise Woman and Mediator of the Gaelic Otherworld
Trauma and Meaning-Making
We explore the bean feasa as more than a traditional folk healer, she becomes a bridge to our own symbolic unseen shores—a guide moving fluidly between conscious and unconscious realms, the rational and the imaginal…
Lamenting the Dead
Bean Chaointe | Keening Woman
TIrish Ancestral Rituals of Death, Grief and the Gaelic Otherworld.
We explore the Bean Chaointe—the Keening Woman of Ireland—who stood at the threshold between worlds, keening for the dead and for the living alike. Through her, we encounter a way of giving voice to sorrow, rage, love, and all that cannot be spoken. Together, we consider how ritual and ancestral wisdom might support and guide us in meeting grief, loss, and the thresholds of transition. This course offers a space for reflection, cultural exploration, and embodied engagement with these traditions.…
A door into the Dark
Bean Sidhe | ‘Woman of the Fairy Mounds’ (Banshee)
Chaos at the threshold - The Cailleach, Samhain and the Supernatural.
We journey into Samhain and the dark half of the year, encountering the Bean Sídhe of the Gaelic Otherworld and the ancient Crone of winter, the Cailleach. Drawing upon Irish folklore, ancestral tradition, and Jungian depth psychology, we explore a time when the boundaries between worlds grew uncertain and the unseen drew near—entering the wintering dark and its mysteries of chaos, uncertainty, and transformation.
What Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld Participants have said...
FAQ
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In Jungian psychology, individuation is the lifelong process of becoming one’s true, whole self. Early experiences, trauma, and inherited patterns can lead us to turn away from parts of ourselves in order to belong, moving these aspects into the unconscious “shadow”. This often appears as anxiety, loss of vitality, or a sense that something essential is missing.
In Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld, individuation is approached through myth, symbol, and the numinous. By cultivating a relationship with the inner world — through imaginal listening, story, and ancestral imagery — these forgotten or exiled aspects can be met and integrated, supporting a more embodied, creative, and authentic way of living.
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In Gaelic tradition, the Otherworld is understood as a realm that exists alongside the human world, often associated with liminal places such as springs, lakes, the sea, and sacred mounds known as Síd. These were places where the boundary between worlds was believed to be thin.
The Otherworld is inhabited by the Aos Sí, a supernatural race imagined not as winged beings, but as living in an unseen, parallel realm alongside humans. In this series, these ancient stories are approached as symbolic guides, supporting the inner journey of reflection, meaning-making, and transformation.
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The numinous refers to experiences of awe, mystery, and sacred presence that move us beyond rational understanding. These moments can feel both unsettling and deeply beautiful, often carrying a sense of encountering something greater than ourselves.
Numinous experiences may arise through nature, myth, art, ancestry, or moments of deep inner knowing. They tend to awaken a sense of meaning and belonging, softening isolation and reconnecting us to the wider web of life in ways that are quietly but profoundly healing for the psyche.
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In Meeting the Gaelic Otherworld, you will be invited to explore:
How individuation supports the journey toward becoming one’s true, whole self — not through fixing, but by reclaiming forgotten or silenced aspects of the psyche through integration.
The deep wisdom of the inner world, and how listening inward can restore vitality, meaning, and a more authentic, soul-aligned way of living.
The transformative role of the numinous, as encounters with mystery through dream, myth, nature, and imagination awaken profound inner change.
How Irish mythology and folklore reflect the inner landscape of the psyche, using stories of the Aos Sí and the Otherworld to illuminate grief, longing, desire, and healing as archetypal experiences.
Ways of recognising and tending ancestral wounds, tracing inherited patterns with compassion and engaging their healing through story, symbol, and ritual attention.
How to work with symbol, metaphor, and the unconscious, allowing dreams, synchronicities, and archetypal imagery to become guides for insight and creative imagination.
What it means to enter sacred time, and how a mythopoetic path can support living with greater presence, courage, and creativity.
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This series is grounded in depth psychology and psychotherapy, including somatic approaches, and shaped through a mythopoetic lens. It draws from Irish mythology, folklore, cosmology, language, literature, and the living heritage of Ireland.
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The live workshops offer a shared, time-bound experience rooted in presence, dialogue, and community. They allow for collective reflection, witnessing, and the aliveness that emerges when we gather together in real time.
The courses translate this work into a carefully crafted, video-infused format that can be revisited and re-engaged with over time. You can move at your own pace, return to practices and teachings as needed, and begin whenever you feel called to enter the journey.
While the formats differ, the heart of the work remains the same. Both draw from mythology, poetry, and the ancient Gaelic Otherworld, and invite connection with the body and the deeper symbolic, soulful dimensions of the self.
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All workshops, courses, programs, and products are intended to support personal growth and self-reflection. They are not a substitute for medical, psychological, psychiatric, or therapeutic diagnosis or treatment.
By engaging in this work, you agree to take responsibility for your own wellbeing. If you require professional support, you are encouraged to seek guidance from a licensed and qualified healthcare professional of your choosing.