Shivam talks with Eoghan Connaughton and Aron Hegarty.

Eoghan is the Founder of the Gaelic Woodland Project, and Aron is Storyteller with the Candlelit Tales Podcast, and both are on the board of directors for the Gaelic Woodland Project. Combining ecological, and scientific knowledge to the lore or Ireland and the power of Storytelling is one of the ways these two marry their interests and cultivate their desire to refforrest Ireland's landscape.

Their mission is simple. To conserve Ireland’s natural and cultural heritage, inspire people to take action together, and to create an ecologically rich and diverse patchwork of native habitats across Ireland.

In 2024, they acquired 12 acres of land in County Mayo, to be rewilded with native Irish trees, following best practices to support biodiversity and ecosystem restoration.
For more information, go to their website at https://gaelicwoodlandproject.com/

For more Irish Mythological stories, find out more on https://candlelittales.ie/podcast/

Explore all things Spirit Horse at https://www.spirithorse.co.uk/

Jimmy Wightman is a meditation and mindfulness teacher based in Brighton, UK. He’s been featured on the BBC, The Guardian, The Telegraph, Yahoo News and other similar publications.

Jimmy’s interest in meditation started after many years of partying and DJing on the London clubbing scene left him feeling broken, depressed and suffering from insomnia.

In a desperate attempt to gain back control of his life, Jimmy found a teacher from the ancient Vedic tradition (from India) and discovered a profound level of inner peace and stillness that was previously unthinkable. Despite being an atheist at the time, that was the beginning of his spiritual journey.

Jimmy went onto explore many styles of practice such as Transcendental Meditation, Vipassana and Zen before training as a meditation teacher himself.

He now teaches deep mantra meditation inspired by Himalayan Yogis (Advaita Vedanta tradition) as well as mindfulness inspired by his teacher Shinzen Young (author of The Science of Enlightenment).

Jimmy is a regular attendee at Enlightenment Intensive retreats at various locations in the UK but he especially cherishes his time attending retreats at Spirit Horse.

You can find out more about Jimmy at his website: DelveDeep.com and on Instagram where he’s known as That Meditation Guy.

Spirit Horse Radio EP17: Adam Duncan, Life-Stage Project

Shivam catches up with an old friend and discusses old times, old age and the often uncomfortable topic of death and our mortality.

Listen on our website via www.spirithorse.co.uk/podcast or search for 'Spirit Horse Radio' on your favourite podcast/music listening platform.

Adam trained in Drama and Education at Goldsmiths before writing scripts for the BBC and many other organisations. He ran a media company for twenty years and designed training programmes for large organisations such as Amnesty International.

For the last ten years, Adam put a lot of energy into working with a charity called A Band of Brothers (ABOB), doing rites-of-passage weekends for young men involved in the Criminal Justice System in order to help them move on from adolescent behaviour to healthy masculinity.

But at the age of 70 came a new question, what did growing old mean to him?

As luck would have it, he was offered a place on a brilliant course in supporting people at the end of their lives. Through being alongside people who worked with the dying, Adam started to come to terms with mortality, being able to let go of some of the old attachments and this gave him a new lease of life and a surge of creative energy that he hadn’t felt for decades.

In 2018, Adam wrote and rehearsed a show called The Seven Ages of the Dance of Life and Death with a community of actors, dancers and musicians. The show attracted an appreciative audience.

In isolation, he was able to publish The Power of Ageing. It sold around a hundred copies, but more importantly, it brought together a small group of like-minded people who felt passionately about the subject matter. Starting a monthly discussion forum from which the Life-Stage Project was formed.

You can find links to Adams work and projects in the episode description.

If you enjoy Spirit Horse Radio, please support our channel by giving us a star rating on Spotify or your preferred platform. You can also follow us to stay tuned for future episodes. Thanks for listening!

Shivam drops into conversation with Tiarnan O'Sullivan and Santiago Rial at the end of an Éire Faerys mens gathering near Galway in Ireland.

Tiarnan is a herbalist and Fear Feasa, originally from Cork (Ireland), and currently lives in County Wexford.

He runs his own business Mac Tíre Apothecary & Herbal Clinic. He started the Éire Faery Gatherings in 2018, a space for gay, bisexual and queer men to gather in the nature, light the fire and connect with one another.

Details: www.mactireapothecary.ie

tiarnan@mactireapothecary.ie Santiago Rial is an illustrator and Graphic Designer from Argentina who moved to Ireland following his passion for Irish heritage and nature.

Since 2021, he's been a Director of the Gaelic Woodland Project, a 100% volunteering registered charity for reforestation.

Details: https://gaelicwoodlandproject.com

https://deercun.com

You can listen to this episode and more directly from our website at www.spirithorse.co.uk/podcast

If you've enjoyed Spirit Horse Radio, please support our channel by giving us a star rating on Spotify or your preferred platform. You can also follow us to stay tuned for future episodes. Thanks for listening!

As the founder of Rooted Healing, Veronica weaves her love for embodiment, ceremony, land, story and song into gatherings that heal and connect our inner and outer landscapes, including ceremonial psilocybin retreats, deep ecology courses and ancestral immersions.

Originally from wild Welsh lands, her deep enquiry into indigenous traditions of the Americas and Mother Europe guides her fascination with the fabric of life and our belonging within it. Alongside a decade in healing arts facilitation, Veronica is a researcher in Consciousness, Animism and Transpersonal Psychology with the Alef Trust.

She also hosts the Rooted Healing podcast, where her joy for ancient ways, folklore and animate landscapes is contagious.

Find out more about Veronica's work at rootedhealing.org

You can listen to this episode and more directly from our website at www.spirithorse.co.uk/podcast

If you've enjoyed Spirit Horse Radio, please support our channel by giving us a star rating on Spotify or your preferred platform. You can also follow us to stay tuned for future episodes. Thanks for listening!

In this episode, Shivam O'Brien and crew members James and Eliot discuss their experiences of the Sacred Man, Sacred Woman ritual, offered at Spirit Horse retreat centre.

An honoring and a ceremonial "war of beauty" between men and women. The annual summer event of the last 30 years at our wild nature retreat.

Come to explore yourself, the mystery of the other, to love and grow, to find home and to have some fantastic out of this world time.

With much hilarity and yet with authentic depth, a traditional “war” between men and women is declared. Taking to their separate camps, they separate into women's and men's circles. Only after a long day and night in their own sacred lodges do they emerge to meet again - to ritually engage.

What can be learnt is beyond intellect. This is the old way.

​It is a delightful, delicate, precisely held space in which to explore your natural self and come really, really alive.

Check available dates, book and find out more info here: www.spirithorse.co.uk/sacred-man-sacred-woman

Listen to Spirit Horse Radio directly from our website: www.spirithorse.co.uk/podcast

If you've enjoyed Spirit Horse Radio, please support our channel by giving us a star rating on Spotify or your preferred platform. You can also follow us to stay tuned for future episodes. Thanks for listening!

Shivam catches up with an old friend after 25 years. Courtney is acclaimed as the best known contemporary Celtic art designer in the world, His work has been exhibited far and wide in Europe, the US, Japan and Australia.

Born of Welsh, Irish and Scottish descent in 1946 in Blackwood, South Wales, Courtney Davis has built a worldwide reputation as the artist who has re-awakened the exquisite artwork of the ancient Celtic masters in a contemporary style that is uniquely his own.

For over 30 years, designs of his art have been applied to mediums such as cards, posters, fabrics, glass, jewellery, carpets and even in the form of body art. Many of his original pieces can be located in private and institutional collections, in chapels and museums.

Entirely self-taught, Courtney's career began in the late 1960's as an engraver and designer in one of the UK's largest jewellery manufacturers, where his designs became popular and in high demand.

His life was to change dramatically in 1974 when he had major spinal surgery and during his hospital stay he experienced a series of mystical visions. Those experiences, along with a deep feeling of personal loss following the death of his father soon afterwards, led him to begin an ever developing spiritual journey.

He did not return to engraving and instead began to draw, adding Celtic inspired borders to his pictures. Soon, as his art become popular he created a range of cards and prints that became ever more in demand.

Then, in 1984 he caught the imagination and spirit of the time when his work Merlin the Immortal was first published, igniting once again an interest in Arthurian legend.

Inspired, he began to create a series of black and white prints which would go on to become the book that he is most associated with, Merlin Awakens.

As he gained increasing recognition, Courtney went on to illustrate over 50 published books, such as Celtic Borders and Decoration, The Art of Celtia, The Celtic Tarot, St Patrick – A Visual Celebration and The Celtic Source Book that have become iconic Celtic Art classics.

Read Courtney's full story and find his work here: https://www.courtneydavissacredart.com/

www.spirithorse.co.uk/podcast

If you've enjoyed Spirit Horse Radio, please support our channel by giving us a star rating on Spotify or your preferred platform. You can also follow us to stay tuned for future episodes. Thanks for listening!

(Excerpt from Celtic Countries Magazine)