“We must learn to bear the pleasures as we have borne the pains”
MNÁ an tobair: women of the well
As Irish and Irish ancestored women, one of our collective tasks is to heal the trauma held at the core of our culture: the wound of shame that has left some of us disassociated from our womb wisdom and from the tremendous power and potential available to us when we are deeply connected to our pleasure.
Mná on Tobair is a workshop of deeply rooted and gentle embodiment practices to tap into the flow of the fuinneamh, beoacht, blas (energy, flavour, aliveness) of your eros, thus deepening your intimacy to Self and love of life.
We summon the unequivocally feminine frequency of the tobar or holy Well- that plunging, life-giving source of fresh water birthed from the earth. The archetypal image of women alone or gathered at the Well has always been a symbol for sensuality, ritual + release.
Ireland’s cultural history of using shame and misogyny to control women’s bodies is coming to its final end. We’re existing in the old paradigm while we’re create the new way. When we gather with the intention to heal, a vision for a future of wild power, joy, self sovereignty and consent awaits us.
An exciting and profoundly healing communal practice; this is a space to reimagine what’s possible for Ireland and all those held in her concentric circles of care, forward and backward through time and space.
Get ready to take our collective healing to new joyful heights!
What to expect:
Cathy and Jaguar co-create a ritual container for sound, breath, meditation and movement. Designed with Irish and Irish ancestored women in mind, our time together will release, balance and energize the feminine mind, body and spirit.
This 3 hour workshop includes:
Gentle movement
Yoga nidra to meet the Grandmothers
Live channelled transmission + healing
Guided creativity + journalling practice
Womb Steam Ceremony
Guidance to prepare sacred space
Cathy and Jaguar discuss the practice of Womb Steaming
womb steaming
Womb steaming has an indigenous history and current practice as preventative and postpartum care in dozens of cultures around the world. Through the use of hot water and medicinal herbs, this gentle practice is known to address a wide range of issues – from resolving irregular period symptoms, to restoring sensation, to increasing blood flow.
“Most of us are taught from very early on to hold our shame quietly and secretly, but its many manifestations speak for themselves: the range of somatic expressions of pelvic pain, chronic infection, debilitating cycles, tissue congestion and inflammation. Sex that ranges from unpleasant to excruciating. Our inability to confidently speak up for our desires and our pleasures, to insist upon their importance - for so many of us, our disconnection from what our desires and pleasures might even be. The deep sense that our bodies don’t truly belong to us, and that it’s dangerous to act as if they do.” - Pamela Samuelson
Whether healing from birth or centuries of embodied shame, womb steaming is soft and tender way to re-introduce a new story via restoring sensations of pleasure, intimacy and safe presence.
Jaguar Womban guides the practice of womb steaming as an grounding embodied prayer, an opportunity to synchronize the womb frequency of the Earth Mother.
Your guides…
Cathy
Cathy is a teacher, writer, energy worker, farmer, ancestor + dog person. She guides yoga nidra practices that honor Irish Animism + the Celtic wheel of the year. With a special a gift for assisting others in turning toward themselves with courage during times of initiation and metamorphosis, her work draws on a deep love of poetry and the power of spoken word. She encourages her students to live their questions.
Cathy owes her passion for nature to her upbringing on a farm in County Wexford. She spent five years living off-grid in Las'-Sik territory in Northern California and is now based in Dublin, Ireland where she hosts workshops and retreats and teaches English to migrant and refugee teenagers.
Cathy honors and thanks her ancestors of blood, bone and land.
Jaguar
Jaguar Womban is a multidimensional healing artist and Medicine Woman. She is an intuitive herbalist, ancestral channel, poet and teacher who shares ways to connect to Mother Earth using plant medicine and ceremony. In both her private TEAsessions and WombSteam circles, Jaguar teaches the ancient technique of WombSteaming as a Ritual of Prayer and a Sacred Tool to connect us to our Womb Wisdom and Divine Internal Guidance System.
In both her healing work and creative expression, she incorporates her study and practice of Shamanism, Sanskrit mantra, sound healing, breathwork, afro-Caribbean plant medicine, movement, and ceremony. She works individually and in groups in Spanish, French and English.
“This is one reason why the erotic is so feared, and so often relegated to the bedroom alone, when it is recognized at all. For once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our life-pursuits that they feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of.”