We descended like a flock of sparrows on the sacred space of Crann Og, a retreat center with magically minded facilitators. Nearly impossible to find, and completely impossible to forget once you’ve been there, Crann Og is an organic farm with a willow-woven garden, sheep, horses, hens, and an ancient wild woods. People stay in cottages, yurts or tents, and we set up tent in the back field.
At Crann Og, they take their Eco very seriously. The composting toilets are innovative – separating liquids from solids, so that the waste composts better and smells less. The solar showers have a 40 second spray and we had a contest to see who could get the cleanest with the fewest pushes. Wiley took the prize – longest hair, all washed and conditioned, and all clean with three pushes. Hurray for the washcloth-soaps!
carrying drinking water before the discovery of the wheelbarrowThis was a place for us to give back to the land of Ireland by working for the people at Crann Og. We painted the fence around the corral, weeded the sandy surface, dug up clay (to use in an activity) and raked newly mown grass. It was brilliantly sunny most the week, and we celebrated at a local pond.
Each afternoon, we had workshops – an intensely magical walk getting intentionally lost for three hours in the deep original woods, a sound bath with singing bowls, a Japanese forest shinrin-yoku, making clay charactrs of light and dark, and using our senses to meet a tree by blindfolding a partner, storytelling around a campfire, and a group storytelling.