Wild Womb Alchemy with Oonagh O'Sullivan

From Sunday evening to Tuesday morning I fasted for 36 hours and spent time in vigil with the trees here on the Pacific Northwest of Turtle Island aka Canada, on an island called Salt Spring, the home of the Hul'qumi’num people.

En route back to my friends' place where I am staying, I came upon an almost fully intact skeleton of a young deer that I had completely missed on the way into the woods. I took this gift from the more than human realm as a perfectly timed omen.

Just as old myths tell us of Bone Woman who gathers discarded bones to sing flesh, fur, spirit and life back into and onto, I have been gathering the bones of Echo & Bone for years. During my time here in Canada, I too have been singing flesh, soul & life back into these shards & remnants of bones & threads.

I spent three days in deep contact with the whales and have been so deeply moved my their magic and medicine. The stillness of being on or by the water listening for a blow is forever etched into my cells. I have been brought to tears so many times, and my heart has expanded and been reformed in ways I do not yet have words for. These lands, waters, mountains, trees, plants and animal kin have spoken to me so deeply, and I am eternally grateful.

In only a day out in vigil with the land, I walked with many edges within myself and was reminded that we are indeed collectively straddling the edge of two worlds. We find ourselves on the precipice of what has been, and what is emerging. 

I was reminded that we need to learn how to be edge walkers in these times, and I truly believe that this body of work, in contact with the living field around us, will fortify all who say yes with the embodied tools needed to navigate a whole new map of existence.

It is from that place, of trust, of walking with my own edges, meeting my own depths, being brought to my knees again and again and again, that I share Echo & Bone with you.

We begin Oct 7th.

I would love to sing the bones with you!

Some questions I am asking myself today on the first Eclipse of the season.

I shared some stories yesterday about making a choice not to go to a festival that is beginning today to hold ceremony. I shared that this has been the most spacious summer I've experienced in years and the deep recallibration that is happening within me as a result.

I have never had such a huge response on a story that I shared before. Messages from around 80 women experiencing something very similar. We are tracking the changes that are happening in real time. Fully alive to each moment. What was a yes a month ago might now not be - how do we choose to respond to that?

The joy and ease I feel in my body for choosing spaciousness feels like new terrain. Relationships have ended or changed, I stepped out of organising a festival that I co-founded and was my heart and soul in a weekend format, I left an organisation I was working with for a year and a half, I have all but stepped out of the festival world within which I worked for over a decade.

S P A C E

The level of coherence coming into my field is something that I have been steadily anchoring for the last year and a half. I am so ready to welcome whatever what is on the other side of this Threshold.

So, perhaps this eclipse season you can gift yourself the gift of committing to honouring space. Space for digestion, assimilation, presence, boredom, creation, dissolution, endings and beginnings - meeting each moment anew. Give yourself the gift of clearing the necessary space for the next evolution of your medicine to root even deeper in a time where it is needed more than ever!

Spacious love to you x

Oh don't mind me, while you're building your legacy I'll be here returning to the Matrix.

Image is of Chipko Women in Northern Uttar Pradesh, India, hugging a tree to protect it from being cut down, by Pamela Singh

Last July just before my birthday I spent three days fasting in the woods in vigil with the Oak Tree. I have never actually tried to put words on that experience and the ways it changed me. I'm not sure I ever can. What I can say is that something fundamental within me shifted over that vigil and in the days that followed in a way that allowed me to inhabit myself like never before.

I met long held patterns in my body in new ways. I stayed and listened with no agenda. I softened and received in ways I never had before. It was in that woods over the 3 days where I finally heard the call that it was time to train to be a bodyworker.

That time with Oak fundamentally changed the trajectory of my life and work. There began a subtle reorganizing of my life and how I use my energy that has only truly taken root this month - a whole year later.

Oak brought me in and down into the deepest contact with my roots and rearranged the system through which I experience life.

I am eternally grateful.

We don't need plant medicines from far away lands to have mind-blowing peak experiences. It is all right here, in our back yards. Coming back into true kinship with our native ecology is some of the most important work of our times. Remembering these beings as teachers and guides. Listening to their guidance and wisdom with our whole beings. Taking action from this place of connection to the web of life. That is the task.

It is beyond words the impact that sitting in the wilderness in contact with beings who speak in a subtle language we are all born with, but most often forget along the way. This profound simplicity is where my heart is called these days.

On Sunday we will reattune to that language as we spend the day in the woods sitting, moving and singing with Oak.

I would love for you to join us 🌞💚✨️

We sit, move and dance with beloved Oak to give voice to his song and remember his teachings on Sunday the 2nd of Aug. What a way to welcome the generous energy of Lúghnasa. I look forward to meeting the embodied harvest oak welcomes with all who gather.

I would love to sit in the fire drinking oak tea and remembering his song with you. Reach out if you would like to join us.

Le meas agus grá,
Oonagh x

So much is falling away at this time. Can you feel it? The most simple, yet profound, meeting of myself and life itself takes place within this space, again and again. All that is left is the verticality of my spine, the suppleness of my tissues, the clarity of my voice, and my two open hands.

I have one space left for a fully in person or hybrid of online & in person SomaSong mentorship until October.

Due to the volume of enquiries from overseas, I am delighted to open 2 spaces to people who would love to do SomaSong fully online.

If you would like to expand into the simplicity of meeting your breath, your body and your voice anew, I would love to journey with you🌹

I dreamt of whales last night. My beloved is bringing me whale watching off the coast of West Kerry on Sunday for my birthday, and they have already begun calling me. I welcome contact with them through my body and voice today as a somatic exploration.

I feel a deep sense of awe that arises from sensing and witnessing true beauty when I tune into these kin. I sink into the dense aliveness of my bones and my belly softens. My breath deepens and time slows down. My jaw releases and gravity welcomes the weight of my body as an old friend.

What a gift to inhabit the same Earth as these elders and teachers. I spent some time reading about whale song, echolocation, their culture and societal structures, the journey of migration, their unique voice box and whale fall. I can already feel my body, voice and sense of perception shift from spending a few hours in the company of whales and have just scratched the surface!

Don't mind me, I'm just researching the teachings of whale through my body and voice, my soma and song

I have 3 spaces available for SomaSong - 1:1 embodied voice mentorship this summer. Reach out if you would like to know more 🌀🌊🐋🐳

The invitation is open for 3 people to work with me in a 1:1 somatic voice mentorship for the summer.

This work lights me up like no other. I am humbled by the profundity and simplicity of this work. The depths of magic to be sensed, fully felt and expressed thriugh meeting our bodies fully never ceases to amaze me. It is an intentional weaving of over a decade of study, work and inner excavation into an offering that supports deep contact with the infinite potential housed in our bodies and voices.

This is a living body of work (pun intended) which continues to emerge in direct relationship with my own body and voice, spirit and the more than human kin and the people I work with. May it's fruits ripple through the fascia of the Earth in all directions.

This is for you if:

You love to sing but know that there is a whole realm and range of voice and sound available that you have not tapped into

You wish to fully embody your authentic expression whether that's speaking, singing, or creating in any other way

You have studied vocal technique but know that something is missing

You long to meet deeper layers of your soma and crave being held and touched with presence and care

You yearn to be a channel for the limitless songs of spirit, land, ancestry, rivers, trees that wish to be given voice

You hold certain experiences in your body that shut down your voice when you were little

You were told that you can't sing / speak / don't have a voice

You want to meet tender parts of yourself that inhibit your full creative expression

You want to expand your capacity for feeling (grief and joy and everything between) and eros

You want to play and have fun whilst inhabiting your somatic aliveness

You long to commit to a path of resensitisation and open up new pathways of sensing and seeing

If this resonates, I would love to work with you!

I can't wait to see whose soma and song answers the call 💙🌊🌀