Come on a journey to Omey Island, off the west coast of Ireland. Legend goes it was Eire’s last pagan outpost.
But first, we will have to go back in Time.
Back to the Neolithic era, and beyond. When Nature, humanity, and divinity were interwoven under the constellations. When the ‘anima loci’, the spirit of place, spoke, and humans listened.
A classic example of a sacred place lost to history, it has gone down in the records as ‘the last pagan outpost’, so what has this island seen?
The island can only be reached at low tide, and it’s known for a special hill, named the Hillock of Women, where 300 female bones are found.
There is a legend of a dead sailor being buried under this Hill of Women. The next morning the man’s bones were scattered around the hill. Earth rejected them, because this was a women’s hill, folklore goes.
Not much else is written about it.
The Druidess and priestess and goddess knowledge was purposefully destroyed, after all.
Why? To control our perceptions of reality.
But there are those who can’t be mind controlled, who remember. It’s still within us, in our DNA. The spirit of place speaks into our blood like cosmic electricity.
At the top, the stones buzz. The wind whips around the island. I close my eyes and feel ancient magic. Pagans gathered here at this particular spot for a purpose. It is a place to hear the music of the spheres, to connect to the Great Mystery.
Reclaiming these special places requires an open mind, open heart channel for deep memories to flow.
I reckon the ancient pagan women of this island were Priestesses, seers, and water diviners and protectors above all.
They spoke the language of water, the water held in their blood matching the frequency of the water in the sea, like sacred vessels of ancient memories, chalices for source to flow. It was an ‘anima loci’ to connect with stars and water. To sea wisdom. To mermaids (yes, mermaids). To a beautiful way of knowing, being, and seeing.
The archeologists perhaps cannot understand.
What is really buried under the Hill of Women is far more than just bones.
What is buried is truth, which is treasure.
It’s a treasure that animates my spirit as I walk on the sacred land. I know in my heart mind that Omey Island was a holy island for Priestesses, who ran a temple, and maintained deep connection to stars and ocean.
So much beauty lost. So much magic lost.
I hope it returns soon.