Embarking on a journey into Ireland’s ancient shamanic traditions, Amantha Murphy shared her profound insights in an interview with MysticMag.
Amantha, the visionary behind Celtic Soul Journeys, revealed how a chance encounter at a conference in 1995 inspired her to guide people on sacred pilgrimages. Rooted deeply in her connection with the land and the wisdom of the ancestors, her work centers on helping others reconnect with their spiritual essence through Ireland’s sacred sites.
In this exclusive interview, Amantha unpacks the transformative power of these journeys and her teachings, including the profound significance of “The Way of the Seabhean™.”
What inspired you to create Celtic Soul Journeys and share Irish shamanic traditions?
In 1995 I was at an International conference in Killarney. In that conference, a few American women asked me if I knew anywhere where they could connect to the elementals, the fairy folk. I said ‘yes’, and before I knew it, I had a group of women around me asking me if I would take them to these places. I was taken aback. I didn’t quite know what to do with that. I said ‘Give me a few minutes. I need to go to the bathroom’. I went to the bathroom, sat on top of the toilet lid and I said to Spirit, what do you want me to do here? And I heard the words ‘bring them on pilgrimage’.
I went back to the group, and I said ‘I will take you to some of these sacred places, these sacred spaces where the veils are thin. To do that, we must walk in pilgrimage, we must prepare. I can meet you in the morning and we can attune together first. We can ground ourselves, we can open and ask permission, and then we will go out onto the land. And I wasn’t sure how I felt about it personally. Sharing these spaces is sacred to me, with other people. But actually, by the end of the day, I was loving it and some of the women had some very deep experiences which were beautiful.
Then a Canadian woman kept asking me, would I put a proper pilgrimage together? You know, one that took maybe a week or 10 days, and she kept on at me for about a year. And I said then I would. Ironically enough, she never did come on it or any after that, but that motivated me to begin. My first week-long Pilgrimage was in 1996. I started in Kerry and Munster and then later, throughout the Republic and eventually moved up also into the north of Ireland.
The women inspired me. Inspired me because this land has always been a place where I have found solace for myself. It’s a place that has always held me and fed me from my very earliest age. I first came back here to my granny when I was a baby in my mother’s arms. This land has always been a place of sacredness for me, a place where I could commune and connect, and as a child, I would lie in the fields here, and this old energy, which I saw as an ancient mother. She would come and she would talk and share with me. And for me, this was the only place I felt at home. The only place I felt that I could be me.
We grew up, my brother and I, in a very strong Irish community in London and spent all our summers here going back from here every year was very difficult; for me, it was closing in and closing down. Then, coming back again the following year I went through the process of just opening up, being who I really was.
From being quiet and shy in Kilburn, London to running free and wild here upon the land, talking with the Stone people and my Tree brethren, playing with the nature fairies, this land was home – my bones, my body, and mind all become a part of, rather than an observer of. I merged with the land, with the fields and mountains, with the presence and essence of Her, that was home for me. Suddenly, to recognize that I could share this with others and that they too, could move into the presence of Her and find aspects of themselves through Her presence and nature of the land, through the deities of the land, was a revelation, a joy. As well, of course, as the Cailleach – the ancient one, the old woman, the Veiled one – She whom we’re all walking towards as we grow in life, has continued to inspire me through the years and continues to inspire. For me, it is an honor to be holding space and bearing witness to how people are able to open themselves, connect, and awaken those aspects within themselves. I work with mainly women’s groups, but also with mixed groups and it’s just beautiful to behold, to bear witness to, and to share together.
Sharing the Irish shamanic tradition with others, was very much something that came in after that journey with the women in 1995. When I was 16 the ancient Mother told me, I could not stay here, I had to go and experience life. At the time, this broke my heart. After my separation in 1997, having started offering the Pilgrimage a year before, She came to me again, as I lay here in the field, giving unto Her. I remember saying I have my children, I have loved and grown and now I give myself to you. What do you want of me? And she replied, ‘it is time to come home’. I was overjoyed and I moved back permanently in late summer of 1997 with my 2 youngest children.
I’ve been working in my own field since I was 20 and it was natural always, to be offering it to others. In coming home, I was quite taken aback really, that there were people locally that didn’t know these sacred places, nor actually were they aware of how to commune with them. So, I started sharing that locally. Which led me to share the Irish shamanic tradition. I personally don’t think of it as the shamanic tradition, although I know that is what it is, for me, it’s the Way of the Seabhean – a balancing of ancient traditions with rituals, ceremonies, and Rites of Passage.
This balance of the ancient teachings which have come to me, given to me and shared with me through the tree people, through the stone people, through the Tuatha de Danann, through my ancestors, and also I know now too, through my own bones. My bones hold these ancient memories. My bones hold these stories and so it’s accessing that and assisting others to find that too, within and through themselves, which delights me and which I love doing.
Can you explain the significance of “The Way of the Seabhean™” in your teachings?
Energetically the vibration of the usage of the word assists me in activating the presence of the Seabhean within us women. The Seabhean is the elder healer, who often uses spit for healing, she is the carrier of the stories. To me, the significance is assisting each woman, and it is mainly women who do the training, to find and to remember and to re-weave the essence of who they are, to embrace that essence, the presence of all that they are and all that they carry – spiraling back through their foremothers. And to live in that essence, to stand in their essence, to ‘be’ in of all that they are as carriers of their matrilinear tradition.
The Way the Seabhean assists them to delve within, to access the tools and medicine they carry, and reminds them of what power they carry within too, how to reclaim their power, passion, and grace. To embrace all these various aspects of self, to own these aspects of self; to recognize the honoring of the ancestors in what we carry and the patterns we carry of our ancestors. How we can work with our ancestors and their assistance in recognizing all we carry of them. In recognizing all the patterns we carry in honor of our ancestors, we can embrace those patterns/roots that assist and strengthen us in life and recognize the patterns that no longer need to be held and projected out or played out. We can choose/awaken to recognize our choice in releasing those patterns that no longer support us recognising too, how these patterns might have been running through many generations. We can step out of reflection into the reality of what we are and carry and move or work through what is needed or necessary for those patterns to be cleared. Sometimes purely through the recognition of it, other times through ceremony and ritual, and other times again, recognizing situations and the triggers that cause us to react in a way that is no longer in alignment with our conscious self.
By allowing ourselves to journey into those triggers to see, to feel, to recognize, to recognize also where it is being held in our body, and to allow ourselves to move through that, to shift that. To open that, sometimes by journeying to the ancestral realms, perhaps back generations to when it began. Sometimes needing to focus on it purely in the now/the middle world, sometimes half and half, so there’s no set agenda. For me, it’s more important to see what’s needed for the person and how we may best assist that, rather than stating ‘This is the way we do it.’ For me, it is important to respond to the needs that are there.
How do your sacred pilgrimages help people connect with Ireland’s ancient sites?
When we are on pilgrimage, we attune every morning. Number one, it helps me to see where everybody is at, energetically as well as on a purely practical level. We prepare before we go to sites, I begin weaving them gently into the fabric of the place we will be moving into, by telling the stories of where we will be visiting. I assist them in tuning into the land. Sometimes it’s a case of just opening the portal and allowing them to move through that and allowing what is coming through them naturally to continue to move through and evolve. Other times we move into ceremony. I allow the presence of the space to draw what and how we work or/and connect there as well as being aware of how each person is moving into the space, how it is ‘touching them’ energetically, and if there is anything specific I am called to assist with any of the people in that space.
So it’s different according to the people – each Pilgrimage is always different according to those on the pilgrimage and their personal needs. For women especially, it’s helpful to know the different deities that hold the sacred space and to recognize the aspect or the expression of that within themselves, so I weave that into the sharing we do.
When we go to the sites, we’re not imposing ourselves upon that site, but we’re asking permission. We move in sacredness; we move in sacredness before we go in. And as we go in, we always ask, as I said, we ask permission. We attune both beforehand and as we are approaching. We walk around the site asking permission, moving from ‘looking’ to ‘seeing’; from ‘listening’ to ‘hearing’, and just as you wouldn’t walk into somebody’s house, you knock on the door, and you wait to be asked. It’s the same thing. We ask permission of the stone people or of the Sacred Grove.
If it’s a well, we bring our blessings as well as ask for blessings. We really allow ourselves to move into the presence of their nature and their space rather than imposing ourselves. So many of our sacred spaces have been held sacred for thousands of years and the space holds that and remembers that. Our stone people are the bones of the Earth and, as our bones hold our stories, so the stone people hold the stories of the spaces around them. In walking with respect, opening to the vibrational fields, and asking permission, we find ourselves moving into ‘their space’. This is a very different experience than walking straight into an ancient site.
What are some key lessons you hope participants take from your teachings?
For me, the biggest lesson is being aware, and staying awake. Awake to all that is around you – both seen and unseen, and your participation in that, in life. That you are standing within the realms yourself, betwixt and between. That we have our roots deep down in the Earth, that we have thousands of ancestors who hold us, root us, and ground us, and can support us as we walk upon this living Earth. And that they are less than a breath away. And that everything they have been through, everything they have struggled through, everything that they have survived, has brought us here now. To honor and respect that and to respect also that we are part of that tribal energy – each one of us comes from tribal people – and to hold that, to be aware that that is part of what supports us.
To live upon our sacred Mother with consciousness and reciprocity. To bless each day as we awaken. To let each step we take, be a prayer upon Her body. To connect and commune with all living and sharing this sacred Earth. To bless the living waters of Her body, to bless the air that breathes through us, the sun that heats and activates growth, to bless the land that feeds and nourishes us.
Also, to recognize that we are here as souls. We call ourselves human beings, but we are actually animal, human, and spirit beings. Unfortunately, we often see the animal more than the being in some people, and to recognize that we are here to bring all of that into a cohesiveness so that we can draw upon the animal nature – we can respect our animal nature for its instincts when it tells us something’s not right – that we can hear that and we can assess it intellectually, bringing us to ask intuitively how to work with that and, importantly, to ask, ‘has this anything to do with me?’. So often we take things personally.
We work with the three realms, the lower realm is tribal roots, which is also our instinctive energy; the middle realm, which is our place of being, being here now, being completely in the here in the now. Being in the space of the I am that I am, being completely and consciously coherent to the energies around you and to your participation or not within that; and upper world, being open to the presence of spirit and that we are too, spirit.
Recognizing, remembering we are spirit and being able to draw upon that part of ourselves also. Bringing the essence of our fullness of Self – rather than continually looking outside of ourselves for assistance. Recognizing too, each and every person on this living body is a soul incarnate, each with their own patterns and weaves. So really my work is to help people to find that within themselves so that they can be all that they are meant to be and even more in this life.
How does connecting with the land influence one’s personal growth and spirituality?
Oh, we ARE the land. I mean, the land is in us. We are the earth. We are the air. We are the fire. We are the water.
We are a part of each other – human, animal, plant, rock, and elements – and we are, or we should be, embracing that. We have forgotten so much and it’s only by recognizing and honoring the tribal peoples of the world and how they have held the sacredness of that memory that can really awaken that also, in us. What we have lost or forgotten, in our technological age and we do have so much in the technical age that we can be grateful for. I’d much rather have a washing machine than to be washing clothes the way I used to when I was a child, where we’d be going to get the water, the rainwater and the spring water to drink as my granny didn’t have any running water and having to boil it up to wash the clothes and rinse them. And you know, it does make life a lot easier. Especially with children and grandchildren, but at the same time, there is so much there that we need to be aware of. What feeds our Spirit, as well as our body and mind.
The earth feeds us. You know, when we die, our bodies go into the earth. Whether it’s an inhumation, or whether it’s cremation. We go back. We go back down into the earth. we become again, a part of the Earth. We become part of the elements, the nutrients of the earth. The grass grows from that. The animals eat the grass.
The vegetables grow from that. The trees draw upon that with their roots. The fruits that we eat. We go again into the living waters of our Mother. We actually eat and drink of our own ancestors. We are a part of the whole rhythm of that. And you know we can also feed into that, we can feed into The Earth’s dream- as she dreams us, we too can dream Her. We are a part of Her. She can live without us. We can’t live without her. And recognizing that we are a part of that and the essence, the life force of the land.
I remember at my convent school, so many years ago now, the class was asked a question ‘if you were on a desert island on your own. Do you think you would believe in something outside of yourself?’ and it really made us think, well it made me think… I thought yes, of course, because you would be grateful for when the sun comes. You would be grateful for the rain to wet the land, to give you water to drink and to grow the vegetation. You’d be grateful to the sea for the fish, and you would be grateful for so many things. So yes, the interconnection. The truth is that we are born of the womb, and we do indeed, return to the tomb.
With our interconnection, we can recognize that just as the earth goes through her seasons, so too do we. We are a reflection of those seasons and nature shows us that, in the garments she wears. And I see our personal growth and spirituality interwoven in that. And that’s why for me, walking this path is so important, because it gives us the groundedness it gives us the rootedness so that we can hold the energy, we can hold the frame of self, just like the tree. We can hold that. The roots of the tree are our connection to our ancestors, the trunk of the tree is our connection to the ‘here and now’ and the upper branches are our connection to the Spirit. We have all three within us. Nature teaches us that we just have to BE. To sit in nature, to be with nature, to merge with nature. I do honestly feel that it awakens our spirituality without having to do a lot more than that.
What role do women’s rites of passage play in the work you do?
A lot! Women have always, always had rites of passage going back through time and space, and this is being proven more and more by archaeologists and anthropologists. Rites of Passage shift us to move things into the sacred. As well as the shared, traditional, and known Rites of Passage, such as birth, first blood, Crone, etc we also recognize the need to bring forth our own personal Rites of Passage. It might be something perhaps of pain, of anguish, of shame, into something of sacredness, something of joy, something of honor.
It allows us to bring that experience too, into the sacredness and it allows us to shift through the turns of our own personal hinges in life, just as the wheel of the year has the 8 hinges. So do we. So do we and we can recognize and honor those pivotal points with Rites of Passage. Every time we honor the pivotal points, we are shifting energetically. We are now longer holding, perhaps tightly, to that part of our story, instead, we are able to move it out, to release it, into our personal weave/our story; to see it and recognize what we can, or have, learned from it.
To let it become part of our personal medicine. It is pivotal to our way of being, of walking, on our spiral path and so rites of passage have a huge role to play in the work that I do.
Find out more at: www.celticsouljourneys.com
