Go make core memories
On following the call, my first night in Dublin and Brendan Behan's Loneliness
Nothing's really happened like
I thought it would
Me too Justin, me too.
Life doesn’t always happen in the order that you want.
And because I’m not interested in being dead on the inside, I’ve blown open my life a few times.
Like Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, ‘You know that the flower bends when the wind wants it to, and you must be like that — that is, filled with deep trust.’
So I left my house, my job, my family, my beloved friends, my tea kettle, and my witch cat CousCous behind in Western Australia in June 2023 to do the one impossible thing I knew I had to — to see Ireland in this lifetime with my own eyes.
Rebirth:
the moment people
wake up to their power
and start moving
toward their freedom.
— Yung Pueblo
Just saying the word ‘home’ to my seatmate on the flight into Dublin made me choke up.
The pull of certain places on Earth is undeniable.
The ache to visit Ireland had been working on me for a few years now, but it actually started with Damien Rice1.
There are whole jobs that I don’t remember having and it took me half a yin class to recall the name of a guy I dated a few years ago (it was Kristian with a K, I think). Still, I remember very clearly hearing Accidental Babies for the first time and the melancholy, yearning and longing (all inventions of Ireland) in his voice SOLD ME immediately, and I didn’t even know what I was buying.
Our souls know long before we do.
But it takes a while to live into what you hear.
I had a very sure feeling, a knowing, that something in my life had reached an end. I didn’t know what it was, but the very visceral feeling of standing at a threshold was upon me, and I couldn’t ignore it any longer.
I went to a Vedic Rounding Retreat with my brilliant friend and meditation teacher Erin, and she instructed an exercise that changed my life. She explained the Vedic concepts of Creation, Maintenance, and Dissolution (or Destruction). Basically, all of life plays out in this cycle and continually; every ending is a new beginning.
Creation is when we are in inspiration mode and excited to create — we feel expansive, radiant, fresh, alive and full of possibility.
Maintenance is when we are nourishing, feeding and nurturing something to grow — we feel grounded, aligned and harmonious when we are maintaining what is relevant for us, and stagnant, flat, dull and unmotivated when we are maintaining something that is no longer relevant for us (calling for the Law of Destruction).
Dissolution is letting go and surrendering so the inevitable cycle can start again. Conscious destruction is called ‘dissolution’ when we know something is ending — we feel liberated, free, and a rightness or readiness that it needs to happen or we risk soul death. Without Dissolution, there is no Creation.
Destruction is unconscious or a conscious choice to ignore all the signs of dissolution — we feel our life is in chaos, experience deep grief, suffering, denial, or anger at being ‘blindsided’. If you look back at the lead-up to this traumatic or harsh event in your life, the nudges were often there. We can either actively dissolve something and move on, or change will be forced upon us.
The last one caught my ears. Erin said, “Catching the dissolution — when something in your life is dissolving — before the inevitable destruction is the key.” That felt like the truest thing I’d ever heard, and the hardest.
We humans do not like endings.
Nature only nurtures and nourishes
what is relevant.
— Erin Hoey
Erin added, “Anything that has lost relevancy must be dissolved and destroyed.” That’s how we step back into the unknown to begin the cycle again with Creation and then Maintenance as the devotion phase.
Then she asked, “What is dissolving in your life right now?”
Without overthinking, I wrote down the first thing that came to me: My home in Fremantle.
I tried to rationalise. Ignore it for a while. And just kept delaying.
I didn’t want it to be true. It was.
And ultimately I knew.
A frontier is never a place;
it is a time and a way of life.
— Hal Borland
As a spiritual teacher that I lived with in the desert of New Mexico said to me, “Give me transformation — or kill me now.”
I was living in a personality I had outgrown. The stagnancy was slowly killing me. My ego was subtly screaming, DON’T MAKE ME CHANGE.
I had a long winter ahead of me, and I was in my fourth season of solitude.
I needed to break out of being myself. At a soul level, it was unbearable.
A voice said, “There are landscapes waiting to meet you and talk back.”
So finally, I went.
I went as ‘The Fool’ card in the tarot would — courageous or crazy, you decide.
I went as if I may never have the chance again.
Nothing is guaranteed.
Following a call — any calling — is always an act of profound trust.
Have faith. Walk away.
— David Whyte
But then we have those days. The ones we will never forget.
So implanted in our cerebral cortex, it’s like we were born with them.
The days that made you. The days that broke you. The days that cracked you wide open. I call these ‘core memory days’.
And they are never the ones that you think.
An anam cara Kira blessed my pilgrimage: Go make core memories.
My first day in Dublin is one I will never forget.
I arrived in Ireland on an unseasonably sunny swelter — which I realised later are as rare as someone raised with two secure parents — and listened to Dermot Kennedy on the bus ride from the airport to Kimmage where I blindly booked a room, having no idea of the topography of the city.
Everything magic that has happened to me I didn’t plan.
I decided to stave off the impending transoceanic jet lag by going for a late afternoon walk to Rathmines to stay awake and was suddenly lit up with delight at the old houses, colourful front doors, stone walls (wait until I got to Clare!) and ineffable charm of an old-world city. My body thought it was 1 am but it was in fact only 4 pm. I knew I could not go to sleep at any cost until it was actually nighttime. So I went to an Irish pub.
Although I don’t need to call them that anymore because all pubs in Ireland are Irish.
It was packed and I found a quaint cozy corner where I was writing in my journal and just generally taking in the Irishness of it all. An Irish fella by the name of Emmett started a conversation with me, curious as to what I was jotting down.
Unbeknownst to me, I was being initiated into the Great Irish Pub Conversation.
We rambled from topic to topic like what he does, what I’m doing, Guinness after Guinness. I asked him, “What is your favourite Irish poem?” and he leaned into himself for a moment and said, “No one has ever asked me that.”
His response is one of the greatest stories I’ve heard.
One day he was driving and the car radio was playing RTÉ (Ireland’s national station) when someone came on to read Brendan Behan’s Loneliness in Irish Gaelic. It’s only seven lines long. But Emmett said it stirred up something inside him that he had to stop his car because he was so overcome, and couldn’t see clearly for the tears welling up and then pouring out of his eyes. He says he gets goosebumps just even thinking about it. I asked him to recite it to me in English, and he did.
Loneliness
The taste of blackberries
After the rain
On top of the hillIn the silence of a prison
The train’s cold whistleThe excited whispering of lovers
To the lonely— Brendan Behan
Uaigneas is the original name of the poem in the Irish language and is translated as ‘loneliness’, but there is an older translation meaning ‘solitude’ as in the solitude of the forest or walking with oneself. I’ve also found that uaigneas is considered an almost untranslatable Irish concept that can mean ‘without-ness’ or ‘away- from-ness’.
CAN YOU SEE WHY I FELL SO HARD FOR IRELAND IN A HEARTBEAT.
I also asked Emmett of his favourite song, he paused and then eventually said: ‘The idea that there is silence.’
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to
find ease in risk;
soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
— John O’Donohue
Loneliness is such a rich topic, and so is solitude.
As Ocean Vuong wrote, ‘Loneliness is still time spent with the world’.
The magic of what happens happened within the first five hours of being in Dublin. Emmett also bought me my first ever Guinness (I had waited purposefully until I was in Ireland for this moment) and when he could see that I was a total novice at beer — he went to the bar and got them to put in some blackcurrant cordial (“For the ladies”) which is now my favourite thing ever.2 I know it is blasphemy, but the sweetness with the stout is now a core bodily memory. However, a pint of Murphy's in West Cork cannot be beaten.
Of course, for a man I’d never heard of, I started seeing Brendan Behan everywhere after that — a postcard in my Airbnb, on pub walls, and I went to the Museum of Literature Ireland to see a perspective on his life.
The Universe is not making you wait
for what will be yours,
you are waiting for your own readiness,
and it’s okay if that takes time.
— Brianna Wiest
As the Irish proverb goes, “Tús maith leath na hoibre; A good start is half the work,” and I wrote about how beginnings are hard in my first letter.
In the end, we’re all just our stories. I can’t imagine not having mine. And I am forever glad that Emmett shared his.
We live and we die.
That’s the deal.
You’ve got to trust the call.
Let the mysteries of the Universe surprise you.
The collision happens when destiny is ready.
Take a chance and see what happens.
When the time is right, the time is right.
Nothing ever happens like we thought it would.
May you be found by whatever is seeking you.
Are you not ready or are scared?
There is a difference.
A space between the two.
Sometimes every moment is the right moment
because you simply have to do it.
— Victoria Erickson
It was my birthday recently in Virgo season, and the first one in many years where I didn’t cry. Birthdays are simple and complicated. You were born (yay!) and also we have so much to digest on the living part. My birthday marks the start of the “year” for me — so 20 September is my personal New Year’s Eve.
My mum took me out for lunch at my favourite Japanese cafe Hinata, and said a very interesting parallel. At my age (36), my mum had a 15-year-old and a 14-year-old — me and my brother. I have a 13-year-old cat.
It was a whirlwind of a birthday weekend with Spring Equinox energy and stunning op shop finds.
I had an Outlander-themed bread and preserves party with its own name Calling All Claire’s3, where everyone came as a version of Claire, and I manifested a Scottish kilt. When I was writing my book in the cottage by the sea some weeks before, I visited a charity shop and asked someone volunteering there if she knew where any magazines were as I was about to do a vision board. Next minute, we got onto the topic that I was also looking for a kilt to be Claire.
This kindly woman said, “There are no kilts here, but my mum was Scottish, and I have two at home— you are welcome to have one.” This angel called Alison then dropped them off to me and one fit perfectly!
I went as Herbalist Healer Claire (OG, Season 1) and there was Moonie as Murtagh and CousCous as Bonnie Prince Charles. My friends NAILED THE BRIEF — I had so much glee anytime a new Claire was coming down the path. Parisian Claire! ManiGen Claire! 60s Claire! Pregnant Claire! Flashback Claire! There was a stone circle cake with a moss agate standing stone. Scottish jiggs on loop and an *actual* standing stone in my backyard. We lost a Sassenach.
Normal people have normal birthday parties. I am not one of those people.
My worst fear was that we would run out of jam.
We did not.
Then at the end of the weekend bonanza, I sat for tea in the forest with the gang being served by a new chajin — and something whispered, “This is where you belong.” And tea is just home — if you know, you know.
Kylie and I have been friends for 28 years and she always sends the most in-depth birthday messages. This year, she asked me this zinger question:
What’s IN and OUT for year 36?
I replied — with a nod to my love of alliteration:
IN: stability, success, sacred sexuality
OUT: second-guessing, stagnancy, psoriasis
I would also like to add ‘shame’ to the OUT list.
I’ve realised that very rarely, is any of my shame actually mine.
So if you’ve given me any of your shame in this lifetime, I am giving it back.
RETURN TO SENDER.
Check your postbox.
WRITING
A big piece on witches and getting to the root of when the feminine started being feared — just got a book on Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation from the library. The resource list just keeps getting bigger! And I have to watch The Craft. Hope to share in the next month.
READING
Scenes of a Graphic Nature — Caroline O’Donoghue is hands-down the funniest Irish writer I know. The Rachel Incident is flawless, set in Cork and totally unputdownable. This book is an earlier one, and while slower, has merit and also many classic Irish-isms that made me smile.
The Practice: Shipping Creative Work — I took double the time to read this as it’s a ‘snippet’ type book written by Seth Godin who is very good at quick quips and insights into the creative life. A favourite: “We don’t ship because we’re creative. We’re creative because we ship.” I imagine you could replace ‘ship’ with ‘send it.’
Wabi Sabi — I’m calling it, I’ve found the BEST CHILDREN’S BOOK. A story about a cat in Kyoto who goes on a quest to find the meaning of her name ‘Wabi Sabi’ and makes every adult who reads it cry in the process. Small people will love the hand-cut paper illustrations and there’s a tea bowl scene. I’ll be gifting this to every friend’s kid.
Return of the Great Goddess — My housemate and dear anam cara Tiff gifted me this book and it’s full of images of the feminine in all forms and quotes about womanhood. It will come very in handy as I am planning to write a piece on the Triple Goddess archetypes that I learnt of in Ireland.
Things We Do Not Tell The People We Love — A collection of short stories about the Indian and Pakistani experience of interracial relationships, loss, family, and motherhood. A few story endings broke me. My review would be “emotionally complex” as the title suggests by Huma Qureshi.
LISTENING
S P E Y S I D E — The new Bon Iver song — and his first single in four years — came out the day before my birthday, so sure, Justin Vernon wrote it for me. I have played it at least 666 ʇ times. How can someone I’ve never met, know me so well? The music video is A grade. I hear every evolution of Bon Iver in this song, and especially re:stacks, Beach Baby, and a bit of Holocene. His songs have saved me many times. SABLE, the four-track EP, is out on 18 October — when Venus enters Sagittarius. As one YouTube comment reads, “Can't wait to be propelled into a deep aching existential sadness with this album.”
Revelation — I feel very seen by Leif Vollebekk. His new album just dropped and the lyrical gold is overflowing. Moondog is like a warm breeze, Peace of Mind was made for the moment you break out of the city on a road trip to the mountains “But my northern blood was begging to fly,” and Southern Star is a ballad for soul love. My dear friend Anna got this as her birthday release this year, and she requested that Angie McMahon and Leif do a duet every year ‘for us to all really check in on where we’re at on our journeys’. Aye, second that!
Elizabeth Gilbert on The Tim Ferris Show — This is a showstopper on How to Set Strong Boundaries, Overcome Purpose Anxiety, and Find Your Deep Inner Voice. We all know my deep love for Liz, and I was fortunate to meet her twice. In this conversation, Liz says a lot of things worth repeating but my favourite is, “Asking the Universe “why?” will never get you an answer.” As a few friends have pointed out, my piece on Purpose Anxiety that I wrote in 2020 was linked in Tim Ferris’ show notes! I am honoured to be in the same metaverse as Elizabeth Gilbert.
Honour — A playlist I’ve been making for my word of the year full of melodic musings charting 2024 and this absolute masterpiece that Tiff and I shared a very exulted kitchen groove to: “Whenever I'm wrong just tell me the song and I'll sing it, You'll be right and understood.” GOLD.
Everything Is A Memory — The soundtrack to this piece, and my favourite tea song.
WATCHING
Nobody Wants This — SETH COHEN IS BACK. Move over Hot Priest, Hot Rabbi is here with an even higher EQ and more banging wit. Half of the world is talking about this show because it’s that good — a perfect modern day easy-breezy rom-com TV viewing but with actual depth. I’ve loved Adam Brody since The OC (didn’t we all?) and Kristen Bell is impeccably dressed as the sassy female lead. I’ve been slowly watching (edging again) and have two episodes to go because I don’t want this to end. The hand-on-face KISS MOMENT (“It is illegal, it needs to go jail,” in Tiff’s words) is the epitome of the longing. “I can handle you” CRIESSSS. And when she turns around to tell him her biggest fear is “that I will become emotionally dependent on a guy who will one day realise that I’m too much and break my heart” and THEN WHAT HE SAYS NEXT. It’s grown-up love that we rarely see in Hollywood, or even in our own families. The show should be called: EVERYBODY WANTS THIS.
Matt Corby ‘Empires Attraction’ — I can’t stop thinking about this song where Matt Corby covers his own song live on Triple J Like A Version. His voice is a portal, I swear one moment I was on stage with Ella Fitzgerald and then next I was at the bottom of the ocean in Atlantis. When the groove hits from minute 3, I don’t know where Andjelka is. If you need to believe in music again, watch this.
EATING
Porridge Bread — At least 12 Claire’s asked for this recipe. I would like to honour my Irish friend Eldon who first made this for me on a Samhain firekeepers retreat in Sligo. It tastes like a hug. Make sure you use finer porridge oats and not the classic rolled ones. I omit the nuts and seeds, and use goat’s yogurt and oat milk. Follow it to the gram and do the last 5 minute turn-out-into-the-oven part. Slather with Irish butter and all the preserves. The correct bread-to-butter ratio is teeth marks.
Boston Bun — Mashed potato in a cake recipe. What in the actual is going on?! I’m not mad. I made this 90s classic bakery treat for the inner child of all my friends. Sickly sweet icing and sultana ratio is pure nostalgia.
Grandma’s Miso Soup — Making my own miso soup at home down to the dashi is a reliable joy. This recipe is from Melbourne cafe Cibi who are famous for their Japanese breakfast, one of my favourite meals of all time that is hard to find! The best one I ever had was in Nara, and it came with a watercolour pictorial of that day’s menu. I slow-cook leek, stir-fry Asian greens, add noodles, and lots of spring onion to my miso soup.
PONDERING
Who are you when no one is looking? — a beautiful question that came to me on a walk
I had a dream of a man having a miscarriage. I have NO IDEA what this means and I haven’t even told my dream analyser Geraldine.
I got a glimpse of my own death recently. I was sitting in tea and suddenly I had this feeling I was at the end of my life, and I was somewhere inside (a room in a building, where I didn’t want to be) so I said to whoever was with me, “I’m not dying like this” so we broke out. Then we were laughing with glee, maybe they were pushing me in a wheelchair, there was an epic sunset and a thought: I want to die how I lived.
Spring energy is strong for me this year — perhaps because I had a double winter this year in Ireland and then again in Australia. I’ve also just started a new spring ritual of making the transition from work to evening time by going on a walk within 15 minutes of getting home. I get my basket by the door and secateurs and set off around the neighbourhood, saying hi to all the birds and trees and picking flowers from wilder places and verge sides (not front yards, although I used to do that for years = BAD KARMA) to make a posey for the house. My dear friend Jess who is a florist taught me many years ago that as long as no leaves touch the water and you cut the stems at an angle — flowers last longer, so I follow that. I’m finding it incredibly healing. Spring is all about possibility and aliveness. The last Eclipse of 2024 has been very intense. I’m holding on.
I’ll be co-hosting a Spring’s Beginning Deep Rest, Reading & Ritual Day Retreat on Sunday 20 October and be serving a luscious tea ceremony in the outdoors, plus there will be a live harp playing while we read! Book here.
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way.
On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
― Arundhati Roy
In 2020, for a year or so, I wrote ‘Close Friends’ — a private newsletter for my closest friends (it was important to get started, not be original) — where I told them way more than they asked about my life and gave lots of curated recommendations from what I was reading, watching, listening to, eating and my favourite section Real Talk (RIP). I also changed the font several times across many newsletters, I’m a maniac like that.
The Magic of What Happens is a continuation of that.
This is an evolution. Thanks for being here!
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As the Magic would have it, Damien Rice just announced his Australia and New Zealand 2025 dates.
Yes, Guinness tastes the best in Ireland! Every night you can smell roasting barley from the Guinness Storehouse which takes up five city blocks. They say that Guinness doesn’t travel well, so it’s fresher when it is poured where it is made.
So many deep Outlander references: bread because Claire made penicillin from mouldy bread, cheese and grapes and preserves because that’s all they seem to eat in the show, tea and tipples in fine china cups and crystal glasses, a BOSTON BUN because of the Harvard era, an Outlander altar with her Medical degree and herbalist apothecary and wedding day lace and writing feather and OH MY GOSH a shrine to Jamie and his men of course.
Obsessed with you and your storytelling! What a gift you have x
Bless you! You are speaking to my soul right now with that David Whyte quote. Thank you for sharing the porridge bread recipe. And the kilt story… What a dream.