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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in cailleach

b2ap3_thumbnail_Callileach-Lowres.jpgIn the Gaelic language, Cailleach translates as old woman or hag. In Goddess mythology Cailleach is the Celtic Goddess of weather and storms. As a crone Goddess she is associated with the season of Winter, bringing brutal cold, biting winds and snow. She is fierce and, sometimes unforgiving.

The most predominate tale tells of Cailleach capturing the beautiful Maiden Goddess and holding her captive in a mountain cave until the arrival of spring. 

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  • JudithAnn
    JudithAnn says #
    Thank you Francesca for taking the time to share your thoughts. It is truly a blessing when any of us connect through the Muse. A
  • Lizann Bassham
    Lizann Bassham says #
    Thank you for your beautiful images. Blessing to you this Winter!
  • Francesca De Grandis
    Francesca De Grandis says #
    Lovely painting! I've worked with Cailleach for decades, although only more recently by the name of Cailleach. As I know you under

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

On 23rd October we will celebrate both Lunar Samhain and a partial solar eclipse in Scorpio.  Scorpio is the zodiac sign that encapsulates some of the cailleach, or hag's, qualities.  Scorpio not only understands shadows, but often prefers shade. Scorpio has a fondness for the occult, deep psychology, sex. The eighth house in a horoscope is ruled by Scorpio, the eighth sign, and is often referred to as the house of sex, regeneration and death. Loss, grief, transformation, these are Scorpio themes.  Like the snake that swallows its tail, Scorpio knows how to shed its skin, reinvent itself and reach for infinity.  This is also the Cailleach's tale: wisdom/dementia, destruction/rebuilding, beauty/horror, gain/loss, giving/receiving. She is the polarity and the third way.


Samhain is the beginning of the Celtic winter season. After a prolonged warm and summery Equinox, the wind is blustery, stripping all the crimson Virgina creeper from our house's southwest wall.  The hag is speaking. She has arrived. We scurry to light the fire during the day to ward off the dampness; the rain hurls itself off the Atlantic. There was thunder at dawn this morning. The Cailleach has come.

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  • Bee Smith
    Bee Smith says #
    Thank you for reading. And commenting and felt no criticism implied. I just wanted to let you know where my personal spiritual jou
  • Unckle Bug
    Unckle Bug says #
    I agree. And the lessons and metaphors are drawn from specific parts of our mythology and lore. I find that a basic, common unders
  • Bee Smith
    Bee Smith says #
    I have to say that I am much more in tune with the four Celtic fire festivals; they seem to define my life and wheel of the year.
  • Unckle Bug
    Unckle Bug says #
    Love this! One important thing, though... The Pagan Wheel has two seasons: Summer and Winter. The Pagan winter starts when the Hol
  • Danielle Blackwood
    Danielle Blackwood says #
    Bee, this is lovely stuff! I really appreciate what you said about not being able to do another's "reshaping". Your poem is also

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

The hag, or the cailleach as she is called in Scotland and Ireland, has been much in mind this past year.  Partly this is because I am getting into stride with my own inner, physical and emotional, crone.  But in the way that these things happen,the micro is just a reflection of the macro world. I am increasingly called to address the hag goddess and to evangelize acknowledging this dark side of the divine feminine.

I am reminded that everyone loves the springtime maiden aspect of Brighid. They revel in the bounty of the maternal Brighid.  But little is written about the encounter with the fierce hag aspect of Brighid.  The gloves are off with Her; She is well capable of giving you the proverbial Zen shove and bitch slap if She is ignored.  Shortly before I turned fifty I cried out for Brighid to get me out of somewhere.  In the manner of 'be careful for what you ask for' she complied. What came was a tidal wave of painful change, a demolition of my ego, a period of depression requiring medication, and a recalibration of everything I thought about loss and power. It transformed Everything. But it also set me on the path that I reckon She wanted me to take but that I had resisted. (The ego is often the enemy of our highest good.) I actually prefer the life that Brighid forged for me out of the ashes and pig iron leftovers, but the transformation was a scorcher. But, like the goddess Brighid herself in Ireland's culture, I survived.

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  • Francesca De Grandis
    Francesca De Grandis says #
    Oops, typo: "but had not know Her name of Cailleach" should have read "but had not know Her BY THE name of Cailleach until about a
  • Francesca De Grandis
    Francesca De Grandis says #
    Bee, omg, once again, you and I seem to be thinking about similar stuff. Since your blog shares your experiences with Cailleach so

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

Since moving here to the depths of rural Ireland I've found that the seasonal and circadian rhythms rule me very intimately.  This winter I have been truly initiated by the Cailleach.  It's not that we have been snowed in.  We are having the first flurries as I tap this blog. No, it's that when the dark descended, the cloud cover rolled in, the skies lowered, I settled into a long womb time.

I came to a full stop.  I needed to just sit. Yes, there was activity happening but I felt at a bit of a remove.  The real happening was the silence that descended inside me.  The words wouldn't come.  If I tried to force them they were clumsy. It felt as if even Spirit was incommunicado.  Feeling directionless, without a sense of 'true north' I hunkered down into my still centre. In this space I sank into a powerful place of deep trust where I allowed myself to let go of some attachments.

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