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A touch of magic

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Participate in a SHAMANIC WOMEN RETREAT, at Glastonbury from 4 - 7 March 2027

Brigid – The Goddess Who Teaches Us to Tend the Sacred Flame

Brigid – The Goddess Who Teaches Us to Tend the Sacred Flame

There is something about July that always slows me down. The great celebration of the Summer Solstice has passed. The longest day is behind us and, although the fields are alive with abundance, we know instinctively that the Wheel has begun to turn toward harvest.
This is not yet the time of gathering. It is the time of tending.

 

What are you tending?

As I prepare this month’s teachings for Awakening the Fire Goddess, I find myself spending time with Brigid, one of the great Celtic goddesses whose wisdom has accompanied people for centuries.
Many know Brigid as the goddess of poetry, healing and the sacred flame.
Others know her through the wells of Ireland, where people have journeyed for generations seeking healing, inspiration and blessing.
Yet beneath these beautiful stories lives a teaching that feels remarkably relevant today.
Brigid asks a deceptively simple question.
What are you tending?
Not what are you dreaming about. Not what are you hoping to create one day.
But what are you actually nourishing with your attention, your time and your energy?

 

The Fire That Does Not Burn Out

One of the oldest symbols associated with Brigid is the eternal flame that was tended for centuries at Kildare.
It was never intended to become a roaring bonfire. It was simply never allowed to go out.
There is something deeply moving about this image. Our culture often celebrates intensity.
The big beginning. The burst of motivation. The dramatic transformation.
Nature teaches something different. A flame survives because someone returns to it.
Brigid reminds us that our gifts, our healing, our relationships and our creativity are no different. They do not grow because of one inspired moment. They grow because we keep showing up.

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“Brigid asks: Can you stay with the flame after the first excitement has passed? Can you return when it is ordinary? Can you nourish the gift when no one is praising you?

– Gita

 

Fire and Water

One of the things I have always loved about Brigid is that she belongs equally to fire and to water. She is the keeper of the sacred flame. She is also guardian of the sacred wells. At first these seem like opposites. Yet together they reveal one of her deepest teachings. There are times when life asks us to act. And there are times when it asks us to receive.
There are seasons for creating. And seasons for restoring.
The flame teaches devotion. The well teaches replenishment.
Without the well, the fire burns out. Without the fire, the water becomes still.
Nature is always teaching us balance.

Walking with Brigid

For me, working with a goddess is never about worship. It is about relationship.
It is about allowing an archetype to illuminate something already alive within us.
Brigid invites us to become conscious keepers of our own inner flame. She reminds us that devotion is not a grand gesture. It is lighting the candle. Returning to the journal. Making time for the walk. Sitting in silence. Creating something with our hands.
Choosing, each day, to nourish what truly matters.
Perhaps this is why her teachings feel especially alive at this point in the Wheel of the Year.
The first excitement of summer has passed. Now comes the quieter work. The beautiful work. The work of tending.

This Month with Brigid

Throughout July, we are walking with Brigid in Awakening the Fire Goddess, exploring her mythology, her archetype, her shamanic teachings and the profound medicine of devotion..
She also returns later in the year in Awakening the Dark Goddess, where she offers a very different teaching as we journey through the returning light of spring.

Although each programme approaches her from a different perspective, both invite us into a living relationship with this extraordinary goddess rather than simply learning about her.

And because Brigid’s wisdom is deeply rooted in the rhythms of nature, her teachings weave naturally into Wisdom of the Seasons, where we learn to live in conscious relationship with the turning of the Wheel throughout the entire year.

​

A Question from Brigid

As I continue preparing her teachings this month, I find myself returning to one simple question. Not because Brigid asks it once. But because she asks it every day.

What are you tending?

Whatever it is, remember this: The sacred flame rarely asks for more effort. More often, it simply asks us to keep returning.
And in that quiet act of devotion, something extraordinary begins to grow.
What are you tending?

Walking with Brigid — A Simple Daily Practice

Brigid reminds us that the sacred flame is not kept alive through grand gestures, but through small, faithful acts of devotion.
Her teachings invite us to return, day after day, to what matters most. Like tending a fire, it is not the size of the action that matters, but the consistency with which we return.

For the next few days, try this simple practice.
Morning — Ignite
Before the day begins, place your hands over your heart and ask:
What part of my life is asking for my attention today?
Carry your answer gently with you throughout the day.
Midday — Nourish
Pause for a moment and ask:
What small act would nourish my inner flame right now?
Keep it simple. A walk. A few quiet breaths. Writing a page. Drinking water slowly. Lighting a candle. Do one small thing with full presence.
Evening — Tend
Before going to bed, take a quiet moment to reflect. Ask yourself:
What did I nourish today?Notice it without judgement. Simply acknowledge the small ways you returned to yourself.

For Brigid teaches us that a sacred life is not built through occasional moments of inspiration. It is built through the quiet devotion of returning, one day at a time.

Connect to your community

The path towards inner wisdom and discovery of ourselves is a path which, ultimately, we have to journey on our own. Knowing who you are and what gift you carry is revealed in this path of discovery of the Self. It brings sovereignty and autonomy.

Community is the way we nourish ourselves on this journey. We find safety in the sacred circle with others and inspiration when we listen to their own discoveries.

The Three Celtic Cauldrons

The Three Celtic Cauldrons

A Shamanic Path to Inner Power

In Celtic cosmology, power is not something to be seized or imposed. It is something remembered, tended, and brought into right relationship. Among the most evocative teachings carried through the old Irish wisdom texts is the teaching of the Three Cauldrons—an ancient map of human vitality, consciousness, and spiritual authority.
This is not a chakra system borrowed from elsewhere, nor a metaphor divorced from land and lineage. The Three Cauldrons arise from a distinctly Celtic worldview: earth-rooted, poetic, embodied, and relational. They offer a shamanic framework for understanding how life force moves within us, how imbalance arises, and how true power is cultivated from within.

The Cauldron as Sacred Vessel

In Celtic culture, the cauldron is never merely a container. It is a threshold object—a place of transformation, regeneration, inspiration, and rebirth. Cauldrons appear again and again in myth: the Cauldron of the Dagda that never runs empty, the Cauldron of Cerridwen that brews wisdom and poetic fire, the cauldrons of rebirth that restore warriors to life.
Within the human being, these cauldrons are understood as energetic vessels that hold and circulate our life force (neart), our emotional truth, and our spiritual fire. When the cauldrons are upright and in harmony, energy flows freely. When one is tilted, blocked, or depleted, we feel it—in the body, the emotions, and the soul.
The Three Cauldrons are:

• The Cauldron of Warming (Coire Goiriath)
• The Cauldron of Motion (Coire Ernmae)
• The Cauldron of Wisdom (Coire Sois)
Together, they form a living system of balance and power.

In the Celtic tradition a cauldron is know as a container of transformation, both literally and energetically.

1. The Cauldron of Warming – Rooted Life Force

The Cauldron of Warming is located in the lower body, often associated with the belly, womb, hips, and lower back. It is the first cauldron we are born with fully upright, and it governs physical vitality, instinct, sexuality, safety, and belonging. This cauldron is warmed by the earth itself—by nourishment, rest, touch, sensual pleasure, rhythm, and connection to land and body.

When it is strong, we feel grounded, alive, and at home in ourselves. When it is depleted or tilted, we may experience fatigue, disconnection from the body, shame around desire, or a sense of not belonging.
In shamanic Celtic practice, restoring the Cauldron of Warming is not about transcendence—it is about coming home. Walking barefoot on the land, tending the hearth, honoring the cycles of the body, and reclaiming pleasure as sacred are all acts of healing this cauldron.
True power begins here.

2. The Cauldron of Motion – Emotional Flow and Relationship

The Cauldron of Motion resides in the heart and chest. It is said to be tilted at birth and slowly straightened through life experience, relationship, and emotional maturity. This cauldron governs feeling, empathy, movement, breath, and the ability to be in relationship without losing oneself. This is the cauldron of grief and joy, love and anger, devotion and boundaries. When it flows well, emotions move like rivers—felt fully, expressed honestly, and released naturally. When blocked or overheated, emotions may stagnate or overwhelm, leading to collapse, reactivity, or emotional numbness.

In the Celtic shamanic view, emotions are not obstacles to spirituality; they are initiations. The Cauldron of Motion teaches us how to stay present with intensity, how to let the heart be shaped by life without breaking, and how to move between worlds—inner and outer—with integrity.
Song, poetry, ritual, breathwork, and sacred listening are traditional ways of tending this cauldron.

In the Celtic tradition a cauldron is know as a container of transformation, both literally and energetically.

3. The Cauldron of Wisdom – Sacred Fire and Knowing

The Cauldron of Wisdom rests in the head and upper body. It is the last cauldron to be fully upright and is associated with insight, inspiration, vision, and spiritual authority.

This is not intellect alone, but imbas—the luminous knowing that arises when body, heart, and spirit are aligned.
When this cauldron is upright, wisdom flows downward rather than pulling us out of the body. We become clear-seeing without becoming ungrounded, inspired without burning out. When it is prematurely activated without support from the lower cauldrons, it can lead to dissociation, spiritual bypassing, or inflated ego.
In Celtic tradition, true wisdom is earned through lived experience, humility, and service to life. The fire of this cauldron is lit by devotion, contemplation, ancestral listening, and time spent at the thresholds—dawn, dusk, solstice, equinox.
Power here is not domination. It is clarity in service of balance.

The Dance of Balance: Uprighting the Cauldrons

Healing and empowerment are not about forcing the cauldrons into alignment. They are about relationship—listening to which cauldron is calling for attention and responding with care.
Many modern wounds show up as an overemphasis on the upper cauldron (mind and vision) while the lower cauldrons remain undernourished. The Celtic path reminds us that wisdom without embodiment is unstable, and spirituality without warmth lacks roots.
Shamanic practice with the Three Cauldrons may include:

• Grounding rituals and body-based practices
• Emotional tending through ritual, voice, and community
• Seasonal ceremonies aligned with the land
• Ancestral remembrance and mythic storytelling

In deeper shamanic work, these practices are not only symbolic—they become direct experiences. Through guided journeying, ritual structure, and intentional sequencing, it is possible to enter each cauldron as a living inner landscape, listen to its state, and gently restore balance.
This is the foundation of my online course on the Three Celtic Cauldrons, where you are guided step by step to work with each cauldron through shamanic journey, embodied reflection, and ritual integration. As the cauldrons slowly come into harmony, a natural authority emerges—quiet, steady, and unmistakable.

Reclaiming Your Power the Celtic Way

 

The Three Celtic Cauldrons offer a deeply humane and earth-honoring map of inner power. They remind us that we are not meant to ascend away from our humanity, but to inhabit it fully.
To walk this path is to warm the body, soften the heart, and clarify the mind—again and again, across the seasons of life. Power, in this tradition, is not something you take.
It is something you become when all parts of you are allowed to belong.
May your cauldrons be warmed, upright, and well tended.

 

Go Deeper: A Guided Journey with the Three Celtic Cauldrons

 

If you feel called to not only understand this teaching, but to live it in your body and energy, I invite you to join my online course: The Three Celtic Cauldrons.

This is a 4-session self-paced online journey, designed to support a deep, experiential relationship with each cauldron. You will be guided to:

  • Connect directly with the Cauldron of Warming, Motion, and Wisdom through shamanic journeying
  • Learn how to sense imbalance and restore flow in your own energetic system
  • Anchor the teachings into daily life, relationships, and seasonal transitions

The course can be followed:

  • As a 4-day intensive immersion
  • Or over 3–4 weeks, allowing it to become a steady companion for seasonal portal preparation or integration (Equinox, Solstice, or personal thresholds)

All sessions are recorded and can be completed in your own timing, making this work accessible and supportive wherever you are in your cycle.

✨ You are invited to step into a deeper relationship with your inner power and Celtic lineage of wisdom.

👉 Learn more and join the course here: Three Celtic Cauldron

 

Get issue #3 of the publication Wisdom of the Witch to know the wisdom of the seasons.

I’d love to hear your experience, questions, and reflections. I invite you into the conversation—let’s weave our voices and deepen the connection.

Simply Raw Nature – A touch of magic

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Gita Nicola Schneider

gita@awakeningtouch.ca
819 323-1455

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AwakeningTouch is an invitation to reconnect to the teachings of the seasons and the power of ritual. Drawing inspiration from nature awakens your inner wisdom. Discovering your personal rhythm creates simple joyful moments. Awakening happens through the Touch of nature, the magic of sacred community, the experience of your inner wisdom, the knowing that you found your place in life, the joy of living in harmony.

© AwakeningTouch, 2023