Why Women's Circles are more important than ever
We live in a world that asks us to be smaller than we are. To be quieter. More contained. The voice of self-judgment mirrors society's demands that we diminish ourselves to fit in.
But deep within, something is stirring. A remembering. A rebellion.
Women are gathering once again in sacred circles, not as a luxury, but as a necessity.
Not as a trend, but as a reclamation.
In these spaces, we don't just heal ourselves; we heal our lineages.
Modern women's struggle: Stress, overwhelm, and disconnection
For generations, women have been taught to doubt their own medicine. To question their innate knowing. To tame their wild wisdom. To view their bodies as projects rather than places of wisdom.
This disconnection didn't happen by accident. It was centuries in the making - from the burning of wise women to the pathologising of our natural cycles, from the dismissal of our intuition as "hysteria" to the modern pressure to optimise every aspect of our existence.
“Like earth covered by concrete, our true nature lies beneath layers of societal conditioning. We were not meant to be paved over, scheduled into submission, optimised for productivity. We are creation itself, temporarily hidden beneath the tar-mac of should’s and must-do’s, of endless expectations and perpetual striving.”
I know this journey intimately. As a senior communications manager, I was racing through life at full speed, pushing my body beyond its limits until it finally spoke back in the language of chronic pain.
Fibromyalgia became my unwanted but necessary teacher, forcing me to stop. To listen. To change.
The Medicine of the Drum
And then I found the drum. Or perhaps more accurately, the drum found me.
In her rhythm, I discovered a different kind of language. One that speaks not in "shoulds" but in heartbeats.
One that doesn't demand perfection but invites presence.
The drum became my gateway back into my body - not as a project to be improved, but as a sacred home to be inhabited.
Why Women’s circles matter
We inherited a world that tells us we're simultaneously too much and never enough. Too emotional, yet not resilient enough. Too sensitive, yet not productive enough. Too wild, yet not successful enough. The message is clear: shrink yourself, contain yourself, limit yourself.
In board rooms and school rooms, in medical offices and media messages, we learn to override our body's signals. Push through the pain. Ignore our intuition. Schedule our lives in neat boxes that deny the cyclical nature of our being.
But our bodies remember. They remember the circles where women once gathered freely. They remember the moon-wisdom passed down through generations. They remember the power of shared stories, of witnessed tears, of collective laughter that shakes the earth.
“Witnessing the women dancing around the circle with their drum and bells, removing their shoes to dance barefoot together was beautiful.
They were all so wild and free. My heart was bursting. Where else in our modern society can women be free like that?
It’s beautiful to see women singing, and using their voices too.
It’s amazing how quickly they sense the energy of the safe space - you can see those barriers lowering, masks being cast aside to reveal the true wild woman within.”
What I've discovered, as I've shared this journey with other women, is how desperately we all need this homecoming.
In our circles, something magical happens.
Women arrive carrying the weight of endless expectations, of patterns learned to numb and survive - the drinks after work, the endless scrolling, the pushing through pain.
But here, in the safety of sacred space, we find a different way.
Together, we practice the art of conscious healing. Not suppressing our pain or temporarily escaping it, but witnessing it with compassion. We learn to observe our patterns, to make space for both our grief and our joy, to move through rather than around our healing.
In each Circle, every Woman's medicine is honoured
Each woman is both
student and teacher,
healer and healing.
The Power of Collective Healing
When we gather in circle, we touch something far deeper than our own healing. Each story shared, each tear witnessed, each wild laugh moves through our grandmothers' wounds and into our daughters' freedom.
After our last circle, I felt my Nana's presence wash over me. Usually when I feel her, it's through my body's holding patterns - my left shoulder rising, my right hip dropping, mirroring how she carried herself.
But this time was different. This time she was vibrant. Joyful. Free.
She worked in a shirt factory in Northern Ireland, raising three children while her alcoholic husband spent their money.
Like so many Irish women before and after her, she carried the weight of generational martyrdom - that deep pattern of giving everything away, of putting everyone else first until there was nothing left for herself.
She got throat cancer at forty, despite never smoking a cigarette in her life - the price of unspoken truths. The gallbladder removed in her thirties, that solar plexus space of personal power and self-expression silenced.
The rheumatoid arthritis, her body's inflammatory response to childhood trauma, that bent her frame. Her posture told her story - the same posture I have seen developing in my own body today. This inheritance of constant doing, of denying the feminine need to flow, of believing there's never time to rest.
“After the women’s circle, my shoulders released completely, I felt my Nana’s presence - not with her familiar weight of sacrifice, but celebrating.
Celebrating this space where women can be free. Everything she never had the chance to experience.”
Our healing becomes their healing. Our courage to face what was silenced creates space for future generations to speak freely. In circle, we remember that our medicine isn't just for ourselves - it's part of a greater remembering, a reclaiming of what was lost.
In each other's presence, we find the reflection of our own magic that the world tried to convince us wasn't real.
The Journey back home to our Bodies
To the woman reading this who feels she should be "doing better" - what if there was nothing to fix? What if your body, exactly as it is, holds wisdom you haven't yet heard? What if your struggles aren't failings but doorways to transformation?
This journey of returning to our wild nature isn't about becoming more. It's about unbecoming - shedding the layers of conditioning until we stand in the simple truth of our nature. You are not a problem to be solved. Your wildness is not a force to be tamed.
The Altar from our last Selkie Workshop: Coming Home to your Body
Like the Selkie of Celtic lore, who sheds her seal skin to walk on land but never forgets her true nature, we too carry the wisdom of transformation within us. When we gather in circle with our sisters, we remember. `
We reclaim. We return.
In these sacred spaces of coming home - whether through movement, sound, story, or simply being witnessed - we rediscover parts of ourselves we thought were lost.
Together, we remember what our bodies always knew: that we are whole, that we are enough, that we belong.
Your heart knows the way. Your body holds the wisdom.
The circle is calling.
