Leeson Analytic Centre, Dublin 2

06/03/2026

“I would say that happiness is the sweetness of desiring what you have, fully aware of its fragility, its brevity and its limits. It isn’t the absence of sadness, but the capacity to hold reality without needing it to be otherwise.”
Stephen Grosz “Loves Labour”

Image: Sarah Long

01/03/2026

Amidst the turmoil that is in the world our duty to ourselves and to those we love is to remain grounded, centered and aligned with love, so focus on rising up towards Love.

From The Grand Canal to the Cooley Peninsula.
Donnamaria Redmond.


Seagulls screech above my head as the eleven bus plays percussion with the drain cover
their keening keows a wailing call to the world
Towards the canal, he’s always there, sitting on the bench, with a handful of his home-soil and some long faded flowers secreted in his bronze pocket.
A gentrified spot now with deckchairs and lattes and a plastic grass dog park
- it’s a long way from Monaghan

The seagulls lead the way, wheeling grey sentinels calling the names of the ancestors who once upon a time lived around here
- O Connell, McAuley, Bowen, Wilde, Yeats, Lavin.
Leaders, hero’s, mystics, lovers,
Their words became a drumbeat, the cadence for an emerging identity

Betrayal, heartache, sadness and joy were the motifs woven into their lives
As they forged manifestos for the world
but one retained a connection to the harp of the ancient ones

Cuchulainn, Mebh and Oisin that Heruclean poet
are calling out across the nine waves and sending out the gulls
who are screeching to us to look up to the stars
and guided by the wisdom that their stories hold
find our bearings
and plot a new course.

Image:
Ithell Colquhoun
Earth process

17/02/2026

01/02/2026

The Journey
by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.

On this day of Imbolc may Brighid’s flame awaken your dreams.

19/01/2026

Highly recommend Salman Aktar’s seminar tickets are available for inperson or online. The Freud Museum is an exceptional place generally to visit if you are in London.

17/01/2026

Here is a powerful mantra/ affirmation to practice daily. Try it out ❤️ repeating positive life affirmating ideas re wires neurological pathways in the brain and creates new thoughts and new ideas.
Our thoughts create our reality.

02/01/2026

Encouragment for this New Year ……Begin

16/12/2025

Mary Oliver's "Snowy Night" reminds us to pay attention and to be with what is present, whether we understand it or not. It invites us to welcome, instead of to shun, the dark and be open to what we don't "know" and instead step into wonder.

So even in the darkness be it inside oneself or outwards let the coming winter solstice remind us, there is light and still more light to come: tomorrow we come get just a bit closer to the sun again.

Snowy Night by Mary Oliver

Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed an indeterminate number
of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.
I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
it was that distant. But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness. I suppose
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.

24/11/2025

MAKING SENSE OF HEARING VOICES: A ONE-DAY INTERACTIVE SEMINAR, PRESENTED AND FACILITATED BY JACQUI DILLON.

Wednesday 10 December 2025 from 10.00 – 16.00,

Room G06, Brookfield Health Sciences Complex, University College Cork, College Road, Cork

This a free event (donations warmly received),
but registration is required by emailing Harry Gijbels at h.gijbels@ucc.ie requesting a place.

Pablo Picasso

24/11/2025

“I have been to hell and back. And let me tell you, it was wonderful.” - Louise Bourgeois
Often working through a very difficult and painful experience, brings a sense of resilience, a feeling of value, and a strange beauty in the process.
Louise Bourgeois, embroidery on lawn cotton handkerchief, 2007.

“I have been to hell and back. And let me tell you, it was wonderful.” - Louise Bourgeois

Often working through a very difficult and painful experience, brings a sense of resilience, a feeling of value, and a strange beauty in the process.

Louise Bourgeois, embroidery on lawn cotton handkerchief, 2007.

21/11/2025

The Guest House, Rumi (c 1248-1273)

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

“The Yellow House”
Vincent Van Gogh 1888

05/04/2024

Today is Palestinian Children’s Day. Here are just a few of the thousands of innocent children murdered by the Israeli Apartheid State. These children are not just statistics of war, their families loved and treasured them just as much as we love and treasure our children. Let us hold each of them in our hearts today.

What can you do today to show your solidarity for the children of Palestine? Those who’ve had their lives brutally taken, those held hostage in Israeli prisons, those left orphaned, those still fighting for survival. Make today the day you take action for all of them. Donate, protest, contact your representatives, just please do something ✊🏼💗💔

Go raibh míle maith agat for the video 🇵🇸
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5Xt7e9spgm/?igsh=aDNxZ2Zmd3l2eWo4