It was my privilege to spend considerable time with Nuala over the years, since first meeting her in Dunderry, probably 2005. Nuala loved Mayo, her mother having come from a village not to far from where I live, Westport; Derrindufderg. Each year she would come over once or twice, visiting cousins, exploring her ancestral land, and staying a while with me. Each time she showed me a different Mayo to the one I ordinarily inhabit, always on the hunt for a little place she could come to to settle in to live. She would be off on the trail of some auctioneer or another in persuit of this dream. I would accompany her at times, and our trips were always adventures. 
 
We visited sacred sites, and walked sacred ways, and she told me stories of her life and of ancient myths. Her knowledge was extraordinary, as well as her capacity to retain information, and her insight profound. Joyce, Heaney, Brigid, Jung, Nietsche- all would trip off her tongue and pour out of her. And she would meet people on the journey and connect with them in very deep ways, soul to soul. Poets and artists and mystics seemed to always be crossing her path, but equally she would find the poetic and mystic in seemingly very ordinary people you would meet on the road. Random strangers standing at their gate would have a message for her, as sacred and holy and wise as any guru.
 
Everything seemed to be sychronicity for her. Every occurence meaningful, and after reflecting on it, it would make sense to her. To spend time with her was to enter this dream realm. A realm of magical encounters and energies, where the ancestors were very close and spirits along side us. Looking back, it felt like she was a guide to this realm, living as she did so close to the unconscious, navigating by her powerful intuition. The veil between the real and the imaginal was for her very thin- in a way all of life was a dreaming. She loved the liminal spaces.
 
She was a profound dreamer and dream analyser, and I was privileged to have her work my dreams with me. She was developing this in her work with the social dreaming matrix, running groups from her loft, and also recently in Ireland. 
 
Nuala would stay with me before and after the WTTR meetings in the Boghill, and we would attempt to reacclimatise. and attempt to ground.
 
I witnessed her really coming into herself in the last few years since LTP finished. She seemed to do so much, with so much intensity. Perhaps at some level she knew she had little time left. She was stepping out in so many ways; running workshops, giving lectures, organising the vigil for Peter Tyrell, working with the Tuam mother and baby situation, an all night vigil at Letterfrack, becoming a supervisor, walking the Camino, painting on retreat in the Burren, loving and supporting her children and grandchildren. All the while she was so passionate about truth and justice, and naming abuse. She was both uncompromising and gentle in her persuit of these aims. 
 
I am deeply saddened by the loss of Nuala, my dear friend, and my heart goes out to all her family, friends and clients at this time.
Some of us who new Nuala in Bodysoul, will meet in Mayo at Brigid’s day to honour her life and her passing at one of the sacred sites she loved, near to her ancestral home.
 
I think of Nuala in Dunderry and the dreams she brought and the song she sang to the tune of Love me Tender. She needed to name that Elvis had appropriated this tune that was much older. 
 
Aura Lee, Aura Lee, maid of golden hair
sunshine come along with thee
And swallows in the air.
 
RIP Nuala- 
 
poet, artist, healer, 
scholar, teacher,
traveller, mover,
truth seeker, namer, speaker,
mother, grandmother, friend, 
dear bodysoul sister,

Where are you dreaming now?
 
 
Rebecca x