Workshop Facilitators
Deirdre Ní Chinnéide Deirdre Ní Chinnéide has sung extensively in both Irish and English for many years. She trained as a psychotherapist and has worked throughout Ireland, Bosnia and Kosovo. Since training with Chloe Goodchild "The Naked Voice", singing has emerged as an integral expression of her own spiritual practice. She explores the healing potential of sound and song with particular connection to the Spirit and Shadow of Celtic Consciousness.

She has composed and recorded her own material Celtic Passage which has been nominated as Celtic album of the year in the USA, and has performed many times in Ireland and abroad. She currently lives and works on Inis Mor Co. Galway, offering workshops and retreats to individuals and
groups visiting the island.

Caroline Kehoe
Caroline Kehoe has been dancing for over 15 years now and had the opportunity to dance with and train with a number of teachers during that time. She has a teaching diploma in community circle dance and trained for 3 years in Germany with the Ausbildungsinstitut Meditation des Tanzes. This professional training included dance philosophy, dance as meditation, classical dance and music training, body and breath work, therapeutic dance methodology, and teaching and facilitation training. In her work she seeks to explore dance and movement as spiritual practice and how music and dance can create community and healing. In the dances she teaches she explores themes of exile, healing and return. At present Caroline teaches in All Hallows Institute in Dublin and gives regular workshops around the country.

Inis Mór, Aran Islands.
Course coordinator Deirdre Ni Chinneide
Retreat
Deirdre facilitates workshops at home and abroad in the area of Celtic Spirituality. The Aran islands with its unique history, culture and natural beauty provides a unique setting for her retreat work where participants are invited to come and spend time with others, to reflect on their own journey and to visit and explore the ancient sites of Aran.

Retreat: The Celtic Passage of Aran
During this retreat, Deirdre and her team will guide and explore themes of soul loss, disconnection and the return home to the Spirit of God within. Celtic Spirituality becomes the well source, as we journey through life, death and renewal, our connection to nature, the redemption of love and the splendor of creation. The mystical song and sound of the islands calls us into relationship – to self, to others, and to the seasons of our own heart.

The beauty and power of the islands become the setting for this time of renewal, away from the mainland, offering rest, nurturance and a peaceful stay. The retreat format includes input on the areas of Folklore, Mythology, Celtic Spirituality, Art, Sacred Sound and Movement, Contemplative prayer and Ritual and Island Culture.

There is a strong element of personal reflective, meditative and prayer time both individually and in group and rituals will be organized at the sacred sites of Aran during the week.

Spiritual direction on a one to one basis is also available.
Participants stay in Ard Einne and Kilmurvey Guest house known for its good food, accommodation and friendly welcome.

Full details of programme including brochure, retreat
themes, travel details available on request.

Sample themes for exploration during our week together.
Celtic Realm
To journey through the Celtic world is to travel widely. The call to remember with this ancient civilization, our ancestors, is to retrieve that which we have lost and
longed for, in these current times. In circle sound and movement the pilgrim walks through other worlds - in, outside, beyond, before and drawing from a deep well of image, myth and ritual opens to the Celtic song and dance within.

Workshops
• Threshold
Through sound and movement we explore threshold times in our lives and our relationship to them.

• Turas an chroí - Journey of the heart
Through this journey of the heart we open to the dark and light and, as we journey through both, the union of sound and movement plays one note, the song of who we are.

• The Spiral and the Cross
We focus on the symbols of the spiral and cross - strong elements from the Celtic and Christian worlds. We will work with themes common to both such as
'light through darkness’, 'life through death', 'peace through conflict'.

• Ionam
Music, movement, song and dance take us closer to what language cannot reach. It is a journey into stillness, mystery and our own creativity, the journey of
the heart. This workshop is an invitation to gently experience dancing and singing together, sound and meditation in movement.

Deirdre and Caroline will be joined by a team of folklorist, art therapist and others expert in their field who will help faciliate the retreats.

  Download retreat application form 2010

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