Hello and welcome - to the home of The Ancestral Mothers of Scotland and Gather the Keeners.
I’m Jude and I live on the West Coast of Scotland, near Loch Lomond on the banks of the River Clyde.
The Ancestral Mothers of Scotland
Since I was old enough to walk I’ve been exploring the local hills, and what I found up there was a glorious and all-enveloping silence. Through the years I sought out the liminal places and began a conversation with figures I came to call the Old Ones, my Ancestral Mothers.
I became a forager of stories, with an ear to the ground, and a foot in the Otherworld. Some of the stories are rooted in place, perhaps once told but never shared, while others, like stories of the Cailleach and Brighid are folklore, the lore of the people.
While perhaps others were stories that died out in a generation or two, and they’ve been sitting nestled in the cracks of a dry stane dyke (dry stone wall) or in among the mosses, waiting for the right ear to hear them.
These stories gave me meaning, purpose, and inspiration. They connect me to the land, to the winter winds and summer twilight. They are the rich tapestry that weave us back into the world, in a culture that strips away our connection to nature.
Starts Wed 26th March 2025
Gather the Keeners
This Substack is also home to Gather the Keeners, for it was a grief, a longing, for something I couldn’t name but knew I was missing that urged me to look for and connect to the Ancestral Mothers.
In the Wild Edge of Sorrow, Francis Weller describes that we live in a grief-phobic and death-denying culture, no longer possessing the tools to grieve with.
It wasn’t that long ago we were far closer to death, when women tended to the dead and the Keening Woman guided the community through their grief and performing the ritual of guiding the soul home.
Reclaiming keening offers space to connect with grief, to let our hands and hearts process our feelings through creative projects such as making a keening doll or weaving grief with yarn. Keening circles provide a curated musical journey that allows for expressions of different faces of grief - from anger, to frustration and despair. Within the keening ritual is a liminal phase, one in which healing can take place, and one aspect of healing is refamiliarising ourselves with grief.
In this series we will be covering:
The Role of the Keening Woman. Exploring the aspects of this highly skilled role
The difference between the Scottish and the Irish traditions
Psychopomps. The death walkers
Scottish Laments. A look at traditional lamentations and their place in the grieving process.
How We Lost Our Mourning Rituals – Colonization, church influence, and societal shifts that severed us from communal grieving.
A Keening Practice – the importance of a grieving practise, tools which help process grief.
The Ancient Spiritual Bedrock - Connecting to Ancestral Wisdom
The Language of Grief
Grief Activism - How reclaiming grief is an act of defiance, resistance, and healing.
When Death Comes. Embracing mortality, making space for grief, and preparing for our own endings.
About Me
My academic background is in Human Ecology, I gained my MSc with the University of Strathclyde - my thesis exploring the relationship between the Goddess Brighid and Cultural Activists in the West of Scotland.
I am an artist and Cultural Activist working mainly with fiber, as a doll maker I see myself within a long and ancient lineage back to the hands that fashioned figures such as the Woman of Willendorf.
The Ancestors are my inspiration in painting, where I often combine a rich red sandstone soil from my favorite hill, which sits southwest of Loch Lomond.
The rest of my background is weaving, hillwalking, mud, moss, lichen, birdsong, cloud form, birds, and animals which pour into my art and writing.
Offerings
For paid subscriptions, I share the stories of the Ancestral Mothers as we cycle the wheel of the year. Many stories are older than the Gaelic festivals and so their names are taken from the moon at that time of year - from the Hag Eye Moon (Samhain) to the Seal-Skin Moon (Bealtainn) and the Talon Moon (Lunastal).
I’ll share current series which are currently running.
As a cultural activist, I reclaim keening as an ancient ritual that we can adapt to provide us with the tools to learn how to grieve again. Such tools are essential to allow us to live a full life, one which holds love and grief and all the riches these qualities bring us. Learning to grieve is radical work, as Francis Weller states - we live in a death-denying, grief-phobic culture.
As with everything I do - creativity is the doorway, keening dolls for example represent our grief, connect us to it, and help us on the journey to reclaiming grief.
Monday - Stories from the Studio
Monday’s feature is Stories from the Studio - musing on what I’m making, have made or am planning to make - and the objects, mosses, bones, or stones that spark the creations.
Paid subscriptions - a tale every Monday
Free - a Tale on the first and last Monday of the Month
Why Subscribe?
Your subscription supports my writing - that means a lot, that folks like and comment - it’s wonderfully inspiring as I’m currently writing my book - The Ancestral Mothers of Scotland.
Your subscription free or paid encourages me in my work and it’s wonderful to have a nurturing relationship outside of social media.
Join Our Community
Paid Subscriptions:
Walking the Path of the Ancestral Mothers - journeying around the wheel of the year introducing the Ancestral Mothers through stories, guided journeys, art, and ritual
Gather the Keeners - Reclaiming Keening
Stories From the Studio - Each Monday a ‘Monday Stories from the Studio’ feature - Exploring What I’m working on, stories, and inspiration
Plus stories of synchronicity and inspiration that weave themselves into my life
Free Subscriptions:
Two ‘Monday Stories from the Studio’ posts (first and last Mondays of the month)
Monthly Newsletter. A round-up of posts, upcoming in-person and online events plus whatever synchronicities are weaving their magic
Occasional weavings of synchronicity and inspiration
