Neadaireacht /Nesting

A welcome

‘Neadaireacht /Nesting’ with Kerri ní Dochartaigh
An online writing course 

Welcome to Neadaireacht /Nesting with Kerri ní Dochartaigh, a writing course for paid subscribers of G L I M M E R S . 

If you are a paid subscriber, this course will land directly into your inbox.

If you would like to subscribe, just click here. 🤎

This email is an introduction to the course, outlining the different elements and what you can expect.

You'll receive the first set of activities in an email next week, on Valentines Day.

I have chosen this date, not just because I hope that these next weeks might help us enter into deeper thinking around ideas of radical love, but because historically, birds and eggs were symbolic around Valentines Day; rooted in the belief that the fourteenth of February was the beginning of the mating season of the birds.

A day for romance, and for beginning to build our nests. 🤎

Hi! I'm Kerri.

I’m a mother, writer and grower. I have published two books, each in their own way on the theme of NESTING. I am working on a third, which, in its own particular little way, is too.

I am so glad you're here.

I hope this course will nourish you.

I hope it will hold you as you navigate this journey of self.

I hope this course provides you with ways to make peace with your body; to take your rightful place on this achingly gorgeous earth.

I hope it supports you in setting up home— safely and beautifully— in your own story.

I hope it might offer an invitation back towards your words, or into deeper relationship with them.

Perhaps this is the first time you’ve decided to write in this way, and that is wonderful! No experience is necessary here, aside from being alive. Nesting is designed to meet anyone exactly where they are.

It has been designed as a means of exploring the idea of home within your own self.

I offer it to you with the deepest hope that it might hold you, as tenderly as a wee bird, as you build a home for your writing within your days.

That it might be a gentle reminder that, like that little bird: it is you, and you alone, whose gentle, persistent actions crafts that nest.

That nest which is your safe, secure space.

‘The world is dark / but the wood is full of stars.’
- Seán Hewitt

 

Wherever you are, in whichever part of this beautiful, turning world you attend this course in the coming weeks; I hope you feel safe.

I am so happy you are able to carve this space for you into a time, in many ways, unlike any we have experienced before.
 
I hope you feel safe within the geographical space you are in but – just as equally – safe in your own self.

The body, so full of blood and bone, identity and belonging, is our first home.

It is the one we first knew, and the one we will always know.

It is the one that carries us along through the vast unfurling of our lives.

The home in which we live, love, lose, grow, grieve and hope. It is ours, and ours alone, and it is completely individual to each and every one of us. In the last few years we have all been thrown into various shared storms, in many ways – but each of us is in our own vessel.
 
And what are we to do with all of those experiences – the ones we encounter both outside and inside that home of our body? The ones of the last years, and the ones of all the years that came before?

We write them down.
 
In this course we will carve space in our lives – no matter how overwhelming those lives may feel right now – to write the story of those lives, giving voice to things we may never have even spoken of before.

And we will listen to our own story, one that only we can tell, and one that really matters; now more than ever.

I would encourage you to start a fresh and beautiful looking journal for this course, as well as to find a pen you really enjoy using.

A candle holder and candle that you use only when you are carving your words is also a gorgeous way to invite your creativity to perch on your shoulder.

But life is life, and the main thing is to get the words down, any which way you can, for therein lies the magic of all of the worlds...

This course will arrive in your inbox every week for the next five weeks.

It will be based around the concept of ‘NESTING’.

 
Week one: WING
Week two: NEST
Week three: COCOON
Week four: FLOCK
Week five: (F)LIGHT
 

There will be images and quotations from a variety of other writers, followed by exercises to help you map your self and your experiences throughout your life.  

I hope that these exercises might be something you could incorporate, either as they are – or moulded to best suit you – into your creative life. Both the writers and the exercises have helped and guided me greatly, and I hope you find sustenance through them too.
 
This course is centred around stillness and beauty; hope and acceptance.

These things begin in our own vessel.  

Please be gentle with yourself, and if anything feels too triggering or painful it is completely fine to just sit instead with a cuppa and write about something else. This is for you, and I hope that it brings you a sense of calm and of joy. It is intended as a gift. I feel so grateful to be able to share some of your time, and I hope that these weeks help you.

If this sounds like something you would appreciate in your life right now, please do sign up as a paid subscriber between now and Valentines Day so we can share this time together.

Writing NESTING has felt like a rare and delicate joy indeed.   
 
I hope that you will leave this course with the sense that words hold power, and that there are so many different ways that we can bring them into the world.

At the end of this time together, I hope that it might feel like you are only just beginning, ready to take flight; safe in the knowledge that you have built your safe nest from which to soar.

Thank you for supporting my work and for holding such tender, beautiful space here: for yourselves & each other; for the words & the world. X