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Thank you for this, I'm going to write up my list of things to carry into the darker part of the year.

As default, I turn to writers and poets and spoken word artists (yourself Kerri, Katherine May, Laura Pashby, Sophie Strand, Bayo Akomolafe, David Whyte, Rionach Aiken, Nikita Gill, Lucy H Pearce, to name but a few) and increasingly, to musicians, especially folk singers: Eleanor Brown, Clare Sands, Woven Kin, Imelda May, I Have a Tribe, Christine & the Queens, etc, and of course the incomparable Sinéad O'Connor

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Sep 25, 2023Liked by Kerri ní Dochartaigh

Love that re music. I'm going to look some of these up! And writers haven't heard of.

Also feel like food is a big one for me like more porridge mornings, soups and broths and squash and brassicae leaves chopped into everything. Root veg for better grounding. And so much tea!

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"Root veg for better grounding - love this! These writers and musicians are not my list of things to carry into the darker part of the year. It's just that reading Kerri's words about how she turns to image made me realise that I'm increasingly turning to folk music, even though music has never been a big part of my life.

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This is so moving to read, this autumn seems to hold such promise for deep transfomatin for us all x

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Sep 25, 2023Liked by Kerri ní Dochartaigh

Relieved about substrack. Worried it was me. Will think about a list. What a great prompt...definitely The Moon, The Shipping News, ....felting, paints, planted acorns....

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acorns , yes yes yes. All is fixed now with the subscription system thankfully x

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Sep 25, 2023Liked by Kerri ní Dochartaigh

Wonderful questions - for me, handwork (particularly knitting) always picks up this time of year as gardening winds down, lots of reading of all kinds (poetry, non-fiction, a drop of fiction), and my bed - there's something about coming home to my mattress as the nights get cooler then colder, wrapping my blankets around me and succumbing to (taking refuge in?) the darkness, I want to say it's healing. Thank you!

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yes, the healing darkness! Have you read WINTERING ? x

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No, but it's on my list. Perhaps, the next few months is a good time for that:). I live in Nebraska in the U.S. - winter (and it's accompanying darkness) has real heft here. It's a presence. Thanks for mentioning the book.

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Sep 25, 2023Liked by Kerri ní Dochartaigh

I so wanted to post on your last piece mentioning sleep. Maybe I even did. But as an extension of that response I had (which was mostly about adjusting post 18 months of extreme sleep deprivation) I seem to be waking earlier now and turning in earlier. Rather than staying up late to do commissioned work. I decided that instead of trying to make myself get an extra hour or two I'm waking and writing or reading. And doing this in a purposefully dreamlike manner. I've never been an early riser but I reckon something has stirred here and now in my favourite and what has been most formative season (for so many terrible and beautiful reasons). It's important to have that pause and i wish you all the best in settling into it x

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I am loving SLEEPLESS out now with Fitzcaralldo! Love to you in this new stage with your work! x

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Must look that one up. Thank you!

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Sep 25, 2023Liked by Kerri ní Dochartaigh

Oh so many...off top of my head on this blustery morning :Hilma of Klint, Georgia O'Keefe, Anni Albers, Bridget Riley. Here in Ireland Norah Mcguinness, Maine Jellet and contemporary painters Noël O'Callaghan, Sinéad níMhaonaigh, Vanessa Jones, Susan Montgomery.

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What a list! Gutted I mussed the Hilda exhibition. x

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Me too. Saw a doc about her last year. Name escapes me. What a mind, a feely mind.

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Sep 24, 2023Liked by Kerri ní Dochartaigh

Thank you 🙏🏻 I couldn’t renew my subscription so it’s good to know I am not alone.

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It is all fixed now but thanks for letting me know x

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