Thank you for your interest in signing up ✨❤️✨
Welcome to this new substack. Social Media is changing and reforming or maybe it’s more that some are changing the way we want to engage online. And so I’m taking advantage and will be posting a monthly full moon newsletter so that I can promote my work, share my thoughts and connect with you online in a way that is independent of the likes of meta. I don’t want to encourage you to sign in, doom scroll and be exposed to adverts as much as I don’t want that for myself ( US surgeon general Dr Vivek Murthy proposes adding mandated warnings on the detrimental effects of social media). I don’t want to create content to feed the insatiable hunger of the Ai machine. I don’t want to support a platform that censors and shadow bans progressive ideas and people whose mission is to help those that are suffering. New versions of social media are being built grass roots style with an indestructible root system similar to couch grass…you know that stuff you can’t seem to get rid of on the allotment?! I look forward to new ways of communicating online free from the vampires Zuckerberg and Musk….
And here it begins…
Life here in West Wales is slow. Things get done in their own time. Boots pharmacy closes for lunch everyday and on Wednesday afternoons. The Pembrokeshire Promise refers to the vague date given for work to be completed. You can expect conversations to continue till they’ve finished as you wait in your car behind the one in front whose driver is passing their friend in the lane, windows rolled down taking time to communicate face to face, no rush to get anywhere fast, nothing more important than a heart-to-heart - a live update.
You never know when the rain might cease. If the Sun does come out we will grab the opportunity to enjoy the landscape together, the Preseli mountains, the beaches, forests and waterfalls….swimming, kayaking, climbing, walking, beach fires and dances - there is no better place to be when the weather is fine…it is heaven on earth. We earn this laidback privilege by enduring long wet mizzly winters and unpredictable summers.
… and so I invite you to slow down Pembrokeshire style , take time to relax, make a cup of tea and read this like an old fashioned penned letter… but it’s a newsletter that has travelled via frequencies to get to you, written in electric light, pinged up to satellites in space after I sat down to write it on my iPad in a little stone cottage from the edge of West Wales; A place as far removed from the hustle + bustle of modern life whilst still remaining on grid with many here living off-grid and in community. The magic of modern technology ~~~ the internet connects us and is as addictive and useful as it is every where else, rapidly developing and taking up more and more of our time… and excitedly crashing every now and then as it buckles at the robotic knees of software updates, power surges and solar flares
It was during the last winter, a particularly dark and seemingly endless one that I spent my time in my new studio, but mostly by the fire making and carving a series of 17 Lino prints. I got into the deep flow … the kind that’s pure bliss for creatives. In this newsletter I’ll show you some of the images and processes. There will be an invitation coming soon for my upcoming exhibition ( unsure of where at the moment, any suggestions please get in touch…Sussex, London, Bristol, Wales ). The subject of this series is a response to my experience living in this wild mystical landscape with the interplay of Ai tech. More on that in good time.
For those of you who know me and my work you will know that for the past ten years I’ve been creating illustrated hand painted moon calendars. I’ve sold them internationally, online and in shops across the UK and Ireland. An idea that initially came from my desire to learn more about the moon and its cycles and the correlation to my own cycles. Over the years I discovered the deep magic of following the phases of the moon, my menstrual periods started to sync with the moon, and I incorporated a more regular ritual into my life using the Full Moon and Dark Moon as times to celebrate, make offerings and take note. I’ve gone from celebrating Summer and Winter solstice to all 8 seasonal festivals, by observing the seasons and the quarter and cross quarter times that relate to the position of the Sun and the hours of night vs day. They are my compass points, a spiraling natural calendar of continual birth, life, death and renewal. A perfect complement to following the phases of the moon.
This year’s 2024 moon calendar pays homage to Maria Sabina (thank you if you have one on your wall, I trust it is of service to you). Sabina was a Mazatec Mexican curandera (healer, wise woman) and oral poet who worked with the magic mushroom in sacred healing ceremonies.
“Jump dance sing so that you live happier, heal yourself with beautiful love and always remember you are the medicine” - Maria Sabina
This was going to be the last moon calendar I created, but I need and want one for 2025, and love sharing them with you ————‘necessity is the mother of all…creations’. 🌒🌓🌔🌕🌖🌗🌘🌑
Feeling more and more drawn to the process of creating as a somatic practice, an antidote to static screen time. I decided to hand print them from a Lino carving and A2 ( 42 x 59.4cm) in size, double the size of previous calendars. I’ve simplified it to the four main monthly phases to make it easier to navigate…after all these years I’ve realised the most used aspect of the calendar is simply referencing the full moon and dark moon phases for ritual.
Ive taken inspiration from The Cosmic Serpent by Jeremy Narby. The book is an offshoot read from the Psychonaut Bookclub, our ten member ‘mind altering literature’ bookclub where we meet in the pub or the woods for an ale & cider symposium minus the banquet 😝 ( see our reading list below). In this book Narby puts forward the idea that the double snake that appears in Amazonian culture associated with the images seen under the influence of ayahuasca is linked to the structure of DNA. Narby argues that Indigenous communities in the Amazon have known about molecular biology and DNA long before its relatively recent discovery in western science. Knowledge that has been discovered via ritual and ceremony using an ancient psychoactive blend of specific plants from the rainforest. The deep ancient knowing and the respect for the great mystery; the path to wisdom may not be one of physically and scientifically searching, investigating and measuring, although the combination of modern science and ancient technology is fascinating and wonderful.
On the 2025 Moon Calendar you’ll also find a quote from Jean Houston ( Author and a founder of The Human Potential Movement that arose out of the counterculture of the 1960’s)
“ for the myth is the coded DNA of the human psyche calling us to reflesh the dream…it quickens the heart to its potential and prepares the ground for society’s transformation” Jean Houston - A Personal Mythology by David Fernstein and Stanley Krippner
I’ll be launching the 2025 Moon Calendar next month where you will get a chance to be the first to see them in all their magnificent colour-ways. They’re limited edition hand printed pieces of functional, collectible Art. www.erinmacairt.bigcartel.com
So to wrap up the first newsletter, thanks for reading …beautiFull Moon to you
Hwyl fawr
Erin
X
Psychonaut Bookclub reading list:
Gifts of Unknown Things - Lyall Watson
Way of Wyrd - Brian Bates
Conversations with the Z’s - Lee Harris
Of Water and the Spirit - Malidoma Patrice Somé
Foxfire Wolfskin and other stories of Shapeshifting Women - Sharon Blackie
Sleep, Deaths Brother - Jesse Ball
The Mist Filled Path - Frank MacEowen
The Secrets of the Talking Jaguar - Martin Prechtel
The Sorcerers Crossing - Taisha Abelar
Thanks for reading Erin’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Enjoyed a sit down and reading that through. Nice first post - and the reading list is very welcome :D
Canfas !!!! Bloody phone !