Lir
As in all folklore, Lir contains the message of inner healing & its attainment.
Its message is about the transformational power of prayer, inner & outer healing dealing with a collective trauma, one of the most difficult to heal, that of the mother wound…
For those, unfamiliar with the lore surrounding Lir, it is centered around a King, Lir & his beloved children. Fionnua was the eldest & her three brothers Aodh, Fiachra & Conn. Queen Aiobh, Lir’s wife had passed away shortly after birthing their last child, leaving King & the children devastated. Grieving & under pressure to provide the children with a mother figure, the king was advised to remarry, he chose Aoife, the sister of Queen Aiobh, who would become the children's stepmother.
Sadly the love & devotion King Lir pored upon his children proved too much, Aoife grew increasingly jealous, and with each passing day, resentment filled her, & became all-consuming. Although Aoife never admitted her feelings outwardly Aoife wanted to get rid of anything that stood between the king & her; even his children.
Believing her love was enough to sustain Lir, Aoife brought the children swimming to a nearby lake, watching as the children frolicked in the sun, she cast a dark spell transforming the children into swans they were instructed to spend three hundred years on Lough Derravaragh the body of water they were swimming in, three hundred years on the Sea of Moyle and three hundred years on Irrus Domnann, the only thing to break the spell, the sound of a Christian bell (clog).
The children of Lir were transformed by a dark force that took centuries to heal. The deepest wound one can inflict on a child is one cast by a matriarch; a female figure whose role on this earth is to love, nurture & protect, giving a child a solid foundation on which to grow & flourish. The mother's wound is a betrayal of the highest order & often the deepest. When a serpent bites poison is left in the wound & must be removed…
The emotional body, situated along our spine, or back & lungs, it affects how we see & perceive the present moment & based on the past which does not exist in the present moment if one achieves wholeness & worthiness. We are as beautiful & as pure as the children of Lir. What we carry is the emotional imprint, which can be removed; if it hasn't gone to far. Only you will know the answer to this with clarity. How are bodies anticipate the future, how we are in this present state. What do we have to look for.To release a key that only you can turn. the children now swans were allowed one saving grace; the retainment of their voices. For the next nine hundred years the children lamented in their sorrows & emotional turmoil; echoes of these songs are still heard on distant mountains & lakes where spent their days.
A Bards' role within a court was to transfer knowledge, for Bards were shamans, poets & creatives. They knew the impact trauma had on the physical, emotional & spiritual body, however, they also knew how to heal, hence the reason these stories were created for there is wisdom ingrained within them & that is what folklore is; the passing of wisdom.
Lir had magic as do we all however he was unable to break the curse. He turned his new bride into a moth, a creature of the night & banished her into the abyss for eternity as a message to all carrying dark magic; it would not be tolerated within his kingdom.
King Lir, cried bitterly for his children as the creator does for us. For whatever reason, the children were fated to become trapped it was their role on this earth to free themselves in this lifetime.
In Celtic tradition, the swan represents the soul, imbued within, purity & light.
A distinguishing feature of swans is their long necks, allowing them to dip deep below the surface searching the dark depths for food & sustenance. Healing works the same way, searching for the imprints that keep one chained to past events, pain has to be felt to be released.
Invisible ties often hold us back from our greatness. We can point the finger, blame, shame; memories all swimming together in a giant sea of emotional turmoil. Yet we can only heal ourselves it is no one else’s role. Sometimes there is a trigger, an event that changes our worldly view, & it is up to us to seize this opportunity & change.
Biblically the number three represents the divine, perfection in all that is, whole & complete, the father, son & holy spirit the body, soul & spirit. St. Patrick used a shamrock to illustrate the holy trinity when he & St. Bridgit brought Christianity to Ireland. The three bodies of water the children had to reside in held a key to cleansing the emotional imprint that past events had left.
Perhaps part of the children’s journey was to use their time on this earth to heal an element of the soul in all areas of their childhood, adolescence & adulthood so that when they eventually crossed the veil they did so for eternity.
The ties that bind, shared trauma…
A wound will never heal when picked it. A shared trauma as the children of Lir experienced left them unable to go beyond the hurt child, they never got to mature fully in areas such as adolescence or adult life & though they moved on the feelings associated with trauma such as shock & confusion never left. For centuries they sang the same haunting tunes, the retelling of the same story opening them up to the same suffering. Generational healing is the ability to look back and examine our heritage & that of our ancestors to break free from stories that bind. Though healing is a personal journey the children were able to support each other during this process for they were all on the same journey.
Nine is used repeatedly in folklore, it was then & still is a symbol of oneness in the universe for it is an all-encompassing number used to reflect the “I AM” " To achieve that the children had to go deep within to clear all areas of their consciousness. Swans can dip below into the darkness while staying present in the light the antidote for healing.
The final moment of freedom was the sound of a bell & the laying of hands, which is the healing power of the creator, & what true Christianity is about. The children of Lir had a second chance to live; beyond the veil. The sound of the clog had awakened them to the OM a frequency consciousness of space & light; god calling the children back to him.
When the monk heard the story of the children he laid down his healing hands upon them clearing them of the impurities that had held them hostage for centuries, redemption, the final act, the laying of hands, and the breaking of spells. The children received the last rites a Christian blessing for those in the final stages of their earthly life. The children always knew there was something more to their existence, they had a deep understanding that their plight was not in vain. Their father Lir had guided the children to the Cygnus constellation a point which gave them everlasting hope as the huge cross created from celestial stars shone brightly down upon them from the night sky; they were never alone.
The transformation into pure light is the emergence of the true untouched inner child, not the one cowering behind every addiction, & every story of pain and suffering.
*Bell
*June to November
Helena McGarvey © 2024
