At the Shoreline

Now that our son is older and is becoming increasingly interested in our practices, we are reintroducing the practices that we once kept with regularity. For us, it’s important to have a physical practice, on the land, in places that have become special to us.

So we gathered some offerings and set off to the lake, to visit Manannán mac Lir at the shoreline. We didn’t tell C too much in advance; he knows the Earth Mother and Brighid, so this was familiar to him, other than we were going somewhere else to visit a god. C tested his resolve by holding the apple for offering the whole way there and didn’t even try to sample it, a feat for a two year old.

When we arrived it was misty, and unusually so. It was if the place was waiting for us, to welcome us into liminality as we sought reconnection. We walked slowly through the mist, taking our time, letting C explore the plants and the grass and the shore.

Arriving at the tree, I walked out into the water with our offerings while my husband stayed on the shore with C. The cool air surrounded me, and all before me was white and wide and wet, almost too bright to see, and I whispered my words into the bark of the tree that stands between this place and the other.

Later at home, C snuggled into my lap before his nap. His custom is to yammer for a bit before falling asleep, and he talked about airplanes and excavators and whatever else was driving through his mind. Then, he said, “Mama get on a boat and see Mananananana Lir.”

…. “What did you say, honey?”

“Daddy no get on a boat. Daddy walk to him. Silly Mananananana Lir. He go on a boat. He say, yum yum yum. [signs *bird* repeatedly] He turn into a duck. He turn into this. [signs *bird* again]”

We had not mentioned waterbirds, or boats, and there were none to be seen. I could analyze exactly when C may have learned these things, but instead, I’ll choose to be welcomed back into our enchanted life.