Embracing Wonder and Ancient Wisdom with Sharon Ní Chuilibín – Episode 59

Ever wondered how connecting with nature can lead to profound inner transformation? This episode of Resonate, featuring Sharon Ní Chuilibín, will show you just that. Together, we explore how moments of wonder and cosmic energy can realign us with our true selves. Sharon’s vivid descriptions and insights into ancient Irish sites and traditions reveal the historical and spiritual significance that can enrich our lives with creativity and fearless authenticity.

This episode also brings to light the universal threads of devotion and healing found in Sikhism, Sufism, and traditional Irish music, celebrating an inclusive approach to spiritual growth.

Find hope and beauty amidst challenging times with Sharon’s healing energy, shared through her music, and learn how to connect with her work for further healing and self-discovery.

Connect with Sharon:

Website:  www.soulcompass.ie

Instagram: @rivers_of_eternity

LinkedIn: @sharon-ní-chuilibín2022/

Aideen Ni Riada: 0:02

Welcome to the Resonate podcast with Aideen. I’m Aideen Ni Riada, and my guest today is Sharon Ni Chuilibin. Hello, Sharon, and welcome.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 0:10

Thank you for having me here, Aideen.

Aideen Ni Riada: 0:11

It’s great to have you here. I’m going to read a little from your bio just to let people know a little bit of your background, and I’m really excited to get into a juicy conversation with you about soul and creativity and music and connecting to the deeper energies that we have available to us through nature and life. So Sharon is a mother, artist, singer, songwriter, teacher and intuitive healing facilitator based in County Mayo on the wild Atlantic coast of Ireland. She helps people to connect with Irish language and cultural heritage and facilitates healing through soul realignment, kundalini yoga and meditation, creativity and original music. She can help you experience more energy and joy as you live in a way that is aligned with who you are at a soul level. Thank you, sharon, for being here. Tell me a little bit about this soul level, because it sounds to me like, when people aren’t aware of what that might be, that they may not be experiencing life in as much joy as they could. How do you explain soul level to people?

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 1:34

Thanks, Aideen. It’s great to dive right in on the deep level from the beginning.

Aideen Ni Riada: 1:40

Give you the hard question first.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 1:41

Yes, so I guess if you’ve ever stood looking at at the ocean and just the vastness of that ocean, and you might imagine yourself standing there with the waves coming towards you and your feet on the sand beautiful spaciousness and vastness and expansive space that’s there in front of you, looking out as you do, if you’re standing at the west coast of Ireland, and um, so, so much of who we may think we are in our minds and who we’re told we are, and when our culture, through its limiting filters, projects upon us as human beings is contrary or undermining the reality of a human in that vastness of our, first of all, our connection to the energy of the cosmos, of the, the source, energy that we are part of, which people call God, goddess, that pushes through each flower, that makes all that we eat, that nourishes us, and it’s become ever more clear that the trajectory of Western civilization has been moving away from that, so that, beyond naming, beyond gender, beyond limitation, that abundance of energy that is born and present in us as the moment we’re born, just, humans are incredibly powerful and we innately, in our intrinsic being, can be creative, playful and and fearless. There’s so much that conditions us into limitation, but if we know ourselves as part of Source, as part of God, the Divine, without the filters of culture, or maybe people hear that word and think of religion, but it’s an innate capacity. We are beautiful and so, to answer your question, I’m just trying to set that contrast between our experiences that we have of the awe and beauty of all creation of nature and maybe to put it in context. The ancient Greeks and Plato would write about this understanding of nature being the handwriting of God. And it’s there in, for example, in the ancient medical system which would have been now known as herbalism, I guess, where there is healing in nature present for us. But it’s also the doctrine of signatures, how plants and herbs actually appear, like what they can heal, like you can read into, like nature speaks to us and I’ve experienced that myself. That’s where I find my wonder and enchantment and joy and my life. In the ideal days and this is most days, I’m not glad to say I like to get up really early, in the dark, if I can, and be there for the sunrise, and witnessing that moment and the sunrises is so precious and there is a sense of each day is like a whole life, each breath when the sun rises, the light first of all there’s the hint of light and then the slivers of light come through and it’s incredible that we have that energy flowing through to us here on this planet have been used to divide people from themselves and for a lived experience of the wonder of source, of God, of creation that we are a part of, is today perhaps an urgent topic for recognizing that that’s the stumbling block, if someone says, the different boxes people put each other ourselves into, whether it’s through our inherited legacies of culture and language, our perceptual capacities being atrophied through our uses of technology, our education systems lacking the framework through which to even experience and perceive reality as it is unfolding in every moment. We know that native cultures, there is only the now.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 7:10

In Native American one, reading recently, the sense that this is now and the wonder that is in each moment, if we’re not living in trajectories and narratives that were established, like if we’re able to be present with the eyes, through the eyes of a child, really, I suppose, is what we come back to as well. So I was saying that quality of soul can be creative, playful. That quality of soul can be creative, playful. There’s a sense of wonder and joy. That’s who we are.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 7:58

So, yes, I suppose, peeling back, that we’re talking about All that takes us out of life and life force, energy, all that atrophies our capacity to experience ourselves as part of all creation and, I suppose, part of my anim. In Irish there’s the word anim, which is like the word name. Anim also is the word for soul. But when you come to stand in some ancient places in Ireland, stand in some ancient places in Ireland. I’ve stood in the dark of Dúch, which is near Newgrange. It’s aligned with the setting sun on the mid-winter solstice and the incredible presence that’s in these ancient places. The knowledge that in a way, there is no death when there’s the vastness of the cosmos as your altar, in a way that we are part of such a wondrous universe and the space of wonder itself is an attribute of the soul, because we are at that threshold, ever, at that threshold of becoming and being and experiencing.

Aideen Ni Riada: 9:43

So I wanted to just to to speak to that, if that’s okay from the point of view of a practical, I’m just standing here and what you’ve been saying, in all of what you’re saying, which sounds like a very, it’s like a high bar, that when you say it with such beauty and connected with, with the energies of, like the ocean and with the sacred places, but in a practical way every single day, how does you, how do you connect with your soul? And you’re saying, through wonder, through seeing what’s right there in nature, through noticing the sun rising or setting, and I just love that. That’s very accessible. What are the other ways that you would say make this soul, whether you are in a city or whether you are, you know, uh, surrounded by, by, you know, lots of kids that you’re looking after, how do you practically help someone to feel that wonder in their everyday life?

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 10:58

well, I suppose on a physiological level, getting very practical, um, being able to calm the nervous system and being able to breathe deeply in meditation practice breathing practice and can help to slow things down, to be able to connect with that sensitivity that we can have and our capacity to listen.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 11:31

And I suppose it leads to listening to ourselves, to our inner wisdom and to that infinite part of ourselves that knows, that knowing part and that takes the capacity to really quieten things down and step away from the distraction and the bombardment of stimulation and those cycles of trying to achieve belonging externally, to find ourselves at home in ourselves and connect with that abundance.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 12:07

That’s a kind of it’s like this image of we’re sitting on a gold mine, we’re sitting on the chest of jewels of our own brilliance, our own capacities that many of us be conditioned to being distracted from. And I remember when I started doing meditation um, so I teach kundalini yoga meditation as well but it started like a small amount of time which felt like like three minutes was like god, I had so much time, and then I filled it to 11 minutes. But then now I’d be like isn’t it lovely to think that I’d rather sit and meditate rather than watching something distracting my mind that you become so grateful I am for this spaciousness and it’s a kind of clearing and offloading of the burden of the subconscious mind or thought, or all the thousands of thoughts from the blink of an eye that we release, being able to create space for for ourselves, for a deeper wisdom within can I ask you where you first connected with that, that form of meditation um, and how that changed your life, where you were before and what was?

Aideen Ni Riada: 13:27

how did that affect the person you are now?

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 13:33

I suppose I’ve always been someone. I was influenced greatly by my father actually, who’s from Rossport in the West, in the Gaeltacht, and he grew up with Irish and he would talk to the trees and you know we really love nature, so there was a sense of a presence being there and he awakened my eyes to the wonder of that sense as well, so I would have been able to appreciate the stillness and the beauty around me. But I went through times in my life where I had very difficult periods. I had to leave my daughter’s father and, I suppose, being able to slow down when someone’s in a response of being, if someone is traumatized, it’s like you can be just speeding up and doing a lot and not able to plan for the future, not able to regulate emotions, being overwhelmed by emotions. So I’ve experienced intensely painful emotional stuff. For a long time I was the person who would call people up like and just just couldn’t, just couldn’t do another thing, just so much pain, because I’d be very sensitive person and I’d be quite empathic. So I didn’t have the tools, um, and I suppose, though as well I have to mention that came through me, through, through dreams. So I I was in art college and, um, I had a dream in which my friend of mine in the class died very gruesomely and, uh, I was so upset. I went and told her and, long story short, she’s working with this man who’s a healer in Dublin, and then George Rattigan. Then I started going to him and part of his methods is re-entering dreams and understanding these images and that relation to the internal life, I suppose really took off through his influence as well. It was over 20, 22 years ago now.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 15:53

And then in I found Kundalini Yoga. I think it was 2011 or so. I was living in Kinsale 2011 or so I was living in Kinsale before that anyway, just, it was just such powerful medicine because you work with the body in a very intense way. So if you’re somebody who’s experiencing intense emotions and your nervous system is kind of out of whack, it’s like it gives you a format to meet yourself with all your stuff and gives a pressure cooker experiences to transform what you’re coming at. And then the meditative part. For me there’s also the mantras, the use of sound music that came through that practice that has opened up so much for me through I suppose it’s the lifestyle and the teachings of the Sikh Gurus as well. I’ve really resonated with. I really resonate with.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 17:06

I practice Japji in the mornings of Guru Nanak, who is Nanak means no-nos, being very humble. So it’s this absolute spirit of devotion to the divine. And there’s just so much medicine in the Gurbani that the language is in talk about the Nād. So the language is in a vibration that affects our consciousness, so when you chant it, when you speak prayers, that it also releases these chemicals in our mind and that helps you physiologically to experience these heightened states. But it’s a technology for all of humanity. It’s not like a meant to be just for a few. It’s there, available for us and I I suppose I came and I’ve answered the question a very roundabout way, but I came as well through.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 18:13

I’ve been very interested in world music and different cultures. So I studied ethnic musicology for a master’s and looked at Shanno singing. So I was very drawn to the Qawwali music of Pakistan, the Rumi, the Sufis and that space of the idea, of the word and vibration and sound. So I had this feeling of how Shannos, the traditional Irish singing house, similar to the Indian traditions, the Carnatic music and the in Islam. I would have listened to a lot of Middle Eastern music as well.

Aideen Ni Riada: 18:58

So that feeling of a one culture of devotional, you know being intoxicated by the presence of the divine in every moment, really it’s so beautiful, it’s wonderful to hear that you’ve had such a rich, you know kind of influence on your music and that it’s so, I would say, interdenominational. It’s so um, I would say interdenominational, it’s so inclusive. And I know that not everybody um is aware of how, um, how supportive other spiritual traditions other than maybe the one they’ve grown up with. And you mentioned earlier how we are, all you know, have our cultural identity. We have our identity around. What is, what is a support to me? But what you’re saying right now is that you were able to allow in supportive spiritual energies and guidance from very different traditions than what you would have grown up with. Does that come from your openness, like that real? You know that, you know I’m, I’m in wonder, so wonder allows me to open up more rather than close in more or be specific in my approach.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 20:24

Well, I’d say Aideen. It comes from suffering and from really studying and researching and exploring and calling in prayer for guidance and for help. And I feel when we call for help, it does come different forms. I am also very much. I think that the presence of Christ, of Iasa, is incredibly underestimated in our world. I think I have this song that came to me rest your heart in Jesus. But it’s that sense that he’s alive and he’s present now. So many people are waiting for him to return. He’s here and there’s two people remembering he’s here with us. He’s here with us now, with your listeners, in this moment, and I feel the spiritual richness and the healing that’s present through Christianity.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 21:34

It’s a very great tragedy of how much it’s been distorted and so many people have, as I say, thrown the baby out with that bathwater. You know Catholicism and what’s happening. This is a very big topic to get into, but I feel that sometimes it’s very sad. It’s like people playing football teams, religions you know, I’m this, I’m that. But God, if God is in all of us and ever present and has never forsaken us and ever present and has never forsaken us, and when we ask for help, it’s presently there for us to remember to pray, to call for help and guidance and whatever religion you have been raised in, even to just remember to ask for help. And I feel, though that’s a whole other conversation, looking at how people’s capacity to perceive and experience and appreciate and receive the spiritual help that’s present to us, how that’s been maybe atrophied or influenced in unserving ways, I feel there’s the balance between the masculine and the feminine in a sacred recognition of the neutrality of the soul that dwells in all of us. I think that’s a good starting point. We’re talking of soul if we recognize that energy is not destroyed. It is only basic law in science. It transforms from one form to another.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 23:23

When we look at nature, every tree gives, when it’s mature, many hundreds of seeds. There’s so much abundance of that creative capacity. But when it’s recognized in the perception of, so, if we move out of, if it’s possible to come with me this, moving out of the linearity that we’re so entrenched in to perceive the eternity, what is eternity? And when you look at the capacity of each generation of, say, an oak tree, if it’s not tampered with genetically or whatever, that it, that it produces its acorns, if its environment is there, that that, in that acorn that you hold in your hand. It contains untold generations of oak and there is a capacity and there has been in nature of that vastness of perpetuating from the ancient times through to now.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 24:30

It holds the seed of tomorrow, but everything is present in this moment, in that seed too, and when humanity has lost the capacity of wonder and the capacity to uphold the conditions for infinity, both within ourselves and within how we operate on the planet, that’s, in a way, could be seen as a symptom and as a consequence of that distortion that’s happened in how we perceive ourselves as soul and how the place of God or as the divine within all of us became a tool for oppression and control and domination and division within the human family. So that’s a lot. There take another conversation to go into that.

Aideen Ni Riada: 25:29

And it’s quite prickly as well, because you have to remember everyone’s sensitivities well, it’s interesting within that, as well as the idea of the identities that we ascribe to. You know that we choose to believe that you know this is important or that’s important, or the fact that my you know, my sibling is this political party versus my political party, or, like we’re often choosing so many limiting um beliefs about ourselves and those around us. What would you say on a practical level, would help someone, um you know to to identify some of that and start teasing those things out a little bit um for themselves, because, as as you said before we came on it’s an individual journey. We need to also work on these things within our own life, our own thoughts, our own small interactions on a daily basis yeah, absolutely.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 26:46

Um, so you’re asking me, what are the practical level actions? Actions to bring kind of spiritual perceptions home to how we are with one another? I suppose, if we can remember the, there’s this. I suppose it comes from working in groups as well, where you have the sense of a field of energy that’s bigger than any one person, or bigger than the group themselves, or even in our conversation, that there’s a third presence. This is what.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 27:22

So, being able to attune oneself to acknowledge that as well, rather than getting entrenched in the duality of self and other or the tension of conflict, to acknowledge the witnessing presence and the compassion that can be invoked through that, and also acknowledging the humility in that we don’t know what we don’t know.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 27:56

The humility in that we don’t know what we don’t know and that sometimes the capacity to actually allow for that unknowing is a portal to wonder and other solutions.

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 28:08

So to be able to sit with the not knowing as well, which is a very difficult thing to do in a culture that’s maybe often one person trying to demonstrate power over another to convince them there’s a tension in that. Yeah, so being able to honor the unknown and, through that, access our genius, maybe that is more than the sum of our parts, whether it’s two people talking, whether it’s a couple, whether it’s a group of people, being able to honour that. And you know, I think it’s becoming ever more important to have a space for that, the unknown, maybe even the unknowable, but that there is more than just us and our little. Important to have a space for that, the unknown, maybe even the unknowable, but that there is more than just us and our little. We think we know, but there’s such a vast amount of other perspectives, other valuable knowing that might be able to access us if we’re able to give it space, yes, and the thing that’s coming to my mind is how to sit in any moment and wait rather than react or respond quickly.

Aideen Ni Riada: 29:32

because that’s what’s happening is, we’re in a pace of life where we’re responding quickly and other and technology responds so quickly to us that this pace seems to be relentless. But to be able to see the unknown in a situation, to be able to sit with someone and hear them out and not expect something and not have a response prepared in your own mind, that’s a big ask for most people and I think it will take um, um, practice of being present, practice of breathing in a situation when you’re with others, um, because even in the way that you tend to speak, you have a lot of patience with the moment. You you don’t tend to rush in with your words, and I’m wondering if the listeners could apply that in a situation, a practical situation of their lives, and see the value of that to pause, maybe, breathe, listen, and what would you say to someone who’s in that exact moment? What do they need to keep that ability to stay there and not, you know, filter back into the old pattern?

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 31:06

those visualizations are great and remembering to. I sometimes like to feel my feet on the ground or just imagine the vastness of space, even if you’re indoors, just suddenly let all the walls fall down and just feel that spaciousness. Let it be big enough to hold whatever emotion, whatever stuff you’re dealing with. Let it go on and on to be a very big space and take a breath and then return. That could all happen in the blink of an eye, just to come back and allow yourself that bigger container. Because we know that when things are, when we’re feeling tight and tense, it’s often that pressure of you don’t have enough space, so allowing it all to just diffuse, and just for a moment.

Aideen Ni Riada: 32:00

It’s beautiful. We’re coming to the end of our conversation and I just have so loved your perspective. There’s so much depth in it and so poetic in the way you speak. Now, I’m just grateful for that, and I’d like to thank you on behalf of the listeners for the, for the ways that you’ve made it practical for them to be able to work with what you were saying. Is there anything else that you’d like to say to the listeners before we wind things up in a few minutes?

Sharon Ní Chuilibín: 32:38

able to give permission for your intuition to guide you and to know that you are loved as a child of the universe. It’s really like there’s so much. I know we’re in a very, very dark time and the planet it seems, but there’s also so much beauty in the world and in ourselves, so much potential, so being able to anchor into that deeper wisdom a greater space for it in your life, to just listen.

Aideen Ni Riada: 33:34

I’m so grateful to you Sharon, for coming onto the podcast today. I feel a lot of healing energy coming through this conversation. We will be um giving you listeners the um access to Sharon through her website, and she has amazing music that you can access as well. I’ll be putting some links in the show notes. Thank you all for listening. Thank you, Sharon, for being here and goodbye from us today. Thanks, thank you.