Making Light: An Invitation… – by Kerri ní Dochartaigh
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In this poetic and profound episode of the Emergence Magazine Podcast, Irish writer Kerri ní Dochartaigh reflects on the interplay of light and darkness in a world marked by violence, ecological crisis, and personal grief. Drawing from her upbringing in Derry during the Troubles, she explores how darkness—both literal and metaphorical—can coexist with an enduring, resilient light. Through intimate personal stories, including her experience of pregnancy during the pandemic and a transformative visit to County Clare during the Celtic festival of Beltane, she redefines light not as absence of darkness but as an act of creation, connection, and love. The episode unfolds as a meditation on relationality, where making light becomes a radical act of holding—of human hands, hearts, and lives—amidst loss and rupture. It is an invitation to see grief not as an end, but as a doorway into deeper belonging with the living world.
Light is not the opposite of darkness but a response to it—made through love, presence, and relationality.
Grief and loss can be invitations to deepen our connection with all living things.
Making light is an act of holding: holding other hands, hearts, and lives in times of rupture.
The natural world—through seasons, myths, and celestial events—offers ongoing wisdom and protection.
Our humanity is defined not by separation but by interconnection: 'I am you, you are me, you and me are we.'
The Invitation to See Light in Darkness
“What if bearing witness to the changing form of the seasons can help us remember the many ways we are deeply interconnected with them?”
Growing Up in the Heart of the Troubles
“The brightness of that time was its own story. became a tale that took many of us who had grown in those times and showed us the way through.”
Light as Invitation and Relationship
“I first began to understand light as invitation the year I first fell pregnant. I first began to understand invitation as love.”
Beltane: A Festival of Fire, Protection, and Renewal
Kerri shares a vivid, sensory-rich account of celebrating Beltane in County Clare, weaving together myth, nature, and personal memory. She describes the mother’s ritual of placing a floral garland on her doorstep and the emotional weight of witnessing both global suffering and intimate joy in the same moment.
The Story of Making Light: Holding the World in Human Hands
“Yes, we won. Yes, we won. Look at all this light that we have made.”
“Yes, we won. Yes, we won. Look at all this light that we have made.”
“The brightness of that time was its own story. became a tale that took many of us who had grown in those times and showed us the way through.”
“I am you, you are me, you and me are we, and we are moss, we are lichen, we are acorn, we are oak...”
Host
Guest
Kerri ní Dochartaigh
person
Beltane
other
Derry
place
Pandemic
other
The Troubles
other
County Clare
place
Emergence Magazine
organization
Emmanuel Vaughn-Lee
person
Appalachian Mountains
place
other
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