Work has started on my next book

I have started on my next book. Actually, I started before Christmas, but put it to one side to allow the madness of Christmas and the excitement of solstice pass. I've no idea what it's going to be called yet, but what I can tell you is that it will be a collection of Irish myths explained in such a way as to make them relevant to the modern world and our current situation (as much as possible). I don't believe there's any point in merely continuing to tell the stories - as so many books and websites are doing so diligently and laudably. It is clear - and this is something I touched on quite a bit in the Newgrange book - that people are seeking to reconnect with ancient wisdom and roots. This new book aims to assist them in that task. Our myths are not mere stories, simple fireside entertainment. They venture into the depths of the human spirit, and represent aspects of ourselves and our humanity, and, in some ways, our flaws and failings as well as our genius and our brilliance. I believe that, in looking at the stories of the distant yesteryear, we can rekindle the ancestral aspect of ourselves that makes us uniquely who we are as a people, as well as reinvigorating our own inner spirits for the challenges of a frenetic and challenging 21st Century world. This book will be about bringing the Tuatha Dé Danann out of the sídhe and allowing them to become relevant to a modern Irish man and woman who have lost touch with earth and roots and cosmos. The late John Moriarty believed that we could reconstitute ourselves as a people by working from within our tradition. I agree with him. We are adrift, but we are not hopelessly lost. The fire in the head in each of us never burnt out . . . the emergence of the Tuatha Dé from the sídhe is symbolic of our return from a state of dormancy to a state of invigoration. We can stoke the ashes of the sacred fires of antiquity, and call upon the restorative powers of Diancecht, and the regenerative aspects of Bóann and Brigid, and the heroic aspects of Nuadu and Lugh and Cúchulainn and Finn to help us to become who we were supposed to be. We have a proud tradition. We have survived the invasions, the incursions, the gabála (takings). We are the same as the people who built Newgrange. They built it not only as an everlasting testament to their time, but also as an eternal reminder of the unvanquishable nature of our immortal spirits.

"Heaven is above us, and earth beneath us, and the sea is round about us. Unless the sky shall fall with its showers of stars on the ground where we are camped, or unless the earth shall be rent by an earthquake, or unless the waves of the blue sea come over the forests of the living world, we shall not give ground." (From The Táin)

Out of the obscurity of prehistory, a light has emerged . . .