The sacred land of Ireland calls to us to connect to our ancestors, our spiritual selves, to the oceans that spiral within us.  She beckons me back again and again, is a part of my blood and my body, my heart and my soul.  I am honored to share with you what She has shared with me.

Death Reverence in Ireland

A Pilgrimage Journey

 October 12- 19, 2024: SOLD OUT

NEW WEEK ADDED: October 3-10, 2024

Our Irish ancestors walked with death in a way that has dramatically changed in modernity.  An understanding of how we as humans have honored death through the ages and how we have grieved, can offer wisdom for living, dying and grieving in these times.

Join us for a unique and reflective pilgrimage in the west of Ireland, deepening into the wisdom and traditions that these people have honored through the mists of time.  We will visit ancient neolithic sites of ceremony and burial, unconsecrated graveyards and do grave rubbings.  We will visit workhouses, where people often went to die, in hopes of a proper burial.  We will  learn about waking traditions and banshees, keening practices, and herbs and trees that carry us through these threshold times of death and grief.  We will ally an Irish goddess as a death guide for this time and beyond. 

Please note this is not a retreat to focus on your own grief process although we certainly will be delving into how our modern approach to death and grief is not serving us and discuss ways to honor these essential life transitions by learning from our ancestors.

Price: $1,895 

$200 single supplement (if you wish to have your own bedroom and bath)

Discount if you come with a friend/ partner and share a double/ queen bed: $150 discount each

INCLUDED: Accommodation in traditional Irish home, with shared bedroom and bath or in an Irish B&B (let us know if you are interested in this option).  We will be staying in Kinvara, a quaint seaside village in southwest County Galway vibrant with cafes, pubs, traditional music, craft shops and more.  Single occupancy en-suite available upon request for an additional single supplement fee of $200.  Self-catered breakfast will be included and one other meal per day (either lunch or dinner).  Also included: designated ground transportation within Ireland, site entrance fees, guides and ritual supplies.

NOT INCLUDED: Airfare and travel expenses to Ireland.  We will collect you on the arrival date (October 12 or October 3) in Galway City (if you fly into Dublin and you can take a coach to Galway) or Shannon Airport.  Also not included: travel insurance, one meal per day, dessert, all drinks including alcohol. 

To register, a $500 non-refundable (transferable) deposit can be paid HERE and the completed Tour Conditions (click HERE) registration completed (electronic signature is fine) and emailed to Tonja at tonjareichley@gmail.com.

More information is included in the Tour Conditions HERE.

Click here to register and pay $500 deposit.

Proposed Daily Itinerary (subject to change):

Day 1: Arrivals and collection at Shannon Airport or Galway Coach Station (for those coming from Dublin). We will get settled into our home for the week and have time for a rest, a walk to the sea or into the village.   In the liminal light, we will have our opening ritual at a sacred well tucked into the mystical hazel groves of the Burren and collect holy spring water to bless our journey.

Day 2.  After an easeful start to the day and morning ritual to meet our death guides, we will venture into the mystical Burren landscape where we will visit a sacred Neolithic site for rites of passage and death rituals. We will honor one of our death guides, Sheela na gig, in her native place, at an ancient Celtic church then visit a Celtic monastic site for grave rubbings.  We will honor the death of the day at a beach, collecting hag stones and watching the sunset before a life-nourishing feast at a local seafood restaurant.

Day 3:  We will greet the new day in sacred circle before we traverse into the misty wilds of the Burren.  We will chant with ancient echoes in an abbey and harvest herbs from the hedgerows.  We will explore hidden beaches, fairy forts, sacred springs and keen to the Earth, awakening ancient rhythms within and without. 

Day 4: We travel the short distance to Brigit’s Garden to explore the amazing Celtic Festival-themed gardens dedicated to this Goddess and Saint of Healing, midwife to life and to death, the first one to invoke the keen.  Then we journey into the blue mists, bogs and stark beauty of Connemara.  We will seek healing, honoring grief with the ebb and flow of life and death, from the sea and perhaps take a baptismal dip into her waters.  We will close the day, the death of the day which is also the beginning, in our ancient Celtic way of being, at the hearth with Compline.

Day 5:  After our ritual to begin the day, invoking our death guides, we will visit a place that has manufactured clay pipes, a token of Irish wakes and continue on to the famine museum, paying respect to the beloved dead from the genocide of our ancestors.  We will journey together to the place of an Irish workhouse and learn about the history of this shadow-side of our Irish ancestors and why they would have desperately sought these places.  We will have a quiet evening at home to integrate the gifts and wisdom of the week.

Day 6:  We will greet the new day in sacred circle before we traverse to the wild edges where we will visit a pilgrimage place and a grotto/ sacred spring/ holy well that holds healing for the living and the dead.  We will add our lights to the candles that are lit hereto honor the dead.   We will gather at the hearth in the evening to have conversation with a dear Irish friend who has kept funeral and waking rites alive to this day.

Day 7:  Gathering at the hearth, we begin the day together.  We will visit a cillin, a cemetery for unbaptized children and offer healing with our own keen. We will grieve with the earth and find joy and nourishment with the healing herbs that support this grief.  We will return home for a closing feast prepared in community!

Day 8: Departures.  Ever changed how we can live deeper, remembering how death has been revered by our ancestors and how we can ever live more fully in this life.

Your guides for this journey are Tonja Reichley and Charlene Ray

Tonja has been living in the seaside village of Kinvara, in the west of Ireland, for almost 20 years, connecting to the wisdom of the land and their sacred places: the holy wells and sacred springs, the beloved trees and hedgerow herbs.  She has been leading sacred journeys to Ireland for many years, weaving in myth, ritual and herbal co-creation.

Charlene divides her time between the beautiful  landscape of the Pacific Northwest of the US and her soul’s home, Ireland. She is a grief tender and student of the Art of Dying where she guides others to access their own inner wisdom in sacred relationships with the more than human world.