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Sharynne MacLeod NicMhacha
Sharynne MacLeod NicMhacha is a Celtic scholar, shaman-priestess, and bard. Of Scottish, Irish, and Welsh ancestry, she is a direct descendant of Clan MacLeod, long recorded in ancient tradition to have connections with (and blood of) the Aes Síde, or fairy folk. Her ancestors include the Kings of Tara, the Earls of Ross and Moray, and the royal houses of Dalriada and the Picts, as well as Uther Pendragon, Anna Morgawse (sister of King Arthur), and Cormac mac Art. Through an ancestral lineage of poet-seers, she practices as a ban-fili and ban-druí in the Mag Da Chéo tradition of Alba (Scotland), ériu (Ireland) and Prydain (Britain).
MacLeod NicMhacha has studied Old Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Cornish, and Welsh languages and mythology through Harvard University, and has presented academic work at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, University College Cork in Ireland, the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, the Ford Foundation's Celtic Lecture Series, Smith College, and the Harvard Graduate Study Group on Ancient Magic and Religion. A faculty member of the Celtic Institute of North America, she has written feature articles for numerous magazines, and Harvard University Press and the University of Edinburgh (School of Scottish and Celtic Studies) have published her original research into ancient Celtic religion. She is the author of Queen of the Night: Rediscovering the Celtic Moon Goddess, soon to be followed by another work exploring the history of the divine feminine in Europe. She has also studied Andean shamanism with master shaman Don Martín Pinedo, and in that tradition has been granted the Rites of the Pampamesayoq, a shaman who specializes in rituals honoring the earth and the divine feminine.
For more than a decade MacLeod NicMhacha has been practicing and teaching Celtic spirituality and shamanism. Her spiritual tradition is based upon the native wisdom and practices of ancient Europe, her ancestral lineage, and the powerful teachings of Irish and Welsh wisdom texts. She utilizes sacred songs, prayers, and chants in the Celtic languages as a bridge to the otherworld, invoking a powerful memory of the wisdom we once knew. Her areas of expertise include ancient Celtic myth and ritual, shamanism, traditional Scottish folk magic, the original lore of Avalon, and early Pictish traditions.
In addition to her academic and spiritual training and teaching, she is a professional singer and songwriter in the modern and medieval Celtic languages, who plays a variety of woodwind and stringed instruments with the group Trouz Bras (traditional Celtic music of Brittany) and with the upcoming group Devandaurae (Celtic, medieval, and tribal/otherworldy music and songs). She also performed with The Moors (Celtic/medieval trance rock), whose 1998 release won Best CD of the Year in Boston (Noise magazine); received stunning press in the Boston Globe, the Boston Phoenix, and Guitar Player magazine; and had airplay in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Near East.
MacLeod NicMhacha was born in Canada on the eve of Lugnasad. |
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