Otherworld Wisdom
Irish mythology and altered states of consciousness
Once upon a time, a young woman drank from a well. But this was not just any well. Connla’s well, as it was called, was directly connected to a parallel dimension the ancient Irish called the Otherworld. Whoever drank its waters would also imbibe the vast, transcendent wisdom of this world, and the other.
But there was a cost.
One day, a young girl named Sinann drank from the well. What occurred in her mind, we won’t ever know. But what we do know is that as soon as she touched the iridescent waters to her lips, Sinann ceased to exist. Some say she was drowned as the well overflowed to punish her for transgressing a sacred taboo. But there are others who quietly claim that Sinann became the river goddess known as the Shannon–the longest river in Ireland.
The girl died, but a river was born.
This simple tale from Ireland could be five thousand years old. Its a story I imagine my own Irish ancestors would have likely known as it trickled down through the oral histories of an animistic, pre-Christian European culture, miraculously washing up on our modern shores in written texts several centuries ago despite nearly a millennium of English colonization.