Module 8
Mythology & Mysticism
To understand who we are, we are invited to remember where we come from.
For generations, the Irish have carried memory through myth, poetry, ritual, and song, traditions that have preserved belonging even through times of upheaval and loss.
In this session, storyteller and spiritual counsellor Erica O'Reilly guides us into Ireland's rich mythological and mystical heritage, exploring ancient stories, the Irish Otherworld, and traditions such as the Irish wake. Rather than approaching these as relics of the past, we engage them as living sources of wisdom that continue to shape identity, relationship, and our connection to the land.
Together, we explore how myth can awaken memory, deepen our relationship with ancestry and place, and reconnect us with dimensions of ourselves that modern life often overlooks. Through story, reflection, and shared inquiry, we cultivate a deeper sense of belonging, to ourselves, to one another, and to the living lineage of Ireland.
Erica O’Reilly
Erica O’Reilly is an Irish-Canadian storyteller, theatre artist, and spiritual counsellor trained in Depth Hypnosis.
Her work centres experiential storytelling as a way of exploring ancestral memory, artistic voice, and cultural belonging. Rooted within Irish storytelling and matriarchal wisdom traditions, Erica reverently honours the ways of the mná feasa (wise women), mná chaointe (keening women), along with the seanchaí (storyteller) and the Áes Dána (People of the Arts).
As Creative Visionary of Into the Circle Theatre and host of the podcast Into the Circle with Erica O’Reilly, Erica gently tends to the embodied threads between past and present through sacred storytelling gatherings, weaving invitations into Irish mythology, folklore, and the diasporic experience.