A St. Patricks Day Review

Do you know who St. Patrick is or what he actually did?

Do you use this day to be in ceremony or drink way too much Guinness?

I’m not here to rain on your parade, say don’t celebrate, don’t have fun, or pick apart every single thing you or I do as humans, but instead, invite you to look a little deeper into the holidays on the calendar that we, often unconsciously, celebrate, and bring some balance to the other side of the coin.

To me, it's not about NOT celebrating, but instead inviting more awareness, consciousness, and mindfulness around our ways of being, including the days on the calendar that we seem to think mean something. But they only mean what you make them mean.

If you want an excuse to get drunk and party, absolutely, go ahead, hats off to you.

If you want a deeper dive into the stories behind our modern days lives,

I invite you in.

Most people think St. Patrick was some form of Irish Saint and utilize today as a day to eat some corned beef and cabbage and get a little too drunk with some friends at the Irish bar downtown, feel a little “lucky”, “kissy”, and “Irish”, and pinch someone you’ve always wanted to pinch with the excuse that they’re not wearing green.

St. Patrick’s was not Irish, his nationality was actually Roman. He was born in Roman Britain (Present day Great Britain) to two parents or Roman descent. Being a 5th century figure, a lot of the “actual” story of St. Patrick is muddied and seen to be a bit more allegorical. At the age of 16 he was kidnapped by Irish pirates and held captive for 6 years. The story goes that one day he had a spiritual experience telling him it was time to leave and there was a boat waiting for him. He escaped his captivity and fled back home to his hometown and family, where he became a cleric and ultimately returned to Ireland as a missionary to share his teachings. He is often praised as the saint that converted Ireland to Catholicism, despite there being evidence of earlier Christian presence.

Many Christians see him as the “Saint that rid/saved Ireland from Evil" (a.k.a. The devil/paganism/heathenism).

The most well-known story of St. Patrick is the tale of the patron saint of Ireland chasing slithering reptiles into the sea after they began attacking him during a 40-day fast he undertook on top of a hill. Many historians have picked apart this legend 10x over, simply because there are no snakes in Ireland, there have never been, and geographically, it isn’t even possible. This conclusion has led researchers to assume that the tale is allegorical and the “snakes” St. Patrick is so praised for driving out, were the “pagans/heathens”, the traditional Irish groups, families, tribes that refused to give up their way of life for a religion that was thrust upon them by a foreigner.

I’m angry, and a little bit irritable writing this. I feel “wronged” in some way out of something I feel very much entitled to.

The feelings of “unjust-ness” have built over the past few years as I’ve taken deeper and deeper dives into the medicine world. Studying with medicines and ceremonies derived from ancient cultures stemming from Peru, Brazil, Guatemala, etc. has unveiled a deeper longing in me.

The longing of: “What about me?” “Where do I come from?” “Who am I?” “Who are my people?” “What are my people's medicines?” “What are my people's ceremonies?” "What is my lineage?"

I feel so incredibly blessed to have been received so warmly by so many other cultures, medicine peoples, tribes, and trusted to carry songs, medicines, and teachings from their lineages. As powerful as these teachings are, there's been an ache that I’ve been unable to shake, the ache of “Do I even know my people's stories?”.

And the following dread of HOW TF do I find them out?!?!

As this day comes and goes I feel different about it this year as I have before. I feel angry that with the coming of St. Patrick and Catholicism into Ireland, also came the wiping away, hiding, shunning, and driving out of many age-old traditions, practices, and cultures.

I’ve often heard the phrase “white people don’t have culture”.

The way I see it is a bit more like “Americans don't have culture”, at least not compared to that of current-day Latin America, Africa, India, Asia. I notice the romanticization of many American travelers with the “richness” of these other countries and cultures, without much acknowledgment for the ones in our own lineages that have been watered down in our ancestor's hopes of “creating something new”.

When many of our ancestors immigrated over to America from Europe in hopes for “a better life”, being driven out of their home countries by colonization, famine, religion, etc., the good majority were taught to submit and conform in order to fit in and be accepted, in this, was the letting go of many past traditions, practices, and overall richness and diversity of our cultures - possibly in hopes of stepping into creating something new, a new culture from the ground up, together, made up of a melting pot of humans (At least that's how America was originally sold as). As diverse as we originally aspired to be, much of America's "new culture" became shaped by power, fear, shame, and Christianity.

I had the privilege to travel to Ireland 2 years ago with some of my family.

I won’t ever forget the bodily sensation of being around large groups of other people who looked like me or how weirdly nourishing it felt to see others with my eyes, features, and coloring etc.

When I was there I was so excited to learn more about the traditional culture, the one before Christianity, first hand.

I saw a lot of the influence of Catholicism, pretty much everywhere, which I expected, yet I yearned to find others that represented my roots in a more metaphysical realm. I searched for people to talk to about leprechauns, fairies, ceremonies, medicines, elementals, Vikings, tribes, anything of an ancient tradition that took place in Ireland long before Catholicism took over. “Heathen” or “Pagan” culture some may call it. It was harder to find than I thought. Occasionally I would find some 90+-year-old drunk man in a bar who would be willing to whisper some fables in my ear, but overall, most people just wouldn’t talk about it.

By the grace of God, I somehow followed a rabbit trail that ended me up at an Irish potluck with a 30+ person family who had been in Ireland for 100’s of years. Their spit-fire 20-year-old twin daughters snuck me up into their room and started to open up their family books and tell me of their family's tales and why no one in all of Ireland would talk to me about what I wanted to know. They spoke about some of their relatives who don’t approve of them “practicing magic” or having access to some of the family books that spoke about the tales long before Catholicism. They taught me about Ireland’s current-day politics, the insane religious influence and control, and the long-lost history of their ancestors, and their dedication to keeping what they know alive. They sang me Celtic medicine music and took me to a number of ancient sacred sites around Ireland.

Today, I see St. Patrick as another white colonizer type who showed up to a country and thrust his beliefs upon them and drove anyone out who wouldn’t conform.

I also trust, that like Hitler, he thoroughly believed in what he was doing, that what he was doing was the right thing to do, and that he was actually saving others from evil.

I also see him as someone who was just doing what he wanted, what he believed in, and what he thought Spirit was telling him to do, and really, I wouldn’t want to ask anyone to do anything other than that.

And on a day meant to celebrate him and his “ridding of the evil” from Ireland, I choose to focus on all that was burnt away at his stake, all that was lost, and all, that from this point forward, I want to create.

Colonization has happened since the beginning of humankind, it happened then, and it happens now, it's happening with or without you, you can play the victim or you can play the sovereign. Which card will you pick?