Honor your ancestors, for you are the result of a thousand loves – Irish proverb

Weary of urban life after graduating from college in London, American-born Tara Brading joined a spiritual group cantered on Celtic Paganism, marking the beginning of her true calling as an educator, storyteller, and songstress who focuses on ancient feminine wisdom as passed down from sacred ancestors.

“My initiation onto this path began thirteen years ago,” she shares via email. “It felt like the land was calling me and wanted me to remember something important. While on a pilgrimage at Stonehenge, I felt the presence of ancient ancestors for the first time. What struck me most was a feeling of sacredness. The sacred ceremonial ways of life are often forgotten in our modern world.”

If the numbers are correct, our collective fixation with ancestry is on the rise, with more than twenty-six million people taking genetic ancestry tests since 2012 – the same year Brading began her own exploration into her past. Her journey involved much more than a standard DNA test, however.

“I felt a strong call to go to Ireland for an extended period. I had just left my job working for a reforestation non-profit and went on a deep-dive healing journey with my Irish heritage. After 2012, my life path went through many ups and downs, but my experience at Stonehenge never left me. The pilgrimage completely changed the course of my life and sparked the work that I do now, teaching ancestral feminine wisdom from Ireland and England.”

Ancestral feminine wisdom is a term Brading coined to describe the connection between the teachings of female forebears and sacred feminine insight that she believes offers healing and empowerment for women today. If recent trends are any indication, she is not alone in such assertions; exploration of the Divine Feminine as a method of personal transformation has become increasingly visible in recent years – more than a self-serving exercise, it is a natural and necessary next step to counterbalancing pervasive patriarchy.

“Many people are hearing the call of their ancestors at this time, and I have followed this with a deep commitment to sharing ancestral wisdom with others, especially women. This is a transformational time for humanity, in which predatory systems of supremacy are beginning to crumble and fall…”

Uncovering the sacred feminine, and in particular Celtic feminine wisdom, reveals a long and dark history of oppression against women – a lingering wound that Brading seeks to balance with her healing workshops and storytelling.

“Over many generations, every attempt has been made to cut us off from the powerful magic that flows down to us from our wise women ancestors. Those of us with Irish ancestry carry the intergenerational trauma inflicted by the Church and British Empire on women deemed unfit for society. Some were incarcerated in institutions known as the “Magdalene Laundries” run by the Catholic Church. But Ireland was not always this way. Éire was once a land that belonged to the goddess, and its ancestral feminine wisdom lives on in many ways, particularly in the mythology of the Irish goddesses.”

Brading has managed to transform her own personal journey into that of a metaphorical midwife, guiding other women to access and bring forth otherworldly insights during her seminars.

“My students and followers are primarily women who long to connect with their ancestral heritage. They have roots in Ireland and England and want to engage with spirituality in ways free from cultural appropriation and extraction.”

Over time, her work has risen above that of a mere messenger to that of a seer of sacred teachings, channelled through videos, songs, and in her classes.

“I feel passionate about women taking off the masks they wear and becoming the most authentic and sovereign version of themselves beyond the many roles they play in their daily life as a mother, daughter, wife, employee, employer, and so on. I seek to empower them to embrace aspects of their feminine self that have been buried, denied, or repressed so that they may feel confident and stand taller because of it. “

Similar to the hero’s journey in Joseph Campbell’s highly referenced study of the patterns of myth, Brading encourages a pilgrimage of the heroine – an undertaking that, while not without its challenges, ultimately offers profound rewards.

“It is not an easy path. It requires my full commitment, integrity, and devotion. This path spirals me into the deepest and sometimes darkest aspects of self and lineage so that I can revive precious medicine and truths that can then be shared. On the other side of patriarchal trauma is matriarchal medicine, and on the other side of ancestral pain is deep ancestral love. “

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