Oilithreacht Ollan/ Wool Pilgrimage
Artistic collaboration of Maria Tanner Cohen & Cynthia O' Hern.
In the month of May 2023, Éire, she blossomed.
The soft coronation of every ditch and field with Hawthorn flower (bláth an hUáth) and roadsides laced with white Cow Parsnip (feabhrán) intoxicated the air with untamed sweetness.
It was during May that artist Cynthia O' Hern and I came together in collaboration for the third time to create a new and expanded vision on the living landscape.
This time the land herself, a triad goddess who once presided over all acts of generation in ancient Éire would be central to the work.
This we would manifest by discerning three Neolithic sites that,when viewed from above, formed an inverted triangle over the land. The downward pointing triangle is the ancient symbol of the feminine, the downward flow of water, intuition, the unconscious mind, and the enclosing forces of the womb.
From three sites on the map of Éire we drew our desire lines in Isosceles alignment, joining the fissure Cave of Oweynagat, Co Rosscommon, Sliabh na Caillíghe in Loughcrew. Co Meath and Baurnadomeeny, Wedge Tomb in Co. Tipperary.
The past is present in the holy unconscious and so through the transformative power of art and the ritual landscape, we gave accent to the mysteries of pro - creation, the triumph of life, the sublime surrender of death through the soft medium of wool.
