Physical Setting & Preparation
Create a sanctuary within a sanctuary—perhaps in a corner of a room where you can arrange pillows to form a small enclosure, or outdoors beneath a tree whose branches create natural walls. Place two small objects before you: a sharp stone or thorn representing pain, and a tangled piece of yarn or chain representing suffering. Light two candles—one white for clarity, one dark for the depths you will explore.
Position your body as both temple and dwelling—spine erect like the central pillar of an ancient home, arms wrapped gently around your torso as if embracing the inner resident who lives with these experiences daily. Feel your breath as the only constant visitor to these internal houses, moving freely between chambers while you often feel trapped within them. Allow your nervous system to settle into witnessing mode—present but not identified, aware but not overwhelmed.
Opening Invocation | Fosgladh
A Mháthair na gcroíthe briste | Mother of broken hearts Téim isteach i mo thithe istigh | I enter my houses within Mo theach pian | My house of pain Mo theach fulaingt | My house of suffering Le do chomhairle ag teastáil | Needing your counsel
In this third day of July's burning intensity, when the external world blazes with abundance while internal landscapes may feel barren with old wounds, we turn our attention inward to the places where consciousness has built elaborate dwellings around hurt. Feel the paradox of summer's vitality surrounding the timeless chambers within your psyche where seasons never change, where old injuries keep their vigil like faithful guards.
Visualize your awareness as a gentle visitor approaching two houses that stand within the landscape of your mind—one built from the raw materials of authentic pain, the other constructed from the endless stories and interpretations that suffering weaves around pain's simple truth. Feel the Mother's presence as the ground upon which both houses stand, the earth-wisdom that knows how to transform even the most entrenched anguish into compost for new growth.
Body of the Working | Corp
In summer's relentless brightness, we explore the internal architecture of hurt—pian (pain) and fulaingt (suffering)—understanding how the mind creates elaborate dwellings for its wounds, and how the Mother's healing touch can transform even our most private anguish into sacred medicine.
Entering the House of Pain | Teach Pian
Step across the threshold into the first dwelling—your House of Pain, where raw sensation lives without story or interpretation. Here dwell the agonizing moments when life struck you with such force that your nervous system could only record the impact: the lightning-crack of betrayal, the crushing weight of loss, the searing burn of rejection or abandonment.
This house is built from honest materials—the body's truthful response to real wounds, the heart's authentic breaking under unbearable pressure, the soul's legitimate cry when something precious was destroyed. Feel how this dwelling has clean lines, simple architecture. The devastating experiences stored here do not lie or elaborate—they simply are, like scars on skin that tell the truth of old injuries.
Walk through these rooms with tender respect. Here lives the you who was genuinely hurt, who had every right to cry out, to bleed, to rage at the unfairness. This house serves a sacred function—it preserves the memory of real violation, real loss, real trauma so that wisdom can grow from the soil of authentic experience.
Tá an phian | Pain is Mar theachtaire fírinne | Like a messenger of truth Ag insint dúinn | Telling us Cad a tharla | What happened
Entering the House of Suffering | Teach Fulaingt
Now cross into the second dwelling—your House of Suffering, where mind has built elaborate additions onto pain's simple structure. Here live the endless stories about what the pain means, the interpretations that bind you to victimhood, the narratives that keep wounds fresh decades after they were inflicted.
This house has labyrinthine corridors where thought circles endlessly: "Why me?" "If only..." "I should have..." "They always..." Feel how this architecture multiplies and complicates pain's simple message, creating rooms within rooms of resentment, chambers of self-pity, towers of righteous indignation that reach toward the sky but never touch healing ground.
Notice how this house keeps expanding—each time you revisit the old hurt, suffering adds another wing, another story, another basement level where bitterness can hide. The original pain may have lasted moments, but suffering can extend it across lifetimes of brooding, ruminating, creating an identity around being the one who was wronged.
Yet even here, walk with compassionate awareness. This house too serves a function—the mind's attempt to make meaning from meaningless hurt, to create some sense of control over uncontrollable circumstances. The resident who lives here is not evil but confused, not malicious but lost in the maze of their own mental construction.
Is í an fhulaingt | Suffering is Pian móide scéal | Pain plus story Ach is féidir | But it's possible An scéal a athrú | To change the story
The Deep Working | An Obair Dhomhain
Descend now into the basement shared by both houses—the foundation where all personal hurt rests upon the deeper ground of universal human experience. Here you discover that your individual houses of pain and suffering are built upon the vast bedrock of collective human anguish, connected by underground passages to every heart that has ever been broken.
In this depth, feel yourself as both isolated in your unique hurt and connected to the endless stream of beings who have known similar wounds. Your pain is both utterly personal and completely universal, both special and ordinary, both yours alone and shared by countless others across time and space.
Feel the Mother's presence as the ground itself—the earth-body that has received the tears of every wounded creature, that has absorbed the blood of every sacrifice, that has composted the suffering of countless generations into the rich soil from which new life springs. She neither minimizes your hurt nor enables your suffering, but offers the deepest comfort: the knowing that your anguish is held within something larger than itself.
Sa domhain | In the depths Tá ár bpian ar fad | All our pain is Mar abhann amháin | Like one river Ag sileadh | Flowing Isteach i bhfarraige | Into an ocean Na trócaire | Of mercy
In this sacred basement, begin the work of renovation. Not demolishing either house—for both serve their purpose—but allowing the Mother's healing presence to flow through every room, every corridor, every hidden chamber. Feel how her touch doesn't eliminate pain but transforms our relationship to it, doesn't remove suffering but reveals its voluntary nature.
Breathe the basement air thick with the wisdom of wounded healers throughout history—those who transformed their deepest hurt into deepest compassion, their greatest wounds into their greatest gifts. Feel yourself being initiated into this ancient lineage of those who know that the path to healing leads through rather than around the houses of pain and suffering.
Afterthought | Smuain Dheiridh
Take a moment to contemplate:
Which house do you visit more often—the clean truth of your pain or the elaborate maze of your suffering? What would it mean to become a skillful architect of your inner landscape, honoring authentic hurt while refusing to build permanent monuments to resentment? How might the Mother's healing presence transform these dwellings from prisons into teachers?
Closing Blessing | Beannachd Dheiridh
Go raibh an Mháthair leat | May the Mother be with you I do theach pian | In your house of pain Agus i do theach fulaingt | And in your house of suffering Go dtí go bhfoghlaimeoidh tú | Until you learn A bheith ina gcuairteoir | To be their visitor Seachas ina gcónaí ann | Rather than their permanent resident
Slán go fóill | Farewell for now
Feel the midsummer sun as healing light that can penetrate even the darkest rooms of your inner houses. Know that you are both the architect and the resident, both the wounded and the healer, both the prisoner and the key to your own liberation. The earth beneath you holds space for every form of human anguish while never losing faith in the possibility of transformation.
Rise when you are ready, carrying the understanding that your houses of pain and suffering are not your permanent address but temporary shelters on the journey toward wholeness. You are more vast than any dwelling your hurt has built, more resilient than your deepest wound, more powerful than your longest-held resentment.
This was an amazing and beautiful meditation that I sorely needed…..💖
Beautiful imagery and process.