NeuroDivine

The first days of May feel like a blessing I can actually feel on my skin—soft air, bright light, everything finally opening out after the long drag of winter. In weather like this, my senses settle a little. The world feels more spacious, more possible.

With my birthday falling on Sunday, I’m hoping the good weather holds for a couple of days of bell ringing in Dublin—Christ Church Cathedral with its great ring of sixteen, and St Audoen’s with its six, including those three extraordinary bells from 1423. There’s something grounding about stepping into those ringing rooms: the ropes, the dust, the weight of history humming above my head.

Last week I had the chance to ring up the largest of the old bells in peal. There was a moment—just as it lifted into balance—when I felt completely aligned with it, as though my body and the bell understood each other. That kind of sensory clarity is rare for me, and precious. It felt like being part of a pattern older and steadier than anything I could name.

So this May, with sunlight on stone and the city warming around me, I’m hoping for more of that: the quiet joy of movement, rhythm, history, and sound. A birthday marked not by noise, but by resonance.