Lios Dana (pronounced LIS DAWNA) Dolphin Spirit Gate is a place for transcendent living, learning and being.

Located in the hills of southwest Ireland on the Dingle peninsula overlooking Inch beach, this stunningly beautiful land has been the destination for spiritual seekers for a quarter of a century. Irish for Fort of the Bold Warrior Artists, Lios Dana was created and lovingly nurtured under the stewardship of Anne Drechsler and Michael Travers. Through the years we have been a destination for a community of people seeking deeper and deeper health, connection, knowledge and spirituality. Now undergoing a rebirth and renewal, you will find Michael Travers and Eve Bruce lovingly holding this sacred space in service of the land.

On a hill overlooking Inch strand, the dunes, Dingle Bay and the Atlantic Ocean ~ here you will find tranquil gardens surrounding a beautiful cream colored home with floor to ceiling ocean views. Out from the beach, in the bay, you will find pods of dolphins playfully holding space. Dolphin is a strong totem for both Michael and Eve, and you will feel the presence of the the spirit of the dolphin strongly here, holding sacred space and providing much healing and wisdom to those open to their energies.

A perfect place to relax, rejuvenate, and renew. Walk the hills.  Connect with the land, sea and sky. Meditate and study. Eat your fill of delicious and nutritious fare, the bounty of the Earth. Connect with kindred spirits. Watch the birds, the sheep, the dolphins. Swim and surf. Listen to spirit. Send out your intention and prayers at the standing stone and holy well. Hold ceremony in the faerie circle. And simply BE.

Our internationally known workshop facilitators will guide you as you empower yourself in finding and following your true dreams for yourself, your community, and for all our relations.

We look forward to connecting with you,

Blessed Be,

Michael and Eve

_____________________________________________________________

AT LIOS DÁNA

a poem for Michael Travers by Jay Ramsay

1

The silver thread of water that led us here,

Along the edge of this peninsula

______________________________________into the light

Become this vast sheet

Of white-cresting breakers,

Silver-grey as we gaze down

_________________________________onto the sea

And at the mountains beyond it,

Lit briefly in sun…

As you speak of that school of dolphins

Suddenly erupting there

Leaping, splashing and circling

Out of the water—

As I glimpse them invisibly

__________________in the light of their colour

And this vast sky opens

__________________________under the rugged reach of land

And the wide, three mile bow of the sand

Fronts the hummocks of dunes

Embroidered in green…

Like a giant semi-colon

Where the sea of the Self begins:

__Ocean, reaching in, wave after wave

In the liquid hiss of its breaking whisper

__Ocean where the cloud’s reaching down like mist

Becomes the sea it blends in

__Ocean, where the mountains shrouded in mist

Trace their outlines in the clouds

____________________________________they vanish in…

Ocean as I closen

As the waves roar, and I stand

Reduced to the infinite

In the silence of Your Enormous embrace

Broadened everywhere

___________________—around my head, and off my shoulders—

So that the smallness of my voice is absurd

Inside the purity of Your Silence

Beside dolphin sounds, whale sounds…

___________________________________________and broader still

Broader even than mountains,

___________________________________or sea

Broader than all form

________________________or name

___________________________________Ocean become a circle

_________________________________in the Omega of its embrace.

2

Evening falls, and the clouds part sheer

The light gleaming across the sea’s dove-grey

After the rain at its height

Emptying, beating down

On the glass roof above our heads

_________________________________________saying listen

(Three times it came—

Drowning our conversation)

As I found my eyes closing,

As it spoke inside me

And through its streaming

______________________________beyond the windows

Three black posts, like waiting figures

Out there on the beach, unmoving

Standing in the rain, and choosing to—

As I half expected one to stir

Or raise its arms…

As I walk out now

____________where the track crosses the swollen stream,

Seeing the the sea glimmering like quicksilver

Smaller, calmer, spent of wind now

—the moon peeping behind a cloud—

As I reach the five chipped bars of a white gate,

And lean over it—

The lights winking on the farther shore

Until they peter out, further down

As the mountains become cloud

And further out, where there’s only the sea’s mirroring

Where the light has broken

_____________________________and opened

And for a moment

___________________—for as long as the air feels to be—

The clouds pause completely still

And all speech within me is still,

Raised above the wet shadow of the ground

And just as I reach silence

____________________________the moon rides out

With its aureole emblazoned against the cloud

Red-tinged, like a wild eye of seeing

As the birds teeter on the edge

Where edge is meeting

Where the waves blend with their shoreline,

And the wet sand is the stillness

Of the waves having broken,

And breath, it says breathe, and the whole air is feeling

Feel all you feel, let the clouds come, the rain come

And the  after-light that follows them—

Let the moon shine as it is shining now,

In its clear darkening blue midnight sky:

Let a higher will be done.

3

Cloud over the mountain

_______—a buzzard, and then a lark—

The buzzard stretching its hovering wings,

And dipping down

The lark rising between the phone wire’s staves

And the mountain, mauve-grey, mauve mainly:

Its unclimbed, unscaled summit  

The I where no one wants to go

Where even the gates up the path stand closed

And where, that way, there is nowhere else to go—

Over those gates, but inward, inland from the ever-changing sea.

Jay Ramsay 20-22. 4. 94 (improvised on tape)/ 19. 5. 97. Lios Dana & Greenhouse Barn,