NOTE: My book, With Your Spirit Guide's Help -- A Metaphysical Travelogue, ends in August 1996. The following events took place two months later. Desiring to avoid any further karma with the Irish promoters mentioned in this diary, I use the words "sponsors" rather than their personal names. Also, a  shorter version of the segment about the sweat lodge in the Wicklow Mountains originally ran in Soaring Spirit #65, titled, "Journey Sticks & Sweat-Lodge Visions."

Road Diary:
Fun and Fiascoes
in the British Isles
By Dick Sutphen

Saturday, October 26: The flight from Dublin to Shannon, Ireland -- east coast to west coast -- is a short hop across a small island. From the air, even on this gray overcast day, the famous forty shades of green appear to me an artist's exaggeration. Chartreuse fields are contrasted by hunter-green forests. Stone walls divide the land into a crazy quilt of value, intensity and hue.

Over the loudspeaker system, the captain speaks first in English, then in Gaelic. I squeeze Tara's hand in response to the mystical language. We are returning to the Emerald Isle for the second time this year. Our first trip was for research and pleasure. This trip is to appear at the first Galway's International Holistic Health and Healing Festival.

Landing at Shannon Airport, to our surprise, no one wants to see our work permits. Having cleared customs in London, Tara and I simply walk out of the airport where a young woman named Jacinta greets us with big hugs. "Welcome to Ireland. The festival sponsors sent me to pick you up."

Jacinta quickly retrieves her Mercedes, we load our luggage and are off to Galway -- 60 miles north at high speed on narrow roads. Our driver is a pretty blond with pixie hair and an outgoing personality. I guess her age to be late twenties. After some getting-to-know-each-other small talk, I ask her about the Irish response to the local New Age movement. Jacinta explains that the New Age is just dawning in Ireland. The Catholic Church is currently riddled with scandal, and there are indications that people are beginning to open to new spiritual ideas for the first time in centuries.

"Is Paganism openly accepted then?" I ask.

"Oh, no," she says. "The church has done too good a job of putting down the Celt's religion. The New Age would be far more acceptable than Paganism in Ireland."

I don't mention that most Pagan ideas have been integrated into the New Age movement. Marketing success results from packaging and promotion.

Clare Hills Bed & Breakfast is located at 4 Threadneedle Road, Salthill, Galway -- a half block from Galway Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. We arrive to find that the festival sponsors were not clear about the reservations. We do not have a room waiting, but hostess Detta Carroll insists that they give us their son's room, so we can stay with the other festival speakers. We don't want to put their son out and ask about other places to stay.

"Just sip some tea and visit with Jacinta, while we prepare the room," Detta says.

The room is tiny, the bed is narrow and we'll have to live out of our suitcases, but we're grateful to be here. After traveling nearly 24 hours with only two hours' sleep between Los Angeles and Galway, we're exhausted and fall into bed as soon as it is ready.

Sunday, October 27: At 9 AM (midnight in Los Angeles) we wander into to the breakfast room. Although we slept ten hours, I'm jet-lagged to the point of wanting only to go back upstairs and sleep some more.

Ambrose, the B&B proprietor, is a friendly little man of retirement age, who hums and sings while serving us a typical Irish breakfast of eggs, back bacon, sausages, yogurt, and fresh-from-the-oven whole-grain bread. We savor the meal, but if we ate like this every day we'd be butterballs with heart conditions. After two cups of coffee, my mind begins to forget about jetlag.

Jacinta returns with another woman from the festival. We talk, drink more coffee, then leave for the festival, which is being held at Leisure Land -- an indoor community swimming pool with attached convention facilities. As we enter the building, I see a stack of a least 10,000 festival programs, printed in color on slick paper. After 20 years of appearing at festivals, I can quickly judge from a few signs, not only the experience of the promoters, but the potential for festival success. Even as fuzzy minded as I am this morning, I know that if the promoters think this many people are going to attend, they're naive. If they haven't distributed the programs in advance, they're even more naive. I decide upon entering the meeting hall that I should have asked for our fees and plane tickets in advance.

Inside there are rows of booths offering New Age products and services, just as in any Whole Life Expo in the US or Body Mind Spirit Festival in London or Sydney. It is now mid-morning and only a handful of people are walking the aisles.

We are introduced to a couple of the sponsors and several guest speakers. The marketer within me has to ask about the backstory. I quickly learn that the festival has been promoted without demographic considerations. Last year, one of the female sponsors worked with the owner of a large Dublin New Age festival and they had a falling out. So the woman decided to go into competition and duplicate the Dublin event in Galway. Dublin is home to over a million aware city people -- the kind of people who attend such festivals. Galway is a town of 55,000 Irish Catholics. With Dublin 20 times larger, logic would dictate you might, at best, receive one-twentieth the number of attendees. So if 8000 people attended Dublin, wishful thinking might stretch to 400 in Galway.

Taking Tara aside, I whisper, "There's about a zero chance of us being reimbursed for our expenses, much less our appearance fees. Shall we just make the best of it?"

Tara is surprised and doesn't like the idea of losing several thousand dollars any more than I do, but she says, "Let's just have a good time."

We did not come to Ireland with high expectations, but we had been assured of a profitable financial outcome by the promoters. Our workshops at past Mind Body Spirit Festivals in England have seated hundreds of people and sold out. But neither my Simon & Schuster books nor Valley of the Sun books and tapes are in general distribution in Ireland, so there is no reader/user base to build upon. "Doesn't matter," I was told. "The New Age is new in Ireland and we'll promote you as one of the major names in the field."

"Okay."

For our first festival workshops, Tara and I are to appear at the same time in different locations. "Great scheduling," I say. Tara shrugs.

My initial workshop is held in a dingy basement lighted only by a bare bulb. I'm surprised to find 25 people in attendance, considering the low turnout upstairs. There is no podium or barstool and the sound system is a cheap microphone attached to a boombox. As a hypnotist, I demand top quality sound. This was discussed with the sponsors in advance. In the US, I work only with my own sound systems. The American, English and Australian festivals have the best sound available.

What is, is. Be a Buddha, Richard, I tell myself. At the same time I'm wondering how Tara is doing, working outside in a tent, in the rain, with the wind whipping in off the North Atlantic. I mentally surround her with white light and project energy.

My audience is sitting back in their chairs, arms and legs tightly crossed -- unreceptive body language. I silently ask for psychic insight and receive one word in response: "Church."

After expressing my delight at being in Ireland, I explain that I'm trying to orient to working in a new country. "How many of you go to church regularly?"

Almost every hand goes up.

"Good, let me begin this workshop by stating that reincarnation was once part of the Christian Bible, and I can see no reason why the ideas I'm going to share should conflict with your religion." By the time I'd finished my impromptu talk on Bible editing, only one man in the back row continues to cross his arms. I proceed with my intended workshop. The participants successfully regress into past lives and seem delighted by this new experience.

But when I pass out our copies of Soaring Spirit, our magazine/catalog, no one wants to be on the mailing list.

I add, "It will come sealed in a plain envelope. Your postman and neighbors will never know."

Everyone signs up.

As soon as I can get away from those wanting to discuss their regressions, I search out Tara who is in the main hall talking with a group of people. She appears to be charged by her Shamanic Journey workshop experience. "I had them all sit in a circle and . . . "

"She was great," says Patrick Smith, one of the other speakers who attended Tara's session.

"The wind whipping the tent made it a little hard to be heard," Tara explains, "And the speaker almost blew over on top of us, and the electrical heaters smoked, and there was a little concern about the rain seeping in on the electrical wires, but aside from nearly being electrocuted, everything went fine." She laughs and shakes her head. 

We are introduced to Nigel Taylor and his companion, Jeannie Sprouls, and like them instantly. Nigel is tall, dark-haired and an outgoing Australian -- a featured festival speaker. Jeannie is a brunette beauty from New Jersey. She is selling Nigel's tapes and answering questions at one of the booths.

It is now nearly 5 PM. The four of us decide to leave the exhibition hall and have coffee in a cafeteria adjacent to the Leisure Land swimming pool. In two weeks, the festival sponsors have booked Nigel to appear at the R.D.S. Concert Hall in Dublin.

"Isn't that where visiting rock stars perform? I'm impressed," I say.

Nigel nods, whispers, "But I don't think they're selling many tickets, mate."

"How are they promoting it?" I ask.

He shrugs, says, "I did a radio interview last week in Dublin."

I look at Nigel with a blank, telling look.

He nods in response. I soon learn that Nigel is no better known in Ireland than I am. He knew one of the promoters from Australia.

When the festival closes at 8 PM, we're invited to return to the main hall where the festival sponsors, speakers and exhibitors are gathering to meet each other and partake of sandwiches and organic wine.

I'm uncomfortable smoozing and usually tend to retreat in such situations. Tara meets and talks with several women who are interested in her work. Nigel does an admirable job of working the crowd. Jeannie and I hide in a corner and enjoy a conversation about life, love and the metaphysical business. She and Nigel have been together four years and they live in New Jersey. She knows that the festival is not doing well, and she's worried about Nigel's Dublin appearance. The sponsors convinced him that his appearances would be a huge success. So Nigel wrote and recorded three new albums of meditations, then had them beautifully produced, duplicated, packaged and shipped to Ireland.

"We invested far more than we could afford, thinking we'd make a good profit," she explains.

Other people stop for a moment to say hello and share comments about the festival. We learn that those who purchased booth space are ready to mutiny, because no one is selling anything. Only a handful of Galway locals have attended. Those who did will probably have to admit their transgression to their priest in confession.

Later, a group of us walk to the Rockland Hotel bar. The locals don't seem to know what to make of us. Jacinta finds a microphone and begins belting out "Fever." Nigel takes a turn with "Waltzing Matilda." We drink Guiness, talk and dance the jitterbug, which takes me back to my high school days. I am sweating, jetlagged, and a little drunk as we walk back to the B&B.

Monday October 28: At breakfast, Nigel sings along with Ambrose, who is serving us our food. The louder one sings, the louder the other sings. Perfect stereo and slightly off key. We laugh our way through the meal.

At Leisure Land I conduct an afternoon workshop with eight people attending. The festival is over and as we leave the convention center for the last time, the huge stack of festival programs appears to be the same size as when we entered on Sunday morning.

We join Nigel and Jeannie for dinner in a local restaurant. Nigel has been asking the sponsors questions about his Dublin ticket sales, but he isn't getting any straight answers.

Wednesday night Tara and I are booked to do a Soulmate Seminar in a downtown Galway hotel. The only ad I've seen for this appearance is in the festival brochure. It's too late to ask. Thursday night we're set for a book signing at a local bookstore. Friday, they're talking about canceling another local appearance and having us conduct a seminar at a Dublin New Age center.

We're also invited to be guests at a Sweat Lodge Weekend in the Wicklow Mountains. Nigel will be a presenter, along with Skyhorse, a Sioux Indian Shaman who lives in London. Why not? We don't fly home until Monday morning.

Back at the B&B, about ten of us take over the living room and Patrick Smith begins to do tarot readings on everyone. Tara helps to decipher the meaning of particular card groupings. Patrick is extremely good and I enjoy analyzing his card spreads, references and technique.

Tuesday October 29: Jeannie has a headache that won't go away, so the four of us, joined by Patrick Smith, take a cab into town to hunt for an acupuncturist. While Jeannie is receiving a treatment, the rest of us find a post office for Tara to buy stamps and mail postcards. I'm always in search of new Irish or Scottish traditional music, so we stop at a record shop. A helpful clerk introduces me to two hot Irish groups: "Dervish" and "Deanta." I purchase the albums.

We walk the streets of Galway. The city is considered the center of the Gaelic speaking region, and everywhere we go mystical voices ring in the air. Yet when we speak in English, they reply in a heavily-accented English. A major Irish university is located here as is evidenced by the high percentage of young people on the streets. Only in recent years has Galway emerged from economic decline as the result of growing high-tech industries.

After being stuck with needles, Jeannie is feeling better. A cozy tea shop serves as an escape from the inclement weather. Other festival folks see us sitting near the window, and soon a dozen people are gathered around a table meant for four. The gathering extends into drinks and dinner at The Quays -- an elegant restaurant in a townhouse that once belonged to "Humanity Dick," an 18th-century member of parliament who promoted laws against cruelty to animals.

After dinner, back at the B&B, the psychic readings begin again. (Note: Several of Patrick's predications prove to be highly accurate: One about Tara's mother manifests in seven months, and another, a detailed prediction about one of my grown children transpires 28 months later.)

Wednesday October 30: Knowing my advertising background, the festival sponsors ask me to join a strategy session about how to best salvage the remaining bookings. I know there is little that can be done other than "buying the seats," which I doubt they are willing to do. As an example, if the seats are $100 each, you spend $2000 in promotional money in hopes of filling 20 seats. There is no profit, but there is an audience, and it looks better. On rare occasions, we've done this to fill out US seminars.

When I ask direct questions about how many tickets have been sold for our Soulmate Seminar on Wednesday, I get answers such as, "Don't worry, you'll have plenty of people." Or, "We've lined up a radio interview tomorrow morning." Or, "We're running an ad in today's paper." (Later I learn they have placed a three-line ad in the classified section of the Galway newspaper. It runs once.)

"That's very encouraging, but exactly how many tickets have been sold?" I ask again.

The female sponsor looks at me with big doe eyes and says, " Liam has that information."

Trying my best to play Buddha, I ask questions about Nigel's upcoming appearance at the Dublin concert hall which seats thousands. After all, they're the ones who wanted a strategy meeting and Nigel has become a friend. I soon realize their efforts consist of Nigel's radio interview, and flyers left out on the counter at a New Age center. There is also an ad in the Galway festival program, which means nothing because no one in Galway is going to drive all the way across Ireland to attend. "How many tickets are sold?" I ask.

"Not as many as we'd like."

"What does that mean?"

"We may have to go to a smaller location."

"How can you switch from a major concert hall to a small venue at the last minute?" My facial expression surely betrays my feelings.

"We'll have to find a way to let people know."

"Do you have a new venue?"

"The Complementary Healing Center, where we'd like you to appear on Friday."

"How many people will it seat?"

"Twenty-five."

Tara squeezes my arm to communicate, "Give it up."

I give it up.

This is not new to me. It's just something I usually avoid, because I came up against it too often in my early years. Naive New Age promoters stare at you with an etheric smile and say, "The right people will show up."

"How the hell are they going to show up if they don't know about it?" I once asked a Los Angeles promoter who found herself in the same position as my Irish sponsors.

We take a cab to Keohanes Bookshop in downtown Galway for the book signing. Our books are beautifully displayed in the window beneath a large poster featuring a photo of Tara and me. The manager welcomes us and we exchange small talk before she takes me aside and says, "There isn't much interest in New Age books in Galway." She wants to quell any high expectations about the book signing.

People arrive, including several of the other festival speakers. A Galway student shows up wanting to argue metaphysics. I won't play and he doesn't buy. Over the next two hours we sign a few books and have many conversations, primarily about Ireland. I come to the conclusion that I like this country more than most of the people who live here.

Leaving the bookstore, Tara and I laugh about the experience. We're beyond expectations and are having a great time. As a group of ten, we make our way on foot through the city streets to Murray's bar. I am determined to find some live traditional music and locals say this is the place. The bar is crude, chilly and smoke filled, but the music is wonderful: fiddle, flute and squeeze box; the players huddle around a corner table playing to themselves, but they fill the bar with music that touches my soul.

Thursday October 31: Mid-morning, Tara and I, accompanied by festival personnel, go to a local FM radio station. I get the feeling the talk jockey has been strong armed into this interview. He doesn't have the faintest idea what to ask me about soulmates. For eight minutes I attempt to take the lead and insert plugs for the evening seminar.

During the afternoon, I stay at the B&B and read, while Tara joins others on a trip to Kylemore Abbey. After six days of responding to others morning, noon, and night, I need some time to regenerate.

Tara promises to take videos, to show me what I missed. The lakeside castle was built as a private residence in the early 1800's and became an abbey for Benedictine nuns who fled from Belgium during World War I. Today, the nuns run the abbey as a select girl's boarding school.

I spend the afternoon sleeping and reading. Tara returns only minutes before we are supposed to leave to conduct our seminar at The Great Southern Hotel in Galway. The seminar fee is 25 pounds, which amounts to over $40 -- a lot of money for people in this part of Ireland, even if they were fans. Nigel and Jeannie accompany us for moral support. At the appointed hour, three people sit in the audience. Five more eventually wander in. We put on our show. Tara is great on stage. I'm glad when it's over.

Later, we wander the streets with Nigel and Jeannie in search of a place to eat. Finally, we come across a McDonald's on one side of the street and a Chinese restaurant on the other. The girls want Chinese, which neither Nigel or I can face. I suggest an alternative. "You ladies go eat with chopsticks, and Nigel and I, being the barbarians we are, will eat at McDonald's. We'll join you after we've eaten our fast food." Everyone is happy.

At 1 AM we call home to make sure Hunter and Cheyenne are going to go "trick or treating." Cheyenne tells us about her school Halloween party. Hunter's primary concern is to have enough time on the streets to fill a huge bag with candy. Tara's brothers are orchestrating the activities.

Click here to go to Part II

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