Seanchaí

Dear friend of House of Buckley,

It's been a moment since I last wrote to you, and I owe you an apology for the silence and an explanation, of sorts.

Last night I sat in Hackney Round Chapel at an event listening to people telling their stories..growing up we knew about a Seanchaí which was an Irish storyteller, a keeper of the old tradition of passing things down by voice, not by page. One story stayed with me. A woman had spent years in a job that was slowly hollowing her out. She left it. She went travelling. And somewhere along the way she said something I haven't stopped thinking about since:

“The compass came before the clock”

We measured direction before we measured time. We knew where we were going before we ever worried about how long it would take to get there.

I started House of Buckley from grief, you may already know that. It was never meant to be fast. Every candle is still hand poured here in Hackney, by hand, in small batches, because some things shouldn't be rushed just because a clock says they should. I think that's part of why I don’t feel pressure to constantly be in your inbox but equally I do want to stay connected. I guess I was finding my direction before I worried about the schedule.

So here's what I'm going to do differently, no more long silences, no more waiting for a "big" update to justify writing to you. From now on, this space is just going to be small stories ,from the studio, from the scents, from the odd Thursday night that reminds me why I do this at all.

Thank you for staying, even in the quiet.

Go raibh maith agat

Caroline x

House of Buckley