Anthony Hegarty lives in County Galway, he is an ecopsychologist and poet.

I was born in N. Lancashire and moved to London when I was about 19. In those days you could be sent to prison for being gay and I had a number of close shaves. I worked as a civil servant, a bus conductor for London Transport and then a steward in the Merchant Navy. Then, in my mid twenties I went to a very liberal and enlightened College of Education and did a B.Ed.(hons) in English and Drama. After trying to teach in London schools and specialising in kids experiencing difficulties for a few years, Margaret Thatcher abolished the GLC my employer and I took the money and formed a Theatre Company with Max Hafler: “Commonweal Theatre Company”. I had met Max, my partner, a few years previously in the local gay pub in Vauxhall. We lived in London running the company and getting involved in left-wing politics in Lambeth Labour Party until 1994 when we both moved to Galway, Ireland. My dad and maternal grandparents were all from County Derry, Northern Ireland. I worked for a time for The Irish Department of Education as an Employee Assistance Officer trying to help teachers in County Galway and then Mayo. We were made redundant in 2003 and I used the money to read for a Masters in Transpersonal Psychology and Consciousness at Liverpool John Moore’s University, getting a distinction. Since then apart from writing poetry more seriously, I have become committed to exploring our psychological and emotional relationship with the planet and the Cosmos.

Poem: “Remembering at a Civil Union” The Stinging Fly, Issue 33, Spring 2016 In the Wake of the Rising.

Publications include: “Gaia: the question of consciousness.” British Journal of Psychology Transpersonal Review Vol 15, No.1 Spring 2012.

“To This of the Other I Am Too” poem in Burning Bush 2, Issue No. 5. page 37.

I read  from time to time on the “open mic” at “Over the Edge”, Galway Library, and won the 2013 Culture Night prize at Kenny’s Bookshop, Galway, for “A Psalm for David” (see the clip below).

Runner up in the Poetry Ireland/Trocaire poetry competion 2014 “It’s Up to Us” with the poem “The Glaciers”.

La Gomera: Teide in the background.

I am walking on the Island of La Gomera in the Canaries, March, 2014, with Teide, the extinct volcano on Tenerife in the distance. “I do not pretend to understand how a rock can be alive in its own way and I regret that I can give no scientific explanation. Yet I remain completely convinced of the truth of this matter.” Colin Mortlock in “Beyond Adventure” (2001).

Aldo Leopold approaches a dying wolf and sees the green fire in her eyes dying, he comments: “I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunter’s paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf, nor the mountain agreed with such a view.” Leopold, “A Sand County Almanac” 1949.