Iona Jenkins, author
  • Home
  • About Iona
    • Iona's Friends
  • To Sing with Bards and Angels
  • Reviews & Interviews
  • Poetry & Reflections
  • Tween & Teen Fiction
  • Iona's Blog
  • Home
  • About Iona
    • Iona's Friends
  • To Sing with Bards and Angels
  • Reviews & Interviews
  • Poetry & Reflections
  • Tween & Teen Fiction
  • Iona's Blog

Iona's Blog

Around and Around

4/12/2023

Comments

 
The wheel is turning,
The season changing
As the door opens
and my path goes on
To new stars birthing
I am dancing the circle
Around and around.
Winter Twilight
Misty Pines
Winter Seascape
November Full Moon
Vale of Glamorgan
Avebury
... then comes the winter, a time of patience, of waiting, of opening to new growth, as seeds planted in the frozen earth begin struggling to reach the surface. After letting go of all that is worn out we rest, we renew ourselves, taking advantage of this pause, when the earth is still, to store enough energy for new growth with the returning light after the solstice.
​

I find myself slowing down, meditating more, and relaxing with the grey sea outside, rippling or roaring beyond the stark outlines of bare trees on the edge of the cliff, where winter seagulls hide in mist and wail like phantoms. But all this time my heart is ablaze, and vibrant as a robin’s breast, or ruby red and warming as mulled wine. I have learned to love the snow and its deep silence, when stars shine bright and warm in black ice skies above white landscapes so quiet I am lulled into their dreams. I feed visiting birds so they too may live to sing again in Spring.
​

Inner winter is not a sorrowful time whatever may be happening in the world outside. I am aware of the heart fire, heating the angel brew singing its inspiration in the magic cauldron. I locate the winter season in the north with the element of earth on my wheel of the year. Bright white stars in frosty heavens sometimes seem almost attached to me by threads of silver light. Winter is a season that evoke images of breath taking beauty through my inner vision. I learn to seek the hidden light, the lamp of the Archangel Uriel shining in the dark, illuminating the door that leads onwards to sun return and the promise of new life. I welcome it as a friend.

Extract from TO SING WITH BARDS AND ANGELS, page 109
Iona Jenkins
O-Books 2022
ABOUT THE BOOK

To Sing with Bards and Angels

Comments

On Halloween/Samhuin/All Saints...

28/10/2023

Comments

 
On Halloween/Samhuin/All Saints we light candles and lanterns to remember and honour the ancestors.
Blue Supermoon
This bright Supermoon brought a memory of my grandmother. It was a strange sensation, as though she were in the room washing over me in a wave of affection. The memories of her smile, whenever I shared my dreams and secrets, brought with them a warm glow, enhancing that feeling of security since she always cared for me as a child. She was my rock in the often-stormy sea of my parents’ problems.
From Feminism and Religion magazine
READ MORE...
Picture
Iona Jenkins, poet, and creative writer, is the author of To Sing with Bards and Angels - a Journey into the Creative Heart (O-Books), available now paperback and digital editions from all good online book shops. Click on the image below to find out more.
Picture

Comments

Orla O'Connell Reviews To Sing with Bards and Angels

13/9/2023

Comments

 
Pagan Ireland
Iona Jenkins’ book is a portal into the creative flow which, in Welsh and in the language of the Druids, is known as Awen (akin to our Irish abhann) and is translated as ‘flowing spirit’. The author is a contemporary bard who writes in the poetic language of that flow. Not only does she access the spiritual, creative Awen, she lives in it, turning her life into a work of art, painted in vivid word colours. In this series of meditations and life reflections, the bard meets her muse, a rather intriguing angel, who gives her poetic and spiritual guidance. We are drawn right into her internal and external worlds to dance in their magic.
 
As a writer, I see this book as a valuable tool to access creativity. One doesn’t have to believe in angels. The meditation practices at the end of each chapter are an inspirational way to meet one’s own, personal muses, to access the spiritual flow and to learn to sing with the bards from the Oran Mór (yes, again, our Irish amhrán mór), the Great Song of the Universe. The whole experience of this book requires an openness of spirit. It is not for sceptics.

Orla O’Connell
Pagan Ireland Magazine
Autumn 2023​

About the Book
To Sing with Bards and Angels

Comments

Angelic Inspiration from Iona Jenkins

8/8/2023

Comments

 
How can we be inspired by cultivating a connection with Angels? In this conversation Iona Jenkins and Ana Isabel discuss the connection between imagination, meditation, hypnosis and spirituality.

Comments

Song of the Soul

26/6/2023

Comments

 
The Selkie, mythological shapeshifting beings found in Irish and Scottish folklore can change from seal to human by shedding their skins. Folk tales often involve a man who steals a female Selkie’s skin and afterwards makes her his wife. Without her sealskin she is forced to stay on the land but always longs for her wild home. Then one day when she discovers by chance where her husband has hidden her skin, she is able to return to the sea. This, of course, is a simple outline, but there are many such stories to discover and to research. Through a process of personal and ancestral memories, I would like to signpost a door of possibility, to suggest a process that illuminates that Song of the Soul, as I invite you to accompany me on a short journey into the creative heart.
 
I remember how I first awakened to that soul song on the Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides when I was only twenty-one years old. Walking along a deserted beach of fine white sand, I carried a battered old acoustic guitar, so that I might sing to the waves, with the easy chords I knew for accompanying a few simple songs.
Picture
A large convenient stone, rising from the shimmering sand, bathed in a metallic rosy glow from the rays of late afternoon sunshine, offered me a seat for comfortable strumming, and sitting down upon it, I let my voice flow into the words of the Mingulay Boat Song. Then the most amazing thing happened, as though the music had pushed a door open, sending me into a mythical landscape of music and magic. Several grey seals basking on a large rock in the sea began sliding into the water, bobbing up and down in the waves, throwing their heads back to sing to the sky, in high pitched voices, ethereal as mermaids, a haunting, lilting song of the wild world. I wanted to leap into the water and swim beside them, but the voice of common sense inherited from my mother intervened, advising me that since I was alone and knew nothing of these waters, then there would be no one to help me if I got into trouble.
Did I play too safe or not? I will never know, but what I do understand is how in that moment of enchantment, my heart awakened to the mysteries of the unconscious, to the deep feeling dreamscapes of my wild self, and the wisdom of the feminine, at a young time of life, when the moon was still in its first quarter. Here was a rite of passage, the beginning of a quest which has shaped my path of life right into the creative elder years I am enjoying today...​
Excerpt from the Summer 2023 edition of Pagan Ireland.

Iona Jenkins, poet, and creative writer, is the author of To Sing with Bards and Angels - a Journey into the Creative Heart (O-Books).
Picture

Comments
<<Previous

    Iona Jenkins

    Iona Jenkins, author
    Sign up to receive Iona's posts by email.
    Subscribe
    Your email will only ever be used to send you new posts and you can unsubscribe at any time.
    Iona Jenkins

    Archives

    December 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    June 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    May 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    June 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    January 2018
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016

    Categories

    All
    Amazon
    Arthurian Legend
    Articles
    Author Interviews
    Autumn
    Awards
    Barnes And Noble
    Book Excerpts
    Books
    Bookshops
    Bristol Channel
    Buddha
    Cardiff Bay
    Celtic Legends
    Children's Books
    Christmas
    Coronavirus
    Druids
    Flowers
    Giveaway
    Glastonbury
    Goodreads
    Halloween
    Heartsong
    Inspiration
    Kindle
    Kindred Magazine
    Legends Of Lumenor
    Midsummer
    Nature
    New Apple Book Awards
    Pagan Ireland
    Penarth Times
    Poetry
    Radio Cardiff
    Radio Glamorgan
    Reflections
    Reviews
    Snowdonia
    Spring
    Summer Solstice
    Sunrise
    The Garden Of Possibility
    The Sheltering Stars
    The Starlit Door
    The Unicorn Gate
    To Sing With Bards And Angels
    Touchstone
    Tween Fiction
    Tween & Teen
    Workshops
    World Events
    Youtube

Contact Iona

​ionajenkinsauthor@gmail.com
Iona Jenkins

© Iona Jenkins 2023 All Rights Reserved
website by author2author