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

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

Art and Soul

20/4/2023

Comments

 
"​One day, during a holiday at the home of Italian friends in the province of Lazio, some forty-five minutes by train from the centre of Rome, I experienced a powerful impression of the Sacred Feminine. She came to me in the Vatican of all places, centuries-old male stronghold, and power centre of the Roman Catholic Church."
Read More
Picture

Comments

Janet Maika’i Rudolph Reviews To Sing with Bards and Angels

27/3/2023

Comments

 
Janet Maika’i Rudolph from Feminism and Religion reviews To Sing with Bards and Angels
To Sing with Bards and Angels
"There are some books which you just want to sit with, underline, read leisurely, and let sink deeply into your soul. This is one of those books. 

This book is filled with Jenkins' stories of the experiences she has had while walking the spirit pathway. Most notable and the major theme of her book describes her encounters with an ethereal light being she identifies as an angel. Her guide appears in moonlight and its form and words fit within her cultural beliefs as to what an angel is. I love that she notes that she views her guide in this manner because of her own expectations. Her openness in allowing for other interpretations provides a permission structure for anyone reading and/or on their own spirit journey to understand such experiences in their own way whether it be angelic, otherworldly, imaginative, dreamlike, mythic or manifest in this reality."
Read the Full Review

Comments
<<Previous
Forward>>

    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

    January 2025
    December 2024
    May 2024
    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
    Chalice Well
    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

​[email protected]
Iona Jenkins

© Iona Jenkins 2023 All Rights Reserved
website by author2author