Song of the Soul

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.

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.

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

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