To Sing with Bards and Angels – Feminism and Religion

Oran Mor, The Great Song of Creation, Part 1 by Iona Jenkins

Celtic myth tells of the Oran Mor, the Great Song of Creation that upholds life itself.

I remember my sense of wonder and excitement when I first stumbled across this concept in The Mist Filled Path, written by Scottish/Irish/American shaman Frank MacEowen. I began an immediate quest to discover more, but internet searches produced very little information, and as there were no books available relating only to the Great Song, I concluded that perhaps information had been passed down verbally by Bards, slowly receding into the mist as Christianity became more established in the British Isles. Each time I mention the Oran Mor to someone else, they too become energised and enthusiastic, as if they sense the magic reawakening. MacEowen, who certainly encountered it on his own Mist filled Path, wrote:

“The reason we find no evidence of this Celtic Creation story, is because it is a living story – A story that waits for us to remember. In other words, no matter how hard we look, we will not find the story outside ourselves. We have all been woven into the story, it is our story, and it continues to unfold.”
p.113, The Mist-Filled Path, Frank MacEowen, 2002 New World Library

ART AND SOUL by Iona Jenkins

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.

Even more surprisingly, her presence was more prominent in the Sistine Chapel, the Pope’s own place of prayer, where Cardinals sit in all male conclave. But there she was, shining through the restored colour on that famous ceiling through the brushstrokes of Michelangelo. I was picking up loud echoes immortalised for centuries through his art, tuning into the soul of the artist, seeing his inspiration in terms of angels speaking in colour and light. But then he was called after an Archangel whose name means Who is like God. God is creative, He created heaven and earth according to the scriptures, but now it was looking like She might have created it with him. Somehow over the years in Christianity, the real Sacred Feminine has been hidden away, negated, turned into a virginal statue with little visible life energy from earth.