The Art of Arrival: A Modern Irish Immram

The Most Personal Podcast Episode Yet

Back in June, I updated the name of my Substack, keeping what I loved – Myth Is Medicine - and adding something that I knew was true in my bones – Words Are Magic.

Then, there was the whole fabulously consuming everything that was preparing for, being in, and coming back from Ireland.

Little tasks, like clarifying my brand messaging, fell by the wayside.

I still have more to do to update all the things related to the name change, but that can wait until I tell you stories of that Irish journey that are bubbling over the edges of my inner cauldrons.

Before I get to the latest stories of my travels to Mama Éire (I’ve got a new episode about all 17 times I arrived in Ireland in just four days!), it seems relevant to this week’s story to tell you why I made the change:

Words ARE magic. And, I need to remind myself – and you, dear reader, seeing as I am, in fact, a writing coach - that there’s so much we can do to tend and craft the magic that lies waiting to be explored in our own words.

My “day job” as a guide and mentor to writers is inextricably interwoven, fite fuaite, with everything I do as a myth worker. The podcast, KnotWork Myth & Storytelling, exists in large part to support my professional practice and professional practice supports the podcast.

You know how this works right? Theoretically, members of my writing groups and one-on-one clients will find me because the listen to KnotWork.

And, because I don’t take ads on the podcast and my paid subscriber base here on Substack is mighty, but not quite robust enough to pay the two women who help me get the week after week, I subsidize the show with what I make in my business.

That’s the pragmatic, entrepreneurial version – the magic version? Well, as I said, I know in my bones that words are magic.

I encounter the magic of words every time I hear one of my writers read to the group, and every time I hear a master storyteller (or a fledgling taleteller) take the mic. I remember the magic of words when I let myself take a book slowly and savor the language, or when one of my daughters names her feelings in a way that makes me go yes, of yes, now I can understand your soul just a bit more.

And I realize the magic of words when I have to read or sit through words that just aren’t enchanting.

I came across some not-quite-enchanting stories when I was doing research for this week’s KnotWork story, which is inspired by the categories of old Irish tales called the immrama.

An Immram: a type of Old Irish tale that narrates a hero’s sea journey to the otherworld.

Immram. Doesn’t that word sound and feel delicious?

To be honest, I have always struggled with them.

Besides the Voyage of Bran, the most famous of the immrama tends to be The Voyage of Máel Dúin. I’ve never been able to do much more than skim it, comparing the Wikipedia version with the more authoritative text translated by Whitley Stokes at the end of the 19th century.¹

Frankly, Máel Dúin’s story is boring (except for the problematic beginning parts²).

Granted, boring stories don’t tend to endure, so it’s almost certainly a modern problem, or at least a medieval scribe’s problem, not that our ancestors liked dull stories. Whoever received the story of Máel Dúin around a fireside would have been intrigued by the various islands and their various inhabitants, not because they didn’t get out much, but because they all shared cultural touch points. The terrors and the miracles were something the audience already knew in their bones. And, since this was an oral culture, there would’ve been the storyteller who had a way of painting with language, and a way of using his voice so that all of the wonder and peril were present to the eager crowd.

Now, when we read old immram tales, they tend to read like one long “and then, and then, and then” story. Our brains just don’t tend to like that kind of story.

What Makes a Story Work?

That’s a huge question of course, so here’s a little sip of an answer…

The classic plot arc (the sequence of events that build and create conflict, and conclude with a sense of catharsis) goes all the way back to Aristotle. Our brains do like this. We notice when the redactor of epic travel monologue that hasn’t been informed of the whole hero’s journey thing.

But, then, there are the travelogues (like my most recent KnotWork episode) that is rooted in a series of personal anecdotes that don’t adhere to the conventional “story arc that works.”

Can such narrative that refuses to stick to beginning, middle, and end be successful? I tend to hope so, as I rather poured my heart into this episode and I like to imagine I didn’t blunder into asking my audience to listen to me essentially reading a set of diary entries…

As I said above, there’s a very good chance that the folks who heard The Voyage of Máel Dúin gleaned more from the tale than a bunch of guys sailing aimlessly to a bunch of islands full of blessings, dangers, and weirdos. There was a shared sense of meaning and deeper cultural resonance that gave the epic more oomph than we could possibly understand today.

It’s my hope, whether you come to my latest episode, The Art of Arrival: A Modern Irish Immram, as a child of the diaspora called back to Ireland, as a mother who is traveling solo, as someone who is metabolizing the grief for a parent, or as someone who struggles to really arrive in a place you’ve longed to visit, that you’ll feel the emotional and soul resonance in my story.

And maybe you’ll laugh at the car park and the Supermac’s references too!

I am deeply grateful to all the folk from the Bard Mythologies Summer School, especially those who have already traveled with me on the podcast - Treacy O'Connor, Mari Kennedy, Karina Tynan, and the founders of the Bard, Ellen O’Malley Dunlop, and Sandy Dunlop. And to Choabang Ai, who I hope will be on the show soon, as he’s the one who mentioned the Máel Dúin story to me just last week.

Also, to Tracy Chipman who’s powerful questions on her A Year and a Day interview, The Poetry of Motherig, opened me up to thinking about what it would really mean for me to arrive.

And, I send all the grá to my traveling companion and anam cara, Fiona Doris. What a marvel she is. Listen to her “Bid, the Unbiddable” (S6 Ep) as soon as you finish the Immram episode!

And, Speaking of Writing Groups…

I’m excited to announce that the Writers’ Knot is now open to new members.

Our global creative community is the place to explore the mythic imagination and dive deep into the personal stories that you’ve been longing to explore.

In our four-month journey, we’ll explore a series of landscapes with prompts that open up your creative energy and expand your vision. Along the way, you’ll connect to a vibrant community of writers and develop a new relationship with your own writer’s voice.

1. https://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/maelduin.html

2. Máel Dúin’s quest is undertaken in order to avenge his father’s death. That seems a bit less noble when you realize that, in the first passages of the story, he discovered his loving foster family was not his family of origin, finds out his mother was a nun who was raped by a warrior chieftain name Aillil. In a rather divine twist, it turns out Aillil ws killed when the church in which he hid was burned down around him. Even when Máel Dúin’ visited his mother, still a holy sister and she told him that he was better off not knowing the man and the man was better off dead, the young man persisted. He sets off to find the marauding murdered, but his boat is blown about to more islands that even Odysseus could imagine before finally coming back to a land that looks an awful lot like Ireland, populated by people who think the crew long dead. And then theres is welcoming, feasting, and eventual storytelling… the end.