Immram as Spiritual Practice

Immram as Spiritual Practice

Unlisted Author

There is a genre of Irish literature known as immrama (immram for singular) which are tales of adventures into the wild ocean usually in search of a mystical paradise said to be west of the setting sun. This literary genre includes both pagan and Christian stories. One of the most famous of the pagan tales is The Voyage of Brân and perhaps the most famous of the Christian ones is The Voyage of St Brendan. 

These tales tell of heroic adventures into the wild, usually at great risk to the voyager, in search of Tir na nog (the land of youth) like in the story of Oisin or The Promised Land of the Saints in the story of Brendan. These stories are beautiful allegorical accounts of the spiritual journey, with its ebbs and tides, which the soul makes in search of what is sacred and divine. Perhaps these ancient Irish stories are part of the reason why the early Celtic Church was so fond of the ways of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, those Egyptian and Syrian monastics, who set out into the desert to find peace and goodness.

The Celts did not have deserts in the same sense but they did have the sea and rocky barren islands. Places like Skellig Michael, a nearly barren outcropping of rock 12 miles west of the Irish coast in the Atlantic ocean, became the desert for many of these early Irish seekers while some, like St Brendan, went on a pilgrimage which took them to many places without rest and some suggest even as far as Canada. I have no desert where I live either, but I do have lots of forest. In fact, I just today finished my own sort of immram seeking what is good and true in the wilderness...