Sirens: song or soul-voice?
How to tell the difference between temptation and liberation
I know a girl named Sally Jane. She writes to me on the back of a receipt from atop a mountain in South America telling me about all the wonderful adventurous things she is doing. Sally is alluring, enchanting, and so much fucking cooler than I’ll ever be. She’s always up to something much more interesting and cultured than me. She has sold out exhibitions. Musicians write songs about her. She is a muse who lives inside the memoirs of all the great artists and philosophers.
But I’ll tell you the truth, though, she’s kind of a snob. Nothing is ever good enough for her, never cool enough, never hard enough to find. Everything has to come through struggle. Nothing convenient or easy is acceptable to her. Every day she tells me how much better I could be doing. I could be a yoga teacher in Bali, I could be an poet in the South of France, I could be an sculpture artist in Hawaii. I could be anything I wanted, but instead, I’m mediocre, basic, boring, living in the same city I grew up in and watching too much reality TV.
I met Sally Jane in art therapy. One of the tasks I was given was to identify the different voices within me by creating them out of clay. I created a figure poised in the shape of a lowercase “h”, adorned with a golden butterfly, green glass beads and a tiny spiral shell. A few sessions later, I reread the letter she wrote atop a mountain to me and tasted her tone. It was bitter and inedible as I realised she was patronising me.
She pretends to be wild and carefree, yet living with her feels oppressive and dangerous. Yes, I could cut and run and move overseas and start a whole new life to satisfy her. But I don’t want to do that. I like my life. And so, I stick beeswax in my ears, and keep moving.
Ulysses and the Sirens - Painting by John William Waterhouse
Siren’s song
In the twelfth book of the Odyssey, as Odysseus (Ulysses) is leaving Kirkê's island, Kirkê informs Odysseus of the dangers of the sea that he will encounter on his way home, specifically warning him of the Sirens. Sirens are beautiful women of the sea, who sing songs that hypnotize or lure and trick men into shipwrecking their boats on rocky shores because they follow the irresistible songs. Odysseus instructs his crew to tie him to the mast, telling them to ignore whatever he may say while under the sway of the Siren's song. The sailors stuff their ears with beeswax and then tie Odysseus tightly to the mast. Odysseus is the only one who hears the siren song, while the others ears are covered and they prevent Odysseus from following the song.
Summarised excerpt from the twelfth book of the Odyssey: Odysseus (Ulysses) and the Sirens
I recognise Sally Jane whispering “what if…” as her siren’s song. Learning when to put the beeswax in was a skill I had to learn to master throughout my twenties. Beeswax candles are often used in spiritual ceremonies for it’s purifying qualities. We must “mind our own beeswax” – as what the siren wants is none of our business.
Many times I impulsively booked flights or applied for jobs overseas without laying the proper foundations. Moving around enough, you eventually learn that changing location doesn’t magically solve your problems. I’ve known a few people, myself included, to make a big dramatic life change only to realise it’s not really what they wanted. Their ships crash upon rocky shores.
A siren’s song isn’t always travel. Sometimes, it’s a career change or a new relationship. It’s any sort of temptation. The one thing a siren will never do is stay home and get some sleep.
But sometimes we hear a call, from our futureselves or our deep well of knowing, that something has to change and it is a matter of survival.
Soul-voice
It begins with silence and tastes like fridge water: plastic and stale. It’s enough to just keep you alive. It hydrates you without quenching your thirst. There is a dryness to your life; you find yourself living through the stroke of your thumb and you have forgotten the dream you had about what your life would be like. You say things like “I used to be an artist…” or “nothing terrible has happened so why do I feel this way...”
This is when you have lost your soul-voice: the one that speaks from deep within. When it does speak, or when you finally listen, it sounds like a clap of thunder as you think “I can’t do this anymore.”
You will crack, as we all do, and you find yourself at a fork in the road. Do you continue along the path already paved for you, or do you veer off onto the track and into the forest? Neither option is any less brave than the other. It requires a lot of courage to leave but perhaps even more to stay.
Time and time again we will be asked these questions through opportunities throughout our life. They brandish shiny trinkets as if hawkers in a market, shaking their golden keys at you, asking “Which door will you open?”
Sometimes it arrives more quietly, like a tug on the skirt, asking “is this what you really want?”
How do we discern between the siren’s song and our soul-voice?
The siren’s song calls out over stormy waters. Responding to the song happens quickly, without much thought behind it. It may be thrilling, exciting, a welcome change from the humdrum of every day. For some of us, like addicts, the song (chaos) are a powerful whirlpool that sucks us in frequently. Our changes will seem erratic, and maybe even cause concern from loved ones.
If you find yourself afraid to tell the people closest to you about what is going on because you fear they will warn you against it, you may be hearing the siren. Another sign is experiencing unease and anxiety as your intuition grumbles in your gut.
“Whether the thing calling to us is ultimately "good" or "bad" is somewhat irrelevant - it's the journey that matters. The work of The Siren is to take us on a deep psychic descent.”
Kim Krans, The Wild Unknown Archetypes
The only thing we can use to decipher between the siren and the soul-voice is time.
Your soul voice can be accessed through stillness. Sometimes it will be weeks and months of stillness, of waiting, of unanswered calls. The soul-voice moves slowly, drawing out and coming back in again, always taking much longer than you would like. It may take many cycles to return and finally gift you clarity. You just have to lie still and wait.
Thanks for reading.
