Greetings to all of you on this lovely spring evening. This week, I’m excited to share with you an ancient Irish myth, one of my all-time favorite stories: The Salmon of Knowledge. It’s also one of the myths I tell in my book, Psychedelics and the Soul. Later in the chapter, I unpack some of the symbolism and lessons I see present in the tale, and how they might relate to the practice of venturing into the otherworld of the deep psyche.
But you’ll have to get the book for that. You can pre-order it now here (though I always recommend people order through independent bookstores like Powell’s Books).
I’m also excited to announce that I am holding a retreat in Oregon this August. This retreat is specifically for current or aspiring psychedelic facilitators who want to deepen their knowledge of psychedelic healing from a mythopoetic and Jungian perspective, and personally explore the mysteries of the medicine itself.
The plan is to gather a top-notch group of healers around the fire, share three nights together held by some old trees, tell some stories, listen to the land, and connect to the medicine and to each other.
If you ask me, one of the most important elements for people working in the psychedelic field is to have a personal relationship with whatever medicine they are working with. It takes time, like we’ll see in the story. Most trainings don’t offer that, or they do so only in very narrow, often clinical contexts. This retreat offers a different way of cultivating that relationship, both to the medicine, and to each other.
The retreat is taking place August 22-25th on a beautiful, private boutique property in the middle of the forest less than an hour from Portland. If you’re interested in joining, email me at depthmedicine@gmail.com or send me a message directly through Substack.
Also, I was featured on the Psychedelics Today podcast two weeks ago, so if you’d like to have a listen you can find it here or anywhere you listen to podcasts:
So without further ado, here is the Salmon of Knowledge
Deeds turned into history, history into folktales, folktales into legends, and legends into myths. Centuries passed like the seasons; stones grew their rough, weathered skins; and forests shed their thousand leaves more times than time can tell. But the Well, the hazels, and the salmon all remained.
Like most immortal things, stories of the Well filtered down through the generations. Hearing of Sinann’s fate, the people developed a healthy fear of trifling in the ways of the Otherworld, which was becoming more and more the realm of the sidhe, or the fairy folk. People began to approach the Well with rituals and offerings of respect and gratitude, and ensured that they did not offend the invisible powers of the Otherworld and violate its ancient laws: Don’t drink the water. Don’t touch the hazels. And don’t mess with the bubbles.
The salmon, though, was fair game.
Known as the Salmon of Knowledge, this magical fish swam calmly in the depths of the Well throughout the centuries, eating the hazelnuts that dropped from the silver branches of the nine sacred trees that sur- rounded it. It was said that anyone who ate of its speckled flesh would receive all knowledge of the past, present, and future, and be blessed with a poetic vision that would, as the Irish say, light a fire in the head.
An old druid named Finnegas, whose sky-filled eyes had learned to read the land’s stories and see them told in the milky river of stars above, decided to dedicate his life’s last years in pursuit of this salmon. He made his way to the Well, and there he sat for seven long years, patiently waiting for the Salmon of Knowledge to bite the fishing line he held in the water, hoping it might bless him with its gift of poetic ecstasy.
On a day not unlike all the others, a young boy by the name of Finn Mac Cumhaill (or Finn McCool, as they say now) wandered up to where Finnegas sat by the Well. Finn never knew his father, who had been killed before he was born. Finn’s mother gave birth to him in secret, then quickly gave him to her sister and her druidic companion, Fiacra, who prophesied that one day Finn would grow up to be a great leader and warrior. Finnegas knew none of this when the lad wandered up the hill to the old druid’s hut. And Finnegas, of course, was more than he appeared to be as well: not a washed-up old fisherman, but a bardic master, wise in the ways of owl-speech and raven-spell. In Finnegas, Finn found a man who could school him in the ways of the Otherworld through that old process called apprenticeship.
Perhaps it was through some luck the boy brought, but very soon after Finn’s arrival old Finnegas felt a tug on the line—the first he’d felt in the seven years. To his amazement, he had hooked the salmon, and he gracefully pulled it out of the water. Smiling to himself in quiet amazement, Finnegas lit the fire, set up the cooking spit, and intoned the ancient words required for such a sacred occasion. As the fish slowly roasted, the old man tasked Finn with watching it cook as he stepped away to tend to some druidic business. Under no circumstances was Finn to eat—or even touch—the fish.
The salmon was cooked to perfection. Not wanting to burn his new teacher’s long-sought prize, Finn went to remove it from the fire. Just as he was about to move the scintillating fish, a blister on its skin sizzled and popped, sending a splash of its hot juices onto Finn’s thumb. Without thinking, Finn put the thumb in his mouth to ease the pain.
But one drop was all it took. (Some of us know what that’s like.)
After Finnegas returned, young Finn wobbled back to his teacher and placed the fish delicately before him. The old poet looked into Finn’s eyes, and there he saw the glimmer of the universe shining through his saucer-like pupils. Something deep within the boy had utterly changed. Finn was gone, gone beyond.
“Finn, my boy,” Finnegas said, “are you certain you didn’t eat from this fish?”
Almost in tears, Finn explained the sizzling blister on his thumb and how he put it in his mouth when he felt the burn. We don’t know what occurred in the poet’s mind right then. Yet perhaps all his years sitting patiently by the Well had imparted some subtle wisdom that can only come from quiet solitude. Taking a long, wistful breath, Finnegas knew that Finn now possessed the knowledge of the salmon. Despite his seven years of effort, Finnegas accepted that this knowledge was ultimately not for him—an old man with a life well-lived—but for this bright young boy before him.
Finnegas took a deep inhale and breathed out the last of his smoldering desire into the gathering dusk like sparks soaring into twilight. “So be it,” he said. And for many years afterward, the old man instructed Finn in the arts of ecstatic poetry, bardic wisdom, and mystical wit, giving him a way to channel the overflowing wisdom of the Otherworld rather than drown in it. Finn would go on to become one of the greatest heroes that Ireland had ever known.
The Salmon of Knowledge