Spring 2026. Audiomakery Selkie is invited to Hearsay, an international sound art festival in Ireland. We seize the opportunity to visit Eimear Burke. She is a psychotherapist, storyteller, musician, and druid. Since 2020, she has also been the chosen chief of OBOD, the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, founded in England over fifty years ago, based on ancient nature traditions. We set out to ask her about matters of the soul and end up talking about rituals, the joy in grief, the wonder of plants, magic and the unity of justice and peace.
Selkie is the Audiomakery of writer Eva De Groote and soundartist Ruben Nachtergaele. We are based in Ghent, in Belgium. Some years ago we decided to go on an investigation into the matters of the soul, that ungraspable but so intriguing concept. Ruben practises shiatsu, a Japanese form of massage therapy, and has been very interested in eastern philosophy. Eva has been training as a Druid, exploring the nature traditions that once lived vividly in this part of the world. It’s been an interesting journey for us to discover that the old ways and wisdom from the East and the West, although different in approach and vocabulary, actually have a very similar undercurrent: it’s about being part of something bigger, about the notion that everything is alive and interconnected, about the importance of consciousness and the idea that awareness is closely intertwined with personal development. The podcast has been running for some years in Dutch under the name Ziel. And here we are now, starting a parallel podcastseries in English with occasional episodes, it will be growing with us on our life journey. Enjoy.
Soul is a project by Selkie, the Audiomakery of Ruben Nachtergaele and Eva De Groote. Did you enjoy this episode and would you like to support us? Visit Selkie.be and make a donation. Thank you for inviting us to Ireland, Diarmuid McIntyre from Hearsay Audio Festival and thank you for the field recordings: Eleanor McDowell and Daniel Lewis. A big thanks also to Berlinde Deman for the wonderful serpent sounds, Randall Casaer for the visual and Eva Peeters for the matchmaking with Eimear.
