These are stories of times spent in remote places on the edge of things. They are woven in sea cliffs, hidden high places, soft quiet hollows, mysterious dark depths and fay forests. They are from the wonder found only after the road ends.
return to where you've been before
and try to figure out how to store
the many paths shared and memories given
from walking in traveling shoes
ii.
so come back to where you've been before
hang your worn shoes up on the back of the closet door
bring your hopes and dreams with you
and don't let them disapear in the settled stew
iii.
return to where you've been before
committed to something true
share your heart and look to grow
deeper spiraled into something new
iv.
so look back to where you've been before
while forming new shoes to take you on
bridge with your trodden ones and what they hold
as afterwards was before, all will dissolve and unfold
ii. Euginia Falls - Deep enough to revisit every summer. Water in motion connects. Past to Present to Future. Memories held close in the light and those shared for delight - Water in motion connects.
iii. Vasque Legends: Served through 12 years, 5 continents, countless miles, many relationships, forays, discoveries and adventures. They are now happily used for mucking out around the place and in caring for the garden. Slowly dissolving into the very substance of my soles/soul
iv. Vasque (St. Elias) Newborns: Started serving last year, 1 continent, around 50 miles
Discernment is best begun in The Wilderness. The Wilderness holds time to quest after the timeless. The Wilderness holds space to peer into the depths of self. The Wilderness demands sacred attention to the non-human physical and metaphysical world... or so I have been told by prophets, preachers and philosopher kings...
All summer I have looked upon the steep waterfalls, towering cliffs and jurassic greens, browns and yellows of the Burg. From Camas Tuath, it rises across the sea loch with a powerful beauty. Sunrise, Sunset, tea break - the Burg or Bearraich is always there across the waters whispering of wild adventure and the remote truths that live on the edge. Since I discovered, that the north west of the Bearraich is called “The Wilderness” (NM 406 292 for those with a copy of the OS map), it has beckoned to be explored. With the Camas season finished and good weather on the horizon, I packed my survival gear and spent two days in The Wilderness. To do justice to the experience requires a telling of this story in person or, perhaps, a venture for you to a similar place, so here I will provide a simple summary and leave most of the majesty of the experience for you to imagine and seek out.
Day 1
Sunrise saw me at the top of the track with my thumb out waiting for an angel to give me a ride. A love filled community transport driver from Kintra pulled up and we headed off towards Bunessan to pick up his passenger on the way to Craignure. We talked politics, government and weather and I waved goodbye at the Kinloch Crossroads. Now off the main road, I started walking, with the sun behind me, towards midmorning. Half an hour later, I found myself listening from the backseat of a car to the Mull Car Rally Route Surveyors discuss and note each feature along the road in detail as they prepared for a rally this weekend. At the juncture towards the scenic route to Salen, in sight of the community owned Tiroran Woods, I found myself again on foot with a gravel road for company.
Through small glens I followed the road. With the sun hot on my back I found hazels and blackberries to snack on. The soft sweet juice of the berries and the milky crunch of the wild hazelnuts spurred me on, until the road faded and turned to hiking path. At the National Park boundary, I left the trail which would have taken me to a 50 000 000 year old fossilized tree, and instead followed sheep tracks up towards Bearraich summit 430 meters above.
The views of the purple, red, orange golden green grasses blowing across the landscape were stunning. The air was clear and from the top I could see across the atlantic from the Isle of Jura to Skye and perhaps even beyond. To the east Ben More (Big Hill) was magnificently bathed in full sun. More than 1200 feet below the waves crashed and the hexagonal purple volcanic rock shelves echoed in response as I sat just out of the wind, ate, and listened to the cacophony.
Coming off the summit, I nearly stepped on the largest jackrabbit I’ve seen as I followed 3 red deer towards Loch an Druim an Aoinidh (Lake near Ridge of the Steep Slope). Studying the map for a route down the cliffs I got a hunch as to why my destination was called The Wilderness. Simply put, it wasn’t easy to get to. With sheer cliffs into the Atlantic along the coast to the south and no clear route down from the cliffs above it, I approached several possible streams North along the cliffs in hope their descent would be passable by foot. The first and second streams disappeared over a cliff about 200 feet down so I made my way along Aoineadh Thapuill(see link for translation) to An Sgoltadh(Place of the Splinters) where a third stream had worn itself into the cliff face and a rock pillar stood out from the cliff edge pointing at the sun overhead like a giant sundial.
The descent was treacherous, slow and steep. With cliffs on either side, I cut back and forth across the slippery stream. At the steeper parts, I followed the deer trail and lowered myself down the mossy banks one waist height at a time. With 3 days of supplies on my back, the task was all encompassing. I was part of the rocks, part of the water, my feet were tuned to the deer prints to keep me just out of reach of gravity's pull. Safely out below the sheer cliff face I found myself in awe. With waterfalls to my right I stood on a patch of heather clinging to the fairly steep grass and fern encrusted banks above the seashore. In the late afternoon sunlight the waters shimmered amongst fantastical rock formations, sharp small peaks, natural sea arches, and many caves. It was not long before I came across a small herd of fifteen deer grazing on the cliff side. Below them, I saw twenty mountain goats with horns as long as my forearm moving with the wind swept grasses. As the sun began to set, I made my way down the steep shores of The Wilderness to the seaside. There, amidst echoes of Stags bellowing into the wind, I set camp. I drifted to sleep watching the stars appear above the shimmers of my driftwood fire.
Day 2
It was a chaotic and windy night. I broke camp at dawn and hiked up into the scree and grass. Next to a natural chimney rock, I crested a ridge and came to 100 feet below a giant Stag who began to bellow. His calls were answered by another stag 200 feet above, outlined in the dawn light against the cliff walls. Sheltered from the wind in a round circle of stones I sat and spotted many other deer and goats around me as I listened and prayed. With the ocean waters stretched before me, Camas across the sea to my left, the isle of Staffa in front and Ulva to my right, the sun rose and I ate breakfast.
At some point I was ready to leave and the rest of the day went quickly by. Following the deer and goat herds across the lower set of cliffs just above the waves I made my way North. Not wanting to attempt the climb back up the stream I continued along the coast. Over waterfalls, along narrow trails that hugged the cliffs above with the edge of cliffs below I followed the sure footed goat and deer paths.
Near beautiful waterfalls at a place called Coireachan Gorma, I descended to explore the seabed for a time before the tide forced me back up to a goat path along the lower cliffs. Eventually the steep terrain leveled to rolling fields of grass with patches of bracken. I found my way to the edge of a fence and bid my goodbyes to the wild. Hopping the fence, I was suddenly in cattle and sheep pasture with emerald green grass that ended in dramatics cliffs above and below. I followed the farmland overtop of Mackinnon’s Cave and past a farmhouse to the road where I waited with my thumb out for another angel to give me a ride.
A combination of wonderful hitches, fast walking along Loch Scridian and on the Camas track with a bit of luck and a community bicycle allowed me to catch the last ferry over to Iona. There I met my love Laura for a bagpipe blessed sunset on top of DunI looking back across the waters to The Wilderness, that sacred place I had emerged from renewed.
Some relevant quotes that shaped my journey through The Wilderness:
“Together we seek to enable growth in love, respect and awareness of ourselves, each other, god, and the environment.” Camas Mission Statement, Iona Community
“The branches from the vine of life are separate, yet the derive from a common taproot. Like foliated Celtic knotwork, they intertwine...Community with nature; Community with the divine, and; Community with one another...Soil, Soul, Society” Rekindling Community - Alastair McIntosh
“Everywhere people ask: ‘What can I actually do? The answer is as simple as it is disconcerting: we can, each of us, work to put our own inner house in order. The guidance we need for this work cannot be found in science and technology, the value of which depends on the ends they serve; but it can still be found in the traditional wisdom of [humankind].” Small is beautiful - E.F. Schumacher
“If you imagine someone who is brave enough to withdraw all [their] projections, then you get an individual who is conscious of a pretty thick shadow. Such a [person] has saddled [themselves] with new problems and conflicts. That individual has become a serious problem to [themselves], as the individual is now unable to say of others that that if they do this or that, they are wrong, and they must be fought against… Such a person knows that whatever is wrong in the world is in them, and if that individual only learns to deal with their own shadow they have done something real for the world. They have succeeded in shouldering at least an infinitesimal part of the gigantic, unsolved problems of our day” Psychology and Religion: West and East - Carl Jung
Chasing the setting sun I went up the track from Camas Tuath. Ahead of me the red wheel of the wheelbarrow I was pushing glinted amber in the dusk light. The wheelbarrow held a bag of dirty clothes to wash, my tent, sleeping bag, a notebook and a candle in a dry bag. Fitted over top was my black coracle. Lashed in place it capped the wheelbarrow like a rounded swimmers cap. I had thought of the idea to use the half sea mussel farm float as a boat a few months ago at Camas during a swimming and raft building session and was excited to test it out on a small expedition.
As I passed the Camas road end the sun set and the night began. Heralded in with the baying of sheep as they walked in front of me on the single track road, darkness settled. The flock of sheep left me at the turn off to Pottie (Poit na h-I) and by the faintest starlight I continued on to the old church yard. A small rabbit ran across my path just as I rounded the back of the church and began following a sheep trodden gap in the bracken towards the Loch. I pushed through the under brush slowly with my wheelbarrow and gear and a flashlight in my mouth until I spotted the edge of a steep drop just before the lake shore. There I left my wheelbarrow turned over to cover my rucksack and dirty clothes for the night.
I lopped my dry bag and water bottle into my midnight coracle and put the flashlight in my pocket while my eyes adjusted to the deep darkness of creeping willow and bracken. Carefully I tested the embankment. Like sipping a hot cup of tea, I patiently crept, dragging my boat behind me through the brush to the water's edge. I heard the lapping of the water before I saw it. The darkness was so deep on the surface, barely a glint or glimmer it gave me. The wind pushed the water out in lazy ripples across the loch towards the far shore and Knockvologan. Somewhere in the darkness I knew a hidden rock pile island covered in overgrowth laid waiting to meet me.
Just visible I found a line of rocks that reached out into the water until they were covered by the waves 10 feet from the shore. Skipping from rock to rock with my vessel in tow, I made my way carefully over the water. As I left the safety of the shoreline, the clouds cleared briefly. In the sliver of moonlight I saw it in the distance. Fifty meters from the shore, forty five from where my rock bridge finished, a dark mass showed itself. I took stock of the direction just as the window of moonlight disappeared and the Crannog faded back into the ancient past. I could imagine it sitting there, several millennia ago, with a wood fort of birch on it and flame torches guarding the walls reflecting their light off the waters.
Reaching the end of the rocks I placed my simple boat shoreside of the final boulder and balanced it with the dry bag leaning towards the front. Straining, I held the rock as I stepped in and balanced my weight to keep it from tipping too much to any side. Cross-legged with my drybag on my lap and my hands in the water on either side, I found the centre of the weight and balanced. Precariously afloat I took one last look at the shore and pushed off from my anchor rock.
Using my cupped palms I paddled towards where I thought the crannog had appeared in the moon light. The breeze pushed me onward and I adjusted my course to combat its pull. It was dark. I tried putting my flashlight in my mouth and scanned the surface of the waters but found nothing in the distance. I scanned back behind me and even though I had just left the shore I could not see it. The darkness was so deep. Knowing the loch was not so big was comforting, so I turned off my light and paddled with the wind, trusting my instinct.
The darkness was not heavy or oppressive as it sometimes is. Peaceful, quiet and mysterious it enveloped me as my hands splashed along the surface of the water. The rocking of my coracle, the tug of the wind, the splash of my hands and the pull of the mysterious undiscovered island was all consuming. Forgotten was the long day of cooking, activity leading and community group building. Time disappeared in the swaying rythym of the water and I was present to it. Part of my coracle, part of the wind, part of the water, I paddled on. Journeying inward, forward, outward towards connection and was content.
I'm not sure when it started. Time is a tricky thing when alone. I can safely say that at some point, while enveloped in that darkness an image appeared in my mind. An image of soft smooth hands in the deep. The image was clear and sharp. The hands were holding my boat and easing me forward toward the horizon - toward a safe landing. At the same moment, the darkness eased and I felt propelled forward faster then my paddling or the wind seemed to account for. It was then that I saw something on the horizon. Slowly, a deeper blackness on the surface of the loch showed itself. As I approached the darkness grew edges, contours, and shadows.
As the rocky edges and creeping willow suddenly brushed the coracle the clouds thinned and stars began to appear above me. With the retreating darkness went timelessness. I became aware of my sore and stiff legs. I became fearful of finding a way through the creeping elbow deep willow branches and I realized that I was tiring. As the wind pushed the bottom of my coracle against the rocks I reached into the water and pushed myself off the branches and boulders.
Paddling further along the edge of the small island, I looked for an accessible harbor. Soon enough for my waning strength a break in the overhanging branches appeared and I eased my boat through. On the left a large rock appeared. On the right a long thick willow trunk snaked just above the water. I gripped each handhold and, bracing myself, slid my coracle out of the deep water and felt rocks under me. Balancing to keep all my edges above the lapping liquid, I eased my body forward onto the willow trunk. Delicately, with a spryness I did not feel, I found a purchase with my foot and crept out of the coracle barely balancing above the water.
Conscious of the possibility of the clouds return and the disappearance of the natural light I worked quickly. I pulled the coracle further into the shallows as I creeped along the willow branch above the water. The branch ended in the meter high embankment of the island.
The Crannog was covered in shoulder high braken, brambles and other softer shrubs. Straining I placed my dry bag on the branch behind me and heaved the coracle infront of me at the brush. Pushing down the shadowy wall, I cleared a path by starlight. Fighting back the brambles I stepped onto solid ancient ground and proceeded to flatten an area for my tent.
The Crannog was small. In the starlight I found a spindly rowan and a flat bit for my tent. Surrounded by lapping waves I slept. Through the night a storm came. The wind blew sideways and the rain danced. The waves sounded like they would envelope me on all sides. It was exciting. Sheltred by the stones beneath and the rowan beside, I slept.
The morning came. The wind driven waves, higher than the height of my coracle, crashed onto the Crannog. For a time I waited, watching crane flies and listening to the voices in the wave-song. When I ventured out of my dwelling I discovered that the Crannog was shrouded in mist so thick I could see nothing but white and feel nothing but wave spray driven by the wind. Later, when the time was right and the waves were only half the height of my boat, I packed up my gear. As the clouds passed I found a good bit of shallow rocks on the west side of the Crannog. From there, I eased into the coracle, balanced to keep the water out and, with a quick thankyou to the island and plants that sheltered me, I pushed into the wind and waves.
Immediately my concentration went into balancing against the waves. Holding on to the sides of my boat, I embraced the wind as it blew me towards the shore. Quickly and fiercely the water pushed my vessel. As the wind whirled me about, I skimmed the waters surface and passed through long grasses until my coracle touched a section of safe sandy shore.
From the shore of loch Poit na h-I, I could see clearly in the misty morning the Crannog I had left not 50 meters from the shore. Then, I turned towards the old church, found my wheelbarrow and continued along the single track road towards Iona and a washing machine for my dirty clothes.
Silence and Spirit lived together once upon a time.
Spirit's favourite thing was to hold hands with Silence, gather itself and soar outward, through the blood and bones of its body, to meet all manner of life in embrace.
Silence loved the push and pull, the ebb and flow, of pulse in Spirit's hand.
In between Spirit's heartbeats, Silence spiraled towards a great sense of wholeness with itself and with all things.
In those days Spirit and Silence were joy filled.
When Spirit was raging and its body was filled with talking, laughing and doing, Silence was able to feel the rich life in between each moment. If Spirit ever tried to move too fast, Silence would squeeze Spirit's hand and Spirit would understand and let Silence lead the way for a time.
When Silence was deeply still and its body was filled with the connection in quiet between all things, Spirit was able to feel the rich life in each moment. If Silence ever tried to be too slow, Spirit would squeeze Silence's hand and Silence would understand and let Spirit lead the way for a time.
Most of the time, Spirit and Silence lived, traveled and breathed together in wonder and love at all they saw and did. But as time flowed on, Spirit began to loosen its grip on Silence's hand and Silence started to forget how to squeeze Spirit's fingers.
While Spirit and Silence were still aware of each other and the joy of breathing together, they began to hold hands less and less and it was not to long until one day when they didn't hold hands at all!
Soon holding hands was something that Spirit had far too little time for in days full of exploring, jumping, and dancing.
It was about that time that Silence became so bent on being still and finding joy inside itself that hand holding seemed like nothing but a worthless distraction.
So Silence and Spirit lived their lives searching in their own ways. They felt happy but often even at the best of times there was a feeling of emptiness that they couldn't quite figure out. Sometimes that feeling made them sad or angry but more often then not it was just there, inside them.
Occasionally, something would happen in their lives that would remind them of their longing for each other. In times like that, they would strive to remember how to hold hands. Sometimes their fingers would intertwine to support each other but more often than not Spirit and Silence would just feel an ache. Most of the time they found relief, but not joy, by trying to fill their longings with more of themselves.
One day Silence was sitting on a rock by the sea, feeling quiet and adrift. Silence yearned to feel invigorated and passionate about the rock pools around, or the rock itself, or anything really, but all Silence felt was still. It was a wonderful stillness, so deep between the crash of the waves it could hear the nothing of all things. Still, Silence was not satisfied and yearned for more. Silence was sitting for so long, going deeper and deeper that Silence's bum froze to the rock!
Silence's bum was so cold from being still that it burned! Ouch - Silence felt! In feeling, Spirit was all of a sudden there, reminding Silence how to move to keep warm.
Instinctively, Spirit took Silence's hands and rubbed them in Spirit's own. And with the back and forth motion heat came. With the ebb and flow of the waves around and the slow warmth spreading from the repetitive motion of Spirits rubbing, Silence began to remember the feel of joy in between the pulse in Spirit's hand. At that moment, all the memories of connection flooded in and Silence and Spirit held each other and were in awe. Wonder filled them. They went on to live in joy, together.
