Hebridean microadventure and the miracle of Iona
Happy Friday!
I write this from the warm seat of a 16 hour coach journey from Oban to London. I'll arrive just in time for second breakfasts, which is appropriate as I've been eating nothing but porridge for the last 5 days. Wonderfully sustaining in the western wind.
I spent Tuesday night in a bothy on the isle of Mull, and you can read a wee blog about that here: Isle of Mull.
Yesterday, I caught the bus to the far Southwest of Mull, to catch a ferry to the holy island of Iona.
The day was fine, but the wind was high. As the swell rose on the mile of sea between the islands, I decided to gamble London for a night on Dun I, the highest point on Iona - itself feted as a "thin place", as close to heaven as earth can be.
Well, all I can say is that heaven must be a darned windy place.
After the last ferry was cancelled, and the monks battened down in their monastery dorms, and the sun drowned beneath the waves, I marched up the hill, in the thrashing wind.
The problem wasn't that there wasn't a sheltered spot on Dun I, it was that the sheltered spot kept moving. And so did I.
At one point, shuffling across the blasted moorland with my bivvy bag catching the gale like a windsock, I was nigh on buffeted over the precipice. Several times the wind caught my underside as I "slept" and I sausage rolled a couple of feet.
Then the miracle. There is no crime more hated by St Columba of Iona than the crime of wanton littering. So imagine my horror when my boot bag was snatched up and sent whirling away to the summit and beyond.
My instinct to attempt recovery was rendered obsolete by the completeness of the plastic bag's vanishing. Its ghost white lettering last seen fluttering goodbye as it wracked across the black night sky, thrashing around a far off knoll.
But St Columba was watching. The bag miraculously reappeared, howling through the air, clattering on the wind round the cliff edge, coming in full circle to dive bomb into my chest as I clutched out my hands.
The saints will not abide littering.
The advantage to my wind-beaten sleepless night on Iona is that tonight I will surely not be troubled by the minor turbulence of a coach trip south.
Goodnight!
INPUT
Five'll make you get down, yeah.
AIR
WAVES
HILLS
RAIN(BOW)
MEGABUS
OUTPUT
Fortune favours the Dave.
Tomsleibhe, Isle of Mull (Today!)
Meditations on Meditations: Praise & Service, Core Beliefs, Adversity, Love, Change, Retreat, Indignation (October, November)
"No one ever died while breathing". Psychedelic Breathwork with Alchemy of Breath (October)
The Most Living: Synopsis (October)
The rest of this week will mostly be spent recovering from the next sixteen hours. Next week we've got Durdle Door, Oslo and the first of my sessions with Curtis Brown.
Phew. I don't know about you, but I need some MARGE, my faithful companion through these islands:
Hour by hour resolve firmly, like a Roman and a man, to do whatever comes to hand with correct and natural dignity, and with humanity, independence and justice. Allow your mind freedom from all other considerations. This you can do, if you will approach each action as though it were your last, dismissing the wayward thought, the emotional recoil from the commands of reason, the desire to create an impression, the admiration of self, the discontent with your lot. (Meditations 2:5)
Be human!
- dc
p.s. Life To The Lees: Cycling Around Britain is still merrily asale.
p.p.s. Oooh... You can forward this email to a friend!
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