Tired, after a slow eight mile walk, we sit in a circle of stones known locally as the Hermits Cell. On the wind is a distant sound of bleating sheep, a buzzing thing busys itself and swallows swiftly swoop about us. But that’s it. Feet tired and damp on the boggy earth. An occasional waft of peat on a gentle breeze. A blue sky giving such a clear view for so many miles, to distant islands. And this prayer:
Deep peace of the running wave to you
Deep peace of the flowing air to you
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you
Deep peace of the shining stars to you
Deep peace of the Son of Peace.
We have paused along this walk and thought about:
1) St Martins Cross. It’s been here since at least 800ad. It depicts, if you have keen eyes, Mary and Jesus, David and Goliath, Abraham and Isaac, David playing the harp. If you only had space for 4 bible stories to be carved what would you choose?
2) The ruins of the Augustinian nunnery. The guide reads a poem about the frightened last three nuns leaving here about 1560 with the iconoclasm and the desolation of the monasteries. I wonder how they processed the sorrow and pain, their faith struggles, seeing their beloved sanctuary torn apart.
3) we pass the public toilets where yesterday I’d smelled two teenagers smoking weed. On an island with such pure air how could they not realise that they would be noticed. We walk passed where yesterday I spoke with an ornithologist with high spec camera and mic pointing at some tall grass in hope of catching the flight of a Corncrake. You can hear him, calling for a mate, loud as loud but invisible. I said You must have the gift of patience. He sighs and says “No, not the gift more like a skill, honed, earned. The trick he adds is to have as little expectation as possible”. I wonder how he fuels his faith, hope and love, even if his hobby, when he sets such a low bar.
4) We come at last to the southern most point of the island, to Columba Bay. Here Colum Cille (aka Columba) arrived, exiled from Ireland with some monks. Our guide says Maybe he stopped here because this is the first island that you can’t quite see Ireland from here. She invites us to think about our own journeys and most of us realise that we have ended up far from where we started. With our backs to the sea she points to the smooth grassy green slopes that we now climb up explaining that Columba would not have seen this. He would have seen a thick forrest of trees but alas we cut them all down a long time ago.
5) the Abbey have brought tea and biscuits out to us at a half way point. This is a golf course. And yet there are forty cows. This is more like a cow field with some golfing greens on it than a golf course with some cows on it. There is no Nineteenth hole but everything else is here.
6) and so up and up and carefully over the squishy boggier bits, to the most spectacular views and a Hermits Cell. And I pray a prayer for those reading this blog, for you. Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you.
(Photo of Lucy and myself with the Iona Abbey between us).