On Easter Monday I left the monastery on Unst and began my slow return journey to Devon. This would take me most of a fortnight, so I will divide it between two journal entries here. I also returned to posting daily on facebook with photos. So below is a glimpse of that record for the penultimate part of my ‘forty days in the wilderness’.
Day 29 – wild monastery pilgrimage and I’m on the road again… When I first arrived on Unst a fortnight ago, she was showing her sunny face, so it seemed appropriate that she now sent me on my way with her wild and windy face. Waves of sea water were breaking over my little old car as we sat on the ferry to Yell, before driving across to catch the next ferry to mainland Shetland.
On the way to Lerwick, I went in search of a personal ‘sacred site’ (as all our wild monastics know and as Richard would say ‘hot beverages and baked goods’ are central to our communion). So what better wayside shrine than the Original Cake Fridge! Once provisioned with large box of honeycomb aero tiffin, I was ready for the ferry to Orkney, although sad to say ‘farewell’ to Shetland.
Click here to see the fb post and further photos (including the cake fridge!)
Day 30 – and my final day in the Isles. I continued my quest for wild churches while I was back in Orkney. I started from St Magnus Cathedral In Kirkwall, which is the most marvelous battenburg cake of a building with its red and gold sandstone. It is also full of fascinating stonework inside, including many ‘memento mori’ gravestones, which line the walls. I particularly enjoyed the ones to the pious women of the town!
Then I followed the pilgrimage route of St Magnus Way to Orphir, which has one of the very few remaining old round churches. All that is left now is the curving, grass roofed apse and a gravel circle to mark where the encircling walls of the nave once stood. Yet it is more beautiful (to me at least) for being open now to the wider church of the wild… and what a wonderful wild landscape surrounds it… with the sea, the hills and the call of the curlews and oyster catchers all around.
By tea time I was back on the ocean, enjoying the warmth of the sunshine and the beauty of the light, as I caught my last glimpse of Orkney and my first of mainland Scotland from the ferry.
More about the St Magnus Way here: https://www.stmagnusway.com/
Orphir Round Kirk (below). Click here to see the fb post and further photos.
Day 31 – I arrived back in my old stomping ground in the Highlands… first in the east by the River Ness and then back on the West Coast where I used to live. I visited the Old High Church in Inverness, which is currently for sale for offers over £150,000, and right beside it is the magnificent Leakey’s second hand book shop, in the old Gaelic Church. This is probably my favourite bookshop in the world and has the equivalent of an entire small room dedicated to theology. I was tempted by five aged volumes of the history and doctrine of the Church of Scotland, featuring many old photos of blokes with magnificent beards… but opted for a book of saints instead! I now know that today is the feast of the fourth century African, Zeno, patron saint of fisher people.
As I headed out of Inverness, the mountains were white with snow but the combination of rain on the lower ground & snow higher made it very hard to photograph this dramatic landscape. I am now staying with old friends just outside Shieldaig, where I have a lovely little cottage to myself among the trees and beside the river. So good to have a bit of a blether and catch up on local news…
Click here to see the fb post and photos.
Day 32 – a quiet day at home, here at Kinloch where the river opens into Loch Shieldaig (above). It was a rainy, reflective day and I was thinking of Jewish friends as Passover draws to a close. I spent time simply wandering and wondering in this beautiful place, listening to bumble bees in the blaeberry blossoms, watching the ever changing light on the water and the mist move over the pines on the hill.
I am very inspired by what my friends, Claire and Richard Munday, have engaged with here over the last thirty years. Half a million native trees have been planted on 1000 acres of deer fenced land and lost ecosystems are gradually regenerating. Badgers have returned, rare dragonflies breed in the boggy pools and, nearby on Shieldaig island, white tailed eagles are resident again. Kinloch is now a local community based, charitable trust and many of the former sporting estates in this area are now owned by environmentally orientated charitable trusts or are national nature reserve. The 26,000 hectares of the neighbouring Applecross Trust have just achieved the Wildlife Estates Scotland accreditation, recognising the extensive environmental and conservation work undertaken. So this whole area is wild monastery on a big scale, a sacred space of hospitality for all life, and a very special place to visit. Claire and Richard offer relaxed and affordable accommodation in two self contained cottages on a B&B basis. So you can come as an individual, family or group and enjoy their friendly hospitality, local knowledge and community connections. More details on this link: http://www.stevecarter.com/ansh/kinloch.htm
Click here to see the fb post and further photos.
Day 33 – A big, bittersweet and beautiful day. I was so happy to wake up to the sun as I planned to visit my former home village, Diabaig, today. As it sits at the end of a nine mile, single track road with tight bends and a high pass, good weather is a blessing! Loch Torridon was mirror clear as I journeyed around from Shieldaig, giving that mysterious sense of the road being like a thread between worlds… a theme that remained with me throughout the day.
I paused along the way to visit Am Ploc, with its old outdoor church, which was a foundational inspiration for our wild church (and as we are an original wild church and significant seedbed within an international movement, its influence has rippled out like the loch waters it sits beside). As you can see in the photo below, with its stone ‘seats’ there would be no arguments about moving the pews here!
I paused again on the ‘pass of the winds’, from where I can remember some pretty scary descents on snowy days, such that we really did need a 4×4 for the school run. The view from here (as shown below) is stunning, especially when the deep blue of the sky is reflected in upper loch Diabaig as today and one can see all the way to Skye.
When I reached the (literal) end of the road, I was very kindly welcomed by one of the new owners of our old croft and the home and retreat we built there on the edge of the cliff. It was such a privilege to be guardians of this piece of heavenly wilderness for those years and it was good to see it now, still being tended and shared with care and respect. I was able to take time in Diabaig to remember all the fullness of life we experienced there as a family and to place some of my husband, Adrian’s, ashes in the good earth of the croft and in the deep salty waters of Diabaig Bay. Rest in peace, dear Adrian, and rise in glory.
My big day drew towards a close with the warmth of friendship, shared memories and laughter with dear friends gathered for a tea party in Claire and Richard’s boat house. Outside the seals also gathered, as we recalled friends no longer able to be with us and all the extraordinary pioneer ministry we collaborated in offering together. I feel so blessed to have lived and loved here. There was much suffering latterly and so it has taken a while to feel able to wholeheartedly return. How grateful I am that this time has come and that it now feels like a new season in my relationship with these wonderful lands and people.
Click here to see the fb post and further photos.
Day 34 – A very strange day today. I left the West Coast for Edinburgh in perfect weather… but got stuck not far from Inverness due to an accident. I got chatting to a lovely Baptist minister as we all waited & the Air Ambulance landed in a field beside us. Sadly we later heard that a man had died, so we have been praying for him and his loved ones. The road was then closed. Due to the relatively few roads here, this meant a detour of several hours through Ullapool & beyond (above). So I then had the strange experience of getting to where I was trying to go by travelling in the wrong direction!
It felt like a real peregrinatio as I had no idea where exactly I was going, what I would find along the way or how long it would take… I simply felt very grateful to be alive. So I met many mountains, some charming small churches (including that of Rosehall, who have cleverly disguised the lack of an organ, and hidden the resulting sound system, by carving & painting a collection of fence posts to look just like organ pipes!) and even some very good Earl Grey tea in a beautiful, bone china cup & saucer… unexpectedly & gratefully discovered in a small, remote cafe.
Once back on the main road many hours later, I foolishly took the ‘snow road’ in my determination to see the oldest UK tree. There was no snow but many, many dips and hairpin bends. It was rather like driving on a helter skelter and added yet more time to the journey.It was wonderful though to meet Grandfather Yew (as glimpsed below) in the churchyard at Fortingall… my first encounter with a living ancestor who is around 5,000 years old. It felt poignant and powerful to reflect on a life cut tragically short at the start of the day and then a life lasting through so many human generations and his/herstory at the end of the day…
Click here to see the fb post and further photos.
Day 35 – A warm & wonderful time wandering around Edinburgh with good friends. We started by joining the lovely folks of St James, Leith, for Communion. How happy I was to hear their priest refer to the Queendom of God – Halleluasherah! I also appreciated his reflections on today’s Gospel where Thomas touches the wounded, resurrected body of Christ. He spoke of different kinds of sacred touch and the risks of touch being used in unsafe, uncaring ways… and I found myself thinking of the ‘more than human’ world and how easily this is excluded from the necessity a of tender touch. Also of the vulnerability and courage of allowing others to touch our woundedness, which made me think back to my recent days on the West Coast. Touch can be healing or harmful. Then we walked along the Water of Leith, put the Gospel into practice by rescuing a bumblebee, admired awesome graves in Warriston Cemetery, had tea & delicious cake in the Botanic Gardens and met a healing Goddess of the River near Stockbridge… it was a full time!
I really love cemeteries and am often struck by how full of life these sacred spaces of the dead can be. Today the air was full of birdsong and the earth bursting with spring greens and flowers. In among the many obelisks erected (no comment!) to important past blokes, I particularly appreciated a woman’s grave, as shown above. She seemed to be half submerged in the earth… her broken stone face was softened by moss and her body surrounded by wood anemones in bloom. She reminded me of the words written by Adrienne Rich in her poem, Transcendental Etude:
“Such a composition has nothing to do with eternity, / the striving for greatness, brilliance—only with the musing of a mind/one with her body . . . with no mere will to mastery, / only care for the many-lived, unending/forms in which she finds herself.”
Deep thanks to Beth Thomas for being a wonderful host and city peregrinatio guide xxx Click here to see the fb post and further photos
All text and images are my own, unless otherwise stated – © Sam Wernham 2023
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