As we near the end of our journey, with only a week to go, I am sitting here with a sort of sadness I had felt only a year and a half ago. To know that in less than a week we shall be back on home ground is a sobering feeling and I just can’t get over how quick the time went. We had traveled to Ireland and then to Scotland in what now seems a whirlwind of adventure and revelation. I had no idea it would be so fast, then again maybe I did and that is why we came a second time.
They say you have to visit Iona at least three times and if this is true then I know we will be back at least two more times. I am not sure why they say it, but something about it seems right. The next time I plan on visiting all the Hebrides Isles and spending time at many of the local sites of Holy Wells and ruins. Something about those isles, like Iona, just calls to me and I feel strongly pulled towards them.
Iona. I still dream of her, walking her slopes and passing through her valleys seems so right to me. On the hill of Dun I, I found a peace that I had not felt since I was in my 20s, in a place known as Waldo’s Canyon near Woodland Park, Colorado; something I had searched for in many locations. What is it about these quiet places that draw me from so far away?
I could tell you stories of strange happenings in those places but then I take away the mystery and awe of them, instead leaving them open to be argued or disbelieved. Why would I arm anyone with that weapon?
I keep thinking of my future, what to do for my Masters, and I keep going back to “Soil and Soul” by Alastair MacIntosh. Perhaps the reason he resonates with me is because I believe as he does and that old communities held something far more important than profit margins or “economic potential”. They hold history in a way we can only read about, or hear about from some old soul who had been in “that” time, and I yearn for something like that to be in the here and now.
It has given me a lot to think about. To take my cultural studies background and do exactly what I have wanted and bring into it sustainable studies in an effort to preserve such special places, not just in America but anywhere in the world where such a site exists. This “past” we research is alive in ruins, stories and music, we have but to only tap into the generational well to receive it and be patient enough to learn it while preserving it. Why is this so hard to do?
I find myself answering before I even contemplate it and I do not want to seem brash or quick witted but it is usually because they sit upon, or near, some precious resource. A resource not thought of so long ago, as needs were basic, which only today has become a market commodity. It makes me think of the old sites in America, how I wish to be able to find those, and how we can help all Americans preserve them.
So where do I go from here and how do I proceed?
I have a good idea, and even better ones at how to be ecologically minded, the trick is getting there in a way that shapes a framework for others to follow. That my friends is the bigger goal!
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