Van life 8: Islands

I had crossed the northern coast of Scotland, stopping at caves and power spots along the way. I was still roughly following David Furlong’s map of the sacred sites of Scotland in the shape of a pentagram and had a few more to go. As I approached the North West, despite looking like van life heaven on the map, it wasn’t exactly that.

In all my travels I think I’d unconsciously held this area in my mind as where ‘the wild’ was, in the romantic sense of ‘head out into the wild’ with the van. As I got here, what it actually looked like was a few possible and permitted car parks being heavily crowded by holidaymakers in mobile homes, and then vast stretches of barren-looking land, not having recovered from the clearances. I began to wonder if there was any true ‘wild’ left in the UK. I hadn’t seen any in all this time.

Cape Wrath

In the North Western corner of Scotland lies Cape Wrath. This area is an active bombing range used for military testing and everywhere around it feels ‘controlled’ – either by the military or by wealthy land owners. I went with a small group and we took a boat over at the place is entirely locked off by a loch. We drove across the martian landscape in a Jeep and walked around a lot, then went to the lighthouse, which had some old WWII station ruins sprinkled at its base. I felt like I was in a 1920’s movie, and half expected to receive a telegram about the war. Energetically, I got fierce guardians and nature spirits here, but forgotten. I felt the pain of the land being used in this way. And as I was leaving, a familiar sense of ‘land grief’ stuck me. All the tender spots of the land mapping to places within my own body.

As I got to the west coast, the majority of my travels began to revolve around the Islands, each one revealing new facets.

Isle of Lewis

The Isle of Lewis, on the other hand, was up next, and this was literally the island of my ancestors. I felt strangely nervous as I pulled up on the ferry. Well, first of all it felt pretty empty. Lots of hills and sheep. Desolate, in a beautiful way. Almost lunar. Eagles flying overhead. So quiet. And something else…ah yeah, the Church. The Catholics replaced the pagans. Then the Reformation happened and converted everyone to Protestants. And with that, there felt like there was a choked up feeling hanging over the land. Like someone’s tie being tied too tight. And yet, beneath that, something more true: a quality of grace and beauty like a line of a sonnet. I headed out into the mountains and towards the legendary stone circle, Callanish. 

I found my parking spot really close to the site and was delighted. It was quiet, and I’d be able to come and go so easily for the next coming days, however long I wanted to stay. I went to sit with the stones and, of course, I immediately bumped into the site’s ‘designated hippy’ – it’s land-appointed guardian. He stood out to me immediately with that kind of elusive, cosmic quality people carry when they take a lot of psychedelics, the ‘air of the land’ he carried like a scent, and vaguely mischievous, gnome-like presence. He’d somehow been given a house with a small plot of land right next to the stone circle, and had taken it upon himself to make sure everything was in order there. We got on well and hung out a fair bit over those days.

The next night, I went back to the stones. It was a full moon and I was hoping to catch a moment when no one else was there to do my ceremony. I got a short window, and it was enough. In contrast to Orkney, which had been all about connection with star beings, here I felt a lot of ancestral and deep Earth energies. I felt like I was being rewoven into a much wider narrative and that the song of the land was being reawakened within me. Just as I was finishing up, a local shaman came and sat with me. We didn’t speak much, but he played some music and did some energy work. It felt so seamless and natural. And then he was gone.

Mull and Iona

I spent a few days on Mull. This is one of my mentor Bell’s favourite spots and I could see why. I spent a few glorious nights camped under the stars, looking out over the ocean, and being with stillness. But that wasn’t my trip. Mine was: go to Iona. Iona’s a tiny island just off Mull, and is widely revered as the "cradle of Scottish Christianity". It holds its own as one of the most spiritually charged locations in Western Europe. It served for centuries as a major geographic anchor for pagan mysticism, early medieval scholarship, and modern pilgrimages.

For me, I wasn’t sure what it meant, except that I had to be there. It certainly meant a long walk on a summer’s day and a lot of looking at places from the outside – monasteries, shops – not feeling quite connected with them. I think what it gave me was more of a dream you half-remember. A feeling of what it was like in a time before time. And it did indeed have a dream-like quality. Like you can slip through clouds there and enter higher worlds. I felt a strong sense of ‘see, this exists’ in a sonorous, loving tone. That’s the best I can describe it. And I feel like that was exactly what was needed there, was to receive that precious gift.

Arran

The final island I stopped at was Arran, where I’d actually be based for the next three months as I’d arranged a spot volunteering at the Scottish School of Herbal Medicine. It was located on some beautiful land on a hill overlooking the ocean, and I had the absolute joy of getting to work on the land, with all the different herbs and trees, and to learn from the teachers there. I worked in chunks, and I was processing a lot of personal stuff along with it. My days gathering apples and making juice were all about my own inner sense of wisdom and abundance. My days with comfrey taught me a lot about grounding – even manifesting as falling and hurting my tailbone as part of the process. And of course we’d take walks out to the sacred sites and nature spots, picking liberty caps when they showed up for us. I became really fond of the river in the nearby forest, and this was where I first began connecting with nagas – serpent beings of the waters. The whole island was bursting with magic and I would have liked to stay, but I was being called to move on.

The final phase of my journey was about to commence, I just didn’t know it yet.

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