Van tales 7: Awkwardness in Orkney
I arrived on the Isle of Orkney and didn’t need to drive too far as there was a nice parkup on the beach quite near the port. It was a sunny day and I enjoyed lazing around, although I was a little bothered by another family who parked up next to me and were having too much fun. With all this travelling on my own, I wouldn’t say I was obviously lonely most of the time, but the whole thing only made sense within my Underworld container. Any time the ‘Middle World’ encroached on my space for too long, it was both really jarring and also a reminder of the kind of life I’d left behind. I was licking my wounds around that in the van when the weather suddenly turned and the wind picked up. A lot. For the first time since I had the van I worried about it blowing over. Also, I wanted to get over the bridge to where all the interesting sites were, but the bridge would be especially risky.
It carried on and on, but eventually, it died down enough to risk it and I made my way over towards the Ring of Brodgar. I found myself another great parking spot where I could be for several days. It was well-located on the coast near several of the sites, and I settled in. The following morning I headed over to stones. It was before the warden’s office opened as I wanted to have time alone with them. I approached with a sense of awe. I instinctively felt the power of this cosmic portal, stretching out into other times, dimensions and worlds. While I didn’t logically understand what it was I was doing, I understood enough that there was a summoning here that related back to the ET’s I’d connected with during my mushroom ceremony at Piers’s place. I still had a few mushrooms with me and had been saving them for here. With respect, I walked in the circle of the stones, lightly touching my fingers to each one to absorb more information.
‘What do you think you’re doing?!’ A voice interrupted my trance. It was the warden. Suddenly I felt like a perpetrator. I retaliated with something unhelpful, and after an uncomfortable exchange, stormed off seething with an air of guilt and indignation following along with me. I can’t remember what happened exactly but I remember she didn’t accept a simple apology and continued to make a point there was something about my whole identity that was at fault. Not the best start.
I was hanging around the entrance, confused and trying to make a new plan, when a woman came up to me and we started talking about the stones. If the warden was the villain, appointed by the ‘system’ in this story, this woman was the ‘designated hippy’ as I started calling them. It seemed like every sacred site had one – a land guardian that had been appointed by nature and the spirit world to unofficially look after the place. Most of them find themselves serendipitously being given land, or a property nearby, or a job of some kind and they always seem to have karma or past lives that feel deeply entwined with the place. My woman had written a book about the sacred sites of Orkney and was the perfect person to help orientate me.
I went to visit the other stones in the area, which was also powerful, but the main one was the Ring of Brodgar itself, and an energy point in between the different sites, situated very close to a new archeological dig. I returned that night once the warden had cleared off, took the mushrooms I had left and did my ceremony. I connected with the star beings and felt like I fulfilled the task, whatever it was. I’ve yet to fully understand the significance of it all but feel like it will come in time.
In the remaining time, I went to the Neolithic town, Skara Brae, and sensed more was going on there than we realise, and drove around the Island, but really I was just sightseeing by this point. I got talking to some of the locals in town and got a feel for much more richness that could be tapped if I stayed longer, like a secret that I could feel lying still dormant beneath the earth. But I’d done what I needed to do so I hopped back on the ferry and arrived back to the mainland.
I finished up a glorious week driving around the Highlands, stopping off at beaches and taking walks through the mountains. It was probably the best summer Scotland’s ever had and I felt really grateful to get to be back there and to enjoy the best of my country like that. But there was still a fair way to go…
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