Overwhelmingly sad, sitting in Abbey Church earlier, looking at the ferns growing high up between the stones. No light propitious, none at all, ever. I am left to soldier on and do the best I can as a poor, lost child in a hard, cold world. It seems that God does not intervene as we would have him do. This is my fifth and perhaps final visit to Iona. Why should I return? I have moved on and am grateful to this beautiful place: her steady spirit would smile approvingly to see that I have outgrown her. Every place of peace and beauty in the whole world is becoming sacred to me.
I read this morning that the Celtic tonsure, different from that of the Roman Church, was adopted from the druids.
Columba's Song
Chan fhaca mi aingeal
no naomh,
ach chuala mi fuaim na mara
agus eilean mo chridhe
na theis meadhan.
Angel nor saint have I seen,
but I have heard the
roar of the western sea.
And the isle of my heart
is in the midst of it.
Weder Engel noch Heilige
habe ich gesehen,
aber ich habe
das Rauschen des Meeres gehört,
Und die Insel meines Herzen
steht inmitten davon.
Colum Cille (St. Columba), 6th Century
Out there, Dutchman’s Cap, the Treshnish Isles, Staffa. Old friends, who have guided and sustained me these past five years. It is no longer raining. More than eight years ago, I sat here with Anne and looked out to these small, dark islands. It is unimaginable what has happened since then … and what is yet to come? The rain is returning.
Columba's Song
Chan fhaca mi aingeal
no naomh,
ach chuala mi fuaim na mara
agus eilean mo chridhe
na theis meadhan.
Angel nor saint have I seen,
but I have heard the
roar of the western sea.
And the isle of my heart
is in the midst of it.
Weder Engel noch Heilige
habe ich gesehen,
aber ich habe
das Rauschen des Meeres gehört,
Und die Insel meines Herzen
steht inmitten davon.
Colum Cille (St. Columba), 6th Century
Out there, Dutchman’s Cap, the Treshnish Isles, Staffa. Old friends, who have guided and sustained me these past five years. It is no longer raining. More than eight years ago, I sat here with Anne and looked out to these small, dark islands. It is unimaginable what has happened since then … and what is yet to come? The rain is returning.
"Without the shedding of blood,
there is no remission of sin".
But my soul has sweated its blood-tears
and look at the Hades I’m in.
"No one comes to the Father,
except by way of me".
I tried, but you shut the door,
and laughing, swallowed the key.
Long ago I walked
with the fair, tall people.
Now they hide from me in their hollow mounds
of endless dreaming sleep.
I, stranded in eternal wakefulness
as the vomiting machine
eats the last green hill-not-far-away –
leaving this wasteland of the written, unbending word.
Is a word really a word,
cold and silent on a page?
Is knowledge really knowledge
if it doesn’t burn alive in the soul of a man?
Is truth really truth
if it hasn’t grown for 2000 years?
The oak tree on the sleeping mound
is older, much older than that.
And still it grows,
despite the angry axe-blows
of your tribal jealousy.
I sing in her branches,
I rest in her shade,
I drink from her threefold wisdom.
Dana, my mother, is older, much older than you.
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