Why at Easter?

Good Friday, 2018  Argyll Square, Oban, Scotland

Why Easter?  We have often been asked.  Of all times you could go to Scotland, what is the attraction of  Easter? 

Well, to borrow from Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1342-1400 A.D.), it is then that people long to go on pilgrimages.  Nature perhaps...an instinct...buried deeply near the core of what describes a human being. Now imperceptible, under the layers of modernity, but there nonetheless.

March 25, 2018   Darla next to the Minister's Stone, Pulpit Hill, Oban
Local lore claims this was where ministers preached to congregations gathered on the hill. 

Beyond strengthening the heart's recreation at the shear joy of witnessing a new season springing to life, as leaves and daffodils break bud, Easter is a perfect time for Scotland. 

March 25, 2018  View of Oban from Pulpit Hill.  We had the hill to ourselves

We will be Machiavellian.  Easter tide is at the very cusp, just before the large scale tourist migrations.  But it is more than that.

It is a more personable time, still quiet.  Yet, it has this indescribable soft, almost pent up energy.  Ready to burst in the full-fledged glory of living.  A crossing of the Jordan into the promise of rebirth.  A renewal from the doldrums of late winter.

March 2017 Kirkhaugh Chapel, South Tyne Valley; near Whitley Castle (Epiacum)

It is an unwrapping; an unbinding.  A coming of age.  A wide-eyed child rising from infancy, now walking, and no--now running toward its hale and hardy youth, taking up its ambitions pell-mell and matching its colors flower for flower, and sunrise to sunset.

March 26, 2017  Mill race pond, River Sorne, Islay  Race no longer used since Islay Woolen Mill converted to electricity.

There is a time before...that is winter.  And a time soon to be...quickening summer.  Yes, there will be time enough for labors...the harvest of  autumn.  But Easter?  Ah!  Easter is here and now...it is upfront, ageless, vibrant, life anew.

March 28, 2017  Spring at Kildalton Church ruin, Isle of Islay

There is one more reason.   Perspective.  For it is at Easter when the engendering power of the Celtic Cross is best understood.

March 31, 2018  Monument at Lochgilphead, Argyll & Bute, Scotland