What was and what remains

Regarding our sojourns to historic and prehistoric sites in Scotland over Easter, we are often asked what it is we find so fascinating among the ruins, the "distant shrines" as the medieval poet Chaucer put it. The short answer is we are intrigued by the story these ruins tell of humankind.  But it is more than that.  

Saddell Abbey, Argyll establishment marker, 1154 A.D. 

First, going to Scotland is something of an Al Capone reasoning.  Capone robbed banks because that's where the money was.  

The same logic applies to travels in Scotland.  For ancient ruins are everywhere to be found there, so we go.  Plus, not insignificant fringe benefits are the stunning vistas of ocean, sky and land.  A physical trinity of sorts; all engaging, a testament to divine creation itself...and to patience really as God waits for humankind to arrive at the knowledge of truth. 

The wealth of ancient "civil" sites in Scotland ranges from prehistoric Neolithic cairns (built with surprising sophistication by the first farming communities in Britain) to the subsequent Iron Age brochs (built to defend their harvest stores from invaders).  With the understanding that time is never idle, these ruins are in turn replaced by more advanced medieval walls and towers, also now ruinous, as former places of refuge against evermore new marauding threats. 

Ruins can also include entire crofting communities (i.e. farms inhabited by families over many generations) that now lay emptied and in ruin caused by the infamous forced eviction under Fuadach nan Gàidheal (Highland Clearances)--itself a different sort marauding but banditry nonetheless.  Insatiable lairds manipulating the vestiges of a feudal system of tenantry, by the letter of the law without its heart, excused their greed and soul-killing cruelty against neighbors and kinsmen.  Sadly, it is a story is as old as Cain and Abel.

Saddell Abbey ruin, Argyll 2019

But there is another part, a counterpoint to all that.  

Omnipresent church ruins--from Dark Ages hermit cells to medieval chapel foundations to modern aged Victorian gray stone parish churches now relegated or "repurposed" as art galleries, museums or thrift stores--are found throughout Scotland as well.  These remain, despite their oft ruinous state, a testament to humankind's longing to establish a better condition, a desire to bring about the evolution of human behavior through a transformational process called love. 

So, when we go sojourning to Scotland at Easter, it is this we are after.  A resurrection of living wisdom and understanding, which is to say enlightenment.  Our just completed excursion to Scotland's Orkney Islands in 2022 this year, to borrow from the hymnal, is another chapter in the old, old story.  

To close the 2019 chapter, these photos of Saddell Abbey in Scotland's Argyll (on Kintyre Peninsula) serve the purpose as well as any. 

Saddell Abbey, formerly a Cistercian monastery, is considered to have been founded by Somerled, the Gaelic-Norse Lord of Argyll, in 1154 A.D.  Somerled, whom Clan Donald herald as their progenitor, did not survive to see Saddell's completion.  He was killed at the Battle of Renfrew (1164 A.D.) in a disastrous fight against the Scots during the reign of Malcolm IV.  It was a time of great violence, this founding of dynasties...whether Donald or Stuart. 

Saddell Abbey ruin, Kintyre 2019

Saddell Abbey is said to have been competed in 1207 A.D. by Ragnall, Somerled's younger son.  That said, debate exists on the date of Ragnall's death and whether or not Saddell Abbey's completion should be credited to Ragnall or whether that credit belongs to Ragnall's son Domnall (Donald)...the grandson of Somerled.  

Regardless, our 2022 sojourn marks a departure from Argyll and its thalassocracy (i.e. a maritime based kingdom) of hybrid Gaelic-Norse "Lords of the Isles".  In 2022, we centered in Orkney in what was the realm of the Vikings, and in what remains a sea-inspired landscape of sublime beauty today.  

Nature is "purposive".  To borrow a philosophical synthesis from Emmanuel Kant, apprehending nature's form stimulates the harmonious "free play" of our understanding and imagination.  Such is Orkney.