Our pending pilgrimage to Scotland will be a different sort of trek. No islands. 100% Scottish mainland.
Rather than centering our visit upon Scotland's remarkable Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Age sites, this year our 2023 walks will immerse us in the early and late medieval. Which is to say, we will actively seek out the ruins of castles and churches this trip. Castles are normally more the haunt of tourists who venture to Scotland, with most limiting themselves to Edinburgh. We plan to trek further afield, as has been our typical travel style.
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| March 30,2018 Dunstaffnage founded upon native rock outcrop |
This is not to say that in our previous sojourns we avoided castles or churches. But, they were nearly all visited more as opportunity allowed. They weren't the objective of our walks per se. Dunstaffnage just north of Oban comes to mind as an example. So too, Cubbie Roo's castle on Wyre in Orkney this past Easter.
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| April 15, 2022 Cubbie Roo's Castle on Wyre |
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| March 16, 2017--Kilchiaran Bay |
And to be sure, we've also "done" churches aplenty. In fact, they are a motivator for many of our walks as we spend Idaho winter hours deciphering histories of the associated saints and sinners to add color and hopefully understanding to our springtime venturing.
Our very first sojourn to Scotland, for example, took us to the serene seaside chapel of Kilchiaran on Islay [See: https://whitleyworldtravel.blogspot.com/2019/02/which-kieran.html and https://whitleyworldtravel.blogspot.com/2019/02/ablution-at-bay.html]. Or to the remote and windy Kilnave, a holy site dedicated to a saint who lived so deep in antiquity the name of the founder is no longer known to human memory. All that remains is an impossibly thin high cross that is wind worn and still chants in the gusts of north Islay. [See: [https://whitleyworldtravel.blogspot.com/2018/12/a-lesser-known-neighbor.html]
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| 22 March 2017--Kilnave Cross |
Even so, our walks in Scotland have thus far mostly been directed at Neolithic sites, sites at the beginning of human settlement of the British Isles. We simply have no Neolithic sites here in the "New World". For that reason alone, they have been a draw to us, inducing a pilgrim's wonderment at the Neolithic enigmatic constructions which have somehow survived across the enormous abyss of time.
That is stunning. Or not stunning...that is perhaps the wrong word. Prehistoric sites are humbling. They silence the loudness of our modern arrogance and make our presumptions small in comparison. The prehistoric sites to which we customarily would walk bring to consciousness the essence of this thing called eternity.
Scripture, it should be noted, also tipped its hat to the Neolithic, acknowledging these ancestors before the advent of Christianity. For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see the things you see but didn't see them, to hear the things you hear but didn't hear them.--Matthew 13:17. That alone speaks volumes, works which doubtless will continue to go unread in our modern times.
But as to our 2023 sojourn? We aim to visit the present remnants of organized Christianity, the ruins. Principally, our objectives are historic sites from the first millennium after Christianity was introduced in Scotland...though this ignores introductions that occurred by happenstance, witnessed for example by the Amelia Ring. [See: https://whitleyworldtravel.blogspot.com/2019/04/celtic-christian-sacred-sites-and.html].
Our interest for 2023 is the Christian era some 500 years after Celtic native Iona missionaries Columba and Aiden seeded Christian doctrine in Scotland. This is a key departure from our normal itinerary. In 2023 we are indulging sites that are squarely within recorded history, unlike our more typical Neolithic visits. In most respects, names and faces in 2023 will be known. Their actions or inaction recorded. Human folly, vainglory and even occasional courage and mercy.
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| April 16, 2019--Temple Wood Stone Circle at Kilmartin Glen |
We plan to probe these stories of our Scottish forebears, both border reiver and borderer. We hope to return with lessons gleaned, and with the insight to apply those lessons to our daily lives; to this day, to this age here upon the edge of eternity. Modern humankind has much to learn if it only would.
