THE THICK OF IT
There are these days when you get up and look out of the window and know that it is just going to be a gift of a day and the first full day of our shared and individual journey was one of these. Clear, clear blue skies and warm sun in a location which reminds you why we live in Scotland and why we are so proud. Activities in this day were about getting to know aspects of each other better – and aspects of ourselves maybe – through a bit of physical activity and practice stillness and observation. So sitting on the hillside, seeing, scenting and hearing so much better than I normally so – a blade of grass being moved by a small rustling creature below which I couldn’t see; vivid red and black berries; tiny spiders weaving webs with strands floating gently in the air; a dragonfly sitting on my fingers long enough for me to take a photograph.
And a helicopter reminding me that the other aspects of life can be a long way away in this stunning place. And on the way back a dead and bloody stag in the back of a truck where hunters are talking loudly about the day’s sport.
So many contrasts, so many sensations, is a bit like an avalanche and I am wondering to myself where this is going to go.
The pivotal activity of the week is the solo – an opportunity for a day and two nights to reflect and focus (being not doing) in a personal space in the outdoors. There is much humour amongst those who know me about me not talking for a protracted period of time, but that actually holds no concerns. Being in the moment – having no choice in that, not being in control – is a surprisingly good sensation.
Each of us sets out and returns in darkness across a threshold framed by bells – sound and vision again – more literally that is from the tent in which we meet as a group and hearing a chime to start and stop periods of not talking. For me, in advance, this feels like a bit of a chore, but in the moment, up and out before dawn, is exciting and a bit edgy. Lots of questions about what it will be like and what it will do to me…if anything at all…
Looking back on it feels very different from what it was like at the time.
At the time it was a series of fragments, of impressions, of pictures : of people – not yet out of bed, or passing with a wave but no words, or playing a loud game in the distance, or taking a chainsaw to a tree; of creatures – seventeen goats looking down on me, surreal chrome sheep, sea birds, industrious artistic small spiders; raspberry sphagnum moss; of views into and out of Knoydart; of light and dark; dank sticky charcoal mud flats; laughing to myself in the woods; and the joys of the composting toilet and the swing on the way back to the companionable silence of a fire and a warm meal. My stick on the fire glowed red rather than burst into flame – perhaps that is how this is evolving….or am I just obsessively reading too much into everything because I can? And lots of thoughts, ideas, frustration at not being still. And such vivid pictures and so many from just a single day – I can’t recollect in tranquillity the emotion of a normal day the way I can this one.
My individual experience then became part of a much larger and richer whole as each of us told our adventure over the course of the following day. (“Adventure” is from the root which means to arrive, same as “advent” – will we arrive somewhere together?) Overrriding feeling at this point was being physically and emotionally tired but also pulled together as a group quite remarkably.
