Scotland has been on my mind lately. I visited over a year ago, and it’s funny how often my mind calls up a memory or impression from my trip there…
My friend Megan suggested a meditation exercise to help me sleep. Because I tend to draw strong connections to place, she suggested I focus on a favorite place and savor all the senses as a way to clear my mind. Quite often I focus on the luscious few minutes I spent at the northern tip of Scotland near John O’Groats. As I was doing this exercise last night, I remembered that I wrote about it last fall after a guided meditation at an SCN Writing From Life workshop. I needed to revisit the journal entry and decided to share it with you.
The grass beneath my feet is a profusion of long, slender stalks, a soft mat of padding atop these jagged, rocky cliffs. The crashing waves pound the cliffs and the wind roars, the sound of it rushing through me off the frigid North Sea.
Here, at the land’s end, earth meets water meets sky in their eternal dance. Awed by the vastness, I seek a physical anchor to the land. I wiggle my toes in the grass to feel the earth. I wiggle my outstretched fingers to feel the wind. I inhale the scent of sea and soil and grass.
There is nothing but me and nature in this lonely spot. But shrouded in the mysterious damp moist of the Scottish autumn afternoon, cradled by the soft earth, caressed by the wind, and serenaded by the waves, I am on sacred ground. I am surrounded by it, I am part of it. I am Nature, Nature is sacred, sacred am I.
We spent a whole day driving from Santa Fe around the Enchanted Circle. We had perfect weather–storms in the morning and clear skies in the afternoon.
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