What is the time for you? For me it is around 3:30am. Some call it God Time. When the world is silent and if you’re lucky you can hear the call of intuition and if you’re even luckier, you can be bothered to get out of your bed and heed the call. In Iona I was blessed for a couple of nights by that God call. It was about 3:30am when I awoke, just to toss over of course and to wonder where I was. But something else had my attention…what was Iona like at the night-time? The question fought with the warmth of my bed, but my curiosity won out and I pulled on my clothes and left the hotel.
As a species we are cursed. Civilisation has brought with it a price that many don’t even know that we have paid. That price is the lighting of our streets, towns and cities. With this abundance of luminance we have lost the grandeur of creation. I firmly believe that one of the two reasons as to why I was out wandering the streets of Iona at 3am was to give my neck a crick whilst I strained in awe at the night filled sky. Words, pictures can’t come close to the experience. I tried once to put words to such an experience, it humbled me.
For a while I stood a few yards away from the hotel (B and B really) door awe-struck. Then I heard a noise and saw a lady come out also. I was surprised and delighted to see someone else come out to admire the night. Slightly less so when she lit a cigarette. We chatted for a while, but I was feeling the urge to find silence so I meandered off in the direction of the abbey (about a half-mile away).
As I walked I increasingly felt that I was being watched. Not by one being but it was almost as if the air itself was watching me. Now as you will know, I am not adverse to night time wanderings and even to exploring some darker places. But this, this was oppressive. Have you ever had that feeling that someone was staring at your back? Well times that by a hundred and that is what it felt like. It wasn’t threatening or bad. It was just intense.
With 100% certainty I will tell you that at the night-time there are some truly strange beings on that Island. I’ve had my fair share of strange, but I never felt anything like this. Walking to the Abbey was a real struggle and it was only with the knowledge of protection and the ability to call on some heavy hitters that I managed to get to the abbey, climb the dragons neck and lie in the awakening spot looking up at the beautiful sky.
As I lay there (in the amazing cold) I knew I had realised my intuitions direction. It wanted me to come and experience the sky and the whatever-it-was outside. Mission completed. Awe satiated. I was ready for bed.
The next day I told Gwas about my experience and cajoled him to explore the next night. Alas it was just me on my lonesome (well not so much) again the next night. Breath taking.
Stay tuned for the White Stone at Iona tomorrow.
Kal Malik
