St Columba's Bay

Two greylag geese flow over our heads as we walked south to St Columba’s bay this morning and then, as we walked north, later, they flew over us again.

We collected a few sea washed pebbles and sat on the shoreline, facing south. The sense of peace and separation from all the crowded avenues of mainland life is intoxicating.

And then, on the sandy dunes of the Bay at the Back of the Ocean we sat for a while, facing west.

Today we’ve been gifted with sunshine and tomorrow the forecast is dire. Who knows, really, and in many ways, it doesn’t matter at all, for here we can walk into the pace of each day, enjoying each moment for what it is.

Nicholas

Today was a day filled with that odd combination of being in the present and being in the past.

We spent much of the morning and early afternoon walking and resting at Columba’s Bay. This is, according to the storytellers of centuries ago, the place where St Columba landed with his 12 monks from Ireland, thousands of years ago. Together, they brought Christianity to Scotland, Celtic Christianity. The deep peace of the flowing waters…

The bay is filled with pebbles, washed by centuries of ebb and flow, sunshine and rain. I cherish these stones, from the moment I first beheld and touched them; I have felt a resonance and a sense of completion in a way I cannot find language to describe. Let me just say, my backpack weighed a bit more in my departing than it had in my arriving…when Nicholas and I were married we gave a pebble from Iona to each of our guests, wanting to celebrate this place with those who had held us on our journey of immense light and the shadows that had preceded it.

As if to echo that, tonight at dinner we were honoured by a complete rainbow arcing above Mull, directly across from the Argyll Hotel, where we are staying, where we met. It reminded me that reflected light transforms even the darkest skies, bringing joy and beauty in extraordinary ways.

Judy