The Wilds of Mull

My two years on the Isle of Mull, Scotland had their depth and magic, the meeting with new land and friends among them, as I have ached for the wild places of my ancestors homeland. Here, the land knows me - it shapes me, and I understand its 'language'. We sing and dream with each other in some symbiosis that I probably didn't fully appreciate until the past two years of trying to build a bond with the pink granite rocks, the sea and the vast openness.

More than anything, these past two years enabled me to cocoon, to take time away from the familiar things that set a context for who I am: family, old friends, land. It was like being stripped bare at first and quite unsettling, but then I realized the gift of it: clear space to explore who I am becoming in middle age. It's been an initiation of sorts.

I’ve spent the spring and summer sitting with, working on and in and seeing the vegetable garden flourish.

The summer has also been spent sitting amongst and noticing a variety of birds. They plumed skywards to swoop and soar in unison. The chirrup-chatter of their gossip was the soundscape to our breakfast. Like the rest of our feathered friends here: plucky sparrows, great tits, blue tits, wagtails, finches and crows, they seemed to have accepted us entirely as part of the beings of this place. But now, all but a handful have flown south.

Their departure is a sure sign of autumn. Despite summer's glorious wren and Robin song last week, the hawthorns are ablaze with berries and trees are already tipped with gold. We're almost at the pivot point of dark and light, and there is a sense that the year's vibrancy is drawing in. I can feel the transition within me, too. The outward expressions are a yearning to make soup and light an evening fire, but lying beneath is a sense of being drawn down into the depth of things, now that the gregarious dance of summer has ended.

It's a perfect time to gather and sink into the conversation with all life and huddle around the story fire or to sit and listen to the land and deepen into a relationship with this little piece of paradise in the wilds of Mull.