This picture came across my feed a week or so ago and I can’t stop looking at it. A lone boat on a calmed sea making gentle progress towards the island of Inchmarnock. The boat feels very alone and yet hopeful as there is little but time impeding its arrival under these conditions. Do the sailors long for faster days and winds in their face? Is the respite of a slow calm welcome in the midst of such adventure? Or is the delay in arrival to that which you can see so clearly now frustrating?
I’ve never set out on a journey by sea, although the idea captivates me in imagination if not practicality (big dog who can’t swim). But I think a lot about the courage it always takes to do such a thing—especially journeys that do not have a planned return to the comforts of the known. And what does that mean to adventure without returning? Who and what will care for us when we arrive? Have all our human explorations always a been a kind of colonial effort? Did anyone undertaking those explorations or expansions ever think of it that way?
When I imagine Erna arriving at this island to begin her scriptorium school the conditions feel more gentle than those I imagined she experienced as a child member of Columba’s party arriving from Ireland onto Iona to begin the monastery. I don’t know why that is. But it feels like this photo. I recognised it immediately. There is a loneliness in the image as well—or is that solitary determination? There is not always a fellowship of companions on our quests or the assurance of a good ending. But nevertheless it must be attempted.
And so we shall!
Susie