featherdown
Sàil Ghorm, Quinag, Assynt, Scotland
20th April 2023
Sàil Ghorm, Quinag, Assynt, Scotland
20th April 2023
Suilven, Assynt, Scotland
12th December 2022
Ben Hope, looking westward to Foinaven, Sutherland, Scotland
23rd August 2022
Stac Pollaidh, Wester Ross, Scotland
24th February 2022
Sand crystals white as snow.
Snow crystals clear as glass.
I fill my hand,
I fill my mouth,
I fill my eyes,
thankful to regain life at high resolution,
life with steep resolve.
Spidean Coinich, Quinag / A’ Chuineag, Assynt, Scotland
24th April 2021
Foinaven
Arkle
Ben Stack
An Lèan-Chàrn
Quinag
Glas Bheinn
Canisp
Suilven
Cùl Mòr
Cùl Beag
Stac Pollaidh
Ben Mor Coigach
A litany of beauty
A snow-struck ring of grace
Cnoc na h-Iolaire, behind Lochinver, Sutherland, Scotland
10th April 2021
Bog asphodel, Arkle, looking over to Ben Stack, Sutherland, Scotland
16th September 2020
Villingardalsfjall, Viðoy, Føroyar / Faroe
22nd June 2019
After that moment of pure terror on the mountainside – when I clung to the sliding scree in desperation, the fjord deep and blue below me – I’ve finally reached the summit and sit at its northern precipice, looking down. Fog blows up at me in cold gusts. It’s hardly a surprise: the whole summit has been crawling in cloud since I arrived but, unlike the dull clamminess I’ve come through, this fog is lit from the inside. It seems sourceless, blowing up out of nowhere in swirling puffs and, other than the lumpy rock immediately around me, I can see nothing else. I would have thought I would be disappointed: to have come all this way – by sea, by bus, by painstaking foot and hand – and not be able to see the view from this most northern Faroese peak. Yet I find I am grateful. After that terrifying moment below, to be here now in the presence of this unseen luminance, this blind light…
I become still and let it absorb me. I hear birds cackling, wind in small gusts; I see moss shining quietly when the fog is blown thin for a moment. And it’s such a beautiful fog. It fills my brain, like a dream I can’t wake from – a bright mist, a lucent opacity, a billowing emptiness I don’t ever want to leave.
Villingardalsfjall, Viðoy, Føroyar / Faroe
22nd June 2019
a maniacal butterfly
and a bee bombing about
and my limbs aching in their driving desire
in the drenching blue sun
in the scouring white wind
on the stones
on the bones
on the bare back of Scotland
Quinag / A’ Chuinneag, Assynt, Scotland
5th May 2015