#FINGALS CAVE SNAKE QUEST SKIN#

The whole island felt quiet and sacred – a place to come and heal, walk the pasturelands and talk to God, and feel connected with the great cloud of witnesses that is the universal Church.

I have heard whispers of the richness of Celtic Christinaity, of thin places and rhythms of life and mysteries incarnate in the natural world (such as clovers representing the Trinity) but I want to study more.

#FINGALS CAVE SNAKE QUEST SKIN#

Despite the Edenic tradition of snakes as creatures of evil, apparently the medieval Christians saw the casting and regrowing of skin as a symbol of death and resurrection. One of my favorite insights was seeing the snake-and-boss design. A replica/rebuild of the abbey is there today, full of the remnants of Celtic crosses, new sandstone pillars covered in intricate carvings, and ancient gravestones. Columba landed from Ireland in the 500s (1500 years ago!) and started an abbey. Iona is a tiny island, 3 square miles, with only 150 permanent residents and herds of grazing sheep and Highland cows (“coos”).

Hikes across emerald slopes sprinkled with tiny daisies, buttercups, purple heather, and fluffy cotton-grass cozy evenings in wood-paneled pubs with tartan carpeting and paintings of antlered deer ferry rides past rugged peaks and lonely islands views of faraway blue hills and glimmering lochs laughter and long talks on train and bus rides.Įach place gave me memories, dreams, and fragments of stories. It’s been glorious, exhausting, enlightening, stressful, blissful.

After yearning for it in the golden fall, dreaming of it in the windy winter, and planning for it in the cool green spring, I finally got out to the Highlands & Islands and a bit of the Lowlands: the Isles of Mull, Staffa, and Iona one weekend, the Isle of Skye, and then Edinburgh.

Fingals cave snake quest