Sunday morning already… the weekend was slipping by incredibly fast, but we knew Dean had a lot planned for the final morning of the workshop. Our day began by packing the car, necessarily skipping breakfast… which was to prove a bit disastrous as things turned out… and re-inflating the dodgy tyre yet again. It was definitely getting worse, but it was still manageable as long as we had access to an air pump. There was no prospect of getting it dealt with on a Scottish Sunday so far from a large town anyway.
But all practical considerations would fade away as we drove to our rendezvous at Dean’s home in Glenlivet. The morning was beautiful, the landscape incredible with wide valleys fringed with the blue of snow-kissed mountains. We glimpsed rabbits, deer and scurrying weasels and, quite magically, there were huge hares on the road.
While hares may well be a common sight in that area, for us they are a real and exciting rarity and we saw three… as many in a few minutes as we have seen in all our travels together. Hares are symbolically associated with the moon, as are many of Scotland’s ancient sites… and with the realms of the Fae. They represent rebirth and regeneration… and, in our experience, they always herald something special.
We would have to wait and see… and had not long to wait. Our first stop was a place close to Dean’s home, with a name that sounds as beautiful as the site proved to be… the Doune of Dalmore. We parked beneath the hill that leads up to Drumin Castle, where we would be heading next, crossed the whisky-coloured river, where, to my delight, we found healthy elm trees, and walked into wonderland.
A mound rises up from a ridge at the top of the field… an emerald carpet scattered with white flowers, pale rocks and the silvery bark of the trees. It seems to be a man-made structure but, ‘Doune’ means ‘fort’ and that’s what it looks like, a fairy fort. It is what it feels like too…a magical place.
Close by is the stone circle, with four remining standing stones surrounding a ruined cairn of the Clava type, like the amazing structures we had seen on our last trip to the area and Clava Cairns.
The rocks that scatter the base of the hillock wear strange shapes and seem to be arranged in patterns, as if, did we but have the key, they would still speak for us with stories that have slept there for millennia.
We were here, though, to work, not wander off exploring…which I think we would all have been happy to do had we had the time to spare. It was the most beautiful of places.
Unfurling our ribbons and stones once again, we contemplated yet another aspect of the magical personality. As we worked, we were watched… a young deer patrolling the fences, though whether we were being guarded or guarded against, we will never know.
Some places have a ‘rightness’ to them that is impossible to explain. Across the river, the medieval walls of Drumin Castle looked almost complete above the trees. You could have been centuries ago, just looking at them… and yet, they were insubstantial, ephemeral, against the ancient spirit of this sacred hill.
In itself, that was another beautiful illustration of how well and how much the land itself can teach us. Beneath all our acquired habits, hang-ups, fears and triumphs, there is something much older and more real than we tend to realise as we go about our daily lives. No matter what we build for ourselves, all of which may decay or be torn down, there is a bedrock of beauty within each of us, a bastion of the otherworld, to remind us that we are more than our worldly form and of whence and what we come.
Oh yes, I think I would have enjoyed talking to those stones. Magical <3
Your name may have come up here a few times 😉
🙂
Reblogged this on Not Tomatoes.
Thank you, Alethea xx
My pleasure <3
<3
Such an interesting and stimulating weekend workshop. I agree about hares. I have hardly ever seen them in Australia but when I do the sighting corresponds with some muktidimensional experience.
The ones we have seen before have all been half a field away. These were right on the road in front of us…and in no hurry 🙂
How wonderful. I always associate hares with the ancient celtic mother goddess.
Yes… the fertility aspect of hares goes well with that. Three, though, suggests the triple goddess…or the symbol of the three hares that share ears which has its own meaning 😉
Yes the 3 has to be significant. It is amazing how the universe affirms us when we are working in the spiritual dimensions. Your workshop has got me interested in the Picts too.
They are an interesting study…we know both much and little of their lives.
Yes, I only know what I learnt in school which wasn’t much.
Oddly, we weren’t taught much about them at all either.
It all looks so amazing, Sue. What a great trip.
It was fabulous, Robbie… a wonderfully put-together weekend in a gorgeous landscape.
Reblogged this on Sun in Gemini and commented:
From Sue…
Oh! To have been there too 💜💜
You really would have loved this place, Willow xx
I would 💜🌹
<3 xx
🙂
Sounds like an amazing venture Sue. Thanks for sharing the magic with us. <3
It was a great weekend, Debby, with some superb sites….and Dean put a great deal of thought into it. xx
That is quite evident! <3
<3
Reblogged this on Where Genres Collide Traci Kenworth YA Author & Book Blogger.
Thanks for sharing, Traci x 🙂
You’re welcome, Sue!
🙂 x
Lovely pictures and commentary.
Your hare-sightings made me smile. I’m up at my house on the Black Isle (above Inverness) at the moment, and we have plenty of hares in the fields either side of our half mile of farm drive. They get so big we joke they are ‘GM’ hares 😀
I have never seen them so big… at first glimpse, I thought the first one was a muntjac. 🙂
That was my reaction too, first time I saw them. Now, I’ve got used to it.
They are fabulous though 🙂
Reblogged this on Stuart France.
The first morning we woke at Embo we went outside our caravan and saw a beautiful and majestic hare watching us. A rare and wonderful treat. xxx
How wonderful, Adele 🙂 xx
What a lovely time despite the few setbacks up front. It’s amazing how whatever you set your mind to will happen. Just love these adventures.
The workshop weekends are always adventures 😉