Has Sarah Palin heard about St. Kilda?

Following a wonderful reply to a tag from Anne Johnson, Aquila ka Hecate has tagged everyone on her sidebar to give their opinions on "The hilarious" McCain-Palin ticket for the US presidency. 

I gather that Sarah Palin is Governor of Alaska and Commander-in-chief of the state’s military forces. I have never been to Alaska but have always regarded it as one of those special liminal places that exist at the edge of the world. I, therefore, offer Sarah the story of another liminal place at the very edge of Europe.

The BBC has a little known TV channel called BBC Alba which broadcasts programmes in the Gaelic language of the West of Scotland. Earlier this week BBC Alba televised a programme dedicated to the history of St. Kilda.

I guess that Sarah has never heard of St. Kilda so I will tell her that St. Kilda is not a Christian Saint but the most remote place in the British Isles. A group of tiny islands and stacks forty miles to the west of the Outer Hebrides. St. Kilda literally lies at the very edge of the ancient world. Despite being lashed by winds and rain and an average July temperature of just 12 degrees Celsius St. Kilda was inhabited for more than two millennia until it was abandoned in 1930. The Norse settled there and then the Gael.

The BBC Alba programme was narrated by a wonderful man whose ancestors had lived on St. Kilda. His beautiful Gaelic words cut straight to the heart. He spoke eloquently of the Gael of St. Kilda and how they had lived a hard subsistence life surviving on the countless seabirds that nested on the cliffs. They knew little of the outside world. Held almost everything in common and gave everyone an equal say in the running of day to day affairs.

As the narrator knelt lovingly by Tobar nam buadh (the Spring of virtues) he spoke of the offerings that were once left to the spirits and fairies of the hills and the springs. How life was guided by the sun and the moon. How all work was done sunwise. How there were special festivities at midwinter and midsummer. How the people loved song and dance and story and games.

The Gael of St. Kilda had no arms or money yet had to pay rent to the Clann Mhic Leòid who owned lands on Harris and Skye. They paid this rent in gannet feathers which were subsequently sold to the British army to make pillows for soldiers. Thus these peaceful people were taxed to further colonial battles.

The narrator then went on to tell of the decline of the St. Kilda community. In 1822 the Church of Scotland sent a minister to bring religion to a people “who knew nothing of religion”. At first this mission brought benefits. New agricultural methods were introduced, better houses were built and a Gaelic Language school was set up for the children. Then the Free Church of Scotland sent their own minister, a religious zealot who began the downward spiral that would lead to the destruction of life on St. Kilda.

This religious man introduced compulsory three hour Sabbath Day services. All offerings to the spirits of the land were stopped. Song, dance and games were banned and the only stories told were from the Bible. In 1875 a visitor to St. Kilda described the Sabbath as, "A day of incredible gloom when all the Islanders hurry to church their eyes fixed to the grounds as it was regarded as a sin to look to left or right." Those who made any noise in the chapel were lectured at length and warned that they risked spending eternity in hell. Children were forbidden from playing any games and had to carry a bible with them wherever they went.

Religious duties began to take over valuable time that was needed for subsistence. A famine ensued and when a boat arrived with food on a Saturday it was not allowed to unload until the following Monday so as not to interfere with the Sabbath.

The new capitalism of the Victorian age brought tourist cruise ships to St. Kilda full of people who knew nothing of the Gaelic language or way of life. The islanders were viewed as curiosities and began to loose self-respect. Visitors brought influenza and infantile tetanus.

During the Great War of 1914 to 1918 the Royal Navy decided St. Kilda was of strategic importance as an ideal place to watch for ships in the North Atlantic. The Navy brought their own rules and the gradual introduction of money which made the islanders less self-reliant. In 1930 the Gael of St. Kilda asked to be re-patriated to Morvern on the Scottish Mainland.

Sarah is noted for her ‘Pro-Life’ views. I have never understood how someone who says they are pro-life can approve of hunting for sport, belong to the military and have little or no regard for the environment. But then Pro-Life and pro-life are in reality very different.

Anyway St. Kilda is a warning to us all. It reminds us how easily a people can be exploited by the rich and powerful. How easily a way of life totally in harmony with the natural environment can be destroyed. How dangerous are the men who are so sure they hold absolute truth that they deny a people access to their own traditions and all joy and pleasure on pain of eternal punishment.

But St. Kilda is not alone. History is full of stories of peoples whose joy, happiness and way of life have been severely limited by the power struggles of the religious, the military and the profit seekers. Politicians are not noted for their ability to learn from history and the experience of those on the edge of their world. Maybe the only question we ever need to ask anyone running for political office is, “How would you treat those whose language and culture you do not understand, those who live on the margins of your world?”

A walk in ancient woodland

It is good to take a walk in ancient woodland, a place where light and vision are filtered by the presence of trees. Here is beauty aplenty. Here is the surge of life nurtured by the very Earth Herself. Here is a deep ancient presence. For all the beauty ancient woodland remains a wild place. The bears, wolves and boar may be long gone but wild energy remains as strong as ever.

Trees have a very special presence which is immediately apparent as you walk beneath their overarching branches. To pass under the shade of some trees is to find a place out of time where all seems different. It is as if the whole of reality is here mediated by the tree.

I love this picture I took recently of fallen trees like guardian spirits. The wild garlic turning their leaves in adoration and filling the air with the fragrance of their incense. Such scenes are an important reminder that there is much that we cannot and should not control. A reminder to ask permission to step into the presence of such ancient energy. A reminder to honour the spirits with prayer and offering.

Truth is we need to honour boundaries and accept that we are totally dependent upon the fecund power of our Earth. Our lives are bounded by womb and tomb imaged in our own homes by threshold and hearth. Humanity has overstepped so many boundaries, destroyed so much woodland from the cedar forests of Lebanon to the rain forests of South East Asia. We have become so addicted and dependent on the oil left by the forests of deep deep history that we would kill our grandmothers and deny our grandchildren life in order to obtain our next fix. But the ancient woodland has the power to bring us back to reality if only we look, listen, feel, face our fears and let the guardian spirits touch our imagination.

Roots

This is the close of my last day in New England. At 8.10 p.m. tomorrow my flight leaves Boston MA for Manchester UK. In 15 days I have driven over 1,000 miles around six states. It has been quite an experience, day time temperatures have been as low as 42F and as high as 94F. Miles and miles of forests and lakes have filled the soul with beauty and the coast of Cape Cod has its own special charm.

In days gone by when people travelled they often took with them a little of the good soil from home. We are truly rooted in the place we live and we loose something of our soul if we are away for too long. The followers of big monotheistic faiths are sure their omnipotent God is everywhere and seem to have little regard for place. Christmas is still celebrated in December and Easter in March or April south of the Equator. But what about those of us who are polytheists, who touch "smaller" more intimate Goddesses and Gods?

At home in Brighid's Isles my roots go deep into the soil. I know all the places that Brighid has been honoured. The places She was celebrated by my ancestors, and is still celebrated today, are etched into the map of my heart. I know deep within my soul that Verbeia can be found in the Wharfe Valley, Rhiannon and Cerridwen in the valleys of Wales, the Morgans in Avalon.

When I travel the Goddesses I love come along in my heart and soul. I know they are with me. I know they watch over me as I travel. But I know too that they, like me, are divorced from their roots in place.

Here in New England Spirits of Place I cannot name have touched me. Like the American people themselves they have given me a warm and friendly welcome. I have honoured them in my heart. I have left offerings in thanks for their welcome and their guardianship of this beautiful part of the world. But I know they will never be part of me in the way Brighid, Cerridwen, Rhiannon and Verbeia are - for we are rooted in the same land.

Maybe this is why many Americans still long for a connection with Ireland or their ancestral home in Europe. These ancestral connections run much deeper than many people today are even willing to contemplate. One of the great advantages of being a polytheist, apart from the fact that it is the natural human religious state, is that it deepens one's roots and sense of place.

So it is good to travel, to see new places, to expand the mind and the heart, but it will be good to return home and to push my toes into the soil of the Goddesses I love, the soil of the ancestors I call upon each Samhain.