Yuletide Thoughts

Ask a dratsi what does time mean.

Our sea furry mammals are oblivious to a watch… They nonetheless respond better to moon and tides.

Time for humans means something else. If you too obey timetables, you are shackled to a routine.

When school bells ring for a last time, you suddenly feel lost for words. Aye, no more alarm clock for a while! Yule has returned with its magic. Home is ready for the pagan and the scent of the pine tree. Cinnamon sticks and melting wax as darkness has reached its climax…

First day of freedom in the snow, as icicles graced the garden to my delight. It is a moment of reconnection with the natural world I treasure so dearly. Out in my Caribou snow-boots, I wandered off in the perfection of nature, feeding my dear garden dwellers and free water out of the ice.

Their constant presence feels my heart with so much joy, I owe them help for survival in such seasonal conditions. After all, why should we be the only ones to feast at Yule?

What is Yule without its cortège of hellery? 60N at a crossroads with the Nordic realm means everything.

Two mighty storms in between Hogmanay and now, have swept across geos and skerries…

Storm force winds swept the old year away, as one would sweep away old dust.

January welcomes brand new gales.

So I hold tight to candle sticks until the sky turns to bird tunes.

Tis nearly over, this Yuletide.

Nisse will return to the barn for a final bowl of porridge; tinsels and baulbs, back to the den… Blue mantelpiece back to candles without Yöl cairds…

But then, again, Nisse still smiles.

And Aa da best fur da new year.

Thanking you all for your presence, likes and contributions to Arcania.

Namaste 🙏🏻 fae da wild North!

Circles

Last days of term…

If seasons rule my homeworld here on the island, so does each school term. So much water in every burn, da Voar flew as fast as da Simmer… And in between, time capsules caught on microchip in an effort to celebrate moments of “now”.

Freedom regained today, with feet stretching once more towards the horizon.

More writing under way, now that “peerie spider of time” allows once more.

As we have reached Yule and rolling in its tide, time seems to wander around kelp.

2022 felt like lit powder and yet, each precious Time Capsule is treasured outside timetables. This afternoon, I was watching purple sandpipers, turnstones among avian favourites that belong to my seasonal sky – those intrepid survivors were fighting against everything: time, the ocean, freezing weather conditions… I remain in awe of them all.

Winter, the cruellest of season, duels with life and death, determining survival on Earth. We are all visitors on our planet.

As busy as we, humans, can be, our ability to reconnect with our world can only allow us to be at one with it all. I often missed out on treading on my favourite sand bridge this year… I certainly favoured other magic places on the island, yet Ninian Sands allows full cleansing of the mind and soul. Tis time I return to it before this incredibly busy year ends.

I owe it to my own happiness.

Ninian Sands between Samhain and Yule 2022.

free

Shetland Wren, spring 2022

Too long have I awaited this joyous month of April, free from March – this month of miracles & tears – even if gales and remnants of winter are clutching at straw…

The island is slowly emerging from its great seasonal slumber to start and display more vibrant colours as daylight is overriding black.

Too long have I looked at my homeworld from behind glass overlooking an empty loch. Even though I love the view, my eyes belong to the younglings facing me during term time.

Vista fae North Loch Drive.

Watched snow come and go, return since our passage through the Vernal Equinox – morning and dusk in many tones, yet always with the same magic, as our sun rise and glow over Mousa Isle, to colour this Western sky in the kerb just before Quarff.

Only one road fae S to N – also known as da meal road by many islanders whose ancestors in the 19th century, at a time of tattie famine, were (like in the rest of the British Isles, and most notoriously reported from Ireland) rewarded with a meagre meal to build roads… Attempting to survive dire times in the history of the isles. The cheapest labour anyone with gold could find…

Two other side roads in the South Mainland linking da tuns (or human settlements) were added to the great North-South road. Those remain my favourites. Teeming with life, mostly wild, they turn magical in spring.

Da Clumlie Road

This is where freedom begins.

For seasonal cycles on end, the magic remains intact. The return of life, skylarks (wir laverick) arriving with meadow pipits & oystercatchers (wir shalders) depending on the year, though after shelducks (our traditional earliest migrants) . Northern wheatears (wir steinshaakers) also land back in our fields and meadows by April.

The elegance of loons, red-throated divers follow suite.

Tis when our land and sky turn cacophonous on a boannie day i’da voar (a sunny spring day).

Skylark, Meadow Pipit and Northern Wheatear, Apr 2022.

April is when our gardens begin to share flowers and buds against all odds. Haily puckles and thin snowflakes might still rage at this time of year, all seem to resist so far…

I love their resilience.

A return to my old belfry – Sumburgh Head where I worked 20 years ago this month as an ambassador for nature (RSPB Nature Reserve) – proved wonderful with a friend on Monday. We lunched in style overlooking the magnificent panorama. Strangely enough, Martin Heubeck roamed my mind as I was watching empty cliffs. Yes, it was barely early April on a day of hellery (adverse weather). Yet kittiwakes, guillemots and razorbills are coming back every year in fewer numbers.

Tis no secret.

Our great marine birds signal the return of better days from April onwards. By the time you discover the headland around da Simmer Dim (the summer solstice) you are welcomed by bird calls from every directions, as well as constant gannets fly-pasts on their way to more and more distant fishing grounds. They are striving as a species around our coastline.

Yet barely weeks to Beltane and the galloping to the solstice. Tis when the island really turns cacophonous.

Meanwhile, we make do with chilling conditions, and brace ourselves for days battered by gales and hail that keep you alive (!)

Tis a world bathed by a sea and an ocean, geographically so far away from it all, sheltered, somehow from any torpor…

And yet, listening to the whole world.

Wheeled to Life

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Hours away.

So far away from its power, and yet mighty for just hours, as night reigns as an empress. We are reaching the longest night as Yule prevails.

Yesterday’s walk around da voe, this inlet of water where birds and selkies venture for survival looked so magic at the golden hour.

Tis like a dream.

As long as light warms rocks and kelp uprooted by the latest storm, starlings and shore birds feast like kings.

Tis just magic.

They all fly in. Our homeworld feels so generous in such harsh times.

Within hours, gold turns purple as our star vanishes so fast.

Tis now the time for da haigrie to fish at dusk.

I watched it wade and stand solemn like a statue; a sudden flick of eyes and neck as it scanned all around its world in search of prey…

Then went the catch.

Night creeps too fast. Just around 4, p.m. that is… I had to rekindle head beams to trek back home.

Another day just gone to rust… Wheeled inside life and realm of death, Yule celebrates every lost soul. Time to reconvene with spirits, night, candle light so precious feels life of us all.

Tonight, my heart back in each voe where life is tied to ebbing tides; where selkies find respite out on boulders…

Tomorrow we cross the solstice, as mid-winter settles at last.

I hear the return of the snow, the longest night and the sweet smell of cinnamon inside my home.

Tis that moment when I reconvene with angels; freedom to wander through my world, in my own time and place.

Happy Yuletide to each and all!

Hame

This place on Earth and in my heart where I belong, because my senses say it so, has recovered seasonal white, or even bluish icicles now we stand so far from the sun.

And yet shorter days can shine.

This morning, I’m waking up to a hot bowl of porridge whilst the cabin heats up a bit. If my duck down quilt kept human and cat warm whilst the temperature plummeted below what can be read on room thermometers, that polar wind from Arctic Tromsø is still blasting…  Tis the realm of Yule encroaching on my Nordic world.

Yule, the festive time as we come to a halt – light candles on window sills or on chimney mantlepieces… Share a table free from the pressure of time, tokens of love and marvel at the starry sky from the back steps of our own home.

My bowl of porridge cooled too fast.

This little light we cling onto as darkness vanishes juist a few hours to let our star hover below 10 degrees of elevation either in a shameless crystalline sky (or sometimes in a halo that fills a light metallic sky) feels so precious. Tis the moment to wander through mires an braes (mossy areas of fields or meadows and hillsides) and reconvene with our own bays bathing in light.

How I love walking to the sea.

It fills my heart with happiness, this inner peace that has no price. Tis this moment when we reconnect with the higher self, the child within eager to reach edge of the most magical world.

Because it really is magical!

The blue of sky and horizon so inviting, the playful selkie (seal) inside kelp – the gentleness of water flirting with pebbles as tide retreats at a slow pace… Our Earth’s rhythm allows it all.

All around us, what looks barren and just dormant under snowflakes will wake again in a few months. Yet, for now, my whole world shines in blue and white. As as snow melts on higher grounds, wir local burn swells and runs down to the sea. Cycle of water, source of life.

Late.

Our first snow came late this autumn, not till the end of November. Mother Earth has her own agenda. Unusually warm, Hairst (autumn) felt a long Indian summer… Only to vanish inside flying gales the island knows at this time of year. We brace ourselves for the season of bleaker times.

First snow feels a welcoming sign winter with its palette of own colours has its own grip on us.

First snow invites us to get out and reconnect with Mother Earth, Nature and life we can take so much for granted… Blessed with the place that holds so many treasures, the call of the wild is strong.

First snow has come and gone, yet each return of icicles draw us so closer to the magic of Yule. My heart rejoices at each furtive appearance from our boreal sun. Today, it is shining in a glacial NE wind, and as the cabin warms slowly, I will make my trek out, refill my heart and let da bairn inside to reconnect with the natural world. It feels my shield against the artificial world – that manmade realm shackled to the material, where gold prevails above sand grains, shells and pebbles.

My island is my treasure chest.

Announcement (1)

In such extraordinary and industrious comes a first fruit, which has ripened well.

Now official :

I am very honoured and privileged to map Shetland at COP26 Glasgow through The Great Scottish Canvas this September with the publication for the great event later this autumn, and live reading of my selected poem to our Scottish MSPs as part of Climate Fringe, which will go live in due time.

I am very humbled this poem, very close to my heart, is journeying in so many directions so far. Shortlisting it at such level was so unexpected. Tis also voice recorded for the purpose of the exhibition. Happy poet. 🙂

More to come!

Reconnected

Water to the Atlantic, Waas, Westside.

So much water run through da burn (stream) down to the sea and the ocean, gushing, flowing through da burra, hedder (heather) an paets (peat/turf) keeping us lush beyond nightless nights, Simmer Dim, our eclipsed stars for a moment.

The island has recovered its magical colour palette, Van Gogh luminous style. Through May and June, yellow dominated our roadsides, anchored on water (like Marygold) or mires…

Hues of pink, shades of our Earth preceded white, blotching the greens of our meadows. Delicate petals decorate the narrowness of the landscape; and yet homing our seasonal opera house to the delight of wanderers.

Tis a privilege to listen.

Our ground nesters braved continents, gales, rain and hail to duplicate love in their genes . They picked ancestral patches of peatland, brae (hillside) or grass where they disappear until July…

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Wild home world

And yet summer feels short for us all on the island, humans and avifauna.

Banks’ broos (cliffs) lochs an lochans (lakes, big and small) have been teeming with life too, as parenthood fledged around irises or thrift and sea mayweed.

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Fresh water world

A privilege to hear them call, or watch them so vulnerable. Our headlands turn operatic till mid-July.

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Life on the precarious edge of ocean…

And already, in this season of abundance, da hairst (harvest) has begun, as silage tumbled and wrapped for da winter.

We, islanders on such northern latitude, are privileged with a single hundred days of crop growth in open ground. Silage cut offers open air restaurants to both local and migrating birds from all around the boreal region. Our position in the ocean remains pivotal in their survival for the great trek back south.

Preparing for winter whilst sharing with nature.

And until night returns and we veer back towards the autumn equinox, tis a window of teeming life and overgrowth, on the land, on beaches where colours thrive; inside our wicks an voes (wide and narrow inlets of sea) wildlife flourishes and flows.

Tis simply magic!

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Life on this dear Auld Rock.

Now I am fully reconnected with it all.

And wishing you, each and everyone, a wonderful summer fae 60N!

Namaste 🥰🌍✨

shenanigans

There are moments when we just need to step back and dream…

Step back and sleep, dream in the arms of the dragon. April the joker, the trickster, that turned the island back to ice.

Our spring buds deprived of sap, light and that warmth, had to yield to the wrath, shenanigans from a planet déboussolée…

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It all happened within minutes…

Even Saoirse the Cat had to give in to da bliind moorie -a violent snow storm – that engulfed us in its millions of horizontal icicles.

I’m pretty sure she dreamt of bees and bugs she loves so much to play with… She looks a meerkat on her back limbs. So comical at times.

I was dreaming of summer.

Voar – our springtime – is a season to respect. As Mother Earth turns generous once more, life in all its forms begins again. The island back in a sky filled with birdsong – oystercatchers, curlews, skylarks and snipes to name but a few… We seed to harvest and yet we are aware of its harshness.

In their life-driven waves, our seabirds feel magnetised to our cliffs. Guillemots, razorbills and puffins had to battle a polar flying gale to reconvene in our boreal world.

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Life back on land

April still clawed by cold air.

And yet nature is resilient. From daffodils to primroses, from Skylarks to Meadow Pipits or Northern Wheatears, wir voar means life.

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On and around the island, magic occurs. Last weekend alone was graced by a pod of orcas on Saturday followed by a showcase of wir tammie nories (that delightful local name for our Atlantic Puffins) at sundown.

Magical.

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We really live on an extraordinary planet.

It does not take much to tear down preconceived ideas and marvel at the diversity of life. The trick being to open our eyes and heart, and feel part of it.

Life is everywhere: in the wild, in cities – Mother Nature finds her ways in the most incredible places, from a stone wall to the great depths of our oceans…

We are all guests on our planet, that has a twin, so different.

Now, the following piece of verse is all about our Earth’s sister.

Planet Walk (Venus) 


YOU ARE HERE,

between 
Mercury and my world, 
one grain of 
sand on a lone beach, 
                                     in easy reach to 
solar winds, rotating eye around 
                       stardust; 
you, Earth’s 
sister, 
encased in hell and 
                    toxic clouds, 
                    sun, volcanoes and hurricanes – 
you too look blue from the distance through 
a filter. 
So far away from 
                              Tahiti, you caught the eye of 
                                          a captain when 
you appeared as a black disc, 
so elusive before 
                             the sun. 
Amazing grace, 
your rotation in slow motion – 
                         each sunrise lasts, 
          days outclass years on 
your surface – 
the odd one out waltzing clockwise in 
                       our West sky. 
You are beauty without seasons, 
               hottest of all, void of 
water, rocky-basalt in a cocktail so 
                                                            Molotov… 
Satellite irresistible, 
                you are goddess among the stars, 
                        no one will dare to plant 
                                                         a flag; 
                       but 
still wonder if 
                      there is life, 
                                          love in 
                                                     your 
                                                           clouds.✨ 

© Nat Hall 2021. 

I love my homeworld.

Iced (2)

Imbolc was veiled in icicles… ❄️

Imbolc welcomed Brigid as a maiden, clad in immaculate snowflakes.

Tis beautiful, so beautiful to look at. Who has not ever marvelled at such wondrous land, sky and ice scapes? Till now, February has been generous to us in terms of calm white & blue days. Yes, we just need to leave home a little earlier to de-ice the car… But what a pleasure to breathe in that crisp air and allow the sun to warm our epidermis and our hearts…

And even if our boreal sun strengthens in power through longer daylight and elevation, we, islanders from the great far north, have to make do with these polar conditions. As weird as it might sound, we have yet to learn that waddling technique so natural to penguins to stay up on our feet (!). A recent report from one of our local newspapers recorded a higher incidence of some 40 admissions to A&E linked to ice… Broken limbs, strains & sprains – as well as sledging accidents. Whereas folk still seem to favour the famous wellies (those yellow or khaki rubber boots) to tread on ice, I have adopted snow boots and grippers… And they have proven so lifesaving on many occasions.

And if wellies, waddling or grippers fail, then, our Antarctic flightless birds have also shown us another safer way to move swiftly… The belly sliding technique, as frequently used by, notably, Emperor penguins (!). And what more fun than this? Just look at kids having fun on ice… They use a similar technique. Note: I very much doubt many of us – human bipeds – adopt such a technique except for fun. 🥶

We have been so iced since January the whole Kingdom Animalia (including us, humans) depends on adaptations for survival.

Ice has continued to infiltrate our lives around our island world, and no creature is spared. Our winter survivors have to endure such harsh conditions. They may have developed their own adaptations, yet they still have to bear the brunt of it all.

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Whereas ponies have thick winter coats and thick hooves to provide insulation from iced ground, air and wintry showers & storms, birds rely on their respective layers of feathers called down. Some often stand on one leg to maximize insulation from freezing water or ground… All need to shelter to ensure survival. They don’t dwell very long on open ground, unless heavily coated – like ponies or highland cows – or fleeced like sheep.

Birds need all the tall grass, thickets and trees they can find around our valleys, hillsides and human gardens to survive.

Recently, I have not only noticed more visiting starlings, sparrows and blackbirds to the feeders at home, but far less common visitors, such as a young Song Thrush and a Redwing.

The human obligation to work from home (even on a part-time basis) allows for better nature watching from the comfort of our own home, as well as providing food for avian ground feeders on a more regular basis. Our Chief Executive encourages us to reconnect with nature for our own wellness… In my case, she is preaching the lifelong converted (!).

Each sunrise feels a new adventure!

Like you all in the northern hemisphere, I am becoming a little eager to welcome Ostara, the Vernal Equinox. It will come in due time, however, I am also savouring the magic of snowflakes, as well as Mother Earth’s slow re-awakening and the gradual return of some of our summer migrating visitors… Our avian friends!

Iced (1)

The world from my shore.

Days, hours from Imbolc, and the island (as well as the rest of the archipelago for that respect) firmly in prey to ice and icicles.

In such sub-arctic conditions, everything feels dormant. Our boreal sun has graced winter’s whiteness in an attempt to warm our hearts and souls. Even foreshore rocks and boulders turn blue… And yet it has brought us joy through the classic winter light. Tis so healing.

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A daily walk at around noon when our star reaches its zenith might feel best, and yet the eye favours the Golden Hour, a sheer moment when the wild world looks more industrious in its quest for survival. Tis the critical moment when life could flirt with death so scarce food is scarce, hidden under ice.

Whereas local crofters, our small holding farmers, feed their sheep at the manger, and storms uprooted kelp from the nearby bays, the bounty of summer feels a mirage.

Ice is everywhere.

In every book & crannies of our world where it can sneak, ice has petrified grass, water, heather … For the first time, the birds’ water holes, pots and lochs have reached a point of polar scapes…

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….As if giants and gods from Jotunheim descended straight on us!

And yet the island holds fast. We feast from the sun’s kindness; walk through the land in search of signs of more green-ness. With the gradual return of the light, we may feel clawed inside winter, yet Mother Earth has already begun to wake…

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Life signs.

Like you, I am looking forward to the rebirth and the promise of spring, da voar, as it is known here locally.

Meantime, I am counting the hours to Imbolc, the very first murmuration of our waking home world, as a prelude to our very own chant du monde.

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