voar

That spell of snow in March hindered the return of colours all around us.

And as Ostara came and went, the promise of spring – wir voar – eventually appeared in spite of cold air still around. Father Sky has its own sense of humour – call it the sword of Damocles… Jekyll & Hyde.

Yet Mother Earth has her own agenda, and urge to burst in many forms. Vegetal or animal, Arcania is waking again. And as April is unfolding, our quintessential harbingers of spring appear under our eyes, filling our hearts with that same joy.

From leaf budding to flower blossom, da voar is surrounding us. Already, my most immediate garden is speaking,

I need to watch when I’m treading when reaching out to the washing line (!) as daisies, dandelions and bluebells (awaiting to flourish) are erupting all around…

At the start of the spring holiday, young Alfie cleared the remnants of last summer’s quadrats of tall grass in an effort to regenerate the meadow. Already, sparrows and blackbirds have begun to make use of cut grass blades left behind for nesting material. Our garden dwellers are establishing territory all around each corner of da tun (groups of human settlements).

Further afield, da voar displays its many threads of magic. Added to the kindness of Father Sky, light shines in every eye and every heart.

As far as the eye can see, the island is welcoming life again. Our avian summer visitors are gradually making way back to their ancestral breeding grounds. Cliff ledges, clefts, skerries or stacks – hillsides, lochs, mires… Heath or peatlands.

They are investing the homeground we share. What more joyous than renaissance?

Every new meeting with a hill sporrow (meadow pipit) laverick (skylarks) sten-shakker (northern wheatear) raingjus (red-throated diver) or a tammie norie (puffin) proves enchanting every time. Our reunion with our natural world.

Those iconic creatures add to those arrived a little earlier in the year: from the multicoloured shelduck to the shalder (oystercatcher) that have been toiling to display love through their courtship. A new cycle of life restated in earnest.

And yet da voar is showing signs and question marks. Whereas swallows and swifts, chiffchaffs, siskins, goldcrests and willow warblers have erupted around the island in precocious ways, entire cliff faces famously occupied by certain species, including gannets and common guillemots or kittiwakes remain deserted in places… Last year’s spell of avian influenza notably decimated gannets & great skuas, da bonxie, so notorious as a thief, and yet so crucial as a muckraker – usually keeping bird colonies healthy by predating on unhealthy, sick or injured birds… The irony. Their function on Earth as keepers of healthy colonies in times of plenty for its own species (the great skua, like its cousin, the Arctic skua) is above all a fisher bird, yet fell prey to a virus created to regulate numbers…

More surprisingly, common guillemots looked a little late back on their stack at my favourite headland on Saturday evening. They usually invest their ancestral breeding grounds before puffins arrive… Only a pair sighted at Smithfield Stack. Unless… Unless, they stayed at sea when I reconvened with their cousins, since guillemot and puffin (together with razorbills) belong to the same family.

Kittiwakes also missing on their abrupt cliff face…

The island’s most southerly tip – Sumburgh Head – so famously renowned for its bountiful wildlife is yet to home a new generation of seabirds, delighting us all.

A point so famous to travellers and sailors, made safer by Robert Louis Stevenson’s father & family builders of lighthouses around Scotland, my favourite headland has this feeling of a world end. It is so precious for life.

I will come back and keep vigil, for every new visit sparks light and excitement in my heart.

It is a magic place to watch the world unfold in its precious and yet at times rawest moments.

Fitful and Quendale Bay from Sumburgh Head, 8 Apr 2023.

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.

awake (living planet)

This afternoon’s wild walk by my gale-swept Nordic shores prompted a blog post in my mind.

However, as wild waves – rollers, breakers – crashed at my feet, my heart reeled back to last weekend, as disaster struck over an antipodean archipelago.

Wild waves by my shoormal.

News of the cataclysm in the Pacific prompted a piece in response, written in the wake of it last Monday.

Living Planet


400,000 lightning bolts.


That sonic boom heard in Fiji, New Zealand, even
Alaska.
Hunga-Tonga-Hunga Ha’pai blown into
sky;
billowing cloud,
giant mushroom on satellite,
it has been felt around
the globe.

Little Earth shook -
ocean rippled so far away,
Peru, Japan…
It has been felt around
us all.

So much unknown under water or
where folk live like
castaways;
potential hell, dust,
acid rain over
              it all.


NH, 17 Jan 2022.

grateful

So little left of 2021, and yet so much achieved and shared!

I am grateful to your support throughout another challenging year driven by the imperative of a terrifying bug that keeps animating the human world…

Grateful to those who have given the poet’s work an extraordinary platform that has reached far further afield than expected – they know who they are, and let it be some of the those magic stepping stones to greater things.

Grateful to our planet for homing the woman in such extraordinary surroundings, as survival has remained de rigueur.

Grateful to my angels, whether on Earth or in the sky.

As our homeworld rotates with grace towards the dawn of a new year, I, like you, live in hope. Hope we can eventually free ourselves from this new form of biological terrorism; hope we can come to our senses (as a species) and start to look at ourselves as a wiser community coming to terms with our own paradox and allow both ourselves and our future generations to continue striving on Earth in a less demanding manner, and with so much more respect towards Mother Nature.

I am grateful to each sunrise glowing into my eyes – each turn of tide, seasonal return of our migrating avifauna and marine fauna.

I am grateful to be alive and walk the shore – marvel at the abundance and beauty of life. I am a mere visitor as the rest of the animal and vegetal kingdom. And yet, with so much joy I celebrate it all with either a pen or pixels…

Today, I once roamed the southern part of the island, and stopped to watch and wish – wish for a brighter chapter ahead.

Captured time capsules of the wild in my “little black box” and pray the island continues to home this sanctuary of life.

Strangely, some of our mudflats are currently homing species that should winter so far away from us… A sign of deregulation, change from our natural world. An unknown omen.

I can only hope for harmony to continue in the great cycle of life, and I wish for human wisdom to override that current state of selfishness.

I want to believe we can achieve this and more.

We owe it to the balance of life – that of the vegetal and animal kingdom to which we belong.

I am grateful to each and everyone involved in protecting our homeworld. If we too are adding our own stones to this great edifice, and are prepared to accept changes in our lifestyles, our efforts and resilience will pay off.

As I am striving to start assembling a new collection of poetry during Yuletide and ritual of passage to a New Year, let me wish each and everyone the very best for 2022 – good health (first) light & love, daily joys and happiness.

Life is short, precious and unique for each one of us. I, like you, am deeply grateful for it.

Let’s see what the New Year brings .

Namaste fae 60N 🌿✨

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.

celebrating… Life on Earth

Tis September, and autumn marks time for harvest…

Harvesting fruits out of projects – to the poet, tis the moment to celebrate words ripe enough to shine and echo through folk’s hearts…

Months turned in weeks, as Mother Earth waltzes in grace amid the void and songs from stars, light from our Sun reminds of life – from the vegetal to birdsong, September shines and celebrates.

Fleurs de saison, like seeds of life from a planet en route to changes of her own… Let’s reel seasons, as the island sings and flowers – where life as free as flocks of birds comes to da loch to drink or bathe.

Tis that moment I celebrate.

Clumlie Loch shared at WordPlay 2021.

Tis the same that has journeyed from hills and burn (stream) down to the sea to settle among other greats and less known voices in two towns, Lerwick and Edinburgh, through the summer.

Clumlie Loch celebrates wild life – tis where we witness wilderness as important as rainforests or melting ice at either poles… Because it homes essence of life.

Clumlie Loch at the Virtual Exhibition by the the WWF Scotland’s Great Scottish Canvas Initiative, 18-26 Sep ’21 during Climate Fringe.

Today, The Great Scottish Canvas has begun to display it in a virtual exhibition. Such an honour to map Shetland to the greatest of Earth Summits.

It will feature in November among others and other art forms – 45 in total , from 45 Scottish voices, poets, writers, visual artists and sculptors… 45 voices to trigger a beam of hope for life on Earth… Our survival as a species and for our homeworld, natural.

Teeming life at Clumlie Loch, 2021.

Nature, so inspiring, our garden of Eden, we ought to protect at all costs.

Let’s hope and pray, our words and works speak to all world leaders in Glasgow. Like Jackie Kay, Scottish icon as a poet & former Makar – she, the insatiable optimist – I believe in wisdom and future in which children will bloom and grow in a rich world where animals and plant can live.

I feel humbled, honoured and chuffed for Clumlie Loch to feature among Jackie’s and others’ works, blown up on walls to they eyes and hearts of all COP26 participants.

Let’s enjoy Hairst and life on Earth, where our hearts beat.

Ian’s world at Troswick, Sep 2021.

Thank you for life. 🙂

Announcement 3

Thrilled, humbled and honoured to join in a trio of fine Shetland writers (prose & poetry) to an evening of the spoken word & stories bound by the centenary of George McKay Brown at WordPlay, Scotland’s most northerly book festival.

The writing of the great Stromness man of letters has fashioned and influenced island writing as it has influenced the way we speak and celebrate our Northern Isles and beyond.

Each one of us nestled our work among the celebration of the word through the announcement of winners from the 2021 Young Writers of the Year Awards, the very cradle of Shetland’s future writers.

Writers’ Night is announced as a very special celebration https://tickets.shetlandarts.org/sales/categories/festivals/wordplay-2021/wp21-writers-night

I am very much looking forward to add my humble stone to the edifice .

Announcement (2)

When one’s love of a great author nestles admiration, her creative spirit and verve on paper to a fabulous collective and ends up in a major literary body of work.

I, the poet, feel humbled by such accolade & participation to the great edifice – brainchild from friend and fellow poet, Makar at our Federation Writers (Scotland) and compagnon d’écriture, Jim Mackintosh, through time.

Together, we celebrate George Mackay Brown’s centenary through a wonderful anthology titled very aptly Beyond the Swelkie now ready to pre-order.

Happy poet and lover of literature!

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 🥰🌍✨