Answering the Call of Iona

‘We can make our lives sublime. And departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time’

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet

For the fifth time in as many years the sacred Isle of Iona has tugged at my heartstrings, reeling me in with its magic, mystique and monastic simplicity.

It was here that I started my pilgrimage on 7 July, 2011, the date honouring the memory of a remarkable silver-haired woman known simply as Peace Pilgrim, who walked tirelessly for 28 years, vowing to “remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food.”

Penniless and walking her talk without any organisational backing, she touched the lives of countless thousands of people before dying instantly in a car accident 30 years earlier on 7 July, while being driven to a talk she was to give. She was 72 and had described death as “liberation into a freer life”.

She’d believed that a pilgrim’s job was to rouse people from apathy and make them think, insisting: “Love is the greatest power on Earth. It conquers all things.”

And somehow Iona seemed the perfect starting point for my own walk, having been synonymous with pilgrimage for centuries since the Irish monk Saint Columba arrived in CE 563, bringing Christianity to Scotland.

Geoff with Bonnie, left, and Tammy outside Iona Abbey

My daughters Bonnie and Tammy had chosen to be with me for the start of this life-changing day as I shouldered my heavy pack; paused to pose with them in front of Iona Abbey and then strode purposefully to the ferry. The plan was to hitch a ride across to the vastly bigger Island of Mull, and then begin stepping it out towards the mainland of Scotland.

Of course, a true pilgrim of old would travel without money, relying on the kindness of strangers, I explained, adding that if I were to attempt my quest without funds, the ferry crossing would be the first major hurdle. Guess what? While waiting at the slipway we struck up a conversation with a friendly local, who announced: “You seem such nice people – would you like some ferry tickets? I have a book of tickets that’s due to expire today.”

Not for the first time the Universe playfully showed me what is possible with faith and commitment.

More than a year and many millions of footsteps later I was back where I’d last hugged my daughters in an emotional farewell, and I vividly recalled their words of encouragement: “Dad, what you are doing brings knowledge, love and light to a great cause, the beloved Earth.

The Traigh Bhan retreat house has served the Findhorn community for more than 40 years

“Have fun, be brave and remember that you don’t have to suffer, freeze or go hungry to spread your message. Spread your message in true happiness.”

Now I’d linked the spiritual centres of Findhorn, Glastonbury and Iona with my footsteps, and done so during the wettest weather in England in more than a century. Often I’d ignored their sensible advice about not needing to suffer. Perhaps the lowest point was when tired and sodden, I’d lain in a muddy field, awaking with a start each time a slug crawled across my face. In the days that followed I suffered severe and debilitating asthma attacks. What was I doing and was I really making a difference?

One question brought a smile to my lips: If I was treading lightly and lovingly upon the Earth, why did my feet hurt so much?

Now there was a spring in my step and all the pain and suffering seemed worthwhile. I’d carried a bottle of holy water I’d filled at Glastonbury’s Chalice Well to sprinkle as a prayer and blessing and was planning a small ritual of gratitude at various sites, including Traigh Bhan, the Foundation’s retreat centre on Iona.

A few drops went into the flower arrangement in the retreat house’s meditation sanctuary, some on the Wishing Stone on neighbouring Erraid where I’d photographed my daughters and silently committed to my walk, with much of the remainder later being sprinkled generously at both Findhorn venues: Cluny Hill and The Park.

Iona is a feast for religious historians

Fast-forward to March 2015 and I was again back on Iona, this time for a writing retreat, accompanied by my friend Amala. A wonderful week stretched ahead of us with the tantalising prospect of filling it in whatever ways we desired, be it writing, exploring, reading or simply relaxing.

Of course, getting there wasn’t as simple as you might imagine, Mother Nature concocting a fiendish mixture of ferocious winds, wild seas and snow, sleet and horizontal rain that prevented the ferry from attempting the 2km stretch of ocean that separates it from Mull.

Eventually when we did land, it was with a vast sense of relief and the welcome feeling of stepping back in time to a simpler way of living.

There is a brooding sense of history and of occasion that so many pilgrims have noted, the poet John Keats describing his tramp across Mull as “a most wretched walk,” while the journey’s end astounded him.

“Who would expect to find the ruins of a fine Cathedral church, of cloisters, colleges, monasteries and nunneries in so remote an island,” he asked.

Amala depending on human-powered propulsion … and loving it