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are you sitting comfortably?
then I begin.......
the highland hermit
My dear friend Shirley
loves the Scottish hills and mountains. She has walked all the
Munro's (the 284 peaks in Scotland over 3000 feet) at least once
and many of them several times.
Shirley wanted to share the exquisite wild beauty of the more
remote parts of the highlands with me and had persuaded me to come
with her for two weeks of camping and hill walking. I'm an old
girl who likes the intimacy of the lovely Welsh woodland we live
in, but she thought I should have an experience of the wide open
spaces.
Alas, I am not a
quarter as fit as she is and I followed her puffing and panting up
steep slopes. But wow, it was worth it! What a glorious feeling
to reach the top of a hill...... It is like you are suddenly right
in the center of the universe. Beauty surrounds you in all
directions as far as the eye can see. You're in heaven and yet
your feet are firmly touching Mother Earth.
On the Wednesday in the second week of our holiday we were going
to walk up a hill in a particularly remote area. Shirley has sworn
me to secrecy about the whereabouts of this place in order to protect the
"habitat" of the extra-ordinary person we encountered there that day.
She is right, of course, because the man we met is
as much an endangered species as some of our lovely Wood Orchids
are.
The whole experience I'm about to relate was strange and touched
me deeply.
Just as the
event of meeting aliens appeared to be for the people in
that
famous film "A Close Encounter of the Third Kind".
The
difference is that I felt in this case WE were more
like the alien astronauts with all our high -tech life support
systems (mobile, insect repellent, man-made fiber anoraks and
rucksacks, solar powered torch -not always useful in Scotland ! -,
stainless steel thermosflasks, emergency rations wrapped in aluminum foil and
so on) and HE was the 'Earthling', completely in tune with his
environment.
We were first aware of him as we slowly ascended the hill and
heard an amazing, magic sort of chanting coming from the top. I
have not got the words to describe it, but it was immensely
beautiful and seemed to make every cell of my being vibrate with
joy! It was deeply moving. I have never heard anything like it
before and I may never have this privileged experience again. I
must admit that I thought for a few minutes quite seriously that
we were going to have a super-natural experience and meet an angel
at the top of the hill.....
However, there was no creature with great wings up there. We found
an old man instead with gray long hair and a beard. His old face
was weathered and tanned with as many little wrinkles as a dried
out prune. Judging by his clothing and footwear, he could have
been an extra in a Dungeons & Dragons type film, except
he wore a completely shabby frayed leather jacket on top of his
rough homespun-type garments. Yet, like an angel, he had a strange
sort of luminosity about him, as if he was radiating from his
inside outward!
Whatever his appearance, both Shirley and me felt immediately it
was a great and unique privilege to meet him without knowing why.
We introduced ourselves and offered to share our picnic of cheese
& pickle sandwiches, fruit juice, apples and chocolate, which
he accepted and enjoyed with great delight and giggles.
We were obviously very curious what this strange man was doing
here. He did not have a rucksack. The nearest proper roads were 14
miles away. We had spend all yesterday hiking into to this area over rough
terrain with the help of a compass. We had camped overnight by a
little stream. How did he get here without any proper equipment?
And how would he manage to get back?
At first he just laughed out loud at our questions, but then he
responded to our intense curiosity and told us his story. He even
told us how he acquired the leather jacket. First he spoke slow
and thoughtful, but then he became wonderfully animated, speaking,
as it were, straight from his heart and with his whole body
involved in the experience.
Below are a few of the many interesting things he told us during
those magic three hours we spend with him on the top of the hill:
There was once a young
man who had everything a man his age could wish for: excellent
education, loving parents, kind friends, good looks and an
interesting job with excellent prospects.
Yet, he was not happy, for deep in his heart he yearned for an
understanding that goes beyond Sunday papers and magazines and a
peace greater than he could find on Hampstead Heath during the
weekend.
So when his spinster auntie died and left him a small inheritance,
he said goodbye to his life in the city and moved to a remote part
of the Scottish Highlands. His grandparents from both sides had
come from Scotland and he wanted to get to know the land where his
ancestors had lived for generations.
For a whole summer he walked the hills and glens, drank water from
lochs and mountain streams and felt at one with nature. A deep
peace entered him He welcomed the sun and he welcomed the rain. He
must have been the only person alive who spoke sweet little
nothings to the clouds of midgets surrounding him. Looking at his
sweet old face I could just hear him say with a laughing voice: "Come on
then wee little dancing friends, let's go and find some delicious
bilberries for our supper".
At night he made
his bed amidst the heather and peered deeply into the heavens
thinking deep thoughts.
One day, as the trees were glowing with the maturity of autumn, he
found a little empty bothy (a mountain cottage) he liked a lot. He enquired in the
nearest village, which was many miles away, and found the owner was
willing to sell it for 'the right price'.
With his last
remaining money he bought
himself some basic tools and implements for his daily living and
also a
couple of goats and three sheep.
He settled down to a simple life of cultivating a tattie, turnips
and cabbage plot, cutting the peat for his cooking fires and
shepparding his animals.
The bothy had only two little rooms. He himself cooked and
slept in the one and he used the other to shelter the goats and sheep
when the weather was severe.
Many years went by. His hair and his beard grew. Seasons turned
whilst he never saw any other human company. It did not bother him,
because he was in deep communion with the spirit of the animals, the
plants, the mountains and the heavens above him.
More years
passed. His beard and hair grew from gray, the colour of gathering
rain clouds, to an exquisite white, the colour of mist hanging in
the glens. He probably became enlightened at some point, for the radiance
around him was like a sunrise over a mountain peak.
Every day he climbed
the hill above his bothy to sing a song to celebrate life. It
welled up from his heart and it was always different for no
landscape or sky is ever exactly the same as it was before.
One day, as he had just reached the top of the hill from where you
could see for miles, he saw dark threatening clouds on the
horizon, coming in fast from the west . Then there was a
thunderclap and a huge flash of lightening.
The hermit called his
animals to him and hurried home, for he knew in his bones that
this would be no ordinary storm. The wind was gathering strength
by the minute and seemed to play a game with man and animals
trying to blow them off the hill. Finally they got safely to the
protective shelter of the bothy. They bolted the rackety door to
stop it from flying off its rusty hinges.
The hermit lit a peat fire and put on a pan of turnip and potato
broth. Mean while, thunderclaps rumbled around the little house and
the rain pelted down as if it was trying to bore holes in the
roof.
Then something extra
ordinary happened.
There was a ratatat-tat on the door! The old man opened it and had
to use all his strength to stop it from blowing away. The silhouette
of a drooping wet stranger was for a fraction of a second
made visible by a bright lightening flash. The man was wearing a
leather pilot jacket and said "Sorry to impose on you,
old chap, but had to chute from my two-seater plane.
Was on my way from the islands back home to Edinburgh. Been on a
mission to bring blood of a special blood group for someone who
was injured on Lewis. Lost complete control of the blighter in
this monster of a storm. Jolly lucky to stand here alive and
dripping, what! Can I come in?"
The wet pilot took his soaking clothes off and the hermit gave him his
blanket to wrap around him. They sat down together by the fire and
the hermit shared the pot of broth with his guest. He also
offered him his mattress of thick heather to rest on for the
night.
The old man himself went to sleep in the other room, where he lay
down close to his animals on a thick layer of bracken.
By the next morning the storm had abated. As always, the hermit
was awake early. He said a few friendly words to the sheep who had
kept him warm in the night, and quietly opened the door to his
small living room. He intended to light a fire to brew up a nice
cup of birch leaf tea for his visitor.
He smiled to see the
stranger still deeply asleep on his bed.
Then there was, completely unexpectedly, another huge bright flash! But
this time it was not outside, but right inside the little room.
The hermit could not believe his eyes, for the sleeping man on the
bed had completely vanished. The bed was empty. He looked around, but there was no trace of the pilot
anywhere!
He scratched the matted hair on his head and did not know what to
make of this complete disappearance of his visitor.
As time went by the memory of the spectacular events of the stormy
night seemed like a vision. Yet the pilot's clothes were left
behind as proof that someone really had been there.
They actually
came in very handy, as the hermit's own clothes were very worn and
full of holes.
For
several weeks our friend
was puzzled and pondered frequently upon the strange events which
had taken place. But his well practiced habit of living in the
moment and being open to all the wonders happening around him,
rather than dwelling in the past, eventually took over again.
About a year later,
our old friend was up the hill to offer his song of celebration to
the universe once more. As he stood on the summit his eyes scanned
the horizon. He could feel a storm brewing. As he called his
animals, who were grazing further along the hill, to come home, he
thought again about the mystery that happened around last years
spring equinox.
Back home, he set about making a cup of tea from a herb he found
helpful for his hips. The well-worn joints were "complaining" to him
about hurrying so fast down the hill.
After the tea was made, he went to speak soothingly to his animals,
who were tense. They sensed the immense intensity of the storm, which was gathering pace,
as only animals can.
And then, whilst he was softly murmuring reassurance to the
beasts, he believed he heard a
ratatat-tat on the door ...... It was hard to tell because the wind was
growling around the cottage. He thought that maybe it was
imagination, because the memory from last year was so strong in
his mind just now.
All the same he went to have a look and opened the door.
A very wet man stepped in, saying "Thank God there is someone
here!". The drips from his clothes formed a wet patch on the
earthen floor of the cottage.
He explained he was an amateur balloonist, who was trying to cross
the Irish Sea, but the unexpected storm and unpredictable wind
patterns, had blown him completely of course. He said he took a
risk in making the crossing, but the journey was a sponsored event
to raise money for charity. There was a huge amount of money at
stake. A large crowd, all the press and the radio was there, The
sun was shining brightly at the time and he had not wanted to
disappoint everybody.
He had injured his shoulder, which was hurting badly because the emergency landing
he was forced to make, was very rough. He felt weak and fatigued by all
he had experienced the last 12 hours. The hermit helped the
balloonist out of his wet clothes, wrapped a blanket around him,
and offered him his heather bed. Then he began to make a broth for
their supper. When the pot was cooking away on the fire, he sat
down in his home-made birch pole arm chair.
The wind was howling outside and made the roof tremble now and
then. The exhausted man had already fallen into a deep sleep. A
mighty thunderclap virtually made the whole hill shake, but it did
not stir him.
The hermit pondered about the unbelievable coincidence of having
another man asleep in his cottage, who had come falling out of the
air during a great storm. It was a novelty to have fellow human
beings so close. The balloonist was sleeping like an infant and
the hermit couldn't help smiling at the sight of this big baby.
Then, out of nowhere, there was suddenly a bright eye-blinding flash and when the hermit's eyes
adjusted back to the semi-darkness of a room lit by a peat fire,
he could see that the heather bed was empty. The balloonists body
had gone, disappeared, vanished into the thick smoky air of the
small room!
For months after that
our friend was unsettled. He remembered that in the society
he'd left behind when he came to Scotland, disappearing bodies are
a matter for the police. Should he make a journey to the village
and tell them what happened? But then he knew too well that the
village folk considered him an eccentric, maybe even a fool. The
minister of the Church, an influential figure in that small
community, had once expressed his worry to Alistair (for that was the hermit's name) that he was possessed by
the devil, because he interpreted Alistair's love for Nature and
all its creatures, as idol worship. Alistair had kept even more to
himself after that, as he was concerned not to offend anyone.
When he sat on his hill, during the months following this second
mysterious drama, his eyes stared at
the horizon without seeing anything. He had ears on his head, but
they did not hear.
He even often had to hold his head in his head, as if it were too
heavy for his neck to hold up with all these weighty thoughts.
But with time his true nature was irrepressible and his heart
opened up again. No doubt all the creatures in his surroundings
were glad for it.
During the next
spring, when the time of equal days and nights arrived, another
big thunderstorm was looming at the horizon. There was a peculiar
stillness in the air. All the birds and other creatures were
holding their breath. Then the silence broke with the distant
sound of rumble, and the twilight sky lit up with sheet
lightening. It would soon begin to rain and Alistair took the
animals inside.
Shirley and I had held
our breath as well, as the hermit told his story. We had to
release the tension we felt by asking a question:
"Did another man come to visit you that night?"
"Yes indeed."
It was incredible! Hard to believe......
But we looked into Alistair's eyes and knew that here was a man
incapable of telling a lie. He was true to his nature and
therefore truth was his Nature.
I must say I felt envious for the briefest of moments and wondered
if I would ever be capable of living my own true nature, the way
he did?
There are still a few "fibs vibrating on my lips" when I
get myself caught in an awkward situation now and then.
No, admit it Anna, I think to myself, that statement is a
euphemism, poetic license! You're quite capable of telling a
whopper, if circumstances arise....
"Did he fall from
the air too, Alistair?" said Shirley with concern in her
voice.
"Yes, but not from such great heights. He was an biologist
who was surveying this area for.....I can't quite remember what
it's called. A site of special interest of some sort".
"Yes, probably a site of special scientific interest,"
said Shirley.
"Well, he had been crawling on his knees all day, counting
and classifying different species of lichens and mosses. He was
working away as long as the daylight would allow him too. He was
so absorbed in his study that
he did not see the storm coming. He was high up on a steep hill
with wonderfully shaped rocky outcrops full of miniature forests
of lichens, moss and other plants. He was alerted to the weather
by the first rumbles and started his descend straight away. But
minutes later the rain came down, which, of course, makes the hill
very slippery. He lost his foothold and tumbled down quite a long
way till his fall was broken by a boulder.. He was quite bruised
and sore, but fortunately his head was not injured.
When he came to my cottage, I offered him the chair, rather than
letting him lie down on my bed. He was in pain and would have been
more comfortable, being horizontal, but I felt I had to warn him
first.
So whilst I got the fire going I told him what had happened to the
last two strangers who sought shelter and rest on a stormy night
and slept on my bed. I said to Dave, that was his name, "I
wish I knew what it was all about!"
Dave gave me a long thoughtful look and before he replied: "Do you really want to know,
because if you do, I can give you the answer!
However, there is one condition attached. I can only reveal this mystery to
you, if you're willing to respect this condition."
Alistair, whose aura is already emanating a palpable radiating
glow, gets an enchanting warm twinkle in his eyes, as he tells us
that he promised and consequently was initiated into the mystery.
I wish I could have this man around at Christmas, I think to
myself. He would light up a room!
Shirley and I are seriously curious now: "So what is the
mystery, Alistair?".
He smiles and then burst into an infective, musical laugh.
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