#81.4 Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

And here we are, his little collection of life’s leftovers together only because we are each needy of healing. Trinity can take herself outside and return again. She and the hermit have their own sign language together so she can be obedient to him. She always lets him know if anything is amiss in here or out there. When the hermit is exhausted and sits down to rest on the rock at the doorway, she sits by him and slides her big wooly head under his hand, resting her head on his lap.  In so many ways she gives him a warm comfort neither the shag above us clinging to the branch, nor I, can offer.

Now, every day at low tide the little fellow takes his prod and pail and goes off. He returns with an assortment of the things left between the rocks by the tide: the wriggling fish, an eel, or a sea blob. And he brings the stinking stew up here to give the shag a daily feast.  He sweeps up the soiled straw beneath the bird’s perch again and all around, and heaps the straw outside. In the evenings he makes a night fire outside. Maybe the fire wards off monsters of the night, or maybe he is just marking our place in darkness. It is not far beyond our doorway that he turns the soiled straw of the day to spark and ash and with some added peat, the night fire leaves new embers for the next day’s fires.

Each morning the woman whose voice I first heard interpreting for him comes with the sacks and flasks, and Trinity alerts the little hermit so he moves the sledge from the doorway. She never enters or even bends down to look in. I’ve never seen her and she hasn’t seen me. It is all very regular and very silent. All of these daily patterns and routines are faithfully attended so as dark, and small as this space is, it always smells of clean earth and fresh straw. It is always sparse with just a mere promise of enough.

Since it was the canine that can hear my shouting nightmares and senseless sounds in my sleep she knows I have a voice and she knows my single chant is always woefully, “I can’t help you.”

Dear God, may I heal to usefulness here in this place of slow and gentle restoration.

(Continues tomorrow)

#81.3 Thursday, June 4, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

This darkness has a cruel waking. The dream left me floundering in the hot dark sea, and Cloothar is calling me to save him, but I can’t move. He is sinking down, and I can’t reach him. I just let him go. Deep, dark, lost…

The nightmare that left me dead in the tidal wash took Cloothar and his little craft into the depths. He was clutching his chest of gold coins begging me to help him. Now, here in this place of healing, the canine, with three legs, I call her Trinity, hoovers over me, then goes and awakens the little monk.

He comes to my side in the dark and lights a candle from the embers – sets it on the small rock near my head. He gives me a sip of cool water and he washes my face with a wet cloth; he places the cool cloth on my head exactly in the place he has shaven my hair back in this celtic tonsure.  The candle is pooling light, pretending there is no more darkness. Light is illusion of comfort amid the darkness. A candle is a smattering of imagination for hope, even when I know darkness is all. 

The monk takes my hand in both of his hands and closes his eyes — a gesture to say that you are still with us here, Dear God, in this tiny orb of light. It is safe and quiet.

But in this fevered moment, my thoughts are captive to grief.  I wanted to help Cloothar.  I wanted to reach out and pull us together back into the boat. The boat was broken. I couldn’t help! Dear God, forgive my frail failing! Forgive me for letting go of him.

***

The day birds announce the light and the little monk is still by my side after what must have been a most uncomfortable night for him. He is asleep seated on the ground resting his head on the rock that also supports the spent wax of the candlestick — the candle burned to its nub, then out. There is nothing of it now but the fray of wick in wax. When he rises in the day on stiff knees, he takes a hold of his walking stick by the door to pull himself to his full stature, such as it is, and begins a new day.

(Continues Tuesday, June 9, 2026)

#81.2 Wednesday, June 3, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

It is afternoon when others come to drag the chipped tombstone away, probably to a service for the burial of the dead. The hermit and the three of us broken beings wait quietly inside while people are talking outside this cell. First, crunching footsteps, now a solemn hum of chanting — a familiar psalm in the language of St. Jerome. In the language of these people comes shared grief because it seems the one who has passed on was one of their own.

The first man who had come here arrives to assess the project of moving the stone. He must be the abbot or maybe a bishop here. He seems unctuous, always praying aloud.

I hear his prayers in the Roman language, the familiar words repeated over the cut stone, “In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti.” And now the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is repeated again, spoken in the local language.

“an tAthair

an Mac

an Spiorad Naomh”

It is a little old yet familiar to me, having been a follower of the Celtic missionary called peregrinus — Father Columbanus.

Maybe this failed journey to Iona found its destination anyway. Maybe I have found what I was seeking — a community where prayer is usual, and the rule is Celtic – putting obedience to God first before the demand for obedience to the hierarchy of bishops and the pope.

It’s my gift alone, or call it my oddity, that keeps me in a time warp – too often hoping for things long passed in newer times. I am always awakening into a far future world from wherever I was. And in my last wakings I’ve often feared humankind had become godless and crude, following men who rule but ignore the silent, constant presence of Spirit.

I see our little circle of sky has turned from afternoon to dusk. The little monk is still outside with the others, and the canine who was quivering in fear of the voices outside, has turned herself around three times, and settled into a little circle of warmth on my feet. Sleep now sweet Trinity.

***

         “I can’t help you! I can’t help you!” I hear myself screaming as I wake from the dream.

#81.1 Tuesday, June 2, 2026

Historical Setting: The Great Skellig in an unknown time

Inside a stacked stone cell, its eye’s pupil opens at the top to the morning sky’s brightness. Here is also the doorway opened allowing in some light and sound from the outside while the little monk is just outside chipping on a stone. I ache with the ringing of each hammer blow on the iron chisel. A church bell rings a dirge. The voices of people talking just outside frightens the canine who now thinks I’m her refuge.

I am lying here, tattered, hurting, hardly able to imagine I will ever move an arm or a leg again — in fact — I’m hardly sure if I have an arm or a leg, and the canine has chosen me as her bed, her safe place with people talking near-by.

They are speaking in an ancient language — it could be old Galatian — ancient — but discernable. The familiarity takes me to that by-gone place of early Christians, but then, I recognize this is also the native language of Father Columbanus and the brothers he came with to Gaul; though I rarely heard it spoken because he learned our tribal tongue so easily. People in their tribes are always on journeys pretending themselves strangers to one another, but there is a shared belonging among humankinds — a oneness among people in all human language sometimes familiar, sometimes buried deep in time.

Outside I hear a woman’s voice answering for the silent little monk. And now he comes back in here with a skin of fresh goat’s milk. He pours milk into two bowls and sets one for the canine and another he brings to me, and tips it so that I can also have a taste. It is delicious and still warm. He fills the bowl again and drinks from it himself.

The people outside are wondering why he has only prepared one grave marker. He returns to the visitors now, with the empty flask. After a pause the woman answers, “He says there is only one burial.”

The man says, “Ask him, what of the dead man found at the edge of the sea?”  

“He said Brother Lugh was mistaken. There was no dead man; it only looked like a drowned man. What looked like a black beard was just a clump of tidal debris.”

Now I realize I am this little fellow’s secret.  I wonder if the shag and the canine are unknown as well.  And does he feed us all with his own portion?

(Continues tomorrow)

,

#80.12 Thursday, May 28, 2026

Historical Setting: A stone hovel in an unknown time

We once had a direction to sail. But surely these rocks rising here from the sea are not what we intended.  We were following around the southern coastline of the English island, then we planned to go a good distance to the north expecting to one day to arrive at the community of Iona.

It was said to be an island with wide tidal beaches, and only soft sand would greet us. This place has no beach and this monk wears rough wool, woven with sticks and burrs as though it was uncarded straight off the sheep.

Here this little fellow who brought me up the rock side is shorn in the Celtic way, shaven across the front, from ear to ear, with his mane let down and flowing from the middle of the top of his head down his back. I wore this style myself in another age in Gaul. It is banned now, by the pope. The papalist tonsure is a crown, meant to show loyalty to Jesus with his crown of thorns. But it wears on earth, without the Jesus humility, so a crown to me, always seems a pretending to be king. I prefer the Celtic tonsure.

This morning the little monk is outside. I hear him at work nearby, chipping a stone. Maybe he is making a tombstone as I saw chipped in sandstone at Lindisfarne. Maybe he is honoring a burial.

The canine is watching me carefully for any breath or movement or sound.  I will continue to be very still.

I’m sure it wouldn’t be a tombstone for any of us here.  We are a tattered threesome of housemates: the bird the dog and the man. But all of us are more about healing than finding a grave right now. So, probably he isn’t preparing a grave marker for us.

***

The ears of the canine prick and twitch, and now I, too, hear human voices in the distance.  She growls softly then moves cautiously to my side of the cave.  This time her fangs are not directed at me.  She seems more afraid than vicious. She climbs onto my bedcover quivering with fear as though, I, in some skewed way, represent the safest place to be in the strange circumstance of hearing human voices.

As people draw nearer, I can sort the voices as two who are coming toward this place talking between themselves.

(Continues Tuesday, June 2)

#80.11 Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Historical Setting: A stone hovel in an unknown time

On this new day I linger in the straw thinking I’ll move but thinking doesn’t make it so.  I’m watching the nearly dawn sky, then a fog through the eyelet of the stones at what is surely the eastern arc of this hovel.  My clarity of mind today only muddles the memory of the circumstances that brought our boat to this tragic end. I’m haunted, but I know in my head there was nothing I could do to save Cloothar.

         Forgive me God.

And here I am, myself needy, but this little monk doesn’t fail me.

My ponderings terrify these nights.

In these glimpses of memory, I am with Cloothar in the little leather currach in that storm rising from the west. The wind was against the oars, as we were trying to make our way to a safe harbor. But before we could find any mooring, we turned broadside to the wind and the sea rose up and tumbled our craft in froth, churning and washing over us again and again. At first, I was floating free clinging to the empty coin chest until the sea filled it and it was gone. Then I drown too.

Neither Cloothar nor I survived. His coin chest he clung to was filled and heavy and sunk straight away.

Being as I am with this persistent healing, even from death to life, for me, rescue didn’t depend on capturing something left afloat. I’m always gifted back in some version of tedious but reliable healing, back into life. It is better explained with a “why” than a “how.” But here I am a captive of pain in this stone eye staring always into the eastern sky.

***

This morning, I’m awakened by two tiny birds outside the wall singing a loud dialogue of carnal love and probably preparing a nest. I believe these birds are planning for an egg and whatever may become of that.  Their raucous song of creature courting began the moment the sun broke into the darkness — and now there is so much loud singing. 

Spring is wrapped in the smell of fresh earth –clay or moss — laying hold of scent even inside this place that might otherwise stink of stable. Springtime hangs loud and heavy today.

I can only guess where this is.  At night I watch our tiny glimpse of sky for a familiar star, but to know a star one has to find its pattern with other stars. What I can see from here is very little use.

(Continues tomorrow)

#80.10 Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Historical Setting: a stone hovel in an unknown time

I’m laid out inside a cavern of neatly stacked stone with a large, boney canine guarding my every move while the little monk, who rescued me is away. When the wooly little man comes in the canine hobbles on her three legs into the dark to her own straw bed.

Also, inside this shared shadow, nearly as high up as the sky hole is a large black bird with a dangling, loosened wing. It is perched on a broken driftwood limb leaned against the wall nearly at the apex of sky. Surely this bird was recalled from the skies just as I was recalled from the sea. Just as I am broken in many pieces, this bird has dangling and disheveled bones amid the leftover feathers of its wing. It clings to a branch placed near the sky hole, safe from the canine this bird longs for the full sky. It appears to be a shag, like the many who wait on the rocks for the glint of a fish at the turning of the tide.

The little monk returns with a pail of sea stuff and so the bird feasts. Like the canine and me, also, the bird seems relentlessly tethered to life itself; incessantly testing that broken wing, faltering on a frail leg shifting, then catching balance again. 

The little wooly monk pours a bowl with oats from a small grain sack for the canine. He is boiling a cooking kettle on the center fire, while the thread of smoke wends out through the pupil of this stoney eyeball where we dwell. He adds several hands full of oats to the pot, and makes a fine gruel which he now spoons into a bowl.

He sees my famished need and comes to me and lifts my head onto a small bundle of woven rags and spoons the soft warm cereal into my mouth. It is a great kindness. 

I find I’m able to make a sound intended as a word of thanks for this human kindness, though he seems not to notice. I know I’ve made a sound because the canine rushes quickly over, intruding in my breathing space, watching me to maintain her guard protecting our little master from any possible annoyance I could cause.

This bit of food gives me a new strength and, in some way, affirms the possibility for healing though this part of healing seems like a lengthening of pain. It could be a good end.

         Dear God, thank you.

         A day of peaceful sleeps and wakings…

(Continues tomorrow)


#80.9 Thursday, May 21, 2026

Historical Setting: Yet unknown

How long had I been thrashing in the sea – days – nights – years – eons?  It is the same moon that comes and goes repeating its phases like old language prayers, void of first meaning but savored in reliable repetition. 

My shiver was noticed.  He looks my way and stops his groveling. He has with him a woven linen funeral bag tied up in the ropes of this sledge. He unfurls it, and spreads it over me as though it is a blanket.

Thank you, God, for such a shiver to speak life to us both. He clearly answers your empathy with his own. Thank you, God, for sending this little wooly man.

We move slowly up the incline away from the sea — it is a steep climb — the little man in his cumbersome wool towing the sledge with the rope and my useless weight.  I imagine myself to be twice his height.  He retrieves the log rolling toward the water and hauls it back to the place where he left me, angled and nearly sliding back down.  He lifts the rope end of the sledge and struggles to roll the log under once again, then tows forward and upward, until again the sledge drops back onto the rocks while the loosed log rolls back toward the sea.  Again and again, he takes me rolling and crashing as though the rocks were waves and the sledge an unworthy skiff.  I don’t know if it is the hurt or the shock or just the raw…

***

I awaken in a dark place with a circle of sky beyond rock — a hole left open in the top of this dome, as though I am inside a monstrous eyeball roof with squared-up sides. I struggle for a full view of that porthole of day sky because the warm breath that is only a foot’s length from my face, blocking my view is issued from the fangs of a silver beast seething and growling, drooling onto my face apparently hungry for a nice dinner of a man’s flesh — maybe mine.

A finger of daylight amid the dark probes from one side of this hovel, surrounds the little wooly monk, just come in from the outside. He closes off the light that follows him in the doorway from the outside, by leaning the sledge over the opening.  Now it is dark again, except for the sky hole.

The little monk makes a grunting sound and his guardian beast looks away from me.

(Continues Tuesday, May 26)


#80.8 Wednesday, May 20, 2026

Historical Setting: Rocky tidal waters, another time

Dawn casts light though I don’t remember sleeping. 

I must have been mentioned by the person who glimpsed at the leftovers of me, even with all the shudders and shrieks of his own fears of death, because now someone is looking for me.

He comes with a prodding pole and a threshing sledge, with a rope and a rolling log for heavy loads. May I be such a heavy load? All I know is my sense, my eye and the sounds and smells of sea. Maybe that is all I am now.

He finds my hand. He doesn’t seem afraid of this place that I am between life and death.  He holds my hand in his hands as though mine is a precious find. His hands are warm. Mine must be very cold. There should be speaking now. But there are no words.

He is a stout little fellow, smells of wool. Seems to be made in three rough round orbs stacked one on the next like rocks turned into a cairn or an altar. The hood of his head encircles the rosy orbs of his face — circle within circle — broad pink cheeks, separated by a red ball of a nose.  His little bright eyes glint steely blue from the deep tuck between his cheeks and the fold of his forehead. He grunts and pants with the work of pulling all of me onto the boards of the sledge, but he doesn’t offer any words. Even though we both look at one another exploring our likeness of species, one to the other, there is no word between us.

I mean to cry out with the pain of it all but I seem not to make a sound.

He takes his prod and returns to the edge of the water.  He turns over one clump after another of slippery black weed and drops them back into the tide pools.  Could it be he is searching for some mislaid toe or limb I hadn’t even realized was lost?  Or possibly he has a hope that others have washed up as well.  He is likely searching for another heap of bones and flesh leftover from the wreck.

But I know, I alone survived. Cloothar was clinging to his treasure, sinking fast, surely lost. I know no one will find him on this shore.

(Continues tomorrow)

#80.7 Tuesday, May 19, 2026

Historical Setting: washing on rocks in an unknown time

Dear God, how long must I be of earth? How long must I cling to tattered memories of human sounds? Dull, aching, cold — I know this healing hurt too well. Thank you, God, for the healing and hope and strength for the hurt.

The tide comes rolled tight and unfurls onto the rocks, then draws back over the sea-edge lying flat on the water, a hushed shroud on the sea to wrap what is left of me to be torn and beaten with the next slam onto the rocks.

Thrust of tidewater now against the tower of rock – a heartbeat then breath as sea fills the hollows of hard earth with ocean stuff. Splayed, I am on these rocks, broken between the impervious and the translucence of turbulence.

***

Waking on a wall of stone now, a loosened pebble leaps by me bouncing down this rock wall on a mad frolic to the sea. Yet a bigger stone is set loose from above, now bouncing down, down sending one vibration after another through the solid rockface.

It’s a human foot that loosens these rocks.  Someone is climbing down here from above. I nearly see him.  I’m sure my eye doesn’t suit his collecting basket of sea things.  He takes a look and hurries off.

***

In this waking a black bird swoops near, perhaps to pluck my staring eye from… from whatever else is left of me, living now, not carrion.

More rocks are rolling down all around me. Someone comes so cautiously as though I could possibly rise up as a roaring leviathan. I can’t rise up just now, nor can I even make a whimpering human sound.

I open my eye just as he is bending toward me — then a gasp and a curdling scream — the kind of howl of a man crying out in sleep with a bad dream.  Loosened rocks now are leaping down the rock face driven by the full might of human terror, howling horrors in wordless baying, fading in the distance and gone.

***

Silence again belies the void. The quiet would be complete except for the lapping of sea moving with moon pull, higher and higher water rising up.

Incoming tide surrounds me again, this opulence of seawater is intruding on my vision of sky. The wave rolls are upside-down, and I am rolling in a rub of rocks at the tidal edge here deepening into another night in darkness.

(Continues tomorrow)