Our Home
Our island began in the ice, 635 million years ago.
It was carved, scoured and swayed by the slow currents of two glaciers as they slunk northeast. When they receded, the island remained, tightly folded ridges surrounded by sea.
North Ardminish sits in between one of these folds, its sights rest high looking to the west where cliffs plunge to rocky shore, and the sun sets over the isles of Islay and Jura
To the north, looking to the high hills, Creag Bhan and lochs, we witness copper, blue, green, pink and yellow as the seasons change.
Looking down to the east with crooks and coves of sandy beaches, wide mudflat bays and isolated ròn rocks the mainland of Kintyre and its peninsula stretches, divided from us by the Sound. ​The highest peaks of Arran can be seen through a gap in its long spine.
From the southwest to Cnoc Collie Baharr and beyond, the high winds batter through this place from the Atlantic Ocean.
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The seasons, the forces of time and that of the elements encounter all of us here, and direct us towards one another.
For in this place we share space, and history with many beyond each of our species; and a burgeoning care and concern for others grows where such vibrant things both venerable and new, gather to entangle. ​
On the sentience of such "things": I cannot speak for what they might say nor indeed the stone or sea. For they do not speak in utterances that I can dictate fully despite them being luscious and sensible.
Instead, in the Edgelands, we listen, deeply and intently, as a sensor with our whole bodies, to their modes of attention to others, their cares and desires, and we begin to make sense of them through their yearnings, articulated on soft joints.
On this high hill, we are surrounded by open grassland, scrub forests, mashes, bogs and many cultivated fields.
Much like the white, ancient tomb at the isles northeastern edge, from our home we can see the sun and moon both rise and set, and in the night, our dark skies host the northern lights, our clouded galaxy and spectacular celestial events.
Here in the Edgelands
fighe cairdeas fìor [we weave a fine caring].
This is what lies at the center.
Welcome to North Ardminish.
