April 2024 – Chronically Human, Practically Healing

Peacock Herb, Findlater Castle and Cullen Skink: Scotland Reflections Part 3

The history and the scenery very much spoke to energy of dissolution and bereavement that seem to be transmitted by these lonely ruins on the cliff. Standing in the wind and the mist, listening to the waves crash and feeling the dampness leach into my skeleton it isn’t hard to imagine tales of familial betrayal, violent seige and eventual abandonment. The dark edges of human nature seem to reside in this aesthetic, not necessarily in a way that feels haunting, simply in a starkness you cannot manufacture.

Returning to this series after a busy week away teaching in western Saskatchewan. This part of our journey along the east coast and into the Highlands was pursued and directed by Storm Babet. Luckily, we only met the edges of this system on our routes, staying about a day ahead of it.

As Babet began to pick up speed and roll into the east coast, we took advantage of the morning to head from our cozy inland airbnb back to the coast to find the ruins of Findlater Castle. The wind coming off the North Sea was no joke. Google maps led us to a parking lot that seemed to be shared with a local cattle farmer’s yard just up the coast near Sandsend. From the barnside parking place, google told us to walk across a field towards the sea. Luckily I have my husband somewhat conditioned to wandering into the abyss based off atlas obscura coordinates at this point in our relationship (though, he doesn’t always adapt his footwear choices appropriately, but that’s for another post) so off into the nearing hurricane force wind we went.

After a brisk walk to the coast, we found what we were looking for. I was talked out of my intentions of hiking further towards the ruins on the cliffside, as a mist was beginning to join the wind and make the narrow, unofficial trails down to the remains for the 14th century stronghold a little sketchy.

Outside of Edinburgh Castle, this was our first castle stop on our journey. Also our first ruins. The current ruins are believed to be a 14th century rendition on top of 13th century foundations. The location and the set up of the castle offer a very game of throne-esque picture of what it may have looked like hundreds of years in the past. All that remains is lower levels of the castle built into the side of a cliff, facing the North Sea and resisting the relentless wind and waves washing down the east coast.

As with much of the coastal ruins of Scotland, the history of Findlater is believed to be rooted as far back as Viking raids and Pictish rulers. The history throughout Scotland but especially throughout the east coast seems to be rife with brutal take overs, familial betrayal and political jousting. It’s believed that the original 13th century structure was built to prepare for a Norwegian invasion, afterwhich the Norwegians held the castle for a short period. Sometime in the 14th century the Ogilvy family rebuilt, allegedly with the Laird’s intention to imprison his father in the cellar in order to continue an affair with his mother in law (says wikipedia anyway). The mother in this story eventually married a Gordon, who promptly took hold of the castle and imprisoned the mother. Mary Queen of Scots tried to get involved at one point to eject Gordon, during this 16th century drama, but it’s unclear as to if this was successful or not. The castle fell into disrepair in the 17th century as a new home was built for the earldom in nearby Cullen.

After finding Findlater we drove a little further up the coast to Bow Fiddle Rock. The wind was continuously picking up making for some pretty amazing demonstrations from mother nature around this natural rock formation in the sea.

After spending a little time marveling at the views, we headed back towards where we came from, driving along the coast through the historic town of Cullen, allegedly where the famous Cullen Skink soup is said to have originated. The town has roots back to the 12th century, likely even earlier. It is said that somewhere in the hills surrounding the town three kings are buried from a battle in 962. A Dane, a Scot and a Norwegian marked by three isolated rocks.

Robert the Bruce founded the church in the village in the 14th century and it’s rumoured that the organs of his wife were buried in the chapel. The town has an impressive viaduct built in the late 1800s for railway operations that still stands today.

We had a quick lunch and got out of the rain in a local cafe. This was the perfect place to sample Cullen Skink, which we seem to have gotten the last bowl of (much to a local late lunch goer’s annoyance). In the environment of a chilly, old, coastal fishing village, a soup like Cullen Skink, a smoked fish chowder, makes a lot of sense. I personally wasn’t sad I tried it, as it did the trick to warm the bones up on that day, nor was I disappointed at never needing to have it again afterwards. After grabbing some snacks we hurried back to our cozy airbnb and got the fire place roaring, as Storm Babet settled in for the afternoon. A perfect afternoon to be settled with some tea on the couch, listening to wind howl outside. I was getting over a pretty nasty chest infection (thanks Edinburgh) at this point, and was thankful for an easy afternoon of rest to make use of.

That night I dreamt of a flowering herb that appeared with vibrant blue/purple flowers in a narrow fan shape. The whole plant seemed to spread out like a peacock’s tail, and in the dream it was being called “the peacock herb”. When I woke up, I was thinking about blue vervain, a herb I was beginning to know more and more about in my herbalism explorations, and a herb certainly sacred to the land I was in. I’m not sure about it’s links to peacocks, though I have found some sources that link Vervain to being a home for the larvae of the peacock butterfly. Much of Blue Vervain’s lore has roots into druidic times. It was used as a temple herb in Greek, Celtic and Roman temples. This plant has very much pursued me as I work through my herbalism apprenticeship. It is one of the first herbs I remember being curious about, though not much information was found early on. As I’ve reached the end of my formal apprenticeship, it has become a herb I use quite often, and one that works with me in the dream space frequently- appearing with nudges for both myself and for clients.

Egyptians believed that Vervain was created from the tears of Isis. Christian lore links it as the plant used to dress the wounds of Jesus after his crucifixion, and by the 16th century in apothecaries across Europe it was used for ailment after ailment. My intention is to create more herb specific posts on here soon, so I’ll save the bulk of Vervain’s written history for that perhaps.

Waking from a dream with vervain top of mind just added to my desire to connect to the land of my ancestry while exploring my present day identity. Waking that morning the wind still howled and the rain was falling. We had a breakfast made by our host, packed up and headed west to the next leg of our journey: Glenmore.

More on that next week, I need to get at my herbalism thesis with rest of my morning!

Tidal Graves and the Eyes of Dunino Den: Scotland Reflections Part 2

After a few days in Edinburgh we were ready to move onwards. We picked up our rental car and headed North to Torryburn Beach. It took a while, but we eventually found what I was looking for: the grave of Lilias Adie.

Lilias Adie, a woman in her sixties, was accused of consorting with the devil in the early 1700s. She was imprisoned under the crime of witchcraft, tortured and interrogated until she eventually confessed. She passed away in prison before she could be executed for witchcraft. She is one of only women accused of witchcraft with a gravesite, as most were burned. The village feared she may rise from the dead, so they buried her in a wooden box between the low and high tide markers on Torryburn Beach. They covered her burial site with a massive stone slab. In 2019 her gravesite was relocated using original documents from the village church that led her persecution. Unfortunately, prior to this rediscovery, her remains had been stolen by grave robbers in the late 1800s. Her skull ended up in a private museum in 1875, then went to the University of St Andrews before going missing yet again. To this day, her skull remains missing.

I’m not sure even in reflection I have the words for the sensations I was aware of while looking out over the tide. I think I was already becoming aware of a dissonance between wanting to seek out the past; to know more about my ancestry, the history of women, the history of a land my gene pool came from.. juxtaposed with the realization of how much gets lost to history. Lilias Adie’s story is known from the words written about her during her imprisonment and trial, by her accusers and persecutors. Likewise for many of the women who were tried and burned at the stake. Likewise for much of my ancestors. The reasons why they left where they were blending in with historical reasoning but not much personal record. The past remains a mystery, and perhaps that is as it should be.

Yet, standing looking out over the murky grave of Lilias, there is no choice but to remember even that which cannot be known. The fear she may rise from the dead has long passed, and now there is a hope that she will to share her story.

Garrett eventually dragged me away from staring into the abyss as the tides rose, and after grabbing some lunch in a nearby village we headed East to Dunino Den.

Tucked behind a 17th century church and graveyard and down a short path into the woods, the entrance to Dunino Den is guarded by the remains of a sacred well. The well appears to me as a watchful eye. Just to the left of the earthly observer and sacred waters is a staircase etched into the steps of the stone embankment, leading down into the den.

I’m not sure I had ever experienced such a palpable shift in energy as what we experienced descending into the ancient sacred site. The gentle forest sounds that existed as we stood at the well disappeared as we descended. Suspended silence took over. It truly and vividly was an experience of stepping to a place outside of time itself.

We were lucky enough to be the only human visitors present at the time, though it certainly did not feel like we were alone. The stone banks were full of various carvings, some very very old and some new. Faces, symbols, words, hand prints and offerings of coins, cloth and trinkets are scattered everywhere. Dunino Den has been dated back as a site in use as far back as Pictish times, and likely earlier than that. Standing looking around the “den” on the bank of a gently flowing creek I felt all at once welcomed back to a place I’d known in some lifetime and bombarded by watchful eyes of beings beyond what is known. Nothing malevolent, but observant nonetheless.

Dunino Den is believed to have been used as a ceremonial site for as far back as it can be dated. The nearby “modern” church and graveyard contains a large, neolithic age standing stone. This is a rare place where modern day religion existed without destroying more ancient spiritual grounds.

We stood in the Den as long as we were permitted to. There was a very clear moment where we were nudged to continue on. The sacred silence we were suspended in as we took in the grove was lifted and with thanks we headed back up the narrow stone steps, past the sacred pool and back towards our current timeline.

“In a direct and obvious sense, the past never leaves us, it is embedded in the present, is veined through our beliefs, our diet, our traditions, our way of moving through the landscape and much else.”
Alistair Moffat, The Hidden Ways

As we walked back through whatever veil seems to gently guard this sacred place, I was reminded that though many things are lost to written history, there is always opportunities to remember when we sit into non-linear ways of receiving information. As has happened to me more than a few times now visiting the “old world”, places other than my place of birth, our feet sometimes fall on paths we’ve walked in other lifetimes.

From here we drove upwards on the East coast to our home base for a few days near Turiff. The woodstove was lit for us when we arrived, and as Storm Babet was starting to howl on the horizon and so we made our place for the night.

More to come soon.

On the backs of dragons: Scotland Reflections 1, Edinburgh

As spring arrives I am in some ways still steeping in the intensity of last year: one of my busiest professional years yet, getting married in September and then spending a month overseas in Scotland on our honeymoon.

I’ve always found that travel is best processed in hindsight. All the experiences over the year, culminating in our travel in the fall, very much seem to have neatly encapsulated a transition point in my life. Perhaps a writing exercise for another time, or over this series of reflections, is my own ongoing embodiment of that transition. I haven’t quite found my language for it yet. I remember when I first tried on my wedding dress, there was a surprising feeling of not recognizing myself. Seeing instead who I was becoming, and what embodiment I was just stepping into.

That feeling continued as I moved through the year leading up to our wedding. In some ways I linked it to an initiation of sorts. To what, I’m not sure. There’s a level of maiden in many ways I stepped out of, but I don’t quite identify with the traditional “mother” phase heading towards crone in common spiritual language. What replaces mother in modern day life when “mothering” isn’t the calling?

Even now, as I work on my herbalism thesis (which I should be working on now, but when creativity calls, it calls), which focuses on integrative herbalism in the treatment of modern day cyclical health (women’s health); I am faced with that same question. For those of us who are consciously choosing to not have children, existing within a healthcare and wellness care system that hinge fertility as the deciding factor around health, much of the time, how do we support vitality while linking a woman’s value to more than just their ability to bear life into the world?

Around this same time, in the midst of wedding planning and facing all the micro transitions along the way to our wedding, we began to figure out where we wanted to travel to afterwards. Both G and I have always been interested in Scotland, and it was in with a few other options for our honeymoon. For me, Scotland has many ancestral ties. I knew whenever I did get there, there would be many explorations in real time as well as otherwise that would occur. In hindsight, it seems more and more appropriate that the energetic “homing beacon” began to chime in as this being where we headed to on our first trip as a married couple.

Our first stop on our trip was Edinburgh. It was a relatively short flight across the pond from Toronto, and after a brisk jog through the Toronto airport due to a delayed incoming flight – we settled into the overseas flight. As I tried to sleep, I was washed over with memories of my maternal grandparents. Specifically, the home of theirs that I spent lots of time at. Memories of summers spent in the back yard, with cousins, running through the garden. The feeling of running through the corn in the garden. Picking peas and carrots. The smell of their garage. I wondered if my grandparents had ever explored some of the territory I was about to explore. I had the sense they were along for the ride with me. Likewise with my paternal grandparents. What ancestral memories would I find, and what questions would I answer? I also had the sense that this was firmly my journey. I remember thinking, I am creating my own memories on the foundations of the past. Perhaps it was the half asleep and already sleep deprived vision taking hold, but as we approached EDI in the very early hours of the morning, it appeared to me that there were black dragons flying alongside our plane. Some guides for the journey ahead, perhaps.

We landed at 6:30am on Oct 17th. Our first orders of business were cappuccinos in an airport cafe while setting up our SIM in my phone and getting a handle on the bus system that we’d be using while in Edinburgh for a couple days. We took our first double decker bus from the airport to our BNB, which was just outside of the downtown area of EDI. Our hosts were gracious enough to let us move in that morning, the day of our check in, and even insisted on cooking us breakfast. Much appreciated way to start our first day. In a brave attempt to mitigate the worst of the time change, we had a strong intention to use the day to explore the city and stay awake. Which, we did indeed. Another bus, and 17,000 steps later we had seen much of Old Town on our first day. As we stepped off our bus into the city centre on Princes Street, facing the gardens with Edinburgh Castle looking down at us from the top of the city, it was one of a handful of experiences I’ve had of my breath being taken away completely.

Edinburgh is a very aesthetically pleasing city. Old town has been essentially the same for a few centuries now, and runs from the coast up the molten rock hill to peak with the castle at the highest point. New town has been essentially the same for the last couple centuries, and sits below Old Town. Remove the cars and street lights, and you could very easily be standing in the 1700 or 1800s. Though, a thought I had many times while we were in the city, the air quality may have been significantly worse back then. At one point, Edinburgh was considered Europe’s most population dense city. Multiple-story buildings were common in the 16^th century and by the 18^th century, buildings on High Street were often six to ten stories tall and could reach up to 14 stories towards the back where the land sloped down. The city was supplied with water via street level wells from the 16th century to the early 19th century, when slowly more modern plumbing became possible. Those living on higher floors (usually the wealthy), had to hire water caddies to trek water up the stairs until late 19th century. In 1797, the “Nastiness” Act was passed, which prohibited the tossing of waste out windows during daytime hours. Sanitation was a major issue in Old Town, along the Royal mile, until the late 19th century at least. Edinburgh would have been breathtaking for different reasons until very recent history.

We took in much of the Royal Mile on our first day, breaking in our travel legs well. We visited Greyfriar’s Kirk Graveyard (featuring many Harry Potter film graves, and much history) where G was shadowed by what seemed like a spirit dog. Perhap Greyfriar’s Bobby himself. We wandered up Victoria Street, the inspiration for Diagon Alley, popped into Napier’s, a herbal store that has been around since 1860, and then trekked back up the Royal Mile to the castle.

Along the way I found The Witch’s Fountain, tucked around the corner from the busy thoroughfare at the entrance to Edinburgh Castle. You have to know where to look to find this somewhat controversial monument, luckily I had done some research prior to our trip so I did know how to find it.

The Witch’s Fountain was created to remember the many women who were accused, tortured and convicted (commonly without fair trial), and publicaly executed for “witchcraft” – a label of convenience as we now know. The controversy behind this memorial is in the wording. The language on the plaque implies that the women being remembered were guilty, which as modern history shows, was never proven. The assumption that the women accused and forced to bear a horrible end to their lives, and the long history of persecution in other ways since, risks perpetuating harmful rhetoric. The debate, I suppose, is if remembering is still more valuable than forgetting.

By the end of our explorations on this first day, we were both nearly delirious from sleep deprivation. We somehow managed to find some fish and chips on our way back to our bnb, before hitting our bed pretty hard for a good night’s sleep.

On our second day, we woke up to a lovely view from our bedroom window of the mist rising up over Arthur’s Seat after a 12hr sleep. With our coherency restored, and a little in need of a break from the congestion of city central, we took the bus out to the coast and found Portobello Beach. We grabbed a couple flat whites at a beachside cafe, and walked the beach in low tide. I spent most of that time finding stones and shells in the sand. The whole vibe reminded me of a book from childhood, Kate’s Castle. Here I was creating a realtime adventure in a land full of history and adventure, little imagination needed. With some time to spare, we continued walking along the beach, before finding a bus to catch over to a nearby neighbourhood that housed the Royal Yacht Britannia. After finding it behind a paywall, we decided to carry on back to Old Town where we had a tour of the underground vaults to take in.

Edinburgh didn’t only grow upwards, it also expanded underground. Largely due to lack of real estate, underground bridges and vaults were created. At first for businesses such as taverns, cobblers and storage centres. This relatively quickly devolved into low-no income living situation and illegal business. The vaults are as you’d imagine, dark, cave like carve outs in the rock foundations of the city. We toured the South Bridge Vaults, completed in 1788. Rumours suggest that during the illegal use era you could find rebel distilleries, bodysnatchers storing their latest digs (steeling bodies from graves to sell to researchers was a common, and lucrative, practice in the 18th-19th centuries as medical research grew but religious institutions outlawed studies on cadavers), and many unfortunate families making home in small caverns. Ventilation would have been non-existent and air quality just as bad if not worse as above ground. By the 1860s the vaults were believed to be emptied, though they were not discovered until the 1980s during excavation for building updates above ground. Now they are largely tourist attractions.

To cap off our final day in EDI, we found a bite to eat in Old Town before making our way back to our BNB and preparing to leave the city the next morning.

As awestruck as I was at first in EDI, I left feeling ready to leave. I was struck by what would have frankly been a horrible place to live historically, as magical as it seems today. Perhaps that lived experience was a past life experience I’ve had, as I couldn’t seem to separate the past from the present. As I began to steep myself in the history of my bloodlines, the idea of being faced with leaving rural settlements as the elite cleared space for sheep and given the option of city centres like EDI or getting on a ship, it was an interesting reflection as to what would be more appealing. Edinburgh is full of history, a centre of amazing scientific and medical progress, the inspiration for much creative works and novel thinking – and yet, I sensed so much turmoil, congestion and heaviness in the air still. I’m glad we went, and I was glad to turn our gaze towards route out.

More to come.

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