Iona: Getting There Well

The journey itself to Iona makes this place unique; it is long, quite complicated and even relatively uncomfortable for the urbanite who is accustomed to quick and easy travel. This distance provides the perfect pilgrimage process, for it truly requires a removal of oneself from all that is familiar and supplies a lengthy trek-full of obstacles, no doubt! Once there, one finds a sparsely populated island, with almost no cars and a large abbey, whose structure appears to have dropped from the heavens onto this topographically small and relatively insignificant place.

 

Sheep outnumber the residents and the sunlight plays on the hillsides in the most magical ways. One senses almost immediately Iona is indeed a “thin space” – that brushing up against the Divine is inevitable.

It takes time to get to Iona. To start your pilgrimage preparations, think about the itinerary in two parts: TRAVEL TO OBAN and OBAN TO IONA

By Train

 

Trains travel regularly from Edinburgh (Waverley Station) and Glasgow (Queen Street Station) to Oban. This spectacular journey (one of the top rail rides in the world!) takes approximately four hours and the train terminal in Oban is next to the ferry terminal for the Isle of Mull.

Rail Enquiries:
Tel: 08457 484950.
Scotrail (Trains)www.scotrail.co.uk

By Bus

Buses depart from Edinburgh (St. Andrew Square) and Glasgow (Buchanan Street Station) and go directly to the Station Road stop in Oban. The route takes approximately four hours-make sure to pack a snack!

Bus Enquiries:
Tel: 08705 505050 or visit www.travelinescotland.com
Scottish Citylink (Coaches)www.citylink.co.uk

 

By Car

From Edinburgh take the M9 to Stirling, then the A84/A85 to Oban.
From Glasgow take the A82 up the side of Loch Lomond to Crianlarich, then the A85 to Oban.
If you are travelling from the north of Scotland the A82 will take you from Inverness to Fort William, then take the A828 to Oban.

Disabled Passengers

For assistance on the railway ring Scotrail (Tel: 0845 605 7021).

 

Recommended accommodations for your overnight in this seaside town

Oban Youth Hostel

www.syha.org.uk/hostels/highlands/oban.aspx

Harbour View Guest House

A lovely and affordable B&B in Oban within walking distance from the train and ferry.

Dilys McDougall at dilysmcdougall@aol.com

Tel: 011-44-1631-563-462
Harbour View
Shore Street
Oban, Argyll
PA34 4LQ

Ferry Service to Mull

 

The ferry from Oban to Craignure on Mull takes forty minutes. Walk on passengers should arrive within an hours time of departure, and make sure to give yourself time to pick up a fresh seafood sandwich at a local fish monger booth near the ferry-delicious! Cars need to check in at least thirty minutes before departure and advanced tickets is strongly recommended during the summer season and public holidays.

Ferry enquiries: contact the ferry operators Caledonian MacBrayne (Tel: 08705 650000) or visit their website www.calmac.co.uk

Across Mull

Tour buses will pick up passengers in a lot just off of the ferry departure area and bring them to the ferry terminal at Fionnphort; these bus times generally coincide with the Mull and Iona ferries. There is a sweet little gift shop and restroom facilities to visit-if there is time before the bus departs!

 

 

It takes approximately one hour to drive across the Ross of Mull from Craignure to Fionnphort, where the ferry leaves for Iona. Visitors cars are NOT allowed on Iona, but there is free car parking at the Columba Centre in Fionnphort, minutes from the ferry terminal.

For bus enquiries: Tel: 01631 566809 or visit www.bowmanstours.co.uk orwww.travelinescotland.com or Tel: 01546 604695 or Email: public.transport@argyll-bute.gov.uk

 

Ferry to Iona

The bus will drop you off at Fionnphort. There is a ten minute passenger (walk-on only) ferry that crosses the Sound of Mull landing at the pier in the village of Iona. In the Winter some ferries need to be reserved the day before travel.

Telephone the CalMac Craignure office on: 01680 612343 or visit www.calmac.co.uk/destinations/iona.htm

Disabled Passengers

For assistance on the ferry ring your departure terminal: CalMac Oban (Tel: 01631 566688) or Craignure (Tel: 01680 612343).

You have arrived to Iona, the place that has called to you! Savor your arrival.

 

A Sacred Journey-Part Two from the Pilgrim in Residence

It has been a joyful opportunity to share with the Sacred Journey community a bit about my pilgrimages to Iona, Scotland and further reflections on the Arrival stage of pilgrimage.  It always blesses and challenges me to see not just these trips as sacred, but every day of our life.  Click on the image below to read further about what you can do to create an intention around your life’s journey and preparing for the place of your heart’s arrival!

Iona Pentecost Pilgrimage: An Island Between Heaven and Earth

A set on the stage of “An Island Between Heaven and Earth”

The Sacred Island of Iona is riddled with fables, legends and lore.  Around every bend you encounter places that are linked to a history deeper than our own and stories that reverberate with both the whisking wind and the beat of angels wings.  While we came here keenly aware of the mysteries that shroud this island, our time on Iona was strengthened by opportunities to pull apart the veiled sacred sagas and see behind the curtain the very real people and relationships that have curated all that Iona is known for today.  From our geology lecture and field study, to tours of the Abbey and Staffa Island, this intimate isle grew up and out of its misty myths into a very real place.  A place that is governed by the same laws of nature as my residential address: indeed, my feet, under the authority of gravity, stayed on the ground here on Iona in the exact same ways they do at home.  And the people here, they grocery shop and eat too; it isn’t all miraculous maritime mana dotting the countryside perpetually available to the sacred souls musing about.

No, this is a real place.  A harsh, isolated place.  A place where in the winters one could go mad for a spot of sun.  But it has also always been a place for which people have longed.  A place where pious pilgrims prevailed, and where nobles and kings are entombed.  It is a place of heart-aching beauty that has inspired the very real people behind the legends to come here and be about something greater than, and beyond, themselves.

And so it was with George Fielden MacLeod, Baron MacLeod of Fuinary, a Scottish soldier and radical reverend who believed the ruined medieval Abbey stones cried out to him to rebuild their resplendence.  While this man’s eulogy is the stuff from which tales are told, in 1938 he was a young captain emerging from World War I with a profound sense of God and a disillusioned notion of politics.  His awareness for social justice was as real as the grit and grime he saw daily on the faces of the unemployed in Govan.  But what is indeed legendary about this man was that he responded to the visions of a restored Iona Abbey, and a transformed church that would reconcile people and denominations from all over the world, a church that would become the Iona Community.

Cast (L to R): Keith Hutcheon, Andy Paterson, Adam Tomkins, Corinne Harris, Des O’Gorman, Lisa Moffat, David McBeath

This clarified sense of Rev. MacLeod and the beginning’s of the Iona Community was offered to us by means of theater and a fantastic troupe from Cutting Edge Theatre Productions.  Within the Iona Village Hall, we were given the gift of insight to the conditions that created the context of the rebuilding of the Abbey.  We laughed at the well written jokes and jests between volunteer men, present to this dream despite their social class dichotomies.  We were cut to the quick with the very real stories that occurred on this soil so that we could be afforded the luxury of comfortably lighting a candle in the sacred beauty of the Iona Abbey.

Written by Alistair Rutherford, “An Island Between Heaven and Earth” presents the story of George MacLeod’s dream to transform stones into splendor and to reform the Church of Scotland in the doing so.  And, it worked!  His maverick methods caused many to question the social norms of the time and to work towards ecumenism and social justice.  To this day, the Iona Community continues to provide resources and relevant assistance to global issues of inequality and justice, while also providing a place to where people can gather in community, learn together and participate in worship.

This play provided the perfect reminder that when we come upon sacred sites and pilgrimage places, it is because something not only fabled and fanciful occurred, but something very real happened there.  And most likely something very hard-the kind of hard that pushes back on the status quo and demands something different.  The kind of real and the kind of hard that are flanked with reconciliation and transformation.  George MacLeod called Iona a “thin place”, with only “a tissue paper separating heaven and earth.”  I can’t help but believe that this kind of place occurs when the visions for what it means to live on earth come into alignment with what living is like on the other side.  Now, this is the stuff of legends that I want to surround myself!

Bravo, Cutting Edge Theatre Productions, bravo!

Cast (L to R): Rev. George MacLeod (Adam Tomkins), Bill Amos (Keith Hutcheon), Archie Dunlop (David McBeath), Bobby McKay (Des O’Gorman), Milorad Petrovitch (Andy Paterson), Dinah Fallon (Corinne Harris)

Iona Pentecost Pilgrimage: Island Journey

Bay at the Back of the Ocean

Bless to us, O God,
The earth beneath our feet,
Bless to us, O God,
The path whereon we go,
Bless to us, O God,
The people whom we meet.
Based on an old prayer from the Outer Hebrides

The pilgrimage around Iona visits places of sacred significance and historical importance on the island.  There are 18 sites in all and can take nearly all day to get to each one.  Our group broke the pilgrimage up in a few days-hitting the Abbey’s specific spots while we did our tour and hiking up Dun I on a quiet afternoon-so that we could enjoy the heft of the hiking down to the south end of the island to really spend some meaningful time at St. Columba’s Bay and enjoy the reflections at holy sites along the way.

Looking south towards Columba’s Bay

I watched our band of pilgrims prayerfully hike the path that Columba, his followers and 1450 years of seekers have sojourned.  While not adorned in the medieval garb of the traditional pilgrim (full length tunics, broad rimmed hats, staffs and satchels), their water proof pants and jackets, knit caps and thick ankled hiking boots carried the seeker-spirit of modern day pilgrims on this Sacred Isle.  While not barefoot, our blistered, bone-tired and boot-sore feet carried us over sacred pebbled beaches and peaty bogs.  We jumped and leapt from rock to rock, attempting to keep out of the muck, as we made our way to the 17^th century remains of the Iona Marble Company’s marble quarry, a site that demands acknowledgment of humanity’s exploitive behaviors and pleads for a change in global values and lifestyles.

Scripture verses that speak of Christ as our rock became more than just metaphor as we discovered that we very much needed the consistent presence of the rocks to keep our feet out of the mire.  This island journey was clearly emphasizing and highlighting Celtic and pilgrim-ways of seeing.  Without the physicality of the outside world to underscore these Biblical truths, these Christian metaphors would be weak words and flimsy fables.

Port a’Churaich (the Harbor of the Curragh) pebbles

The early Celtic church had a fundamental belief in the revelatory nature of the created world.  Every tree, blade of grass, and wild gooses cry was imbued with the Spirit of God and spoke to the character of the Creator.  These “theophanies” –God showings—were expected and sought after as a way to understand the sacred mysteries.  The ninth century Irish teacher, John Scotus Eriugena believed that God was the ‘Life Force” within all things, “…therefore every visible and invisible creature can be called a theophany” (John Scotus Eriugena, Periphyseon-The Division of Nature, 749D).  All of the created world upholds something of the essence of the Creator.  Eriugena also taught that there are two primary ways in which the sacred is revealed–the Bible and creation: “Through the letters of Scripture and the species of creature…” mysteries of God are revealed.

The historical significance of Iona was underscored as we hiked this island pilgrimage; sacred sites emphasized how very near the works of God are all around us.  We were also reminded that we walk the pilgrim path together; we are not alone as we seek God’s guidance in our lives.  The road is filled with pilgrims who are seeking after inspiration and transformation, seekers who long for and are called by the saints who have gone before us.  And, as a mutual company, we are challenged to live forward in ways that bring about restoration to others and our earth.

Walking the labyrinth

Hiking through heather towards the Marble Quarry