Given the challenge of last night, several in our group smartly decided to take the daily “out” and travel by ferry from Rowardennan to the village of Luss and then from there to taxi to our next accommodation in Inverarnan. I'll be honest and admit by the end of the day I wished I was one of them.
While the out-takers committed to getting in several miles strolling through that quaint little town, three of us continued forward on the pilgrim path. While not religious in nature, the West Highland Way, for us, is a pilgrimage -- a one-way journey into ourselves within the vast richness of this landscape.
It was supposed to be a 14-mile day. Supposed being the operative word there. The three of us happen to be related and so I felt a joy particular to times with beloved ones as we set off. My two aunts and I were mesmerized by countless waterfalls on the first half of the walk. It felt as though water poured down the hillside every few feet in tiny perfect waterfalls. I couldn't help but wonder if or how much of The Hobbit was written or filmed here. In truth, the whole of the Highlands walk is a backdrop to Tolkein books. By the way, if you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend the new biopic about Mr. T. Click here to see th trailer for the film Tolkein.
To walk with these two women was an important point of connection for me. My aunt Mary was there when my first child was born, an encouraging presence as I shifted into the great unknown of parenthood. My aunt Sharon has been an angel in my life, always just a little bit up the road ahead of me. She was the one that convinced me I would survive that first birth when, in abject fear, I drove from Washington to Montana to cry at her feet at 8 months of pregnancy. In her ever wise way she gently listened, held space, and connected me with a midwife. And the rest, as they say, is history. From that Missoula trip was born a passion for birthing and midwifery (along with a bonnie baby girl). The circles of life are full and continue to bend back on each other and those we draw into them
As we walked, we sang, we chatted, we each took time by ourselves. We collected oak leaves to put in our coats, creating a new family uniform. We stacked rocks in cairns by the side of the road. And when we got to Inversnaid at the north end of Loch Lomond, it seemed that all those smaller streams we'd passed gathered together to run in a single raging cascade of fluid and foam in the giant waterfall.
I left my aunts at Inversnaid to catch a ferry across the loch and taxi (eventually, with some comic turns including a stroll through a cow field) to Beinglas Farm in the town of Inverarnan.
I continued on the path for the next 7 miles alone.
I won’t say that I regret this choice. This portion of the Way was incredibly beautiful as it meandered along the loch and its foliage changed from browns to greens to golds and then to new and richer greens. The light glowed pastel over the ridges. However, I found myself scrambling and rock climbing for much of the first 3 miles. My knee began to swell and my back began to seize. It was extremely slow going.
The fatique put me in a rummy state of mind. The bracken started to wave at me like princesses on parade. I watched in a drug-like fog as a long black slug, slimed its way slowly across the path. I felt like it was communicating with me. The mountains moved in and out of focus -- as if they were moving and I was not. The wind across the hills started to sound like a screaming gong in my head, wooooong, woooooooooooong, woooooooooooooooog . . .
As the day grew longer and the light started to dip beneath the canopy of trees, I worried that I would not make it to the next stop without having to camp. With 4 miles to go I was very tired and in substantial pain. I wanted to cry. Instead, I gave in to the rocks and said yes to the possibility of sleeping under the clouds and chuckled at the hysteria that my not turning up would likely ignite among the writers. I thought: "Well, that's a good prompt."
Eventually, blessedly, I came out on the other side of the climb and started downhill. I happened upon an old ruin overlooking the loch. Covered in moss and constructed of stones, the site was the frame of 200-year-old farm house. To my surprise, a rickety, unattached door opened and out came and Englishmen who confirmed I was, indeed, still headed in the right direction and not far from my destination.
“Just down to the lake then?” I asked.
“Aye, but don’t be call’n it a lake to a real Scotsman,” he smiled. “He might just gut ya. It’s a loch, my lassie.” An Englishman working on his brogue.
This man and his wife walked the West Highland Way a year ago. When they saw this farm, they knew they'd found home, so they bought it for a song and set to renovating it. Big project. Pretty much only the outer stones are still standing. He said he was going to build a cottage for his wife overlooking the river — a tiny writer’s cottage. I thought to myself, yes, that sounds right. I turned a little green, with envy.
“Come back and see us in 5 years,” he called out as I marched forward. “Yeh won’t recognize it!”
I hope I do.
My GPS told me my destination for the day was about 3 miles ahead. I tromped over four more sizable hills and when I got to the top of the fourth one, the light was getting quite low. Deep dusky. I began to wonder if I was on the right path despite the man’s assurances. An hour from the last time I checked my GPS, it now showed I had 4 miles to go instead of the 3. My phone battery was dying. I had no flashlight. There were no people or buildings in site. My activity monitor told me that I had already walked 17 of the stated 14 miles.
Here’s where I get give a shout out to GEMINI WALKS LTD and Julie, my new patron saint of walking this road. Julie arranged the accommodations and outs for our group and in doing so earned the highest rating I can give. In a bit of a panic, I called Julie.
Here’s Julie's magic: She had me take a picture of the path -- that actual rocky path -- where I was standing seemingly in the middle of nowhere. After looking at the picture she assured me that I was going where I should despite my GPS. "Keep walking forward, you are almost there," she told me and then described exactly what I would see coming up on my left and right.
I went forward. In no time at all I found myself sitting within the circle of writers.
When I retraced the path on Googlemaps it agreed with the book distance: 14 miles. I’m going to stick with my activity monitor which logged 18.5 miles. Either way it was a LOT of steps. But, I can say I survived what all the guides call the most difficult section of this road.
The word for the road today was SACRED. I find that the most sacred path is the one that makes you hurt and struggle and which reminds you to rely on your spirit and faith to arrive.
In the evening, our writing session focused on deeply describing a thing, situation, scenario. Try it:
List four people you’d want to write about or for whom you have strong feelings. For each person list four nouns that you associate with the way they smell. I.e. Smoke. Bourbon. etc.
Pick one of these characters. Make another list for this character of four nouns describing the light you see the character in. I.e. car dome light, candle light, fluorescent light of attorney’s office.
Write a paragraph or poem bout this character using both sets of words.
Go back through your paragraph and look at any abstract words in the paragraph. Can they be made more concrete?
Karin
Karin holds a pippin apple in the Swedish summer sun. She laughs, giggles, as she passes
the smoky herring. Sitting on the checkered blanket on the rocky island of Münster the
midsommar light illuminates her soft freckled face. She pours the icy Fläderblomssaft
and shares the garden tomatoes, the sunlight reflecting off the coal black Baltic Sea. Her
skin, milky like välling, glows in the Nordic light.
Cynthia Henon, West Highland Way, 2019
Sacred I
Radiance is the crown you wear
A haloed prince stepping into the sun
You gaze at me
And I radiate too
Sacred II
Which way
This way
One way
No way
Byway
Right-of-way
Long way
Your way
My way
Our way
The way
Sacred
Sacred III (Revised)
all of this is cathedral
these steepling trees
this stony aisle
these bowing fern-glass windows
this holy font
a place away
and yet
no different from what I call home
no Different from those mountains and valleys
no different in it’s grandeur,
it’s Pulse
it’s complicated simplicity
it’s synchronicity
but sacred for its reminding
for It’s taking me out of
my ordinary
and Into what is
and always has been
limitless, sacred, unknown
Cheryl Murfin, West Highland Way, 2019
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