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by Hotel @nyware»
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by Hotel @nyware»
Fertile solitude is the basic unit of a full and contented
life. The line between solitude
and loneliness can be thin but there is a difference. Loneliness is difficult to confess;
difficult too to categorize. I have no such difficulty confessing solitude here
on Fair Isle.
What does it feel like to be lonely? It feels like
being hungry: like being hungry when everyone around you is readying for a
feast. Fertile solitude, however, is learning to enjoy your own company.More
than that, it is a developmental achievement, on the road to knowing thy self.
“All of humanity’s problems,” the French scientist and
philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote in 1654, “stem from man’s inability to sit
quietly in a room alone.” Or for that matter, on Britian’s most remote
inhabited island.
The best things in life happen
to you when you’re alone and despite the camaraderie and the spirit of
cooperation, for the most part we are alone on this island. That’s ok.
Everyone should experience at least one prolonged
period of solitude in life. For in true solitude, one’s inner voices become
audible and in consequence, one responds more clearly to other lives.
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by Hotel @nyware»
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| Set in the middle of the North Atlantic, 38km (23mi) from Shetland and 43km (27mi) from Orkney, Fair Isle is as far away from civilization as it’s possible to get in the British Isles. Measuring barely five kilometers across and two kilometers wide, the island is home to a tiny permanent population of just 45 people. In fact, it’s the most remote inhabited place in the UK. |
Fair Isle
is a lyrical reminder to break the momentum of busyness that fuels the sadness of never understanding ourselves.
It makes a place to sit down. So: Sit down. Be quiet…The impulse to create
begins… in a tunnel of silence.
Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous
seems to me, to be busy. It’s worth remembering, here, that “busy is a
decision” — one we constantly make, and often to our own detriment.
Travel is
an activity not an accomplishment, yet lately, because of the global pandemic,
one of the great cruelties and great glories of
traveling nowadays is the wild discrepancy of timelines between vision
and execution. When we dream up an itinerary , we invariably underestimate the
amount of time and effort required to make it a reality. Our Fair Isle return took 6 months!
Rather than
a cognitive bug, perhaps this is the supreme coping mechanism of the pandemic
mind — if we could see clearly the toil ahead at the outset of any travel
plans, we might be too dispirited to begin, too reluctant to gamble between the
heroic and the foolish, too paralyzed to walk the long and tenuous tightrope of
hope and fear by which any worthwhile destination is reached.
So We are: HERE NOW.
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by Hotel @nyware»
These North Atlantic Grey Seals want to make a happy meal outta me!
I was confident that seals are generally gentle creatures unless they feel threatened. Seals default is to choose flight over fight, but they are most likely to be aggressive if you come between:them, which is what I have been doing all week! SO I had to rework my plan, and change venues for the Cold Water Immerssion Therapy-back to the South Lighthouse on Fair Isle.
Seals are the largest land breeding mammal in the UK and can be very intimidating in the water. Always let seals make the first move – let them approach you. Sit back, wait quietly and observe. Nah, I just won't get in the water with them....
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by Hotel @nyware»
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| Our 2020 Lake Tahoe Trip
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A tree is a little bit of the future.
Trees dominate the world’s oldest living organisms. Since the dawn of our species, they have been our silent companions, permeating our most enduring tales and never ceasing to inspire fantastical cosmogonies. Hermann Hesse called them “the most penetrating of preachers.” A forgotten seventeenth-century English gardener wrote of how they “speak to the mind, and tell us many things, and teach us many good lessons.-The Scret Lives Of Trees
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| There are no trees on Fair Isle |
FADE IN: Beneath the canopy of
trees, with roots in the earth and arms stretching toward the sky, I come back to that place I have never been before - and this imense wonder comes over us as if the trees are there to seek and to know the greater mysteries. I find this comforting, but on Fair Isle, and Shetland in general, there are no trees to speak of. So why do we still manage to have an imense sense of wonder. I wrote of the elegant moss that adorns the land-
The slient companions are the mountains here on Fair Isle, replacing what Hesse calls our most penetraing preechers-- but then I remeber Norway ,Pulpet Rock and all those majestic fjords of Geirange and Stavenger. This place is like Norway, sans trees.
Back to trees:
I always found these great constellations of Cathedral and Ponderosa Pines, at Lake Tahoe for instance, to be immense objects of wonder. Alaska, and British Columbia, with ribbons of Christmas trees. are also impressive testimonials to the secret life of wood- a kind of Christianity of birth, death rebirth regeneration and resurection on full display on the Alaska Wildlife highway as well
The lungs of the earth-trees give
off a hint of gladness, and the way they
stand guard over the night, tall in all kinds of weather ===trees remaina lushish metaphor for carrying on, and the perfect role model and solace for the occasional existential dilemma of being human. They even gave each other space-- slim contour of room around each other.
They seem to get along well with each other as valued members of the çommunity'.
I, the land
Now on Fair Isle, because of salt
water, and clearings for sheep, there are no such trees on Fair Isle. The Life
of wood, and how it shows growth death and rebirth, is just a soveneir. There is another kind of ecosystem here, and it works, a solitude but not lonlieness, and a general unwinding of the worlds we have known.
The only thing to stand guard
between the solitude of me is two defient rocky mountains in the
distance, as I look out of our kitchen window. Yet these rocks rock! Love it here. In all its stark spledor. I have had this saying: I haven't been everywhere, but it is on my list. Well, Fair Isle is North Of Everywhere.
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| Lake Tahoe |
”Trees dominate the world’s the oldest living organisms. Since the dawn of our species, they have been oursilent companions, permeating our most enduring tales and never ceasing to inspire fantastical cosmogonies. Hermann Hesse called them “the most penetrating of preachers.” A forgotten seventeenth-century English gardener wrote of how they “speak to the mind, and tell us many things, and teach us many good lessons.”"The Scret Lives Of Trees
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| There are no trees on Fair Isle |
FADE IN: Beneath the canopy of
trees, with roots in the earth and its arms stretching toward the sky as if
to seek and to know the great mystery. I find this comforting, but on Fair Isle, and SHetland in general, there are no trees to speak of.
I always found these great constellations of Cathedral and Ponderosa Pines, at Lake Tahoe for
instance, to be immense objects of wonder. Alaska, and British Columbia, with ribbons of Christmas trees.. on the
Alaska Wildlife highway as well is stunning!
The lungs of the earth-trees give
off a hint of gladness, and the way they
stand guard over the night, tall in all kinds of weather ===trees remaina lushish metaphor for carrying on, and the perfect role model and solace for the occasional existential dilemma of being human. They even gave each other space-- slim contour of room around each other.
They seem to get along well with each other as valued members of the çommunity'.
I, the land
Now on Fair Isle, because of salt
water, and clearings for sheep, there are no such trees on Fair Isle. The Life
of wood, and how it shows growth death and rebirth, is just a soveneir. There is another kind of ecosystem here, and it works, a solitude but not lonlieness, and a general unwinding of the worlds we have known.
The only thing to stand guard
between the solitude of me is two defient rocky mountains in the
distance, as I look out of our kitchen window. Yet these rocks rock! Love it here. In all its stark spledor. I have had this saying: I haven't been everywhere, but it is on my list. Well, Fair Isle is North Of Everywhere.
