Great Stone Project 2022 : The rain had persisted all day on Barra and Vatersay and camping seemed impossible. I decided to wild camp overlooking the sands of Barra airport at Traig Mhor, in the north of Barra. This is reputedly the only airport in the world where scheduled flights land and take off on the sands of a beach. As midnight approached, no planes were landing tonight.
This was the the first night I had truly experienced the simmer dim, the scottish term for the strange light where evenings are endless and nights are short, sometimes even non-existent. The experience is that nights do not become darker but light fades like a decaying light bulb, or a bulb which is slowly being reduced in intensity. It is a strange twi-light which adds to the sense my time in Scotland is an unreal time, an alternative reality where I progress through an ancient landscape which frequently morphs through into the present.
I have spent time in India where certain landscapes are considered to be a focus of energy, where dimensions of sacredality and normality conjoin and merge. In these landscapes people believe they walk with the deceased or the deities they follow. Can this be similar?
