I heard the call back in 2013 and when stepping upon this land my heart exploded. I was tossed and turned with internal screaming, bursting into tears of joy and confusion. Struck by sheer magic and meaning of what it was like to belong to a place I never knew existed.

It took me years to work out what had happened back then when I first visited Scotland. Every year since then I can not bear be parted from it. It hasn’t been easy going back and stepping into the land that knew my soul so well again and again and having to leave it behind every time consumed by nothing less than sheer grief.

I am still in that place of neither here nor there, desperately wanting to go and needing to stay, having to live the life I have here, which is glorious in many ways. I am content yet deep yearning never leaves me for the place that stole my utter being and grabbed hold of me so tightly.

With each passing year the pull of the land continues, in fact, it has intensified with each summer when I would make the same journey and every winter when my heart would pine for it. I fought against it and even tried to convince myself it wasn’t real or happening just to test yet the answer was always the same. It is in my bones so deep I can’t be separated from it physically or spiritually.

I lived there before a long time ago and died a gruesome death with my blood spilling directly on the earth and penetrating its cells. I was of the land like a native animal that recognised smells, sounds and colours of every season the land had dressed itself in. I am still of that land, I am still that animal. I can taste it and its distinctive smell never leaves my senses. It is a particular sensation instantly recognisable by me. I can reach it at any moment yet physical separation remains too much to bear.

I live with my heart open and always listen carefully and intentionally to what the next step might be…