In 2022 I took a walk up everybody’s favourite hill in Aberdeebnshire to witness the autumn equinox sunrise from the summit of Mither Tap – the site of a Pictish hill fort that dominated what was, for the Picts, a sacred landscape.
I wrote an essay about the walk, exploring what the idea of a sacred landscape might mean to us today, which was published on The Clearing – Little Toller’s online journal of Nature, Landscape and Place.
Here I return to the hill as the autumn equinox approached, in the company of BBC Radio Broadcaster Helen Needham. We talk about our connection to landscape and place, and the importance of taking time out from our busy lives to pause and to reflect, and to notice the changing of the seasons.
Extracts from my essay are woven through the recording Helen made as we walked up the hill, following the Maiden Causeway – an ancient track leading to the Pictish fort on the summit of Mither Tap.
You can listen to the podcast here or click on the image above.
As the western calendar year comes to a close, it’s a natural time to look back and reflect on the previous twelve months. It’s been a significant year for me on a personal level. I turned fifty early in the second quarter of 2023 – a significant event for anybody – and I successfully defended my PhD thesis early in November, which marked the culmination of a long process of research, writing and reflection that helped answer questions that have occupied my thoughts for many years: questions of place, of identity, of how the landscape shapes our lives.
I have been able to explore these questions both creatively and academically, and the submission and accession of my thesis – comprised of a book-length work of creative nonfiction alongside a critical commentary – closes a significant period in my life whilst opening up another. The time spent working toward the PhD signifies a period of deep change and transition: from a former life as a helicopter pilot largely servicing the offshore oil and gas industry toward a new life that places my feet firmly on the ground, encompassing and embracing community and working in a way that is less certain but offers more freedom and is more in line with my values and the aspirations I have now.
This year has been one where I’ve seen hard work begin to pay off and a future direction begin to take shape, replacing the uncertainty that came with the end of a career and dominated my life as I embarked on doctoral study in the midst of a pandemic. It is a year that leaves me feeling hopeful and positive as I go forward, despite all the world-changing events that this same period has also been witness to.
As a writer, I have seen some of my writing find a home with Stravaig, Hinterlandnonfictionmagazine and, this coming spring, one of the chapters from my PhD will be published in Archipelago, a literary journal I have long admired. I’m pleased that my approach to questions of place will also feature in an anthology of academic writing through the University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt’s Practicing PlaceCentre, due for publication in 2024. I was also very happy to have had writing published in the PaperboatsZine, for which I took part in a launchevent at the University of Stirling.
Beyond my own writing, in September I ran an outdoorcreativewriting workshop, helping people engage with their surroundings and fostering a sense of togetherness. Earlier in the year I became involved with the charity OpenBook, running a pilot creative writing group over the spring and summer that has become an established, monthly group as part of Open Book’s Scotland-wide Community Project. Seeing people develop in confidence and find their own voice in a supportive group setting is something that is hugely rewarding and I look forward now to taking the group – just one of many Open Book groups across the country – into 2024.
As I head into the New Year I will also embark on a significant community engagement project, working in collaboration and consultation on commission to explore how people feel about where they live and documenting community story and memory. It’s a role I hope will expand and flourish through 2024 and beyond.
What can we do but go forward? Uncertainty and change will always run side by side with our lives. 2023 has shown me that, on a personal level at least, positive change is possible, and that, if change is needed, it is worth living with the uncertainty that comes with not knowing what the outcomes might be. Despite the fears, taking those first steps toward an uncertain future is important. The change that you walk toward, the change that you need, will find you.
“Staying still, I close my eyes and listen. I am filled by the moor’s presence: the sound of the burn at the side of the road; the faint calls of birds, unseen in the heather; the icy cold breath of the wind on my neck. A deep sense of peace comes to me. I feel held within the moor’s ever-changing, ever-present elements, its blossoming and its constant renewal: just one of countless life-processes.”
Ian Grosz, from ‘The Moor, the Sea, the Sky’, Sravaig 13, pp.30-33, p.33.
I’m looking forward to reading from my short essay ‘The Moor, the Sea, the Sky’ this evening, published in Stravaig 13 in the summer. Stravaig is the journal of the Scottish Centre for Geopoetics which draws on the writings and philosophy of Kenneth White to bring together a diverse range of writers, artists, academics, ecologists and earth scientists to explore how Geopoetics can be applied to our lives and our approach to the Earth as home.
My essay explores Lewis’s moorland landscape and my place within it on a return visit to the Western Isles in 2022 after an absence of fifteen years. It is a much-abridged extract of a chapter from a book-length work of narrative non-fiction exploring how landscapes shape a sense of place and identity, for which I am now seeking a publisher. I’ll be reading a short extract from the essay alongside the other contributors of this special Islands issue of the journal.
Click here for a link to join the event and on the image above to read Stravaig 13.
I was delighted to be a part of the Paperboats e-zine 2 launch which featured in the University of Stirling’s symposium ‘A Day for Nature’, organised by poet and Teaching Fellow Dr ChrisPowici to celebrate, and advocate for, the natural world.
The event featured a panel of speakers including conservationists and Nature Writers Polly Puller and Tom Bowser of the Argaty Red Kites project, broadcaster and author Rebecca Smith, historian Dr Catherine Mills, and vice president of the university student Earth andEnvironment Society Ivet Stancheva. Each of the panelists gave fascinating talks about changes in the landscape over time from their different perspectives with a Q+A.
The Paperboats E-Zine is edited by Chris Powici and Kathleen Jamie and features work by writers from across Scotland and beyond concerned about our mounting ecological crises. The paperboats name and its inclusive, non-disruptive activism, has been inspired by Jamie’s poem written as Scottish Makar in response to the commitments of COP26, where, in the final verse, the poet speaks as the river Clyde.
“I heard the beautiful promises… and, sure, I’m a river, but I can take a side. From this day, I’d rather keep afloat, like wee folded paper boats, the hopes of the young folk chanting at my bank, fear in their spring-bright eyes so hear this: fail them, and I will rise.”
Despite the promises made, our politicians are failing us, and Paperboats aims to send a message on Thursday 23rd November 2023 by gathering outside the Scottish Parliament to deliver 1000 Paperboats, 1000 Climate Hopes, to demand that MSPs of all parties come together to deliver on their promises and a just transition to green energy.
The event will feature poetry from Kathleen Jamie and music from Karine Polwart.
‘I set off an hour before sunrise. It is still dark: very dark, and I can see very little beyond the dim circle of light from my head torch. The thick scent of pine fills the air as I start up the trail. The presence of trees, melting into the darkness either side of me, are felt rather than seen; the still, almost-full harvest moon having disappeared into the cover of pine branches. A nervous glance behind reveals the comfort of a slowly brightening sky, suffused with faint orange and aquamarine banding toward the rim of an unseen eastern horizon. Amidst gaps in the canopy above, bright and brittle stars vanish and reappear. The tree cover opens a little and the moon’s glow pulls me upward.’
As the Autumn equinox approaches, here in the Northern Hemisphere, I am drawn back to our local hill and this moment from a couple of years ago when I climbed to one of its summits to witness the equinox sunrise. The short essay I wrote about it was published on The Clearing: Little Toller’s online journal of Nature, Landscape and Place. You can read the full piece here, or by clicking on the image above.
Traditionally marking the second harvest, a time to gather in the bounty of late summer signalled by the full moon, the Autumn equinox can also be a time of balance, of reset: a chance to take stock before the long slide into winter. Wishing you all a moment of balance as we begin our journey toward the darkness of the winter months.
Groundings 