poorly aligned and badly caption-ed.

mulled wine and drumming on the beach.

walk to the abbey.

stone labryinth at columba's bay.

(below: tea break in the refectory.)

these are the days.

My friend ian left me on the shores of iona when I left. He didn’t want to see me cry (which I didn’t.) because he doesn’t do well when girls cry (he has an emergency protocol when/if such a travesty occurs.). He is an English friend met in Australia who came up to holiday. We explored mull together. (see following posts.)

I was ready to leave iona. Not in the sense that I wanted to bid good riddance, but it was just simply, time.

However, as the significance of the past few days sank in, I put my big, red, plastic sunglasses on that covered half my face and stared intensely into the bottom of my plastic coffee cup from the corner shop as fat, heavy tears rolled down my face. I had an hour before ian’s ferry from iona to mull, and sat, looking at this tiny island, marveling at how such a small space: one mile by three miles, could have so much power and strength.

The night before I was asked to read names for the Tuesday healing service for the laying on of hands. You will just need to ask me about it. It was profound in ways I am currently still unable to express. The strength of intention, coupled with faith and hope are powerful to heal. There was kneeling and their were hands.

Have you ever felt privileged and humbled at the same time? Maybe that’s what this was like.

by the time ian arrived, my face was still sticky with salt, but ready ... for ...

to be sung at communion.

O woman,

Have you forgotten,

Take up your harp,

Play your song often.

O man,

You have forgotten,

Your love is strong,

So forget this wasteland.

I am coming for you.

I am coming for you.

You will see me in this town someday…

And the meal will fill you,

And the wine will calm you,

And the company will remind you

That I see you.

And the meal will fill you,

And the wine will calm your nerves

And the company will remind you

You’re alive and well.

(credit: Sarah Chopee, Canada.)

and yes, sarah, I agree.

a service.

I led a service. On a Friday night. It was quiet and it was intimate. It was uncomfortable, but beautiful. I think.

It might have been one of the first times I ever felt so sure in what I felt like I needed to do. And also, one of the first times I felt scared of a calling.

only one person walked out. So, that, I think, is a good thing.

personalities.

Melody came from ohio. She is thirty seven. She made a decision to go to iona to be open and take a chance. She taught me about body theology and I wish I would risk like her.

Grant is from hong kong. He rolls his own cigarettes and drinks beer from his backpack. He speaks like a posh pom.

Hannah cooks. Better than she lets on about. My roommate, who, from our beds across the room, provoked in me some of the most uncomfortable conversations.

Gabriele is a forty-something from germany who practices zen meditation and writes three pages in her journal from her bed everyday.

Katie takes retreats with Benedictine nuns. She sings prayers in taize and loves silence.

Sarah empowers people to sing. and by people, i mean me. she believes in assertiveness, her field (ethnomusicology), and online dating.

Tom teaches theology to teenagers. He likes to match rubber gloves with size, shade, and brand name.

David has an alter ego called “the green man” who has over 10,000 friends on myspace. He really, really liked dancing on the beach.

Chris is a wandering kiwi whose partner lives in uk while she lives in new Zealand. She is a retured social worker who I would love to be like.

John and joe have a travelling Frisbee routine. They are best friends.

Donna is a singer-actress-reverend. She is vibrant.

Shannon is a truly good woman. She is in undergrad and is developing her own rule of life. She asks great questions.

And there’s a lot more. (please refer to maggie and christina in other posts.)

silence.

In silence I think I hear god speak.

Sunday nights, I feel like I could sit for hours, on choir chairs, enveloped by darkness and candles and draft.

In silence, I feel alone, but not lonely.

I feel comfortable in myself.

And things bubble up from the good spaces within me.

a rule of life.

The “hallowed” members of the iona community were here this week.

I learned much from this small, dispersed, opinionated group of folks: from their activism, their theology, their determination to be together, to not choose each other. They account to each other the use of their time, carbon energy, money, physical energy. They pray a beautiful common prayer every day. They feel called to a life of activism, politics, journeying with god. To being together.

They get arrested. They make pilgrimage to the island once per year. They disagree. They harbor asylum seekers. They write poetry. They inspire me.

What would I want my rule of life to be?

go now, and create.

craft room.

Camas left me with a gift.

A night spent in the camas living room by candlelight and rich hot chocolate listening to guitar and ukelele, tapping a drum and hearing mag’s snappy songs composed in the “boredom of new jersey summers…”

Gave me life.

Life to make candles out of recycled wax.

A dress out of curtain fabric (was a momentary panic when my measurements were still one thigh short of fitting… exclamations: “I am too fat for my own dress! How does that happen?” )

Fifty postcards of paint and justice and peace liturgy.

String of shells and scraps and heather and pebbles to hang over my bed from the wall to the window.

ash & maggie go to camas.

I have returned from camas and am in love.

With creation, life, possibility and beauty (ha. corny.).

We are calling it the camas drug and I can’t stop smiling.

From a ferry ride to a 2 ½ mile asphalt walk, passed mckinsey’s auto shed where diet cokes go for sixty pence, to a half mile walk down a thin plank track in ankle deep bog, camas, in its simple fishery goodness, right on the blue water of the sound of mull, emerges as a well deserved reward for the journey it takes to get there. on our way, we passed friends tom and callie, who were each wheeling wheelbarrows to the road gate to pick up supplies for the week. woah.

we (adventure buddy maggie and i) traded one bit of isolation for another. And it was brilliant.

So, we were shown to our accommodation: a small mongolian yurt erected in the center of camas’ organic veggie patch by becky, the resident gardener and resident lovely person-fairy. The yurt is becky’s. A circular red tent piled high with cushions and enough space for a downward facing dog (no mountain pose) -- strung with a mini glass tea light lantern and opens to cucumbers with mini doors, I am quite positive that I could spend the rest of my days happily in that yurt.

I knitted on the seaside,

Waded into my knees in a flooded saltmarsh,

Talked family and spirit with burly rob,

Played pitch,

Ate veggie dinner with norwegians,

made music by candlelight,

repaired a stone labyrinth,

And was astounded by the simplicity of the chapel of the nets.

Something about those orange fishermens’ nets, piled high like dunes around the found object sculpture of community: defined in anchors and shells, glass plates and rope… pulled together to create a haphazard whole.

A circle of tealights called it sacred.

Maggie is one of my favorite people on iona. She is smart, articulate, quirky, and wears a blue bandana. She focuses on consensus making games and anti-oppressive, peace building programming for children who come to iona (she invented “capture the illuminated manuscript). She was a perfect partner in adventure. And she writes songs. Good songs.

officially linked.

one of my most ancient-est friends, elizabeth, gave me a shout out on her blog.

the only thing is, her blog is cooler than mine and she makes me sound really embarrassing.

(i may or may not have attempted to adjust the theme and format of my blog after seeing hers, which led to the complete and utter aesthetic breakdown you are now viewing live on this blog.)

and no, lizzy, i didn't have the birthday party in the tree house, damnit. maybe for my thirtieth.

nice ones, christina.

town.

abbey internal.

(when its not beautifully, relationally messed up with circles instead of rows for my services.)

looking down from the hill at about 9 pm.

george macloed wasn't exactly a feminist theologian.

we make up for that now.

so i am starting to be a vegetarian, which is normal when...

happy birthday, dad.

another list.

top twenty reasons why my dad isn't as lame as his age.

1. he collects rocks and writes their location of origin on the back. and saves them for eternity.

2. he is always up on the latest innovations of the container store.

3. he trials all the latest energy-concoctions peddled by 7-11 before i do.

4. his genetics enabled my quasi-narcolepsy and ability to sleep for short spurts of time in any location.

5. he is always the shortest groomsman.

6. he has stacks and stacks of family photo albums for travel that he doesn't replace with new photos, he just gets a new album. (possible hoarding diagnosis.)

7. he insists on taking his own photos on his own duck-taped camera, even though my mom has a professional telephoto lens... simply because he likes to develop them himself.

8. he buys movies instead of rents because he is incapable of returning rentals on time.

9. he writes "MARRIAGE TIME" on the calender because my mom "doesn't have time for him."

10. he considers walking quickly ending with a cup of coffee and thick slice of buttered banana bread to be just as valuable as running. this makes him my hero.

11. he attended my baptism even though it was inconvenient.

12. steel magnolias and terms of endearment are his favorite movies. he owns copies.

13. he ineffectively tries to mask the fact that he smokes cigars in his car by using cheap air freshener. even though he burned the upholstery on the drivers side (when he and mom were the only drivers.)

14. his secret handshake with grace.

15. he read his first book this year. as in fiction. no, dad, reading the first three chapters of "rich dad, poor dad," and "seven habits" don't count. go mr. baldacci.

16. during my adolescence, he purchased every tacky trinket that had to do with "having a good attitude" so that i wouldn't be a depressing, victimized adult. i was forced to wear a "golden attitude" pin on my backpack.

17. he thinks that i would be a "catch" but that "guys are just complete idiots and seriously delayed and immature. they are basically boys until they are forty." helpful, dad.

18. he sends all of his children mass emails with conservative republican propaganda "chain letters" of whatever issue we disagree with him and motivational readings of the "inspirational quote with inverted rainbows, kittens and waterfalls" variety.

19. he inverts the names of things because he thinks its really funny. example: "young group" and "bible life." "my book" and "face space."

20. he tells me he loves me out loud, which makes me expect that of others.

so, dad, to the one who takes enough vitamins to last a lifetime and who wants to "just go" on adventuring....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, OLD MAN!

love, ash.