stairway to heaven?

Because I am fascinated by paths, walk them and ponder over their origins, the desires that have scoured them into the land, and the time and skills invested in their making, the Valle de Laguart in south-eastern Spain had drawn me to it in pilgrimage. Not for nothing has it been coined ‘la catedral de senderismo’ – the cathedral of path-ism. The irony of the cathedral metaphor is that the system of paths that criss-cross the gorges of this valley, including a crossing of the notorious ‘barranco de infierno’ or ravine of hell, are attributed to the ‘Mozarabs’or ‘would-be Arabs’, who were Christians under Islamic rule but became entirely Arabised, and had clearly acquired the Islamic engineering skills needed for enduring and artful mountain paths.

Stepped zig-zags led me up the side of the ravine through grey-green shade, under a towering white cliff on the north-facing wall behind which lurked the sun. When I reached the eastern edge of the cliff, the path screwed itself into a series of steep tight stairways. It was like walking a series of terraces except that the turn at each end was perfectly graded for a pedestrian, almost disguising the effort of the climb. As I got higher, the sun inched over the cliff’s crest. It illuminated the white rocks that bordered the pathway, and the luxuriant grass between the edging stones of each step. Each time I turned to walk west, the sun, diffused through tree and rock, created a dazzling white incandescence high above the steps.

I reached a white knobbly crag sitting proud of the wall of the ravine, 500 metres above the river-bottom. The land from here would start to roll back, become less steep and lead to an escarpment, where road travel was possible again. The crag invited me to sit. I looked towards the Mediterranean through interleaving spurs of the ravine, growing incrementally paler as they became more distant. It was as if they were the measures of some kind of scale of distance, the striped detail of rock and foliage becoming less distinct, the colour more subtle. And before the drop to the Mediterranean plateau, there was peak where Al-Azraq’s castle had been, and with it a sense of his blue eyes watching since the 13th Century. He had perhaps bequeathed to this valley the fine engineering which made this walk through a ferocious landscape so graceful and calm, so redolent of an ancient inheritance that still marks the land and invites human journeying. If books can be considered a mark of civilisation, then perhaps fine paths stepped into steep land should be too.

continued...

Learning from Arab Literature

Following my last post, I was fascinated to read Maya Jaggi's article in Saturday's Guardian Review, drawing attention to the dearth of writing from the Arab world being translated into English. I had recently become aware of this, at least in the context of Iraq, when organising an event focusing on Iraqi writers for Scottish PEN. But according to this article, the situation is more extreme and more general to the Arab world than I had realised, and Edward Said is quoted as saying that "of all the major literatures and languages, Arabic is by far the least known and the most grudgingly regarded by Europeans and Americans". This does seem ironic given the lead bequeathed to the world by Arab culture in the arts of literature and translation, and important to address as Maya Jaggi says, as 'Arabic literature...can transform impressions of people who might otherwise remain misunderstood'. The flow of literature between our cultures can help us see what we have in common. Now to help redress the balance in my own reading, I am off to buy Palestinian Walks - Notes on a Vanishing Landscape by Raja Shehadeh.

A common word between us and you

I first went to Spain in 1989. With O-level Spanish locked in my muscle-memory, I spent six weeks on a teaching practice in a secondary school in Madrid and then went to Cordoba in Andalucia to visit a friend who was living there. Wandering the narrow streets and whitewashed patios of the ‘Ornament Of The World’ in the early heat of Easter, I was struck by a strange sense of familiarity. I was not long returned from teaching for a year in Zanzibar, where Arab and Portuguese influences still breathe from the style of buildings, from the faces of people, from the Swahili language.

In Zanzibar the style of mosques was simple, but they were ubiquitous. Although I never actually went inside one, the call to prayer at dusk, the snatched sight through lit doorways of rows of praying men’s heads, the rituals of Ramadan were part of my normal life. People shared wealth and hospitality in ways that we would call ‘Christian’ at home. I had to question some of my prejudices.

In Cordoba the sharp sweet tang of orange blossom pursued me, palm trees shaded walled courtyards, buildings stood tall with interiors open to the skies to create a draft. Even the open-throated singing that coiled through the labrynths of streets from balconies, punctuating day and night during the fever of Semana Santa, echoed with reminders of a style of Zanzibar music, Taarab, and with the mosque calls. I knew little of Spanish history. I was disoriented by finding this nostalgic familiarity in Europe, even though when I visited the mosque, its grandeur bore little resemblance to the simple single-story buildings I had seen on corners in Africa. Two worlds seemed to touch each other here.

In the years that followed I returned to walk in the hills of Andalucia, was excited by the aquecias- the irrigation channels high in the dry hills introduced by the ‘Moors’ and still in use today. Later when I went to walk in La Marina – a range of mountains inland from the Costa Blanca –it was the Mozarabic trails that astounded me. These are extraordinary feats of engineering - narrow paths stepped into rock so that steep ascents and descents through severe mountain and ravine-cut land could, and in some places still can, be easily traversed.

The ‘mozarabs’ (would-be Arabs) were Christians who adopted Moorish customs and habits and learnt their skills. Although the majority of the population converted to Islam, Christians were treated with tolerance, had normal freedoms, and contributed considerably to the Hispano-Arab civilisation that flourished for several centuries.

It was the physical superiority of these ancient paths that grabbed me, and have insisted that I follow their zig-zags and archways again. At the time I had no idea that they were also emblematic of a period of religious tolerance when culture in the arts, science, engineering was so sophisticated we might even call it a ‘golden age’. But this idea now excites me – that our very feet might teach us something by taking pilgrimages on enlightened routes.

This October, when prominent Muslim scholars wrote a letter to the Pope, they warned:
"If Muslims and Christians are not at peace, the world cannot be at peace. With the terrible weaponry of the modern world; with Muslims and Christians intertwined everywhere as never before, no side can unilaterally win a conflict between more than half of the world's inhabitants. Our common future is at stake. The very survival of the world itself is perhaps at stake."

They called the letter ‘A common word between us and you’, drawing attention to shared theological values and their expression in words from the holy books. I was interested in the language aspect of this, 'the word'. Already in my scant reading around the subject of the era of religious tolerance in medieval Spain, I’ve come across problems with the way words come at us. ‘Medieval’ itself is often used to indicate a backward and enlightened culture, when in this case we mean quite the opposite. ‘Moor’ was a disparaging word for Muslims used by Christians. And even ‘Mozarab’ is said by some to have been used by Christian resistors against those who collaborated with Muslims to become Arabised and impure. The word is loaded, needs to be regarded cautiously.

I had no idea my feet would lead me into such territory, but I’m going back to La Marina to see what walking can tell me about the word between us. I have no doubt of the importance of this issue, and the importance of looking at history.

As part of the 2007 London Design Festival, '26 Posters' set a challenge to twenty-six pairs of writers and designers. To create a six-word ‘advertising’ poster that somehow comments on or reflects its immediate location. I’m intrigued by this one and its intertwining of two words, two worlds. It also reminded me of this image on a Zanzibar postage stamp in 1963.

Ends

whiter than white

The laundry at Kilmory

A story unfolding in laundry tape?

The Desire Line

The ‘desire line’ is the line of least resistance taken by walkers’ feet – where they will naturally go. It is dictated by the lie of the land, the most direct route, or the lure of following previous marks in the ground. In mountain areas, perhaps the access to a particular view will also be a factor. A worn path is often the marker of a desire line and obstructions and cunning have to be used to keep people where path-planners want them to go to avoid erosion. In urban areas, some planners will allow desire lines to form before finalizing the construction of paved pathways. Paths across Central Park in New York were determined in this way.

Last week I walked again the route taken by the servants from Kinloch Castle to the laundry at Kilmory. I thought about these expressions of human desire, natural purpose, and wondered whether the road the servants took, improved by the Marquis of Salisbury in the mid 19th century, was based upon a desire line. It certainly has a steady incline, and takes the lowest pass between the two glens.

It also got connected in my mind to another piece of new-found knowledge. The maid based at Kilmory for the ‘season’ when the Bulloughs were in residence at Kinloch, and the man-servant who delivered the laundry to her and returned it to the castle each day, were rumoured to be sweethearts. And so the land itself started to tell me a story.

Let’s say it was near the end of the season, late October. Let’s say the man had been recruited from the next island, from Eigg, to transport with a pony the wine-stained table linen, corsets and shirts from the household of 16 family and guests, and return it each day whiter-than-white. He will soon be returning to Eigg. Emma will be returning to Lancashire with the family entourage. And so, the man decides to make the journey on his final day off, not this time for the laundry shuttle. As the roars of the stags die out at Kilmory, and they begin to return to the hills to recover their strength for the winter ahead, his passion will take him across the hills, five miles there and five miles back.

Emma will lose her job if their liaison is discovered and so he must take a hidden, occult way, find his own ‘desire line’. But has he not studied the soft flanks of Rum’s north-east corner many times as he’s plodded the road from one coast to the other? He has traced with his eye an older path on the north side of Kinloch Glen which is guided by a low dyke out onto the open hill. It might have been a coffin path at one time to the ancient burial ground at Kilmory, or the route by which livestock was gathered and driven to Kinloch to be taken to the mainland.

Once on the open hill, he fixes his eye on the lowest ground between the Black Hill and Sgaorishal to keep him right. Lungs heaving and heart racing, he pauses at a high point on the nose of the hill between the two glens. From there he can look down at the little bridge over the Kilmory burn, where he would normally allow the pony to rest and drink, the highest point reached. But where the path would have him descend into the glen only to re-ascend to the road, he resists. His heart and feet call him to hug the contour line he has established.

He turns the nose of the hill and takes the most direct line – the natural slope of the sandstone terrace, buttressed on one side by crags and marked for him by deer’s hooves. He is light-footed, a dancer of some repute, so the bogs that suck at his boots and the snarls of darkening heather that snatch at his laces don’t slow him. Snipe burst up from the tussocks under his feet, their calls making him jump and then laugh aloud as they flee with their grass-patterned wings twisting them one way and the other. A glint of sunlight ignites the fire still held in the autumn grassland, rippling it across the hill before it returns to dullness. The shores of Skye across the sound are golden, the dark mass of mountain above merging with cloud. He crosses the nests of sleeping deer, their splayed lines of grasses abandoned. They make him think of the ground under his overcoat when he and Emma rise from the machair, how they turn and look with something like pride at the floor and walls they have laid, that just needs a thatch roof to make it into their own wee house.

And then below, he sees the welcoming arms of land that hold Kilmory Bay, the breakers glittering onto pink sand, a sight that always skips in his heart. As he gets nearer, he sees the linen drying on the greens in blank white messages to the gods.

He is on the cropped grass of the valley bottom, having taken the quickest line, the tightest corner between the two shores. He is down near the burn and the beach, amidst the stags marking their hinds, their coats beginning to turn winter drab. The cacophony of their last roars seems to rise up within him. On the beach, he turns right, away from the laundry, sees the lines the deer have made in the sand, walking up and down the dunes. And then he sees that one of the lines has been made by small human feet, leading towards ‘their’ place. As he follows them, he breaks into a run.

The Hermit’s Hut

Take a simple cottage on its own on a west-facing Hebridean beach. Make the beach the open end of a valley that plunges from a long mountain ridge enclosing it behind. Give the cottage a window onto the sea. Scent it with drying kelp. Surround it with the lash and snarl of gale-force winds. But above this noise, allow the shingle to ring out as it slips back with the retreat of each wave.

Bring in night. Throw into the skies behind the cottage a bright full moon that pours window-shapes onto bare walls and floors. From the long crenulated ridge of the mountain behind, release white clouds to sail along the glen, over the roof of the cottage and out to sea.

Put a woman inside, a woman menstruating. To one side of the cottage, thrust up a towering escarpment. Call it ‘Bloodstone Hill’. To the front of the cottage, just within the crisp moon-shadow cast by the cottage and its two chimneys, seat a stag. Give him tall antlers. Have him roar and bellow to another stag unseen on the hillside. Let their exchange drift in through the gaps between stone and window-frame, keeping the cottage rocked on the edge of sleep throughout the night.

Myth? Fairy-tale? Poetic image? Or all three bound up in a real experience and a psychic state?

If you walk from place to place in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, it’s not long before you come across a simple bothy with an unlocked door, a couple of near-empty rooms, a notice asking you to keep it tidy, and a spade. This is simple shelter – refuge.

I find bothies echo oddly with the transience of lives that pass through them. People leave strange markers of their lives – a single sock, a copy of Private Eye, a piece of bone or horn found nearby. Perhaps these things seemed meaningful at the time, but they can take on an uncomfortable quality. And then there’s the sense lying quietly beneath the use of these cottages now- that they were once homes for shepherds, crofters, families.

In the last few weeks I have stayed overnight in three bothies and I was very glad of the shelter – to dry out, get out of a storm, wake up in a beautiful place. In these three cases I was alone, but one of the odd things about settling into a bothy is that you can never be sure what company you will have – human, rodent, or conjured by your own terrifying imagination.

To spend a night alone in an unlit bothy can be a primal experience. At Guirdil bothy on Rum’s red-cragged west coast last week, I read in the failing daylight by the window as the sun glanced through mackerel clouds and then succumbed into grey haze just south of Canna. The sense of archetype in my experience was highlighted to me by reading Chapter 1 of Gaston Bachelard’s ‘Poetics of Space’.

In it he speaks of the poetic image of the house, and in particular he goes on to explore the ‘hermit’s hut’ – isolated, redolent of simple poverty, and of legend. The image, he says, ‘leads us on towards extreme solitude. The hermit is alone before God.’ I began to see myself as a hermit, unconsciously making a pilgrimage towards solitude, pitting myself against comfort and the lavish opulence that my main residence of the week, Kinloch Castle, on the other side of the island, represented a century ago.

'I'll never walk the same again!'

That is what one of the participants said after last week's 'walking and writing' workshop at the Drovers' Tryst walking festival. On a golden October day we walked a figure of eight around Innerpeffray near Crieff. It's an appropriate place to play with words, being Scotland's oldest free public lending library, and still housing a fascinating antiquarian book collection. A place redolent of history, education, religion, where earls and Highland chiefs lie under your feet as you walk in the chapel, it was described as 'a jewel inlaid in the fields of Perthshire' by Robert Crawford in his recent poem 'The Digital Library, St Andrews' written for National Poetry Day.

We tuned into the rhythms of our feet, talked about how you describe sunlight on the river without cliche. We made notes, made our own lines through the land, drew maps, found metaphors and made up names for places. An early exercise to experience the environment without sight sharpened our other senses so that feelings, smells and sounds were scribbled in our notebooks for the remainder of the walk. The flowers of the Himalayan Balsam brought their sickly reminder of my childhood garden. Birds haunted us - the squabble of geese in a nearby field, cormorants splashing from the River Earn, and the wings of pheasants thrown up from long grass by our feet near the Castle thudded and throbbed like the starting up of old British motorbikes.

Participants were a mixture of writers and walkers.What became clear was that the process of sharpening senses and looking for metaphor whilst on a walk can enhance the experience. But also that walking is an effective meditation for good writing - giving access to the unconscious, to rhythms, and to the immediacy of outdoor experience.