Experience

Leafing through my Harris & Lewis diary of 7 years ago I came across this lyric I scribbled down while at an exhibition. From the Scottish band Runrig whose texts are their own combined with local songs from the past. This one is a perfect description of the relation between thoughts and place. I took the photo on Barra, having climbed to Heaval, the highest hill, and facing south towards the uninhabited islands.

I'm lifted where I stand
On the never ending land
I'm coming to a sense of home

Standing in the face of the gale
A raging night on the island

Sundown on barren words
That can't describe
Your island paradise

All questions and answers
Flowing down the river
To the ocean

As Catherine Duncan wrote in her preface to Paul Strands' book about the Hebrides: "There is a moment of reflection, a sudden stillness when everything stands on the edge of discovery. For those who live them such moments are outside time, when the view is detached from the surface of things and restores to them their essential meaning."
Outside time- moments; a beautiful expression of a real experience.