Part I
So many years ago I sat out upon my own personal journey to find a place I could settle down and call my home. My father’s people had shown me much of what was good in the world and a little of what was bad, yet as I set out I had no idea what terrain I might encounter and what I would find. I questioned much of what I once knew.
Unsurprisingly, the path was not always clear and narrow, sometimes it meandered into strange places. This was not always a bad thing, I met some interesting people with interesting ways about them but as welcome as most made me feel I knew I was not yet at my new home. So I continued to journey to and fro. It was difficult when I found myself in less friendly shores and bays, I did not always know where was safe to camp or fish or how to behave.
In the early days I stayed with the indigenous peoples of Yizre’el; whose work with the land meant they had to irrigate much and use bark and trunks of trees to feed the water supply. It was tough going as many a day was spent replenishing the water supply chain and there were times some of the workers – who like myself were traveling through in search of work and food – would dirty the water supply with their games. Fresh water for the various townspeople and tribes in the area depended on these tunnels.
I moved on to the area known as the Indus Valley, while there I learned much of what urban life looked like as I landed in Harappa, which was close to the Ravi River. Here, in Indus Valley resided many rivers and places of urban life and vast cityscapes. The people bustled in strange ways compared to the lives of the Yizre’el people I’d previously known. Strangely enough they were far more used to outsiders coming to and fro. The marvels of infrastructure were astounding, and I heard tale of more wonders in other Indus cities too! The water supply chains here were far more complex than I’d experienced with the Yizre’el and life seemed like there could be no famine or plague sent by one god or another!
I also spent some time in Crete, where for the first time I saw clay piping being used. I took my chance to see how the clay would be moulded for purpose and how fire, earth and air would meet to support water. The process seemed sublime to me, yet I found myself thinking about how one should go through such an experience yet many who enjoyed the benefits of the water at their own convenience where so far removed from the birth of where that water came from.
Need had pushed so many to pursue innovation and this did then and does now make my heart sore high as it unites the people from the action of dreaming, to clearing the way and into the making and maintaining of the water supply.
Life travelling as a trades person was not without peril in those days, and I was luckier than most. I had belonged to my father’s people and shared in the campfire stories of how our people’s spirit was tied to the spirits of the land and the river which continued to nourish our people even in the toughest of winters and harshest of summers. Unlike so many others my restlessness is what had spurred me to journey forward. But now my heart longed for a place to settle down with my love and grow older together.
In my time with my father’s people we had ceremonies to greet the Spirits of the River and renew our relationship together. Even as I marvelled at the innovations I’d seen from others there was always a reverence of the birthing of the water which nourished the people and the lands. Their ceremonies were often different, sometimes with more elegance and pomp but always present. I had noticed too when times did get tough for all the peoples of my travels the ceremonies would be strictly observed.
It was clear to me now as I searched for my own place that I needed to know how to connect and look after the lands and the waters, so I needed to know how to speak to the spirits and Gods of the places.
When I wandered northwards for a time I found myself in lush green lands with huge tumbling forests and many streams. These lands were inhabited and I knew to be cautious because not everyone would be open to sharing resources with a stranger. It was not that I was pre-supposed to fear others but that as much as I loved these new lands I had not yet experienced them at their harshest and if I am to make them as my home then I must tread carefully and respectfully. As it would happen skirmishes happened here more than I had expected, perhaps as much as I wanted a family I was not really open to a clan or community as much as I had thought. I mean at least on my travels I was the consummate “Traveller” or “Journeyman” so always a ‘foreigner’.
I decided to focus my time on getting to know the land better and look within, for if I was no longer a “journeyman” then who might I be in this new place?! Sometimes my efforts looked sheepish as I sat quietly listening to the place and other times I would cry off into the distance to announce myself to any spirit or being willing to aid me in my search. For the most part I stood strong in the remembrances of my father’s people with the odd addition of an item or two from my journeys. I was exposed but protected.
Many streams and rivers bathed me and nourished me in those early days. I remained thankful to all of them. But it was the stream which split around my island home that both sustained me and inspired me the most. The terrain of the land was gruelling work to clear so that I had space for my home, some livestock dwellings and the like, but so too was the stream for many moons ago huge boulders had tumbled down from the mountain peaks as the icy-water from the ancient ice tundras had melted and spewn forth. While I loved the raw aesthetic I knew if I were to have a family here I needed to cultivate both the land and the water sources. For once stream to the right of my home I employed much of what I’d seen in Yizre’el with some modern innovations for the stream rose along the edge of the mountains. To the left, I employed more clay making as the area was more exposed to the sun and air. In time I managed to merge both techniques better but this helped to get thing started.
Each night the streams seemed to become more familiar in that way when you feel a presence looking back at you. I could sense the twin-streams looking back at me, gauging what my next move would be…
Abhainn 