Journey Inward- Iona 2022
It’s been a year and I’m still not sure how to put it all into words.
In the Spring of 2022 I haphazardly signed up for a trip to Iona. A small island off the coast of Scotland, Iona's unique blend of spiritual significance, historical importance, natural beauty, and cultural heritage have made it a place of pilgrimage, contemplation, and inspiration for people from various backgrounds. It is an island that offers a sense of peace and a connection to Scotland's early Celtic heritage.
I say haphazardly because although I have had it on my radar as a place to visit I wasn’t particularly looking for a specific trip at the time. But, an email rolled into my inbox about an upcoming trip and I decided to jump at it.
Planning trips in our house is always an adventure because of my husband’s work schedule that often takes him away from home for long periods of time. The dates can shift unexpectedly and as a result making plans around that is always done with a bit of a guess and prayer. When I booked the trip he was scheduled to come home a week or two before hand and would therefore be home to handle the kids and home life. So, after everything was set in place, plane tickets purchased, the schedule shifted and he would no longer be home while I was away.
A pilgrimage is a trip that takes you to new ways of being, and new ways of seeing. It is at least as much of an inward journey as it is an outward physical journey. And thus my pilgrimage began.
My trip was planned for November and in August the school year was off to a very rocky start. One of my kids has had a long history of struggling with behavior in school and he hit the ground that year on a bad note and it felt pretty hopeless for a while. It wasn’t long before I was sure that I would need to cancel my trip due to his concerns and the difficulty of finding someone to watch all three kids for 2 weeks. Since the booking of the trip I had been holding it out as a sort of carrot- it was the thing I was aiming for and looking forward to the most. With the mounting pressure of all the things in August and September I was getting pretty overwhelmed and the one thing I had been counting on looked like it was no longer an option.
Each day that Fall was just putting one foot in front of the other. Worried at all times that the school was going to call, scheduling and attending various doctors appointments, having to call out of work last minute when things got bad at the school. I was feeling pretty lonely, isolated, and hopeless.
For myself I reached out and found a therapist for support, which was an excellent choice. In what felt like a miracle, I found a sitter to stay with my kids for the full 2 weeks- someone my kids adore! The doctor’s appointments starting leading to the right support for my son. Things started coming together.
On November 1st I sat down in my seat on the airplane and wept. I had zero faith that the trip would actually happen, and yet there I was in my seat, doors closed, wheels up.
The actual trip to Iona isn’t easy. To get there you need to take a plane, then a train, then a boat, then a bus, then another boat- all over the course of 2 days. But it is well worth the voyage.
For seven days I was in my own space, feeding my soul- body, mind, and spirit. The retreat was wonderful. It was led by a favorite author of mine, John Philip Newell. It was the very end of their tourist season, so our retreat group was really the only life on the island outside of the few people who actually live there. My days were filled with sunrise meditations, learning in the mornings, afternoons free to explore the beauty of the island, evenings filled with beautiful sacred moments in the Oran Chapel, and delightful company at every meal.
I’m not sure what I was looking for or thought I would find while there, I didn’t really have an agenda about that. But what I discovered is a deepening into myself, a sort of coming home to who I am. Each day I felt more grounded and centered. The weather was warm and cold and rainy and sunny and windy and wonderful. I felt more alive, more awake to the world.
I’ve found over the past year that my thoughts often return to Iona, and I think I’m still on that pilgrimage. I’m still uncovering new insights and ways of being as a result of the journey.
When I tell people about the trip I often get the response “good for you! I could never get away for something like that!” But to that I encourage people to give it a try. Find a way to go somewhere that opens your soul, helps you reclaim your sense of self, and then come back! We need people who are willing to break open their souls and live from those depths.