Nessie Land

My first experience of staying in the Highlands came sitting on the porch at the Inverness Ghilles B & B and looking out at the Ness River. The sound lulled me to sleep each night and I was sorry to leave because it was just so soothing. The river travels from Loch Ness to the sea and although it is a sparkling clean river, its stream bed must be dark because the river is a deep rich and mysterious brown. There are often people fly fishing.

This photo is on one of the islands across from where I stayed and is part of a series of pathways, islets and foot bridges on both sides of river and about a mile and a half walk into town from where I stayed. There was something so soft and peaceful about this place and I appreciated the planning foresight to create what is a long narrow park with a river running through it.

Loch Ness of course is famous for Nessie and many of the carved wooden seats along the way play on the serpentine feel.

I have started taping the sounds of rivers. If I played Ness, it probably wouldn’t stand out. But I sense they have their different melodies and rhythms when compared with each other.

My hostess mentioned different sounds of Gaelic from different areas, and many places where the language nearly died out. I was reminded of a documentary I saw about the Coast Salish People whose language was remembered by only a handful of Elders. As the filmmaker walked with an Elder in nature to listen to the language, it was noted how much the cadence of words matched the cadence of the river. And I have since been made aware of language being part of place – where the sounds of nature help shape it.

This suggests that part of mother tongue is not simply mimicking mother or parent’s speech, but also being tied in with the voice of the land of one’s birth. Later on in this pilgrimage I will be living for a week in a language home stay situation where Gaelic is spoken. I certainly don’t expect to be fluent after a week, but I will experience deep listening and as this course also involves a lot of music, I think there will be some deep emotions as well.