Edinburgh has many faces – and I always find all of them difficult to leave behind, even for a little while. Today as August draws to a close this beautiful city is glowing. The views from high up in Holyrood Park touch my soul. The world famous International and Fringe Festivals have delivered high arts and delights second to none. Hundreds of thousands of people have flocked here for a busy, joy-filled, activity-filled month. But, as autumn begins to make its presence felt, the festivities are complete for another year. Now the high art is seen and recognised in the landscapes of the city herself. I’ll carry these images in my mind’s eye until, in early October, I gaze upon these vistas again – by then sporting hues of bright gold.
I was among this year’s early-birds for ‘Stories’ – The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo – spellbound, even before the show was underway, by one of Edinburgh’s extra-ordinary early-August sunsets and a skyscape that would have wowed JMW Turner. The Tattoo was spectacular (in the UK, BBC One, 8pm, tomorrow, Monday 28th August) and – once again – I could neither move nor speak for a while during and after the wonder of the lone piper, spotlit, at nearly 11pm, high on the Castle ramparts. A couple of weeks later I was similarly moved by an evening Audience with three inspired Irish men, The Celtic Tenors (Spotify), at Prestonfield House. Celtic music ‘calls’ and touches the soul across time and space. And so to last evening: watching the Tattoo’s finale fireworks atop Calton Hill (mindful of dear friends, present over there on the Castle Esplanade), I strained my ears enough to hear the last lone piper of the ‘Stories’ season. And my spirit lit up like the firecrackers in the night sky – feeling great, and thankful to be alive, among friends and loved ones at this time and in this special, special place.
Late Afternoon Tea at the Writers to the Signet Library in Edinburgh: a veritable rainbow of delicious tastes tumbling over one another. Quite fabulous.
Oh, Glen Coe, I wonder if you’re at all aware of the impression you make upon human souls, or of the expansive, spacious poetry you inscribe upon the hearts of women and men? There’s a liturgical usage that, addressing the Divine, speaks of ‘the silent music of your praise,’ and – in precious moments, when the breeze stilled, I heard the silent music in the praise, and in the guardianship, of a magisterial glen. Yes, one cannot help but wonder whether – by way of millions of years, innumerable sunrises, windswept hours and mountain-painting sunsets – you have known of how you touch us, change us, reshape and restore us.
the silent music of your praise
And it turns out that silent music is unforgettable, immortal – carrying and soothing, as it does, the eruptions and heat and formation and battle and defence and peace and prayer and unimaginable majesty of height and breadth and depth and antiquity. Oh, Glen Coe, you weather the changeability of all that is with such stillness and grace. Your might and height calm my littleness and insecurity. Your breadth and depth remind me to celebrate the gift of life, of a great abiding, of presence, of the human senses and awarenesses. You humble me and simultaneously ‘raise me up.’ In a matter of hours I have visited Doune Castle, and Stirling Castle, and am now home again beneath the storytelling ramparts of Edinburgh Castle. As Enya might have it – ‘how can I keep from singing?’ In silence and in song, how indeed?
The Unicorn at the Merkat Cross in beautiful Culross bears the date 1588. Steep of street and steeped in history it has been lovely to spend some time here today – and I spotted The Green Man – high up in the Tower porch at the Kirk, and high in the cloudscape too.
