Loch an Eilein
There was a moment at Loch an Eilein - only the briefest of moments - but it was a moment where time stood still, where the earth and sky and light and shade were as one. Just before it happened, I’d taken up my sketchbook and used water from the loch to fix my paint.
It was at that instant that the sharp easterly dropped and beyond the forest of Rothiemurchus, the snow bones of Creag Dhubh tousled the clouds into thin wisps of galloping guilloche.
Had I stumbled upon an ancient spell?
Mix a phial of loch water with a squirrel brush and Roman Szmal half pans, say ‘Rothiemurchus’ three times, paint the scene before you - and, hey presto - time stands still - the castle on the island in the middle of the loch - becomes a thin place.
It’s happened before at other locations within these isles, but this time I was ready for it. Far too often moments like this have come along and the veil of modernity has turned my eye - but not this time.
I stood on the jagged shoreline, put my sketchbook and paintbrush down and watched the loch clear of all its angst and its worry and offer up a mirror into another world.
And then, as quickly as it came, it was gone - the branches above me began to creak again, the jackdaws rose from the tumbling parapet, and the loch folded the other world back into itself.
The paint still wet upon the paper held what the water had briefly revealed - a stillness carried forward upon the page.
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