The Storr: Unfolding Landscape- A Midnight Walk

22 Aug 2005 in Highland, Visual Arts & Crafts

The Storr, Trotternish, Isle of Skye, until 17 September 2005

I SOMETIMES CRINGE when I hear Americans using the word “awesome”, but in the case of nva’s Storr project, I have to acknowledge that it is totally justified.

‘The Storr: Unfolding Landscape’ begins at An Tuireann arts centre from which the bus to Trotternish leaves. For me, however, the journey started as the bus from Inverness began to enter the landscape of the west. As we did, the flavour changed from the green rolling hills and soft contours of the east coast of Scotland. Gradually, I was enfolded by the landscape of the west with its rugged majestic summits and wide expanses of ocean. One could not avoid feeling its power, its desolation, its wildness and its excitement.

In many ways the whole experience of ‘The Storr’ had a rather ritual-like quality. As the full capacity audience gathered at An Tuireann there was a sense of anticipation that gradually began to build. Most people had arrived at least an hour early, with everyone walking up the Dunvegan road to the centre in a great pilgrimage as darkness fell.

One by one we were ticked off the organisers list and were handed our tickets in the form of identifying badges. A mark of our belonging. Each of us then received a head torch to wear on the walk, which was due to begin at exactly midnight.

We anointed our heads with the midge repellent supplied. (I have to say that I didn’t have any bites on the walk but the midges inside the arts centre were absolute murder!) And then a sense of the moment as somebody murmured “This is it” and there was a general movement to the door to board the bus.

Silence on the bus as we drove out of Portree, left the streetlight and the darkness swallowed us. It was like entering some kind of group meditation or going under hypnosis: as if we were going down many flights of steps and entering a collective unconsciousness.

Shapes emerged from the darkness and then became other shapes only to disappear and reappear as something indefinable.

We began the route, each person walking on their own it seemed, and at the same time I was aware of our connection to each other. One by one we passed through an arch way constructed out of fir tree branches. The journey had begun. No-one knew what treasures we would find.

We entered Storr Wood and were enveloped with an eerie soundscape that came and went as if it were being blown to us on the wind. The voice of an old man as he spoke in Gaelic – perhaps tales from our grandfathers of days gone by?

Strange illuminations among the trees for which there appeared to be no source – as if they might come from fairies or nature spirits of another world. And sounds that sometimes seemed like they might come from deep in the bowels of the earth – as if the planet were singing to us like some gigantic Tibetan bowl.

One of the wonderful things about the sound was that it didn’t seem to begin and end in time in any kind of clear cut way, but appeared to be heard long before it was and reverberate long after we had passed through it. It was like something we had known many millions of years ago being dredged up from our memory and then echoing in every fibre of our bodies for all eternity.

All the way along the path were white reflective markers like candles. These were caught in, and echoed the light of, our torches, which in turn echoed something much bigger in the vast starlit sky. The darkness closed in on us and immersed us as if we were being submerged in water thousands of feet above our heads.

Sounds and soft lights appeared from nowhere and washed over us like the waves ebbing and flowing. Distant, then near, then distant again – like the moaning of the ocean; like the beautiful lighting of the west coast where wind and rain clouds play with sunbeams in ever changing patterns of shadow.

Shapes emerged from the darkness and then became other shapes only to disappear and reappear as something indefinable. A glimpse of the Old Man of Storr, mysteriously lit in the distance and cloaked in mist – the promise of some of what was to come.

I looked back and saw the procession of torches behind as well as in front of me – like people reaching back through all of history and way into the future. I was aware of how tiny my existence was within the whole scheme of things and of how much I was a part of the whole of the universe.

The Storr walk was a profound experience and one that somehow changed the way that I see things.

I was also aware of how much I had in common with all the people who walked with me and of how small we all were there in nature. I’m not a religious person but it was hard not to feel a kind of deep respect for the ground that I walked on. I imagined all of the other people that must have walked here over all time – back until mankind began. I became very conscious of every footfall, every moment of time as my feet made contact with the earth. It felt almost sacred.

By the time we reached the top we were engulfed by mist, where at the bottom of the hill we had been able to see the stars. There was a real sense of reverence in the atmosphere as we sat down at the foot of the Old Man – like some wise ancient from whom we were to receive knowledge.

I think I got a tiny glimpse of why our ancestors put so much of their energy into erecting the many circles of standing stones that remain from the Celtic peoples. It felt like the rocks around us were holding some deep secrets from over hundreds of generations. Sometimes the soundscape made it feel like the stones were whispering to us. At other times faces seemed to grow in the rocks only to disappear and change shape into yet other faces.

I was reminded of the lines of a poem on the video that was shown at An Tuireann just before we left and how it talked about the landscape being like skin stretched over bone. About how the folds in the land were formed over time holding wisdom like the creases in a well worn face.

The lighting was spectacular – not in a “fireworks” kind of way – but subtle, like the landscape of Skye is in real life with its soft colours and mist and rain. The effects did not come to us in any kind of abrupt way, but gradually, in many layers, like the strata of rocks beneath our feet.

Indeed the whole experience was gentle and sympathetic both to its audience and to the environment. This sensitivity was literal as well as artistic. There had been a huge amount of care taken to preserve the landscape and not inflict anything upon it that was likely to cause damage.

The descent was just as captivating as the climb up to the pinnacle had been. I had a feeling that the experience had somehow changed us – even if only in a small way. As the tiny lights reached back and ahead of me as we walked in silence, there was a real sense of our humility on the face of this earth.

The plaintive sound of a lone Gaelic singer (Anne Martin) as we climbed down was mesmerising. Her figure appeared in silhouette, back lit on the crest of a rock, perhaps a mile away. Her voice was heard long before on our approach and came and went like the layers of history resonating in our own time and for all time to come. Not something linear but weaving in and out of focus like the twists of a Celtic knot.

As we came back into the wood the harmonies of sound became more complex and music was heard from within the trees. It gave a feeling of resolution if not completion. We were coming back into our “real” world again while carrying the experience of our journey with us; the secrets of the land that go on and on forever……..

The Storr walk was a profound experience and one that somehow changed the way that I see things. On the way back home the next day I like to think that the landscape looked different. It wasn’t so “surface” as perhaps it sometimes seemed – like picture postcard scenery.

It felt like it had guts: like it was a living breathing presence. It felt like now I realised something that I already knew. That it was part of me and I was part of it and perhaps we have more in common with other people than we are different. It felt like any problems in my life all seemed insignificant in the vast scale of things.

And now I’m back in all the busyness of “reality” and heading for the city as I go off to the Festival and the Fringe in Edinburgh. But I hope that there will always be a part of me that belongs to “The Storr” and that magical, mystical midnight walk. Definitely something to tell your grandchildren about and pass on to the next generation. Make sure you get there because the Storr Project really is – dare I say it – quite awesome!