Corrag

I've heard fate talked of. It's not a word I use. I think we make our own choices. I think how we live our lives is our own doing, and we cannot fully hope on dreams and stars. But dreams and stars can guide us, perhaps. And the heart's voice is a strong one. Always is. Your heart's voice is your true voice. It is easy to ignore it, for sometimes it says what we'd rather it did not - and it is so hard to risk the things we have. But what life are we living, if we don't live by our hearts? Not a true one. And the person living it is not the true you.

Sometimes we have so much to say, we cannot say it. Sometimes it's best we do not say goodbyes.

Your heart's voice is your true voice. It is easy to ignore it, for sometimes it says what we'd rather it did not - and it is so hard to risk the things we have. But what life are we living, if we don't live by our hearts? Not a true one. And the person living it is not the true you.

It is evening. The moon is small, and new. There are stars, and a stream's sound, and I can hear the wings of insects, in the dark. I think what gifts we are given, such gifts--every day.

Which people take the time to care for their souls, these days? I reckon not many. But...hear this: I think that maybe in our lives -- in our scrabbling for food, in the washing of our bodies and warming of them, in our small daily battles -- we can forget our souls. We do not tend to them, as if they matter less. But I don't think they matter less.

But maybe the best thing I learnt was this: that we cannot know a person's soul and nature until we've sat beside them, and talked.

No war. Fight with your pen. Give your battle-cry in ink, and mark your dreams down on a page

Mostly, she sees the good in the world, the light where there is dark... She sees beauty where we mostly pass it by. But tonight, she was heavy-hearted. I think sometimes she unfolds all her losses and stares at them, in the dark.

The Highland way says it's who you say you love and who you serve, which is of worth. Not some title that is passed down upon you by tradition. That's the English way, and the Lowland way--but who can be born a nobleman? Nobility is earned... 'Tis our choices that make us.

So I say this. Speak of them. Speak of those that died. Speak of all those who ever died--in all the world's history, in its wars, and long-lost days. Speak of those who met their deaths in Glencoe, in snow--not of their deaths, but of their lives before them. Not of how they died, but of how they bent to pat a dog's head, or what ballads they could sing, or what their skin was like by their eyes when they smiled, or which weather was their weather--for it keeps them living. It stops them being dead. To do this--to speak or write of them--puts breath back in their mouths. It lifts them up from their earthy beds... brings them forth, and they stand by the side of the one who speaks of them; they walk out of the pages of those who write them down. From the realm, they smile upon us. All the dead people--only, they are not dead.

What creatures we are. What powers are in us--in all of us. What we already know, if we choose to spend time with ourselves. What a deep love we can feel.

The only evil in the world is the one that lies in people—in their pride, and greed, and duty. Remember that.

Some things are hard, even if they are right. Even if you know they are the proper, decent way. I was glad to have left herbs for those men whose lungs and minds had not known Highland winters before. It was kindness. And kindness is worth showing.

We are the Magick--we are. The truest magick in this world is in us... It is in our movements and in what we say and feel.

This is the place. I was certain. For the heart knows its home when it finds it, and on finding it, stays there.

God works as he chooses - we have our tests and He has His revelations

The Highlands: Where the people are wild, and the trees are wind-buckled, and there are lochs which mirror the sky.

What was dark will always be dark, I know that. Death is still death. Hatred will never be far, in this life. But also, there is light. It is everywhere. It floods this world--the world brims with it. Once, I sat by the Coe and watched a shaft of light come down through the trees, through leaves, and wondered if there was a greater beauty, or a simpler one. There are many great beauties. but all of them--from the snow, to his fern-red hair, to my mare's eye reflecting the sky as she smelt the air of Rannoch Moor--have light in them, and are worth it. They are worth the darker parts.

Your heart’s voice is your true voice. It is easy to ignore it, for sometimes it says what we’d rather it did not—and it is so hard to risk the things we have. But what life are we living, if we don’t live by our hearts? Not a true one. And the person living it is not the true you.

Oh there is always sadness. Always grief. I have heard folks say this life could be all hardship and sorrow, if we let it be. If we let our hearts seal over.

I sought the sea. There was a small comfort in it--in how it never ended, how there were other lands beyond it that I would never see. I tried to see the realm, like that. Like the dead people had only gone elsewhere, to a place I could not see--a place just over the sides of the earth, which is as real as the beach that I sat on.

For the heart knows its home when it finds it, and on finding it, stays there.

The MacIain said have you ever seen such a people? As these? I said no. It was truthful. No gatherings in England? No fine house like mine

Those nights were like no other nights. The hills were very black, like they were shapes cut out of cloth, and the cloth was dark-blue, starry sky. I knew stars—but not as those stars were.

I touched the rock I'd seen him touch. I heard the sounds he'd heard.

When my mare was at her wild, midnight fastest

His hair was blowing like mine was blowing. Through my dark-brown strands, I saw his wet-earth red, its golden ends.

I think sometimes she unfolds her losses and stares at them, in the dark