02.11.2026
I wonder if the stones shift, if the water parts just slightly. If anyone has seen me in my favourite spot looking out to the waves
Maybe I have joined the others that have gathered upon that shore through the ages? Quietly as the waterfall tumbles down the rocks, turning pure gold in the sunset light. Kilchiaran was a place you were never entirely alone in anyways.
I sit here in Aberdeen dreaming of the stoney bay on the edge of the world I once frequented back in my Islay days.
A place where skipping into the other world felt entirely possible. Where the waves threatened a quick ride to a watery grave. The choughs darting and diving through the air above, laughing jovially. Red bills of flame and bodies of darkest soot .
Over the years I sat enough times, looking to the waves for solace. Running from home in Port Charlotte to catch the sunset. I spoke enough wishes to the setting Sun. Burned enough hopes amidst bundles of mugwort and bog myrtle tied with twine. Talked out my toughest pains to churning waves, echoing as they pleased in response. I leant into the cascade to wash the shame from my hands and splash the cold water against hot tears on my face.
I felt everything in that place.
and I let go of everything in that place
This morning in my dreaming, I remember.
I remember some old Western Isle tales. Of a knife that fell from the sky into a kale patch, of a man who walked in two places at once without knowing. Of a door that unlatched itself to welcome nobody in, except the deep longing of a seaman who wished to be home.
Because In Gaelic lore, longing is not something that remains within the confines of our minds. Longing becomes a tangible force, an apparition, a sound, a lovers knife falling from the sky
Gaelic lore recognises the power of the heart.
The ache for home, the ache of loving from a distance. We can conceive an apparition born of our own pain whilst we are still alive.
The tràdhag living ghost/shadow: is a manifestation of our own energy unconsciously projected to the place we long to be.
The door that unlatches, the patter of footsteps, the figure stood at the shore. All spun into the world from the pain in our chest.
To the Gael, the wish to be somewhere we are not, cannot be devalued. Our separation becomes an entity unto itself. Unknown to ourselves, only, experienced by others.
The dull throb in our chest has potential, to take flight should we ache enough.
And so we should wonder… In all the spaces we’ve revisited in our minds over and over again, if a spectre of ourselves bides there. If the earth ever moves beneath an invisible foot or the raindrops drip down an invisible coat.
We should quiz ourselves on the times we saw something in the corner of our eye, heard the door open itself in the stillness or shrugged off the sound of footsteps as little more than an illusion. Were we simply somewhere someone else wished to be?
The tràdhag is not inherently bad or ominous it is simply an entity formed of benevolant memory and projected by distant grief. To witness an apparition of tràdhag is to hold the memory of another and experience the place they longed to be.
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