Steep slopes, from roaring sea to windswept valley; a hundred heavy layered steps towards the sky. At the top, cells as much homes as stony cairns look out towards a never ending horizon.
I'd already looked over the edges and teetered on the stairs. The only parts of Skellig Michael still beyond my grasp are the uppermost reaches: small structures perched on stepped gardens eked out of the rock face and overgrown with wild grasses. The island is immense in scale and dwarfs me completely, but is small enough that I've clambered over most of its secrets in a day. Parts of it are blocked from exploration; half because this heritage site deserves to sit unmolested by curiosity, and half because it's all too easy to plunge unnoticed into the deep while trying to satiate it walking the footsteps of ancient monks and future Jedi all at once.
Puffing and out of breath from climbing the lonely stair, I crest at the garden terrace and look out towards Little Skellig. The retaining wall here is the original — it has protected the edge of this little community for hundreds of years with nothing but its own strength and stubborn nature, stones laid precisely in place and purpose sitting stolid in the face of centuries of driving wind and acrid ocean rain. Apparently this narrow strip of somewhat sheltered grass provided a little bit of greenery to accent a diet of fish and gull. Any useful foliage is gone now, but the springy moss cushions blossoms like small ivory stars; here and there, small sprays of coral-like succulents have found purchase in cracks of the slate structures. To my left, the upper monastery is a level above me, with the domes of each cell peeking over the wall at my approach. To my right, the wall wraps around this precious terrace, and then open air, forever, to the horizon. Here is a photosphere, to help you get your bearings as we stand just below the main entrance.
The stone lined path to the small entrance in the wall beckons, but I can't help myself and look over the the wall to the water below. There's a worn line of bare rock marking the passage from the gardens to the ocean. No one takes this daily journey anymore, but the history of those climbs can't be erased, even by the fury of nature.
I look back one more time to the isolation cells I mentioned in my very first post, this time with a telephoto lens. Across the island and up the peak, the details of the small compound are more easily seen. Walls to protect the path, and the dome clinging to the very lip of the ledge. For when living almost completely isolated on an island in the middle of the ocean just isn't alone enough, I suppose.
I have to duck to avoid breaking my nose on the low lintel of the doorway in the monastery wall. Monks here clearly were smaller than I am... or all of the first Jedi were Yoda-sized.
I emerge into the heart of the monastery. Stone walls, stone paths, stone cisterns, stone gravemarkers. Stone benches, stone beds... everything is hard and cold. A lot of the life up here must have been like that. Even with the stunning blue of the sky and the endless expanse of the world curving away from me, I feel a bit chilly trying to think of this as home. The simplicity of it is attractive; the opportunity for connecting directly to the earth and to a small community is incredible. But the wind snakes between the domes, and the sameness of the rock and the rock and the rock and the rock reminds me that the choice of this place was predicated on remaining humbled, small, and quite uncomfortable in penitence. It's a pervasive feeling, even as the sun warms my hair and the small, mossy gardens look cozy enough to curl up in. The entire compound is made up of a few cells clustered around a courtyard — a communal space to hold the dead, a chapel no larger than a confessional, a flat stone square two paces across. Everything here is right here.
Sitting in the doorway of this cell, I realize how precious light is. Candles here would be more treasured than gold or food; deep shadows fill the interior even at the height of an uncharacteristically sunny day, despite windows and large ventilation holes for the occasional fire. And fire! There are no trees here — none of the peat that powers the rest of Ireland to be dug up. Not much brush or scrub, and hardly any tall grass. Warmth only attained by sheltering from the wind and rain, illumination only falling when the heavy clouds break long enough to allow it. The romance of this place fades by the moment. It took more than an hour to get here on a clear day, in a powerful boat designed specifically for it. Realizing the herculean effort of successfully bringing any supplies here through treacherous seas, lugging them up deadly cliffs, to monks who had nothing to trade in return and for no reason other than to try to help keep them alive in a place they'd gone specifically to be forgotten... Choosing this place as the evocative imagery for for Luke Skywalker's Last Jedi hideaway has become painfully clear.
Walking behind the cells in the grass makes me feel a bit better. It is a beautiful, severe place holding fast in time to values that many humans have forgotten — a testament to will and perseverance and faith and maybe even to a touch of crazy. I run my fingers over the smooth slate shards that mark the homes and the graves of those who built this place, and I come to the end of the row. I stand above the remains of the chapel and the steps back to the central courtyard.
It's quiet; I'm inured to the sound of the wind. A gull dips by my head and continues out to sea. I contemplate the chapel: the only building on this island built with mortar in a vain attempt to create something lasting, and also the one with the least remains. There's a lesson in this view, somewhere... Clouds are blowing in from the west, and our trip back is still an hour away. It will likely be violent and wet. I lay back in the sweet smelling moss and close my eyes against the sun, taking what comfort I can here while I'm still able; that's lesson enough for now.
These photos and words are my own work, inspired by travels all over this pretty blue marble of ours. I hope you like them. 🌶️
