WIND on the steps
By Dr. Dennis Sansom
In April 2007, I returned to the tip of the Ring of Kerry, one of the four peninsulas in Southwest Ireland, to try again to visit Saint Michael’s Island. In June 2000, I had arrived at the docks too late to make the boat trip. This time, although the day was bright and clear, the wind blew strongly from the east. The waves were crashing on the only place to dock the boat; we drove around the two islands but never landed.
The Skellig Islands are rugged, seemingly uninhabitable crags dramatically lunging up from the Atlantic Ocean. The larger island is called Saint Michael, and the other is appropriately named Small Skellig. The winds and waves beat on them year round, making them inhospitable to most.
However, Benedictine monks lived on Saint Michael from the beginning of the 6th century to the end of the 12th. They built steps (600 all together), beehive huts, stone oratories and chapels, and buried their dead across the island’s 18 hectares. Vikings raided them five times for what little they had. Not much is known about the monks, but they survived the elements and raids, until finally they abandoned the island and joined the monastery in Ballingskellig about 20 miles away. Since then, it has become a pilgrimage site.
The monks did not live alone on the islands. Eleven kinds of migratory birds also make them their home. Twenty-three thousand nesting pairs of Gannetts with a six feet wingspan come from Africa to lay eggs on Small Skellig. The adorable, small puffins arrive mid-Spring from the North Atlantic, have their families, and leave in late summer. The noisy and cantankerous Kittiwakes arrive and leave about the same time. All year, birds come and go. The monks’ lives rotated around them, eating their eggs and harvesting their feathers for sale inland. Some of the birds arrived about the time of Lent, others Easter, and still the late ones flew in during Advent. Like clockwork, the seasons, the birds, and the holy days occurred together.
We do not know who first called the big island Saint Michael, but it’s appropriately named. The angel Michael is mentioned twice in scripture, Daniel 10 and Revelation 12, and has two main responsibilities: to kill the dragon and usher souls up to heaven. The monk’s experience on Skellig would have seemed like both.
It must have felt like fighting a dragon to be so exposed to the bitter cold and harsh winds. For months, no one could leave or land on the island. The dark winter must have been especially hard. But the monks fought their dragons (both the elements and the inward ones) and experienced a harmony and wonder not many people know.
As Benedictines, they daily prayed the hours (five to eight different times during the day), chanted the Psalms throughout the week, and celebrated communion mornings and evenings. They observed the holy calendar, recalling the life of Christ and the birthdays of the saints. In their lives, the migratory birds and the Bible, nature and spirit, body and soul, creation and Creator merge into a heaven-like experience.
I suspect on clear, cold nights when they would look up into the sky and see the countless stars, with the lingering tastes of communion and the sounds of the Kittiwakes in their ears, they must have thought they were being ushered upward.
I hope to go to Saint Michael Skellig again, and this time walk up its steep steps, feel the wind in my face, look out across the vast ocean, hear and see the wondrous birds, imagine the monk’s chants, and feel Saint Michael do his work.
Discussion Questions:
- Why should we allow only work and trendy/consumeristic culture determine the important places for us to experience?
- Have you ever been on a pilgrimage to an important Christian site, and if not, why not?
- Do you think St. Francis of Assisi was right or crazy when he prayed for the birds and called the Sun his brother and the Moon his sister?
Further Reading Suggestions:
Celtic Spirituality: Classics of Western Spirituality by Oliver Davies
The Skellig Story: Ancient Monastic Outpost by Des Lavelle
1 comment:
Brilliant! I am from Ballinskelligs and your article sums up our historic rock succinctly. thank you!
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