photo by fotomanisch.deviantart.com 

The island became a place of pilgrimage and royal burial as its fame as a center of learning spread.

When the Vikings invaded Iona in the eighth century, the Book of Kells was secreted off the Iona and to Ireland. It’s now housed at Trinity College Library in Dublin.

Known graves on Iona include 48 Scottish kings including Macbeth, 8 Norwegian, 1 French and 4 Irish, as well as numerous clan chiefs. Templar knight gravestones reveal their presence on the island.

Megalithic remains suggest it was a prehistoric burial site too. But why? Why did so many royal people come here, to this tiny island, to prepare for their final journey?

Some say it’s because Iona is a borderland between life and death.

There is no denying that Iona is mysterious. The light is more translucent, more heavenly and less earthly, often filled with swirling mist. The water is blue, unlike the black waters in most of Scotland. 

And the beaches are littered with beautiful green stones, Iona green marble. 

The island is famous for it, and the crystals have been collected as talismans for centuries.

Legend tells of a lonely monk who fell in love with a mermaid. When she was banished, she shed tears that can be found today, the small green tear-shaped crystals strewn along Iona’s beaches.
There are also legends about magical “green eggs,” called Druid’s Eggs or Serpent’s Eggs. Which brings me around to that other tantalizing legend – the Druid’s library.

Could it be that Columba’s monks copied not only old Christian manuscripts, but also the Druid writings they found on Iona? What happened to all that work?

It’s never been found, although modern historian Ashley Cowie, host of the TV series Legend Quest, swears he’s found the entrance to the lost library in a secret chamber under Iona Abbey.

Yes, Iona is chock-full of intriguing questions and mystery. And you can be sure I’ll be following Cowie’s investigation with interest. Wouldn’t an ancient Druid Chamber of Secrets would be an exciting way to conclude my Ancient Magic series?

Thanks to each of you for following my Sacred Scotland blogs. The Scotland series is complete, but come back next weekend for another topic.

​This is a lunar observatory created as an ancient power center to witness the major lunar standstill that occurs only once every 18.9 years. (The next lunar standstill will be stages by the moon in 2025.)

​The stones are gneiss rock, black metamorphic rock banded with quartz and mica, and nearly three million years old.

The Pixar film Brave features several scenes set in and around the stones. And The Starz TV series, Outlander, based on a series of books by Diana Gabaldon, has used the stones as a model for a fictional circle near Culloden called Craigh na Dun.

Maybe the site has become too popular. Or, maybe the stones have absorbed the negative emotions of the people who now trek out to this secluded site to visit. Maybe they even resent the renewed attention?  After all, its own people abandoned the site around 800 BC and let the peat reclaim it until farmers re-cleared the area in 1857.

Whatever the reason, this site ignited an overpowering feeling of anger and resentment in me, a feeling that lingered long after we left the stones. Part of the issue was a pre-teen boy who stood in the middle of this sacred sit, acting stupid and making gang signs while his mom tried to take his picture.

​The rejected card, as it turned out, was the Devil.

Linda’s interpretation was that the Moon card reminds me that the sacred and true is always there, no matter what else is going on. Meanwhile, the Devil is trying to get my attention, saying, “Hey, look at these distractions, pay attention to them, let me ruin your day!”

She also pointed out that I’d been dragging my red scarf on the ground much of the day, and its color was a perfect match to the red cape on the Death card. She gave me a lot to think about.
​
The next morning we visited the Calanais III site, and it was completely different. This double-ring site includes a grouping of three stones named “Mother, Maiden and Crone,” and it had a remarkable atmosphere, as quiet as the wind. It also has less visitors than its better-well-known sister site.  Our group went early, winding into the rocks holding hands. We held a short ritual circle, undisturbed by any other visitors.

It was the perfect way to end our time on Lewis, before driving across the isthmus to catch our ferry to the Isle of Skye. I’ll tell you about Skye and our last island, magical Iona, when I conclude my Scotland tour blog next weekend.

Until then, Blessed Be. And pay attention to the signs you are presented in your daily life!

We saw so many sheep, and this fellow, a Highland cow.

Jamie, our guide played an eerie, atmospheric music soundtrack as we wound our way up and up into the mist and clouds. I wondered what it would be like to be a sheep living in a pasture that dropped off into the sea.  I’ve never had such an enjoyable bus ride.

​We stayed on Orkney for the next 3 days. There was so much to see!

“Beyond Britannia in the endless ocean…” is how a fifth century scribe wrote of Orkney. The islands are mysterious, remote, and mostly left untouched from modern development.

You feel as though you’re on the edge of the world in Orkney. Closer to Norway than to London, Orkney is only 50 miles south of Greenland, and begins where the North Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean. (Be prepared for a rough ferry crossing at the point where the two waters meet. Go above decks and chew your ginger gum.)

This fiercely independent “nation state” has a personality that is charmingly Orcadian. They speak their own version of the Norse dialect, and, since they were settled by the Norse, the villages have a Scandinavian flavor that mixes with a Scottish “topping.” The landscape is treeless, elemental, sea-locked, and deeply vibrational.

Even the light is different. We noticed that the satellite dishes at all the buildings were nearly horizontal because of our far northern location, and there was no darkness until nearly midnight, and a lot of the residents fly the Norwegian flag. After all, Orkney only became part of Scotland by accident. It was pawned to Scotland through a royal marriage agreement, along with Shetland.

The relic sites at Orkney date from the late Stone Age. There are so many that we must assume there was a prosperous and advanced civilization on the islands.

We visited Maes How for an insight into prehistoric living. This chambered stone tomb is built so that the winter solstice sun shines all the way into the center of its gathering room.

From there we went to the Stones of Stenness, part of a megalithic walkway from Maes Howe to the Ring of Brodgar, located on a narrow isthmus between saltwater and freshwater lochs. 

​The Ring of Brodgar is among the largest stone circles in all or Britain (beaten only by the outer circle of Avebury and the circle of Stanton Drew). There are 27 standing stones still in position, although originally there were 60. Built as a henge (a Neolithic Earthwork) with a deep rock-cut ditch around the perfect circle, two entrances are located in the northwest and southeast. The site sits on a great bed of heather. Bet it’s amazing when those plants bloom in the late summer! Legend called Brodgar the sun temple and Stenness the moon temple. 

Photo by Nick Card

It’s a peninsula between two lochs linking the great stone circles of Brodgar and Stenness. The site has been under intense excavation since 2004, revealing what is believed to be a grand temple at the heart of this monumental Neolithic complex. The warren of interconnected stone buildings remains unique in Europe in both size and construction.

​Archeologists, including our site guides Helen and Mark Woodeford, have excavated about 10% of the site’s nearly 30,000 square yards. So far, it’s been an archaeologist’s dream, filled with walls of structures, paved walkways, slate roofs, painted walls and decorated stonework.  

On Day 3 we said goodbye to our now-good-friend Diana, and headed to the Inverness Airport to meet up with the Gothic Images Tours group. Turns out there were 10 of us: Couples from Minnesota and Florida, sisters from Alaska and Seattle, a single woman from North Carolina, our in-tour tarot reader, Linda, from Australia, plus our tour guide, Jaime, from England.
​
We were an eclectic bunch. Most, including Druids Jaime and Linda, were some version of pagan. Those who were not, like my husband and Caroline, our single traveler, were open-minded and curious. I mean, if the tour says “Sacred Scotland” and travels with an in-house tarot reader, you kinda have to expect an interest in neo-pagan sites and worship.

I’ve always wanted to spend a night in a castle, and I got my wish! Our group spent the first night in Tulloch Castle in Dingwall. 

​According to the staff, and most of the posts online, this castle is haunted. After our haunted tour, I can believe it. This painting of some previous tenants, the Davidson family, convinced me the rumors could be true. 

​The young red-haired girl in the ballroom portrait fell down the castle stairs to her death, after walking in on her father in bed with his mistress. (If you look at the left side of the portrait, you will see the black area where the husband’s likeness has been painted out of the portrait.) Now known as the green lady, she is the castle’s most famous ghost. The portrait is really spooky. No matter where you stand in the room, her eyes follow you.

Day 4 – We all got better acquainted the next morning on the bus ride to the Fairy Glen, in Rosemarkie on the Black Isle We completed the mile and a half hike through this magical woodlands in silence so we could soak in the atmosphere of the glen. Birches and rowan trees, luscious ferns, babbling streams on each side, deep pools and fossilized trees, ending in a series of amazing waterfalls. 

​I felt those trees, they had presence.

The central chamber is large enough for a small group to gather, and works as an echo or resonance chamber for chanting. Yes. Of course we tried it. Gave me shivers.

The Clava Cairns date from the Bronze Age, about 4,000 years old. Cup-marks within the chambers, as well as on the north cairn, look like a stargazer’s map.

This was one of my favorite sites, and the feel of the whole complex was

 extraordinarily calm and welcoming.  

However, in 1999, a Belgian tourist took a rock from the site. The next year, he mailed it back to the Inverness tourist board (Guardian newspaper, 19 January, 2000, BBC News) after suffering several family misfortunes, so beware….

At this point, I thought we’d seen the best of the tour. But then, we went to Orkney. But that’s a story for next weekend. See you then!

​If you have any friends who wear kilts, you know the clansmen usually wear their knife tucked into the top of their kilt hosiery. However, I plan to use mine as a ritual athame.  

​The massacre of the Scottish was so complete that the Culloden burial sites are marked by clans, not individuals. 

Those clansmen  not executed were often transported to the colonies, ushering in the first wave of large-scale Scottish immigration to North America. The British government also banned the tartan and kilt. The clan system—the social order that had existed in the Scottish Highlands since before the days of William Wallace—was lost to history.

​Although the clan way of life was formally eliminated, their sense of national pride was not.  In 2014, Scotland issued a referendum on national independence. That, coupled with the release of Diana Gabaldon’s Starz television drama, Outlander, has sparked renewed interest in Scotland’s Jacobite Rebellion. The efforts of Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Highlanders mark one of the most important—and ultimately tragic—moments in Scottish history.

Our wonderful guide Diana had arranged for us to meet the current McKenzie Clan Chief, Laird John Ruaridh Grant MacKenzie. We spent a delightful couple of  hours visiting with him and touring

​When she learned I was researching sacred sites for my book, Diana took us to the Corrimony Chambered Cairn. 

     Older than Stonehenge,   the Ring of Brodegar makes an impressive landmark for miles around.  We will spend three days of our tour exploring Orkney.  
     Our Scotland visit will begin with a tour of all things Outlander.

In one week we leave for Scotland!

My heritage is Scot-Irish, so I'm looking forward to tracing my Campbell and Idol roots. I know my Campbell relatives have been in the Midwest states since the mid-1800s, but I haven't been able to trace them back further, so hopefully Scotland records will help me find when they immigrated.

And, speaking of research, Book 2 of my Ancient Magic series will be set in Scotland, and deciding on the exact site is the main purpose of this trip. The characters and plot can be written from my imagination, but an actual site visit is what "anchors" the book and gives it authenticity.

Will the story be set at the Ring of Brodgar?  With its prehistoric sun and moon temples, this is the heartland of the Neolithic North, a bleak, mysterious place that has made Orkney Island a magnet for archaeologists, historians and other researchers for decades.  We're spending three days in Orkney, including a guided tour of the archaeological excavations on the Ness of Brodgar. These sites pre-date both Stonehenge and Avebury by some 500 years.

Orkney is actually closer to Norway than to London. It's only 50 miles south of Greenland and begins where the North Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean. I'm told the area feels like the end of edge of the world, and I can't wait to see it in person.

Maybe the story will journey to the Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis, a complex of megalithic stones laid out in the shape of a Celtic cross, with astronomical alignments that feature vividly in this sacred landscape. One of the stones is estimated to be three billion years old. That gives me shivers!

This landscape temple and its satellite sites makes up a lunar observatory created as an ancient power center to witness the major lunar standstill that occurs only once every 18.6 years (The next lunar standstill will take place in 2025). Two of our tour guides live in this area, so hopefully they will have many little-known tales to tell.

Or perhaps the book will originate in Iona, the home of one of the Book of Kells (circa AD 800), one of the finest illuminated manuscripts over created. When the Vikings sacked the island and its monastery in the late eighth century, the monks secreted the book off to safety in Ireland, but the rest of their entire library of knowledge went under the sea.

Iona is believed by some to be the Yew Island of the Druids, the sacred isle known as 'Tir nan Og, the land of youth, and the 'Otherworld." Such a lot of expectations to live up to!

The Inner Hebredes are separated from the Outer Hebrides by the Minch, a treacherous strait of water on the northwest coast. Famous supernatural inhabitants, called the Blue Men, are said to guard the strait. Something like 'mermen', the blue men tribe live in deep underwater caves and swim alongside ships passing the Sound of Shiant, luring sailors into the sea and creating storms to wreck ships. Some say they are fallen angels. I say they sound like the perfect subjects for a short story between novels!

I'll be posting musings and pictures of our Scotland travels for the next three weeks. I hope you will join me to learn more about our travels through Sacred Scotland.
 

Cheryl Elliot Wilson

When I tell other friends stories about Cheryl (we all tell stories about our life-long friends, right?), "lake eggs" always come up.

For years, my parents owned a cabin on the Lake of the Ozarks. Because they were amazing parents, they let me invite gobs of my friends down for weekends of boating, water skiing, card playing, sunbathing, puzzles, reading, walks, and, best of all, food. 

Everyone attending would pair up and furnish all the groceries for one meal. The meals were epic, especially dinners after a long day on the water. I wish I had a picture of their long, drop-leaf table, situated in front of the double windows to catch the breeze, and surrounded by a crowd of laughing, sunburned friends.

On Sunday morning, Cheryl made "lake eggs," scrambled eggs with anything and everything that was left over from the previous meals. We often had the usual additions--onion, peppers, cheese, steak chunks. Sometimes the fare was more exotic. I can recall pinto beans, corn, diced pork chop, eggplant, cabbage.  If we had leftover dessert, fruit or alcohol, she'd find a way to concoct a delicious side dish. Cheesecake with powdered chocolate, cinnamon and chile pepper anyone?

Cheryl had a knack for cooking  wholesome meals, from scratch, and in  large quantities. Her first husband was an actor in a traveling theatre troupe, and she was--you guessed it--the camp cook. The husband didn't last (he was the only one of three I didn't meet during our 30-year friendship), but her love of cooking did.

Honey, you couldn't water ski, but you went out in the boat with us every time and tried. You disliked snow skiing too, but you went on every trip with the gang, bless your heart. Even when I moved away, you came out to Arizona for my 60th birthday.

You shared your daughter with us for her entire youth (hi Christy!), and you loved my kids like your own. And you were never, ever, too busy or too tired to lend me your ear and a tight, for-real hug when I needed it.

Plus, you got up EARLY at the lake to make breakfast and let the rest of us sleep in.
I raise my fork for you in love, girl. Miss you so hard.

I have had the pleasure of listening to Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series, speak twice in the last two weeks.

As the featured speaker at the Desert Dreams conference, she gave us the insider view on how the Outlander series was created, how she feels about Jamie Frasier (you'll have to wait until next week for this tidbit, sorry!), and some harsh realities on cutting for time on a TV series.

Yes, I totally fan-girled and had her sign my book.

My summer is going to be mind-blowing busy, but in a positive way.

Every year, when the temperatures in Phoenix begin to inch over the 100 degree mark, my husband and I flee to Northern Arizona. In mid-May we take our tribe of dogs, cats, plants, and sometimes our son, and move into our cabin in Munds Park, a tiny alpine town thirty minutes south of Flagstaff. The 6800' altitude keeps the thermometer at 80 to 90-degrees max--low enough to hike the national forest in our backyard every morning, and sleep with the windows open at night when it cools down.

Unfortunately, I won't get much cabin time this summer.

First up is Phoenix ComiCon, May 25-28. I'll be there every day in the Wikked Writers booths (we have AA 1300-1330). Arizona friends, the lineup this year is spectacular. I'm going to find a way to sneak out to see Jim Butcher, Sherrilyn Kenyon, and Terry Brooks, and maybe play a little Quidditch.

Author Jim Butcher writes the Dresden Files series with "Wizard For Hire" Harry Dresden. Must reads for all paranormal and fantasy fans!

Plus, Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series, is a guest speaker. This is the perfect time to visit with her before I head off to Scotland to see all the sites from her series in person. If you've read her books or seen the Starz mini-series, I'm sure you love her characters Jamie Frasier and Claire Randall Frasier.

Paul and I are taking an Outlander tour to start our vacation in Scotland (July), so I'm going to re-read the series before we leave (and probably take one book with me on vacation since it looks like laptops and other electronics will no longer be allowed on planes (damn!).

Right on the heels of ComiCon, I'll be participating in the Desert Dreams Writers Conference. Held in Phoenix June 1-4, the conference includes "Meet The Authors" speed-dating style, so you can decide which authors to visit with at break-out sessions, and also who you'd like to sit with at dinner. It's a lot of fun and I encourage you to go to get your tickets now. I'm also excited about this one because I'm a finalist in the Diamonds in the Desert contest and winners will be announced at the conference dinner.

So, it looks like my time at the cabin will consist of three weeks in June, then home to the Valley of the Sun to figure out how to pack for a 15-day tour where we stay in a different place every other day. If you've done such a vacation tour...HELP!

While we were in Mexico last week, I was reminded again, first-hand, of the "have" and  "have not countries we tend to take for granted in the United States.

Monarch butterflies enjoy the warmth near their overwintering colony in Michoacan, Mexico.

Monarch butterflies return year after year to the same swath of forest in central Mexico, to pass the cool winter months clustered together on evergreen trees.

Mexico also has large deposits of silver, copper, salt, iron, manganese, sulfur, phosphate, zinc, mercury, gold and gypsum.

And then there's the oil.

Until recently, petroleum was the country's single most valuable mineral resource. For a decade, Mexico was one of the elite oil producers in the world, the fourth largest in the Western Hemisphere behind the United States, Canada and Venezuela.

From 1979 to 2007, Mexico produced most of its oil from the supergiant Cantarell Field, which used to be the second-biggest oil field in the world by production.

And, until last year, the state-owned company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) had exclusive rights over all oil production in Mexico.

But annual production at Cantarell Field had dropped or failed to increase each year since 2004, and Pemex didn't have the financial or technical skill to exploit the remaining deep water reserves on its own.
 
So Pemex opened parcels to bid last December, and the international oil industry responded. Investors have agreed to pay billions of dollars to the Mexican government for rights to drill in the country’s portions of the Gulf of Mexico.

The auctions were the result of Mexico instituting energy reform legislation in 2013 and 2014, which ended the 75-year-old monopoly of Pemex and opened the country to foreign investment for oil exploration, production, pipeline construction and other energy ventures. The effort was viewed as the only way to end years of declining production.

“This is a vote of confidence that the energy reform is moving forward and for the geological potential of the Mexican Gulf deep waters,” said Jorge R. Piñon, former president of Amoco Oil Latin America and now an analyst at the University of Texas at Austin.

The government awarded eight separate blocks of offshore territory to companies including Total of France and Exxon Mobil and Chevron of the United States, which all already have a strong presence in the Gulf of Mexico and can therefore take advantage of existing service crews and pipelines they use in Gulf waters.

The most significant new entry may be by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, or Cnooc, which won two blocks in the auction. Cnooc also has a strong presence in Latin America, and could now become a big player in Mexico as well.

The auction provides a rare moment of positive news in a gloomy period for Mexico. The peso has been battered by concern that the administration of President-elect Donald J. Trump will renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is the foundation of Mexico’s manufacturing exports. Mexico is not a member of OPEC.

Across Mexico, entire regions are positioning themselves for what they believe will be a major makeover.

Mexican authorities hope that bringing in foreign energy companies will improve security by offering jobs to people who might otherwise work for the cartels.

“The best way to counterattack organized crime is by generating jobs in areas that are heavily influenced by criminals,” said one former Mexican ambassador.   

Raúl Garcîa, 25, is an example of such a recruit. He said he once worked as a lookout for a cartel in Nuevo Laredo, earning about $200 a week, and thought of taking work as a hitman to double his pay. Then he heard of the Eagle Ford oil in south Texas. Now he earns about $1,000 a week as an oil field worker and shares a room with four buddies in a “man camp.” He sends much of his earnings to his wife and two boys back in Mexico.
“I hope someday I can go back and share my expertise,” he said. “That’s my dream.”

When it comes to illegal immigration, it seems clear that people from Mexico and Central America will continue to cross the border into the United States until the economies in their own homelands can provide them with employment that compensates them sufficiently to feed their families, and educate their children.

Thousands of miles of fencing will not change either of these facts.

Deportation does not work, either, they just come back. University of California at San Diego immigration expert Wayne Cornelius knows both tactics are futile. His recent study indicates that 97% of the people who try to cross the border eventually succeed, despite all the obstacles. “If they don’t succeed on the first try, they almost certainly will succeed on the second or the third try,” says Cornelius.

“Unless you can stop poverty or hunger, it will never stop, because people will always want to help their families. Doesn’t matter how tall the wall is, they will just dig a hole then."

The money sent back to Mexico by Mexicans living in the U.S. topped $26 billion in 2016.  In 2015, those remittances totaled 2.3 percent of the country’s GDP.

In fact, Forbes reports that the money sent from the U.S. to Mexico by migrants, “replaced oil revenues as Mexico’s number one source of foreign income” in late 2015.

Will an infusion of new money into Mexico's flagging oil industry be enough to improve life for the average family in Mexico? And, if the standard of living does improve, will it improve enough to slow the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States? 

The next few years will tell. In the meantime, I hope President Trump and his advisors will look carefully at our neighbors to the south, and not let knee-jerk decisions upset the delicate balance from potential improvement to total chaos.