A Poem by Paula

ODE TO PORRIDGE

If you come to the Holy Isle

There’s lots that’s bound to make you smile

Growing gardens, goats and ponies

The dining room is full of cronies

But in the kitchen, behind the door

There’s a secret that lies in store

Missed morning Tara, or med too?

Not much here will wait for you -

But if you’re hungry and brave of heart

There’s something steaming for THE best start

Life and Death and in between

Volunteers, too, are a changing team;

Courses come and courses go

Impermanence is something we all know

What keeps it running? They all enquire -

What’s in the heart of the blazing fire?

It’s quite simple – jumbo oats

That’s what keeps our boat afloat

In the morning with a pot well rounded

It’s the lovely porridge that keeps us grounded

Holy Islers, whatever the weather

Eat it when they’re all together

Changing dreams, inspiring hopes

We are all bound by porridge oats*

*a gluten free version of this poem is available in the kitchen.

Thanks to Paula for taking the time to compose ~ if you have a poem please do send it in.

The new quilt

The new quilt is on its way! If you have any squares (4×4inch-ish) to add, please send them in and we’ll find a place for them…

Transitions

Below is an article on its way to an Arran newspaper written by Natalie – who has been a volunteer on Holy Isle on and off for about a decade – about Transitions, a project aimed equip communities for the dual challenges of climate change and peak oil. Although the article is focussing on Arran, we’re really happy to let you know that Lama Yeshe is as fully into it as the rest of the Holy Isle community!

Invitation to The Great Turning: Transition Arran
By Natalie McCall

The most exciting movement of all time is underway right now and, like it or not, we are guests to this party! Forget the agricultural, industrial and technological revolutions; the Great Turning is the revolution we are living through right now; the change from globalisation and oil dependency to renewed, restored and rediscovered community resilience. Small is beautiful, local is wise. Arran is amazing.

Here’s the big picture. We live on a beautiful planet that for millions of years has evolved complex natural systems that self-regulate the climate which in turn supports all life on earth. The forests, the oceans, and the story of chlorophyll; that most divine dance between sun and earth. We are temporary inhabitants on a planet of finite resources.

Yet, ever since we first discovered sticky black gold, we have been gobbling up the stuff at an ever increasing rate, transforming our local (and later global) society into an oil dependent one. One petrol tank of fuel is the equivalent to 4 years of human labour! Oil is the magical elixir that has given us wheels and given us wings, has enabled us to make the most incredible discoveries in medicine, science and technology. Future generations will marvel at the inventiveness we unleashed in this age of oil abundance!

But they will also have cause for lament. For we have also used oil to get faster and faster for cutting down trees, digging up mountains, paving the planet and lighting up the universe. If we think about it, our ways of farming, travelling, working and living are all underpinned with the belief that there will be an endless supply of cheap energy. Oops, we forgot ourselves: we live on a planet with finite resources!

The rise of fuel and food prices we are experiencing right now are the twin effects of Peak Oil and Climate Change. Climate Change is now common parlance to most of us so here is but a quick refresher. Climate change is caused by emissions from fossil fuels in combination with the destruction of ecosystems (e.g forests, the lungs of earth). This impairs the ability of the biosphere to regulate the earth’s temperature. Minute changes in temperature create massive climatic effects, flooding, drought, species extinction, forest fires…

But what about Peak Oil? Peak Oil is right here and right now. It is the top of the demand/supply curve. Peak Oil is when global oil production (namely supply) has peaked, maxed out. It doesn’t mean that oil is running out, but it does mean that we have collectively gobbled our way through half of all earth’s oil reserves (the easy to reach stuff, the clean stuff). There may be a few more oil fields discoveries here and there that may keep us at peak for a few years or decades longer but the fact of the matter is that from now on in, access to oil will diminish day by day, year by year. Prices will continue to rise. The age of cheap fuel is over.

The best analogy I’ve heard (from Rob Hopkins in The Transitions Handbook) is that our journey up the peak oil curve has been like sitting at the bar of a swanky pub and being pulled a pint of the finest beer. While the journey down the curve will be more like an alcoholic desperately sooking stale beer from the pub’s carpet to get their fix…unless that is we both diversify and drastically reduce our energy consumption.

And here is where the party starts! The Transitions approach to the challenges of Peak Oil and Climate Change is an invitation to work together as a community to create the Arran we really want; a strong, healthy community that can meet the majority of its own needs from the inside and so be resilient to the shocks and bumps of food and fuel prices. For information on the approach go to http://transitiontowns.org/TransitionNetwork/Primer). There is much guidance, resources, training and funding available to help us on our way. However, the most important ingredients to this party are our enthusiasm, our imagination and our commitment to making this island a safe and sustainable home for us and all who come after.

So far Transitions Arran have run film-nights, discussions, and set up work groups looking into relocalisation of transport, energy and food on Arran. Ideas coming out so far include Community Supported Agriculture (Arran community pledging to support local Arran growers and so working in food feet rather than food miles!), community transport (bike schemes, hitchhiking schemes, community transport) and community gardens / allotments / composting in each village and village school.

Arran is ‘Scotland in Miniature’. Let’s up the ante and Transition Arran fast so we can help other communities do the same. Transition Arran needs all of Arran to get involved…and fast! We will be holding a series of events (film-nights, meetings, discussion, projects, plans) in a village near you in the near future. For more information on how to get involved, how to learn more about the issues, or how to book a transitions presentation for your local community group please contact Natalie from Transitions Arran on: namccall@hotmail.com  or 07963 630088.

Lets get this party started!

Arran Voice about our Open day: Arran goes to Holy Isle

We thought you might enjoy a little article written about the Open Day by a ‘real writer’, written for one of Arran’s newspapers. With thanks to Alison Prince, editor of the Voice, for writing it!

Last Saturday was perfect for Holy Isle’s annual Hospitality Day, beautifully warm, with sun sparkling on the sea – and Arran people took full advantage of the ferry boats that ran continually from Lamlash and back. From the jetty, it’s only a few steps to the garden that’s full of mauve-blossomed chives and thyme, with currants already forming on the bushes beside the path. People ventured under the arches of living willow that are putting out soft green shoots, and found their way to the Peace Hall and to the comfortable dining room where tea, coffee and home-made cookies were available for self-help. The Holy Isle resident workers wore helpful labels, Kristine, Rob, Adam, Megan, Sid … though as soon as a question had been answered, they tended to go back to whatever they were doing. It was not in any way rude – everyone was absolutely friendly and welcoming – but it seemed as though they were engaged in something so fascinating that they wanted nothing more than to be getting on with it.

The new beds in the Mandala herb and vegetable garden were mostly bare earth a month ago, but now they are sprouting with vigorous green growth, thanks to their generous winter dressing of seaweed. Nothing is wasted on Holy Isle. Empty tins form slug-proof cylinders round growing beans and black bin bags are slashed and hung up so that their blowing ribbons deter birds. A rather startled gardener found himself being equipped with a throat mike to contribute to a video being made by Chris Attkins for the Transition Movement. Outside the Peace Hall, people were taking off their shoes and going in for Lama Yeshe’s talk. Some sat on chairs, others on mats and cushions. There must have been well over 100 in the audience.
Lama Yeshe, cheerful and assured in his maroon and saffron robes, took his place in a yellow-draped armchair and began to talk, with his customary mixture of wisdom, humour and common sense. He assured his listeners that there is no intention to ‘convert’ people to Buddhism – then, with his infectious smile, added, ‘To us, all living things are part of Buddha – so you see, there is no need for conversion!’ He warned that the current compulsion to push for success can lead to unhappiness, and pointed out that greed can never bring the satisfaction of sharing the things we all need. He talked about their feasibility study to establish a pair of small wind turbines to cut the cost of electric heating, and clearly found the cumbrous bureaucracy of the National Grid difficult to understand. He spoke of his relief that the threat of the additional fish farm had been averted, and said it would have been ‘a disaster for Arran.’ Above all, he was emphatic in his hope that Arran and Holy Isle could work together in finding how people and nature can co-exist. ‘We should be eating what we grow,’ he said. ‘When you work with the environment and not against it, you become healthy.’

People were in no hurry to leave, because the tranquillity of Holy Island is seductive. Children played at the sea’s edge and people smiled and talked – but the last ferry back to Lamlash would be leaving at 5.00, so people started to drift down to the jetty. It had been a good day. And we can look forward to many more, as friendship between the wee island and this bigger one so close to it blossoms and starts to bear fruit.

 

Open Day coming up on the 7th!

Summer is here! – or that’s how it feels eventhough the calender says I’m too early with this joyful announcement. The beach trees around the vegetable garden are in full leaves, the flowers in the Mandala Garden are blooming, the air is full with zooming bees and singing birds. The Centre is full with the presence of the guests, new friendships are made while old ones are renewed. And any free time is spent going for walks or playing football instead of writing for the blog…

The last few days, we have been especially busy with the upcoming Open Day. The weather forecast is very good so we’re hoping for a lot of people – last year, despite the rain, Tom ferried almost 300 people across on that one day – and this year Lama Yeshe Rinpoche is planning to give a talk which is a first for an Open Day. So the next few days will be filled with scrubbing and cleaning, baking heaps and heaps of biscuits and making lemonade, preparing information displays and picking flowers… so we’ll be ready to hopefully see you here on Saturday!  

Happy Birthday Holy Isle Centre!

On the 31st of May we celebrated the 5th anniversary of the Holy Isle Centre! It was yet another beautifully sunny day and the garden was (and still is) bursting with life and colour. A Radiant reminder of all the love and hard work that has made the Centre such a haven of peace and healing for so many people!

So, we added some of the radiance (including some garden strawberries) to the birthday cake!

The cake made its grand entrance to the dining room accompanied by a lovely tune on the Northumbrian bagpipes, played by a wonderful course participant. To wrap it all up Adam gave a short but sweet speech about the Centre and then we all returned to our delicious lunches. It was a simply but beautiful celebration, and the cake was scrumptious!

It has been an honour to live on Holy Isle for the last month and help prepare meals for the wonderful community of volunteers, guests and course participants here! May the future of Holy Isle be full of peace, inspiration, love, light, and laughter so it may continue to benefit all sentient beings!

Posted by Eliza

Yummy Yummy

It’s not all porridge and oatcakes on Holy Isle you know!

Ruth from London enjoyed a surprise birthday cake in April. Having spent some time here in December the yummy scrummy veggy food lured her back for a spring visit.

Thanks Ruth for these photos and your lovely compliments for my baking attempts.

Posted by June ~ still a devoted volunteer!!

More young ones…

The last warm days of April suddenly saw three foals being born!

This one is still very wobbly with a big head and long sticky legs, but soon they’ll grow into proportion

 and roam the island with the rest of their herd…

 

Baby sheep

After the goats had all given birth, it was time for the sheep… Having spotted several lambs this year at different places towards the south end, we thought it was time to go for a photo shoot. Unfortunately the flocks that roam in the south of the island are much more shy than the ones that use to hang out around the centre. The latter most of the time just give us a bored look when we pass by, and just sometimes seem to pretend for the sake of excitement, when they run a few steps before continuing their grazing.

So when I had set out towards the south to get some nice pictures of the lambs for the blog, I mostly saw the sheep’s backs as they were running away. They have this warning whistle that one of them blows when you have stepped over an invisible security margin, and then the whole flock runs away, at the minimum too far for any amateur’s camera zoom to give a reasonable idea of how the lambs look like.
That day I discovered, that even the very tiny little newborn sheep are really fast runners.

Finally I managed to get one fair picture, by pretending to be interested in the waves of the ocean instead of the lamb, when passing a small flock on the beach, but was overall a bit disappointed.
What a pity, I thought, that the sheep in the north end did not lamb, it would have certainly been easier to approach them!

And then it happened: the next morning a guest told us he had seen a just newly born lamb outside the building, right at the wall close to the stupas. We went there and Edwin was able to take those beautiful pictures of the newborn that you can see below.

They stayed at the same spot throughout the day and even as more and more visitors came to admire the cute little being – among them some of the ponies – the mother didn’t seem particularly concerned or excited, but in turn looked at us with what we may call a look of astonishment…

posted by: Karen

Engagement on Holy Isle

Ryan and Gemma got engaged on the island last week on Saturday 19th April. If happy smiling faces foretell a happy life together, then Ryan and Gemma are definitely heading in the right direction.
Congratulations and good luck to them from the Holy Isle team!