On holiday with Lorna on Orkney. There has been time for
a ‘George Mackay Brown’ pilgrimage!
I have always been blessed by GMB’s work, and am reading
again Ron Ferguson’s wonderful study of the poet and writer’s spiritual journey,
George Mackay Brown: the Wound and the
gift.
I am moved to read of Brown’s struggles with anxiety and
melancholy which reflect my own, and I see in my life too an intricate
connection between woundedness and perception.
I loved this paragraph from Ferguson’s book which I read
this morning. (The GMB quotation is from For
the Islands I sing.)
The first line of Shakespeare that George experienced –
the opening of The Merchant of Venice
– intrigued him: ‘In sooth, I know not why I am so sad/ It wearies me.’ In
later life he was to reflect ‘These words should be carved over the lintel of
my door: in a way they express perfectly my life and my way of looking at
things – a tremulous melancholy, a mystery through which are glimpsed and
guessed from time to time forms of beauty and delight.’
Here are some photos taken at Stromness yesterday:
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| Painting of GMB by Ian McInnnes hanging in the George Mackay Brown room in Stromness Library |
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| Mayburn Court, Stromness Home to GMB |
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Another painting of GMB, this one by Fred Schley, also on
display in Stromness Library. I love it that Brown's face this picture, despite
a hint of resignation, is the face of a man who has seen both "beauty and
delight."
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Love this!
GMB's rocking chair, where he sat in what he called 'the work trance' seeking
visions, dreaming dreams, conjuring the beautiful from obdurate syllables. It
is now in the Stromness Museum, just across the road from Mayburn Court. |
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Bust of GMB by Tuck Langland in the George Mackay Brown
room in Stromness Library
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The GMB Memorial Garden at the west end of Stromness. 'The
Haven inside the bay' is the literal meaning of Hamnavoe, the old Viking name
for Stromness. An image of perfect security. See also the two following images
- the garden could do with a little more wholehearted care!
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| The George Mackay Brown Room in Stromness Library |
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The ferry Hamnavoe
viewed from the first floor of Stromness Library
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