(Salmon in the stone, for non-Scots-speakers)
The ancient symbol stones of Scotland display images of animals that can still excite us to awe or wonder, though we know nothing of what they meant to their creators. Salmon, eagle, bull, horse and deer - they can draw us toward a reverence for the natural powers that surround us - air and water, earth and fire - and inspire us towards wisdom.
We call them Pictish for lack of any other name, but since recent DNA evidence suggests that most of us in Scotland have always been there, and that we are in fact mostly descended from speakers of the lost languages of the British Isles, I'm comfortable, as a half-Irish Border Scot with Scandinavian tinges, to call them my own, and to call out to them in my dreams.
its
our dreamin
time
muves
muves
our dreamin hairts
time
be na feart, be na feart
And in our dreams, these emblematic figures move us toward becoming who we are. Each step we take towards becoming who we are, each insight or vision, slowly helps us to inhabit the world better. We also inhabit the word, and that is the poem's function: the marriage of words and worlds.
So what can the salmon in the stone tell us?
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