Iona and Staffa

To me, nowhere on earth epitomises heaven on earth quite like Iona. From the moment you step onto her white sand shore, after crossing the turquoise blue waters from the island of Mull, you feel like you have landed into another realm.

Perhaps this is how St Columba felt too when he arrived on these shores and established Iona Abbey in the 6th century.

What soon becomes clear to a pilgrim here is that the divinity of Iona extends back far before Columba’s arrival.

At the top of the highest hill on Iona, Dun I, lies the heart shaped Well of Eternal Youth dedicated to the goddess Brigid, after who the Hebrides are named. The pinnacle of hill is also shaped as a heart.

Iona is connected with the dove, the holy spirit of the divine mother, and is a place where time shifts. A retreat on Iona is a balm for the soul.

A short distance across the water lies Staffa, an uninhabited strangely geometrically shaped island that rises out of the sea like the imaginings from a science fiction novel. Not only is Staffa, and its caves, a geological wonder but it is also a haven for wildlife.