For a couple of weeks or so, this blog is going to be used for some reflections emerging from our artists retreat on Fairisle, the most remote community in the UK – a tiny little island between the relative hububs of Shetland and Orkney.

Today we arrived, after 4 and a half hours driving, 12 hours on a ferry (to Shetland,) taxi for 15 minuites from Lerwick to Tingwall, a 25 minute flight in a small plane, then a short hop in an island car (there are no ‘roads’ here, and no MOTs!) to the lovely Lower Leogh, with its hobit-sized doors, cosy warm fire and total peacefulness.

We have almost two weeks.

It feels miraculous, and impossibly greedy. After all, we live in such beauty already (it was actually quite anxiety inducing to leave my garden at this time of year) so why would we need an artists reteat like this? What use would we put such a thing to?

Well, the answer to the first question is easier, in that we both very much need some time out, to take stock and to consider again the roots of what we do. Creativity is often like a well that refills as you take from it, but you can take too much. Looking forward to this year, I am very conscious of how much I want to do, to say and to lean in to.

Time is short. Life is fleeting.

Life is also beautiful.

It is there in the lovely laugh of my little grandson, in the worries and triumphs of my kids, in the spring leaves and the space between stars.

We were talking on our long drive about the old Jesus statement about us having ‘life in all its fullness’. I understand this so differently now, not as a call towards correction of sinfulness, but rather as a call towards an on-going encounter with our true selves, made real only in deep connection.

How do we find this connection? For me, this is through meaning making through art and wild shorelines. It is also in veg beds and oak trees. It is most real and least abstract (even now) when I encounter something that points me towards ‘god’, although we might have to dig much deeper into what I mean by ‘god’…

In fact, this book has come with me;

…the rigid and self righteous certainty of some religious people – and some atheists for that matter – is something I find dissagreeable. The hubris of it. The sanctimoniousness. It leaves me cold. The more unshakeable someone’s beliefs are, the more diminished they seem to become, because they have stopped questioning, and the not-questoining can be accompanied by a moral superiority… a bit of humility wouldn’t go astray.

Nick cave in conversation with sean o’hagan

I find Cave’s music a bit hard to swallow mostly – with some notable exceptions – but this book is based around a conversation between friends, and it is perhaps this that allows it to speak to me more clearly. Connection comes to me strongly through friendship- the sort where even when we talk about surface things, we also meet at a deeper level.

Where profanity mixes with profundity. Where we find each other absurd as well as inspirational. Where we hit each other with cudgels made from kindness wrapped in a tissue paper of merciless abuse.

In a strange way, here on this island, I feel these friends to be close. Perhaps because lingering on islands with friends has been such an important part of my becoming.

Michaela had a greater challenge than me today, on our stunning (and rather scary) small plane flight. We were the only passengers in a six seater plane that was even smaller than I thought it might be. But what a view. What a gloroius view.

So, from our tucked-in place of rest and renewal, here is a video I made of this bit of our journey to get here…