There is something deep within the psyche of the Scots that binds them to the land of their birth like an invisible, golden umbilical cord. Indeed the further we travel from home, the drums beat a little harder, hastening the heartbeat through our bodies, urging us back like proverbial frogs returning to where we were spawned.
I can’t say whether all those who travel far from their homeland feel the same calls home and the same sense of a lost and yearned for lover, but the Scots certainly lament the separation in words and song as if it were so.
As someone who left Scotland many years ago, stopping along the way in England (on missionary work) for a few years, then arriving in Australia ten years ago, I can say the trips home over the years have become more and more meaningful to me. It’s as if the simple act of soaking up the pure air of the highlands, and drinking the spring water actually has a restorative effect on my mind, body and spirit.
Of course I am well aware this is a biased, romantacised view of my relationship with this proud, small country, nestled in the Northern part of Europe. If you are not Scottish, you may be wondering what is so appealing about a country that is most famous for cold, slate gray skies, rain, haggis and golf!
Tribal nation
Everyone is different, but for me, coming home is about ‘reconnecting’. Scotland was, and still is to a certain extent, a tribal country, and it’s this instinct of tribe that I think must stir me when I come home. When I say my ‘tribe’ I don’t just mean, parents or siblings and aunties and uncles, but the tribes of the past.
For many years I have pondered my ancestry, and I think the older one gets, there is more desire to trace back where we have come from, we all need that sense of tribe. It may be a sign of the times that we are all living such separated and scattered lives and we need to gather the facts ourselves instead of stories being handed down by the generations.
It was this interest in the past and the need to reconnect with my family after we had suffered a huge loss, that led me back to explore Scotland once more.
“It’s as if the simple act of soaking up
the pure air of the highlands, and
drinking the spring water actually
has a restorative effect on
my mind, body and spirit”
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