Ive just come back from a week holiday away in the gorgeously delightful tiny village of Port Appin, on the west coast of Scotland, almost equidistant between Oban and Fort William.
I wrote lots, and read less, but didnt write anything here (or on my substack – if you’d like to subscribe to me there heres the link https://substack.com/@jamesballantyne1) , mostly wrote out alot in my journal and some ideas. But mainly I walked, along either way of the coastline.
The first thing I noticed when driving into the village was that the road was single track, with passing places every so often. The village was only accessible by two small roads, and on the Monday I walked back along the road (no pavement, as you can see)
Because at the end of the road was the jubilee bridge, across the estuary. A bridge, incidentally that was so narrow it fit one person at a time.
The Passing places on the road fascinated me though.
The bridge added to it as well.
It meant that there was always going to be some kind of interaction between people (or people in cars) to negotiate the passing of each other.
Speed was only rude. Barging past the other as likely to cause accidents.
So it meant that entering the village was only an opportunity to acknowledge the other, a raised hand of ‘thank you for letting me pass’ or ‘thank you for waiting for me’ . Im not sure what happens on the bridge though, as in 4 days I didnt see how this would be negotiated as there were so few people.
It was a gentle reminder to me of the passing places, and letting things pass, holding things lightly.
As Micheal Singer writes in ‘The Untethered Soul’, so much of our internal suffering is due to ‘Clinging’ onto things, holding them too tightly, whether emotions, memories, responses and anxiety, or being so close to something we care about it too much. The Irish describe emotions and something has ‘come upon me’. But decisively it is not me.
In a passing place two things meet, in the places in our lives, it might be many more, two emotions, work, people, feelings, fears, thoughts, dreams and pasts, all meeting with each other, and sometimes the path feels laden heavy, and entering a passing place can feel like leaving it heavier than prior to entering. We picked up more than we left down, more weight, more fear, more responsibility, something else clung to us. To the point of sometimes stopping moving. To weighted down by what someone else gave us in that passing place, guilt, expectation, shame – and yet they left lighter having disposed of their weightiness.
On other occasions the passing takes place with no one else, its those moments when memories pass with emotions, when dreams pass with thoughts, when thoughts and thoughts pass by each other, and sometimes the two parts stick together rather than pass – and clog up the whole road, blockages, or theres tension between the two and peace has shifted.
Prior to being away a number of things were in my passing place, lots of anger, stuff to do with work, and for quite a few weeks , the passing place was more clogged up, heavy, weighted, tension between so many parts that I couldnt see how beautiful the scenery was around, couldn’t be grateful, struggled to be anything like calm or separate from what I was feeling. And though much of that had begun to clear the week before, the image and reminder of the passing place on the holiday, early on was a tiny reassurance and remembering of allowing myself to be, and to let go of the things that were causing harm, for….they are and were not me, just things that hurt.
I can, and you can, leave the passing places, you have more power than you realise. Yet in the passing places so much can demand our attention, combine, circle around each other – and for there not to be gentle movement, noticing of the speed, and grateful acknowledgement of what the moment was there to teach us, and softly, still gently we give ourselves distance from it, until the next passing place around the corner….
James Ballantyne 