Blog Posts

I’ve been engaged in aspects of Scottish Gaelic oral tradition for over two decades and have been advocating their value and importance for as long. Now that I have a young child, I read traditional stories to her in Gaelic and often wonder what impact they have on her, and how they have subtly shaped… Read more

Since announcing the creation of Hidden Glen Folk School some six weeks ago, I’ve been incredibly busy doing talks and performances, preparing classes, attending events, writing blogs, producing podcasts (in the Hidden Glen podcast series – FaceBook group here), networking, and arranging future events. It’s been quite fun and exciting to connect with people interested… Read more

The aspirations of modernity to enable humanity to transcend physical limitations, such as death, are not only self-deluding but dangerous. Our current environmental crisis demonstrates that the long effort by civilization to dominate and exploit nature without deference to the cyclic character of the organic world – attempting to impose a linear process of extraction,… Read more

How do you breathe the spark of life into a language which has been marginalized, if not destroyed, by a legacy of colonization and stigmatization? Can we regrow the bonds of community by rejoicing in the vibrant musical traditions of the past? Do we lose something of the authentic center of a culture if we… Read more

Put down your tartan, kilt, and family tree, at least for a moment. There is no avoiding the fact that song-poetry not only pervades Scottish Highland life and history but that it has always been the form of cultural expression with the greatest social prestige and cultural weight. While other societies might have considered architecture,… Read more

Only a few species of large wild mammals continue to exist in the Highlands of Scotland, and many of these are now managed on large private estates for the pleasure of a few élite landowners. Although there are many local legends about the killing of the last wolf, some of these claim that the last… Read more

Stories matter. The stories that are told to us and that we tell to ourselves mold our expectations and aspirations, suggest role-models or villains, indicate what is desirable, possible, or unacceptable, and provide a constellation of cultural reference points that are absorbed, whether consciously or unconsciously, into our psyches. Native peoples all around the world… Read more