THEIR OWN ANAM CARA...A JOURNEY OF DESTINY

Her name was Sarah Evangeline Hale. The year was 1625. She, a proud descendent of the Pictish people, one of the founding races of the British Isles on her father’s side and Irish and as fey as they came from her mother’s side, had been banished from the Loch Lomond area, the land, which for the most part, had been her home for the better part of her life, to the vast wilds of Ireland. The intent of the crown was that lads and lassies from Scotland would be sent to Ireland to breed out the pure Irish, and, is so doing, drive Catholicism out of the Emerald Isle. Evangeline, or “Angel,” as Sir Ailin, son of Lord Aelean of Drummond called her, had been taken in the wee hours of a winter morning and placed on a ship which sailed into an area known as Belfast. Plantationists (known only to themselves, as “gentlemen”), picked up the unwilling passengers and transported them back to various lands for pre-arranged marriages. Angel had been hand-tied to Ailin when they were both infants. The wisdom of this lay in both of their heritages. He, a lord and nobleman in his own right, and she, nobility from both the Pict heritage and her Lunney ancestors, who were of the first clan kings of Ireland. They grew up together, chasing through the woods and up and down stairwells in Drummond Castle. He taught her how to take care of herself in his absence; she, growing into a Celtic woman, able to war if the necessity ever presented itself, and she, teaching him the rudiments of ancient healing, as her druidic grandmothers had taught her. It was when she turned 14 years of age that she realized what he really meant to her. As she was looking for herbs in the forest one day, the realization hit her and hit her hard. She looked up at the clouds and whispered this to Ailin, though he was nowhere near: “Why do I feel as though I may be coming face-to-face with my destiny? Why, when I hear your voice or read your words, do I feel a certain wholeness? What is it about you that makes loving you so easy? Could it be your hugs or your gentle words? What is it about you that makes me trust you? Is it a heart full of compassion, a thirst for knowledge, The new-found wonder with which you see the world? That which stands on the edge of my consciousness, That inner voice which tells me I may be looking at my Anam Cara and what I feel is ancient recognition….. Is it then true? Have I come face-to-face with my own destiny?”