During the ‘Sight and Sound’ week run by The Iona Community in Iona Abbey (Early September 2026), we were invited to take paper and drawing materials into the abbey, let the space speak to us and record something we would not usually focus on, in whatever medium we had equipped ourselves with.
Previously during our visits to the abbey for worship, I had noticed markings on some of the stones (there are in fact unique markings on every single stone) and I wondered how stone-rubbing might respond to our brief. So I equipped myself with wax pastels and discovered amazing contours and detail in stone after stone after stone. It was a thrilling exploration – and gave rise to the speculations below.
Who Laid This Stone?
Who laid this stone?
Did it take two or three pairs of hands
to shift it into place
as another irregular course was constructed?
Was it laid in torrential rain,
or on a day when a warm sun
made the labour feel tolerable,
despite the discomforts
of calloused hands and aching limbs?
And might any of those artisans or monks on site
have noticed that embedded in the hefty grey stones
were shells (which we now know to be fossils)?
I fall to wondering about the
unimaginable forces and high-speed collisions
arising from God’s provision
of planet-building dynamics,
which gave birth to
the medievally-mined stone
of which the lower courses
of this house of prayer and mission
were constructed.
