KILMENY

Kilmeny

Bonnie Kilmeny, our fair maiden, wears her cootie (a torn piece of rag or fabric from the participant used to dip in healing waters, then hung out to dry on nearby trees where faeries and druids recede) as she sinks into the sacred healing pond.

She is traveling through the mystical waters as an amorphous body transported to paradise. This infamous poem, KILMENY, written by James Hogg in 1813, allows us to follow her as she journeys through the heavenly wilderness of meadows and streams. She returns home from a contrasting direction per her cootie ritual to always chooses a new path from where she originated. (Thus giving us a perfect metaphor for the path of life.) 

Upon Bonnie’s return, she exemplifies a renewed and exquisite beauty.  

...is it from the sacred waters that she exhibits her brilliance?

...or her preview of celestial life?

...is seeing paradise what grants true beauty?

...is this a chimerical existence that is only possible in experiencing the great beyond?

Or can we transition this wisdom through meditation with glimpses that emulate the existence to live in two worlds as Hogg describes it, and discover our true inner beauty without physical passage?