In 2022, Scotland apologised to those it accused under the Witchcraft Act. In 2024, the UK signed the UNESCO convention on intangible cultural heritage. The old festivals are being celebrated again, in public.
These are first steps, and they matter. They are also just the edges. An apology names a wound. A convention names a heritage. A celebration names a day. None of them puts anything back.
And the cost keeps rising. One in five people in Scotland say they are lonely. More than half say they have no religion — and the want for something sacred has never been louder: in the return to the land, to the old ways, to the unseen, to what can't be explained. The systems we were told to trust are failing apart in front of us. There is war. There is chaos. And there is a growing, unmistakable want for what was taken.
Naming it was the start. Now it has to be put back — all of it, in relationship, together.
If you are someone who has honoured the sacred, and held space for the ineffable in a world that called it pointless — let us hold it with you.
If you are someone who has given your life to a craft, a practice, a knowledge that could not be counted — let us carry it with you.
If you are someone who cannot forget those our history wronged — let us make amends with you.
If you look after a place where people come to be together, to belong — let us show what the numbers cannot.
If you are someone who backs what cannot be proven, because you know it matters — let us build it with you.
If you have been doing this alone, it is time to do it together. Meet us in the heart of the in-between, and let us show the world the way in.
