Student Voices - The Big Shed

Written by Gordon Smith

I love a double entendre, but where’s the smut in the simple title, “The Big Shed”? Spoiler alert. There isn’t any. There are, however, some alternative meanings.

The first one isn’t really a meaning. It’s just a thing. That’s because The Big Shed, at Tombreck on Loch Tay, is where we Rites and Rituals Scotland ceremonialists met for our second training session, this past weekend.

“Shed” is a little unkind though. It’s a bright, modern, timber-framed building and was built using local, natural, renewable and reclaimed and recycled materials. It sits within a tiny rural settlement, adjacent to the Ben Lawers National Nature Reserve, and enjoys uninterrupted views over Loch Tay. It’s perfect for what we’re doing, and in the most amazing location.

Honestly, you can almost feel your blood pressure drop as you arrive on site. Especially on this, our second weekend, when all the nerves and anxiety of not knowing what lay ahead that we’d experience on our first weekend were lessened, if not banished.

The rural setting of Tombreck leads me to another meaning of “shed”. At the risk of showing my age, it reminds of the TV program “One man and his dog” where shepherds and their dogs had to persuade half a dozen or so, sometimes naughty, sheep around a set course.

Before getting them into a pen at the end, one of the elements they had to navigate was the shedding ring, where two of the sheep were separated to mimic the need to isolate particular ewes for a specific purpose.

The metaphor I’m herding you towards is the setting aside of time, space and items; the creation of the sacred, to explore our own understanding of spirit and spirituality. Much like the sheep on the show, I’m quite comfortable as we traverse the course, taking our time on the trickier sections and relaxing a little on the more straight forward elements.

The only real difference between analogy and reality is that we don’t have any dogs snapping at our heels, and we have two of the kindest, wisest, shepherds to guide us.

The final definition of “shed” I’m drawn to is the casting off, or peeling, of a skin. Of course, there is discarding too, but I think casting or peeling suggests something more natural, even if the creatures we bring to mind aren’t our favourites such as snakes, larva, and spiders.

In each of these examples the skin is shed, either in its entirety or in pieces, over time but each must do it in order to grow. Shedding doesn’t just allow the animal to grow though. It also removes potentially harmful external parasites and, in many cases, allows limb regeneration. Even we humans shed dead skin cells to reveal newer, healthier skin.

That’s what we’ve been doing. Shedding our metaphorical skin and growing spiritually. In my case some parts are more stubborn and may take a little longer to shed and renew but I definitely feel cleansed, and a degree of regeneration.

Underneath, I’m still the same me. I still have the same beliefs and values. It’s just that I’m learning to view and appreciate them from a different perspective and enjoying myself along the way.