Picture This: Dunure Castle Crumbles by the Clyde

The Firth of Clyde gnaws at the Heads of Dunure like a dog upon a cracked skull. Down the coast of southern Ayrshire the sea cliffs spill their stony brains into the sea. Against the salt-flecked wind stands Dunure Castle, a shell of inspiration left behind long after the unknowable spark has passed. I crouch in the sand and rocks beneath its facade, brushing away the grit clinging to tiny, calcified sea creatures, look upward. Across the firth, the Isle of Arran seems to bob in the surf. There are castles there, too, and all across the width and breadth of Scotland. That the Kennedys ruled here and built Dunure in the 13th century matters little to me. Dunure represents a thrust at the heavens from those men and women who gaze upon stars and wonder at their own origin and legacy, who, like children chasing fireflies, clap their hands upon the downspiral of inspiration and fashion rough-hewn bodies to house it. I wonder if this is magic, when an idea is as fragile as a candle flame in the Scotch wind, as prone to slip our grasp as the drifting cottonwood and dandelion seed, to create the image in the mind’s eye. Dunure reminds me of the answer – that wonder is the essence of magic, and that not knowing is the means to work it.