WHY Am I Up This Late?!?

Yeh.

I just looked at the time; it's after three-thirty in the morning.

And I realized that I think I know why I'm up so late.

The People of Scotland are going to the polls on this day, which really doesn't have anything in particular to do with me specifically.

But, you know, over the past year and a half I've spent so much time with Characters from 1500 years ago and more - in the Scotland of today but the Albann of the Story - that it feels to me as though they're watching what happens through my eyes.

Well of COURSE that's not the least bit logical; it's just the way I feel. I write fiction; I don't have to make sense. Handy, that.

And so here we are ... me and the Dunnottar Folk:
Mamm
Danann
Sidhelagh
Alianora
Drustann
Sass
Thann
Caileen
Talorc
Aine
Kalann
Merri and the rest of the Younglings of AD 487/88 Dunnottar:
Diann
Corrbed
Dothan
Brann
Rua
Dedan
Saba
Saorsa
Colum
Mamm and Marra

the Cast of Perth
the Cast of Tarnos
the Cast of Iona
the Cast of Dunnottar

Ullin of Iona

Hells Bells. I've got a damn house full here. Excuse the cuss words.

And I can't seem to extricate myself from the sensation that these, representatives of the ancestors of not just myself (in part) but of Scotland in general, are indeed somehow watching today - watching for the same thing that I'm watching for: to see how this chapter of their Song, their Story, their Legacy, plays out.

And here is the Legacy, at full flower:
Faith
Family
Friends
Freedom
the Future

Here too the Voices of the Song:
Choice
the Spiral of Creation, Life, Death, Eternity
Peace
Faith
Healing
Hope
Love
Unity

Being as everyone on that list up there except me has been dead for more than a thousand years, I have to be 'Spokesperson'.

And these words are for the descendants of all of the above, as representatives of their 'real' counterparts:

'Come what may, focus on Unity within Scotland. With it you are unbreakable. Without it ... ah but you will not BE without it now will you? You are in our hearts. Bless you, each and all. You are Our Song, the Keepers of Our Legacy. We love, we endure, always.'

Well now, aren't they a sentimental lot.

I wonder if that's a trait of their descendants too, or if it's just them.  

Ah well.

The vigil continues from here in the center of the North American continent, clear on the other side of the globe, and prayers go winging their way.

God bless us every one.