The Island of Hidden Things

There are places where the land itself speaks in silence. Where what was buried was not forgotten. Where the past does not sit behind us, but beneath us—waiting to rise.

The Isle of Iona is one of those places.

This reflection came together in my mind in the early hours of morning—when the veil is thinnest, when my heart is most surrendered. I had been thinking about launching something new, something sacred—the idea still half formed and murky, begging to be called forth and crystallized in the morning sun. 

You know the kind. The kind that elicits novels of notes in your phone, that has you sending windy, hurried voicenotes to girlfriends from stroller walks. They kind that feels so big that you start to question “who am I to even do this?” But then, as the sun set on a day of attempting to call forth the uncallable and name the unnameable in between laundry, dishes and backyard sprinklers, the island whispered.

The island always whispers. 

Iona has always been a threshold between the visible and the veiled. An island of hidden things: sacred manuscripts buried in the earth, springs that rise from within stone, symbols that defy translation, secret graves of noble kings, and women who once led with silence and fire.

I want to walk you through that island’s buried wonders. Not as artifacts of history—but as mirrors of your own becoming. Each story, each stone, drop of water reminds us that what is hidden is not necessarily lost. And that some things—especially the holy ones—must be unveiled in their own divine time.

The Manuscripts Beneath the Earth

When Viking sails broke the sea's horizon, the monks of Iona did not run. They did not hide. They prayed. And then they buried what was too sacred to be burned.  Gospels. Psalters. Miracles written in gold leaf. Copied by candlelight, breathed into vellum by trembling hands. To call them texts seems an oversimplification - they were transmissions. They hid the books beneath the soil, deep in the earth of the holy island, not to abandon them, but to protect what was too precious to be plundered.

But here’s what I can’t shake:

Not all of those manuscripts were ever recovered. Some are stillburied beneath stone and moss. Many that were recovered were destroyed or stolen away to the private archives of those who think they can rewrite our history. With them, we lost songs that could have healed, revelations that could have guided and artistry that could have awakened the sleeping. Can you imagine the energy field that these objects could have shaped above ground in the right hands? 

The Spring That Rises from Within

At the top of Iona, past the abbey and the old stone crosses, lies Dun Ì — the island’s highest point. It is not imposing. It does not dominate the landscape. But climb it, and you will find a well, tucked in stone, overflowing. Slowly. No one dug this spring. It rises on its own — not from rainfall, but from somewhere deep within the hill. For centuries, pilgrims have come here to drink. To be blessed. To see more clearly. To receive. This is the mystery of holy work: It flows not from force, but from surrender.

The Stones That Refuse to Translate

Before Saint Columba landed there in holy exile to build a community at the edge of the known map, before the legends of Christ walking ashore unraveled into the ethers, there were the Picts. The Picts, we’re told, were an ancient, enigmatic people who lived in what is now Scotland from roughly the 3rd to the 9th centuries. Cloaked in mystery, they left behind no written language—only symbols carved in stone, wild and luminous, as if meant for heaven’s memory more than history’s record. They were warriors, seers, and sky-watchers, known for painting their bodies blue and guarding sacred sites long before the arrival of Rome.

Still standing on Iona and across the Hebrides, their monuments bear spirals, beasts and unknown alphabets. Meanings lost but not diminished. Power and portals intact. The marks were left for those who had the sight, the eyes to see — the ones who could feel, not just read.

The Last Veiled Leader

In the 16th century, long after Saint Columba’s monks had copied their last scrolls and the great tides of power had begun to shift, there was still a woman leading prayer on Iona. Her name was Anna MacLean, and she was the Prioress of the Augustinian nunnery—a sacred sanctuary for women who chose a life of devotion on the edge of the world.

Anna’s grave slab still rests on the island, her figure carved into stone. She wears layered robes, a pleated rochet, and a heavy cloak fastened with a clasp called a morse—a symbol of spiritual authority. She gazes forward, steady. Silent. Her hands once held the structure of a house built for God. Some say the lower part of her effigy once showed the Virgin Mary, flanked by the sun and the moon. An image now lost—like so many stories of the women who tended flame behind monastery walls.

Anna was likely the last prioress before the nunnery was dissolved. The last veiled leader to walk Iona’s cloisters with full authority. The final woman to govern sacred rhythm in stone halls carved by prayer. And though her legacy is rarely told, it remains literally etched in the rock of the island—a reminder that women did not merely pass through Iona. They held it.

Where the Kings Are Buried

They say that forty-eight kings are buried on Iona. Scottish. Irish. Norse. Men of crown and blood and legend. They came at last not in living bodies to be seen, but to be buried. To disappear into the land like seeds sown in consecrated soil. No one knows exactly where all their graves lie. The abbey yard holds a few weathered markers, crosses worn smooth by centuries of wind. But most of the royal resting places are unmarked. Hidden. Intentionally.

Why here? Why this remote island of wind and stone, rather than the gilded cathedrals of the mainland? Perhaps because Iona was the threshold. The veil. The edge of the known world—where the seen and unseen touched. To be buried here was not about honor. It was about returning to the mystery. And perhaps they believed, in some way, that even after death, they would rise again—not as rulers, but as part of the land that held the prayers of saints, the footsteps of pilgrims, and the flame of the Spirit that never went out.

A Quiet Return

Some things take years to rise. Not because they are lost—but because they are becoming. A line that’s waited in your journal. A glimmer you’ve seen but never spoken aloud. The softness you’ve learned to hide, even though it burns with truth. The idea that returns again and again like a tide. Not every offering is meant to be loud. But the ones that are holy will not stay buried forever.

And maybe that’s what Iona reminds us. That the wind remembers what you’ve silenced. That the saints still tend the fires you thought had gone out. That even the carved stones—beasts, spirals, unreadable signs—are still speaking, waiting for someone to recognize what they carry.

A Soft Unveiling

When Unveiled revealed itself to me, it wasn’t during a work session or planning sprint. It was while nursing my daughter. While the house was still. 

A whisper came through: “It’s time to talk about marketing. But differently. Holy.”

Unveiled is not a strategy. It is a sanctified rhythm. It is for the women who feel like their offering is too sacred to promote,
too deep to explain, too real to reduce to bullet points. It’s a 4-week workbook to help you bring it forth — with reverence. With structure. With Spirit.

Because some things must be unveiled. Not for applause. But for the ones who are waiting in the dark for the light you’re carrying.