About Leob

In the becoming between past, present, future

There is a place in Scotland, an island in the Inner Hebrides archipelago, whose nature has much to tell the pilgrim who, by destiny, has reached it. This place is Mull, the Isle of Mull, a natural bridge for the earliest Celtic, Druidic Christianity which, from Iona, at the westernmost tip of Mull, moved toward the European continent in the first centuries AD, bringing a cosmic, luminous dimension of the idea of Christ.

In this place of rare beauty, on the road to Iona, stands a croft, nestled in a natural setting of incredible biodiversity. The croft tells us that humanity arrived here and began to weave a dialogue with the natural environment. And yet, nature remains powerful, majestic, unstoppable in its forces of growth, especially in the summer season.

Leob Croft: this is the name Jonathan Knight and his wife Ann gave to the place. Jonathan and Ann were the founders of Leob Croft, and here, slowly, over the years, they have arranged and built a place on a human scale, where the dwellings, which favor wood, make their inhabitants feel at home, in an intimate, warm dimension of home.

The history of the croft is rich with events and people who have lived here, contributing to the biography of this place, bringing ideas and different impulses.

Now the croft is experiencing a new transformation and, like all transitions, one can simultaneously experience openness to the new and vertigo, possibility and uncertainty.

In our organic and biodynamic croft, pasture, woodland, and wetland coexist. Two cows, two donkeys, six ducks, a chicken, the bees and two cats are part of this rich microcosm.

Here the sky changes faster than human thoughts: now the sun filters through soft but determined clouds, now it suddenly begins to rain, and the wind can sometimes be a prodigious titan.

The light, above all, passes through living beings and rocks, and outlines the feminine forms of the hills that stand where the sea reigns. A rich sea full of life, dark and deep, with stories of ancient men to tell, of a time when navigation was both escape and conquest.

The croft itself is bordered by the sea on one side. And before our gaze, opposite the croft, separated from it by a stretch of sea, lies the Burg, a majestic hill whose shapes hark back to the ancient volcanic activity that characterized the primary geological formation of all of Scotland. This strange hill form, the Burg, reminiscent of a ziggurat, stands still as if observing the island and its inhabitants, and quickly becomes a landmark when returning home. Indeed, the Burg always emerges, silhouetted against the observer's horizon.

Mull itself has a fascinating geological history, and you don't have to be an expert to sense, as soon as you begin to travel the narrow roads that crisscross the island, the antiquity that is everywhere, like a wise presence from the depths of time. Its rocks, which on Iona appear to be the oldest in the world, have captured the spirit of men who lived here millennia ago, men who attributed to these rocks, stuck in the ground like standing stones, a value as a reminder of the spiritual experiences these humans had in certain places. And so the pilgrim may happen to encounter, along his path, perhaps near an oak tree, near a stream, an ancient stone, or a stone circle that has been there since time immemorial.

Leob Croft is a living part of Mull, mysterious and impenetrable in some ways, despite having been inhabited for many years.

And Leob Crobt can offer the attentive and sensitive traveler the possibility of entering the deepest and most imperceptible dimension of nature, where it meets human nature so much so that every observation in the field ultimately becomes an observation of dimensions within oneself, within one's own intimate nature.

THE NOW

After several incarnations, traversed by people and events, Leob Croft is now experiencing a transitional period, moving toward a direction it hopes to embrace in the social dimension. We dream of developing a place here where anyone who feels the need can come and stay for a period of time. A place where one can have time—time to think, to understand, to feel better, to rediscover the deepest human dimension with oneself and with others.

Leob Croft doesn't currently have a community dimension, and we know how difficult it is to talk about community. Therefore, for now, the word "ark" represents the impulse that drives and motivates us. It's not about saving a few from the catastrophe of the world, no! It's about offering those in need, young or old, a space of time where they can be supported while immersed in a natural environment that is healing within itself. Finding rhythms more connected to natural time, in a dimension that allows it, and perhaps working a little in the garden, or with the animals, and talking with those who live on the croft. Or just being in silence.

The project is wonderful and challenging, and requires work and imagination to find a good group of people with whom to develop the ideas and make the existing spaces habitable year-round.

This is a work in progress.

This is the story of a dream trying to come true.