wisehealing
A Disturbance in the Force
Stonehenge is not my most favourite sacred site, although i have visited it a number of times and also had a private session inside the stones.
Thanks jdpetti, for posting the link to the pics of the rather recent reconstruction efforts. i had seen them before but had lost the link. Yes, it's quite clear that English Heritage which manages the site, would rather that link not be available. Common knowledge of the site having been in such ruins just a century ago, would damage the mystique of course, and image and perception are really what it's all about in today's reality. If you visit Stonehenge, it's quite easy to spot where cement has been used to shore up broken sections of stones -- that is if you are open to that perceptual possibility, and are not gawking at something so "mysterious" and "ancient," (as is the intended perceptual orientation) and dismiss what might look like cement, because it couldn't possibly be the same thing mundane sidewalks are made of today.
In the 20s, before the heritage and tourist potential was realized, but as airplane traffic was increasing, suggestions were actually made to remove the stones altogether as they were potentially posing a danger to planes flying low over the barren Salisbury Plain. This was at a time when British archeologists were deeply engaged in foreign, (ie. Egyptian) excavations, Indiana-Jones-style, and were carting back to the homeland numerous ancient treasures, and there was little interest in finding ancient treasures so close to home.
Interestingly too that the official English Heritage website http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/ introduces Stonehenge this way: Walk in the footsteps of your Neolithic ancestors at Stonehenge . . . Actually, however, when you first enter the Stonehenge site you are made to walk counterclockwise around it, by clever pedestrian directing corridors. Any Pagan will tell you that this is going against the natural movement of the sun or going "Widdershins." Although moving Widdershins is sometimes done in rituals for banishing something, for normal purposes it is considered unnatural and energetically disruptive. And unlike many other major sacred sites of global significance, where the current inhabitants are not genetically or culturally related to the original megalithic builders -- Britons in general have been shown to retain a genetic link to the ancient wisdomholders who created the sacred sites, so numerous on the British Isles. So it would make sense that such deep psychic patterns as interacting properly with the land would also have been retained in deep ancestral memory.
Yet they make you walk opposite to the natural path at Stonehenge. Millions of people visiting the site all doing the same thing, would surely have a negative energetic impact. A small group of us once decided to walk properly -- clockwise, which wasn't a problem really, as there wasn't a large number of visitors that day all moving as a block. However, we were immediately shadowed by a guard in regular clothing who tried to look inconspicuous. i suppose they couldn't make it "illegal" to walk contrary to the implied direction or they would have to catch everyone who was just backtracking a bit to get a better photo.
Despite prevailing views through the centuries, that the ancient stone circles were the work of the devil and efforts made to remove or bury the stones (ie. at Avebury) there were always still some people who held antiquarian sentiments and valued the treasures and tried to interpret their meaning and/or repair and reconstruct them. So there still exist some old records of how Stonehenge looked then, the positions of the stones, and what reconstructive work was done.
Today the official policy is in retaining and preserving English Heritage sites as an immoveable image of the past, and permission for invasive archeological research is quite limited. (And rightly so after they destructively mined Silbury Hill at Avebury 3 times over the last couple of centuries, looking for "treasure" and found nothing.) The current research approach in vogue today is to interpret the purpose behind megalithic monuments non-invasively or simply intellectually, and devise new and ingenious theories (ie. astronomic observational, acoustic, symbolic, ritualistic, mortuary, cultural, practical, processional, energetic, representational of stellar positions or other sites) -- each which hold for a time, fall out of fashion, and await the newest revelation of truth. It's almost like megalithic monuments have become enigmatic puzzle boards or playing fields for the intellect only, encouraging both official and amateur analysis and theorizing and model-building to happen unimpeded.
Not to appear cynical, as there is a lot of merit to some of the understandings which have been made about the the basis of Stonehenge and other sites. But my point relates to the interaction Stonehenge and other sites have with our worldview and pre-historic perception/intuitive_knowing of who we are. Visitors and tourists may visit, and bring home a visual memory-piece (or an actual purchased souvenir) of preserved and unmoving (energetically dead) ancient history. Except for attributions of aesthetic beauty, they have no expectations of interacting in deeper ways with the site.
Interestingly, a renowned modern researcher of ancient sites, Aubrey Burl, makes note of the following observations and insights about the nature of Stonehenge:
". . . The Neolithic people who dug out the first Stonehenge around 3000 BC could not have anticipated what was to follow. More than 70 generations later, the Middle Bronze Age inheritors of a decaying monument of sarsens (boulders of ice-borne sandstone) would have had little understanding of what had been created so long ago, of what their forerunners had intended. It does not matter. What answers there are rest informatively in the remains that exist today. Stonehenge was never still. Change was continuous. There were transitions form earth to timer to stone to a different type of stone. Posts were set up and withdrawn; pits were dug, then backfilled. Bodies were cremated and buried in selected places with selected objects. Entrances were dug, one was widened. Its predecessor had contained a bewilderment of postholes. A two-man high heavy palisade, two-thirds of a mile or more long, was constructed to block the view. Later it was dismantled. There was always change, and always a reason. Everything had meaning and contained an elusive answer. . . Holes that have been interpreted as an astronomical calculator and the prostrate alar stone can all be seen, and every one of them had, and has a meaning. . . Stones were arranged in settings alien to those around them. . . The history of Stonehenge was as unstable as windblown leaves. Creeds and fashions mutated unendingly in men's search for means of ensuring the safety of society. Certain instincts run through all of human history: 'Still climbing after knowledge infinite, And always moving as restless as the spheres . . .'" p. 3 - 4, Aubrey Burl, Stonehenge: A Complete History and Archeology of the World's Most Enigmatic Stone Circle, 2006
Is his perspective really any different than how researchers relate to Stonehenge today (even though they don't see their own actions as part of truth) ? Although no actual interference with the physical stones is permitted today, the "reconstructions" and reinterpretations still take form in mental space in the intellectual domain, while thousands of less analytically interested people come out every summer solstice to emotionally re-create how they intuit the ancients related to the site, (yet this is given an irrelevant cult interpretation).
Personally, i feel we should pay attention to this immediate, personal and collective, relationship to sacred sites which we may feel or "know" on deeper levels. Stonehenge is not dead, nor is it unreal or missing something until it is "figured out" conclusively. It is active -- energetically, emotionally, formatively -- and the more we understand how to interact properly and effectively with it, with all sacred sites, and the land in general -- the more they will live for us, and inform us.
It is no big mystery. Sacred sites are to be lived, respected, and utilized. i myself am very drawn to nearby Avebury. i would live there without reservation if i could immigrate to the UK. Yes, i have also tried to interpret it and do agree with some of the previous, more energetically-inclined interpretations. But it is very alive for me personally, and i almost don't care to know it on that inactive level at all. i do feel it could be reconstructed more completely -- to serve a present purpose, while still retaining the evidence of the past -- but only if done with a deep consciousness and respect of its energetic and telluric significance. Or at least missing stones along parts of the avenues could be replaced, and as that is done, more and more understanding would come into awareness of its further purpose. This projected process is not dissimilar to how the ancients must have related to Avebury and Stonehenge -- however they were not impeded in further experimentation with it -- and that is why all the enigmatic alterations were made over time. Today, since we see it as a remnant of a remote, immoveable and mysterious past, of which we are no longer a part -- its significance only comes to us as incomplete, yet fixed and singular.
Sure the powers-that-be know a lot more that they are not telling us about the real significance of these sacred sites. If guards at Stonehenge have witnessed, during conditions of thick fog over the land -- a hole appear right over the site, and stars become visible -- something energetic is happening.
In 2010 i believe, there were plans to dig a tunnel right under the Stonehenge site, purportedly to divert and channel traffic on the 2 surrounding motorways underground, enabling a more peaceful experience for tourists. But some postulated there was ulterior intent involved -- to access and channel the deep energetics of the site for some sinister world domination agenda.
Thanks jdpetti, for posting the link to the pics of the rather recent reconstruction efforts. i had seen them before but had lost the link. Yes, it's quite clear that English Heritage which manages the site, would rather that link not be available. Common knowledge of the site having been in such ruins just a century ago, would damage the mystique of course, and image and perception are really what it's all about in today's reality. If you visit Stonehenge, it's quite easy to spot where cement has been used to shore up broken sections of stones -- that is if you are open to that perceptual possibility, and are not gawking at something so "mysterious" and "ancient," (as is the intended perceptual orientation) and dismiss what might look like cement, because it couldn't possibly be the same thing mundane sidewalks are made of today.
In the 20s, before the heritage and tourist potential was realized, but as airplane traffic was increasing, suggestions were actually made to remove the stones altogether as they were potentially posing a danger to planes flying low over the barren Salisbury Plain. This was at a time when British archeologists were deeply engaged in foreign, (ie. Egyptian) excavations, Indiana-Jones-style, and were carting back to the homeland numerous ancient treasures, and there was little interest in finding ancient treasures so close to home.
Interestingly too that the official English Heritage website http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/stonehenge/ introduces Stonehenge this way: Walk in the footsteps of your Neolithic ancestors at Stonehenge . . . Actually, however, when you first enter the Stonehenge site you are made to walk counterclockwise around it, by clever pedestrian directing corridors. Any Pagan will tell you that this is going against the natural movement of the sun or going "Widdershins." Although moving Widdershins is sometimes done in rituals for banishing something, for normal purposes it is considered unnatural and energetically disruptive. And unlike many other major sacred sites of global significance, where the current inhabitants are not genetically or culturally related to the original megalithic builders -- Britons in general have been shown to retain a genetic link to the ancient wisdomholders who created the sacred sites, so numerous on the British Isles. So it would make sense that such deep psychic patterns as interacting properly with the land would also have been retained in deep ancestral memory.
Yet they make you walk opposite to the natural path at Stonehenge. Millions of people visiting the site all doing the same thing, would surely have a negative energetic impact. A small group of us once decided to walk properly -- clockwise, which wasn't a problem really, as there wasn't a large number of visitors that day all moving as a block. However, we were immediately shadowed by a guard in regular clothing who tried to look inconspicuous. i suppose they couldn't make it "illegal" to walk contrary to the implied direction or they would have to catch everyone who was just backtracking a bit to get a better photo.
Despite prevailing views through the centuries, that the ancient stone circles were the work of the devil and efforts made to remove or bury the stones (ie. at Avebury) there were always still some people who held antiquarian sentiments and valued the treasures and tried to interpret their meaning and/or repair and reconstruct them. So there still exist some old records of how Stonehenge looked then, the positions of the stones, and what reconstructive work was done.
Today the official policy is in retaining and preserving English Heritage sites as an immoveable image of the past, and permission for invasive archeological research is quite limited. (And rightly so after they destructively mined Silbury Hill at Avebury 3 times over the last couple of centuries, looking for "treasure" and found nothing.) The current research approach in vogue today is to interpret the purpose behind megalithic monuments non-invasively or simply intellectually, and devise new and ingenious theories (ie. astronomic observational, acoustic, symbolic, ritualistic, mortuary, cultural, practical, processional, energetic, representational of stellar positions or other sites) -- each which hold for a time, fall out of fashion, and await the newest revelation of truth. It's almost like megalithic monuments have become enigmatic puzzle boards or playing fields for the intellect only, encouraging both official and amateur analysis and theorizing and model-building to happen unimpeded.
Not to appear cynical, as there is a lot of merit to some of the understandings which have been made about the the basis of Stonehenge and other sites. But my point relates to the interaction Stonehenge and other sites have with our worldview and pre-historic perception/intuitive_knowing of who we are. Visitors and tourists may visit, and bring home a visual memory-piece (or an actual purchased souvenir) of preserved and unmoving (energetically dead) ancient history. Except for attributions of aesthetic beauty, they have no expectations of interacting in deeper ways with the site.
Interestingly, a renowned modern researcher of ancient sites, Aubrey Burl, makes note of the following observations and insights about the nature of Stonehenge:
". . . The Neolithic people who dug out the first Stonehenge around 3000 BC could not have anticipated what was to follow. More than 70 generations later, the Middle Bronze Age inheritors of a decaying monument of sarsens (boulders of ice-borne sandstone) would have had little understanding of what had been created so long ago, of what their forerunners had intended. It does not matter. What answers there are rest informatively in the remains that exist today. Stonehenge was never still. Change was continuous. There were transitions form earth to timer to stone to a different type of stone. Posts were set up and withdrawn; pits were dug, then backfilled. Bodies were cremated and buried in selected places with selected objects. Entrances were dug, one was widened. Its predecessor had contained a bewilderment of postholes. A two-man high heavy palisade, two-thirds of a mile or more long, was constructed to block the view. Later it was dismantled. There was always change, and always a reason. Everything had meaning and contained an elusive answer. . . Holes that have been interpreted as an astronomical calculator and the prostrate alar stone can all be seen, and every one of them had, and has a meaning. . . Stones were arranged in settings alien to those around them. . . The history of Stonehenge was as unstable as windblown leaves. Creeds and fashions mutated unendingly in men's search for means of ensuring the safety of society. Certain instincts run through all of human history: 'Still climbing after knowledge infinite, And always moving as restless as the spheres . . .'" p. 3 - 4, Aubrey Burl, Stonehenge: A Complete History and Archeology of the World's Most Enigmatic Stone Circle, 2006
Is his perspective really any different than how researchers relate to Stonehenge today (even though they don't see their own actions as part of truth) ? Although no actual interference with the physical stones is permitted today, the "reconstructions" and reinterpretations still take form in mental space in the intellectual domain, while thousands of less analytically interested people come out every summer solstice to emotionally re-create how they intuit the ancients related to the site, (yet this is given an irrelevant cult interpretation).
Personally, i feel we should pay attention to this immediate, personal and collective, relationship to sacred sites which we may feel or "know" on deeper levels. Stonehenge is not dead, nor is it unreal or missing something until it is "figured out" conclusively. It is active -- energetically, emotionally, formatively -- and the more we understand how to interact properly and effectively with it, with all sacred sites, and the land in general -- the more they will live for us, and inform us.
It is no big mystery. Sacred sites are to be lived, respected, and utilized. i myself am very drawn to nearby Avebury. i would live there without reservation if i could immigrate to the UK. Yes, i have also tried to interpret it and do agree with some of the previous, more energetically-inclined interpretations. But it is very alive for me personally, and i almost don't care to know it on that inactive level at all. i do feel it could be reconstructed more completely -- to serve a present purpose, while still retaining the evidence of the past -- but only if done with a deep consciousness and respect of its energetic and telluric significance. Or at least missing stones along parts of the avenues could be replaced, and as that is done, more and more understanding would come into awareness of its further purpose. This projected process is not dissimilar to how the ancients must have related to Avebury and Stonehenge -- however they were not impeded in further experimentation with it -- and that is why all the enigmatic alterations were made over time. Today, since we see it as a remnant of a remote, immoveable and mysterious past, of which we are no longer a part -- its significance only comes to us as incomplete, yet fixed and singular.
Sure the powers-that-be know a lot more that they are not telling us about the real significance of these sacred sites. If guards at Stonehenge have witnessed, during conditions of thick fog over the land -- a hole appear right over the site, and stars become visible -- something energetic is happening.
In 2010 i believe, there were plans to dig a tunnel right under the Stonehenge site, purportedly to divert and channel traffic on the 2 surrounding motorways underground, enabling a more peaceful experience for tourists. But some postulated there was ulterior intent involved -- to access and channel the deep energetics of the site for some sinister world domination agenda.
