Sacred Sites
Megalithic Monuments in the UK
As a young child growing up in England Stonehenge was a familiar site a place where we used to stop on the way to our holidays in the West country, and where my sister and I would clamber happily all over the stones with no thought of their origin or significance. In recent years as my interest in ancient spiritual practices has deepened, so has my curiosity about these megalithic monuments so in 2005 I decided to make a journey to sacred sites in the British Isles with an intention to experience them through a different lens.
These sites appear in various forms, markings on the land like the chalk cut Long Man on the South Downs in East Sussex such a familiar site on visits to my mother in England. Huge standing stone installations like Stonehenge, Callanish and others. Pathways and circles as found in Merrivale on Dartmoor, and Neolithic burial chambers like Spinster's Rock among many found in Devon. All of these are symbols and signs of an age where traditions and ceremonies reflected lives that were strongly focused on the natural cycles of nature, the pathways of the planets and a knowledge of the earth's geomancy long since lost to us.
Swinside Stone Circle, Cumbria
Travelling to Cumbria in Northeast England we found a countryside full of villages where old stone houses with slate roofs cluster beside mill streams, sheep graze in the meadows and bluebells carpet the woods. Soaring above are steep climbs and rocky valleys cut by tiny creeks rushing between mossy banks. Then there are the fells, the wide, open grasslands where sheep graze the rough marsh grasses and unexpected formations of rock bear witness to those who have walked this land before us.
We were in search of Swinside stone circle. Recalling days of geography classes, we consulted an Ordnance Survey map and sure enough the map showed the circle, the details of the narrow laneways crisscrossing Swinside fell, and the access road to the farm property on which the circle stands. Other map markings indicated sacred wells and graves on the land nearby.
As we began our journey I experienced the most distinct grounding sensation through my lower energy centers. I checked into this and words came 'remember who you are, you are home here, this is your land, remember in whose steps you tread, remember your ancestors'. My body responded with a clear deep energetic charge, it seemed the message was that the spirits of this land knew us and we needed to acknowledge them with great honour and respect.
We felt the appropriate approach would be to make offerings and ask permission to engage with these primordial energies. We found a place high on the fells above the circle to lay our offerings on a stone. A short side note here is that offerings left in such places should always be of local biodegradable substances. As we made these offerings we heard a clear and distinct whistle. At first puzzled, we waited, then again it came, not by wind, not by person made, this was an otherworld sound that we interpreted as a response to our request and a welcome.
We ventured on to Hodgewife Well, a spring marked by three huge stones ten or more feet high, set up on a knoll on the windswept fell. An offering again, a moment of wonder at the waters still flowing in this harsh landscape where life and death dance at the mercy of the elements.
Looking down from Hodgewife Well we saw the stones circled in the field far below, nestled in a bowl formed from the rolling hills surrounding us. The leylines ran from the four directions their crossroads at the centre of the circle in this cauldron that contained the sacred rites of the old ones.
Winding our way down the fell we came to the track leading to Swinside Farm and the field in which the circle lay. Bounded by stone walls and busy with sheep in their lambing, we watched as these warm creatures moved with ease amongst the megaliths familiar scratching posts, shelters and resting places. On the grass at our feet the afterbirth of lambs born this sunny day, while nearby a newly born licked by the mother's tongue struggled to find its feet for the first time, staggering against gravity as it reached for the milk of life from ewe's nipple.
The stones stand, the stones sing, again the whistle, we know we are welcome. Circling outside and greeting each stone we are met by warmth and greeted as old friends. Entering the circle we feel the presence of the old ones, we sense the resonance of the many ceremonies held right here in this site, celebrations, rituals, rites. Drumming for the stones, lifted by their vibration and the ancient ones, gifts from the time before time whence we all emerged.
Come drum and sing, you are welcome, we live for your presence, we are your remembering. We stayed and sat and wondered and experienced the stones and the spirits of the place glorying in the warmth and brilliance of the sun of that day, finding it hard to leave them. As I write this, I feel the stones still calling, the sense of them is in me now, their songs are in my drum, their vibration is in my body and my bones know where they belong.