Stone Circles and Sacredness

Stone circles have always fascinated me. The sheer amount of work needed to make them considering the resources and technology available at the time and the mystery surrounding their purpose combined with their alignments with various solar and lunar positions make them for me monuments to wonder itself. The complexity and intricacy of Stonehenge is a large part of its character as the interpretive image (below) from a 2014 Guardian article illustrates. But Castlerigg’s charm is in its comparative simplicity: from the lack of horizontal lintels to the flattening of the northeast arch of the ‘circle’ which makes it more of an oval, this monument gives me that feeling of amateur love and enthusiasm that sometimes can fade in professional execution. It’s like the difference between an under-21s and Premiere-football match, or like the difference between a International and Major-League baseball game. There is just something fresh and hopeful about Castlerigg. The stunning peaks circling the monument add to the sense that anything that humankind will ever build on that spot will be but a shadow of what nature has already provided. Somehow, the oval with its asymmetrical sanctuary stones are just right.

Yet again I am nattering on about our recent visit to the Lakes. There was a sign at the entrance stating that a famous poet whose name I have forgotten visiting Castlerigg some years ago was disappointed by the large number of tourists. The large crowds apparently spoiled the atmosphere of sacredness for which he was searching. I have to agree. Although the numbers present on the day of our visit could hardly be said to constitute a crowd, their tendency to drape themselves and their belongings on the ancient stones carried with it a certain lack of awe and consideration for what might be experienced at this monument that I too felt disappointed. I remember having a similar feeling at Stonehenge. Although, there, ropes keep visitors from the sacrilege of indifference, I did have this urge to wait until everyone was gone and sneak a cheeky glance at Mother Gaia from that most intimate of perspectives: from inside the circle!

Reading about the disappointment of the poet from another time got me to thinking about sacredness. I suspect now that sacredness is not something we find when we go to mystical locations. It is something that we bring with us. We make these spaces by our behaviour in them. And because sacredness requires vulnerability, it only comes out when it is quiet. It reminds me of something that acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton said about deer drinking from a creek: the noise of the creek blocks its ability to make surveillance, so…it drinks and then it moves back into a quiet place so it can continue to be secure. Because sacredness will not come out in the noise of other’s indifference, it can only come out when we are alone or if the others with us are also bringing the vulnerability of sacredness into the space as well. No matter how thirsty we are for sacredness, just like Hempton’s deer, it will not linger in an unsafe space.

Photo Credits

Looking up at Castelrigg: My beloved
Me at Castelrigg: My beloved
Stonehenge Interpretation: The Guardian

Fruit, bread, cheese, and a tarn

One of my favourite moments of our recent holiday was after we got our tickets to Hill Top House and we had a four hour wait as they used timed entry to control the crowds. The ramble in the intervening time suggested by the woman at the entrance turned out THE recommendation of the trip. A 30-minute uphill walk through field and fauna led us to not just a physical location, but seemingly another realm, large expanses of quiet and peace: just landscape, sky, and an occasional farm animal.

We had packed a lunch earlier that day, stopping at a local bakery for a freshly baked loaf and a local grocer for some fresh fruit and a small hunk of cheese. When we purchased these flavourful morsels, we did not know that we would be eating them nestled by a quiet tarn. Occasional aquatic fowl landing and taking off. An occasional cloud slow dancing past the warm sun. The vibrant, many hues of green from the regular rain that this habitat normally receives, glistening in the bright rare long stretches of sunshine. That sit was serenity manifest. The vastness of the space and the intensity and freshness of the flavours in our lunch mixed to form an intoxicating multidimensional atmosphere.

And I love the word tarn. It reminds me of crosswords with my Putney workmates, which we did standing in the basement workshop. II’s one of those short English words that hints at something that I might have known had I been born and raised in an earlier time that was intimate with nature instead of the urban and virtual one with which I have become familiar.

Photo Credits

Moss Eccles Tarn:  My beloved

Did it rain?

Recently my beloved and I went on a short holiday to the Lake District or as it is referred to here: The Lakes. It is interesting how experience and perception shapes our reality. Only a few hours drive from our home on the edge of the beautiful Yorkshire Dales, The Lakes immediately transported us to a much more distant, even more beautiful world. We happened to go during the hottest part of the sunniest summer we have ever experienced since coming to England nine years ago. The rolling hills and lakes, the sudden change in landscape, and the alien weather transported us to another country and time, perhaps Vermont or upstate New York from summers of our pasts. The uniqueness of our experience became particularly apparent in the weeks following. The first time someone responded ‘Did it rain?’ to my mentioning our first visit to The Lakes, I did not take notice. But it wasn’t long until that I learned that this response is apparently obligatory when someone tells you that s/he went to The Lakes.

We stayed in a sleepy town called Grange-over-Sands, which is located on a bay. At high tide, it looks like any other bay, but at low tide, it becomes a giant shoal. It looks like someone drained the bay.  There is a lovely, quiet promenade that we walked several times.  But even that is not the typical Lakes experience as we discovered driving through Windmere on our way to Hill Top (Beatrix Potter’s Farm), where we saw Disney-sized crowds and traffic. The people in Windmere were in The Lakes too, but they were a world away from us. We drove through serene passes, no other vehicles in sight, that were once or twice interrupted for just a few seconds by a Tornado fighter jet zigzagging aerial acrobatics and then it was gone. One of the passes that we drove through, the road was called ‘The Struggle’: my little Corsa’s 56 horses concurred. We drove down this country lane that was literally a few centimetres wider than the car and then we found ourselves face to face with a tractor coming toward us. The lane got even skinnier in reverse so that we could turn into a side lane to let the tractor pass. Each day, the 14 hours of August Cumbrian daylight, unencumbered by the blanket of clouds typically present in the northern skies, brought a level of warmth and light to the air reminiscent of the Mediterranean.

In one sense, this holiday was the shortest and the closest to home that we have ever been on. But in another, we have never travelled so far. Or, put another way: No, it didn’t rain.

Photo Credits

Panorama: Wikipedia
Beatrix at Hill Top: The Telegraph
My Beloved at hillTop: Me
Me: My Beloved

Did it rain?

Recently my beloved and I went on a short holiday to the Lake District or as it is referred to here: The Lakes. It is interesting how experience and perception shapes our reality. Only a few hours drive from our home on the edge of the beautiful Yorkshire Dales, The Lakes immediately transported us to a much more distant, even more beautiful world. We happened to go during the hottest part of the sunniest summer we have ever experienced since coming to England nine years ago. The rolling hills and lakes, the sudden change landscape, and the weather transported us to another country and time, perhaps Vermont or upstate New York from summers of our pasts. The uniqueness of our experience became particularly apparent in the weeks following. The first time someone responded ‘Did it rain?’ to my mentioning our first visit to The Lakes, I did not take notice. But it wasn’t long until that I learned that this respond is apparently obligatory when someone tells you that s/he went to The Lakes.

We stayed in a sleepy town called Grange-over-Sands, which is located on a bay. At high tide, it looks like any other bay, but at low tide, it becomes a giant shoal, like someone drained the bay.  There is a lovely, quiet promenade that we walked several times.  But even that is not the typical Lakes experience as we discovered driving through Windmere on our way to Hill Top (Beatrix Potter’s Farm), where we saw Disney-sized crowds and traffic. Those people were in The Lakes too, but they were a world away from us. We drove through serene passes, no other vehicles in sight, that were once or twice interrupted for just a few seconds by a Tornado fighter jet zigzagging aerial acrobatics and then it was gone. One of the passes that we drove through, the road was called ‘The Struggle’: my little Corsa’s 56 horses concurred. We drove down this country lane that was literally a few centimetres wider than the car and then we found ourselves face to face with a tractor coming toward us. The lane got even skinnier in reverse so that we could turn into a side lane to let the tractor pass. Each day, the 14 hours of August Cumbrian daylight, unencumbered by the clouds typically present in the northern skies, brought a level of warmth and light to the air reminiscent of the Mediterranean.

In one sense, this holiday was the shortest and the closest to home that we have ever been on. But in another, we have never travelled so far. Or, put another way: No, it didn’t rain.

Photo Credits

Panorama: Wikipedia
Beatrix at Hill Top: The Telegraph
My Beloved at hillTop: Me
Me: My Beloved