The Centre Of The Universe

[poliphilo]

I was standing by the concrete post that marks the position of the obelisk- once the tallest stone in the Avebury circle but long since destroyed- and it was like I was at the heart of a machine- the inner parts of which are the stones, the ditch and the bank- and the outer parts of which are the sun, moon and stars- and I thought that if only I could find the switch, the whole thing would revolve like a carousel- with the stones bobbing up and down like horses to beautiful fairground  music.  And then it struck me that any place where one chooses to put down a marker is immediately the centre of the universe and the heavenly bodies will dutifully dance around it. 

I was in this elevated, sort-of-druidic state of mind- and looking like an authority-  when a Russian schoolgirl with a reluctant friend in tow- detached herself from her party and came across the rough grass to ask me a heap of questions. They had driven past Stonehenge, she said,  but hadn't left the coach because it looked so forbidding with all the fences, and now they were in this place she'd never heard of before where they could wander freely and actually touch the magic stones and she was full of glee. I hope I talked sense. 

Comments

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

When the Worlds Fair came to Knoxville in the 1980s, I saw in the Chinese exhibit some of the stone horses and soldiers that had been unearthed in Chinese fields, and I was so transfixed by something numinous in the room that I really couldn't bring myself to leave for long moments, even though my family had moved on. I've never had that feeling before about inanimate objects.

Without being in the meadow where these standing stones are, I can't feel that charged air, but somehow I can well imagine it in that place.

Amazing that the lamb looks so peaceful.

(I am reading a book about snake handlers, an oral history of three local families who live in the hills not 100 miles away. I am juxtaposing their services, which, distilled to their essence, become shamanic in their super-conscious states, with the probable shamanic energies still in these fields, in the rocks. Fascinating. You said yesterday something about how stripping away the mystery may have been a mistake, and I agree: to overcome our earthbound muddy humanness, we need to somehow by some means reach beyond to the numinous, which I do believe is all around us always but hard to touch.)

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean, Jackie. I saw some of the Chinese terracotta warriors and other figures in London last December and was transfixed. They had the exhibit set up in such a way that you came around corners and were staring right at them.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You can see- from the first picture- how people feel impelled to touch the stones- to make some sort of connection.

The really huge stone in the second picture is known as The Devil's Seat. It has a sinister reputation. Minutes before I took the shot there was a young woman crouched in front of it, muttering or chanting to herself, performing some sort of private ritual.