Inside Stonehenge

I can’t believe two weeks has passed already since our wonderful night at Stonehenge. I’m sure time is elastic, not constant. It seems to pass in a very strange and fast way sometimes, and for the last few months that’s what it’s felt like for me. I never seem to get half of what I need to do actually done.

Mr B and I were invited by a lovely and very loyal Stonewylde fan to join a group visiting the inner circle of Stonehenge during the night of the August full moon. We met up with our guide David Rowan and the group at Avebury, and walked around the stones before sitting in the pub and listening to his very interesting potted history of Stonehenge. What a fascinating and entertaining man David is! I’ve been on some other guided walks around stones before and have been quite shocked at the lack of real information that’s passed on. Supposition and speculation are not the same as facts and proper history. However David was superb and presented his talk with a lively sense of humour too. Sujee and I posed for a photo in our Stonewylde T-shirts by one of the Avebury stones.

As darkness fell, we drove to Stonehenge, and by the time we arrived it was totally dark. Sadly no visible moon. However – as any moongazy readers well know, the energy and moon magic are as strong whether you can actually see the moon or not. As we were let into the locked site, I felt so excited. The security was tight and it made me feel even more honoured to be there. It was a chilly night, windy but not actually raining, and I’m pleased I wrapped a blanket over the five layers I was already wearing! In fact being wrapped in a blanket made me feel more at one with the ancestors who created the place. They wouldn’t have been wearing a Weird Fish jumper nor a waterproof jacket (nor a Stonewylde T-shirt for that matter!!) So a blanket just clasped over my head and around my shoulders made me feel more appropriately dressed. Although it wasn’t animal skin or coarsely woven wool of course. I’m digressing here.

In the pitch dark the nine of us entered the stone circle. If you’ve ever visited Stonehenge when the hordes of tourists are there in the daylight and walked far too quickly order phentermine from canada around the jumble of stones and felt mildly disappointed – believe me, you’d have appreciated the difference of this visit. The stones loomed HUGELY over us. I pressed myself up against one and felt myself melting into another reality almost. The size and majesty of it!

In fact it wasn’t pitch black at all once your eyes adjusted to the darkness. As the road is so close, there was a constant although not too obtrusive, stream of cars whizzing past every so often. As the cloud was so thick, the light from what I would imagine was Salisbury was reflected back, a weird orange colour which you can see in the long exposure of the photo above. But it was still dark enough to be very atmospheric and very private.

I don’t want to say what I felt in that circle in great detail because some things are best kept private. But I did feel an immense affinity with humanity as a whole. The human race – our silly, ambitious, crazy species and all that we aspire to and create and destroy. That sounds like a line from a Pink Floyd song and actually dark side of the moon seems appropriate. “Everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon”. It was a partial eclipse that night and it would have been wonderful to see that, but we imagined it anyway, and certainly felt the energy and tingly excitement of the full face of the moon. I imagined the thousands upon thousands of human beings who’d stood inside that circle (including a little eight year old Kit Berry and a little Mr B too, at different times of course). I imagined their faces and bodies and how they must have experienced hopes and dreams, love and sorrow, just the same as we do now. I had a very strong sense that night of being connected to everyone by the thread of imagination and creativity that we all carry within us. It really was a very magical night and one I shall never forget for as long as I live.

Thank you dear Sujee for making it possible. Thank you David Rowan for being such a brilliant guide and being such fun. You can find out more about David’s work on his website which is http://www.davidrowan.co.uk/