Categories: uncategorized
Date: 23 August 2005 10:47:30
First off I'll make it clear, I refuse to pay an enterance charge to go into a place of worship for any religion (although I am more than happy to make a voluntary donation towards the upkeep). However, as I have an English Heritage membership card I got around that ethical problem when we stopped off at The Stones on our way home from the West country.
It was a wierd experience in terms of the feel of the site and the way it is set up as a tourist attraction, with almost no acknowledgement of the spiritual importance to the neo-Pagan community. This may explain why there was a strange mixture of hot and cold places, interms of the energy / feel of the site. I found it very disconcerting in many ways. As we first wandered around the circle there was almost no feeling of it being a sacred place, but then part way round it began to feel different and have a similar energy to other recognised areas of spiritual importance I've visited (Glastonbury, Holy Island, etc), although this stopped about another 1/4 of a way round. It would be interesting to see a ley line map of the site to see what they say. All a bit confusing for my belief system because although I'm more into the idea of God creating spiritual chill out zones (what the Celts call Thin Places) I always thought these were whole sites, rather than parts of sites. Also there is the GLE side of me which wonders how I "safely" incorporate this into my belief system.
Still it was good to finally visit The Stones, as they have played such an important part in the political and alternative culture of this country over the last 30 years or so (particularly in relation to The Battle of the Beanfield and other parts of our history that we need to remember and continue to learn lessons from) as well as obviously all the thousands of years of other history and spirituality they have contributed to before that.