My earliest memories of Stonehenge go back to primetime television on lazy Sunday mornings. As mom, dad and baby brother huddled together over breakfast and BBC, I would plonk myself in front of the TV and flip channels till something interesting caught my eye.
During one such free-flipping reverie, I chanced upon a solemn line of hooded, chanting druids in coarse, dull, flowing robes walking around the most eerie arrangement of stone columns in primeval England. Riveted and intrigued, my initial response, stupefied and childlike, is far from mentionable in print.
“Is that Mars?” I asked!
Many years later, as we chug along the open, empty spaces of Salisbury towards the most visited heritage site in England, Stonehenge, it occurs to me that there is a touch of the extra-terrestrial in these parts.
“During a certain period, large crop circles etched into the surrounding, golden fields made headlines on the international media,” says Rosemary, my host and now-turned gracious guide. “Some attribute these large supernatural formations to alien spacecrafts, others to dubious media-hungry farmers,” she adds with a knowing wink. Aliens or no aliens, the serene expanse of nothingness that surrounds me is breathtakingly surreal.
Stonehenge is the most popular of prehistoric stone formations that are scattered over parts of Southern England. With a dateline that goes back to around 2500 BC, this remarkable arrangement of Sarsen and blue stones are shrouded in mystery. Each stone weighs anything between 5 and 20 tonnes, and there isn’t a similar arrangement for miles around. How were they built? Who performed this supernatural feat? The truth is no one really knows.
Theories range from the stones being magically transported by Merlin, flung from the air by the devil to more rational Neolithic, Dane, Roman, Celt or Saxon origins. For those who enjoy dabbling in the occasional fantasy, there is even a belief that dancing giants were transformed into these imposing stone door-like structures.
Back to raison d'être, what could possibly inspire generations of pre-history into toiling for 30 million man-hours to erect something this abstract? Quite expectedly, the reasons are diverse, and range from the sit being used as an astronomical observatory, a hoary burial ground to a cosmic temple. Quite a heady mix of history and legend that implores visitors to do their reading before they get here. Else, like the busload of camera-toting sightseers that spill out of the bus before me, the place is merely reduced to a happy picnic spot. Having soaked in a fair deal, we decide to head along to the nearby town of Avebury.
Avebury is not on the classic route of the typical tourist, but this sleepy reclusive town offers one of the most striking tours of England’s past. More stone rings greet us here, monstrously far flung to encircle a town. The awe-inspiring presence of these stones firmly dug into the earth is contrasted by gentle, bleating sheep that graze around its base. No fences or barricades keep you from reaching out to touch them, and during that tactile moment, race back a thousand years to medieval England.
Quaint, thatched homes are flanked by well-tended lawns in clustered, pretty blooms. A striking stone church that dates back a thousand years greets visitors cheerfully, despite the sombre graveyard around it, where souls of the past peacefully reside.
I am introduced to the concept of a kissing gate by the spirited elderly couple I am with as they skip lightly across its entrance, an affectionate peck for the other as they pass by. Both Steve and Rosemary are into dowsing, and as they pull out their dowsing rods, I prepare for the lesson of a lifetime.
“There are numerous energy lines intersecting and passing under the ground we stand,” says Rosemary. “Dowsing helps you identify these energy circuits.” To illustrate, she holds a rod in each hand as lightly as possible and steps across the central shrine’s threshold. To my astonishment, the rods swivel suddenly and change direction. She asks me to do the same, only to have my rods behave the same way.
“We need to believe that ours is a metaphysical world of energy, not merely gross matter,” she substantiates. The experience baffles me, and for the next twenty minutes, I find myself absorbed by the concept of energy lines in the universe. As we walk along the large stones in the periphery, I marvel at these infallible structures that have possibly witnessed every major event, years before the birth of Christ.
The house in the distance was possibly an Anglo-Saxon settlement then, the trees reminiscent of times in the past. Little children that once played around them grew to great grandfathers and are now peacefully buried under these mounds. And the stones stand resolutely, watching over the change that the universe brings. For miles around, there is little but empty green.
With the exception of the solitary stone ring that runs along the periphery, the landscape is empty and sparse, and yet, the experience has filled me as none other in the past.
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