Stonehenge: end of August, 2011.

A few days ago my husband and I went to Stonehenge...




Notes from Stonehenge as I sit on the grass. 


The ground feels as if it is full of thousands of powerful roots. The ground is warm, lithe, alive.

So many people here, a constant flow from all over the world. They mostly stand and stare, the audio guide like a mobile phone fixed to their ear..

Above me a grey sky, it is quite cold.

The starlings are massing for their exodus, they gather here, many sitting on the horizontal lintels of Stonehenge, feeling winter's approach.

Sound of a motorbike, a plane, the rise and fall of sound; so many people talking. The wind rushing through the grass behind me.

To my right rain clouds gather on the horizon -I pull my hat down to cover my ears.

The ground is a disc, Stonehenge the mandala.

A few moments ago three policemen came to stand, looking over from across the road and through the fence...Two Chinooks rose from the trees to our left and flew almost skimming the ground. Stonehenge and Wessex retains its ancestral warrior land; war never goes away.

Close to the stones two English Heritage officials stood blowing bubbles, a secular ritual; heart warming and safe, absolutely non-offencive.

To my right a couple just like us, clutching their M+S bag, sitting, having eaten; he is describing Stonehenge to her, now talking about Woodhenge.

We sit on my black, army poncho strewn with bread crumbs, a half empty pot of olives. I'm beginning to long for coffee as another plane skims the clouds over head.

People stand in groups or meander widdershins; laden with bags and cameras. Above our heads black flies circle as the cloud breaks and I feel sunlight warm my back. People sit, a few lie down.

The 303 is a river of cars, before me and to my left I see perhaps six round barrows -over to my right and in the distance more barrows. I wonder how far it is to the cursus separating the land of the dead (where we sit) from the land of the living. There are people pushing others in wheelchairs and pushchairs.

I suddenly imagine Stonehenge as Lourdes.

A Japanese couple take photographs, he is trying to get an image of her feet. Most people are dressed for summer and are I imagine cold. I'm in leather, with and insulated coat; I'm still cold.

A swoop of starlings, the sound of a lorry on the 303 river...time for us to circumnavigate...

Today made me see Stonehenge in a totally different way. Use alters a location -not only the tangible, visible aspects, but the atmosphere and how the very ground itself feels. The never ending flow of visitors and their expectations of Stonehenge as a midsummer magnificence reflects back.

Someone else's film of the solstice night:


I like this version of Stonehenge very much, it is so different from standing inside the ring of stones after the visitors have left.

Here is the other entrance:



If ever I start to feel grumpy about people mistreating sacred sites, I simply think of the Christians and how their major festivals have been turned into shopping sprees and chocolate fests; how so many people have been murdered in the name of Christ and that basically Pagan is so open and all encompassing and so old, it makes me smile!