Sunday, September 15, 2013

Stonehenge England




Cari Amici (Dear Friends),
I have been visiting one of my Angel Academy fellow artist friends, Wendy, in Bristol, England.  The other day we drove to Wiltshire to see the famous prehistoric monument Stonehenge.




Stonehenge is believed to have been built anywhere from 3000 BC to 2000 BC. and while many observations have been made about how the specific placements of the stones coincide with natural events (sunrise, sunset, winter and summer solstices, and more), it still feels as though we have more questions than answers.  

It now costs eight pounds to get in, with a free audio guide that I felt was actually interesting and useful (I do not always appreciate this commentary in art museums).  Sadly, due probably to the negative behaviours of humans being selfish, one can no longer walk amongst the stones and the ropes that are quite tempting to jump over are fairly distant from the monument.  I behaved… really.

Although the consensus of Stonehenge is that it was a gathering place for people, I would have loved to have been alone and walking amongst the stones at dusk.  I want to touch them and smell them.  The audio guide told that there are over 90 different specimens of lichen on those rocks.  There are many colors in the stone, visible in their subtleties even at the distance we had to stay.  Some of the stones have enough iron in them that when they fall over or are horizontal, one can clearly see the ferric red color “flowing over” the stone.  And they believe that human sacrifices were done on these sacred stones.  I only see more questions than answers.  Are we not a complicated lot?