Stanton Moor Circles

Nine Ladies stone circle, Stanton Moor

There is a very well known stone circle on Stanton Moor, known as ‘Nine Ladies’. It was one of the first circles to be protected in law as an ancient monument by the Victorians, and is visited by huge numbers of people each year. History has not always been kind to it; it has suffered much abuse over the years, yet it manages to be welcoming to many. However, within a few hundred yards of it are other circles, now stone-less, that have managed to retain their bank. On one free, cloudy day, I went in search of these.

Ring Cairn on Stanton Moor

My walk took me past the cork stone, and then left (North) up the ‘central’ path of the moor. The first ‘circle’ I found was just beyond the crossing of the paths, on the right hand side. It is marked on Ordnance Survey maps as ‘Cairn’, as it is believed to have been a ring cairn. There is quite a strong, friendly energy field around the side that remains – it had been recently used for some purpose and the remains of a fire could be seen on a rock near the centre. I found the gift of a sheep’s jawbone complete with teeth on the heather in the exact centre.

South Circle just about visible, Stanton Moor

Continuing along this path, on the same side is believed to be the remains of a stone circle. It consists of a raised bank forming a complete circle, slightly larger than the ring cairn, marked on the map as ‘enclosure’. There are no rocks present, the energy field is very low, and there was little to recommend it on this day.

King’s Stone with the Nine Ladies circle beyond; Stanton Moor

I knew there was another circle on the other side of the path before I reached the Nine Ladies, but I failed to see it. The Nine Ladies were dancing alone, so I spent some time there, clearing it of rubbish and reacquainting myself with its space and the trees around. Just outside the circle is the King’s Stone, according to legend the fiddler to the ladies’ dance on that Sabbath when they were all turned to stone. There is a very strong energy connection between this stone and the circle, easily felt by most people I have ever taken there. It may have always been strong, or it may be that the many visitors have in fact forged this connection. (Many times I have felt well-walked footpaths with my hands as a flow of energy. I really must work on distinguishing different causes and increasing what I can learn beyond which way it flows!)

Trying to make some notes, I realised I had dropped by pen somewhere. I had a bit of a look around, but couldn’t find it. Disappointed I sat on a rock and wondered what to do next. Then, realising I was actually quite upset about it, I asked that I may please find my pen, and the other circle.

Central Circle, Stanton Moor taken from outside the circle

Retracing my steps while counting them, I found my pen easily the second time. By careful counting I also found the middle circle, which had no path leading to it or round it. It was the largest of the circles and had a complete bank around it, with lovely strong, protective energy within. Trees grew just outside the banks adding to the sense of being in another world and time. It felt really quite special, hidden as it was, with a focus on peace and completeness.

Central Circle, Stanton Moor, taken while sitting inside the circle. There is a strong sense of enclosure from this level, with birch trees all around the outside of the circle but not encroaching upon it.

Finally I made several attempts to find the ‘Northern’ circle, although I knew it to be badly damaged and overgrown. The bracken was up to my chest, the ground covered with brambles, rocks and ruts from vehicle tracks long overgrown. I tripped and found myself sitting in a jungle. While I am fairly sure I was in the right place, and could get a sense of it energy-wise, trees grew on and in the circle and it was not possible to see or photograph anything meaningful. Instead I turned around and walking back to the path a different way, found the wonderful Oak tree I wrote about last week. I had already learned what I needed to from the land, and was being shown something else.

I attempted to journey later, to try and understand the relationship between the circles better. While on this occasion nothing was clear or coherent to me, I had the following impressions:
The circles were used at different times, with some of the stones being moved from the previous circle to the new one.
The energy flowing through the Earth at this point is not stable but twists and turns like a serpent; the prime spot moved over time or possibly over the year with the seasons and with the rainfall.
There is a strong connection to the Andle stone. (A large lump of rock with some carving half a mile to the West; just outside the Open Access Area and not yet visited. Originally Anvil Stone.)
There was tribal conflict in this area, and different chiefs gave their influence through the circles and cairns where their remains were interred.

Whether there is any truth in these impressions I have no way of proving. What is known is that the King’s Stone is exactly on a line between the Nine Ladies circle, the Andle Stone, and Doll Tor the other side of the Andle Stone, which probably marks Imbolc / Samhain sunset if there were fewer trees. This may help explain why this energy link is so strong.

The other three circles line up along a SSW / NNE line, Nine Ladies being just off this line. They are of slightly different character and may have been done at a different time, by a tribe with a slightly different set of practices.

There are around 70 burial mounds on Stanton Moor, which covers an area only about a mile long and half this wide. Most have been found to contain cremations from the mid-Bronze Age, some several, and a bronze knife was found in one.

The Cork Stone is also recorded as having had four sanding stones around it pre-quarrying, and a symmetrical pothole usually containing water in the top. (I haven’t yet climbed up it…) There were also three large stones along the gritstone edge, natural outcrops that would have been seen from some distance.

As a witch I cast circles regularly, indoors or out, wherever I chose to connect with Spirit and create ceremony. As a mother however, I sometimes struggle to explain how what I do is equal to those going to a splendid building like a church when I have no equivalent to show or books to read. Yet in the circles can be found an outdoor temple where people of many faiths and none still come to marvel, and frequently, to pray. On a personal level, I would love to know what directions they called in these circles, given that the cardinal points do not appear to be significant in their construction, why the entrances are where they are for each circle and how they used them, and the significance of the egg shape so many have in this area.

Communing with the Ancestors

Duddo Stones, Northumberland

This is the third and final blog post relating to my recent holiday in Northumberland, and needs a bit of background.

Before I went on holiday, I sent out a request for what I wanted to get out of the experience. Good family time, range of activities, good food, balanced weather, all predictable sort of stuff for holiday enjoyment but by stating what I wanted I helped it to happen. Then I considered something else I don’t normally do – how good a holiday I wanted. I’m sure you are wondering: could I really make a request like that? Well I had never tried before and wasn’t sure if it was possible, but it felt right. I looked at it in terms of a scale I use frequently when pendulum dowsing, for example buying (or usually not buying) books or other items online. The scale runs from 0-7 and I have learnt to interpret it as follows:
1 – useless
2 – passable
3 – okay
4 – good
5 – very good, worthwhile
6 – brilliant
7 – life changing

So for this holiday I thought I wanted a 5 or 6 … until the day before I left. Then I started to wonder why I was shying away from accepting something that might be life-changing.

At the back of my mind may have been the book ‘Pilgrimage with the Leprechauns’ by Tanis Helliwell, in which she takes a group of people around Ireland on a pilgrimage that doesn’t exactly go to plan but gives people what they need so as to be potentially life changing for each individual. Sometimes something ‘bad’ might have to happen in order to make the positive change needed – like a broken leg, or illness, and this was what I was shying away from. Having recognised what I was scared of however, I decided to accept ‘life-changing’ for myself and trust that it would lead to something positive.

I had quite a good activity plan for the week in my mind, having learned by past experience that the more research I do before a holiday the better. I included such things as beaches, castles, Alnwick gardens, etc, with flexibility to suit people and weather. One day, towards the end of the week, had a somewhat vague plan, starting at Etal village market and exploring the various ‘attractions’ there and in the twin village of Ford. For various reasons my ideas didn’t work out, and we found ourselves both with an unplanned afternoon and needing to find a shop to buy food for the next two days. Suddenly a new plan emerged. To find a supermarket in Berwick, going via the Chain Bridge Honey Farm and also the Duddo Stones which I had really wanted to visit but couldn’t see a way to fit them in sensibly. The holiday had just taken on its life-changing dimension.

I hadn’t been sure how to get to the stones, and my directions to the driver would have been wrong – but a sign was spotted that led us the right way. It was then a short walk across fields to the stones, on the top of a slight rise, growing ever larger as we approached. And when I got there, like at Bamburgh beach, I realised I had been there before many centuries ago.

Single Duddo Stone, Northumberland

The dialogue I had with the stones was fairly simple, after all I wasn’t alone, but I made a promise to work with my ancestors to do whatever healing was needed. I did not have any idea what I was promising at that stage, just an amplification of a feeling I have had for some time that healing was needed, and trust that I would be guided in what and how to do this. I also didn’t know what ancestors, how long ago they had lived, or how they related to me – but I was fairly sure they had more to do with racial memory than blood or family ties. I then sealed my promise with the gift of a seashell I had planned to keep.

Later, back at home, I did some journeying to find out what the ancestors wanted me to do. It actually took two journeys, the first I lacked focus and clarity about what I was journeying for and also lacked a drum (not wishing to disturb others) and I found the Duddo stones covered in a blanket of snow. I was with my power animal, who seemed unimpressed by me, met a person dressed in simple dark brown clothing who I was unable to communicate with, and a snow and ice dragon who, as always, had a much simpler and more direct message for me. Use the drum. So two days later I did that, and was shown the Duddo stones as they had looked when I was there previously; they were in a large clearing but surrounded by woodland. My power animal was now in her element, leaping through the woods, running, playing, splashing through streams or small rivers. Returning to the stones, there were many people there, and they had a strong message for me. They had started the removal of the trees, and that was what was wrong and why I hadn’t recognised the stones until the last moment. The countryside was now almost bare of trees. And the land was suffering as a result. All the work I and others do with weather to help keep it in balance is much needed, but until we plant more trees and enough of the land is wooded once more there will never be true balance. I need to use my writing to spread the message, need to do far more than the short tree stories I am currently writing. I also need to learn how to drum at or near power sites, such as stone circles or waterfalls in woodlands to spread healing.

I still have a lot of work to do to fully understand this message, especially the last part! and to really make a difference. I feel somewhat overwhelmed by the responsibility being asked of me, but if every journey starts with the first step, my first step is to be brave enough to post this. Thus my commitment to trees (and to dragons, but more of them later) is sealed. Will this be life changing? Well in one sense it simply feels like the logical next step on a journey I’m already on – I just hadn’t seen it yet. However, it also feels like it needs to be bigger than anything I’ve done before. Time will be the judge.

Timelessness

Cathedral Oak, also known as Millennial Oak, in Savernake Forest, Wiltshire. Girth almost 10m at 1m above ground.

Last week I was on holiday in Wiltshire, enjoying some Spring sunshine and frosty nights, and revisiting some very old trees and even older stones. To be in the presence of living beings that are ancient is, for me, to experience a sense of timelessness and peace. To know that I am part of something almost greater than I can conceive, and that I am transient in physical form, with a far shorter life expectancy than this tree. And yet I am also part of everything, connected to the tree and the rocks, and therefore timeless.

I was reminded particularly of how our ancestors thought a solstice sunrise or sunset was sufficient excuse to build a huge monument out of stone in order to enhance their celebrations. At Avebury, as at Stonehenge, there is an avenue leading up to the stone circles and I could feel a sense of excitement as I rounded the summit to see my destination. How, I wondered, did we manage to complicate our life so far that we stopped celebrating the stations of the sun? Why do we look for more in everything, instead of realising fully what already Is? And how can I get back to this in my own life?

I have read of the pleasure elementals take in simply being at one with the manifestation of their element, be it fire, water, wind or rock. For them it becomes an ecstatic experience. For example, to take the experience of a Gnome:

Musar feels that the fault lines and mountains talk to him and answer his questions about their origins. He perceives the history of a mountain, its internal stresses, its erosion patterns, and the forces that have shaped it and that will wear it down. Musar can dip his finger into a subterranean stream and instantly identify the minerals present, their concentration, and the sources of the stream. He senses forests and the evolution of trees and plants and how they affect the earth. … He can sit watching the stars moving through the sky from dust to dawn and feel that no more than a moment of time has gone. He can gaze into past ages and epochs of time and not feel in the least old or weary. For Musar, everything that has shape, form, and weight is fascinating and full of wonder.
Unlike a mountain or a plateau, Musar never grows old. He is constantly full of enthusiasm. For Musar, there is no need to hurry; there is no need to worry – each moment is satisfying, and each moment is a treasure of the heart. The silence in which he dwells is a magic well from which he sips and drinks the beauty of the earth.
(Mermaids, Sylphs, Gnomes & Salamanders, William R. Mistele)

I have read of Machaelle Small Wright’s experiences at the solstices and equinoxes, where there is magic in the exact moment of the sun’s transition.

March 20 [1984]
Spring equinox: 5:25 A.M.
I set my alarm for 5:10 and prepared for the equinox. At the moment of the equinox, I felt a strong wave of energy wash through me, and I saw the garden at Perelandra take a shift.
…
June 21 [1984]
The Summer solstice: 1:02 A.M.
… At 1.02 I felt the Annex fill with energy and saw it light up. I received an invitation to come join nature in the new Annex, to join their party. When I entered the Annex, I could feel the celebration all around. Then a nature spirit – a faun – stood before me and allowed himself to become visible to my naked eye. I hardly knew what to say, except “Hello” and “I love you.” I made clear eye contact with this lovely faun for the longest time. It was a special and extraordinary moment, I remained in the Annex for about an hour, feeling the movement and celebration going on around and within me.
(Dancing in the Shadows of the Moon, Machaelle Small Wright)

So I spent some time simply communing with the stones at Avebury, and seeing the delight in each one. All unique, individual, characterful, with their own story to tell. Yes they were once part of something much greater as many stones are now missing, our ancestors having knocked over and even destroyed many stones through fear, but the original layout can still be sensed through the landscape. One day we may collectively regain the understanding and connections that humans had with the Earth, at which point it, or similar structures may be reborn in a new form. For now, it represents where we are – which is probably better than where we were even a few decades ago.

For me personally I feel a parallel in that I started as a child with every possibility open to me, free of doubts, then science and logic and often fear took over. Finally I started to find my way again, connecting to my intuitive nature and the Spirit within. I feel I am still incomplete, for there is so much I don’t know yet feel I should be able to understand on some level, but I am now starting to find the building blocks of reconnecting. Much like the stone circle at Avebury, where some stones have been restored to their original positions.

‘Munching Mouth’ stone at Avebury, Wiltshire