Celebratory Mass at Stonehenge?
December 27, 2009 - 1:20 am
Eternal Idol was set up originally as a site for providing original information on Stonehenge. From the very start, I intended to make public information, events and theories that weren’t necessarily to be found on other more mainstream sites, but I also wanted to try to chronicle everyday events there.
As it transpires, I have far more material than I can meaningfully publish as far as archaeological information is concerned, while there are great swathes of evidence related to linguistics, mythology and the like that I suspect will have to wait a long while before it sees the light of day. That aside, I had thought that it would be a relatively simple matter to make a simple journal or account of events such as the progress with the Visitors Centre, related excavations, the Druid picket and so forth, but I must admit that the task has defeated me.
Last week, I managed to publish a post about the Winter Solstice celebrations, but I succumbed to some virulent malady shortly afterwards, which meant that I missed out on a major news story that was directly related to the ruins.
In brief, the main Winter Solstice celebrations were held at Stonehenge on the morning of Tuesday, 22nd December, while the media used this event to concentrate on what some observers feel is the rise of paganism in Britain today.
The BBC Ten O’Clock News presented a feature on the Dolmen Grove of Dorset, with a commentary on the popularity of paganism and a contribution by Professor Linda Woodhead of Lancaster University. Professor Woodhead was quoted as saying that paganism “…is a serious competitor for traditional religion and it’s got a lot of potential political momentum, so it’s a movement for people who want really quite radical change…”
As far as British paganism is concerned, I am forced to conclude that Professor Woodhead and myself are inhabiting totally different realities, but this is something I’ll explore in far greater depth in the New Year. Otherwise, there’s footage of the Solstice celebrations of the 22nd on YouTube if you search for “Stonehenge Winter Solstice 2009“, but the item that interested me the most was this piece by The Guardian’s Steven Morris.
If I had the energy, I’d be sorely tempted to write a few thousand words in heartfelt agreement with some of Steven Morris’s observations. You can read the piece for yourselves, but in a nutshell, it’s about the attraction of a set of ruins on a freezing Salisbury Plain on a winter’s morning in comparison with the monstrous, bloated, two-month long period of naked commerciality wherein huge corporations spend a fortune on advertisements for the sole purpose of making parents with little money feel as guilty as humanly possible, all under the guise of celebrating the birth of one of humanity’s greatest spiritual leaders.
This was perhaps best summed up by Alison Marcetic, who had travelled to the monument with her family from Birmingham. “We’re here for an anti-religious reason, if any,” said Alison. “Pagans seem to have more fun so we’d thought we’d give it a go. We’ll be celebrating Christmas, but this is about showing the children that this season isn’t just about getting presents. What goes on here is more basic, more tangible.”
I couldn’t possibly agree more, while I’d suggest that you don’t have to be a psychic to be able to discern the ‘magic in the air’ at places like Stonehenge, especially at wintertime. This is something I’ve written about at great length elsewhere, but as ever, William Blake put it best when he wrote of being able…
“To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.”
Finally, for now, many of you may have wondered at the existence of a Christian theme in the subject of this post, while you may also have wondered if it were linked in any way to my book.
Not so, but you could of course be mistaken for thinking along these lines. Last week, someone calling themselves “SolsticeReveller” took me to task for “censoring the truth”, but they didn’t make clear what “truth” I was supposed to be censoring and I’ve yet to hear back from them. The same person wrote of “hoardes” descending on Stonehenge “on mass”, and by a remarkable coincidence, I found the same phrase when I looked for a link to publicise the Dolmen Grove’s central role in the Solstice celebrations of the 22nd at Stonehenge.
Well, you either get it or you don’t and that’s pretty much an end of the matter for now, but I’ll return to this and other British pagan/Druid matters when I come to examine Professor Woodhead’s assertions in greater depth in the New Year.
Innit?
10 Responses to “Celebratory Mass at Stonehenge?”
I could easily write a book on the abject failure of the church to engage with & inspire its flock, as opposed to British paganism’s undoubtedly growing appeal to broad sections of the community, but I’m sure others are thinking along these lines as well.
Be that as it may, I wondered about what you wrote, Red Raven. I’m inclined to think that most people are as far removed from an awareness of seasonal celebrations as modern dairy cows are from the aurochs, but perhaps some of us still feel a primaeval yearning to celebrate these times? By this, I certainly don’t mean the idea of wandering along to a Solstice celebration because some colourfully-clad pagans have advertised an event in an evocative setting, but a genuine longing, independent of the actions of others.
As far back as I can remember, I’ve eaten anything at any time, such as cold curry, pizza and so forth for breakfast; there was a time when this was regarded as an amusing oddity, but I’ve long regarded my inclinations as a virtue for reasons that I assume are self-evident.
These habits aside, I’ve still thought of myself as unusual because I look forward to salad in summer and I like the idea of pickles in winter i.e. I like eating seasonal produce at seasonal times. It might be something to do with ‘my generation’, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a whole host of valid reasons for people being drawn to events such as the one described above in the Guardian piece. And yes, I’d say that these inclinations have been suppressed by all manner of modern pressures, but perhaps it’s case of “You can take a man out of the wilderness, but you can’t take the wilderness out of the man?”
I remember reading a quote from somewhere (unfortunately, can’t remember from where) that stated the difference between modern man and Neanderthals was about three days in the wilderness.
My reference to holographic restraints is equally applicable to modern life.These restraints are primarily mind constructs, created to frame our terms of reference and as such are never “fixed”, whereas the natural progression of the Earth’s orbit of the sun is independent of, and from, presently, any human interference, thus creating some form of stability. I believe it is this independence from humanity’s interactions that reach through our self imposed constraints to connect us at a more base level of interaction and some of us have now come to understand some part of this.
RR
Hail, I totally agree sir, we are so removed from what is ‘natural’ living in our 21st century ‘bubble’ that it is only to be expected that the ‘inner-man’ will yearn to break out from time to time. Increased numbers at Seasonal gathering at Stonehenge and alike are but one manifestation of such yearnings.
Arthur Pendragon
Druid
/|\
I suspect that paganism and druidism has some of its roots in the old ‘green’ culture that started more than 30 years ago. That movement underwent a great change over the years, but the environmentalism and green thinking is reflected in this new movement, and from what I can read the ‘evolutionary’ process of this new pagan belief system is a bit messy!… I’m not a pagan, but fascinated how a belief system comes into being.
Neodruidism has difficulty in ‘adjusting’ the historical evidence with their beliefs, there is a fun element in the ceremonies which appeals to many but there isn’t a proper liturgical element yet; people are dissenting from the established religion of christianity, or indeed with many young people, do not have any religion, and are making it up as they go along….
not a good base line.
Having said that, I love to see the ceremonies at Avebury, I admire King Arthur for standing up for Stonehenge but reading Ronald Hutton’s latest book I remain a bit sceptical about druidism and its revival once again…
Thelma, I admire you for being able to keep your observation so succinct, because I could write about this for hours and hours. All things considered, though, I agree with you on pretty much everything.
There’s widespread concern about the state of the planet, the treatment of animals and suchlike. At the same time, many people are aware of a ‘Golden Age’, whether it was the Garden of Eden, an Arthurian epoch, an idealised ancient Britain or the myths of Rome and Greece, and this ‘Golden Age’ was a pagan time, to put it all in brutally simple terms. With this in mind, it is hardly surprising that a great many people should put two and two together and come up with something that is deeply satisfying and appealing to them. If there’s an apparent lack of continuity in the records or traditions, then this patently doesn’t invalidate one’s beliefs and I for one do not see why it should, unless you think that the gods stopped being gods when people temporarily abandoned them.
I don’t see any good reason why some very satisfactory and highly accurate liturgies can’t be revived from ‘ancient times’, but then again, I’m a boring old traditionalist in these matters and very few people could be bothered to learn Welsh, Latin or Greek.
Other than that, some senior Christians have been keeping a close eye on ceremonies at Avebury and elsewhere in recent times, trying to work out where everything has gone so right for the pagans, but you don’t need to be a genius to work it out.
And I too have a genuine admiration, both for Arthur and for Kaz.
The following web site seems to be relevant (although so far I have only skimmed it).
http://paganizingfaithofyeshua.netfirms.com/can_it_be_cx_has_never_understood_it
In this vein, another site thought provoking site is
http://www.earlychristianhistory.info/
Don’t know what the paste is about, this is the correct link
http://paganizingfaithofyeshua.netfirms.com/comparison_of_sungods_with_life_of_jc_concerned.htm
The more I read on the site the more interesting it becomes
This site provides the counter arguments.
http://www.tektonics.org/copycathub.html
If the ‘Missing Years’ could be proved then Jesus may have been influenced by the teaching of the Druids and subsequently Christianity could have had some influence on the Druids. My concern is that the Nativity seems at best an interpolation and only Luke references Jesus age 12. Therefore the missing years may be a misnomer.
Nevertheless, references to Britain’s early import of Christianity seems to fit with the traditions regarding Joseph of Arimathea. There is no doubt Celtic Christianity developed differently from the Roman model, perhaps because it followed more closely the teachings of Christ (through the direct connection which was not perverted later) and perhaps also because it was influenced by Druids?
Whatever, it remains fascinating exploring the world of possibilities and like ley-lines and Stonehenge, we may never know for certain the actuality.
Well, when he reappeared, no one knew who he was, where he’d come from or where he’d acquired his powers, so he’d patently been away from home for a very long time if he was unrecognisable.
The only date we have to go by is Luke’s, but it doesn’t really matter because of the above, while every sane & reasonable avenue of enquiry points to Britain as the place where he’d spent at least some of these ‘missing years’. The more I look into it and the more private correspondence I receive, the likelier it seems to me that Jesus spent many years in Britain, but I’ve simply not had the time to properly research this material or post it up.
However, I suppose all that really matters is that these things are worthy of investigation and that they’re all patently fascinating.
Care to comment?
I suspect that the rise in popularity of these natural seasonal cyclical celebrations is more to do with people now rejecting the holographic constraints of the present controlling religious authorities’ doctrines.
RR