***
We went back once more to where it all began. Paying our respects to Dragon Hill, the ancient White Horse and the hillfort known as Uffington Castle, we left the car and the world behind and walked to Wayland’s Smithy.
***
***
I have written so often of this place, we had been here just a couple of weeks earlier with our friend, Gary Vasey, but it is a place of which I could never tire. Not only for the wonderful long barrow and its standing stones, or the beautiful glade and peaceful setting, but for the affirmation that we did indeed find a path on our very first visit together, and have stayed on it ever since, even though it took us a while to realise what was happening.
***
***
For that I am grateful. We have had the most wonderful adventures over the past five years, both within the work of the Silent Eye and through our own exploration of the ancient and sacred landscape of these isles. It is a path I hope to follow until my feet will carry me no further; a path that has brought me nothing but joy.
***
***
After a week in the land, our eyes, and perhaps more than that, were attuned to the stones. They were alive in some indefinable way and the faces and figures within them danced for us… or with us. At one with their beauty and with the inner life of the land, we saw the entrance to the inner chamber lit golden by the sun, a fleeting reminder of the magical lightshow we had witnessed at Bryn Celli Ddu.
***
***
We had nothing to do, no purpose except love, no need except presence, touched by the benediction of the spirit of the place. Although we were reluctant for the journey to end, it was the perfect way for this chapter to close, knowing that a new one would begin. As we left, even the stones were smiling…
***
***
***
THE BIRTHING STONE
“You forgot involution,” says Wen, with the sort of grin which means things are going to get worse before they get better.
“Did I?”
“From your list of concepts which may help people fathom the shadowing.”
“Ah, so I did, but then “involution” is a rather vague term.”
“What, and “correspondence” isn’t?”
“Well, no, at any rate not in the context of that which shadows, and that which is shadowed…”
“But you were also thinking of magical correspondence, were you not?” says Wen with a mischievous glint in her eye.
“I may have been, but in any case, involution needs a subject.”
“What, like the involution of structure and form, perhaps? And in this case, structure is?”
“Structure is stone because stones are the bones of the earth.”
“And form is?”
“Form is hills, particularly hollow hills,” smiles Wen.
“How to make the hills hollow…” I murmur.
“But the stones are no longer structure when they are in the circle, they act more like form,” continues Wen.
“Well, actually, they’re both, especially if, after a certain period of time, you then again cover them with earth to make a mound, which we know happened at a number of sites.”
“But not at this one,” Wen shakes her head slightly to emphasise the lilt in her voice.
“Except that the sanctuary stones may have once formed a mound.”
“Yes, I can see that…”
“And mounds are always portals.”
“Why are mounds always portals?”
“Because the human belly becomes a mound in order to act as a portal for the body.”
“Hmm…” I sit down on a stone, dazed by the heady rush through the possible rationale of these ancient symbols. In fact, I sit down on what we are calling the Throne Stone and immediately slide off the wet surface of the cunningly bevelled seat to land with a bump on the sodden earth, which is an effective enough way of being re-grounded.
“Maybe we should be calling it the Birthing Stone,” laughs Wen.
Lands of Exile
France & Vincent 
You must be logged in to post a comment.