An Introduction to Stonehenge by Bobcat

Physically, emotionally, spiritually, magically, it is an extraordinary place. It may not be the most important spiritual focus for every Druid or Pagan in the land, but it is an archetypal sacred place for all humanity. A place of power and transformation, it is a temple that continues to take our measure.

Having been brought up outside Britain, my first interaction with Stonehenge was after I'd begun to study Druidry and Paganism: I had a month-long job at a law firm working with those arrested during the 'beanfield' riots that ended the long era of free festivals in the mid 1980s. Still holding my solitude, I observed from afar, seeking to understand the situation, fascinated by what the place provoked.

In the early 1990s, as my work in the Druid priesthood drew the temple closer towards me, I began talking with English Heritage, negotiating special access permits that allowed me the stone circle to myself, or with a small group for trance or ritual. Yet for me during those first visits, what struck me most powerfully was not the stones, but the energy of the land. Concentrated by the circle of stones, it hummed with what felt like a sharp and discompassionate inquisitiveness.

Over the many years of my involvement with the temple and its landscape, I have had the great honour of taking into the centre circle many hundreds of people who have never been before, for gorsedd ritual, handfastings and other rites of passage, healing rites and teaching. Some find they naturally don't engage, soul to soul, while others are overwhelmed by the power of the place. It changes their lives.

It is assertive, creeping into every cell of body and soul, millennia of rituals shimmering, shuddering, lingering in the air of the temple's inner circle. Time ceases to be linear, opening out into a sphere of being, wakeful and watching. The crows who roost there are as present as the spirits who sob, sleep, scream and die there, as those who make ritual, seeking answers to impossible questions, seeking and finding extraordinary serenity.

And now and then, the cannons of the military thunder around the horizon, reminding us of all that this landscape has provoked. Archaeology speaks of how, when Stonehenge was created, even the largest circles and ritual centres for miles around went out of use. Historians suggest it was built by a military elite, seeking to dominate the population. The violent problems that have led 21 June to become what is currently a rapidly growing open festival are but another whisper of the same energy: the fight for and against authority, focalized by the stones and by history within this centre of power.

It was this blend of violence and ancient power that inspired me in the mid 1990s to dedicate myself to the temple. I had found a place of remarkable teaching, yet the lessons seemed most often to flow through pain, aggression, conflict. There is a high rate of traffic accidents on the road down into Stonehenge Bottom, the black spot where the roads meet; these trackways are older than the circle itself. To say it is a place that needs healing is humanocentric arrogance, for the land is as it will be: yet how that natural energy is reflected through our people is both fascinating and important. For struggle with authority in this era of autocracy, terrorism and political paranoia is, as ever, acutely topical.

In our Gorsedd rites of Cor Gawr, in the private rituals I perform with others, and now through my work with the Highways Agency on the road development project, my work lies on the foundation of this understanding. We don't simply bring healing energy, blinkered and deaf to the nature of the place. Instead, we seek to listen to the spirit of the land, to ancestral songs of pain and of wisdom, and with utmost care find a way to place our steps, with honour, with respect, with dignity, beyond conflict.

Emma Restall Orr
February 2004

Note (April 2008): For the last few years, the Gorsedd of Cor Gawr has been run by Christine Cleere (Vixxen).