Ancient of Days

I don't know why I have this huge insatiable interest in Stonehenge, but I do. It's so Tess of the D'Urbervilles. I still remember reading Thomas Hardy in Mr. Burton's AP English class and really getting it. But you know why Tess was drawn to that stone altar? Because she felt what I felt: ancient. old. antiquity. ages past.

I don't know how to explain it, but I think Stonehenge and Avebury feel like the oldest places I've ever been. I love hearing how these ancient people moved heaven and earth in order to better understand heaven and earth--how they used stone, so immovable and permanent that it remains today, to measure time. I love the creation of calendar with the use of light--that each month the sun would shine through different portions of the stone columns. I love the use of the solstice.

And most of all, I love that we just don't know so much. We don't know really how or why. And it's all the more intriguing. I love that Avebury is so non-touristy compared to Stonehenge--that these nearby stone circles surround the small village, and that you can actually go up and touch the stones, unlike the barriers and tickets and audio guides at Stonehenge.

I love that a really hot gay couple at the greatest fish and chips place our last night in London told us that there's a certain Avebury "female" stone. Legend has it that if a woman touches it, she will get pregnant within a year. Oh the irony...

I love that these rocks and this land bend back and forth across time. Sort of reaching back to former lives...