Communion Of Dreams

From May 13th through June 5th, my wife and I enjoyed a great vacation in the UK, mostly spent in Wales. For the first couple of weeks of the trip my sister and her family joined us.

It was a good chance to get away from things a bit. Spending time enjoying Wales always seems to help me clear my head and get some perspective, even when I don’t necessarily feel like I have pressing matters to ponder. In the coming couple of weeks I’m going to share some of my thoughts and experiences, and probably a fair number of images, from that trip. It’s not going to be like previous travelogues I’ve done, but I hope it will nonetheless be enjoyable. And for those who have been patiently waiting for me to finish St Cybi’s Well, there will be some particular treats in visiting locations in that book.

So, take a little trip with me …

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London is one of the world’s great cities. And even though as a general rule I don’t like cities, I can usually spend up to a week at a time in London without starting to go stir-crazy.

Here are some quick random images to explain why:

From a recent mosaic near the Millennium Bridge. Not exactly a celebration of peasant revolts, but also not really a criticism of them, either.

Take a walk on the wild side.

Dr Hoo?

“From Surface to Surface” by Susumu Koshimizu at the Tate Modern.

The Tate Modern also had a completely magical audio sculpture in the Turbine Hall by Bruce Nauman which I and my brother-in-law Steven thoroughly enjoyed.

And of course, to have a full London experience, you have to have at least one good evening in a traditional pub …

Steven, my sister Celeste, and their daughter Haley.

The next morning we drove to the south coast to Kingly Vale, where we enjoyed the 400 acres of ancient uncut forest in the rain:

Yew know what I mean?

That evening we made it to Salisbury, and did some sight-seeing in the area the next day:

Yeah, one of the four copies known to exist. I was happy to see that they had upgraded both their security and their presentation from the last time I saw this copy.

And of course, a bit north of there is this old place:

Yeah, Stonehenge.

Crows don’t care about the rules.

Slip inside …

That last image is the same one I envisioned as the approach Darnell takes in this excerpt from St Cybi’s Well:

As he crossed the earthen ditch which surrounded the stones some 20 meters out, following the usual paved walking path, he noticed that the shaping of the sound somehow changed. Perhaps it was the mass of bodies crowding in around the stones. But it seemed less to be coming from one particular place, and more like it was just coming up from the ground all around him. Then he stepped off the path, and onto the grass, and he could feel the sound more than hear it. It strummed through his heels, up his legs, vibrations caressing his entire body. It was the springiness, the resonance, which he had felt at St David’s, but infinitely stronger.

Stronger, and shared. Shared, he knew, by every person who walked this ground. By every person who had ever walked this ground. It was as though the earth itself were a drum, and this the taut, shimmering skin which they skittered across.

Slowly he made his way into the circle, almost in a daze. Others moved past and around him, making contact, sharing a smile, a laugh, tears. He had never before been this close to the stones, had never come on those rare occasions when the site was open this way. They seemed impossibly tall, impossibly old. He stepped past the first great upright before him, then paused, and gingerly reached out to touch it. Cold stone, rough weathered, aged lichens. A woman standing next to him had her eyes closed, the palms of her hands also on the stone, and for a moment he felt her mind there, the contact of lovers sharing a glimpse of the eternal. It caught his breath, he stepped back, turned in slight embarrassment and stepped further into the circle. Further into the crowd.

Now the press of people was greater. There were people everywhere, holding hands, praying, chanting, caressing. They were on the fallen stones, pressed up against the standing sarsens, moving. He felt himself drawn further in, pulled in by the sound vibrations filling the space, which became deeper and stronger with every step. He passed the inner sarsen, stood there in the inner circle, the sanctum sanctorum, the Garbha griha, the sacred center of everything.

Around one of the fallen stones there in the center was a space, an opening in the crowd. Everyone peered in, watching a woman in white robes. She was kneeling beside the stone, but not in prayer. Kneeling so that she was at the proper height to reach out and strike the great stone. To strike it with stone-headed mallets. And with each strike, the stone gave a deep, resounding gonging which echoed from the earth, then spread out from the center to touch everything and everyone in a growing, encompassing spiral.

For the third time that day he felt himself grow woozy, felt the world spin. He reached out a hand to steady himself, looking for another person, or another stone, for stability. And he touched one of the blue stones, one of the much smaller uprights which had come from Wales. From Craig Rhosyfelin. It was warm to the touch. Warm, and welcoming.

As if that experience wasn’t enough for one day, we also went to Avebury, *another* World Heritage Site:

Yeah, they really are that big.

Yeah, really.

I’m not kidding.

Seriously.

And in addition to the old stones, they have a somewhat newer church there:

Though it’s still old by our standards:

And while that wasn’t yet the end of the day, it was the end of our trip outside of Wales.

Next: the third World Heritage Site in one day. Can you guess what it will be?

Jim Downey