Category: Mystery

The Mystery of Maeshowe

Maeshowe is another one of the Neolithic wonders on Orkney. A vast chambered tomb it stands on an ancient trackway that connects it to the stunningly well-preserved village of Skara Brae, as well as passing near the Standing Stones of Stenness and the Ring of Brodgar.

Various calculations by archaeologists estimate it needed up to 100,000 man-hours to build and complete. Maeshowe is generally described as a tomb, but if so, why does it have a door that can only be closed from the inside? A pivoting stone door blocks off the entrance, but can only be closed from the inside?

Once more the poem The Seer provides a (mythical) answer.

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Maeshowe appears as a grassy mound rising from a flat plain near the southeast end of the Loch of Harray. On the Winter Solstice, the sun rises between the Hills of Hoy to shine directly down the passageway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The mourning chant of the Islands

An excerpt from the prose/poem The Seer to be found
here on Kindle Books.

The Seer speaks the mourning chant of the Islands
with the congregation repeating the last line.

Life is brief, love is deep, the soul sings,
As the seasons come, the seasons go,
What are we but passing travellers,
Leaving only footprints on the sands.

Leaving only footprints on the sands.

As the sea wave breaks on the rock,
As the clouds flee across the sky,
So we traverse this land, and are gone,
Leaving only footprints on the sand.

Leaving only footprints on the sands.

As the eagle swoops and soars,
So the deer come and go, the salmon spawn,
Child turns to adult, and is gone,
Leaving only footprints on the sand.

Leaving only footprints on the sands.

Land of sorrow, land of joy, land of blessing, land of toil,
From your bosom we are born,
To your bosom we return,
Leaving only footprints on the sand.

Leaving only footprints on the sands.

Each day is precious, each hour passed,
is an hour fled, never to return.
Love, know what you have, be grateful
Praise the Gods for the gifts that come from land and sea.

Praise to the Gods!

Inkwork (5)
Skara Brey, the remains of an ancient village on the Orkneys. Did its inhabitants help build Maes Howe or the Ring of Brodgar?

The First of the Great Stone Circles

 

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Stonehenge the best known of all the Great Stone Circles. But a thousand years before its construction its parent was being built at Stenness in the Orkneys.

Stonehenge, Avebury, The Ring of Brodgar, Callanish and hundreds of lesser stone circles are to be found in the British Isles and elsewhere. But which was the first and from where did the knowledge that went into their building originate? Dating information indicates that the very first, the Mother and Father of all the Great Circles of Stone, was the Stone Circle of Stenness, to be found on the Isle of Orkney.

Which in turn gives rise to a great mystery.  From where came the knowledge to build the first Stone Ring at Stenness? And to place the alignments with the Solstices?

The Poem the Seer (of Stenness) gives one explanation, albeit mythical. The poem is available here

An ancient trackway.

An ancient trackway, old before the original Church of St Tegwyn was built, straddles the up ground. Once pagan and later Christians would have walked this route. No more, the people have moved, and all that remains is a glorious view and a strong sense of the numinous.

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Is it possible to fall into the sky?
I was afraid I might.
Here, as I stood by St. Tegwyns,IMG_3140
It felt easily done

The sky so immense
The hill on which I stood
So dominating, small for sure
But dwarfing Aron Dwyryd

And mighty Snowdon?
Snow-capped it might be,
Yet so distant, so far away
So dwarfed by that mighty sky.

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Everywhere I looked, sky.
A cloud here and there in that vast bowl
Of blue light, but the tug,

The ever-present upward tug,
strained at gravity,
and I feared I might fall in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hunting by Moonlight

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It is the midnight hour.
The full moon stalks the clouds
That hide her silvery light,
For you to hunt.

A gap in the cloudy veil
Moon bright
Floods the night,
Now, now stalk your prey

For you are man.
Strong, powerful,
Creature of the night,
Dominant, let all fear you.

A rustle of leaves
Alerted. Alarmed
Your prey turns, flees
In terror

For you are man,
None can face you
All powerful. All conquering
Flee they must.

Wait. What is that shadow you see?
Did it move? A trick of the light?
Where is that moonlight when you need it?
What glows red in the dark? Eyes? Can it be?

Now you too know fear. Perhaps there are things of the night
Never spoken of, that hunt and stalk
Seek their prey, creep ever nearer, waiting to pounce.
Now taste fear, in the horror of being – the prey.

A dream after seeing a sculpture

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A creation by Tony Cragg

The words of the song speak the thoughts of the dawn.
Round, like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel,
like the circles that you find, in the windmills of your mind,
Questions to be explored, layers concealing layers, perceptions dimly sensed.

Structured as if in a Tony Cragg creation,
The outer layer speaks, yet conceals what lies within,
Layer concealing layer, strata with its own timeline,
it’s own meaning, making a concealed contribution to the Whole.

What is it I fail to grasp? What moves just beyond my perception?
When I reach out to touch, what is it that moves away?
Elusive as a butterfly darting in the mind, one moment illuminated,
The next hidden, only the question remains, what lies below?

Below my ordinary perception, below the superficiality that surrounds,
Layer below layer, atom forming structure, concealing the quantum mystery,
Mystery wrapped within enigma. Is perception possible? Is it all an illusion?
Or instead, tantalising glimpses of the layers below?

Myth and legend swirl, concealing tradition and history,
One generation follows another, some forgetting, a few retaining,
Knowledge, understanding, but fast diminishing, leaving only distorted echoes,
Of what was once crystal clear. Now lost, only the faintest echo, sounds in the void.

What was there at the edge of my perception? In the dreaming swirl that comes,
As morning dawns, when the mind hovers between the clarity of the day and the dreamy mists of the night.
A glimpse perhaps of the hidden seams concealed within the mind? The magicians who move amongst the unseen layers?
Who make, form, breathes life into the mystery that is hidden? Come the dawn, the vision fades, grows faint, and only a diminishing echo remains.

 

ScuptureCreation.
I was fascinated by the way that Tony Cragg fashioned his sculptures. Beneath each layer, he places another layer, sometimes apparently unconnected with what went before, sometimes crafted by one of Tony’s assistants.

A different set of hands, eyes, meaning. Without seeing the creation from beginning to end in some kind of god-like way, how can anyone know the layers beneath the layers?

Know, let alone understand, what lies below? What is intended even? Just as we view a tree, not seeing the roots, the flow of the sap, the earth and air connections, and beneath all, the swirling movement of the Universe that embrace it and us.

(Tony Cragg is a British born sculptor who now lives in Germany. He is known for his exploration of unconventional materials, including plastic, fibreglass, bronze, and Kevlar. According to Art World, Craggs’ sculptures embody a frozen moment of movement, resulting in swirling abstractions.

The Land of Faerie

 

There, there, quickly. Ah, too late,
The door opens, closes and is gone.
You sit, wait and watch,
But tonight, the land of faerie is closed.

Sometimes though, when the time is right,
The veil lifts, parts, and reveals all.
Another world, embracing this one,
Glowing, glowing with the magic of the night.

Tiny figures move and dance, music fills the air,
And the sweet heady scent of magic draws you near.
Come, come join us, tiny voices cry, fear not,
Breathe deep, let your feet tap, now dance.

The music swirls, mists of the night enclose you,
But you care not, carried on the musical embrace,
That flings your soul to the stars and back,
Gladdens the strings of the heart and overwhelms the senses.

Wait, wait you cry, do not leave me, where go you?
It is you who leave us, the voices sing,
With the coming of the dawn, the two worlds, slip, slide, and
Part, the door closes, the veil shifts back, falls into place and the land of faerie is gone.

Left forlorn, the fading moon and the rising sun,
Look down on you, laughing at your plight.
What right have you to enter the land of faerie? They cry,
What right, what right, earthbound mortal?

But you care not. One drop of that elixir on the tongue,
One chord of that sweet music heard, one touch of the magic air,
And you are transported, enchanted, into the land of faerie,
Where the dance is all, lifting, lifting the soul to the stars.

Stop! Danger, danger a part of you cries,
Legend speaks of lost souls, doomed to wander,
Searching, seeking, but never finding their way back to this world.
Who cares, you sing, one minute there is worth a thousand years here.

Wait! What is that? Laughter, you hear their voices carried on the wind,
Let me back in, you cry, desperate to feel the magic,
To embrace the rhythm of the dance,
But, too, late, you are left forlorn, one last laugh, and they are gone.

Night Journies

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Night
I went to bed full of love and mystery and journeyed on the wings of Morpheus. Far , far beyond the towers of Avalon and the walls of Babylon. Then down I plunged into the layers of reality that lie beneath our perception, concealed strata that sometimes boil and ripple, but more often are quiet and just whisper to the soul, Look, and you will see me, listen and you will hear me.

Nightfall
Night falls, moon rises,
Owl wakes, fox stirs,
Tiny prey, fearfully forage,
All feed, some survive.

Comes the day, departs the dark,
Sun’s warming rays, banish fears of the night,
On green meadows, flocks safely graze,
Protected by the light, yet fearful of the night.

Dusk comes, darkness looms,
Feared hunters, fearful prey,
Night stirrings, dark destruction,
The pattern, repeats, repeats.

Julian’s Bower

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Julian’s Bower is a turf maze found in Alkborough in North Lincolnshire. Unusually there is a carving of the maze in the stone floor of the porch of the nearby church. (There is also a copy on the East window of the church, and on a gravestone in the nearby cemetery).

As the photo shows, the view from the maze is stunning, and on a fine day reveals the countryside for many miles around. But why a maze, and what purpose did they serve?

The idea of the maze goes back as far as the legend of Theseus and the Minotaur. Theseus, son of King Aegeus of Athens. He used a ball of wool given to him by Ariadne to mark his way through the labyrinth of the Minotaur in Crete, where he slayed the monster and retraced his steps with the aid of the thread and so to safety.

Perhaps the best theory is that this maze was carved by a small cell of monks who lived in the area until the 13th century, and that it represents the path through life to heaven. This would fit in with the carving in the porch of the church.

It is also thought that mazes were also used for penitential purposes, so sinners would be made to trace the path upon their hands and knees. Yet another theory is that mazes were a way to confound the Devil, who could only travel in straight lines.

Turf mazes are all unicursal, that is, they have no choices or branches, and there are a number still to be found across England. The dates for their creation are all guesses, since because they are turf, they have to be renewed frequently, or they disappear, as many presumably have.