Author: Alethea Kehas
The Oracle’s Chamber & the Stone of Sacrifice: Part 4 of my visit to America’s Stonehenge #traveladventures #sacredsites #ancientsites #americasstonehenge
Continued from part 3…
From the “V” Hut we began to move into the disturbed remains of the Pattee Area of America’s Stonehenge. Passing from the west, the place of the womb-like chamber of the V-Hut where water seems to collect intentionally before it is diverted through channels, the three of us followed the East-West Chamber east.
I think this was around the time I grabbed my granola bar from my bag and started shoveling it into my mouth. Grounding was needed after the experience at the “V” Hut and I was not feeling wholly myself. We were now heading to the most controversial area of the site, the Oracle’s Chamber, which runs alongside and beneath the 4.5-ton slab of stone called the Sacrificial Table.
According to the Tour Guide Map, there may once have been two chambers here. Radiocarbon dating performed in this area of the site indicate that part of it is as old as 4,000 years. Unfortunately, much of what was once here can only be surmised. There are chiseled holes that may have held the posts of tents in the large open area where no structures remain aside from a small slab that might have been a seat.
Walking along the upper edge of this rock face, you pass the Sundeck Chamber, which shows signs of having been altered over time. It is worth noting that all chambers aside from the East-West chamber on Mystery Hill face south.
Some people believe this area of the site that we are now approaching resembles the oracle chambers found in ancient Greece and Egypt. Having yet to visitor these lands, I cannot lend my opinion on this, I can only tell you what I experienced during my visit. Others more skeptical of the age of America’s Stonehenge believe Pattee constructed these stone chambers for storage, hoisted the 4.5-ton slab onto its platform, and drilled a moat around its perimeter to make soap.
There are some impressive stones in this area, as you can see from the above photograph. The stones in the walls may have been moved several times by hands over the course of many years, but the more massive stones have the feeling of permanence to them. I was both eager and apprehensive to be entering the chamber that stood before me. The sun was searing my skin, though, and while my companions Deb and Sophia studied the map and the stones before the enclosure, I ducked my head inside.
Just in time, it seems, to see the chipmunk scurrying out the other end. My faithful guide once again steering my feet and directing my eyes. It’s now time to go inward with me for the next part of the journey, into the narrow opening that awaits. In the above photograph, you can see the Chamber marked 28-A, walled by stone and covered by earth.
It is dark and cool inside the passageway, and the eyes take a moment to adjust after leaving the sunlight. No longer used by humans, small animals and birds find refuge here.
Although the chamber is not large, like the ones it may be modeled after in other parts of the world, there are places that draw the eye and make one think of what might have been. This is where the Running Deer Carving exists, chiseled into a side wall.
There are also niches and shelves…
A carved bench in a rock estimated to weigh 45 tons can be seen in the left foreground of the above photograph, where up to three adults can sit in wait outside the area that houses the “Secret Bed.”
Sophia and I sat on the damp stone of the seat while Deb read from the Trail Map. I was seated right outside the entrance to the Secret Bed, and while Deb read, my eyes wandered to the dark tunnel within.
I’m not sure how much I listened to Deb’s words as I turned away and peered into the tunnel. An overwhelming impulse to crawl inside consumed me, and I found myself grappling with reason. Don’t be silly, who knows what you’ll find inside, my logical brain told my illogical longing. The area did, in fact, look just large enough to hold my form lying down, but I knew the rocks would be even damper than the one upon which I sat.
Visions began to play inside of my mind as I peered into the small tunnel. A pair of eyes peered back at me, the only light in the darkness before me. Inside my mind, I saw the table above the eyes covered by a sacrifice. I saw blood dripping through the eyeholes and collecting into a mouth open to receive as its body lay supine, listening without seeing.
I don’t remember Deb reading these words, which are written in the Trail Map: “D) Speaking Tube. Words spoken through this stone-lined tube [the Secret Bed] exit under the Sacrificial Table (#31), outside the chamber, and give the impression that the table is talking — hence the term ‘Oracle.’ This small tunnel was found blocked at both ends with small stones.” I can’t tell you with certainty where this speaking tube is, as I was lost in my vision for most of our time in the Chamber.
We probably spent no more than ten minutes inside the Oracle’s Chamber, and they were not wholly comfortable minutes. Although I had that eerie, nearly irresistible impulse to climb into the Secret Bed, I was also eager to walk back out into the sunlight. Even if it was blistering hot.
Principles of Fire (6): A Tribe of Two
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” Rumi
Jalaluddin Rumi was a 12th century Sufi mystic, whose approach to the ‘real’ was remarkably modern. This should not surprise us. Anything spiritually true will have that immediate and familiar ring about it – the sense of a homecoming, something ‘just there’ beneath the surface of our consciousness.
The Sufis knew that there is no need to use an overly ornate symbolic system to describe the psychologically-real in the human being; most of those that do were created, in times of religious persecution, to enable teaching in secret. Today, there is the danger that they become the tools of egoic gurus who use them to veil the truth, rather than light a path to it. This is not always true, but is a danger…
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An Orcadian Diary (5): The Broch of Gurness
I was struggling with the height of the walls – 10 metres. I am distinctly medium in height; my two sons tower over me, at six foot, three inches each. But ten metres is a long way into anybody’s domestic sky; and yet that’s how tall the central stone tower of the Broch of Gurness was.
The small cheeseboard (above) bought in Kirkwall, the capital, has served us well as geography prop. Locate the island of Rousay and, from its south coast, drop down to the shark-shaped headland on the West Mainland below. That’s where we are, at the Broch of Gurness, with Rousay opposite, so close you feel you could swim to it – but those waters are treacherous…
I hope someone else is asking, ‘What’s a Broch?’ It’s a well-known word north of the border, but I had to ask the Historic Scotland guide at the tiny visitor…
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The Womb before the Chamber: Part 3 of my visit to America’s Stonehenge #americasstonehenge #ancientsites #sacredsites #traveladventures #dragonlines #dragonstones #mysteryhill
Please click on the highlighted text to read Part 1 & Part 2
It was hot last Wednesday, and humid, with temperatures hovering around 90 degrees Fahrenheit. My body does not like this type of weather, and I was quite uncomfortable at times walking the Mystery Hill, especially once we reached the top and shade was hard to come by. As I mentioned in my second post, we took the marked trail clockwise up the hill. During our ascent I noticed the curious walls of stone that always seemed to end with larger rocks bearing striking resemblances to the heads of serpents or dragons. Walls that curved inwards and outwards. Although the heat could have been a factor, there was a distinct feeling of being tested throughout my time here. As though my cells were being called to shed and be reborn.
These types of places tend to test, calling their visitors to pull the inner out to be processed. I felt this even more acutely later on as I gazed upon the curious rocks below that were found in one of the stone walls. One face seemed to pull me to the right, while a smaller rock on its back pulled to the left. It made me think of the circle around the hill, and how I had wanted to walk counter-clockwise…
A small south-facing stone chamber sits at the area below the site that is now referred to as the Pattee Area of America’s Stonehenge. Above its earthen roof, lilacs, presumably planted by the Pattees, bloom in May. It’s difficult to know what the original structure looked like, as it has been rebuilt over the years, or what it was used for. It is one of several cave-like enclosures of various sizes on the hill. Tucked into the body of Earth, it has the feel of a place where one could hibernate to await the rebirth of spring.
A well-like structure sits nearby, just to the upper right of the chamber. Its opening is covered in a wire mesh, and for a few feet in depth the unaided eyes can see a descending cylinder formed by stones. To the right of the south-facing chamber, the remnants of a stone wall that aligns with the true north-south axis leads up the hill a short way toward the central site.
To the left of the well there is an area referred to as “The Pulpit,” which is speculated to have been used in more modern times as a loading dock for quarrying stones. Nearby, and further to the left, a large stone slab with a 90-degree hole chiseled through it can be found. A remarkable feat even by modern standards. The ground turns to stone ledge here, and there are many areas marked with white paint, speculated to be chiseled channels for tool sharpening and to direct the flow of water (or perhaps other liquids…)
I am not altogether surprised I did not take many photos of this particular area of the site. By the time I reached the Mensal Stone, en route to the V-Stone, my inner sight had begun to pass me through time.
I was present, but not wholly present, as the three of us approached the womb and joined hands.
I can recall Deb remarking about angles and wondering why the lines needed to be drawn straight into a point when we arrived at this mysterious structure…the dropping of items we had brought beside our feet…and my voice rambling words to describe a landscape that only partially remained around us…
I saw serpents in the living stone surrounding the hillside, drawing the fire inward and outward, swirling the waters within. I could feel it building inside of me, cooling the water in an alchemical dance of convergence at the womb where one enters to be reborn. I could feel the elements surging through the rock upon which I stood, rising through the soles of my feet and out through my pores which had opened to receive. Every hair on my body was standing on end. “Look,” I told Deb and Sophia, as I stretched out my arms.
We knew, as we stood before this distinctly feminine structure, we had found the place where we were meant to gather. Three women stopping to be present with the land while the sun burned down upon us as we formed a trinity of hands. A triangle of energy like the one before us, drawing the sacred feminine to meet the dragon’s fire as it entered the V…
To be continued…
The Chimpmunk & the Serpent: Part 2 of my visit to America’s Stonehenge #americasstonehenge #ancientsites #sacredsites #chipmunkmessenger #serpentstones
Continued from Part 1…
My body wanted to follow a path that wasn’t there. The arrows pointed left, while an invisible rope of energy tugged my heart to the right. I resisted the pull. If I had been alone, I would have followed the illogical urgings of the heart, but I was not. Deb and I had arrived without preconceived plans, but Sophia had brought her drum and offerings, and we both wanted to honor her intentions (I later learned Deb also had an impulse to walk a counter-clockwise path) so we followed Sophia’s lead along the marked path.
She was, though, not our only guide. I noticed the chipmunk around the same time I noticed the serpents. Our tiny guide appeared throughout our journey at the spots that wanted to be noticed. There are walls of rocks that curve the hill of mysteries. Stonewalls not unlike those that cover the New England landscape, but there are differences. I noticed a pattern before we reached the top. Sinuous forms leading to large headstones with the faces of serpents. Many of them double-lined stone walls, processional walkways that seemed to guide the walker. The turn of a face at their ends, directing the gaze, the feet, the energy…I recognized these forms. I knew the energy that ran beneath them. Magic stirred within me as I looked at my furry guide who reminded me of another type of place. I began to think of the Eye, of Egypt, as well as that ancient land of Albion…I was beginning to feel like there was something here, after all, that connected a long-forgotten time.
Sophia had mentioned there being an Eye in the rock somewhere on the site before our visit…but the connections needed to form within me. The stirrings of latent energy I was not sure still if ever, existed here.The energy that effortlessly finds me on that island across the ocean, but feels so much more hidden here.
The serpent stones seemed undeniable. Sophia and Deb could see them just as easily as I, once I made the connection. Three crazy ladies, maybe, but something told me we were not. There were just too many signs that pointed us to something that felt like Truth. Could it be that there was serpent energy here on the top of a rather inconspicuous hill in New Hampshire? Is there, in fact, a connection to the ancient sites across the globe, which seem to share this universal, ancient symbol, which evokes the “dragon” lines of energy that weave the body of Earth?
I could feel the familiar stirrings growing within. And, there was that curious guide of ours, popping up in just the right places to draw the eye. As I mentioned before, in many ways the walls look like ordinary walls, and, sadly, the walls of Mystery Hill in Salem, NH, show the marks of time. The bodies of stone collapsed and sunk into shadows of what must have been their original forms, marking possible boundaries, or something else. Not often, though, do you find these double walls of stone in this part of the world, harkening the processional walkways of ancient sites in other lands, nor do you find the marked endings with large, curiously shaped boulders, or the large, shaped, and seemingly deliberately placed standing stones in the middle of stone walls here, which mark seasonal paths of celestial bodies. Our guide seemed to indicate there was, in fact, something more magical than a farmer’s boundary happening here among the stones.
Everywhere we looked, it seemed, there was something deeper, partially hidden and waiting to be found. Trees atop mounded earth and stone, curved, as Deb noted, in alignment, besides their perfectly erect companions.
To be continued…
I discovered a wonderful post by Flowing Water Shamanism on the symbolism of chipmunk here for those interested in reading about it.
The Light Behind the Story 