A Psalm of Stone – Travels around Avebury (Part Two)

7 

The lack of stones, the absence of carvings made Avebury feel somehow ‘less’. Not being able to see the sites that thrilled me as a child was a deep disappointment. Being disappointed in a site like Avebury seems inconceivable now, but it took me a while to separate the fictional Milbury from the real Avebury. The solidity of the site means that Avebury bears more than a superficial resemblance to Milbury. In the TV series though, Milbury exists outside of regular time and space, trapped in a discrete mobius strip of time, where reality is treated as an unwelcome incursion to the perfection laid down by the Lord of the Manor. As a sidenote, HTV got more complaints about the title sequence and theme tune being terrifying than the programme itself… and that was terrifying enough.   

A Psalm of Stone 

I. 

A merlin whiffles and surveys 
a ditch and bank, grateful   
for now open land and prey; 

leaving bark and sap   
and leaf unsheathed;   
replaced by rootless fruit   

of earth.  Oak and beech   
suspire and sing 
a bitter psalm of stone.   

2. 

Too early for dew, the Sun   
garlanded in frosted mizzlemist,   
Sends the briefest scintilla   

to trace the blue hour, 
as processors slow-slip   
through the lithic forest’s 

long winter shadows. 
Wheeling as their voices keen 
a bitter psalm of stone. 

3. 

Exultant  laity shouts 
an epileptic canticle 
as wind sheared wheat   

rattles an indolent protest, 
drowned in hammerfire 
and brutish duther. 

Its slack maraca   
rhythm rings   
a bitter psalm of stone.

 9 

The human response to something that is amorphous and intangible is to attempt to categorise, ritualise and fetishise it; to attempt to impose order on that which is chaotic by nature and unorderable by virtue of the numbers of participants and their egos. For example in Christianity and many of the modern Pagan belief systems, participants seek to create sacred space by effectively creating a virginal and temporary new universe devoid of chaos; it’s state of ‘purity’ being seen as worthy of visitation by the divine or infernal, ritualising and fetishising a series of gestures and tones. Both belief systems involve representations of the fundamental classical elements of Air, (bell) Earth (Small dish of soil/congregation), Fire (candles), Water (small dish of water/font) and Spirit/ether (incense) – neo-pagans appear to be much more literal in their mysteries than High Catholics. Each artefact serves to purify its associated element and create what amounts to ‘bubble universe’; a portal to the divine that occupies both ‘real’ space’ and ‘divine’ space simultaneously.   

In ‘The Social Construction of Reality’ (Berger, 1969) describes these symbolic universes as: ‘bodies of theoretical tradition that integrate different provinces of meaning and encompass the institutional order in a symbolic totality…symbolic processes are processes of signification that refer to realities other than those of everyday experience.’ 

The purpose of this liminal ritual state, ultimately, is one of illumination, integration, social cohesion and perhaps social control. By virtue of participating in the ritual, as practitioner or active observer, one receives divine or angelic wisdom and once illumination has been achieved, the portal/bubble universe/liminal space is closed down and returned to non-liminal status. ‘For the religious person the experience of such space is primordial, equivalent perhaps to an experience of the founding of the world and it follows that making of sacred objects and sacred buildings (and in some cultures that includes virtually all buildings) is not a task to be taken lightly but involves a profound and total commitment.’ ​(Relph, 2008)​ 

Thus ritual and liminal space temporarily occupies both spatial and temporal space and creating patterns and ritually significant systems and structures throughout ‘existential space,’ that it both community space (villages, towns, houses, etc) and as well as ritual and magical landscape. 

10 

‘Human intention inscribes itself on the earth’ Dardel 1957. 

Nowhere is this more obvious, and literal, than in ‘ritual landscapes.’ Whether this is the pre-Columbian lines at Nazca, Peru that contain representations of geometric shapes and flora and fauna; or the megalithic structures, and the surrounding landscapes, of Europe.   

Avebury consists of a stone circle atop an earthwork henge. Within the circle are two further rings of stones. Outside of the henge, there are two ‘processional’ avenues, lined by stones, that lead into the heart of the circle.   

However, a sacred landscape is not in and of itself sacred. It takes the presence of people to bring a state of sacredness. In Eliade’s words, ‘For religious man, space is not homogeneous’; rather, ‘some parts of space are qualitatively different from others’ (1959:20)   

In terms of liminality, the landscape has essentially been removed from the mundane and elevated to a ‘pre-divine’ status, awaiting the arrival of the participants to complete the human/divine circuit and make it wholly divine. Sacred sites, therefore, are those places where the divine breaks through into the human world, manifesting in the form expected and pre-ordained by the participants. 

Repetition of these actions over time gives the site a history of divinity and therefore it acquires a ‘special’ status. The spatial and gestural symbolism can then be passed on as symbolic meaning.   

‘Every sacred space implies a hierophany, an irruption of the sacred that results in detaching a territory from the surrounding cosmic milieu and making it qualitatively different… (Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane.1959:20) 

11 

There is overwhelming evidence to support that the ritual site of Avebury was not built as a single project. Much like Stonehenge, it was built over time, starting as a small site and growing over a period of around fifteen hundred years as needs differed. At the beginning of its life, the Avebury monument was likely to be contained within a small grove and may have been no more than a meeting place within Southern England’s deciduous forests. The construction of these sites and the changes that occur in the landscapes – including a massive programme of deforestation in order to actualise the growing adherence to a culture of farming – not only changed the physical landscape but also the psyches of those who constructed and worshiped at the sites.   

William Stukely (1687-1765), an early antiquarian and described by Terrence Meaden in ‘The Secrets of the Avebury Stones’ as ‘Britain’s most observant field archaeologist’ visited Avebury every year between 1719 and 1724, making sketches and notes that have proved to be immensely valuable in understanding the nature of the landscape. Once his attempts to syncretise the structure with his Biblical obsession are discarded, his theories about the positions of missing stones and missing features have proven largely to be correct. Remains of a second avenue of stones – the Beckhampton Avenue postulated by Stukely in 1743 – was found as recently as 1999. 

The structure was thought to add some validity to his assertions that the complex arrangement of earthworks, barrows, an artificial hill at Silbury and the circle itself is a bronze age depiction of the ‘Solar Serpent,’ a popular symbol of early religions that include Apep from the Egyptian Myths and Kukulkan/Quetzalcoatl of the Mesoamerican stories. This theory, though intriguing has proven to be incorrect and yet many neo-pagans turn up to the site on quarter days to revere the serpent that does not exist. And quoting directly from Stukely’s disproved works. This in itself is a form of psychological liminality, impressing Stukely’s Christian Beliefs on a structure built in pre-christian times.   

Christianity also played its part in the destruction of the circle. Stukely produced hundreds of line drawings and paintings of the circle and its inhabitants. Several of these works clearly show megaliths being destroyed with fires and sledgehammers. His drawings also indicate the presence of many other stones that have since disappeared. Some stones were buried as part of an annual festival, under guidance from the church, who were attempting to eradicate pagan beliefs, others were shattered and used to make drystone walls or to pebbledash buildings in the village that had grown within the circle – an act that confuses sacred and mundane space. The lack of understanding by the inhabitants leading, in some catastrophic cases, to a stone being chosen to be broken up and buried. Latterly concrete markers installed to represent fallen, buried or demolished stones have been ‘dressed’ during solstice and equinox celebrations. Whether this counts as post-modern ritual or a fundamental misunderstanding of the age and makeup of the stones is not clear but these myths of place are contrasted against one other and juxtaposed or subsumed which leads to demarcating various ‘zones’ within ritual space; the sacred and the profane. Sacred space is produced by the treatment of the landscape and the landscape’s effect on the users, the psychology of the inhabitants and builders, and the morality – forced by doctrine or otherwise – of social groups and the progression from history.   

Ironic then, that a noted place of ritual becomes dismantled by a superseding ritual. Even stranger was a later ritual of ‘restanding’ the buried stones. Presumably, Avebury and other ritual landscapes were constructed to conform to basic human psychology and understanding of what makes a sacred space. While I may scoff at their lack of historical knowledge, does it actually matter? If acolytes come who have no understanding of the religion that created it, would they not be subject to the same psychological influences, even if unaware of the origins? Isn’t this behaviour the same kind of ritualising as those who destroyed and rebuilt the stones? Are their actions any less spiritually relevant? Does the power of belief win over the anthropological or religious or historical accuracy? 

Sociologist Rob Shields calls the phenomenon of overlaying one reality onto another ‘social spatialization,’ or the act of fixing cultural values and important social meanings in place, and allowing for change over time. Each new iteration of myth building, along with the associated changes in ritual, landscape, practices and society, feeds into a rich topography ripe for exploration. He clarifies this by saying ‘I use the term social spatialization to designate the ongoing social construction of the spatial at the level of the social imaginary (collective mythologies, presuppositions)as well as interventions in the landscape (the built environment) … Social spatialization is thus a rubric under which currently separated objects of investigation will be brought together to demonstrate their interconnectedness and co-ordinated nature. 

Like the teacher who told me that Stonehenge was built by Druids and the concrete dressers, the history is not as important as the belief; the belief that makes the space both liminal but solid and most importantly real to them. Like Milbury being my template for a real place, that space is every bit as real for me as the real village of Avebury. Social spatialization specializes in spaces that exist in the imagination as much as they exist as a physical ‘real’ space and treats them with equal value. 

12 

The sun had chased the rain clouds in the direction of Swindon and the last vestiges of the night’s saturation rose, reclaimed by the sky. The Manor House gardens, strewn with bumptious peacocks, hosted a café/restaurant called ‘Stones’ and we used the last of our money to buy something warm to eat, sharing a single plate of food. The events of the previous thirty-six hours were beginning to catch up with us and we both looked and felt tired and unwell. While discussing the events of the previous thirty-six hours and the plans to get home again, a lady on the next table – tie-dyed tee-shirt, cowrie shells woven into her hair and the heavy scent of patchouli oil – leaned over and said ‘You’ve had quite and adventure, haven’t you?’ 

We smiled and agreed that we had been on quite the journey. 

‘Did you learn what you needed to learn?’ she asked. 

‘What?’ 

‘Well, you came here for a reason, didn’t you?’ 

I nodded. 

‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ 

I thought about the stones that were missing, the carving that didn’t exist, the disappointment I felt at their absence and said ‘No, I don’t think so.’ 

She gave a beatific smile and said “Are you sure?” 

“None of things I really wanted to see were here,’ I said. 

‘Are you sure you were in the right place?” she asked. 

I thought for a moment. What I really wanted to see was Milbury, a fictional place overlaid onto Avebury for the purposes of storytelling. Reluctantly, I agreed that no, Avebury was, in fact, not where I wanted to be. 

‘So, you could say that you’ve learned the truth of the place?’   

‘Maybe. A truth, certainly.’ 

‘That’s the spirit,’ she grinned. 

13 

Modern archaeology appears, from observing many TV documentaries, to default at ‘ritual space’ on newly discovered buried buildings, until another ‘correct’ conclusion can be reached. To anthropomorphise for a moment, it’s almost as if the stones, having been made for ritual, are demanding further ritual from later inhabitants. 

14 

The landscape; the stones; they store stories. 

15 

In a symbolic universe where temporal spatial and psychological space have no boundaries, all one can rely on is one’s own experience. As such quantitative and qualitative analysis is largely moot as the experience relies on a set of unique hopes, frustrations, anticipations, confusions and fears. Transformation, the primary function of liminal space, can only happen when one ‘lets go’ of the mundane or profane world, when we relinquish all control and partake in the mysteries offered by sacred space. 

This liminal divine state is subject to many interpretations and assertions that often contradict one another. This is particularly noticeable within the neo-pagan tradition, with the sheer volume of ‘How To be a Witch,’ books, each describing the ‘correct’ way to inscribe magical space and the ‘correct’ incantations; all of which differ wildly but to, one assumes, the same end. Christianity took steps to avoid the discrepancies between cults but as yet there has been no ‘Council of Nicaea’ to create (and undoubtedly deviate from) a uniform pagan doctrine. A famous adage within the pagan community runs ‘Four pagans = five opinions.’ 

16 

We spent another hour or so talking and laughing with the woman with cowries in her hair before she stood up abruptly and announced that she had to get home. 

‘I can take you to the start of the M1 if you like. After that you’re on your own.’ 

‘You don’t live here?’ asked Evan. 

‘I don’t think anyone really lives here,’ she said, ‘It’s mostly holiday lets, second homes, camp sites. Or day-trippers, like me.’ 

We thanked her for her offer, relieved that the first part of our journey home would be effortless. With renewed energy, we grabbed our stuff together and threw it into her VW microbus. It had to be a VW Microbus. The journey was pleasant but uneventful and after we said our goodbyes and thanks, we were left at Hemel Hempstead services to find our way home. 

17 

What interested me most about Children of the Stones is the terrifying rite of passage that very much adheres to Van Gennep’s three-part outline but presents the outcome as a terrifying loss of individuality. The villagers of Milbury live quiet, normal lives until Hendrick buys the Manor. Each family within the village is invited to dinner (Rite of Separation) and relieved of their sin through a ritual that involves ley line energy and a handy black hole aligned directly above the stone circle. In a blaze of light, all negativity is stripped away and they become perfect citizens or ‘Happy Ones’ as the protagonist calls them. Post-ritual, the newly ‘happy-ed’ family meet the rest of the villagers who are waiting on the green to take them into their new life (Rite of Incorporation.)   

 18 

I wondered whether I had participated in my own rite of passage on this visit. I had left my normal life, discarded part of my childhood and found a truth that I could take into the world, an understanding of duality. Entering the circle had become my Chapel Perilous. Leaving it, I was different. The elements were there as were the ritual magic elements from Wilsons model.  

Evan preferred to think of it as a manifestation of Joseph Campbell’s ‘Hero’s Journey.’   

It wasn’t something I was familiar with. Evan tutted before explaining the theory. I was too tired to take it all it. 

‘Look,’ he said, as cars and lorries passed us on the slipway, ‘we went on a quest. We found what we were looking for, but it was a disappointment. We lost faith and someone came to guide us on the way to enlightenment. We passed through trials and came out on top.’ 

‘ And that makes us heroes?’ 

Evan thought for a moment. 

‘Yes. In a small way, it does.’ 

‘Legends in our own lunchtime,’ I said, in a tone that could curdle milk. 

Evan smiled. ‘You really need to sleep, don’t you?’ 

I gave a half-hearted smile back as a lorry pulled up. The driver signalled for us to open the cab door. 

‘I’m going to Leeds,’ he said, ‘I can stop anywhere on the motorway for you.’ 

‘We’re going to Sheffield’, said Evan. 

‘Hop in,’ he replied. 

The next thing I remember is waking up at home, Evan asleep on the sofa. I made coffee for us both and, having showered and put on clean clothes, walked out into a new world.