Weaving a Soul Cape
Newgrange
Winter Solstice
Photograph
by Cyril Byrne - The Irish Times
In 2007, I traveled to Scotland and Ireland to see the megalithic stone circle at Callanish on the Isle of Lewis, and the Karrowkeel and Newgrange passage tombs in Ireland. I couldn’t have imagined the powerful emotional, spiritual and kinesthetic experience of being in these ancient sacred places.
Newgrange was especially powerful for me. Walking down the narrow entrance passageway, where some of the stones are close enough to rub your shoulders, you come to a cross-shaped chamber with a marvelous corbel vault ceiling. There are three niches, with incised stones and large stone basins on the floor.
A guide arranges the visitors along the walls so that the path to the back wall of the chamber is clear. He extinguishes the artificial lights, plunging the chamber into utter darkness and silence. Then, he turns on a single 40 watt bulb whose beam is directed at the back wall, simulating the winter solstice sunrise. He then illuminates a second bulb, demonstrating how the sunlight would have filled the chamber at the height of the effect. It was profoundly stunning, even with artificial light.
I believe this chamber was constructed as a device to enable conscious celebration of, and participation in, the mystic union of sun and earth in the great cosmic cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Truly: as above, so below; as within, so without.
At Carrowkeel, I had a magical experience lying on a flat stone on the west side of the first cairn. There were several shallow depressions in the stone which were filled with water from the recent rain. I lay there with the fingers of one hand touching the water, the other hand spread flat on the stone, the sun bathing me in its fiery light, and the clean, sweet breeze blowing across me. Air, water, earth, and fire flowed around and through me in perfect balance. If there’s a closer place to heaven, I have not found it.
Here, I experienced what it might have felt like to live in harmony with the seasons of the sun, moon and earth. To be ever mindful of my connection with the fertile ground, the flowing waters, the fiery sun, and the shining air. To feel the earth and its creatures, the cosmos and its mysteries, as alive, sentient beings. To apprehend the celestial bodies as gods, and to celebrate life and death as cycles in the great turning of the larger life of which our lives are both reflection and revelation.
By coming to these places of sacred power, I weave their memories, like jewels, into the soul cape of my life.
Newgrange was especially powerful for me. Walking down the narrow entrance passageway, where some of the stones are close enough to rub your shoulders, you come to a cross-shaped chamber with a marvelous corbel vault ceiling. There are three niches, with incised stones and large stone basins on the floor.
A guide arranges the visitors along the walls so that the path to the back wall of the chamber is clear. He extinguishes the artificial lights, plunging the chamber into utter darkness and silence. Then, he turns on a single 40 watt bulb whose beam is directed at the back wall, simulating the winter solstice sunrise. He then illuminates a second bulb, demonstrating how the sunlight would have filled the chamber at the height of the effect. It was profoundly stunning, even with artificial light.
I believe this chamber was constructed as a device to enable conscious celebration of, and participation in, the mystic union of sun and earth in the great cosmic cycle of birth, death and rebirth. Truly: as above, so below; as within, so without.
At Carrowkeel, I had a magical experience lying on a flat stone on the west side of the first cairn. There were several shallow depressions in the stone which were filled with water from the recent rain. I lay there with the fingers of one hand touching the water, the other hand spread flat on the stone, the sun bathing me in its fiery light, and the clean, sweet breeze blowing across me. Air, water, earth, and fire flowed around and through me in perfect balance. If there’s a closer place to heaven, I have not found it.
Here, I experienced what it might have felt like to live in harmony with the seasons of the sun, moon and earth. To be ever mindful of my connection with the fertile ground, the flowing waters, the fiery sun, and the shining air. To feel the earth and its creatures, the cosmos and its mysteries, as alive, sentient beings. To apprehend the celestial bodies as gods, and to celebrate life and death as cycles in the great turning of the larger life of which our lives are both reflection and revelation.
By coming to these places of sacred power, I weave their memories, like jewels, into the soul cape of my life.
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