Winter Solstice

Last year I went to Stonehenge for a very special opportunity. Along with about 40 other people including my wife and son I was able to walk in the Stone Circle and discover the amazing atmosphere amongst the stones. It is truly an otherworldly place and if you have the opportunity and the money available I can absolutely recommend it.

While I was there I got talking to the guide about what he would really like to know if he could go back in time. He said that he would love to see the process by which the site was built. He had a number of questions. How were the stones brought to Stonehenge? How were they lifted into place? What did the site look like when it was newly built? It was a fascinating insight into the thoughts of someone who knows the place intimately. The amount of guesswork and conjecture in archaeology is amazing, because however much they do know, the amount they don’t know is much more extensive.

My interest is in the way that the Stone Circle was used. For that reason I would choose to witness the first Winter Solstice at the newly completed Circle. Was it, as many people have assumed, a religious ceremony or celebration of the day when the dark started to gradually loosen it’s hold on the world? Was it a Neolithic rave where hedonism was the order of the day? Was it a meeting to decide how to divide the food and drink available over the long Winter? What did they wear? (I ask this question primarily because I saw a number of men dressing up in ‘Druid’s Robes’ and wondered why on earth they had decided that this is what would have been worn by the high priests.) Were there high priests or were they actually priestesses? So many questions with no answers, but answers that I could give if I was able to go back there and witness that first Winter Solstice. On reflection, I quite like the mysterious nature of the site and, as I will never be able to go back in time, that mysterious nature will remain intact and that is for the best. I have my vision of the Solstice in the Stone Circle and I will leave my imagination to fill in the gaps.