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the funny thing is, I've always felt I am just about to understand why stone circles were built - but I never do. i went to Castle Rigg when I was eight and was half completely baffled and half feeling I was literally just about to be enlightened and then very recently we went to to stanton drew and i had pretty much the exact same experience.

Now I know there are those here who have very definate ideas but I wondered whether you who have visted millions of sites - Mr Four Winds et al - you know who you are - feel that your understanding has increased - even on an intuitive level?

I will keep going regardless of course but I once spent four months in a buddhist monastery and came down feeling more baffled than when I went up (got skinny though - which was nice)...

I'm a stay at home - and have visited just a very few sites, but millions of times. The half and half experience is very human and possibly a function of the way our thought processes work. When you understand that you grew up in the middle of a collection of megalithic remains - I'm posting pictures to another one this afternoon - then the question of 'why' will become 'more immediate'. And, in the spirit of Zen hypnology, I'll paste the words of a song/poem below. If you have the time, then investigating Neil Young's song cycle 'Greendale' is worth the trouble.


Save the planet for another day

Attention shoppers.

Buy with a conscience and save.

Save the planet for another day

Save Alaska!

Let the caribou stay.

Don't care what the governments say

They're all bought

and paid for anyway.

Save the planet for another day

Hey Big Oil!

What do you say?

We were runnin' through the night

Never knowin' if we would see the light

Paranoid schizophrenic visions

Livin in fear of the wrong decisions

We got to wake up

We got to keep goin'

If they follow us

There's no way of knowin'

We got a job to do

We got to save Mother Earth

Be the ocean when it meets the sky

You can make a difference.

If you really try.

Be the magic in the Northern lights

Six Days...

Six nights.

Be the river as it rolls along

It has three-eyed fish.

And it's smellin' strong.

Be the rain you remember fallin'

Be the rain.

Be the rain.

Yeah, rain was fallin' and we're soakin' wet

Hail is beatin' down on our heads

The wind is blowin' through our hair

Faces frozen in the frigid air

We got to get there

Alaska

We got to be there

Before the big machines

We got a job to do

We got to save Mother Earth

Dream the hunter on the western plain

The birds are all gone.

Where did they go?

Dream the fisherman in his boat

He's comin' home empty.

He's barely afloat.

Dream the logger in the great northwest

They're runnin' out of trees.

They got to give it a rest.

(There's no other way to cut it)

Dream the farmer in the old heartland

Corporate greed and chemicals

are killin' the land.

Next mornin' Sun was up at dawn

She looked around and Earth was gone

Dark visions he had last night

He needed peace, he needed light.

He heard the rumble and

He saw the big machines

The green army rose

It was a bad dream

He had a job to do

He had to save Mother Earth

Be the ocean when it meets the sky

Greek freighters are dumping

crap somewhere right now.

Be the magic in the northern lights

(The ice is melting!)

Be the river as it rolls along

Toxic waste dumpin'

from corporate farms.

Be the rain you remember fallin'

Be the rain.

Be the rain.

Save the Planet for another day

Be the rain.

Be the rain.

Be the river as it rolls along

Be the rain.

Be the rain.

Be the rain, be the rain

The more I see the less I know
The more I read the more I doubt
The more I think the less I feel

40 years on the stone trail and I know nothing!

As you mention me by name ...

I feel that I do not have any <i>universal</i> theories to explain the monuments I visit. I do have localised ideas though. Certain regions do seem to follow themes, but then some seem to follow none.

Then you're stuck with - are the themes I think I see coincidence or are there themes I'm just not seeing in the other regions?

Basically ... no. I don't think I really <i>know</i> anything. For instance, when 95% of portal tombs are built by streams/rivers and face east is that a genuine characteristic? If so, why are the exceptions to those rules built the way they are? Do you have to work out why these odd ones are built that way to prove the two rules? Can you get away with saying 'Blah blah blah ... except these sites'?

The stone pushers wanted to mark their places on and in the land. Exactly why they felt a given place needed marking, I don't know. EXACTLY what they hoped to accomplish by marking--dividing, covering--I don't know.

But I do think the act of marking, with permanent stones or rock art, meant they were no longer in a "state of nature." They had become technologically oriented manipulators and creators (technicians), as opposed to psychologically oriented finders and petitioners (shamans).

Perhaps this is trivially obvious. Thanks for the chance to spout off.