Such discussion is not appreciated here and will eventually lead to a ban. You could go over to the Portal and check out their 'Sacred sites' forum.

Yes, that's I.

I don't like the term 'use', though. Come and wheelbarrow stone for me, at your own risk and expense, for a summer and I'll tell you most of what you want to know. I'll let you use my trolley jack too (which shifts heavy rocks better than vague New Wave theories).

I am alone on these fora ...

You first Mick,
I'd like to hear your ideas.
Just to clarify something. Over the past couple of years a couple of people have been banned. Not for what they wrote but for how they behaved.
cheers
fitz

MuddyMick - If you are who I think you are...
< I would just like to hear from any who consider themselves proponents of any of these so called lineages/traditions and their views on our ancient sites , how they interface /use them and the logistics/theory behind this use. >
You know full well that these issues aren't discussed in places such as this.

Having had extensive discussions on this subject on here before I am only too happy to discuss the fact that I am a Druid and that I make use of sacred megalithic sites in practising Druidry.

I do not pretend to be using these sites in the way their creators did, but regard the use of pre-christian sites for ritual, under an open sky, to be one of the truly positive experiences of practising my beliefs.

The only real difference in ceremonial practice at such places is that if the ritual is being carried out in a circle, such as Avebury or the Rollrights, then no circle is cast or uncast at the start or close of the ritual.............basically because one is already present.

The other crucial principle is that we leave the place as we found it. In the 19th Century some druid cremations were, I believe, buried at Stonehenge. No Pagan I know, or would have anything to do with, would ever leave such a permanent trace at any such site.

Fantastic, people, that's 38 messages, this one included, and not ONE decent word has been said about the topic. This thread 'd better be abandoned and/or deleted and a new one started, because this is going nowhere.

As far as I'm concerned, I believe in naught but my own existence as an experiencing entity (esse est percipi), as a consequence have frequent moments of self-doubt and immobilising angst, but better that than believing whatever sounds groovy or makes me feel good, and that's about all. Some would say I'm too cerebral. Possible, but to and against that I drink.

As for the stones, ancient monuments and civilisations have fascinated me since I was 3, and my whole childhood was spent indoors reading books about it. I'm still fascinated by what culture and history underlie it, but mostly I like the pure experience of them. Then again, when it comes to that I invariably prefer the landscape surrounding them - which is always groovy, and the ones that put the stones there must've thought so too.

And here we get to the point: the reason that I do not want to believe is because I try to keep my experience as free from interpretation as possible. This is futile, as our whole world-image rests for 90% on top-down cerebral processing and maybe 10% of actual on-line sensory data input; still, I prefer not to clutter my 10% sensory input of "a beautiful rock" any further with all kinds of arbitrary meanings and significations of the random sort, such as any religion or symbol-deploying system.

It strikes me as daft that many folk seem to be unable to experience the beauty of something for what it is rather than what it represents within their world view. For me, a piece of gneiss is a piece of gneiss, and an erect rock is an erect rock, and it is beautiful because of what it is, in the simplest terms: its texture, the way the light hits it, the smell of it. I get a fit every time someone says to me "you take the magic out of it" - well damn right you fuckers, and if without your own projection magic you cannot experience the beauty of the thing as it is, you have some serious self-obsession issues.

This is about what I told my close wiccan friend when he asked me why I didn't join his coven, even though I was fascinated by his wiccan knowledge. However he mistook my vigorous interest in religion for a wish to start cluttering my sensory input. I mean I can understand that, before we went out, he had to sit 15' in front of a piece of rock to 'project his negative thoughts' and I can see that, as he said 'if you believe it works, it works'. Which brought us back at square one of belief: clutter. And I said no *fucken* way.

We're still good friends by the way.

You might say 'but you believe in science' and then I'd say you'd be surprised. Still I do not need to believe if a dude not only tells me how electricity works, but puts me in a dark room, installs a lamp puts a switch in front of me which I flip and I can see. That ain't Jesus, that's right. And by right I don't mean an absolute truth - it just means that the projection or formulas that science projects onto the world transform it into a workable substance. But there my belief in it ends.

So I use the stones to marvel at how long man has been unable to let the landscape be what it is but felt the need to project his own mind onto it. But then again, they didn't have much else to turn this into workable substance, so I think I can come to terms with that. As for the rest - nope, waste of brainspace.

Which is not to say that not everyone can believe what they want. Please do. But let me see it as art, for it's equally pointless and useless, which does not necessarily make it immune to beauty. And that completes the circle of perception.

-arf