I love love love long meg! She was the first stone circle I ever did see and the one that I have returned to the most.

Its fairly accepted that if you stand in the middle of the circle and look to Long Meg then you are looking at the place on the horizon where the winter solstice sun rises.

I don't believe that this alignment was meant to be viewed from the centre of the circle, though. If you look at it from the second tallest stone in the circle (long meg being the tallest) then Long Meg takes on a very phallic aspect. I posted a photo recently

http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/image.php?image_id=11474

and another to go with it showing the view from Long Meg looking back across the circle to the stone the first picture was taken from.

Its often been said that Long Meg the standing stone is a later addition, coming after Long Meg the circle. In my view this could well be true. If you imagine the view in my photo without Long Meg and with the winter solstice sunrise happening where Long Meg should be then suddenly things look a lot more female, with the Earth giving birth to the Sun. Is Long Meg (the standing stone) a patriarchal power play?

Having said that, its interesting that the ground all slopes away from Long Meg precisely along the line of this alignment. I would imagine that this makes the shadow of phallic Meg very long on the morning of the winter solstice, penetrating the female circle. This would, perhaps, suggest that phallic Meg was there from the beginning.

There's what looks (to me) like a recumbent goddess visible from both Long and Little Meg, very distant on the horizon. Will post photo soon. Is this goddess Meg, not the monuments?

Does anyone have any thoughts on these ramblings... particularly anyone who has seen the winter solstice sunrise at Long Meg.