Journal of Jenny's Trip to Callanish for the Major Standstill of the Moon

My trip to Callanish was sponsored by Findhorn, a "New Age" community on the shore of the Moray Firth in Scotland. Our trip leaders were Peter Vallance and Sue Clutterbuck, and the other twelve of us were from Canada, the US, the UK, Germany, and a Japanese couple who live in France.

Before I went to Findhorn for the first time in 2000, I reread The Findhorn Garden and was reminded that the community there began in the 60s with Dorothy Maclean and Eileen Caddy writing for spiritual guidance. So I started writing for guidance myself. These evolved into letters in which I ask for help and the "Guiding and Guardian Spirits" reply. I think I started with a group because I didn't trust my ability to contact a particular spirit. Reading over from the past I find that they are consistently loving and supportive, and often right about the particular issue I was dealing with.

Thursday, May 4
Dear Guides and Guardian Spirits, I'm feeling a little scared about my trip, a little overwhelmed by the number of details that still have to be taken care of - I need to be connected to Spirit. Please help me.
Dear Jenny, we love you very much. This trip is important - for you to connect with Findhorn and take them the Tibetan Invocation. You, too, are one of the planetary travellers, and your work strengthens the network of light. When you are afraid, put everything into the hands of Spirit. Call on us and we will be there - yes, we have no problem staying with you over the Atlantic. When you are sad, and your heart hurts, let it rest on the Ocean of Compassion. Remember the lovingkindness meditation, and tonglen - these will help you with any sustained bout of painful emotion, or any long uncomfortable waits. WE LOVE YOU. DON'T FORGET.

Thrush singing, daffodils blooming, moon waxing behind cloud cover. It's the moment of thrush, moon, and daffodil, and I'm leaving. The maple leaves have just started to open, the shadbush are not yet in flower along the Gale. I'm going to miss two weeks of this most beautiful part of spring. But it feels important/necessary to do this trip.

Friday, May 5
This is it! The big day! I'm really excited! It is excitement, not fear. The moon's at first quarter and when it's full I'll be at Findhorn.

Sunday, May 7
In London, Diana and Michael's house. We went to Kew Gardens. A lot of it was woods with beautiful HUGE trees, lots of space between. The bluebells were out, the rhododendrons just getting started. We crawled into a badger's home, wonderful tunnels with roots & stones on the sides, as though hollowed out under a big tree.

Monday, May 8
We went to the Tate Modern, straight to the Rothko Room. Eight huge paintings in reds, blacks, greys. In the newspaper supplement there was a story about how he had gone to see the Greek temples at Paestum, and realized he had been "painting Greek temples all my life and without knowing it." The paintings had been commissioned for the Four Seasons restaurant in New York City. Rothko commented "I hope to paint something that will ruin the appetite of every son of a bitch who ever eats in that room." But he later refused the commission, sending back Seagram's $35,000 check. The Tate negotiated for the paintings and finally got them. We happened to be there just as a lecturer came through with a bunch of students. He said that Rothko committed suicide on the day the paintings arrived at the Tate. He didn't say if there was a connection. (For more information) I'd like to know more about Rothko. I found the paintings wonderful. (The lecturer said people either loved them or hated them.) If you stared at them long enough the shapes seemed to move. There was a feeling of megaliths, of heavy stone pillars. It reminded me of the badger's sett. When I said this to Diana, she said it was womb-like. Exactly.

Wednesday, May 10
On the train to Inverness. Got a cab just as I turned out of Chester Row. Great ride through London. I recognized Trafalgar Square and Tavistock Square.

We've passed York, so we're in Yorkshire. Saw some rabbits near the track, many little lambs in the fields.

Saw a sign for the Scottish Border after Berwick and soon after the shell of a house in a green valley right on the sea. I remember seeing that house before, on another trip. I love this train ride, watching the countryside change from flat farming land to rolling hills, to high moors, to mountains with snow, and back down to Inverness at the head of the Moray Firth. I love all the little backyards with very different collections of flowers or vegetable gardens or laundry or junk. I love the old houses, the brick, stone, plaster, half-timbering. I love the fields of yellow flowers (whose seeds make Canola oil). It's too early for the blue fields of flax. There are pastures of cows, and sheep with lots of little lambs, and the occasional deer or rabbit. Also streams of different sizes, some placid, some rushing over stones.

At Findhorn. The devas of travel were watching over me. I got to Inverness and the Forres train was right across the platform. I walked out of the Forres station and found a cab right away - with a woman driver (my first!) She let me out at the Community Center and there was Peter! So I was in time for supper, and for dancing in the Universal Hall with Andy.

Thursday, May 11
What did we see today? A Pictish stone with carved symbols, probably clan boundary markings. Then we went to a recumbent stone circle - unmarked, unrestored, on top of a hill in the Woods (Crowthie Muir Woods?) Two huge spruces by the path on the way up. We linked them by forming a crescent between them and singing a Gaelic prayer/chant. We went on up the hill and meditated where the path entered the circle. The recumbent stone and its flankers were to the left, so we came in from the south. Then we walked around it singing. We entered individually, in silence, and found a place where we wanted to spend some time. Then we gathered together, singing "Deep Peace", and then set out the picnic - a real feast. I felt nothing, no energies, no messages. (Though I realize I didn't ask for anything either.) I did get one thing when we tuned into the recumbent stone itself - "Cow". Which could mean a lot of things: equinox in Taurus, cattle as wealth, cow as nurturing mother. According to some authorities, the recumbent stone indicates the moon's major standstill, its lowest path through the southern sky.


Picture of recumbent stone taken by Bobbi Randall

Friday, May 12
On the ferry in Ullapool harbor. Looking up the Loch to the mountains where there are still patches of snow. Leaving soon for Stornoway on the Island of Lewis.

Saturday, May 13
Loch Roag guest house. Loch Roag itself is on the West coast, open to the Atlantic Ocean. Right next door, and now part of the same B&B is Eshcol House, where I stayed when I was here in '99. I even found my name in the book! My room has a view south, I can see the "Sleeping Beauty" form in the hills.

Picture of "Sleeping Beauty" taken by Bobbi Randall. The hill on the right is nearer the viewer and can change its position as one travels along the road across the moor. From one of the sites we visited, this hill becomes Sleeping Beauty's pregnant belly.

I finished reading Jill Smith's book "The Callanish Dance" about 10 years spent on Lewis, living a very minimal life- no car at first, cutting peats for winter fuel. It's her experience of the cycle of the seasons at the stones, and of the extreme sweeps of dark and light.

We stopped at the stones last night- the sun just setting - beautiful and cold. I was glad to see them, they are like old friends.

Picture of Callanish at sunset taken by Bobbi Randall.

This morning we spent time at Circle III - the small one about a mile from the main site that I like a lot. As I walked around the outside it looked like the stones were dancing against the mountains to the south. There were a surprising number of shells on the grass near III. I think the gulls must drop them, as the circle is quite a distance up from the shore. I found some limpets, and then an odd shaped round one like the ones I found at Cape Cod when I was talking to God. It was like another message from a Universe that wishes me well.

I spent some time with one of the stones. I would like to have drawn it but was too tired. But I did ask for a message and it wrapped me round with love and said "All shall be well."

Found a spot where 3 stones line up with the major notch in the Clisham Hills. Two squarish flankers and a pointed middle stone. Got a picture from a distance.

View of the south horizon as seen from the moor above Callanish. In the lefthand third of the picture are the hills that outline Sleeping Beauty. About a quarter in from the right side is the notch in the Clisham hills. This notch is significant in the astronomy of the sites, but it's not easily visible from Callanish I and III.

In the picture below of III, a detail of the one above, the three stones in the middle of the picture line up with the sides of the notch, the V of the notch can't be seen, it would be where the pointed stone just touches the top of the slope behind the circle. The landscape actually slopes down from the circle and up again to a low hill in the south, from which one can easily see the notch. There is a person standing on that hill, she looks a little like a mushroom just inside the right stone of the three.

We visited Margaret Curtis, an archeologist who lives near the stones and has been studying them for 30 years. She showed us how to draw circles, ellipses, and flattened circles (as described by Alexander Thom) with sand trays and loops of string. I never understood the complex geometry of the flattened rings until she showed us how simple it is to draw. It turns out that Callanish is a flattened circle, obvious now that I know. She also showed us two ways of moving big stones. One was pulling them over rollers made by logs - this turned out to be surprisingly easy, the real work is moving the rollers. There was also a method in which the stone was held up by ropes attached to a log held up by tripods. By twisting and untwisting two sets of ropes the stone could be moved over the ground.

Then we went to the main site with Margaret. She showed us several places where two or three stones combined to give a sight line. She also showed us alignments that went to stones beyond the fences - a north stone beyond the edge of the village, and places in the south right in front of the big outcrop, where there had once been stones. Also a fifth stone in the east wing that Margaret discovered, and made them restore. It necessitated moving the fence which apparently required a lot of negotiating.

She took us to Callanish III. She pointed out four stones which are inside the circle. Three were closer together: a triangular white one, a red rectangular one, and a dark striped one. Margaret told us someone had said to her that they were Maiden, Mother, and Crone. Across the circle was a dark leaning stone that looked a lot like a penis from the other side. Notice the light being just to the left of the Maiden stone, and the breasts on the Mother.

Margaret (in Wellingtons) and our group at III

I really enjoyed Margaret. I appreciate her scrupulousness in making a distinction between telling us what she or someone else has observed, and what a psychic has picked up.

At about 10:30PM we went to Callanish III to watch the moon rise behind the stones. Peter had us sit around among the stones and told us the story of how Beera (ugly old hag with blue teeth) kept Bride shut in her castle until Angus, the youngest and most beautiful of the gods, came to rescue her. They battled back and forth until finally Angus won. While Peter was talking/enacting the story, I could see the clouds of winter and the sun of summer pushing each other around, just as the weather has done for the last month. Just as he finished the story, the drummers down at Circle II began playing. They played again after the moon rose - and someone said they were at the main site later and built a bonfire.

The moon was in Scorpio, just past full. It turned out they had calculated the rising time too early. We waited a long time and got very cold, but it was clear. There was still a lot of light in the sky. Three of us gathered in a hug to keep warm - I think it was me and Roberta and Rebecca and then Helen joined us - we were standing together as close as possible, holding hands and shivering deliberately to get warm. I thought "fortress hold" so I said "Two to the right and one to the left" and started doing Omal Mektup, pulling them with me. But I found myself making up a dance, or perhaps the dance just came to me from the stones - side-close-side-close, side-together-side and step - stamp. We began to giggle and just broke up laughing. April was filming and got it all on film, I saw the replay, it was hilarious.

Finally we saw the moon come slowly up over the horizon. Because the latitude is so high, the moon moves quite a distance south during the time it takes the full disk to cross the horizon. There was plenty of time to move and get the moon silhouetted behind certain stones. It also made me aware that it's very hard to talk of "alignment" when there's a considerable section of the horizon involved, not just a single point.

Sunday, May 14
Walked up onto the moor from the guesthouse and found a place to sit sheltered from the wind. Watched the cloud shadows move slowly over the landscape. Because there are so many layers and no trees, each layer has its own color, dark or bright if sun or cloud shadow. Soft blue purple, dark blue purple, mixes of yellows & browns & greens. Almost wish I'd brought paint, but it was too windy and cold. Came back singing "Road to the Isles" and full of joy.

Watching a lark rise up singing and fall back down - we've heard a lot but that was the first time I've seen one while it's singing.

We had drawn angels for each of us on the trip. Mine was "Understanding". The overlighting angel for the group was "Synthesis". Today it occurred to me that "understanding" is the word that, in my book (The Feminine of History is Mystery) joins the end of the left-hand pages to their beginning. "Therefore seek under/standing at the center."

Looked through a book of woman/Goddess images with quotes, from collections used in a series of engagement calendars: Return of the Great Goddess, by Burleigh Mutén. Two quotes:

"In the start of time, splendor appeared ... It was the Mother. She was all that was. She divided the sky from the sea and danced upon the waves. A wind gathered behind Her from Her swift dancing. When she rubbed this wind between her hands, it became the Great Serpent. She took him to Her and loved him, and a great egg grew within Her and She became a Dove. The Dove-Mother brooded over the egg until it was ready. Then out of the egg came all things - sun, moon, stars, earth, mountains, rivers, and all living creatures. The splendor of the Mother flowed through everything, through sun and sea, through the veins of the earth into root and leaf, into grain and fruit, into all women and men. And each birth became forever an acceptance of splendor and each death a gift to the Great Mother." June Rachny Brindel, Ariadne

We say the time of waiting is over.
We say the silence has been broken.
We say there can be no forgetting now.
We say
listen
We are the bones
of your grandmothers' grandmothers.
We have returned now
We say you cannot forget us now
We say we are with you
And you are us.

Patricia Ries, from "The Ancient Ones."

Monday, May 15
Dreamed about Bella. I was walking through an old city and trying to make sure she was following me. We also acquired a green puppy who disappeared at one point but then did appear at the house soon after we arrived. Green puppy? Something new - new instinctive potential - potential for being happy? Living in the moment? Green = new growth?

Walked up the road from the guesthouse to the moor & my place sheltered from the wind. I sat and comtemplated the landscape and thought about the sense I had last night at the stones of Callanish of a Bread & Puppet like pageant, not so politically oriented but archetypal, mythical, perhaps with clowns, dragons, masks, costumes, hobby-horse, who knows what... And I thought about my imagining a celebration at Stonehenge, and how I longed for "my people" and how they said "We are both the past and the future, we are where the circle meets itself, never fear, you too are enclosed by the circle."

From The Feminine of History is Mystery, left-hand page opposite p 133:
"in the pale pre-dawn light, men, women, and children, wearing skins and bright colored woven cloth, carry banners and flutes and tambourines. down the hill, through the valley of the avon, up the shoulder past the mound and the heelstone, a sense of joyful expectancy, of reverence, but no rigid formality, dogs bark, children laugh. there is a moment of solemn silence at the sun's first flash, then they will sing old songs and new, dance thousand-year-old dances with new variations, feast and share the year's gossip, and wander home again... o my people, how I envy you, what a sense of loss that I am not there too - are you the past or the future? we are both the past and the future, we are where the circle meets itself, never fear, you too are enclosed by the circle."
When I wrote this passage, describing a solstice celebration at Stonehenge, I thought I was writing how it might have been in the past. Then my homesickness for these people, my tribe, became so great that I called out in my imagination, and they answered, in that way that characters in fiction often do, something completely unexpected. Years later I found "Sacred Circle Dancing", built Neskaya, and was celebrating solstice there in 2004 when I realized that I had found the people of my vision and we were there, where the circle meets itself.

During the afternoon we went out on the moor with Margaret and Ron to see two circle sites. One very near the guesthouse, just above where I've been sitting. Only one stone was still standing, the positions of the rest could only be told by the roughly circular groups of packing stones. We walked all around the circle and Margaret showed us the packing stones and some broken fragments. The stones were probably taken and used as building material. After seeing the extent of the whole circle, we each took a place where a stone had been. I chose the north position. Ron and Peter both took pictures of us enacting the stone circle.

I'm the one in the center front wearing a magenta parka

The second site was the one Margaret had taken us to in 2000. It's now marked as a site, with a sign and path and bench. Again we stood where the stones had been. At this site, at major lunar standstill, the moon can be seen to rise out of Sleeping Beauty's womb.

We were sitting in the living room after dinner talking about the ritual we will do at the stones tonight - the night of lowest moon. I turned to look out the window and everything was lit up with garish golden light. It took me a moment to realize it was the sun. I pointed and Sue realized at the same moment. We all jumped up and ran for the bus. But by the time we got to the stones the sun had gone into the lowest cloud. There was still golden light in the sky and on the stones. We took pictures and wandered about until the light was gone. I walked around the circle and watched the stones dance against the background.

 Tuesday, May 16
We got up at 1:15AM to go over to the stones and do a ritual -- in the rain and wind. We were timed for the moonrise over Sleeping Beauty but of course couldn't see it. We sang in the crescent between the stones at the end of the avenue, then walked up the avenue and gathered in a circle around the big stone. Sue said an invocation, and April (perhaps) spoke a poem - I am the wind, I am the fire, etc. We sang our Gaelic Blessing of the pilgrim while walking around the stone. Then we each went to one of the stones in the circle and took turns standing alone in front of the big stone. The only light was a flashlight at its base. It was amazingly easy to see the stones once my eyes got dark-adapted. Sue & I went out to the place Margaret helped us mark earlier - the alignment at lowest moon when an observer in the avenue would see the moon behind the stones. We climbed the stile in the rain. I stood at the marked place with Sue behind me with a powerful flashlight. When she turned it on, I saw my shadow stretch and tower toward the stones - it felt like shamanic energy. We got totally soaking wet, but it was worth it, something primitive and wonderful about being out with the great powers swirling around us.We gathered once again to sing our blessing song, then went back to the bus and home to sleep.

Major Standstill of the Moon

A web cam has been set up at Callanish by Victor Reijs, so you can see what is happening right at this moment. Remember that Scotland is on GMT, five hours earlier than Eastern Time. One camera is set toward the NE horizon, and the other shows part of Sleeping Beauty and the stones of Callanish I.

At the visitor center. Most of the rest have gone to Stornoway. I hung out with the stones in a slight drizzle. When it stopped raining, visibility opened up. I went over the fence to check out the view from the highest knob, but the stones almost disappear into the background houses. I found the place where I stood last night, but there were other markers to the west, and looking through the stones to the white house and the end stone it looked to me as thought the outer ones made a better alignment. It turned clear and beautiful, with lovely colors - steel of the loch, rusty gold on the hills, a little green, the farther hills purple (though no sign of the farthest, Sleeping Beauty and the Clisham notch) - so I walked to Callanish III. A beautiful walk, the landscape so colorful, the stones of II and then III visible against the sky. Looking back I could see the backbone of the main site against the far hill. Got to III, took some pictures - I managed to get the stones I had seen silhouetted against the moon. Went all the way out to the far hill, and then it looked like rain was coming in again, so I came back. Through the singing gate (the rusty hinge sounded almost like Gregorian Chant) and along the road where I saw Lana coming the other way. "Fancy meeting you here!" I ducked under the odd roofed shape for shelter while I put my jacket back on, and then came back here to the visitor center where I'm sitting and writing.

There is an adorable little fluffy scotty dog on a key ring. I think of buying it and dying it green in honor of my dream. I'm reluctant to spend $7.50 on something so frivolous. (Later I saw that the same animal was offered as a refridgerator magnet with magnets in its four paws. I couldn't resist, so I got it and I will dye it green...)

Looking at the stones, especially walking around the outside and watching them "dance", I realize how perfect a preparation it was to see the Rothko paintings.

I'm reading a book by Paul Devereux which I'm finding fascinating. (Symbolic Landscapes, gothic Image Press) He talks about the "Interworld", the world "between" the physical and the spiritual, the shamanic realm - what I used to call the "heraldic world". We who celebrate the landscape and the seasons, birth and death, sorrow and healing - that's were we live. We are both the past and the future. We are where the circle meets itself. You too are enclosed by the circle.

When I first was dropped off at the stones, there was a lark singing ecstatically, fluttering high up - he went on and on and on - I had the sense that the stones are made happy by our coming and celebrating them.

Wednesday, May 17
10PM - in Traigh Bhan on Iona. A long exhausting day, a very wet walk from the ferry - even my journal got wet. "A gale" is due tomorrow.

For more information, see Iona Community, or check out Virtual Tour.

Thursday May 18
On the porch. Sun has gone under so it's not too hot to sit here as it was earlier. We look across the channel to Mull. A seagull is barely holding his own against the wind. White surf breaking on the rocks. (Later) The sky has opened up again, the sun shines, the water is blue.

We walked over to the other side of the island, to the beach. I was walking more slowly and began to fall behind. I saw a snail slowly crossing the path and turned to see if anybody was coming. Natsuki was right there. He momentarily took a stance as though to protect the snail from anyone who might come. I wondered if we should just move it to the side of the path and he did it. That started me wondering if there were beings, as much larger and more complex than we as we are to the snail, who step in and help us when we are trying to move somewhere. It started raining hard when we got to the beach, so I just picked up a few stones and came back almost immediately. By the time I got past the town, the rain had stopped and the wind was strong enough so that my clothes were almost dry by the time I got back to Traigh Bhan.

I wasn't very cold but my ankles hurt a lot, so after washing my hair and a cup of tea I went out again - out the gate and down to the shore (which was only a few yards away.) I found a sheltered spot and rested for a bit. Round cobbles on the beach, metamorphic outcrops of rock with surf breaking, it looked almost like East Point in Maine, except for the moss and lichen and some magenta flowers.

A rainbow is visible in the East, over Mull. Both sides are there, the top is faint. The left side is very bright but broken by radial lines which are darker. (Drawing) I've never seen anything like that and wonder what causes it. It has changed while I've been writing, gotten softer, now fading away.

Friday, May 19
Dream: I was to put on a dress - white, strapless, full length, full skirt. There was also a white veil. I was waiting for mother to show up and help me with it. There was a sense of frustration. I was wondering if I should just go ahead and try the dress on to make sure it fit before the actual celebration.

We gathered in the Sanctuary yesterday. Before the meditation started, I looked out the window and saw a lamb rolling ecstatically. When I began to meditate, I had a sense of great depths opening beneath me, light and joy springing up through me, and a sense that I didn't have to do anything, just being was enough.

I've been reading the book about Traigh Bhan and the ritual that was done here to link Iona with Findhorn and to ground the "new age" or "Cosmic Christ" energies on Iona. There was a lot of information about "power points", etheric network, etc. Also that sites that had been used for a long time had gathered negative energies as well as positive, and they needed to be cleansed, so the ritual included that piece. This was all recorded in very careful and detailed language, almost technical - which is how I wrote about my experiences at the sites in '78 and '79. Now the detailed language seems almost silly to me - though I can appreciate its importance before we have some sense of the significance of the whole. Like dreaming, you never know what detail may be significant - or may be the "key" for one interpretation - since all details are significant and all interpretations valid.
My sense of it now is that we are all blind men trying to get a handle on the elephant. I don't doubt the existence of power points, etheric networks, angels, or that rituals can accomplish real things - or maybe I should say that rituals can have consequences in the material world. Perhaps it's that I'm now more content to leave them as shadowy hints rather than trying to pin them down to specific images. I was interested to see that the people doing the ritual were told that what they were doing was more important than they knew, the top of a hidden iceberg.

Dear Guides and Guardian Spirits, I am at Traigh Bhan and feeling peaceful and joyous. Have you any messages for me?
Dear Jenny, we love you a lot. We are watching over Bella and Lynelle while you are gone. What you are doing on this pilgrimage is more important than you know. As you make efforts: to be compassionate, to bring good energy and blessings - larger agencies and beings are available to help you. In your action you also give them a doorway, a place to ground, a channel to work through, so their energies can be effective on this planet. Be of good cheer, dear one, all is well, all shall be well.

We had a formal tour of the Abbey. As I walked down the nave I had a sense of many voices singing one great chord of praise. I went to the ruins of St Mary's chapel with Sue, saw lots of snails and a bee hard at work on a flower. Spent a little time in St Michael's Chapel as well. There's an icon of a Black Madonna - African. After lunch I walked down on the beach with Carol, along the sand and all the way out to the point. We had a festive supper with all the tables on the sun porch so we could all be in the same room. There was wine and mead. I liked the mead and got a little silly on three mouthfulls. We went to Oran's chapel and sang some of the "fonns" Sue had taught us. Then we went back to Jane's B&B, to her nice big living room where we danced "Peace of Iona." I did my best to show Peter the Tibetan Invocation, gave him the CD and stepsheet I had brought. He told me Pablo is supposed to come to Findhorn sometime soon - that will get it there much much more efficiently.

Saturday, May 20
In the Universal bungalow at Findhorn. I've managed to find a ride to the train station tomorrow, and left a message for Diana that I won't be in until 11PM.

Felt sad all day - a grey day with some rain - as our bus took us from Iona to Findhorn. I was sad to leave Iona. It was also the breaking of our fellowship: we dropped four people at Craigmuir for the Oban Ferry, and another in Fort William. Stopped for a cream tea at Glengarry castle which was delicious and served in a very elegant library.

Sunday, May 21
On the train in Inverness. It leaves 9:40 but I won't get to London til 10:30. I'm feeling homesick, started feeling that way yesterday - wanting to get back to my friends, my dancing circle, my house and Bella. Saw the moon in the sky for the first time in a week, it's at 3rd quarter, pale among the clouds.

I got to Diana and Michael's in time for dinner, much earlier than I had thought. I think I must have been lucky and caught an earlier train after they bussed us from Newcastle to Darlington. So I was able to share my trip with them.

Monday, May 22
Home! In time to pick up Bella. I lucked out again, managed to catch the 1:30 bus to Concord which was a surprise as the plane wasn't supposed to get in until 1:23. I guess the devas who watch over travel helped me out.

Tuesday, May 23
Dream: in a house made like a cave - rounded spaces - the floor was at different levels, there were even things like benches or tables and it was all covered with carpet like thick golden fur. There was plenty of light - can't figure out now where it was coming from. I don't remember windows or skylights, didn't see the ceiling - it felt more like a nest than a cave. There were pieces of furniture, little beds in the childrens' room and perhaps some chairs or toys. A curved corridor connected the kids' room to the parents' room, there was a big double bed, a brightly painted table and chairs. I said to the parents: "You should have lots of children. This is a wonderful place for children." What a nice dream for my first night in my own house.

Saturday, May 27
Wanted to put down the major learnings from my trip. One was seeing Callanish as a kind of stage set for archetypal pageantry, that the astronomical alignments are really only of secondary importance. They indicate the time of year for celebration, but the stones are not a scientific instrument, but a sacred space for celebration. The preservation of the site and archeological reconstruction are part of what goes on, but not essential. The stone circles are more like a folk dance, still living, still to be celebrated, but trying to get things back they way they once were is stultifying, and besides there is realy no way to know "how the once were". Changes happen, they are part of a living process. This doesn't mean that wanton destruction is OK. The site needs to be treated with respect, but also needs to be enjoyed.

Another was the realization that came when we moved the snail, that the great powers are mindful of us, willing to help us, but we have to perform an action, no matter how small, in order to give them an entry point into physical reality. So it is often true that actions that we take are more significant than we know.