Finding Home Inside a Ring of Stones #thestruggleisreal #castlerigg

 

A land holding magic. Photo credit: Sue Vincent

I’m sitting here imagining myself sitting on a plane in the dead of winter. I’ve imagined it often over the last 48 hrs. It’s not the difficult to do. Me, flying to a land frozen in time for 5,000 years, shivering under layers. Just me, and a circle of stones. The thought alone pulls me deep within to an untouched place. One thought stirs the internal waters until they flood my eyes.

Crazy.

Or is it?

I thought I had moved into the land of acceptance, until my husband forwarded me the airfare deal. In case you still need/want to go…

Can I differentiate need from want when the thought pulls me to the unknown that seeks to be known?

The wisdom of the ancients tell us that home is not a physical place, but a state of being. Yet I sit inside a house that feels false in many ways. It feels dusty with  pretenses.

It took only a photograph years ago to pull the cells out of hibernation. Hills made white with winter surrounding a ring of stones. It’s not just Castlerigg, though. Arbor Low evoked a similar response in me. I had to go there to discover why.

I waited at the threshold after the slow climb, pausing to receive permission before the womb opened to receive. One step and I was home. Flooded with bliss. Untempered magic. And I was home in the soft sweep of the moors where I found peace. The settled sleep of death undisturbed. Balance. And, I was home at the nest of the raven clan, high upon the hill, where I felt the shred of sorrow ripping me raw. A rape of the womb that was everyone’s. Earth holding the pain. Yet, I was home. I could have stayed there forever.

I reside in a land that has become numb. The artificial has forced life to retread. My body feels the weight of the false, and the struggle for a return that is slow and uneasy. It longs for the place where it doesn’t have to hide. Where the energy courses with life. Real Life.

And I know, someday I need to go to a place called Castlerigg. In the physical body. To remember. To retrieve. What? I do not yet know. The dreams and vision pull me only as far as the hills. The stones wait in stasis. Trapped in the movement of slow time. Yet, the life stirs within them with a force that has the power to pull me to them.  Three thousand miles apart.  An ocean of expanse. And I sit in wonder, thinking. Is the time now? Or can I wait?