Stonehenge Summer Solstice Sunrise 1999
Searles

Thu Jun 24 20:13:12 1999
These are the thoughts of our fellow Draoithe at the recent Stonhenge Soltice:*p*Stonehenge Summer Solstice Sunrise 1999*br*by Philip Shallcrass and Emma Restall Orr*p*We knew beforehand that it would not be easy. For one thing, there were the*br*premonitions. The day before we set out for the henge a number of us had*br*already shared a dream/vision of a huge crowd among the stones, of a lintel*br*stone falling from one of the trilithon arches and crushing the life out of*br*people below. We had heard of a rave being advertised on various websites,*br*there had been misleading articles in the national press saying that one had*br*only to turn up at Stonehenge on the morning of the solstice and free access*br*would be given to all. On the train that carried Philip up to London on the*br*solstice eve, he wrote this poem:*p*Dovetailing into a crazed adolescence,*br*the world sweeps up its clotted history*br*and smears it on a triangle of bare earth*br*marked out with tarmac and wire.*br*It`s here the police will gather,*br*here the decadence of another fin de siecle*br*will dance its way to another missing doomsday,*br*skipping stones across the pond of the silent dead,*br*confusion of ripples run against each other,*br*distorting perfect circles that the crows have now abandoned*br*to the noise of helicopters, hierophants and hacks.*br*No time to play, no room to expand on so few words*br*snatched from the rubble of dreams,*br*scattered gently like petals onto the surface*br*of the ancestral pool.*br*Giants look on, a mixture of emotions*br*and an age of distant longing*br*furrowing their mottled brows.*br*Long before we came, they stood,*br*and after we are gone, they still will stand,*br*welcoming the crows` return,*br*snake-hissing wind`s caress,*br*and most of all,*br*the wet familiarity of rain.*p*At Emma`s house in the evening we heard that buses and vans full of*br*`travellers` had arrived at the Stonehenge car park. Still, it was hoped*br*they could be persuaded to move and that the planned sunrise access could go*br*ahead. A few hours later we heard that hundreds of people had descended on*br*the car park and the road adjoining the monument. Still it was hoped that*br*the access might go ahead. At one o`clock in the morning we set off for*br*Salisbury.*p*We reached the car park where buses were waiting to take us to Stonehenge to*br*see the dawn. We were among the 150 people privileged to be offered this*br*opportunity. And how did we gain this privilege? We asked. Simple as that.*br*This year, about 800 people put in applications to English Heritage, the*br*stones` official guardians, to be at Stonehenge for the*br*solstice and midsummer. Over a period of five days, all of these people were*br*to have been granted access.*p*Over the past four years, we have spent many long hours sitting around*br*tables with English Heritage, the National Trust, Wiltshire police, Druids,*br*Witches, Pagans, travellers, hippies, local councillors, archaeologists and*br*others. We have discussed access to Stonehenge.*br*Remember that three years ago, no one was allowed into Stonehenge for the*br*summer solstice. Then last year a hundred people, ourselves included, were*br*given tickets and bussed in through the four-mile-wide exclusion zone around*br*the stones. The event passed off reasonably peacefully. There were a couple*br*of minor problems. Cameramen popped flash-guns every time anyone twitched a*br*muscle. The loud, grandstanding antics of one group who*br*staked their claim to the centre circle effectively prevented anyone else*br*from enjoying peaceful prayer or silent meditation. It was hardly a great*br*spiritual occasion, but it was another significant step in the process of*br*achieving better access without seeing a return to the bad old days of 1980s*br*confrontations.*br*It was hoped by all those involved in the access negotiations that this year*br*we could build on the success of last year and iron out the problems. We*br*laid careful plans for the Press to be more restrained, the police presence*br*to be more low-key, for access to be spread over several days, for more*br*groups to attend, for rituals to be shorter and to allow space for others,*br*for this, for that. We put together a flyer to be handed out to those who*br*might turn up without tickets and be unable to get in. The flyer explained*br*the situation, said a little about what would be happening in the circles,*br*suggested that those wanting access should apply for next year and ended by*br*wishing everyone a happy solstice.*p*But it was not to be.*p*On our arrival at the car park we were told that at 2am a group of about*br*forty people had knocked down a section of the fence around the henge and*br*that the police line had been attacked with bottles, stones, beer cans and*br*bodies. A few on both sides sustained minor injuries. About four hundred*br*people broke through the police and security guards and made it to the*br*stones. But it was still hoped that our access might go ahead.*p*The buses took us as far as Amesbury, then a policeman told us that they*br*judged it too dangerous to allow the buses to go on, that the access we had*br*come for had been cancelled, but that we could walk on to the stones if we*br*wanted to. We decided that, having come this far and having worked so hard*br*to bring about peaceful access, we should go on. About fifteen of the*br*British Druid Order group walked the last two miles to the henge, together*br*with Druids and individuals from other groups, arriving alongside the Heel*br*Stone just as the sun was rising. The sky was beautiful, one of the clearest*br*sunrises Stonehenge has seen for a good few years. The sight on the ground*br*was much less inspiring. In fact, it was thoroughly depressing. As we*br*approached the stones, we saw seven or eight figures on top of the trilithon*br*arches that straddle the rays of that sacred sunrise, and hordes of other*br*small black figures moving around among the stones on the ground. Another*br*throng was gathered on the*br*road. As we got closer, we saw that some of the figures were police officers*br*wearing yellow reflective jackets. Closer still and we saw that they were*br*holding transparent riot shields and short batons, wearing crash helmets*br*with visors. There didn`t seem to be many of them given that the crowd must*br*have amounted to about a thousand people. There were triumphant shouts from*br*the crowd in the circles, insults hurled from the crowd on the road. Some of*br*the police were trying to get the people in the circles to leave.  The*br*number of women and children (including babies) in the fray prevented them*br*from taking action, their only option*br*being to try this by persuasion rather than force.*p*We were witnessing the desecration of a sacred site and there was nothing we*br*could do to stop it. It was ghastly.*br*Emma was called to do some radio and tv interviews: an opportunity for*br*damage limitation, if such were possible. Philip stayed on the road with the*br*rest of the British Druid Order group.  After a while, Clews Everard, the*br*director of Stonehenge for English Heritage, and David Batchelor, an EH*br*archaeologist, appeared. Clews was devastated. We hugged and wept. She more*br*than anyone had worked tirelessly for a peaceful solution to the problems*br*surrounding Stonehenge, balancing the wishes of scores of different interest*br*groups with admirable tact and diplomacy, optimism and good humour. The last*br*solstice morning of the millennium should have represented the happy outcome*br*of all of her and everyone else`s efforts to date. Instead, it was a chaotic*br*mess. The bottles, beer cans and other debris that had been hurled at the*br*police still lay all over the ground and an aggressive crowd of stoned and*br*drunken revellers were preventing access to the stones for all those who had*br*wished to be there to make ritual, to express their spirituality, to commune*br*with their ancestors, or just to enjoy the beauty of the sunrise alignment.*p*From the vantage point of the road there was little to enjoy. Philip stood*br*listening to the talk amongst the angry people around him who were*br*supporting the chaos. Some expressed their hatred and mistrust of English*br*Heritage, claiming that there was a great conspiracy between EH, the*br*National Trust, the police and the government that had been going on for*br*years, a conspiracy that had the sole aim of preventing anyone from holding*br*ceremonies in Stonehenge. Having held a great number of ceremonies in*br*Stonehenge, we know that this is complete nonsense, an urban myth that*br*derives from the brutal suppression of the free festival at Stonehenge that*br*happened under Margaret Thatcher. Times and attitudes and even governments*br*have changed, but the angry folk at Stonehenge on the morning of 21 June*br*apparently hadn`t noticed.  Another explained that they were there to make*br*sure that there would be a perpetual ban on anyone holding ceremonies inside*br*Stonehenge.  Others expressed their simple hatred of English Heritage, the*br*police and all other `establishment` bodies in crude, monosyllabic shouts.*br*Philip asked questions, trying to gain some insight into what these people*br*were doing there. All the answers were couched in terms of opposition to,*br*mistrust or hatred of some group or other, none in terms of spirituality,*br*respect*br*or celebration. These folk clearly saw themselves as society`s dispossessed*br*and were intent on honing their bitterness by wreaking revenge on society by*br*any means at their disposal, even the rather bizarre means of preventing*br*Druids and others from celebrating the summer*br*solstice at Stonehenge. We were stunned by such uncomprehending hostility.*p*As the morning drew on, the folk in the circles got bored and allowed*br*themselves to be led back to the road. The people on the trilithons*br*clambered down one by one. The crowd on the road began to drift off.  By*br*midday the fence was back up, the litter of a thousand revellers and their*br*many dogs had been cleared, the police were gone, and the site was strangely*br*back to normal, with a few hundred tourists taking pictures, listening to*br*the audio tour, oblivious to the nightmare of the solstice dawn.*p*In the early afternoon, sitting in the grass behind the meandering tourists,*br*we made our offerings to the spirits of the place and to the ancestors.*br*The stones of the circle seemed to us somehow black, the spirit having*br*flinched into a catatonic tension of withdrawal.  When we left, still*br*stunned, still reeling, still overwhelmed by the sadness of it all, the*br*tears were those of grief.  There was a powerful sense of our tradition, our*br*heritage, our land, having been violated by the rage and footfalls of such*br*misplaced protest and disrespect.*p*And what now?  The process of negotiation will continue and we will be a*br*part of it. But will it mean anything? What is the point in working for*br*peaceful access to the stones if there is an army of disaffected folk who*br*refuse to take part in the process and who are willing to destroy any agreed*br*access that happens? It seems that the only way to ensure peaceful access at*br*the summer solstice is to have the exclusion zone back in place and*br*Salisbury Plain covered with policemen. This is a ludicrous state of*br*affairs.*p*One can think of many reasons why the summer solstice at Stonehenge could be*br*the focus of such anger and tension. There is, as already mentioned, the*br*history of the suppression of the free festival and all the residual, and*br*perfectly understandable resentment that caused. There is the fact that the*br*summer solstice is a time when chaotic energy is at its height. There is the*br*origin of Stonehenge as a symbol of power erected by a Neolithic military*br*and political elite. There is the fact that the monument remains surrounded*br*by Ministry of Defence land regularly trundled over by tanks and shaken by*br*cannon fire, buzzed by military helicopters and jets.*p*But what can be done? Those of us committed to peaceful access will continue*br*to look for answers. We must also find a way to deal with those who won`t*br*talk to us or listen to us and who view the stones not as an ancestral*br*sacred temple but as a symbol of anti-authoritarian protest. At present we*br*have no common language.*p*Stonehenge is in some way an archetypal sacred site.  The desecration feels*br*to many to be a wound inflicted upon the earth we know is sacred.  We have*br*had, since Monday's events, dozens and dozens of letters, emails and phone*br*calls from people around Britain, Europe, America and Australia, proffering*br*their support, their empathy and sympathy.  The prayers are powerful.  To*br*those that this horror touches deeply, to those who are confused, to those*br*that feel impotent and violated, we suggest you walk with gentle footsteps*br*to your own sacred places and make prayers, sharing the blessings of beauty*br*and inspiration that come with*br*perceiving the world as sacred.   Only by living our native traditions*br*openly and freely can we guide this horrendous descration to stop.*br*You might like to know that we returned to Stonehenge this morning to greet*br*the dawn, to bless and purify the sacred circles, to make prayers for peace*br*and healing and to celebrate Midsummer`s Day. Forty-five people attended the*br*rite, which was beautiful, moving and entirely peaceful. We called, heart to*br*heart, spirit to spirit, to the crow people of Salisbury Plain, to the*br*spirits of place and the spirits of our ancestors to return from the shadows*br*into which the hostility of June 21st had driven them. As the first call*br*went out from the circle and our drums began to sound, two crows alighted on*br*top of the Heel Stone. I was the last to leave the circle after the closing*br*of the rite. As I looked back through the northeastern trilithon arch, the*br*gate of the Midsummer sun, seven crows flew into the circle, wheeled around*br*and landed on the Altar Stone and other stones in the inner horseshoe. The*br*process of healing has begun and will continue. This was confirmed today*br*(June 24th) when Clews Everard for English Heritage publicly re-affirmed*br*their resolve to see the stones open for all who come in peace. Wiltshire*br*police spokesman Andy Hollingshead has confirmed their support. It seems*br*that the anger and aggression of this tragic solstice dawn have served only*br*to re-double the determination of those who would bring peace. May the eye*br*of the sun strengthen the spirits of all peace-makers in all conflicts,*br*wherever they may be. In the name of the old ones,*br*Blessed be as blessed is.*br*