Suzanne Askham

Avebury vision: gateway to the Universe

John Wilding lives with his family in the centre of Avebury Stone Circle. It must be a little like living in a fairy tale, full of myth and magic. Do you know Avebury? It’s a picturesque Wiltshire village which contains the largest stone circle in the world. (Or maybe, even, the stone circle contains the village).

John runs the Henge Shop, which is full of delightful mystic gems and esoteric books. It’s a hub for spiritual travellers from all around the world.

To help the visitors, John is setting up a new website, to be called Visit Avebury. Last week he asked me to write 200 words on sacred sites and meditation for the new website. “I’d love to,” I emailed back.

It then occurred to me that I can’t remember the last time I meditated at Avebury. How can that be? I only live 15 minutes’ drive away. So I decided to get up early at the weekend and do my usual morning meditation there, within the circle…

First, I share a quick breakfast with my nine-year-old daughter, who usually loves a trip. She wants to know why I am going to Avebury. She doesn’t look impressed when I explain.

“Are you definitely going to meditate at the stones?” she asks.

“I am.”

“Then I’m definitely not coming,” she decides.

I smile. It appears that my daughter has just started to understand that parents can be Seriously Embarrassing.

As I walk down to the garage, I happen to glance into our front yard. I see the words ‘hope’, ‘joy’ and ‘love’ chalked onto the stone slabs in a childish hand. I smile again. Maybe she and I are not so different after all.

At Avebury, I walk over to my favourite part of the circle, the quieter north semi-circle. There are no people here, just sheep. I go up to several of the stones and place the palms of my hands against their rough surface. It feels like a form of greeting, a ‘signing in’ as it were. I study the patterns of rock and lichen. I am tuning in.

I notice that I am feeling distinctly light-headed, and the feeling persists.

Carefully, I choose a stone in the outer circle to sit by – then walk to an entirely different one. I sit on the ground and lean back. The stone supports my back so well, it almost feels soft.

The sun is warm in front of me. The stone is cool behind me.

A gentle wind brushes a few hairs against my face. I hear wood pigeons cooing placidly high in the trees.

I decide to do a listening meditation. Simply breathe, and listen, and feel, and listen.

Meanwhile, my mind has decided to do its bit to unlock the mysteries of the circle. No one really knows why Avebury Stone Circle is here, and there are countless theories. My mind is intrigued by the fact that there are two smaller inner circles within the outer circle. Within the best surviving inner circle, near where I’m sitting, there are two giant stones which many people call a female  and a male stone. Guess which is which…

And then I remember that I am here to meditate. I am here to breathe, listen and feel…

Maybe, my mind points out, the stone circle is a Neolithic depiction of Yin and Yang? All physical matter is composed of binary opposites: sun and moon, male and female, hot and cold and so on… surely Avebury is a beautiful representation of that?

And then I remember, once more, that I am here to meditate…

The area around my heart begins to feel warm: a spreading, pleasant glow.

It’s then that I notice that a particular, unusual word keeps popping up in my mind:

“Locus. The circle is a locus.”

Just in case there is any doubt, the voice repeats itself.

“Locus.”

And then… it happens.

I hear these words:

“It is not the stones themselves that matter. It’s the spaces in between. “

Without any warning, there is a whoosh!

I see a gateway to the All That Is. The stones are the gateway.  Through them, I can see the Universe.

And on my right side, between the stones, laughing, I can see women, very like those I have seen before. Maybe they are the same. Natural, lean and bare-limbed, they are laughing at me, though not unkindly.

“At least you are beginning to get it,” they are saying.

And then I am through the gateway and I am dancing between the particles of matter.

I am bigger than the stars and smaller than the atoms.

My previous light-headed feeling has gone, because I am now in the space in which  I am meant to be. This is my normal state of being, I realise. The rest is just a crammed up, box-like dream.

This is real life. This is reality.

I am in bliss.

I am bliss.

There is only bliss… bliss stretching out to infinity….

Gradually, as if from above, I become aware of the pattern of the stones again. I understand now how they act as a locus. The circular structure is helpful for returning back to your body.

We can think it, perhaps, as a Neolithic landing pad for the soul.

And then I am back again, sitting on baked bare earth, the sun on my face, cool stone behind my back. My heart area still feels pleasantly warm and glowing.

I am happy.

I return home via Silbury Hill, the tallest prehistoric human-made mound in Europe.

In my psychically open state, I can see a man directing others in front of a younger and smaller mound. A wise woman, well-regarded, is behind him. She is in the light. Younger men are asking why they are building up the sky.

The old man says, “It will remind them. 

“The time of forgetting will come. 

“The time of forgetting is necessary.

But then, the time of remembering will come. “

This is fascinating, and I want to stay, to learn more. But I am feeling a growing pressure. At home, my family are waiting for my return. So Silbury must be a story for another day.