Stonehenge

As promised to calendar holders. I am writing the story behind each month's calendar photo this year.

APRIL

"Stonehenge," I uttered when I turned my calendar page to April.  It surprised me.  I'd forgotten what image I'd chosen, and I wondered about my choice. I was anticipating color.  It's spring. Won't people be wanting color now?  My mother:  she would be, I thought. I had immediate visions of her letting a couple of pages fall back down so she could enjoy a different image for the month.  I hope that she won't.  She'll miss an opportunity.

The astrological events of this month are arguably bigger and more concentrated than we've seen for some time, than we will see (experience) all year.  For everyone, but especially for those born with their sun in cardinal signs (Capricorn, Aries, Cancer, Libra), all astrological signs point to this being a "fasten your seat belts" kind of month.  It's no wonder Stonehenge so easily nudged its way into this April placement.  Knowing now what I didn't know then, I can't imagine a better choice.

"You gotta go," my brother had said last September when I told him about my upcoming trip, that I'd be staying in the south of England, that I might be able to get there.  Sightseeing was not the purpose of my visit.  The purpose of the England leg of my Ireland reunion trip was to be with friends, not to do what tourists do.  Still, there I was.  My brother was right.  I had to go.  Bus to train to train to bus:  it took a full day and some arranging, but I did it.

The megaliths looked small, unassuming from the car park.  Some stones in a field.  Had the iconic dwarfed the actual, I wondered?  It happens.  But when I ap-
proached the stone circle on foot, tears gathered in my eyes as a sensation stirred in my breast.  That was the beginning.  And by the time I'd rounded the circle "anticlockwise" from 6 to 3 to 9 o'clock, I had passed from moved to changed by this power-place.

It was while standing at 9 o'clock that it spontaneously occurred to me to invite the powerful energies in "to reside in me for my benefit and the benefit of all whom I serve."  Then it occurred to me to ask about the history, the purpose and use(s) of this place.  I had been listening to the audio guide, to the myths and speculation about why Stonehenge was built:

...[T]he most tantalising mystery is why? Why did they build Stonehenge in the first place?  And then build it again and again? Was it a temple? To a sun god? Or an ancient
observatory, a place to study the movement of the sun and moon? Was it built for science or for religion?

No need for mystery, I thought.  Ask a clairvoyant.

"Show me..."  I started, addressing the energy itself.  And show me it did.  I saw light-robed priest- or monk-like figures shuffling about.  I saw ceremony, ritual:  for the dead, for the newly born.  I saw worship, celebration, healing.  And I saw magic--lots of magic--performed by the "wizards"  of this place.  

It was clear to me:  these all happened here because this was--is--a "power place."  This was the "high church" if you will of the day--many a "day" over the thousands of its extant years, no doubt.  People came, traveled from far and wide to avail themselves, to participate, to experience all of what one comes to churches or temples for:  marking births and deaths, healing, blessings and miracles, intercession, worship, and ceremony.  But mostly, they came for the power of the place.

As for the raising of the stones, I saw levitation, and sound--particular frequencies--being used to accomplish this.  And when the "seeing" was over, I got the nudge to photograph the sight I had been beholding all that time.  And I got another nudge to switch to RAW format, a camera setting which I seldom use and most of the time forget that I even have.  RAW is what delivered the rich texture and precision of the printed image--the closest I could get to bringing the viewer to where I stood.

I love that there is a rook in that particular image and in each of my best photographs of Stonehenge. Maybe these birds are commonplace there. Be that as it may, their presence for my visit, in my images, felt like an added gift or blessing.  Portent?  I love that they could touch, could go where we humans weren't allowed to touch, to go.

Even now, right now, I can summon the energies of Stonehenge.  I do so in my Reiki practice, with powerful effect.  I praise and thank all the nudges that accomplished this. This power is with you all month long. 

How to Remember a Father

How to remember a father seven years gone?  Buy windshield wiper blades.  Install them yourself.  Not the whole wiper set.  Just the blades.  If you can find them.  

It used to be that the auto parts stores stocked plenty of these.  Now, it's a row of wiper sets--the blades already installed in the snap-on wiper assembly.  Not that you need a wiper assembly.  They don't really wear out--certainly not as quickly as the rubber blades themselves, anyway.  But the retailers bank on your not knowing that, and stock their wiper department with a whole row of snap-ons, and one--count 'em, errr, it:  one--blade refill.  

I almost missed it.  As I looked and looked, up and down the row, I grew resigned to the idea that I would have to buy something I didn't need--and pay about five times more for it.  Then I spotted it:  the singular, solitary package, one size fits most, break-to-fit refills.  I grabbed it and took it to the counter, to measure, to make sure they'd work.  The clerk tried to trick me into believing they would not, but I caught him in his lie, purchased the blades, and went on my way.  He was counting on my being clueless.  How could he know I was savvy, dyed in the wool of fix-it-yourself by my father?

Even my mechanic puzzled at the refills.  Since I was taking the car in that day for a steering belt replacement anyway,  I figured they could switch the wiper blades while they were at it--save me the time and trouble.  "No problem," Ron said when I mentioned it.  "We'll take care of it."  But later he balked.  "Those wipers," he said:  "we usually just replace the whole thing."  He didn't seem to know what to do with the refills.  But I did.

One fit perfectly; the other needed a few pinches of a needle-nosed pliers, and voila.  You should've seen my smile when I spritzed the window and turned them on:  perfection!  Clean as a whistle and good as new.  I could've watched them all day, swiping smoothly back and forth.

We did it I thought.  I knew that if my father was watching, I'd made him proud.  I felt proud for us both.  Resourceful.  Triumphant.

"Thanks, Dad," I said as I left the car.  "You taught me well."