Long Meg Stone Circle, Cumbria

An ancient place with an air of mystery...Long Meg and her daughters, a stone circle  that entices...

 Long Meg with Lake District fells behind her 
 

Today is the Summer Solstice and yesterday I visited Long Meg and her daughters, the stone circle not far from Penrith, Cumbria. 

Several people were already gathered there, obviously intending to stay and watch the sunrise this morning.  Walking around the circle, I had clear views of the surrounding fells both the Pennines and Lake District fells.  Blencathra stood in majesty with a crown of cloud atop its summit.  At such moments, it becomes obvious why such a location was chosen by our ancestors for their important monuments.  I sat on one of the stones and looked at the mountains, the lush fields, the huge expansive sky, the floating clouds and all the while was conscious of the age of the stones and that sense of mystery that emanates from the circle.  It hints at timelessness and the unknown.   

I have been to the circle many times and no longer wonder and speculate about the people who created this monument as I used to do.  No, the history and intellectual ponderings have been quietened by the feeling of the place. To sit silently, listening to the sounds of nature and letting eyes wander to sky, mountain, earth and clouds is enough.   

To feel this place is to understand it. 

William Wordsworth visited Long Meg and the circle and was inspired to write:

A weight of Awe not easy to be borne
Fell suddenly upon my spirit, cast
From the dread bosom of the unknown past,
When first I saw that family forlorn;
Speak Thou, whose massy strength and stature scorn
The power of years - pre-eminent, and placed
Apart, to overlook the circle vast.
Speak Giant-mother! tell it to the Morn,
While she dispels the cumbrous shades of night;
Let the Moon hear, emerging from a cloud,
At whose behest uprose on British ground
That Sisterhood in hieroglyphic round
Forth-shadowing, some have deemed the infinite
The inviolable God that tames the proud.

October Morning Walk

  

I have just returned from a walk. With plenty to do, I shouldn’t have succumbed but the lure of this cold, sunny morning proved irresistible and before I knew it, I was opening the garden gate and walking along the local roads and lanes.  The little voice that usually tries to spoil the fun with ‘you ought to be doing such and such’, didn’t even bother whispering today, for it knew it would be pointless.  At sunrise, I had noticed the pink tipped clouds through the veil of mist, and took my cup of tea out into the garden where the steam from the hot drink mixed with that of my breath.  The cold nipped my fingers and slapped my cheek, rousing me from my sleepy state.  I was fully  awake now, alive to every little nuance, sight, sound and smell around me.  I drank it in.  On going indoors, I washed the breakfast things, immersing my hands in the warm, bubbly water and before I knew it, I was at the gate with coat on and hands deep in my pockets.  Nothing on my mind, just following my own footsteps.

What did I see on my walk this morning?  The sun in one direction, casting its warm rays onto the bodies of the sheep dozing blissfully in the fields.  I saw tree sparrows and green finches zig-zagging across the lane and darting amongst the branches of the trees and hedges, twittering loudly to each other. Rooks called from the tree-tops and a robin increased the volume of his song against the background of their raucous noise. 

I reached a gap in the hedge, a field-gate, and from there I watched the last thin wisps of morning mist fade to reveal nature in her Autumn dress.   No admission charge at this entrance to an exhibition of the highest Art.  Nature is generous and bestows her gifts freely on all who are prepared to stop and look.  The mountains lay in the distance yet every path and chasm was clearly visible.  In the near distance, a group of four or five trees were ablaze, as though red and orange flames were engulfing their leafy canopies.  Green fields surrounded me, laid to pasture, interspersed in places by some that were a pale golden colour following the harvesting of wheat and the cutting of hay.  A brown thread ran here and there between these fields, the recently ploughed rich, dark soil now visible and dotted with black and white specks where rooks and sea-gulls foraged for food.   To my left, spread over the wood like a patchwork quilt were trees and shrubs bedecked in varying hues and shades of yellows, golds, reds, oranges and  browns.

I stood mesmerised by such beauty and drifted out of myself to meet the fields, trees, birds and sky without moving from my vantage point.  I don’t know how long I was gone but I was roused from my trance-like state by the sound of someone saying ‘Thank you.’  
It was me. 

“I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”

L.M. Montgomery, 

 Anne of Green Gables