A is for Avebury

So starting this a little late and posting retrosepctively....

I remember very well the first, and only time, I have been to Avebury. I had a call shortly after work one Friday evening from a friend, saying lets go on a trip. We bundled ourselves up into his van and he took me to Avebury.

It was dark when we got there and we parked in a layby near Silbury Hill, which we then climbed in the dark. Afterwards we played Crib in the back of his van, comfortably outfitted with a mattress, and nearly suffocated ourselves with fumes from his parafin lamp....

In the morning, shortly after dawn we walked to the Long Barrow and I remember being so amazed... We met a man who had spent the entire night in the barrow, and I was bemused by this, I was so very young and pagan things were skirting around the edges of my life back then. We gave him a lift into the village and before he left he took out a battered set of cards with the names of animals on them and asked us to choose one each. I chose Otter and my friend chose Deer.

I remember looking around the stones in the early morning and we had it all to ourselves, no body else had even stirred...

I wish I remembered more of the trip but my memory is notoriously poor, but I remember Avebury with great fondness and would love to visit again. And this time I would be more thorough in my visit.

I have just been reading about Avebury recently and it's sad history of abuse and destruction. As much as some of the stones have been removed and destroyed, the underlying energy structure of Avebury is still intact. The St MAry line passes through a pair of stones to Windmill Hill, loops round to Avebury stone circle, down to Silbury Hill, the Swallowhead Spring and finally the Long Barrow bwfore passing through the Sanctuary.

The St Michael Line crosses the St Mary line at Windmill Hill before passing through Winterbourne Monkton and then crossing the St Mary line again in the stone circle before leaving through the West Kennet stone Avenue and then crossing the St Mary line again at the Sanctuary.

I find it curious that my friend took me to three of the places on the St Mary line and I can't help but wonder if he even knew of the others at that time. When I go again, I shall take a good map and visit all of the sites, and hopefully I shall get to spend some quiet time at each so I can really feel them....

There is one further place called Knoll Down that I would visit, but then, one look at the map for this area and there are so very many stones, tumuli, barrows and earthworks, I think you could spend a long time in this one place....