Definitely! I really want to go again next year and it would be lovely if you came I wondered if I might be bored, or it would be too annoyingly woowoo, but no, none of that. Just lovely people, and not too many, in a beautiful setting. Come!
I'm going to be a bit controversial and confrontational here, but I say leave it to the ACTUAL pagans, rather than just go along because it's a bit new age-y and that sounds like fun.
Sorry, had to say it. My family are all pagans and get a bit fed up with people who have no actual belief in that treating it like some sort of festival or rave.
If you actually want to celebrate any solstice, equinox, or anything in between, get in contact with a local group and find out what they have organised or are going to as a group, don't just turn up at an ancient monument and expect to hijack it in to some sort of mass party, not everyone there is interested in having a wild time or a rave and you could ruin it for them. You can celebrate a solstice or equinox anywhere btw - pretty much just go out and look at dawn or sunset and appreciate it, you don't need to be anywhere special for it - nature has no cathedrals.
All of this ^^ applies just as much to pagans as anyone; don't go to somewhere like Avebury etc on a solstice and expect not to find a load of other people. If it's communion with nature you want, find somewhere approriate, if it's somewhere with ancient connections to past peoples, there are literally thousands of them in Britain. Pagans don't own Stonehenge or Avebury.
I think you will find that English Heritage own both sites, and they roll their eyes and hope not too many people turn up.
Yeah the bastardstreating it like some sort of festival
Yeah you would love it. Avebury has less up their own arse pagans and druid types than Stonehenge. It was funny hearing kids being told off for clambering on the Avebury stones. You got the impression that such tellings off had been going on since the stones got erected all those years ago.
Epona said:I'm going to be a bit controversial and confrontational here, but I say leave it to the ACTUAL pagans, rather than just go along because it's a bit new age-y and that sounds like fun.
Sorry, had to say it. My family are all pagans and get a bit fed up with people who have no actual belief in that treating it like some sort of festival or rave.
I used to go to Avebury a lot as a child for rolling-down-hill opportunitiesYeah you would love it. Avebury has less up their own arse pagans and druid types than Stonehenge. It was funny hearing kids being told off for clambering on the Avebury stones. You got the impression that such tellings off had been going on since the stones got erected all those years ago.
Not quite - people don't have their christmas dinner in church, nor do they get pissed there. Nor would they think it acceptable to do so.It's like twats treating Christmas as a bit of a piss up or an excuse to eat nice food and spending time with others.
Greebo said:Not quite - people don't have their christmas dinner in church, nor do they get pissed there. Nor would they think it acceptable to do so.
Over the years, pagan have been noticeable among those negotiating with the forces of babylon, not to get exclusive access but to get the stones opened to anyone. No-one wants the stones to be some sort of holy museum, ringed with wire fences.Pagans don't own stonehenge so not really comparable with churches.
Do you have to be so condescending? Cuss me (and others) out properly or not at all.Pagans don't own stonehenge so not really comparable with churches.
Greebo said:Do you have to be so condescending? Cuss me (and others) out properly or not at all.
I reckon they were so impressively built that they were a collecting point for people from miles around and people that travel that far would stay for days if not weeks. There would have been ceremony, markets and raves.The pagans going to Stonehenge/Avenury now have nothing whatever to do with the "pagans" that built thing, about who's beliefs we know nothing.
For example how do they know that the sites were originally used for po-faced ceremonies and not festivals/raves?
The pagans going to Stonehenge/Avenury now have nothing whatever to do with the "pagans" that built thing, about who's beliefs we know nothing.
The Stonehenge Archer is the name given to a Bronze Age man whose body was discovered in the outer ditch of Stonehenge. Unlike most burials in the Stonehenge Landscape, his body was not in a barrow, although it did appear to have been deliberately and carefully buried in the ditch.
Examination of the skeleton indicated that the man was local to the area and aged about 30 when he died.Radiocarbon dating suggests that he died around 2300 BCE, making his death roughly contemporary with theAmesbury Archer and the Boscombe Bowmen buried 3 miles away in Amesbury.
He came to be known as an archer because of the stone wrist-guard and a number of flint arrowheads buried with him. In fact, several of the arrowheads' tips were located in the skeleton's bones, suggesting that the man had been killed by them.[1]
His body was excavated in 1978 by Richard Atkinson and John G. Evans who had been re-examining an oldertrench in the ditch and bank of Stonehenge. His remains are now housed in the Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum in Salisbury.
Was that an incredibly poor attempt at a joke?rock festivals
To be fair it was funnyWas that an incredibly poor attempt at a joke?
I keep coming back to look at this pic. Stunning.It's ace watching the sun come up there any time there's a clear sky tbf. This was at the beginning of February this year. About equal amounts of wild deer as people. Awesome place.
View attachment 375739