Newgrange

I stand in front of Newgrange, the massive circular mound of earth that is flanked with stone walls all the way around.  I imagine the Neolithic people who built the structure some 5,000 years ago.  What spiritual or political figure might have dedicated the monument when it was completed.  I am transported, back in time, a spectator in the ceremony.

“Welcome my brothers and sisters!  This morning the final stone has been laid, and our monument to the spirit world has been completed.  Each of you have put your blood and sweat into the construction of our shrine.  Some of you have inherited this task that your fathers started, and others have died before they finished what they began.  It is my great honor, bestowed on me by the great gods of the stars, to honor the cycle of everywhen which we all take part. 

The stones that form the foundation for our great monument come from the mountains to the north.  Like the strong base of the mountains, these stones form a base for our structure.  The mountains reach up into the cosmos, where souls of our great shamans live among gods which rule the processes of earth.  Our monument sits atop the substance of the mountains so that the souls that pass through it may be transcended into the cosmos.  The round stones are from the river that passes between us and the Boyne.  The goddess of water shapes these rocks with her mighty torrents.  We honor her as the lifeblood that feeds our crops and ourselves.  Through water, all life is shaped, and through rock all life is formed.  The spirit of these two forces enclose the tomb inside. 

The stone laid in front of the entrance has the everywhen cycle inscribed on it.  These interwoven cycles represent the cycles of life, death and rebirth.  Together, they create everywhen, a continuous cycle with no conceivable beginning or end.  It comprises time and space into one energy, and nothing (not even the gods) is free from it.  Inside the tomb we honor death, but we also honor life and rebirth.  At the winter solstice, a time that marks the death of the harvest and the rebirth of a new year and crop, the great star will shine inside the tomb and illuminate it.  The energy will lift the spirits inside into the cosmos, to join our great spirits of the stars.  This, of course, is reserved for only the greatest of our shamans, so they’re spiritual journey may continue onward from this world.  The younger souls will continue their journey on this place, dying within this cycle like our crop, replenishing our land and being rebirthed in a new age so that one day they may also transcend to the cosmos to continue their spiritual journey. 

I now will also continue my journey into the cosmos, as I sacrifice myself to our new monument, Newgrange.  May you all feast well tonight in celebration of our new achievement.  Let Newgrange persist for millennia, to serve as a humble reminder to future ages of the great scale of everywhen.  Let us not forget that the interwoven lattice of everywhen connects us all, and when one may feel lost they need do nothing else but look inside, for within each of us we are connected to all that is around us.  To Newgrange!”

The entrance to Newgrange in 1905, before any major excavation.