Monday 26 November 2018

The Stone Circle

Some thoughts or dreams can become an itch that I have to scratch. So I tend to quiet my mind and  open myself to channel "inspiration". The Stone Circle is a thought that would not go away until I put pencil to paper. It has sat in my journal until now waiting to be heard.


Some dreams are reoccurring. I imagine my life as a stone circle. Each river stone being placed one at a time at each interval by a guiding hand.  The hand is young, soft, dirt brushed and sleeved in sack cloth. My circle of stones lay on a bed of sand with breezes blowing sand grains across the surface but still the hand guides the stones; measured, careful and gentle one stone after another. All stones set like a clock dial show one cycle in my life.
This reappearing vision haunts and taunts me with questions. Whose hand is guiding the stones?
The sands blow away and reveal as I peer over the stones a never-ending ring of stones, stacked upon each layer in a repeating pattern. Was each ring a life? A lesson? Or a representation of my growth? As I first saw the stone circle being formed on the bed of sand, all other circles were buried below, hidden from the present. Are we not meant to see our past? Are we to focus only on our present journey?
The sand supports the stones and shields us from knowing what was. Yet if we explored and dug beneath the sand, what do we find? These words come to mind      “As it is, it once was”.
The sand supports the opportunity of experiencing growth in a new way devoid of pre-conceived knowledge that may have led us down a different path. Perhaps this path is to be different then before. Perhaps each grain of sand is a new situation or variable to which the stone will join in its own unique way.
But who guides the stone?
The ragged sleeve denotes that which is simple, impoverished and one devoid of all worldly rules. Perhaps the one who works “is” outside the parameter of the physically driven world. One who relies on “grace” to guide the stones and one who can see clearly from above how the stone shall be placed and balanced.
Is this our soul, our spirit or the one higher being influencing the theatre of my life, like a child building with stones or rocks a tall tower?
My vision becomes panoramic. All the sand is gone and what is seen is the tower of stone circles flanked by identical stone towers and they too are flanked by towers and each circle of stone represents a river stone in an ever larger stone circle. An infinite array of stone circles forming circles of stone. Expansive and infinite, “we are part of the whole”.
St Francis of Assisi is there constructing his church stone by stone with a labour of love and I feel there is much love in the construction of my stone circle too.
I am overwhelmed with the love that has gone into the construction of all the circles of stone and now understand the meaning of true abundance. Indeed, we are loved.
So what is each stone a symbol of? What does one revolution of the stones mean?
River stones are rounded and smooth, formed by continuous currents of water shaping their curves. The power of the current forms the stone. All the rough edges are removed.

Moments of synchronicity happen. As I finished writing this, I lay down to watch TV. National Geographic showed a story about the ancient builders of Stone Henge. The narrator speaks “These stones were not just commodities they could buy at the market. They represented so much more. Each stone had a “soul” , a “purpose”!”