Tag: Portal tombs

On the Lip of the Solstice

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It’s deep time here, this barrow grave five thousand years old,
where we follow like sheep behind the guide to the heart
of its cruciform center. I’ve never been in a space so dark.
What was it like to fear that the sun would not return,
that crops would wither, deer flee, that night’s dark cloak
was all there was? But miraculously, on the lip of the solstice,
the light returned, liquid and golden, ran down the narrow corridor,
hit the back wall, splashed in the stone basin, and they knew summer
would come back, run to fruit. Light, dark, freeze, thaw, seedtime,
harvest, wheel of the year, the spiral dance. What would they make
of our device-laden lives, fossil-fueled cars, over-stocked larders?
Who stands in the dark and listens now, gaping at the stars?
— Barbara Crooker, “Newgrange” from The Book of Kells

Finnis Soutterain underground

Finnis Soutterain underground

There is nothing so dark as centuries-old underground tunnels and portal tombs, some positioned with an opening to capture a beam of light exactly at either the winter or summer solstice, illuminating what dwells in blackness the rest of the year.

The more recent ninth century soutterain tunnels were refuge for Christians hiding from invaders, keeping whole villages safe from capture.

The dolmens and portal graves are Neolithic structures built before the pyramids. They still exist today as they were constructed to last by people serious about their beliefs. Though those people are long dust, the stones and tunnels remain as they were, to protect the spirits of the departed.

What would they think now of our extravagance, our plethora of goods and foods, our modern ways of crippling others with the weapons of internet words and hacking, rather than stealing, pillaging and enslaving strangers?

We moderns are lost in our over-abundance of light year round, scarcely noting the calendar or the passing of the longest and shortest days.

What remarkable people of strength have preceded us, seeking to preserve the significance of Light in their darkness.

Legananny Dolmen, Northern Ireland
Legananny dolmen
Kilfeaghan Dolmen
Goward Dolmen at the foot of the Mourne Mountains

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The World is Wondrous Large

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Legananny Dolmen, Northern Ireland
Legananny Dolmen, Northern Ireland

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yes, this dolmen is in the middle of a farm yard

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In the Neolithic Age savage warfare did I wage For food and fame and woolly horses’ pelt.

I was singer to my clan in that dim, red Dawn of Man, And I sang of all we fought and feared and felt.

Still the world is wondrous large,—seven seas from marge to marge— And it holds a vast of various kinds of man… ~Rudyard Kipling from “In a Neolithic Age”

Today we acted like archeologists in Northern Ireland, traveling the countryside looking for the numerous “dolmens” or stone formations from 4000-5000+ years ago constructed during the Neolithic period in human history.  These are considered “portal tombs” and like Stonehenge, may also have astrologic significance to these prehistoric peoples.  Interestingly, they are scattered across the Irish countryside, mostly found in farmyards and fields, with hardly a sign to show the way to find them.  In two cases, we needed to parkbeside a barn, open  (and close) several gates so the cows and sheep don’t get out,  to make our way to the dolmen.

The world is wondrous large indeed, as Kipling says in his homage to the Neolithics (and in the rest of the poem critiquing his fellow “modern” man).  To think that humans, way before the pyramids, way before Abraham walked the earth, managed to figure out how to honor their dead by constructing formations of multi-ton stones on top of one another.  They are so perfectly balanced to exist as they were intended for thousands of years.  A vast various kind of man did this, a singer to his clan, in the “red dawn” of human history.

I am awed and humbled.

Nothing I have done could ever last like this.

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Kilfeaghan Dolmen
Kilfeaghan Dolmen

This dolmen is above the Irish Sea
This dolmen is above the Irish Sea

Goward Dolmen at the foot of the Mourne Mountains
Goward Dolmen at the foot of the Mourne Mountains