What the Stones Had to Say
Messages received by this pilgrim upon returning to Stonehenge and Avebury
The day before the Summer Solstice,
and I drove with our daughters west from Central London towards the English countryside. Our destination was Glastonbury, but we decided to stop along the way at Stonehenge, Avebury, and a little-known sacred site called Silbury Hill.The girls were mildly curious, willing to indulge the expedition. My teenage daughter, who had some vague awareness of Stonehenge, kept asking me “What’s the big deal?” She was convinced the stones were about five feet tall and that it could be “a natural rock formation.” Her adolescent certainty about how unimpressive it was all going to be was thrilling. I gloated in the front seat, waiting for the megaliths to come into view. Stonehenge does not disappoint.
I’d last visited these sites as a girl myself. I was eleven when my family made our first trip to Europe and I remember Stonehenge vividly. At that time (1984), you could walk amongst the stones. I probably touched them.
When I look back, I can see how I adopted the default attitude of the adults in our party—wonder at the site’s existence after millennia; the impossibility of the heavy stone’s transport and arrangement by human hands; and the mystery of its purpose. But, if I take memory a step further, and return to the felt-experience of the girl I was, I find something curious—a sense of inexplicable intimacy—a recognition that I carry this blueprint within me. The phrase that captures it is: Ah, so here it is. I was seeing the place for the first time in my life, but I already knew it—from where or when, I cannot say. Perhaps, the arrangement of stones into circles and temples is so old and archetypal it lives in all of us? Perhaps, it lives in our neolithic DNA? All I know is that the fact of its existence didn’t surprise me at all—the way someone who has never seen the ocean recognizes it immediately.
Do you know what I mean?
We drove on and when the stones finally came into view, we all screamed and jumped and leaned this way and that in the car to see them on the hill ahead of us. Magnificent! Even my daughter was impressed. For me, it was like a homecoming. I realized as soon as I saw them, the magnitude of the pilgrimage we were making. It’s so easy to think about these stops on a family vacation as tourism—a point of interest, something to check off the bucket list, a way to entertain. But, there it was—Stonehenge—insisting on our reverence.
So much has been shared about the mystical significance of Stonehenge. Maybe there’s nothing new to say, but in the spirit of a sacred travelogue, I will share with you what happened for me that day. It had an impact on me and if it can have an impact on you, well, then the sharing will be worth it. Not all of it makes “sense” and some of it is still undigested, but here are some of the keys I was handed as I wandered about the site sensing what I could.
How We Can Collaborate with the Divine
The visitor’s center at Stonehenge is now a long distance (about a mile and a half) from the stones. This is for the best, given the number of people the site attracts. It’s also for the best that the circle is cordoned off. No more touching the stones here!
We made a group decision to take the air-conditioned shuttle bus. The pilgrim in me rankled against this, but the mother in me knew we’d get more mileage out of the kids at the actual sacred site if we bussed them up the hill.
Stepping off the bus, we walked towards the stones in a tight herd. I tried to separate myself from the group and also the kids, whom Ari was tending, thankfully. I wanted a clear channel, a direct line of perception. At a certain distance, I felt the atmosphere change. Everything became incredibly heavy—not burdensome, but grounded and solid, like gravity had increased perceptibly. A strong impulse to fall to the ground overtook me and I had to work not to drop to my knees or prostrate myself completely. Yes, laying flat on my stomach felt like the appropriate response to the energy the stones were holding.
I looked around to see if anyone else was feeling it. If they were, they weren’t aware of it, or like me they were denying the impulse. I saw distracted school children, camera-happy tourists, and social media content creators with selfie sticks. To my right, a young woman with her phone propped on a tripod and was working hard to get a shot of herself leaping coquettishly in front of the ancient megaliths. Just as I was about to give into disappointment, I heard a crow caw somewhere ahead of me. Three crows—a personal symbol of mine—stood amongst the stones. I walked on.
At the far side of the circle around the stones, the crowd thinned and I returned to the impulse to bow that was still burning in me. It was right. I found a quiet spot, dropped to my knees, and lay my heavy head on the earth. As I did so, I felt relief and gratitude to this place for its patience and power. The connection came through the third eye; and I heard from the spirits/guardians of the place:
You know better. You know how to approach a sacred site and this is a sacred site, is it not? Because you remember you have a responsibility. You can’t be governed by the current norms of this paradigm—look where they’ve gotten us. You have to break rank, lead, show the way. It’s your duty to live by the standards of the world you want to see. Do it. Show them. Most will ignore you, some may gawk, but if even one remembers…it’s worth it.
It was a mild reprimand and deserved. I did know better. I stayed there on my knees with my forehead touching the earth for a long time. I opened my inner vision and received:
This place is an anchor point. It’s a landing pad for energies beyond this earth, a place to travel down into the depths of earth’s body—anchoring magnetic fields. They built the stone circles to amplify already-existing energies—ley lines, dream lines, spiritual lines.
The people who built this place were working from sacred blueprints—collaborating with gods. They didn’t know what they were building or why, only that it must be done. They didn’t need to fully comprehend the assignment before embarking on it. There was no question in those days that this is how humans can serve something greater—literally with our hands, hearts, and heads. The fact that we still don’t know exactly why it’s here today may not be a matter of forgetting. It may be that they didn’t know themselves—not totally. This kind of collaboration with the divine requires faith and trust. To modern people it seems like they must have had a plan—there’s too much effort involved. How could it be an act of faith? But to the builders—over generations—there was only sacred duty and instruction. They did what they were told to do. This is not superstitious but—in a sense—a more advanced, more intelligent way of living on earth—as servants to something higher.
The structures at Stonehenge hold and move a particular kind of power—a descending spiral. This form governs time on earth. You can travel backwards and forwards in time here by moving along the spiral. You can plant a seed for your future self or past self—whole cultures can plant seeds here for future or past cultures. We can communicate across time here.
There’s something important in that it is visible from the sky, an axis around which the earth turns, an umbilicus.
I don’t offer these as facts, but as sensations and fragments of a bigger story. I said prayers for peace, and planted a seed for the girl I was at 11 who wandered through those stones. I also received a seed of love and encouragement from my future self who will one day return to this vortex and feel me sitting here, the only pilgrim in a sea of tourists, and she’ll tell me Keep going. You’re doing great.
Take Me to Your Leader
We had a snack and left Stonehenge to drive 40 minutes north to Avebury, another neolithic/stone age henge site—this one bigger and more accessible today. I’ve been wanting to see Avebury for at least a decade, though my mother later informed me that we did visit the site on that same trip we took to Stonehenge when I was 11. I don’t remember this at all. Memory is a funny thing.
As we approached the site, we first passed one of the glorious chalk horses of Wiltshire. These giant white horses are scattered about the region. The one we spotted is probably from the 18th century, but the oldest, the Uffington White Horse, is from the early Iron Age (between 1380 and 550 BC). The horse felt to me like a creature of welcome and peace.

Before arriving in Avebury, we stopped at Silbury Hill. This is a highly strange place amongst many strange and mysterious places. We had marked it in the navigation, but when we actually came upon it, it’s immediacy, anonymity, and presence were breathtaking. It sits right on the side of the A4 without fanfare or really even a place to pull over and stop. The hill itself is inaccessible, but you can stand on the side of the highway and take it in. Not really a “hill” in the sense of being something natural and mild, Silbury Hill is (according to a placard I managed to find ) the oldest and largest manmade prehistoric structure in Europe. What?!!! Apparently, it’s the size of the Egyptian pyramids. And it was once stepped like the ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia and South America. We stayed only a few minutes at this spot as the kids were uninterested and trapped in the car as vehicles whizzed by precariously on the A4 where we were parked. Ari and I got out of the car without our phones and I only realized later that I didn’t take a photo of it.
Before we left, I hopped a fence (technically it wasn’t trespassing because…right of way) and found a path around to the back of the monument. I ran down it and saw a hawk—another of aviary guides—circling the top of the hill. I took it as a sign. Hawks always mark for me places where angels abide and holy forces can be found. As I communed with the hill, I looked down and found the beautiful body of a departed butterfly—a very special find for me in my mandala-making. So I set about collecting a few items and made an offering. I also didn’t take a photo of that. Interesting.
On to Avebury! By this time, we were hungry and the kids made us promise just one more stop. Miraculously, we found a parking lot where a young hippie couple were making wood-fired organic pizzas out of a food truck (my New York teen was psyched). So even though it was now about 90 degrees, we put in an order for two pies. I set out alone to walk through the closest stones.
I felt the pull of the family and the childrens’ weariness as I ran around the periphery of the circle—on the mound. A smattering of other pilgrims and solstice seekers with drums and picnic blankets, sat reading books in the shade of the great trees and stones, soaking in the healing energy of the site. It was glorious and I felt geographically and psychically close to my Celtic and druid ancestors.
Eventually, I made my way down into a field where many enormous stones stood, surrounded by gentle, grazing sheep. The sheep were also enjoying the shade of the stones and I played with them as I sensed into the energy of these megaliths. I lay my forehead against one of the stones and breathed deeply, sensing what I could. What I felt was a distinct buzzing energy—like the stones were cosmic batteries, fully charged.
As I put my hand to the stone, I couldn’t help but think of one of my guilty pleasures. Yes, we all have them. For several years, at the end of my marriage while I was raising a small child, my escape was a show called Outlander. Maybe you know it? Ha. It’s the ultimate time-traveling romantic fantasy adventure. In it, the main character, Claire, a nurse during WWII, finds herself visiting a stone circle and when she puts her hand to the buzzing stone, she is instantly transported back to 18th century Scotland where she finds the love of her life, a strapping, red-haired Highlander in a kilt…but, I digress. There was always something so possible about that act of time traveling through the stones. The series author, Diana Gabledon, really nailed it. As I stood there in Avebury receiving the pulsing energy of—what?—some higher frequency, I wondered where I might end up!
In fact, I did lose track of time and space while I was meditating with the stones and sheep. I guess I wandered into a different quadrant of the Avebury circle and ended up at an Inn that was totally unfamiliar to me. I had no idea where the parking lot with the pizza was. It felt like ages ago and many miles distant. The disorientation was really delicious, actually. It fed into my desire for mystery. And so I ran—a lot of running for me on this day—back to where I thought I’d come from and found my family full and happy. I’d been gone for a while, but the pizza had delivered and everyone had gotten what they needed.
As we drove away, passing by Silbury Hill again, I ruminated about the landing pad ziggurat, the arcade of stones leading from there to the great circle of healing stones at Avebury, the energetic downward spiral of Stonehenge not so far away, and I couldn’t help but imagine a legion of cosmic beings or extraterrestrials visiting this planet over many centuries. Their presence such a gift, such a blessing, that the humans had painstakingly constructed—against all odds—these helpful structures for them. And what they must have given in return: blessings, knowledge, wisdom, and healing cosmic frequencies that could be preserved for millennia in the material of stone batteries and earth’s body.
Maybe I was falling asleep in the car. Maybe it was all a dream. I was absolutely high with SOMETHING. I smiled as I saw this intergalactic exchange happening and thought of that old sci-fi cliché, “Take me to your leader.” What a disaster that would be today :)
We ended that day in Glastonbury, a beautiful place of goddess-worship, which I wrote about a little here and captured in a sweet poem. I leave you now with this memory of memories arising in and around the circles of stone. I hope you can feel something of the great mystery they continue to present and the incredibly potent energies they are offering to anyone with the presence and reverence and openness to receive. Wherever your heart feels called, remember the power of pilgrimage—the physical visitation of a site on this great earth and the communion with the energies available there. The earth is calling us to come home and we can all do that by deepening our connection to her and to the beings who were here before us—holding keys we need now.
Gentle giants Grounding spirals Minerals of earth Storage houses of time Navigational tools Megalith beings Holding cosmic secrets and healing energies for the past, present and future Receive and remember Bow on the approach Rejoice in the departure.
Love these memories! I visited Silbury Hill and the Long Barrows, and Avebury last year. Such a powerful region. I love that no one truly knows the reason they exist 💫
I really felt this one, Schuyler. I now feel drawn to visit these places myself. Thank you so much for sharing.