Friday, January 13, 2012

Third Candle


Today we toured Stonehenge, Old Sarum and St. Thomas's Church, dedicated to the memory of Thomas a Becket.  The bus took us through the broad plains of Wiltshire where we saw pheasant, geese, sheep, pigs, bulls, deer, ravens, falcons and partridge all feeding quietly on the vast green landscape.  Here and there were burial mounds and long barrows and other ancient sites still a mystery to archeologists.

No matter how many times you've seen it in pictures when you see Stonehenge in reality the effect is humbling.  To me this ancient structure and Windsor castle seemed to be variations on the same theme. Both are massive round structures overlooking the countryside below surrounded by a protective moat and shrouded in mystery.  In the photos this similarity may not be so striking as it is when you see them back to back as we did.


In the photos I hope you can make out the interesting solar phenomenon I caught with the camera making it appear like candle in the great outdoors.  I took time to pray here for our striving to live in more harmonious atunement with the rest of the cosmos. Stonehenge was built at a time when science and religion were not divided. Rather both were expressions of the human search for understanding.  I hope we can continue to regain a better sense of that unified wisdom through our common study of the new cosmology.