Standing Stones

No one knows really, though it's not for lack of theories.  Pre-dating the stones at Stonehenge, the Callanish Stones of Orkney are said to have been standing as a testament to time since 3,000 B.C., but no one knows their intended purpose.  Pagan temple, astrological observatory, memorial to the dead. All have been offered as a reason these massive stones, laid out in a very specific pattern, were constructed.

No one can dispute, though, that along with a fascination as to their origin, when standing before them there is an undeniable inability to refrain from placing your hands on them.  Whether it's to tenderly inspect the ridges of one of the stones, stretching arms out in a playful effort to feel a part of the dancing circle they form, or palms flat lifting your eyes up in a desire to acknowledge yourself small in the presence of something massive and ancient - no matter the reason, it's hard to not reach out.

And maybe that's a part of what the stones provided to those ancient people; a place of gathering together, a memorial of connection; of reaching upward to creation and outward to one another.

Whatever their purpose, these sentinels to time are reminders that monuments are gateways, not just to ceremony, but to one another.  They're reminders that when we stand in lines, we lose sight of one another's expressions.  It's in circles we're invited to face one another and find we're more connected than we could have dreamed.  It's in being encircled by community, we're known.  And when we stand together under Heaven and an uncontainable Creator, we're made to feel both small, and yet brought near to hold in our hands the sacred.