Brithdir
Mawr Construction Diary - page 2
5
April 2002
We started work once again on the circle
in mid April 2002, with a good team of people and
pretty reasonable weather, plus the very exciting
and spectacular lineup of five planets in the western
evening sky; Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn all in
Gemini, and Jupiter in Cancer.
It was decided to start work on the stone in the south-west
(7) and, having completely exposed it, we started
levering away to bring it out of the ground. The first
day went well, and we started the second day full
of cheerfulness and confidence that all was going
fine. However, at mid morning, as Jamie and I stood
each side of the stone and the others gently levered
one end upwards, there was a great noise and the stone
split neatly in half! We were stunned. What had we
done?
So, we had a cup of tea, and sat and thought and talked
for a while, and finally decided to move the two halves
of stone apart, as they were still only half an inch
away from each other, and see what the newly exposed
area of stone looked like. Once we separated the pieces,
we could see that they had actually had a major split
long ago, since earth and roots had covered the whole
area apart from a hand sized bit where they had still
been joined – rather like the hinge on an oyster
shell. It was quite a relief to see that we had not
actually split her ourselves, just put in the last
bit of energy to help a process finish itself off.
It also seemed very relevant to all those planets
in Gemini, the sign of the twins, that we should end
up with two stones instead of one.
We put one of the stones in the ground where it had
been in its hole, and then agreed to roll the other
half over to the gap in the west, next to the Owl
stone. This went very smoothly, and we had that stone
in a new socket and upright by Wednesday afternoon,
with the newly exposed side of it hardly different
in appearance to the rest of it, and both stones seeming
happy in their new life apart!
Some of our crew had to leave on Friday morning, so
on Thursday we had an expedition out. First we went
to Nevern churchyard where there is an astonishing
avenue of yew trees, gnarled and ancient, and one
of them bleeds; very red, strong smelling blood, a
real Goddess tree. There is also a lovely phallic
standing stone right outside the church door at the
end of the avenue of yews, a carved stone from around
1000CE, which is beautiful too. We then visited a
cup marked stone, which was very amazing, and we found
that it was possible to see our circle from there
with binoculars, around five miles away, which was
great. And finally on to the Witches Cauldron, a magnificent
place on the coastal path, where there is a huge hole
in the cliff, and in the bottom a chalybeate (iron)
spring meets the sea, which rushes in through tunnels
and boils and swirls about in the “cauldron”.
These trips seem to be an important part of our work,
they recharge our batteries, re-inspire our awareness
and strengthen our connection with the land (and sea,
of course!).
On Friday, some folk left and some arrived, an interesting
energy shift. We had chosen the middle of three stones
left in the south-east to work on (4), and as we dug
around it, it became clear that it was one of the
biggest so far, at least as big as the owl stone over
in the north-west. We finally had the edges clear
and tried for a lift, to break the suction with the
earth. And our trusty pole cracked! So, we used the
other pole, the smaller one, and that cracked too,
though we did break the seal and get an inch of movement.
What to do?
By now it was nearly 3pm, as we had had a late start,
and getting on in the day, so we agreed to leave the
big one and uncover the one beside it (5). What a
difference! It was about the size of the south stone,
say 5x3x2 feet, and within half an hour it was clear
of earth, out of the ground and ready to go on rollers,
to move a little closer to the south stone. Every
move has been based on what felt right and looked
right in terms of each stone and also the whole circle,
without any measurement to direct us; so it was interesting
that when Jon did measure, he found all the stones
to be 16 megalithic yards from the centre! One wonders
if those early people were like us, and if we are
all using a intuitive measure like the rest of nature,
a natural sense of rightness that is truly eternal.
Saturday we had planned to have a big fire and party
in the circle, so in the morning some of the team
collected wood while we gently but quickly got her
ready to roll. All hands on the rope and up the field
she went to her new home, where she dropped in nicely
at the usual 50 degree angle. At this point we had
to break for lunch and shelter as the rain had finally
arrived. However, everyone was so keen that after
lunch we all went back to work, where we used a technique
seen on Rob Roy's video Stone
Circles: A Megalithic Workshop the night
before, which entailed pulling the stone up with a
rope that went over a pole, thus magnifying the force
exerted by quite a lot. There were also two people
pushing with wooden levers from the other side to
the rope-pullers. It was truly astonishing to see
this stone go up in about 20 minutes, as though it
was so eager to be up and not miss the party! Some
hasty packing with rocks, and secure tamping with
earth and by 5pm it was up, the fastest stone ever!
We finished our session with a lovely party and singsong
and a big fire. Another three stones in place, and
it is really a circle now, with a lovely energy to
it. Once again we have all learnt so much and felt
so much, and shared with lots of good folk. We hope
to work on the last two stones in September, with
a new big pole, though it will be sad to finish –
what will we do then?
September
2002
The final session started on September
14th, and was the week leading up to the full moon on
the 21st, and the Equinox on the 23rd. We had roughly
the same crew as in the spring, so it was not too hard
to get organised as everyone knew what to do. We knew
also that we had to try and shift the big mother who
had broken two of our poles in the spring (4), and that
we needed a new pole to do so. The folk at Brithdir
had a new one for us but when we saw it, it was obvious
that it would be no good, as it was the same size as
the broken ones. So an emergency mission went to a nearby
friend's place where there was a large conifer forest,
and there we were given a splendid 20ft larch pole,
perfect for the job.
The first stone that we decided to work on was, in
fact, not the big one but its next door neighbour
(3), almost as big and the usual strange shape. By
now we knew that these stones are quite hard to see
when in the ground, so we felt OK to put this one
up where it was, marking the rough direction of Imbolc
and Samhain sunrise - the horizon is not level here,
in fact the Prescelli mountains are the backdrop at
this point. The stone responded well to our new pole,
and was up within a day and a half, ending up almost
a double to the East stone beside it. And so on to
the BIG one, the last stone (4)!
We were up and ready to go nice and early, full of
confidence that we were going to do this one at last.
And the pole broke again! What a blow! We did a bit
of searching to see if we could find another one in
the woods around Brithdir, and meanwhile cut the broken
end off, and did a whole lot more digging around the
stone, as it seemed that part of our problem was that
there was still a part of it underground, creating
a suction on the stone. By lunchtime it seemed we
could not locate a better pole, so we tried again
with the larch one and lo and behold, it did it! The
extra digging had broken the earth's hold on the stone
and finally it was willing to get up and dance. The
big debate on where it should go now started, and
we had quite a few tuning in sessions as we worked,
during which it became clear that bringing it straight
up would be the right thing to do, where it would
be a rough guide to the Minor Southerly moon standstill.
This part of the circle is the flattened egg shape
bit, where the energy goes outward slightly, and the
major ley runs through. This last bit of the work
we had most of the Brithdir folk with us, and the
stone went up at last, smoothly and clearly. Many
barrows of earth were needed to fill in the holes
left by these two stones, and the rest of the day
was spent digging and turfing.
The next morning we went up to finish the turfing,
aware of a rather strange feeling to it all. There
was a small stone left in the ring, part of the group
of three that had been lying on the ground in the
north east of the circle. Somehow we had all managed
to ignore this one, though we had erected the other
two. At one point earlier in the week Libby, one of
the team, had asked if it could go to her place to
cap a mini dolmen her neighbour had made. This had
seemed a good idea at the time, and George had offered
to take it there for her. So he attempted to get it
into his car. Looking back, it becomes obvious that
we had got so used to moving big stones quite easily,
that this little one looked really easy. However,
it must still have weighed 700lbs, and lifting it
was not so simple. George struggled on for a while,
but then it suddenly became clear that we needed to
give this stone some proper attention, and so we tuned
in around it to see what exactly it wanted to do.
As soon as we did so, it let us know that it wanted
to stay right there, with all its friends, and not
go off anywhere else, and the right place for it was
in the gap (we hadn’t noticed this gap till
now) in the northeast. Once this was established,
the stone was SO easy to move it was funny! We put
it up on rollers and rolled it over to a nice neat
little socket hole we had dug for it and in it went.
There was some debate as to which way up it should
go, but in the end the stone decided, in fact going
on its 'side' and neither up or down. At this point
we all felt so much better, as the circle was now
truly finished.
That night there was a lovely ceremony in the circle,
with a blessing of every stone, just as we had done
when we started. The fire was tremendous and all the
stollage was burnt, and some of the short poles and
all the wedges etc. The stones were so beautiful in
the firelight, and seemed to be as happy as we were
to be there and upright again after so long. Our hope
is that this lovely place will be used by many folk
in years to come, as a place sacred to the Earth and
to all Her children.
the
completed circle looking ESE towards Pentre Ifan and
Frenni Fawr
©
2004 Ros Briagha Foskett
www.rosbriagha.org
