“They say the stones sleep. That they are old and forgotten… voiceless.

Is it so, little sister? Are they silent…or do they dream, the long, slow dreaming of aeons.

They were old when they were brought here. Older than memory. Older than time.

Their song never sleeps… it is we who live too fast.”

I’d written that a long time ago after a trip to the stone circle at Barbrook, bringing the vision of a seer to the page. “Sleepers awake, tell us your dreams”… Helen had written in that in her notebook a couple of days before visiting the place. And on the Friday morning, just after dawn when two of us had come to check the circle prior to the workshop, we had been shocked by the sense of ‘withdrawal’ at the stones… as if after too many centuries alone, they had finally sunk into sadness and allowed…

This is the continued account of my weekend away with The Silent Eye. Click here for parts one, two, three, four and five.

5:11am.

Ugh. I hadn’t slept well, and my alarm jolted me out of a dream. Yet, once I’d woken fully, I was excited. This morning we were heading up into the hills to chase the sunrise. I wouldn’t have missed it, no matter how tired I was. I showered and dressed quickly, managing to gulp a few mouthfuls of tea before heading down to the deserted hotel lobby. There was a small moment of panic when I thought I was locked in, but I emerged eventually onto the still-dark street, a pale glow of light in the sky heralding the coming dawn.

We were to meet the rest of the group in the Fox House car park – my companion and I…

We left the standing stone and walked back through the gate onto the Edge. Normally we would walk back a different way, but the path is a morass at the best of times and it had rained a lot in the area lately. At least the path would be fairly dry this way. The trouble was, we didn’t know what to expect. It is always a delicate decision… how much should you say, indeed, how much can you say without someone calling for the men in white coats to haul you away?

The first time we had walked this way hadn’t been so bad. That is a matter of opinion, I suppose and depends largely on how you view the whole process of death. But it is not the first site where the stones suggested excarnation. The idea of stripping flesh from bone to help your loved ones rejoin the…

Part Eight of The Unseen Sea

“Grandad,” asks Jessica, taking his hand as they walk up the face of the sand dune. “What is a me?”

He looks down at the golden-haired child and shakes his head in admiration. He knows it is not unusual for children to have these thoughts, but his grandaughter seems positively precocious with such considerations. It pleases him a lot, but he doesn’t want to give her too much, too soon. He wants her to enjoy the journey to understanding in a gentle way, at a pace of her own. But, he has to admit, she’s the one pushing things, not him.

He draws a breath to answer her question but then takes stop himself; not sure how to begin. He pauses, letting the moment reveal its own potential. “Shall we sit down for our picnic and consider the puzzle of me?” he…

Wading through the wet bracken, we knew, would be worth it, for on the other side of the green fronds there is a stone…and it is something a bit different, in  more ways than one. Several examples of Neolithic rock art, or petroglyphs, have been found on this part of the moor. One we have yet to locate, another, found during the excavation of a cairn, has been moved to the museum in Sheffield, and one… a huge, earthfast boulder… remains where it was found. But all is not what it seems.

Gardom’s Edge carved stone.

The stone, one of the best we have yet to see in the area, was discovered in the 1960s, but it was soon noted that the carvings were rapidly deteriorating. This, sadly, is the case for many of the remaining petroglyphs that have withstood natural weathering for thousands of years, only to be almost…

This is the continued story of my weekend away with The Silent Eye. For the first instalment, please click here.

We left The Fox House in a small convoy of cars, heading towards Carl Wark. It’s a Neolithic site, designated a hill fort despite the fact it is like no other hill fort in the area. As we left the cars and started along the trail, we passed between two large stones. Though they were set far back from the path, they nonetheless felt to me as though they marked a gateway of sorts, the beginning of a path.

As we walked the curving path, talking among ourselves, the landscape opened up. To the right the stone was tumbled and jagged, evidence of more recent human activity, blasting into the natural rock for building materials. It felt unnatural, like a scar on the landscape when compared to the sweeping…

A little over two weeks ago I headed north for a three-day weekend with The Silent Eye, to be spent exploring Neolithic sites and ancient monuments in the Peak District. I travelled alone, meeting most of the group for the first time. And it was… intense. A heady mix of good company, wonderful scenery, and powerful landscapes. I had some interesting experiences – whether they can be ascribed to an over-active imagination, or something else, is unclear. It’s going to take me a few blog posts to write the story of the weekend, and I’ll try to explain things as best I can…

The adventure started early Friday with a train journey into London, then north to Manchester, where I would catch a regional train into the peak district. This was kind of a big deal for me – it had been a long while since I’d had any…

We had brought the group here for just two stones. Nothing as visually spectacular as the wonderful dolmens we had seen in Wales, but to a quiet, green glade that always feels as if it is waiting and where a single standing stone rises like the gnomon of a sundial from the earth. If you saw only a picture, you would be forgiven for questioning whether or not it was a real standing stone or just an erratic, dumped there by some passing glacier in millennia past. If you walk into its presence, you have no doubt.

Even so, it is good that for those who demand scientific evidence, there is also the archaeological report of this vast Bronze Age site. We’d had no idea when we had first visited how wide the site might be, or what had been found there. Nevertheless, we had recognised this and many of…