The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/stonehenge/page/12)
Pagan Perspectives
My suitcase is an antique, a big red leather monster. It doesn’t do anything that modern luggage is supposed to do. Suitcases today have wheels and collapsible handles, so that there’s no difference between carrying one change of pants or twenty. Mine doesn’t have that, and I kind of like it that way. Suitcases are meant to be picked up and carried, hefted with one’s own arms and back.
JERSEY, U.K. — Part of Pouquelaye de Faldouet, a 6,000-year-old Neolithic tomb on the Channel island of Jersey, has been fenced off without consulting local Pagans. The members of the Société Jersiaise, who own the site, say that the fencing is necessary in order to prevent further erosion. However, the island’s Pagan community have responded that this is an example of religious discrimination. The passage grave, which is five metres in length and leads into a series of circular chambers, is currently estimated to date back as far as 3250 to 4000 B.C.E. Excavations in 1839, 1868 and later in 1910 by the Société Jersiaise members revealed human bones belonging to both adults and children. One intact skeleton was found in a seated position.
UNITED KINGDOM — Modern celebrants have been convening at the ancient site of Stonehenge in Wiltshire for many years now: revivalist Druids of the early 20th century, hippies of the 1960s and 70s, New Age travelers and political activists, and modern Pagans have all gathered at the summer and winter solstices to hold free music festivals, conduct rituals, hold raves, and simply acknowledge the turning points of the year. The role of the site is ongoing and has a highly significant place in the practices of contemporary Pagans worldwide, but not just Pagans alone. As well as solstice rites and ongoing archaeological work, Stonehenge is now the focus for a wider new initiative: the Human Henge Project. Beginning in 2015, the Human Henge Project is a mental health initiative run by a number of organizations. These include the Restoration Trust, the Richmond Fellowship, English Heritage, and Bournemouth University.
Having, for the moment, concluded my own pilgrimages to some of the places that Pagans feel sacred, I have been spending my time looking back at what others have thought about pilgrimage as a concept.The anthropologists Edith and Victor Turner claimed that the key feature of pilgrimage was something called communitas. Pilgrimage, they said, brought the pilgrims into a “liminoid” state, a state of being “betwixt and in-between,” outside of the normal bounds of societal rules and hierarchies. (This state is “liminoid” instead of “liminal” because in the contemporary Western societies that the Turners studied, pilgrimage is generally something people choose to do, rather than an obligatory rite of passage for the community; obviously this is not always the case, even in said Western, mostly Christian societies, but the Turners’ model focuses on pilgrimage as something optional rather than mandatory.) While engaged in this liminoid state, pilgrims enter into the state of communitas, wherein individuals become subsumed into homogeneous groups based on their shared “lowliness, sacredness, and comradeship.”
For the Turners, pilgrimage was a kind of radical egalitarianism, where, through the power of religious ritual, the structural bonds the divide society could be dismissed, leaving all pilgrims as an unmediated, undivided throng. This was, of course, a passing state of affairs; eventually the pilgrim returns home and reintegrates into the structures of society, with all the old hierarchies intact. Indeed, communitas, which the Turners also referred to as “social antistructure,” often ended up reinforcing the very structure it critiqued by acting as a sort of pressure valve for the greater society.
UNITED STATES — On this day each year, the U.S. honors Martin Luther King Jr. Public schools, government offices, and many businesses are closed in order to recognize his work and sacrifice, as well as the staggering influence that his message has had on American society. Many Pagans, Heathens and polytheists across the country participate in local activities, both small and large, and privately in ritual to recognize Dr. King and his influence. After a contentious presidential election cycle, this year’s day of honor has found itself at the helm of what promises to be an interesting and tense political week, culminating in inauguration day. While there have been celebrations and parades throughout the country focused specifically on King and his legacy, much of this year’s political energy and focus is on the coming week, as the U.S. is poised for a political shift with unknown consequences. Some Pagans, Heathens, and polytheists, hailing from all walks of life, are preparing to participate in the week’s schedule of marches, actions, and other activities specific to their political and social concerns.