Within a few short miles we came upon the Neolithic treasures we were searching for.  Starting with a great mound called Maes Howe; we simply followed signs and drove right up to three thousand-year-old stone circles, mounds, and sighting stones…

In Italy, in the Po Valley, a land rich in verdant fields, soft hills and waters that irrigate it, is situated the city of Lodi, which is crossed by an imposing river, theAdda. The stream divides it like a big silvery ribbon and, in a delicate way traces a line in the citizens’ disposition: people…

Built by the strong Dagda, it was a marvel, a court, a wonder hill.~ The Book of Ballymote ~ New Grange is the largest and most impressive of several dozen prehistoric monuments found in the Boyne Valley 32 km (20 miles) northwest of Dublin in Ireland. Famous for being oriented to the…

It was the full moon before the summer solstice this morning, a good day to go and do some earth healing. I caught the train into Berlin to visit the Brandenburg Gate. Coming up from the underground station I was met with the busy noise of summer tourism, concrete pavements, the American embassy and a…

According to Ronald Hutton, ‘Any place can be a sacred site if a group of people regard it as such’ (1). Of course this means there may be a sacred No. 97 bus stop somewhere. There is a web-site which lists a drive-in market in the USA as a sacred site, because there are a…

The Orkney Isles, or the Orcades as they were once known, scattered carelessly in the icy waters of the Northern Sea, are among the most magical places in the whole of the Islands of the Mighty. Here culture after culture has met and intermingled, piling upon each other until it is hard to find where…

The Boyne passes in a loop around Newgrange which is the modern name for the ancient site of Brugh na Boinne, the House of the Boyne. It is one of the most remarkable megalithic monuments in the whole of Europe, being nothing less than a measuring instrument of time itself…

Sacred places often exist in the wider context of a sacred environment that might stretch for miles around, and include a number of different sites that are places of pilgrimage or worship. The region around the Gulf of Morbihan is one such place, whose 500 and more sites represent one of the most striking examples…

There are two giants carved on hillsides in southern England. In Sussex, the Long Man of Wilmington stands 70 m (227 ft) tall and is really a Long Person since only an outline of a figure can be seen holding a staff or pole in each hand. In Dorset the Cerne Abbas Giant, nicknamed ‘The…

by Joan Letchford, daughter of George William Smith, Chosen Chief of the Ancient Druid Order 1946-54 ~  ForewordThese are the memories of our mother Joan born 7 March  1923, died 2 November 2011.  In her last months, she was delighted to find her memories were of interest outside the small circle of family and that…

by Marilyn Head ~  The “ravaged colossus” of Stonehenge, with its monumental circle of standing stones, attracts thousands of visitors a year to the tiny town of Amesbury in England. Now New Zealand is about to get its own Pacific version – Stonehenge Aotearoa – scheduled to open next month. Dismiss any notion of cringemaking…

by Philip Carr-Gomm ~  The Salisbury Plain Training Area has, even for those of us living in Wiltshire, a little of the mystique that the Dark Continent once had for the Victorians: largely unknown, dangerous, but full of interest and known to have concealed within it ancient ruins and traces of lost civilisations.Ros Cleal, The…

Summer Solstice, 21 June 2000 ~ by Emma Restall Orr ~  Over the few weeks before the Summer Solstice, I was asked a thousand times what I was expecting to happen on 21 June at Stonehenge, whether I was looking forward to it, whether I would be there at all, not only by friends and…

by Paul Nettle ~  St Catherine’s Hill was a centre of human settlement around 3000 years ago, long before the founding of Winchester.  An iron-age fort was constructed here in the 3rd century BC, and a Celtic oppidum within it.  However, some time around 100 BCE it was occupied by an invading tribe from the…

Personal thoughts concerning modern-day Druidic and Pagan theologies of burial, life after life and the conflicting practices of archaeologists. by Blackbird ~  There are many different realities in the worlds of philosophy, religion and science, and my perception concerning the reburial issue is Druidic, and concerns esoteric concepts of time and space. Such realities are…

by Mara Freeman ~  It is an extraordinary thing to consider that there are still literally thousands of holy wells in the British Isles. Most of these are natural springs; some open pools like St.Madron’s, while others are contained by a stone edifice, often covered. The majority, however,are in ruins, overgrown and no longer visited.…

by Ricardo Campos ~  There are many, many Pagan monuments in Portugal that will appeal to the traveller in search of sacred spaces. This short article will introduce you to a very small number among hundreds of beautiful pre-Christian sites in my country. I hope someday you may come to visit them and open yourselves…

by Philip Carr-Gomm If you feel the call of Iona, then answer that call and make the journey to her. She is like a very old Crone, rocky and barren and eternally loving and gentle and tough and wise. She is very old. She is very holy. There is no other place on earth quite…

by Fiona Macleod ~  A few places in the world are to be held holy, because of the love which consecrates them and the faith which enshrines them. Their names are themselves talismans of spiritual beauty. One of these is Iona. The Arabs speak of Mecca as a holy place before the time of the…

by John Attwood  – The Rollright Appeal ~  PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE On October 1st Karin-Ann and I were handfasted under the perfectly clear and starlit skies of a New Moon night at the Rollrights. It was a year and a day since our civil wedding and, as we made our vows to each other and…

by Michael Maxwell Steer ~  What is beyond us? What is it that we reach out to? What is it that sometimes rewards us with a blast of oxygen in a smog-filled world? Bigger than all these questions: why has consciousness evolved in humans to be so blind, destructive and disconnected from its own natural environment?…

by Philip Carr-Gomm ~  There is on the confines of western Britain a certain royal island, called in the ancient speech Glastonia, marked out by broad boundaries, girt round with waters rich in fish and with still-flowing rivers, fitted for many uses of human indigence, and dedicated to the most sacred of deities. ~ St…

by Andy Norfolk ~  Outside the sun is roaring brassy waves of burning heat. The ground is dried out and cracked. The streams trickle quietly and modestly. The grass is brown and withered. The leaves of the trees and bushes are limp and dull with dust. This is Cornwall in high, and I have to…