The path led to the sky
In the cold silence I walked straight up the hill, following the path to the dolmen that seemed to lead to the sky. I listened for sounds but found none other than the wind in my ears, the crunch underfoot and my breathing. A cluster of dark pines on the right and some gnarly oaks ahead stood like sentinels or witnesses.
Alone in the vastness of rolling hills, somewhere before I arrived at the sky, but after I passed the deer tracks, I slipped through time.
Φ
I am ancient, of the people who moved through these hills and along the rivers, who spoke to trees and knew the sun.
I am a Wise One who talks to the sky, and reads signs in mosses and mistletoe.
I birth babies and know which lichens heal wounds.
I ride the wind with hawks and run with foxes.
I sing the old ways for you to remember.
My people brought megaliths of granite like the one before me, from another land, beyond the four rivers, beyond the dark woods and the hollow mountain.
We placed them in high places to touch the moon and sun and set our days to their cycle. They told us when to meet the aurochs and the gazelles on their journey.
Here we built fires, danced and rejoiced during the summer solstice but mourned, wailed and feared during the death of the winter sun.
I have loved many times in this dolmen’s shade…
I died here, in its grove of oaks, wrapped in ferns, heather and ivy, gazing at the setting sun.
Φ
At the top of the hill, stands the one remaining slab of the dolmen, covered in eons of accumulated moss and lichen skeletons. Too heavy to move, too hard to break, it stands oriented east-west, mysterious, impervious to time, still communing with the sun as it was meant to do, since it was placed there around 2000 BCE.
I touched the stone, stroked it, felt its roughness and pebbly texture. I wanted to read it with my hands, willing its stories to come through my fingers, through the faint humming echo I sensed. I placed my hands over the hands of so many before me, feeling a connection to unnamed ancestors who made this moment possible.
Φ
Over a century ago on this spot, altitude 620 meters, a cartographer dreamed the world.
He first mapped out the surrounding hills with their villages and church steeples, and then moved beyond, all the way to the Pyrenees behind Montpellier to the south and Clermont to the east, noting distances and degrees. Then he dreamed bigger:
He saw with the sun’s eyes Cairo, Douala, Cape town, Canberra, Rio, San Francisco, London, Moscow, hundreds of cities calling to him… each, carefully placed in a 360 degree orientation table, the distance from this dolmen, the navel of his world, carefully logged. Standing in the sunlight, I look at what he shows me, this dreamer of long ago who never left home:
I see Lunac close by, whose church usurped a pagan temple. I follow the Viaur River meandering through woods and meadows further down the hill. I stare at the snow topped Pyrenees in the distance, and then turn eastward to Le Puy, the ancient volcano. My eyes drift north and I soon lose my way in the afternoon haze…
Wrapped in a long hooded coat, my shadow looks like she belongs here, like she came home.
I stand in the Navel of the World, in the silence of eternity, at the conjunction of now, dream and memory, and wonder at the texture of time.
Comme tu es fantastique.
Mon coeur est triste, enlevé, inspiré.
Merci, cherie.
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Tu m’as dit “Va danser sur le dolmen et ecris ce qu’il y a dans ton coeur”. C’etait un excellent conseil. C’est moi qui te remercie, ceci n’existerait pas sans toi.
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Tu es encore trop gentille.
C’est toi qui crée ces images merveilleuses.
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Wow!
when I return I will say more 🙂
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I’ll take it as a compliment. Seeing your rational mind speechless is praise indeed… not to mention fun. 😉
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It indeed is beautifully written and profound so commenting may just take from it’s sublimity 🙂
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Mak, you are too kind.
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How could I not be with such a nice friend as you? You are equally very kind, perceptive and whenever you visit you make wonderful contributions that only help to build what we know
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🙂
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This is magnificent. Truly
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Thank you. Glad you enjoyed it.
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Wow! You had my eyes dancing over the words… Well done!
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Thank you John. I am glad you liked it.
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Stones in the earth and the Sun in the sky. I almost felt the depth of time flow up my arm when you put your hand on that granite.
rjb
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Well, then it’s a good day! Thank you rjb.
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This is timeless, Em. It was like walking with a druid priest into the realm of the past. Just a wonderful piece of writing.
Paul (aka PJB1943)
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Thank you Paul. It is a strange place, an out of time place. I am glad I was able to take you there.
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Dear emmylgant, Where is this place?
Dr. O.
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Hi Richard. Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read this post. The location is known as “Cheval du Roy”, in Flauzins (Aveyron) France, in the middle of nowhere not too far from Villefranche en Rouergue.
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Thank you. I came across this post as I doing some research for a story I’m writing about a trip to the Navel of the World stone on Easter Island. I wish I had your gentle gift of putting into words the transcendent experience one encounters at such magical places.
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Thank you Richard, that is very kind of you. Yes, these ancient places have a magical quality that is hard to miss. Good luck on your research and project.
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