Sacred geometry

Charles 12 Comments
Charles

AboriginalStoneArrangements1

 

In an as-told-to piece in today’s Sunday Times, extreme expeditioner Ed Stafford describes the hardships he underwent when he was dumped naked on a desert island. He found the loneliness and isolation especially difficult to bear. 

“My best technique for staying sane was something the Australian Aborigines taught me. I built a stone circle and whenever the panic or anxiety got too much I would go and sit in it and feel safe and happy again. It’s a simple technique, but it worked. I think I’d have spin out otherwise.”

A nice thing to have in a natural burial ground, perhaps? 

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james showers
11 years ago

Grasping at straws, it seems to me……… not so much the rock island thing – it’s tough out on your own – but doing this kind of hi-viz career boosting stunt for TV.
Give me Ray Mears any wilderness night.

Jenny Uzzell
11 years ago

Quite, another tip for survival…don’t spend 60 days on your own on an island unless there’s a REALLY GOOD reason!!

Charles Cowling
11 years ago

Well, I think the stone circle is great whatever you think about Ed, whoever he is. I don’t know if Ed is sound on dogs, but he’s certainly sound on stone circles, so he’s at least halfway to the kingdom of heaven (now under my management).

Richard
Richard
11 years ago

A stone circle is all very well on a desert island but on the rainy isle of Blighty perhaps they could stretch to a gazebo lined with memorial benches.

Charles Cowling
11 years ago

Absolutely not. Stone circle or nothing. Bring your own shooting stick.

Jenny Uzzell
11 years ago

Oh I’m entirely up for a stone circle, Charles. We have a recently built one just up the road. I even helped pull one of the stones up the hill. The respect I have for the builders of the originals as a result is boundless!
Jenny

Charles
11 years ago

I doff my seasonal headgear (Russian-style with furry earflaps) to you, Jenny! I am ashamed to say that I have never shouldered a sarsen in the cause.

Jenny Uzzell
11 years ago

I don’t necesarily recommend it, Charles. On a rest between ‘pulls’ I lay on my back half way up the hill wondering why I had thought this would be a good idea. Keith (who, on account of an old injury had been given the camera instead of a rope) stood over me and with mild concern and great politeness enquired ‘Have you died?’ And that was only a fairly little stone compared to many I have seen and there were at leat 100 of us!

Charles Cowling
11 years ago

It sounds like a wonderful occasion, Jenny. Would that I had been there — as an observer.

A funeral director shouldn’t go round asking people if they are dead. He should know!

James Leedam
11 years ago

As you probably know Charles, Cothiemuir Hill natural burial ground in Aberdeenshire includes a neolithic stone circle at the summit of the hill – the stones there are simply beautiful and the recumbent stone is unbelievably huge and whale like.
Coincidentally, I have recently proposed an earthwork circle at a future natural burial ground as a place to gather and to add features to a relatively flat piece of land. My inspiration came from Herbert Bayer [http://tclf.org/pioneer/herbert-bayer/biography-herbert-bayer] and Richard Long [http://www.richardlong.org/].

Jenny Uzzell
11 years ago
Reply to  James Leedam

Brilliant, James. Thanks!
I’ll add it to our ‘wish list’!

Charles Cowling
11 years ago

Great links, James. Thank you.