Solstice zone, stones & starlight

 

Ripply trunk trees, Dalmain

 

Robert is a dedicated historical researcher and makes discoveries – old stones, standing stones, ancient inscriptions (like the one on the wall of Earlston Church, in memory of Thomas the Rhymer) little known churches, ruins of older buildings (Goblin Ha’) full of history and legendary characters (Haddington tower) and writes detailed articles about historical places and persons. I’m always glad to be invited to visit these places I would never have heard of without his research. This time it’s a visit to Tormain Hill, near Ratho, West Lothian, Scotland.
Tormain Hill is not high or steep, it curves gently upwards, more of a wold than a hill. Robert, Colin and I, we Merrie Three, walk uphill. Robert uses a stick and wears a bright green woolly hat his sister-in-law knitted for him. Colin walks with Robert because he is thoughtful and doesn’t want to leave him behind in the way that I do, striding ahead. Colin also wears a hat, greenish grey, like the colour of tree bark. My hat is cream coloured. We need hats because there’s a chill wind blowing and that’s why I go on ahead, I want to walk quickly to get warm. The wind is even stronger and colder at the top where there’s a view of the Queensferry Bridge and the Forth Rail Bridge in the distance. Also in the distance, planes taking off from the airport.

Away from the tree shade, I stand in the sunlight, feeling the warmth of the sun on my face. Do you know it takes 8 minutes for the light from the sun to reach you, says Colin. This question of delay in terms of the light reaching you, reminds me of people who say that starlight takes many years, I don’t remember how many, to reach us. Suggesting, I feel, that there is something false about our perception.

If someone says to me: that starlight you see is in the past, it is years old, you are not seeing it as it is now, I feel they are trying to rip something from me, something that adheres so closely to me that it is me, it's mine and I cry out from the pain of it. I scream. That's how it feels. Who would rip starlight from me, willingly, gladly, joyfully even. Who indeed. Who is this person. They're a telegraph message, printed out in monotone pulses. They jerk like a needle on a seismograph. They don't even have the lightest, most subtle swing of the barometer’s pointer which has damp, rainy, windy or clear and sunny indicators of compassion, all atmospheres have compassion. And they show, they are pointed to by the barometer. Even mechanical figures which come out of clocks when the hour is struck, they have expression and diligence and pride in the hour, in their reasoned and awkward steps. They are harmony, even if diffident, predictable harmony.
Tormain hilltop is a wooded ridge, with little paths and dips and hollows and shoulders and small dells and tree roots spreading over the paths and some stones lying in the hollows and on the slopes. Among the graceful and elegant trees, there’s a candelabra tree and others with rippled trunks and branches, as if they have always been in constant movement, and they still are, their patterns like waves and twists and turns, a tidal dance maybe, or one that responds to the winds that see-saw up and down the ridge.

     Candelabra tree

A large stone, with rings and hollows, its circular markings, circles within rings. It could be a depiction of the sun I think, showing planets and orbital patterns and other stars, off to one side. The constellation stone.

Constellation stone

 

And here is another, the arrow stone (or flight stone?)

 

 

Who are these people who try to remove the stars from my heart. Who do not see, do not know that I walk through star litter as if it is always autumn, those lights at my feet. Like that one star out now, above golden and pink glow in the darkening sky, above a ledge of grey cloud, bunched on the horizon. One bright star. I sing to the stars as I walk home at night. Take that with your ticker-tape facts about time which you cannot even explain (for who can explain what time really is) while I go home across the moor and the yellow pinkish light in the sky and that growing brighter star, they cross it with me too.

Rock art of this kind, known as cup and ring marks, are found all over the world apparently. No one can say for sure what they mean, though plenty of theories are put forward. I think that if I was a paleolithic stone carver I would definitely want to depict stars and constellations, comforting night time companions. Most of them staying in one place, but some of them (the wanderers) moving slowly across the sky. The circles could be a way of marking the planetary wanderings, one circle depicting a year, like rings on tree trunks.