The winter solstice always makes me think of Newgrange, a place I have been to numerous times (There’s a picture on my fridge of me and my sister Jean at Newgrange, taken by sister Siobhan):
Newgrange is a passage tomb north of Dublin. There are quite a few other passage tombs up there, but Newgrange is the biggest and most famous. You’ve probably seen photos of the rocks inside covered with spirals. The effect is truly psychedelic and almost frightening, the overall effect being like a brainstorm, or a clamoring vision of infinity.
You go into the inner chamber via a small narrow passageway with earthen floor, and the path gently slopes up (a very important element in the winter solstice miracle. The mathematical and astronomical sophistication of the ancients is mind-boggling.) What happened on the winter solstice was: when you are inside the inner chamber (and there are indentations all around with big scooped-out spaces; nobody knows what was done there: were they graves of important community members? Nobody knows), it’s pitch-black. And on the winter solstice, when the sun rises (if it’s not a rainy or misty day, that is) slow rays of light creep through the open passage door and then crawl up the path and then when the rays reach the inner chamber, the whole space is FLOODED with light. If the path were not on an incline, the miracle would not work. Light literally pours into the darkness, it pours UP the path, ray by ray, and then reaches the inner chamber. How did they know? Why did they build it? What were they doing?
On the contemporary tour of Newgrange, when you are in the inner chamber, they turn off all the lights and do a re-creation of what it would look like if you were there on the sunrise at winter solstice. It is awe-inspiring to watch that light crawl up from out of the darkness, ray by ray, until finally in a flash the interior space is illuminated.
Every winter solstice crowds of people gather at Newgrange from all over the world. Only a lucky few get spots in the inner chamber where you can probably fit 15 people, maybe 20. You have to draw slots and there are waiting lists for years. But many people just camp out on the chilly grass in front of the passage tomb to watch the sun rise from there. How amazing it would be, though, to be one of the folks inside, to watch the sun fill up the earthen chamber … just like the ancients did.
Here is my impression of being on a tour at Newgrange, which has gone down in just this manner pretty much every time I have been. You have to imagine the thick and kind Irish brogues to really get the effect.
American accent: “So … what do all these spirals signify?”
Irish accent: “Well, we don’t really know. But aren’t they lovely?”
American accent: “And what exactly happened in these stone recesses? Were they burial tombs, or …”
Irish accent: “Well, actually, nobody knows, love.”
American accent: “These standing stones are amazing. Why did they place them like that?”
Irish accent: “Well, we don’t really know.”
The tour goes on like that for 45 minutes.
Basically the theme is: Nobody knows what the hell went on here.
The fact that “nobody knows” for sure is what makes the place so special, so magical.
You know what I felt at Newgrange, standing in the pitch black with my sisters, in that ancient tomb, with the spiral rock carvings above and below us, waiting for the light to crawl up the slanting passage? I felt: Humans are absolutely beyond belief. I am really proud of us. Even though we can’t know what exactly drove those ancient people to create such a structure, we can marvel at their knowledge, their spirit, their drive. They are in an unending continuum with this event. It’s the same impetus. They knew to build the inner passageway at just the right slant upwards so that the sun could crawl upwards and flood the inner passageway and inner “tomb” (or whatever it was) for the maximum amount of time. I am proud of the human race for all of that. What a mystery we are. What a neverending and curious mystery.
Here are some pictures from past winter solstices at Newgrange:
That’s from within the inner corridor that slopes upward into the chamber. When the sun first peeks over the horizon, the sun rays pierce through the main door like a laser.
Slowly, as the sun rises, the rays continue to flood forward, going around slight curves, slowly rising up the corridor. Eventually the inner chamber floods with light as bright as day.
And here’s a view of Newgrange from the outside, winter solstice 2002.
American accent: “And … sorry … I know we’ve covered this … but what was going on with those spirals??”
Irish accent, “Oh, love, nobody really knows.”
Happy solstice, Sheila! I love winter solstice-knowing that after today we start gaining daylight (albeit slowly) gives me a real mental boost. I never really thought much about the solstice till I moved to Alaska-now it is something we do celebrate in our family!
Newgrange sounds amazing, and has just been added to the list of places I must visit. I love what you wrote, the whole “how did they know?”. It is such a mystery, and truly marvelous to think about.
It is a truly mystical place.
And yes: more daylight from now on!!
Loved this piece. Didn’t know whether to bow down or laugh out loud. Settled on laughing out loud. Only way to go. Thanks for this. Made my day.
A few years ago I camped and explored Chaco canyon New Mexico. Another ruin that had solstice significance. Here’s a link http://www.solsticeproject.org/lunarmark.htm I remeber from my exploring the spiral was significant there as well. How did these ancients so far away from one another both come to use spirals?
“We just don know love, sorry”.
My gosh, I got goosebumps seeing those spirals in those pics, Phil.
I wish I knew what they signified – but maybe it’s better to not know.
So cool!!
What a beautiful piece, Shelia! I’m sorry that we didn’t get to Newgrange during our trip last summer–my mother-in-law wanted to go to Clonmacnoise instead, which was impressive in its own way–but I can picture the light filling the corridor, thanks to this. I also love your description of Irish tour guides. Aren’t they lovely as well?
I did experience something similar in feel to this, though, when we visited Stonehenge, some years ago. Of course there were quite a few people milling about while we were there, and I was disappointed that visitors are no longer allowed to walk among the stones. And it is, after all, Stonehenge, a place everyone has seen in images so many times that to be actually standing there takes on a surreal quality. But there was a moment when I was standing by myself at the Heel Stone, which marks the rise of the Sun on the Summer Solstice. There might have been an information sign there, or the self-guided tour might have said something that made me look out across the Salisbury Plain, I don’t remember. Anyway, in looking out, I suddenly saw the barrow mounds, dotted all around the plain. It gave me chills.
Clonmacnoise is incredible too! Do you know the Seamus Heaney poem about it? I’ll track it down – I wrote a whole post about that place.
But yes, Newgrange is quite different … pre-Christian and … spooky. Like, clearly I can’t get over the fact that the interior passageway slants up. I don’t mean to be condescending towards ancient Druidic people, but honestly, what a buncha smartypants. I’ve never been to Stonehenge – your experience sounds incredible. Goosebumps!
Took a bit of digging – boy, I wrote this years ago. http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=2182
My “Special Ops friend” whom I’ve mentioned in SPN posts from time to time, shows up, wondering if it might have been a UFO.
welp, as Maureen says, this is definitely going on the list!
Definitely an awe-inspiring place!
Wow, Shelia, thanks for digging up your piece on Clonmacnoise! I had heard of the Heaney poem while in country, and had resolved to find it, but you know how things they do get in the way–
You’ve captured the feel of that place as well, with the river running along the bottom of the hill and the leaning crosses and headstones. Yes. Magic.
It really does feel like a mystical place and it would not be at all strange to see a ship floating by in the air!