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The word "chthonic" to me invokes the image of Seahenge (left), discovered in 1998 due to the action of tides on Holme Dunes, eroding the coastline. One of the most important Bronze Age sites in Europe, it's the only place in the world where prehistoric timbers can still be seen in situ in the ground. The amazing thing about this site is the upside-down oak tree buried at its centre, circled by 55 smaller split-oak trunks, the split faces facing inwards and the bark outwards. The site is dated to the time when the trees were felled between April and June, 2050 BC. The tree in the middle was 167 years old when felled. At least 51 different axes had been used in the construction as was found by analyzing the cut marks. The largest axe was used to cut the central tree but not the others. The excavators interpret each unique axe as representing an individual. Pieces of the rope used to tow the central tree into its hole, made of honeysuckle stems, have been found under the stump. Waterlogged for thousands of years because the site is coastal, the wood has been preserved with little damage. Because there's no evidence of activity subsequent to its construction, little is known of its purpose. Theories have concerned themselves with inversion, as represented by the central trunk and one of the encircling posts being turned 180 degrees from the others. However, the ancient peoples of northern Europe envisioned heaven as being underground, in the earth itself, the domain of the Otherworld and the Shining Ones. Perhaps the inverted central oak was a ceremonial means of travelling to this realm or communicating with it. Later cosmologies saw heaven in the sky, far above the earth and the human realm. Perhaps it's time for what scholar and author Terence McKenna called an "archaic revival," a return to a time when humanity was more in tune with Mother Earth, a time when nature informed our notions of reality, a time when we envisioned heaven as empowering and supporting us instead of dominating us from above. The legacy of the latter view haunts us still, no matter how scientifically "enlightened" we may be unless we've been informed deeply by quantum mechanics perhaps, compelling us to try to control nature instead of cooperating with it. This doesn't necessarily mean losing all the technological advances we've gained in the past 15,000 years, just a grounding in the actual environment of which we are an extension as physical entities. From a more metaphysical perspective, that environment can't be separated from who we are in our deepest nature, so every step we take into its unfolding reality leads us deeper into awakening awareness of the source of being. |
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