22 September - The Autumn Equinox

Once I had stepped into the center of the Caillte standing stones something changed. Wind from the valley that was before whipping my auburn hair disappeared leaving an early stillness. The air was thick and warm, but I found it easy to breathe. An overriding thought started to stir in my head. That I was losing control of my known reality, I did not yet know how or why but I could feel its presence in the thick musty air. Somebody or something is watching me. Looking around it is the typical scene that one would find in the Highlands, green grass that flows over and through the craigs and an ever changing skyline that sits far away in the distance at the top of the closest hill. The morning dew drops still cling to the rough and untamed wild grass outside of the standing stones. Here in the middle of these ancient Celtic giants I feel insignificant and small in an otherwise enriching place, a place of such neolithic and bronze age history. This presence that looms around me begins to emanate a warm pulsing sensation that tingles its way up through every bone and muscle in my body. Starting from the soles of my feet upon which I stand, through to the top of my head, it makes my ears feel as if they are standing on end. Again and again this pulsing sends warm waves through my body like a trance, drawing my body towards the most megalithic center standing stone. An abundance of moss clings onto the crevasses of this stone, hanging there like an extension of itself; just like his beard used to hang from his chin. As a child it was an object of intrigue that I could never refrain from touching, it climbed up from his chest like a vine and onto his high set cheekbones to meet with his silver hair which was always tied back, falling down the nape of his neck. I can hear his voice being carried through the air from the center stone. A strong Scotsman’s accent that has been dulled by the thick air. 

“Fiona. Fiona, come here my darling banogha” 

Never had I thought that I would hear his real voice again. No longer plagued by the consuming cancer, but his real voice. The voice that assured you the monsters wouldn’t reach you when you were scared of the storm as a child. The voice that was always there to calm to nerves. The voice you would always rely on, no matter how horrible the World could be to you. 

I had never truly believed in the legends and folklore of past, it was more for his benefit that I had always listened. Being here now and feeling the things that he had once described to me by the fireplace had begun to slowly hit me, never had I ever imagined that I would be one of the chosen. He had been telling me these tales not as something to pass the time, but as knowledge for when one day I was to make the journey. As this realization began to hit me I could feel every inch of me repelling the idea. I’m a person of control, nothing happens without my say. His death was never meant to happen until I was ready, there were things I was still yet to learn from him, more time to spend together by the fire. 

Without the realization of it I was suddenly reaching for the center stone. Not by choice, but by him. My fingers sprawled apart and index finger reaching; reaching out for him, reaching out for the chance to hear more of his rough soothing voice. The stone was ice cold to the touch, nothing compared to the warm air that was surrounding me now, it was the kind of cold that could only occur from fairy magic. Magic that had supposedly been passed down through the druids of old. A magic that flowed through the lands of old and connected our times into one. Seanair had once told me the story of the druids, how they had once been known as priests and noblemen but they had delved into dark magic to gain more power. This had upset the balance of nature, and nature had to find its loop hole to control and correct the wrongs of these men. Stone circles around Scotland that had lost their power not long after the Celtic Giants had disappeared became rich with Earth Magic, they were connected again, once every year on the morning of the Autumn equinox to create a portal for those who Nature deemed worthy enough to travel through and right the wrongs of the past. 

Once my hand came into contact with the ice cold touch of the stone I couldn’t take it back. My spirit was lifted out of me and I watched as my body was left beside the stone as I was taken into the stone itself. It felt like the World had lost itself and I was being pulled from one reality into an unknown, to be left without control of body and my soul.