October 2016 Notes

October 2016 Notes

Notes/ insights for October 2016:

-I am still without a camera at the moment.  This is the reason why there have seldomly been any new posts lately. 

- On to Stone Sites.  First of all, it is very important that I make this very clear: among many other things, Milford MA. is the land of Standing Stones.  There are many Standing Stone sites on high prominent ledges throughout the hills of Milford (and some nice ones in Hopkinton, MA. too.)  These are hardcore Stone Circle/ Stonehenge sites.  Many of the stones still lay in a collapsed state (usually with some mild growth/ soil build-up over parts of the stone).  Others are (back) up in place.  One such site is a high ledge above a marsh, which would have been a fresh water inlet thousands of years ago from the headwaters of the Charles River.  One standing stone that I got a good look at is a "God Stone" when looked at from a profile view.  It is looking west to the horizon of the setting sun.  It's features are well defined- a conical headdress/ cap, well defined head/ nose, shoulder and body.  It stands maybe 5 ft. high.  There are several more Standing Stone sites in the hills of Milford (and Hopkinton)- the Standing Stones range in size from 6 inches to 12-15 ft. and everything in between.  Some of the Standing Stones are large columns like at Stonehenge in England, others are smaller and conical shaped, etc. etc.  These sites are old, probably (or rather, obviously) thousands of years old.

- To "test a hypothesis" as Peter Waksman has suggested in a recent Rock Piles post.  I have noticed in the hills of Milford MA. (and at Agassiz Rock in Manchester, MA.) for instance, that Standing Stone sites and propped boulders/ circles or alignments of boulders lend to each other.  For instance, there is a collapsed Standing Stone on the same ledge as Agassiz Rock and the surrounding boulders:

  The Standing Stone site in Milford which I briefly described above has some large roundish boulders incorporated into the site as well.  I would say, when noticing alignments of boulders, and/or propped boulders, also look for any Standing Stones (usually in a collapsed state.)  Also when looking at Standing Stone sites, see if you can't find any boulders- placed, propped and/or "enhanced" incorporated into the site as well.  This is what I have noticed.  [Also note: many high ledges where bedrock is exposed does not yet have a significant soil build up in some areas].  

- Echo Lake by the Milford/ Hopkinton Line.  The last couple of times I have been back to that particular Stone Chamber in the woods

(the Echo Lake Stone Chamber I have written extensively about) I have noticed some more peculiar things about that site.  First of all, there is a gentle brook (dry most of the year in our time) that flows next to (below) the Chamber- but also the Chamber itself is not far from a large ravine that goes into a marsh (the source of the brook just mentioned.)  Above this ravine are the remains (ruins) of two distinct pyramidal stone mounds, both of immense size.  I could not tell if they were completely separate or linked, at least partially, and perhaps even maybe linked to the Stone Chamber as well (or at least the Special Boulder the Stone Chamber was built from.)  In the close distance from the Chamber are also several smaller, medium-sized stone mounds.  I also noticed on top of a boulder a very special triangular/ pyramidal shaped stone on it's side.  The thing about this stone is that it is an exact replica, or identical, to a pyramidal-shaped stone on top of another boulder maybe a mile or mile and a half away from it, although the stone by Echo Lake is scaled down from the other one.  The other pyramid stone looks like this:

Note that there is the support at the base of the pyramid stone.  This is identical to the other pyramid stone right near the Echo Lake Stone Chamber and the large pyramidal Stone Mounds.  I know that Mary and James Gage's research gets into the symbolism of stone shapes and that this pyramidal triangle, according to them, has a protective symbolism, or quality, to the shape.  I agree, but I also suggest that this shape, and the reason and reasons for this shape is much, much deeper and multi-faceted, although I will not get into that right now.  Also, there is a third immense pyramidal stone mound ruin which I have noticed by Echo Lake, but much farther away from the Stone Chamber complex.  [To elaborate: when standing at the foot of these large pyramidal stone mounds looking up, one gets the sense they are gazing at the ruins of true pyramid mounds- the two pyramid mounds by the Stone Chamber (and possibly connected to it) are about 25-30 ft. in height.  The third pyramid stone mound away from the main site is maybe 30-40 ft. in height.  To the untrained eye this may look like glacial till, but there is organization to the placement of the stones, as well as showcases of obvious workmanship such as "stone benches", triangular shaped standing stones, special placement of quartz, etc.]

- Back to the topic of Standing Stones.  Although there are many great Standing Stones, 6 ft. high, 10 ft. high, etc., I want to point something out.  The Ancient Ones made small hand-held replicas of these great megalithic Standing Stones using small quartz crystals.  I think that these smaller hand-held quartz stones in the shape of the larger Standing Stones (in other words, smaller replicas) were special stones to remind the bearer of the great strength (or awesomeness) of the larger stones.  So for instance, they had some of this special Manitou wherever they went and not just on-site.  I have identified several of these smaller stones to their larger counterparts purely by happen-stance (and because I pay attention to detail.)  The smaller hand-held will have a tip where the tip of the large Standing Stone is, a notch at the base of the bottom where the larger one will, the dimensions of the tip, body and base will be a perfect match, and so on.  What other function these hand-held stones had I cannot be certain- for instance as a key stone, or any other special significance they had.

- As Mavor and Dix point out on page 214 of their book Manitou, there have been Hopewell and Adena Culture phase (associated with mound building in the mid-west) bird stones found in New England.  I too, have observed bird stone artifacts from time to time.  However from what I have seen they seem to be a bit distinct from the Hopewell and Adena cultures; perhaps even proto-Hopewell and proto-Adena from what I have seen (in other words more ancient).  One motif that I have noticed is the dual bird and snake symbolism (note: some researchers link dual bird and snake symbolism to antediluvian cultural times.  The "plumed serpent" of the most ancient of civilizations comes to mind when looking at dual bird/serpent symbolism).  In other words, from one angle of such an effigy is a snake, the other angle it's a bird- yet the composite of both images makes up one single portrait, or effigy.  I wish I had a picture of one of these stones; but again I am currently without a camera.

- Came across another undocumented Stone Chamber in Milford MA. last spring.  My best guess is that this particular Chamber was built in the 18th or 19th centuries and served a dual purpose to whoever built it.  This Chamber is on the side of a hill but is in the middle of a spring.  An old cart path runs above it so it is like a bridge for the cart path- the flow of the spring has also been engineered by stone wall building along it's banks, contemporary with that of the Chamber.  So, the lintel stones acting as a bridge for the cart-path is the Stone Chamber's practical function.  However, the folks who built it (farm-hands it would seem) probably used it also for their own folk traditions, whether these people were Irish, Scottish, or Native or had Native ancestry I do not know.  I can picture someone 150 or 200 years ago chilling out inside this stone chamber relaxing their feet in the calm waters of the stream on the side of the hill.  There are also old rusted pale buckets near this Chamber, which have been linked to ceremonialism- gelling with 17th/, 18th/, 19th century Native ceremonialism ("flashy trinkets"- although the "sophisticated" white man's mind could not comprehend the deeper meaning of reflecting/ refracting sun and moonlight as well as sacred shapes and symbolism, etc.), but these pale buckets also gel with folk traditions of people from the Irish countryside, in fact the country-side probably anywhere on the British Isles as well, the key here is that we are looking at the folk tradition of the pale bucket.

-There are also really good Similacra's in the hills of Milford, MA.  Some are human, some are bird, some are serpent.  Some are on over-hangs of rock ledges, some are formed from boulders, and some are worked into boulders.  I have shared some in this blog already but there are much, much more to be seen.

- I had more news to bring forward but I will save it for another time.  One point I wanted to say is that studying the origins of human belief systems and the origins of who we are is a complex thing indeed.  There is no easy answer.  There is no such thing as a single adrogenous group of people.  Nothing is ever that simple.  For example, people say that the Neanderthals are all dead, that they all died off 12,000+ years ago.  But that is not true.  There are billions of modern people in the human population who have Neanderthal genes (ancestry), no matter how miniscule that may seem.  And, these human ancestors had a larger brain capacity than we do today, although it was "wired" a bit differently.  They also appeared to be stronger than modern people and more artistically expressive.  The stereo-type of a brutish dullard most people have of a Neanderthal isn't even accurate.  We inherited our artistic and emotional expressions from them; they even buried flowers with their dead.  There seems to be a white-washing or a smear campaign on our human history as more people are plugged in to their machines.  I do not know if any North American rock sites relate to "pre-modern" human cultures such as the Neanderthal (in fact nobody at this point could probably say for sure) but I bring up this last point to highlight just how complex the human species is, especially in understanding our origins.  Also this is partly prep for a video I wish to share in an upcoming post about the Carpathian Mountains (Romania), where there are many boulder/ simulacra rock sites in an area with a heavy concentration of Neanderthal burials- the video is very thought provoking and who knows maybe there is something to it- we will be exploring some other parts of the world in these videos before coming back home.

Stay tuned.