by Shannon mac UlchabhanBeag
(c)2003
And so the first reports came in January 1999. In light of the above quote I wonder if the villagers were protecting it from more than just the potential for its destruction if ever made public knowledge, but that is not really relevant here. A lot has been learned since the initial revelation and much more has been speculated. I will address some of the points that I found to be of considerable interest to the purpose of this document. Those interested in all the other facets are encouraged to begin research and study of this amazing monument.
And its mystery is still unveiling. Matthew Champion, author of SeaHenge: A Contemporary Chronicle says:
"Now, as another autumn and winter has passed, the peat is beginning to reveal even more artifacts and, of profound significance, other timber structures. SeaHenge was not alone; was not a single great find in an eroded landscape but rather the first great artefact from an emerging ancient landscape."
The area is beginning to appear to have been some sort of religious (perhaps) complex.
"Across the surface of what would have been salt-marsh 4000 years ago the archaeologists found what appeared to be other timbers. These timbers, far from being just scattered remains, were laid out in a series of long lines and, in conjunction with wooden planks, some of which have also been discovered, may well have been pathways, or causeways, across the marsh.
�The causeways, though just as likely to have been of a purely practical nature, may well have been ceremonial walkways between the timber structures. Some appear to point in the direction of known structures while others veer off across the marsh: heading no one knows where. It is possible that they connect the Seahenge site with other similar sites, such as the circle discovered by Geoff Needham in the late 1970s about half a mile along the beach. Perhaps there are more such structures still waiting to come to light, or perhaps, like Geoff Needham's circle, they have already been lost to the sea."
�Archaeologists plotted the recorded positions of the timbers and the possibility exists that the entrance to the circle was in alignment with the midwinter sunset. Work continues on this study.
��Seahenge was thus probably a monument, perhaps linking life on earth with the sky or the spirit world.�
And that last line is the mystery. In many of the ancient Tree revering systems the tree appears inverted. I was not aware of that fact until after I had stumbled upon the SeaHenge monument during a websearch one evening, and consequently explored the concept. Another quote, this time from Blavatsky, sheds some light on the reason for inversion:
"Thus, in the beginning of their joint existence as a glyph of Immortal Being, the Tree and Serpent were divine imagery, truly. The tree was reversed, and its roots were generated in Heaven and grew out of the Rootless Root of all-being. Its trunk grew and developed, crossing the planes of Pleroma, it shot out crossways its luxuriant branches, first on the plane of hardly differentiated matter, and then downward till they touched the terrestrial plane. Thus, the Asvattha, tree of Life and Being, whose destruction alone leads to Immortality, is said in the Bhagavatgita to grow with its roots above and its branches below (ch. xv.)...." -- Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, I-406.
So the mystery begins to unfold. It is the descent of Energy into Substance, the Sky God into the Earth Goddess (corresponding to the Sea realm by attribution of the Under World) producing the children of the Land in their union. It is the circle concentrating into the point to produce being. It is the Mystery conveyed in the old saying �April showers bring May flowers� (April and May being the months of its construction- the month of An Tarbh).
The seed of the Father is the life-giving droplets of rain in late April which impregnate the Earth, who 'flowers' in early May. The immortality of the re-cycling soul.
The fact that the cycle was repeated over two years instead of only one tells me that perhaps the intent was symbolic repitition of the cycles, which is to say Birth, Death and Rebirth. It has another analogy that can be found within each of us. If you are curious, meditate on it.
To the early Hebrews the Oak was a very special Tree. It was the 'Tree of the Covenant', and among its other titles was "El-On" or 'Tree of God'. This Covenant appears in Celtic cosmology, with its differences, and is itself triadic in nature: it is the Bond between the Aspirant, the Aspirants environment (Nature), and the Indwelling Divinity of the Aspirant (as well as the Gods of his people). These were to be balanced and respected.
Additionally, I further interpret the Covenant as that which serves to not only bond us but to help unite us with the Divine Selfhood within each of us, our Awen/Imbas, the 'Holy Spirit'. In harmony with other ancient traditions, I view this 'Holy Spirit/Imbas/Awen' as the feminine polarity of the Universal Generative Force. This may be why a small (but not in the least significant) number of modern day Bards behold such as a female countenance in white.
According to Mark Brennand, SeaHenge may not have been alone nor uncommon:
�Other circle sites we have looked at had large pits in the centre but we had no idea what caused them because the stump itself had long disappeared. Now we know what was there, we can go back and re-evaluate the sites.�
Wetland archaeological sites are more favorable than dryland sites as far as preservation of organic remains is concerned. When there is an undisturbed, waterlogged environment the remains are protected from decomposition resulting from the natural elements. This is the reason why the Oak at SeaHenge still stands.
Its location is rather interesting in itself, and if its purpose be what we suspect then it is no coincidence. The beach is the border between the realms of Land and Sea, or the Greenworld and the Underworld, while the Oak itself, roots heavenward, expressed a unity between the three worlds. As such it is the domain of Manannan mac Lir, guardian of the gate to the Kingdom of Lir and lord of the �mists� which mark the borders where each of the realms shade into the other.
I really like what ArchDruid Rollo Maughfling of the Glastonbury Order of Druids had to say about this magical monument in his article SEAHENGE ( http://www.warband.org/protests/seahenge/seahenge_1.htm ) :
"Many theories have been put forward about its purpose, from the excarnation of bodies being picked clean by sea birds ( an archaeological theory) to the place where the skulls of important chieftains kept watch over the shoreline to protect us from attack (druid theory.)
"Certainly from a druid point of view, both theories are possible, although to us all "house of the dead" theories are limited. To we druids, the place of the honouring of ancestors was nearly always also a place of the living, as life and death were anciently regarded as but two sides of a coin, and even in death those that had gone before still played an important part in the survival of the community"
He goes on to say, perhaps unrelated to the purpose here, but so interesting that I couldn�t resist, that:
"It is no accident that the major axis of orientation of the Seahenge oak circle was found to be the line of the North-eastern summer sunrise and the South-western winter sunset. A feature it shared with the great stone circle of Stonehenge itself. More than this, the actual midsummer-midwinter ley-line on which Seahenge used to sit, is the very same one that passes through Stonehenge, and eventually through Maiden Castle in Dorset, making the Seahenge circle in Norfolk the coastal marker of the very first ray of light which enters the land on its way to the great sanctuary of Stonehenge itself."
So from such details as we have seen, we may conclude several primary truths about the mysteries of the inverted tree. It communicates the Truth of our Eternal Self. It exists, as all creation does, within a tripartite universe and within each of the three realms simultaneously, which overlap and intertwine like a bit of knotwork.
In Genesis it is said that in the realm of men were two trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of Death (the knowledge of good and evil). This is the world as it is in the absolute and the relative. But these are two extreems of one thing (which is the third).
The world is ever living and ever dying, just like the tree throughout the seasons of the year- yet it ever remains. Creation is born from Destruction and Destruction is the birth of Creation, and between these two is Proportional Balance. If there is � good in the world and � bad, the end result is still 1 (� + � = 1). To illustrate my point I will quote myself from another article I wrote on the nature of time and change, as yet unpublished outside of esoteric circles:
�The clouds disperse and vaporize; they are not there as they were, but the moisture, thinned out in particles too small to be normally perceptable linger yet just beyond the visible spectrum of vibration. Rain that falls here today fell elsewhere on earth in aeons past. And so it is that the death of a star fills a space in the heavens with unseen particles of cosmic dust, the generative seed of the Father and the substance of the Mother which over time will be incorporated elsewhere into new forms, perhaps new worlds- for there is naught but change and motion.
�The �catastrophic� big bang created a universe full of the potency of life; nothing was �born�, nothing �died�- something �changed�.�