A Journey to Mystical Places
Stonehenge. The word immediately brings to mind those giant rocks sitting in a circle
in a big empty field, a sacred place thousands of years old. The October issue of Smithsonian Magazine has an extensive report on the recent findings of two archaeologists digging among the 50 ton slabs.They have added one more theory to explain the existence of the site; the healing power of its natural spring waters.
The mound's mystical pull has attracted human interest as far back as 7,000 BC. People
came from the surrounding areas, not to live, but to worship in a place they considered significant to their spiritual life. To mark the sacred spot, the ancients erected circles of timber, which were eventually replaced by the monolithic stones we see today. They created an environment in which to gather and perform the rituals of their beliefs.
Many thousands of years ago, in the area we now know as Saudi Arabia, a man named
Abraham was wandering in the desert with his wife and infant son. According to Islamic tradition, the child, Ismael, cried out in need of water in the searing heat. His mother, Hagar, desperately ran back and forth across the dry sand 7 times, between the two hills of Safra and Mawrah, looking for water to quench her son's thirst. It is said that God sent the angel Gabriel to dig a hole in the ground from which water sprang, while others claim it simply gushed forth from under the infant's feet.
Either way, millions of pilgrims now descend on Mecca (Makkah in Arabic) for the annual
ritual known as the Hajj. Photographs flood the airwaves every year, showing a mind boggling sea of people moving in a circular procession around a large fabric covered cube. This is the holiest site in Islam, the Kaaba, which is located near the original source of the spring, now known as the Zamzam Well. The Kaaba holds the Black Stone, believed to date back to the time of Adam and Eve, and was originally built by Abraham as the first house of the one and only God. Today, they are the centerpieces of the courtyard of the Masjid-el-Haram Mosque and the spring water is piped to the eastern side of the building, where it is made available to visitors.
A few thousand miles to the west in the year 1858, a young girl Bernadette Soubirous
claimed a beautiful lady appeared to her in a small grotto near the town of Lourdes. The Lady told the 14-year-old to drink from a spring, but there was no water in sight, yet the apparition was insistent that the water was there. So with bare hands, Bernadette dug in the dry dirt and sure enough water started flowing up through the ground. Bernadette claimed to have had 14 encounters with the mysterious woman, who eventually identified herself as the "Immaculate Conception." The incident drew the attention of the local Catholic parishioners, then on to the Bishop, and to those higher up on the church's ladder. There were many skeptics then, as there are today, but it hasn't stopped over 200 million people from making the pilgrimage to the little stone cave, where a teenager says she saw the Virgin Mary. While many come to drink the water in an effort to be healed from illness, many more come simply to experience the spiritual revival of their soul, in a place they consider holy.
From the waters spewing from rock formations in England, to present day believers
looking for spiritual healing and rejuvenation in Mecca and Lourdes, human beings have been building special places where their god, or gods, are most present on earth.
Comments