“No one knows for sure. I would guess that most experts would say about six thousand years ago.”
“They couldn’t have known then could they?”
“About galaxies?” she asked.
“Yes. These carvings look like galaxies in the sky, but they didn’t have telescopes, so they couldn’t have known, right? These spirals were probably just random designs, weren’t they?” Sheila said nothing but only looked at Dan with compassion and a broad smile.
“Dan, there’s more to see. We need to see the sun rise in the morning. Then we’ll talk about it. OK?” Sheila’s hair shone like reddish sparks in the dim starlight, and her green eyes sparkled brightly. She was a vision from another time or place.
“OK,” he said, still trying to make sense of what he had seen. “When do we get up?”
“At the very first light,” she replied. “The sunrise is the real reason we’re here. It’s the solstice, remember? Let’s get some sleep while we can.” They made their way to the back of the cave and were soon sound asleep.
It seemed to Dan that he had barely closed his eyes when he was awakened by the sound of birds chirping outside the cave entrance. “Wake up, Dan!” Sheila said excitedly. “It’s almost time!” They rose and walked to the cave entrance, and Sheila pointed towards the brightening sky in the east. “OK, now stand right here,” she said. “See those two stones on the lip of the clearing? The ones that look like they’re leaning on each other?”
“Right, I see them,” Dan replied.
“Good. Keep looking; it won’t be much longer.” The morning was dawning as clear as the night had been and within a few minutes the first rays of the rising sun lit up the sky above eastern horizon in a burst of glorious orange, yellow, and red streaks. A minute later Dan gasped. From where they stood in the cave entrance, it appeared that this winter solstice sun was rising directly inside the small triangle formed by the two stones that appeared to be leaning on each other. “Now, look over there,” Sheila said, “over at that large flat rock. The one that looks like it’s standing straight up.”
Dan turned and looked at the rock. He hadn’t noticed it before, although it must have been at least six feet tall and appeared perfectly flat. The bright yellow-white rays from the sun beamed through the stone triangle and illuminated the flat surface of the stone directly across on the other side of the clearing. Then, immediately, a previously invisible pattern began to sparkle on the stone’s surface, it was a bright spiraling swirl of glinting quartz lights. The figure sparkled in the sun for a few minutes and then, as the sun rose higher, the spiral faded away and was soon invisible.
Dan felt a sudden chill, then a sense of awe and perhaps fear too. He turned to Sheila and said, “Sheila, all these things, the standing stones, the moon monolith, the cave, everything – it’s all natural. Right?”
Sheila looked at him and saw the growing amazement in his eyes. “Yes, it is.”
“It’s a natural sort of calendar or observatory! It tells when the solstice occurs and when the full moon will illuminate the cave!”
“Yes.”
“There’s a Hawthorn tree over there.”
“I know. It just grew there. No one planted it.”
“OK, Sheila. You have to tell me now. What does this all mean? Are the spirals symbols of something or are they depictions of reality? Does anyone know?”
She looked at Dan with love in her eyes. They had crossed a threshold last night in the cave. They would never be the same individuals again, either of them. “It’s very complicated. I don’t think anyone can really explain what we are seeing here. But here is some secret information I’ll share with you. You are the first man to hear this in almost a thousand years. This is because the signs show that you have been chosen to play a role and you will need this if you are to succeed.”
“Sheila,” Dan said taking a step backward, “what are you talking about? What role do I have? And who was the last man to learn any of this?”
“Your role will be revealed in due time, Dan. Don’t wish for it sooner than it comes. As for the last man to learn any of the secrets, that was Brian Boru, shortly before the battle of Clontarf.”
“Brian Boru? The last High King of Ireland? But wasn’t he killed at Clontarf?” he said with a trace of alarm in his voice. “Sheila, I don’t understand this.”
“Perhaps not,” she said seriously, “these secrets are not intended for the minds of men. They are too difficult. But I will tell you this: the spirals are symbols and at the same time they are also accurate representations of reality. This is very ancient knowledge. The lone spiral is the symbol of the Sun god, while the three joined spirals are the symbol of the Goddess of Ireland, Eire.”
“Really?” Dan said, suddenly interested in these interpretations. “Is that what the archeologists say?”
Sheila smiled. “I have no idea what the archeologists say. Besides, how could they know the secrets? The secrets are kept to a very small number of chosen women, remember? And, believe me, none of them are archeologists.”
“Then what about the reality of the spirals? You said they are also depictions of reality too.”
“Yes. They represent the galaxies of the universe, as you thought.”
“They do? But how? Those people lived so long ago. It was a different time. They had no information then.”
“Look around you Dan. Let yourself feel this place for a moment. Do you feel something strange?”
“Yes, you know I do,” he said.
Sheila smiled. “Dan, there’s something different about this place. It feels like time and space are different here sometimes. I don’t know if that’s a good way to explain it. There are times when I am here that I sense some strange energy in the very rocks around me. There is knowledge here, knowledge of things past and yet to come. The people who first discovered this place felt it too. There are possibilities here that are sensed by some people. Some of us can feel them come and go. This little depression in the ground, high up in these hills; it’s almost like it is able to concentrate and reorganize time and energy. I don’t think those people long ago could explain it either. The best they could do was to make those spirals.”
“The spirals?”
“Yes. That was what was revealed to them here, and it became their secret and sacred truth: the world we live in is both literal and symbolic. That’s why the carvings of these people are, at one and the same time, literal and symbolic. That’s how they handed the secret down.” She paused a moment and looked over at the lone Hawthorn tree in the center of the circle, and then she wiped a tear from her eyes. She looked back at him and said, almost in a whisper, “Dan, we need your help. The signs are clear to us now. Someone – someone very evil – has started using the power of the spirals.”
The Viral Epiphany Page 28