(continued from Wiltshire Trip, Days 01-02)
Looking over my notes I took during the trip, I see that on the morning of Tue, June 19, I experienced another round of frustration regarding the Devizes parking and traffic situation, so that night decided just to park my Ford Focus at The Barge and walk the *7 miles* back to Devizes through a little used back way, as it turned out. I’ve written about this path several times in the FHE blog, with the first being in the “Dimensional Kink?” post created just before the England trip, and the second being “Going Back in Time” from just after the same. In the latter, it looks like I’ve covered most of the essentials of this hike already, as well as some additional, more theoretical or abstract information coming from resident blog spirit Hucka Doobie (Hucka D.). Hmmm… Waters again… and another Kink as well. Hucka D. claims in that post the 2 hikes to and from Devizes on Tue and Wed respectively, act as one in hyptertime, with one half, as it were, not really existing without the other half. The *kink* experienced in the first (The Barge to Devizes) was straightened out, as Hucka D. put it, in the one from the following morning when I returned to Devizes and retrieved my car. This was accomplished by following the water/canal (Kennet and Avon Canal) all the way. It was indeed a highlight from a trip packed with highlights in both a positive and negative way, but with the positive stuff winning out in the end. Anyway, when I got back to The Barge, I rewarded myself for accomplishing such a feat with a vegetarian lasagna lunch. Many canal boats were moored along the Kennet and Avon, especially around Honeystreet and The Barge. Many were there because of Solstice celebrations in the area, in particular at Stonehenge and also Avebury. Get back to that in the next, planned post on my trip, which will cover Days 05-06. I went to Stonehenge; wandered among the rocks!
After leaving The Barge, the next hike was also quite amazing, taking me through the western edge of West Woods to the Wansdyke, an early Medieval defensive linear earthwork according to the wikipedia article on the subject. Then I followed the Wansdyke west to the site of an abandoned Medieval village called Shaw. I note in my handwritten journal that the paths in the area were confusing, the Wansdyke itself not being part of a marked hiking trail in this area (although a trail still existed along most of it here). Several small woods lie to the south and west of West Woods, including Shaw Wood (closest to the site of the namesake abandoned village) and also Boreham Wood and Gopher Wood. More recently, I’ve noted in this blog that the closest crop circle to the Wansdyke to ever form was this one from a field very near Shaw, and dating from 2001 once more (like the gigantic Milk Hill glyph from the same year). In the same post, Hucka D. and I talk about a possible, direct association between this Shaw and Seale, Texas discussed several times in this blog, since, among other things, Seale itself use to be called Shaw. Is there something *sealed up* at Shaw, waiting to be unlocked? Does it have something to do with the nearby 2001 crop circle mentioned above?
After returning to the car, I decided to head up the road to Avebury, parking at the Silbury Hill lot and walking an additional 1/2 mile or so to avoid the 7 dollar entry fee. The trail from Silbury Hill to Avebury turned out to be much weedier and disused than I anticipated. “No one much walks from Avebury to Silbury Hill, even?” I found myself asking. No, it turns out they don’t, and the famous West Kennet Long Barrow down the same path is much more accessed via the main A4 highway that also runs past Silbury Hill. I quickly realized that after rains your shoes and pants would quickly be soaked because of all the wet weeds along the way — made an important mental note of that, because I would be using this trail a number of times in the coming days. This would be my second visit to Avebury, but the first where I parked at Silbury Hill for free access. This time, unlike the first visit from the day before, I decided to head to the Red Lion, and ordered a pint of what’s called an Avebury Well Water, which was superb. I was very excited to be at the Red Lion, because it is a centerpiece for not one but two composite collage creations from the Gilatona-Lis series completed earlier in the year, or the Latona 03/04 dyptich, and then the Falmouth *quad*tich (4 part collage set, where, again, each collage acts a unique work in its own right as well). Was getting tired from all the hiking of the day, however, and decided to bypass revisiting the rocks. Went back to Devizes after this and visited a new pub called The Lamb, not far from where I was staying with Tim. Took a book again — read on 3 books while I was in England, or “Winesburg, Ohio”, Jane Roberts’ “The Unknown Reality, Part 2”, and, one I barely touched, Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying”.
After finishing my beer at The Lamb, I decided to revisit nearby St. John’s Church and the graveyard before head’n home. On the *public* pathway behind the church, got *accosted*, and right at the spot where Brian R. Marshall shot his 2 photos that are the basis for yet another Gilatona-Lis dyptich: Lis 03/04. And that’s why I was there in the first place — to check out in more detail the setting for these photos and attached collages, centered around an old railroad bed leading to a sealed up tunnel running underneath the Devizes castle site. I crossed the bridge over the old rr track, went down the public greenway a bit, petted a cat, headed back, and then was *blocked* from going back across the bridge by this short but extremely stout *tank* of a man, who I said hello to but apparently didn’t take kindly to friendly greetings like that, at least in this neck of the woods. “What did you say to me?” he asked, while blocking my way. “Hello,” I said. “I said hello to you.” He just stood there. I think he repeated “What did you say?” a couple of times. Then I ask him if he was alright, because I started to think that he was having some kind of seizure or something. Then, *thankfully* he brushed past me, saying something like, “get out of my way you silly man.” I know it doesn’t sound as scary the way I’m writing it, but I come from a small mountain town where *nothing* like this has ever happened to me, not that I can think of. Not to the same degree. But the scariest part was when I returned to the H&H bar below my room, and the landlord telling me that they deal drugs in that cemetery, and I was lucky there was only one of the lot back there at the time, else they would have mugged me or worse. “Great!” I was thinking. “And how do I get out of the rest of my rent to Tim?” I didn’t say that, but I was ready to leave Devizes that night; I’m sure you can understand. Then I saw Tim that night and told him what happened, and he was aghast and said he thought Devizes was a very safe place to roam about, even at night. He claimed to know absolutely nothing about thugs and drug dealing around St. John’s. I even told Tim about the collage I made with the tunnel entrance to explain why I was in that particular location. I knew it had to mean more, since I’d already identified a green man effect at the tunnel with a black hole, and probably the most famous example of one (Cygnus X-1). In my journal I go into this a bit more, theorizing that the accosting event and the creation of the collage back in Feb. were (or are) actually part of one hypertime event, past anticipating a future event but also future event affecting the past, I believe. There are a number of investigative angles one could pursue here. For example, the train tunnel has been blocked just like I was blocked by the accoster, and from the very bridge where you have the best angle to view the blocked tunnel. Strange, eh?
But that was my most dangerous moment in England I believe. And I was certainly glad to get out of Devizes for that and other reasons on Sunday morning.
Coming up next: a visit to *the* main crop circle information center, a visit to Stonehenge during the Soltice, *seeing* additional crop circles with the naked eye, and more!
(continued in Wiltshite Trip, Days 05-06!)
Sunklands 