Celebrating the summer solstice at Stonehenge

June 21, 2015 7:30 AM

Thousands of people gathered at Stonehenge this year for the summer solstice.
posted by Sir Rinse (13 comments total)

The picture of the trash really ticks me off. I hope the "revelers" clean up after themselves.
posted by cooker girl at 8:36 AM on June 21, 2015 [4 favorites]

It's the winter solstice where I live right now.

It's been my habit to go for a quiet swim in the river at midnight on the solstice, just to remind my body what feeling really cold is all about. But for the last two years we've actually had quite heavy early winter rains, and the river's been up too much to make that safe. So now I has a sad.
posted by flabdablet at 9:13 AM on June 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

The celebration of the winter solstice at Newgrange in Ireland is a bit more tempered. Of course that is helped by the fact it is winter, the revelers number in the 100's and access to the chamber, where the rising sun casts light through a specific alignment of openings, is limited to 50 persons selected by lottery. I think it is instructive that school children are allotted a certain number of tickets. Much more civil , and if I do say so, respectful (or perhaps the Garda swinging his flashlight creates a greater atmosphere or order).
posted by rmhsinc at 9:59 AM on June 21, 2015 [4 favorites]

This image seems especially poetic to me. To make the effort to commune with the ancient that seems inherent in traveling to Stonehenge for sunrise on the summer solstice... and yet the new god Technology intercedes, so that you're not even looking at the sunrise, just its reproduction on a tiny screen.
posted by polymath at 10:14 AM on June 21, 2015 [2 favorites]

I did this once, in 2008 probably. It was a neat thing to do but actually kind of type two fun. It was drizzling all night and eventually we decided the sun had probably risen as the sky was a lighter grey. There were so many people there, and a lot of drugs. They asked everyone to stay off the stones but of course that didn't actually happen. It was bizarre, especially since normally when you visit Stonehenge you have to look at it from so far away. My friend compared to if they took the protective glass off the Mona Lisa once a year and let everyone touch it. Nonetheless, I am kind of pleased when I think that I was right there, able to touch these stones from so many millennia ago.
posted by carolr at 10:42 AM on June 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I picked up a hitchhiker going to Stonehenge this afternoon. I kinda think she had it right and everyone else is wrong.
posted by Leon at 10:59 AM on June 21, 2015

Thousands of people gathered at Stonehenge this year...

...but no one knows who they were or what they were doing.

Am I just a box of pop culture references? Apparently.
posted by JHarris at 12:13 PM on June 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Stonehenge has been around so long that fake celebrations of forgotten ancient rituals can by now be regarded as the authentic tradition. To a first approximation, it's always been a place for well-meaning fakers.
posted by Segundus at 1:12 PM on June 21, 2015 [4 favorites]

So, in 5,000 years, people may walk around the Googleplex and ask, "Who were they, and what were they doing?"
posted by Sir Rinse at 1:30 PM on June 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

Phonehenge.
posted by crazylegs at 2:09 PM on June 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've never been to Stonehenge, but I had thought that there were barriers and strict controls about not touching the stones.
posted by Dip Flash at 2:17 PM on June 21, 2015

There are, but it is opened a few times a year for neopagan rituals.
posted by maxsparber at 4:38 PM on June 21, 2015

The celebration of the winter solstice at Newgrange yt in Ireland is a bit more tempered. Of course that is helped by the fact it is winter, the revelers number in the 100's and access to the chamber, where the rising sun casts light through a specific alignment of openings, is limited to 50 persons selected by lottery.

Related post.
posted by homunculus at 4:54 PM on June 21, 2015