Stonehenge & Salisbury Cathedral

Today's photography focus was to take a color photo and transform it into black and white with only one small focal point to remain in color. (I took so many lovely pictures today; it was difficult to choose the best one.) We began the day by boarding the coach (i.e. bus) early as we pressed-on; it was strange to watch from my window the almost magical transformation as we slowly left the dense and heavily populated business district of London to the quaint and very remote parts of the English countryside. About 45 minutes into the ride, we passed a field of cattle, set against a lush green pasture that seemed to be a million miles long. As we neared our first stop of the day, my heart sped up in anticipation, of the Neolithic 8th wonder of the world, Stonehenge.

It really was so amazing to get so close to something that was had only previously existed in a textbook or a daydream…The stones are what you think they are, mammoth, intense and so very real. The sheer labor required by primitive means of quarrying the stones is unfathomable, even in this age of space exploration, micro-technology and wireless everything, to ponder how early man could achieve such a feat, well --- I think from now on when I use the word ‘awesome’ to describe something, the “awe” portion of that word will henceforth make me think of my trip to Stonehenge. The stones themselves are colorless, but the greens of the grass and the bright blue hues in the sky, actually mimicked the photography focus for the day! Luckily, there was still one more stop on today’s agenda, the Salisbury Cathedral and this too was another dream come true for me. As an undergraduate I majored in English Medieval Studies, and today, in 2010, I finally was able to see an ORIGINAL copy (only 4 exist) of the Magna Carta from 1215. This document was in such good preservation that I am almost unable to describe what the feeling was like to see almost 800 year old document right in front of me. I could say that it moved me beyond what I thought possible and that might be in the ballpark…but another wonderful part about the Cathedral was that it houses the world’s oldest clock (from the 14th century) and it is still keeping time. I think that sort of sums up the bulk of my feelings today, time does indeed keep on going, long after we are gone, and yet the things we leave behind are almost as important as the life we live. Our worldly possessions, our cell phones and our expensive clothing, these will rot away in a landfill; but our own unique personalities passed down from generation to generation and the love and honor we show our fellow man, that is what our human legacy is. Much like how the cogs in this clock keep time indefinitely, those who show compassion and brotherly love know this is the task of all mankind and those who do not honor each other and the planet, are doomed to remain unenlightened and in a shadow of ambiguity, like the mystery of Stonehenge.