Sleeping Solo in a Stone Circle by Eline Kieft

What twenty years of pilgrimage taught me about ritual, place and the slow cultivation of perception…

Ever since my first shamanic training in the UK and in Sweden in 2005, I felt called to seek out prehistoric ritual landscapes. Over the past two decades I slept in Neolithic burial chambers, welcomed the dawn from Bronze Age stone circles, wandered among standing stones on remote islands, and returned to certain places often enough that they became companions on my journey.

Going to Machrie Moor

Unlike the better-known circles of Avebury or Callanish, Machrie rarely appears in guidebooks outside Scotland, and perhaps because of that, it retains a remarkable intimacy. Sheep wander freely between the stones, the wind rolls in over the hills, and the landscape seems content in itself.

Set between sea and the dramatic outline of Goat Fell (which in the morning light appeared like a reclining goddess, see image below), the Machrie Moor complex consists of six stone circles in open moorland. There are also several other smaller menhirs that seem strategically placed like signposts leading into the site, which you can’t see from very far because it’s in a valley.

As it’s virtually impossible to make a photo that captures the entire site, here is a photo of the visitors information board. When you zoom in, you see Fingal’s Cauldron Seat in the left corner, and Machrie Moor 1, 2, 3, 4 and 11. I believe the numbers have something to do with the dates the sites were established, but there was evidence that some were built on even older wooden circles.

Looking back, the most valuable insights of the ceremony emerged from reflecting on how twenty years of ritual practice have significantly altered the way I encounter and surrender to places such as these.

Ceremony Takes Time

One of the things I gradually learned is that ceremony usually begins long before arriving on site. I invited everything I did that day, to be part of sacred time.

From the moment I woke that morning, everything became part of the ritual. I practised Qi Gong in the garden before breakfast with my partner and mom. We found ourselves climbing unexpectedly to a waterfall and discovered an ancient cairn in the South. A pregnant red deer stood calmly in the vegetable garden beside our cottage. Rosebay willow herb, a plant I have always associated with my earliest shamanic training, seemed to accompany me throughout the day.

None of these moments announced themselves as dramatic messages full of fanfare. Yet by slowing down and paying attention, the entire day resolved into ceremony and transformed my way of participating. This is what I mean with as cultivating a different way of seeing in my Substack Essay Magical Consciousness & Intuition .

I believe this is one of the least understood aspects of contemporary ritual. We often imagine ceremony as something set apart from daily life, confined to a sacred hour or sacred location, which of course it can be too. However, more and more, I think of ritual as a gradual adjustment of attention, allowing the ordinary world to reveal depth and wonder.

What Different Sacred Landscapes Teach

Another, growing, insight is about how different types of prehistoric monuments seem to invite different qualities of consciousness. Spending time in a burial mound or chambered cairn, feels like an immersion in the life-death-life cycle. The architecture of the space feels like the proverbial womb and tomb. They tend to draw me inward and invite surrender. My nights there are often filled with lucid dreams. Again and again they have become places where old roles and identities can dissolve before something new begins to emerge.

Stone circles feel entirely different. At Machrie Moor I found myself walking repeatedly between the circles, greeting each stone, sensing relationships rather than introspection. Instead of inward descent, I experienced outward connection. My awareness expanded to a blazing ‘map’ from these six circles to countless others I visited in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and France.

Standing among the stones, they felt like ancient hubs within a larger network of portals. Just as pathways once connected villages, perhaps these ritual landscapes connected communities of practice, seasonal gatherings and ways of understanding the world. Perhaps they can do so still!

Also, it’s always very special for me, to witness the sunset and the sunrise of the same cycle from the same place, a concrete reminder that the earth and life are turning:

Initiation, Transformation, Transmission

When it was time to go home, I walked seven turns around Fingal’s Cauldron Seat again to close the ritual space. Entering and leaving. Step by step, on my way back to the car, I shifted consciousness from sacred time to everyday. Breakfast was waiting!

I was moved (and even slightly disturbed!) by the incredible peace I experienced all night, despite the midges.

In my early years of solo ceremonies, every ritual was a profound initiation in which I confronted fear, discomfort and uncertainty. Often I had a sense of experiencing a mini-death. Staying with a plan (‘whose stupid idea was this?’ ‘oops, mine’) required crossing thresholds I genuinely doubted I could cross. Transformations were unmistakable because initial resistance had been so great.

This time, there were no revelations, profound emotional breakthroughs or new medicine. I wondered if I missed something!

Instead, it felt like a confirmation many steps taken before, and travelling on the path and in the direction I’m meant to. In Fingall’s Cauldron Seat, I realised that my journey has moved from transforming stories, learned behaviour and deeply ingrained thought patterns, to interest in the arts and crafts of ritual itself.

How do specific practices cultivate our attention? How do repeated gestures reshape perception? How can ceremony become a way of inhabiting everyday life with greater presence, reciprocity and wonder? That will be my inquiry for the coming time, as I felt a new book project arrive!

This year, sleeping alone in a stone circle in the middle of nowhere, revealed that the questions themselves have changed. After twenty years, I am learning to trust the quiet work of steady practice, opening a door for others to walk through confidently, and holding space for their ongoing transformations too.

If transformation is an ongoing process of coming home to who we truly are, these magical places help us to reveal and see with different eyes! If you are Ritual Curious, let me know via this free sign up, and I’ll keep you posted of coming events! In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this essay…

Invitations

As usual, I have a few invitations for you for different connections and communities…

Small print & further inspiration

Image credits: Eline Kieft.

Kieft, E. (2017), ‘(Re)discovering the enchanted garden through movement and the body’, Revue Théologiques, 25:1, pp. 139–54.

And here is a 30% voucher for my book Kieft, E. (2022), Dancing in the Muddy Temple: A Moving Spirituality of Land and Body. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.

Bio

Her book Dancing in the Muddy Temple blends theory and practice in service of land, body, and spirit. Now leading Wild Soul Centre for Embodied Consciousness, she offers coaching and courses to support deep transformation and inner strength through movement and the body. Try out her Qi Gong Membership for free! You can also find her on LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram and Substack.