Bear Swamp Cairn

     My brother Bill and I recently built a stone structure on Bear Swamp road that has generated a lot of interest.  It is a modern version of a Native American ceremonial stone cairn.  Its purpose is to mark celestial events and take advantage of pre-existing earth energy in a particular area.  All ancient cultures had an understanding that the earth possesses energy pathways that create balance and order in the natural world. An example of this would be the Chinese practice of Feng Shui which has experienced a renaissance recently.  Obviously indigenous cultures were more dependent on the natural world for their survival and had to harness the forces of nature for their benefit.  Energy pathways are sometimes called “Ley Lines”. The term Ley Line was coined by the pioneering researcher Alford Watkins who identified their presence throughout Europe at the turn of the century. Ley Lines run directly through many of the earth’s sacred sites such as Stonehenge, Avebury, the Great pyramid at Giza, Machu Picchu, Easter Island, Glastonbury Tor, Sedona and so on, connecting them in straight lines.  Where we live is just such an area.  Two powerful Ley Lines intersect and run through Shelburne Falls, which is an area of peace treaties and unique geological phenomena.  One line runs east /west, the other north/south right through the towns of Buckland, Ashfield and Goshen.  All along this geomantic corridor are sacred sites, megalithic stone chambers, sophisticated astronomical complexes, anthropomorphic stone animal effigies, dolmens, standing stones, prehistoric petroglyphs, stone ceremonial cairns and many other enigmatic structures.  One such site that has been thoroughly excavated and researched has revealed startling astronomical alignments and dates of use.  This complex is called Calendar One and lies on the northern section of the ley line in South Royalston Vermont.  Soil stratigraphy has dated Calendar One to as early as 10,000 BC.  At other surrounding sites carbon dating has revealed dates from between 4000 BC to 700 AD. After some eight years of archeoastronomical investigations at the Calendar One site, Byron Dix and James Mavor of Woods Hole Associated Scientists revealed thirty-two astronomical alignments to solar events from one single observation point.  “Of these alignments,” say Mavor and Dix on their progress report on New England Archeoastronomy, “twelve correlate with major calendrical solar events, two with lunar events and one north and one south within one degree declination”. It also has been determined that this site recorded the acronomical rising of Sirius in 3150 BC, the acronomical rising of Rigel in the constellation Orion in 2424 BC, several heliacal risings of similar dates and every winter solstice the morning sun shines directly down the center line of the megalithic stone chamber that exists at this particular site. Forty percent of the roughly 250 stone chambers that exist in New England are aligned to the Winter solstice while several others are aligned to the Summer solstice, obviously no accident.  One of these stone chambers exists locally in Goshen. I have not determined if it possesses this alignment but I plan to find out this December 21^st     

The energetic quality of the area we live in is one of the reasons people and organizations of artistic, creative, spiritual and progressive thought are attracted here.  The settlers who first moved out here were told that these sacred stone sites were evil, places where the devil enters this world and they were instructed to destroy or avoid them.  This is one of the reasons there has not been sufficient interest in or research done at these sites.  Fortunately there are organizations that rediscover, catalog and preserve this lost history.  I belong to the Northeast Antiquities Research Association, the leader in this field of study.  I have made several interesting discoveries in the area, just recently finding over 1,000 turtle stone effigy mounds on a mountain in Buckland, some as big as 30 feet long. 

              The site I chose to build the cairn on Bear Swamp road has several interesting stone creations in close proximity consistent with pre-colonial structures found throughout New England. On the top of the cairn we left several slots so it could be illuminated by candlelight.  We lit it for the first time last week then shortly thereafter a friend showed up at my house and said she saw a large moose walk across the road in front of her car and right up to the lighted cairn. I plan to write several follow up articles elaborating further on this subject matter.  In the meantime if anyone has a stone site on their property they want to have evaluated I would be happy to give my best assessment.  I would also suggest the NEARA website- www.NEARA.org.   Jim Vieira   jv1022jv@yahoo.com.