As I looked at the Irish monument called Newgrange, I was struck deeply not just by the size of this place, nor by the spiral patterns in the huge stones placed around Newgrange. I was struck deeply by the ancient feel of this place. I looked in awe upon this place, realizing it far surpassed my understanding just as it surpassed the understanding of those who study it. Here before me was something which is far more aged then the pagan community, it's existence standing long before such distinctions were made.

Far away, on the other side of the world. A Tibetan Monk, actually several, sit around a developing Mandala. Colored sand placed in such an intricate manner, it will take at least seven days before this Mandala is completed, and three days to dismantle it. Hopi drawings found upon a Pueblo wall, denote a circled serpent with the eastern end open. Inside figures tell the story of Hopi twins.

Myth arises from the natural world, and ritual is a re-enactment of myth. Let us step back in time for a few moments. We are standing on the top of a hill, the deep grass of the fertile valley and hilltops shimmers with dew. We gaze as far as the eye can see, no obstructions such as cities or smog to obscure our view. There is light in the east, gradually increasing while above us the stars began to fade. We survey our landscape, from the East, to the South, to the West, to the North and again to the east. Within the scope of our eyes is our world, and we stand in the center of it.

The circle holds multiple meanings for any tradition, for it is one of those forms which Carl Jung termed Archetypes, those forms which exist independent of our consciousness and can be reached consciously only in secondary ways. The circle once drawn, in a basic way will represent the four directions. Such forms, however, do not remain this simple. Archetypes pertain to our development as human beings, and thus each direction takes on personal meaning, through the context of the natural world. From the East we see the rising sun, and in terms of personal growth the east of our being is that part of us where all life springs, the source of life itself. As we progress to the South, we find the realm of water which is not only an element of life itself, but it is also often seen as the symbol of emotions, or in Jungian psychology, the unconscious. To the West we have the opposite of the light, the times in our life when the sun sets and we are covered by the night in whence we rest and sleep and in a sense die until the morning. What sacred messenger likened death to sleep? As one progresses North as far as one can go, they will find the weather increasingly becomes cooler until it becomes inaccessible to us, that final passage where none of us can go in our mortal body, the land of the Gods, the end of our world.

Already we see four layers of meaning. The literal of the natural world in direction and then of elements, and then the cycles of life from season to season. The fourth layer is the realm of man. Underlying it all is the realm of spirit which brings all together. In the center we find the balance, the hub or Axis Munde around which all rotates(again a reference to the natural world, specificly the night sky whose stars rose and set as did the sun and moon. We still think of the Earth as round even when Astronomy has proven to us our world is not shaped perfectly round, nor is the orbit of this planet.

Within the circle is contained the world, including the world of eternity. That world in which all time ceases and location doesn't matter. This is the holy place from which we can survey our life and see where the balance is kept and where it is off. Each sphere overlaps the other, and thus the west, associated with Autumn is not the end-for in the natural world the trees simply shed their leaves to prepare for the winter months, and thus the autumn is also the last harvest which introduces a 5th layer, and that is of living in the natural world itself. As winter moves into spring, we have the increasing fertility of the earth at which time we plant. In some cultures, planting is seen as a sexual act. On other levels, we began to plant in our lives, preparing throughout the spring, cleaning away the old debris left from winter, to nurture our goals, personal growth to be harvested as we move into the Summer, hence the harvest moon and into September and into October when the last harvest takes place before the winter kicks in full force. As winter ends, we again began spring cleaning, removing the stagnant things from our life, a purging.

As we dig deeper, we began to spiral inwards, to that deepest point where our inner wisdom resides. The soul, seat of power, or whatever metaphor you wish to use. We spiral out again as our soul work manifests itself. We enter into the deep caves, the womb of mother earth where the Shamanic journey both starts and ends at the same moment. Thus the spirals of Newgrange draws your attention in and out again, thus the mandala's of Tibet and of the Hopi are living meditations about life, about Myth and ritual when the myth is not only re-enacted, be re-lived as well. For the Huchiol Indians, each participant becomes one of the gods or goddesses and at the end of the journey, they are reborn when they reach the place where their ancestors emerged.

Our spiritual traditions today are simply forms of a spiritual life far more ancient than we can comprehend. Paganism claims a far more ancient existence than Christianity, but far older than Paganism is the world of the Archetypes which outstrips both these traditions by years which were uncounted. The Archetypes stretch back to the dawn of mankind, when the first person stood upon a hillside as the sun rose and took stock of the world around them.