by Amelia Awan
It was the busiest it had been in years.
I walked up there with one of my closest friends, caked in the mist that had surrounded us since our car journey there. It made the stone circle seem slightly more magical. My friend kept pointing out water droplets, imperfect rocks, branches. They have such a good eye for this type of thing. We immediately parted once we got to the stone circle; I to reflect on prayer, my friend to do some sketching. We both knew the drill by now.
I tied my mandala on the branch of the Wishing Tree. I had made it in a rush 10 minutes before we left the house. Maybe next year I’ll have more time to make something better, something more special. I overheard somebody explaining the Wishing Tree to somebody else, and she specifically pointed me out. “That lady is tying a note on the tree,” she said. I’m so happy to be perceived as an adult.
I walked to the middle of the stone circle. Nobody shouted at me, much to my relief. My eyes alighted to the familiar sight of the fruit left in the middle of the circle as offering. I layed out orange slices in a circle around the rind, trying (and failing) to set it alight. I lit my incense, and crouched next to it for about 10 minutes, once again staring at the circles rising from it. It’s all circles, really. At the end of the day. The earth is a circle, the sun is a circle, the moon is a circle, smoke rises in a circle. Time is a circle.
Sitting next to my incense stick, I confess I did get distracted. A man said to his partner “you need to walk round the circle for good luck. I’m making my own rituals now.” He said it in jest, but I thought it was so beautiful. There were some people burning what looked like sage on the far end of the circle. Several people were there with their dogs. It’s so beautiful how everyone got something different out of it, how everyone came from a different place. I walked back to the Wishing Tree, away from my incense stick: I knew it would continue burning. As I was tying some pieces of string onto the tree, I saw a man on the other side, looking at my mandala. We caught each others eyes. We smiled at each other. I’ll never see him again.
Image Credit – Toby Dossett