StoneHenge 2010 (Virtually)

Exploring StoneHenge 2010, 'Virtually'.
Stonehenge in Wiltshire, UK, which was erected in stone sometime around 2300 B.C. has an entranceway built so that the stones are aligned with the first rays of light from the Solstice Sunrise and is a popular gathering point for modern Druids, Pagans and others on Midsummer's Morning.

Fairies, Elves and Other spirits are also thought to be abroad on this Solstice, especially in the evening, as celebarted in Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" which presents Oberon and Titania as the fairie King & Queen.
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Midsum...'s_Dream )

The Celebration of Summer Solstice at Stonehenge is a particularly popular among Contemporary Pagans, Druids and others who believe the Summer Solstice carries deep mystical and religious significance as the Wedding of The Sun & The Earth, and has been a center of dramatic controversy in the recent past.
Whilst celebrations were thought to be held there as long as 10,000 years ago, from 1972 until 1985, the Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge had become free festivals "rife with drugs, alcohol, and celebrants climbing and defacing the stones"...

Archaeologists and Conservationists who regard Stonehenge & similar sites as treasures to be protected and preserved, along with English Heritage, the Government entity responsible for the site, therefore banned all Solstice celebrations at the site in 1985 after the inflammatory confrontation between Pagan/New Age 'celebrants' and Police that came to be known as
the 'Battle of Beanfield'(the place where it occurred).

This 15-year ban was lifted in 2000 and English Heritage who manage access and parking etc for the occassion, estimate that over 20,000 celebrants regularly attended the Summer Solstice at Stonehenge.

Said Arthur Pendragon, a Druid leader...
"We see Stonehenge more as a temple than as a monument... as a living landscape, to be used to celebrate the seasons and quarter days [solstices and equinoxes]. Druids want to use sacred sites as they were originally intended."
( http://celestialelfdanceoflife.blogsp... )

Grateful Thanks to Heritage Key VX for use of their 3D Historical scenarios via their time traveling portal / browser based flash viewer,
( http://heritage-key.com/blogs/jon-him... )

Royalty Free Music via Kevin MacLeod of incompetech.com;
Licensed under Creative Commons;
( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b... )
1. Shamanistic.

Sioux chant: Courtesy of the Global Chant circle, Tucson, Arizona.
"Let me be one with the infinite sun, forever and ever and ever.''
( http://www.actonwisdom.com/global-chant/ )

Additional music clips & sound effects c/o Freesound
( http://www.freesound.org/ )