S3E2
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In this wonderful podcast, I talk to Ron Ives about his magical experience at Stonehenge. What emerges from our conversation is Ron's extraordinary affinity with the sun.
RON IVES:Hello. My name is Ron Ives. I'm here doing an interview. I've traveled several million miles in my lifetime. In all that time, I've been observing things, whether it's a country side, the birds, the animals, the sea, the sky, the stars.
RON IVES:I am getting on in years now. I'm in my eighties, and I got not so many years to go. One thing at the moment, this moment in time I'm talking, there's people right next to us in the village that are on a pilgrimage from church to church.
Estelle:I didn't know that.
RON IVES:I'm not sure what date it is. It isn't sometime now in Lent. I'm in later life now, so I'm stable around two, but I have got observations over the years. One thing I have come across is mysteries. Mysteries of the earth.
RON IVES:The earth in particular, one thing I have come across every time is static electric in the ground on several different sites, of several growing places. It's been in the news, it's been studied. One of these places, I would say, actually when we come to it, is Stonehenge. That's been for many years pilgrimage for thousands and thousands of people. The actual reason why no one can actually say.
RON IVES:People go on a pilgrimage, they go for different reasons. But my observation is people have traveled to Stonehenge, it's a central point, they've traveled north, east, south, west, and in my belief, they come together at the beginning of Stonehenge, where they were all on a pilgrimage, all going to a central point. And that would make sense in one way because whenever Stonehenge was built, there were thousands of people who must have had to do it. Whatever time that was, for some reason they must have got thousands, it might have been even hundreds of thousands of people in the same place in the middle of Wilshire countryside with nothing there whatsoever. And now, after all that time, Stonehenge was actually built.
RON IVES:Things like where did the stones come from? There's many theories on that. Some say from South Wales, being carbon dated and come from certain places. Not all the stones. But it's a very strange place.
RON IVES:I traveled there first when I was approximately eight or 10 years old. It was a place we were passing and we called in. I was in a car. It didn't belong to my family. It belonged to a local baker in the village.
RON IVES:And I'm not sure actually where we were going, but we called off at Stonehenge, and I was under the impression it was some stones in a field. Mhmm. In my interpretation, the stones in a field was two or three foot high. Mhmm. When I actually seen it, whatever the size they are, 20 foot high and weighing 20 tons each.
RON IVES:I was quite surprised. And I know someone had actually told me that you could put your hands on the stone and you feel vibrations in it. So we'd done that. I placed two hands on the stone. My father was there and he said, what are you doing?
RON IVES:I said, I gotta put my hands on the stone. And he said, boy, I said, just let me put my hands on the stone. And as I did, I had a sensation in me fingers and me arms like electric shock, a miniature electric shock. It wasn't nasty. It wasn't it wasn't pleasant, but it was like the whole thing was vibrating.
RON IVES:Well, you're high old, that's far beyond me, but you know. But it's an experience I had, and finally he was asking me questions after, and he said, I'll do that myself. And he put his hands on the stone and nothing happened. He couldn't feel anything. And he said, well, how did you know this?
RON IVES:I said, well, I just know how, he said. And he said, well, we've got to go. We've got to go to the I'm sure where he said to. I'm back home the same day. And he said, well, that's no problem, we just gotta go that way 70 miles and we're go that way 19 miles back home.
RON IVES:And there's another question, he said, well, what, how do you know that? He said, you've never been here before. And I know at the time I actually used the words observation. I've always been observing different things around me. Very strange, he said.
RON IVES:And that is my first visit to Stonehenge in my experience. Since then, I've heard of different reasons, different theories of how it got there, why it's there, whether it be a special place. It was still a special place for me. It's somewhere I've traveled Bowie now in my lifetime, a hundred, two hundred times. And it's like a magnet.
RON IVES:You've got to look over and see it. My thoughts come back. They're my first time seeing it. I've actually got friends in Liverpool, They come down to London, they come to the South West, and every time they go to Stonehenge. I've said to them, why did you do it?
RON IVES:They say it's a special place, we've got to go there. Why? I don't know. They didn't know. There's an attraction and somehow, something mystical, magic, whatever it might be.
RON IVES:Far beyond me. Far behind me. Beyond me.
Estelle:Ron, can you remember what it actually felt like when you put your hands on the stone? Can you remember doing Yes.
RON IVES:It's exactly as if it was yesterday.
Estelle:Oh, tell me.
RON IVES:It was the same the same feeling as you have pins and needles in your fingers or your toes. It was the same as a miniature electric shock. It was feeling some vibrations. What it is, I've figured if other people have done the same thing. And if they went there, this is in the days when you could drive a car right up to the stones, you had access to the stones.
RON IVES:It was a magical experience for me, and that's all I can say. I don't really know why or how, but it did happen to me. And it stuck in memory ever since.
Estelle:Because you've described the physical thing in your fingers really clearly, but I have the impression that it also impacted how you felt and how you thought. And then then there's this strange thing about you
RON IVES:Do you mean emotionally?
Estelle:Yeah. Yeah. I do. Yeah. Emotionally.
RON IVES:I was brought up. Big family. We used to travel around the countryside. In the days before cars, we used to walk across hills and valleys, different places, and I learned to observe what was around me. After a few years, we'd be brothers and sisters.
RON IVES:We should travel on our own, and I was always the one that knew the way home. Wow. It was much the same is another thing. He was my grandfather's dog. Wherever we went to, we took the dog.
RON IVES:It was five miles, was 10 miles, it was 20 miles. And whenever we turned around, that dog wouldn't stay with us. Wasn't on a lead, he was roaming free. As soon as we headed from home, he was gone. He knew the way home wherever he was to.
RON IVES:And it sort of got me, and I thought, how does he know his way home? We were going places he hasn't been before. Yeah. But I I study things as living in the country, whether it was the clouds in the sky, where the sun was at the time of day. I knew what was east, west, north and south, and there was always a time when they knew me where to go.
RON IVES:Over a period of time, I've traveled on the road. Altogether, it goes into millions of miles. And very often, I haven't gone following road maps. I've knew where to go.
Estelle:Wow.
RON IVES:It's complicated to explain it. It could be the same in my brain as the same as a pigeon, a Homan pigeon. For some reason, somehow, they know where to fly, don't they?
Estelle:Yeah.
RON IVES:Like I say, there's not answers to all questions. No. But this sort of thing has affected me in my life, not bothered me too much, but it has a major effect on what I do and what I say where I go.
Estelle:Has it?
RON IVES:I wouldn't put it down as to all experience. I wouldn't put it down to religion. I base all these things on observation over the years. And it's something I just can't explain everything. But coming back to Stonehenge, Pilgrimage, There are many theories of how it got there, why it got there.
RON IVES:They say it was some of the stones, not all the stones come from Camartham way over in South Wales. How they got there is still a mystery. Whether they come over by land, or they were floated across the Bristol Channel to get to Wiltshire, whether they went on the barges up the rivers, it's still a mystery how the stones got there. It's not something you can sit on a wheelbarrow and push across the country. As I say, there's more questions than there is answers.
RON IVES:It's a magical place for me anyway. It's part of my life. It's part of my thoughts. One thing I did say one thing I did notice, if those stones did come from over South Wales, in South Wales there's a place there and there's a stone, think it's a trellick, just stuck in a field, a stone stuck up in the air. As far as I know, it's called Harold Harold Stone.
RON IVES:Okay. Nothing else. Just one stone.
Estelle:What? A vertical stone?
RON IVES:Yeah. Yeah. Not so big a stone hinge. It's probably about ten, twelve foot tall, and I knew someone had lived there. And they actually said to me, oh, that's just one of the stones for Stonehenge.
RON IVES:It never got there. Whether that's true or not, whether that's just a little story they told me, but for some reason, not the side of a road, not in the village, in the middle of a field, there's a stone standing up in the air, 10 foot high. But that's all I know about that stone. But it's the story I was told. He was on his way to Stonehenge but never made it.
Estelle:But Dave, your friends from Liverpool had the same trembling in Stonehenge.
RON IVES:Yeah. They explained it to me what they got.
Estelle:How did they explain And
RON IVES:it wasn't the whole family. There was a family of four or six people, but it wasn't everyone who got the same feelings. My father did say to me at that time when I first seen it, he said it might be because of your hands, soft skin, soft fingers. Mhmm. He was a hard worker.
RON IVES:He had hard skin, and it could be that he couldn't feel it. Just one theory, like, you know, but another one is
Estelle:But but sorry, Ron. But that family from the Liverpool family, not all of them could feel
RON IVES:it. Oh.
Estelle:So was that a skin thing? Or
RON IVES:On a different subject
Estelle:Yeah.
RON IVES:But same as I'm talking about now, we have machines which are got buttons on, coffee machines that touch buttons.
Estelle:Yeah.
RON IVES:And I, myself, and a lot of other people push a button to get a cup of coffee.
Estelle:Yeah.
RON IVES:And it doesn't work. You use your left hand, it depends if you're right or left handed, you use your left hand and it works. Touch sensitive buttons. Just on a coffee machine.
Estelle:Yeah.
RON IVES:And I've I've made inquiries on that, and they said, well, a lot of women have got soft fingers. Oh. The skin on their fingers are very soft
Estelle:Yeah.
RON IVES:To the touch.
Estelle:Yeah.
RON IVES:A man is more hardworking, and you got thicker skin. Mhmm. And more than likely, that's a reason. Just a thing like a coffee machine is touch sensitive. Yeah.
RON IVES:So that Stonehenge could be on the same principle.
Estelle:Yeah. You know, some people are very, very black and white and very practical and other people think a lot about things, spiritual things. So do you think it could have had anything to do with that? Because you're a very intuitive guy.
RON IVES:I think spiritualism is not something I've studied. Miss there's legends.
Estelle:Because your dad must have really wanted to have the same experience as you. He must have been really disappointed when he touched the stones and he couldn't feel that.
RON IVES:He didn't understand what I was talking about and how I knew what I knew.
Estelle:Yeah.
RON IVES:Because I observed things, we would travel up there. We traveled home. And by very often, in the morning, early afternoon, I knew the way home just by looking at the sun direction, which is general observation. Like, if I look out there now, I think it is late afternoon, it's somewhere around 05:00 Mhmm. Just as a guest.
RON IVES:Yeah. That's without going outside, without looking at the sun. I know the sun's over that way somewhere. And I look at that shadow, and I can tell the height of the sun on the horizon form a shadow across the road. I can make a guess that it is somewhere around 05:00 in the afternoon, which is based on observation.
RON IVES:Yeah. Instantly, by looking at that shadow. I can walk along the road, I can see the the length of my shadow on the road, and I can use that as a calculation at the time of day. Very similar, we used to travel around me brothers and sisters when they were young, walking around the countryside. My mother had a saying, she always said, Make sure you're home for tea.
RON IVES:And all of us, my brothers and my sisters, we knew. And we arrived home in the region at 05:00 ready for tea. I think all my brothers and sisters had that same knowledge. They said, Come on, we've got to hurry up, we're going to be late. There are so many mysteries out there and I'm no expert on any.
RON IVES:I'm just saying and repeating things I have got in my mind, experiences I've had in the past. Whether I'm right, whether I'm sane or not, well, that's it. That's another question. I think that'll do for today anyway.
Estelle:Thank you very much, Ron. It's been really lovely chatting. It's been amazing hearing your story about Stonehenge. It really resonates with me. Thank you.
Estelle:Subscribe to Nature Talks With Humans for more true stories of people communicating with animals, birds, and landscape. Follow me on Instagram at Estelle underscore writer forty four and TikTok at Estelle Phillips. Bye.
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