Carvings below by Eadhmonn Ua Cuinn
The balain or ballaun (baa-lawn) is
known as the Druid's Egg. Druids carried small balains made
of stone with them. An ellipse is a two-dimensional balain.
The Bluestones at Stonehenge form one half of an ellipse
from an aerial view. The stone engraving at Knowth that
charts a lunar cycle is a balain. The Kerbstone at Knowth is
a balain, and the decorated stone in front of the
reconstructed entrance to Newgrange passage tomb is a
balain. The Kerbstone and the Newgrange stones are clearly
divided in half. Like the Bluestones at Stonehenge, they
emphasize the fact that half of the balain is important.
Perhaps, the Bluestone's arrangement signifies the human
half to an equation that is half human and half eternal.
Like the Janus head of the Celts, the mortal and immortal
are represented as two halves that form one image, a Celtic
belief that this Earthworld and the Otherworld are eternally
linked. Therefore, Stonehenge may link us to the celestial
Otherworld represented in the stars, the moon, and the sun
which it so accurately charts.
The balain represents a cosmic egg of thought, a Druid's
thought. Unlike our modern languages that use alphabets
consisting of separate letters arranged on the page to
communicate concepts, the Druid's egg uses the ellipse to
communicate concepts. A balain is a concept in symbolic form
where none of the separate symbols have as much meaning as
the whole egg and its arrangement of symbols. The balain is
based on spatial understanding in the development of
concepts whereas the alphabet depends on the linear
development of concepts. In the balain, perception is no
longer time locked. Communication is direct in the sense
that it transcends time. More importantly, the symbols
convey an artistic sense of balance and aesthetics,
something the Roman alphabet left behind. The idea that
words, not just the concepts they communicate, can involve
art was lost in the transference to writing. One
balain, the stone engraving found at Knowth may be
translated as such. The balain represents the lunar cycle
exactly as it is charted on the Druid calendar discovered at
Coligny, France in the area of the ancient Celtic tribe of
the Sequani. The months or "moonths" of 29 days are arranged
in an ellipse, which begins at the center of the stone and
moves to the left presenting each day in the lunar cycle.
The first symbol is the first day of the new moon and so on.
After the sixth symbol, which is a first quarter moon shape
or half a balain, the lunar cycle is connected to a wave in
the center of the ellipse. This wave is a graphical
depiction of the 62-month span of the Sequani Calendar. It
charts the equinoxes at the crest of the wave over a
five-year period. The sixth day of the lunar cycle is
connected to it because the sixth day of the lunar cycle or
the first quarter moon is the day the Sequani Calendar
begins each month. Each month is marked on the Calendar by a
star of primary magnitude visible on the Eastern Horizon
shortly after sunset. The Calendar measures time by night,
thus the demarcation of the star at sunset. The
waxing of the moon is represented by egg shapes or
concentric circles and the full moon, in its three-day
phase, uses double lines to accent that phase. The waning
moons are represented by half-balains and return to the
beginning of the cycle at day 29. The last three, those
representing the new moon, are appropriately covered as the
moon is not visible to the earth at this time. They are
covered by a spiral design found on many Neolithic
monuments. This spiral represents the Druid's spiral or what
the Native Americans call "the whirling pattern." The
Druid's spiral represents the continuity and movement of
life. In the Sequani Calendar, the Holy Nights of the
Druid's calendar are celebrated in the new moon of the
month. Imbolc, Beltain, Lugnasad, and Samhhuin are
celebrated on the full moon as the people's holidays or
Oenachs, and the Holy Nights for these holidays are marked
as the Holy Nights of the new moon. The
concepts represented by the Knowth balain are presented
simultaneously as the lunar cycle, the five-year cycle, and
the Druid's spiral. A sense of lunar and human cycles are
represented as one, and the relationship between them is
also seen as one. Each year near the time of the Vernal
Equinox, the Druids celebrated the Oenach of the full moon
and the Holy Night of the new moon. Perhaps, as we approach
this sacred time of renewal and rebirth, the Druid's egg may
be revived as a symbol of the fertility of the spring and of
time eternal. The crest of the wave on the Knowth stone
marks the Vernal Equinox as an important time to the Celts
as does the passage tomb of Knowth itself. At the crest of
the wave of time on the Knowth balain, the balain becomes
both a keeper of time and a symbol of the renewal of life in
its most precious form: the egg.
Helen Benigni
© Vernal Equinox 2003
Carvings by Eadhmonn Ua Cuinn
