An interesting crop circle was reported at Cheesefoot Head, near Winchester in Hampshire, southern England, last week. An infinite loop, the formation has no beginning nor end. It has been likened to the Tibetan Buddha, symbolizing peace and motion simultaneously. It also reminds us of the command key symbol, an emblem of Mac keyboards over the last thirty years.
Cheesefoot Head is a large natural amphitheater comprising bowl barrows, or Neolithic tombs, and has been the locus of many crop circles. Indeed, this bucolic area was the site of the first crop circle formation to gain widespread international attention back in 1981 and can lay claim to be the birthplace of crop circle interest in modern times.
Some observers have posited that the latest circle, which was spotted in a cornfield by the A272 roadside on August 9th, appears to represent a network — of electricity or computers — interconnecting people and symbolically associated with the forthcoming Age of Aquarius.
Cheesefoot Head is a British Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) conservation area, and natural home to the rare Man Orchid (Orchis anthropophora), whose flowers look like human figures. With the flowers blossoming in summer and dying soon after, they suggest the flow of annual regeneration — also a theme written into the crop circle.
I personally keep an open mind about the crop circle phenomenon. Although the circles may appear in the middle of nowhere and soon vanish in the ripening cornfields, the Internet is really where the designs are photographed, disseminated and widely discussed. Both inexplicable and massively popular, crop circles are made for the Internet.
The Cheesefoot Head formation is a boundless repetition of the Gorgon Knot, or Cross of Saint John, an ancient Mesopotamian symbol of a free-flowing well bringing water spirits. The well flows round and round continually. The cross / water-well mark was also chosen — and remains — as the command shortcuts key or “Apple key” on all Mac keyboards since 1980.
