The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘saturn’

Saturday – not Sunday – doh!

For about a month my calendar had a red-spot on Sunday 28 Feb with a note to the effect that this was a full-moon day and thus Gwas and I would be venturing forth. Then out of the blue two days prior to our set date Gwas revealed complications for the Sunday and offered up Saturday as an alternative. Unfortunately Saturday was completely booked for me, however not wanting to miss the moons energies and a sacred site visit to boot I hastily re-organised my time table and with fortune playing a final “good” card we were on our way for 12:30 on Saturday.

The long road

As a curiosity we decided to follow the sat-nav instead of going our usual route and boy did that take us the “long” and boring way round. So it was that an hour into the journey and we were only half way there rather than being near our destination.

A energised feeling

Even though it had been raining almost all the way on our journey to Derbyshire by the time we got out of the car the rain had stopped and although Gwas kitted himself out with a raincoat (not boots as he twice reminded me) I decided (as usual) to trust in nature providing me with weather suitable for my attire and left my raincoat behind.

Almost as soon as we stepped off the road I began to feel a deep-seated energy, freshness and a wonderful sense of playfulness. As we got closer to Nine Stones Close this feeling erupted into physicality and I was running, prancing and skipping up the hill and through the fields. Think “Little House on the Prairie” and you won’t be far wrong.

Little house on the Prairie

Welcomed by the great Oak

As we approached the Oak and Nine Stones Close circle both Gwas and I felt a great sense of welcome. Whilst Gwas busied himself around the circle I went over to greet my “old” friend. I really have to say this again: Me and Tree seem to have created a fantastic bond. In moments I was up on the separating wall and in amongst the great oaks branches.

Oak and Circle

Dancing with the energies

The location was quite popular with visitors this day and so we were a bit hampered initially, especially when a group of kids descended upon us and stayed to take photos and “temperature” measurements. Whatever floats your boat, right?

Anyway I was busy in a “long” hello to the Tree so wasn’t too concerned with what was going on behind me. During this hello, my feelings went more and more energised and “youthful”. Until when the field had cleared I found my self so full of energy that I started to skip. The skipping turned into dancing and whilst Gwas amused himself in observation I was happily dancing and prancing under the Oak tree for a good fifteen minutes.

Of course we were here to dowse (technically I did have my dowsing rods in my hands whilst I was dancing, does that count?) so I took up some simple questions to be going on with.

Alignment with Saturn

Since I had performed some healing of the oak trees aura last year, like all good Dr’s should I checked on the health of my patient and was gratified to see (dowse) that le grande oak was in fine auric health. Indeed that oak was acknowledging my friendship with friendship. Wow!!

Meantime Gwas was exploring the energetic alignment of the site and called in my assistance. He had found that the site was aligned to Saturn and no other planet. Interesting…

Intuiting the Pan connection

I began to confirm his findings and got a yes for Saturn too. Then for some reason I found myself asking whether the site had a connection to Pan. Where did that come from? My only reference point was my dancing and prancing…but its a big leap. You see reader you have to know that we don’t talk about pantheons and such like often. In fact I could go so far as to say that until that day “Pan” had never come up in conversation. And yet as plain as day there he was. Gwas did some ancillary dowsing to confirm that this site had a connection with Pan and that his hmmm energetic presence had left the site some 1500 years ago. Due (we dowsed to find) to the lack of belief in him!

Pan

Saturday -> Saturn -> Pan

As is the case so very often, we go out and explore the energies only to return and find so much more meaning in what we did. Let us look at this day. To begin we were supposed to go on Friday but ended up going on Saturday. Then I couldn’t make an earlier time so it was going to be a set off time of around 2.30 – which would have left us scant time for investigation and “play”. But then as “luck” would have it my time became free and we ended up arriving at the site around 2 instead.

Step 1 : we find that the site has connection with Saturn. Now we didn’t ask whether this was a permanent reflection or not. We didn’t think of this at the time but when I returned home and did some research I immediately (and now it seems obvious) that Saturn is related to Saturday! Let me quote Wiki…

Saturday is the only day of the week in which the English name comes from Roman mythology. The English names of all of the other days of the week come from Germanic polytheism. In India, Saturday is ‘Shanivar’, based on Shani, the Vedic god manifested in the planet Saturn. In the Thai solar calendar of Thailand, the day is named from the Pali word for Saturn, and the color associated with Saturday is purple. The Celtic languages also name this day for Saturn: Irish ‘an Satharn’ or ‘dia Sathuirn’, Scottish Gaelic ‘Disathairne’, Welsh ‘dydd Sadwrn’, Breton ‘Sadorn’ or ‘disadorn’.

Source: Wikipedia

Wow eh! What a connection to have had. Then I wondered if Pan was connected with Saturn too. So of I went digging away. This investigation immediately led to the information that one of the moons of Saturn is called Pan. OK that wasn’t what I was looking for really so I dug deeper. Here is one reference I found which brought hope…

… Ficino alludes to with discretion, is that Pan has an even higher station – that of the “highest” God. Elsewhere in Ficino’s work he holds that Pan “corresponds to Saturn, the prime intellect and highest God” …

Source: This site.

A further connection can be made thus: Saturn according to many beliefs and perhaps in origin too was the God associated with agriculture, feasts and harvesting (see here).  Pan also is connected with fields, fertility and nature.

Perhaps this is stretching it a bit, but I don’t “feel” it is. Here is an interesting statement…

Pan is connected to the season of Spring. Source: Wikipedia

I find this interesting because we are approaching spring and also we got an indication (see Gwas’s post) to return to 9 Stones in Spring.

To get back to the dowsing and what happened at the site. I felt that my dancing had a real connection with Pan and also felt that that had an impact in re-awakening the site (see Gwas’s post on that). Both Gwas and I had a feeling that perhaps we had gone some way in returning this sprightly spirit to the world.

Saturn

Dancing with  the energies – lovely

Kal

Anglesey – 1st February 2010   

Kal and I journeyed to Anglesey for Imbolc. I had dowsed a map of the entire country with the instruction to find a suitable place to celebrate this Celtic festival – the mid-point between Winter and Spring. The result was Anglesey. Anglesey? We had been there several times previously, and only a few months ago, but still, of all the places in the country the rods could have crossed over it was this small but sacred island – the last refuge of the Druid cults of mainland Britain.   

We had both set intentions as to what we wanted out of the journey – such was the nature of this year’s work: we would be visiting sites with a set idea of what we were hoping to achieve. This is what we had been told at the end of last year as we moved into the quiet time of Winter – Nature can only help us progress now if we state what our purpose is. Ask to be guided and we would only receive more questions. Ask to be led and we would be led back onto ourselves. It was up to us to make our own progress by stating our goal, then Nature would help us to achieve this.  

My intention for the year is to learn about the three elements of the “yew stage” of druidry that I believe are inherent to developing to the next stage. Those elements are: re-awakening (or rebirth) – death (or death energy) – transformation (or transcendence). My intention for this Imbolc day was to learn what I could about any of these processes, whichever was most appropriate. As it turned out the process that was associated with the day was re-awakening, specifically the re-awakening of the earth energies from their Winter slumber.  

 I planned a route that would take us to all of the sites that we hadn’t visited before that lay scattered around the shores of the River Braint – a river whose named was derived from the name Brigid. Brigid, as you will undoubtedly know, is the form of the Triple Goddess (the archetype of the feminine in Nature) that is associated with the festival of Imbolc.   

“On February 1 or February 2, Brigid is celebrated at the Gaelic festival of Imbolc, when she brings the first stirrings of spring to the land. Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, and some Anglicans mark the day as the Feast of Saint Brigid; the festival is also known as Candlemas and Purification of the Virgin.” (source: WikiPedia)   

As this was the only place on the island that I could find such an association it seemed the natural place to begin our day’s journey in praise of her properties. Only when I came to look at a map of the river did I realise that neolithic man had also decided that this area was special, and had built several sacred sites along its shores. These were all sites that somehow, despite our many previous visits over the years, we had managed to either bypass or skirt around. Now seemed like the appropriate time to actually visit them at last.   

Read the rest of this entry »

I need to preface this post a little. Up until last year I didn’t believe in the whole invisible landscape of energies, ghosts, spirits, thought-forms, visualisation, magick, and especially astrology. I had no interest in physics, mathematics, history, astrology, any of the sciences really. Since I started on this journey through dowsing I have had to reluctantly grapple with almost all of these subjects in some depth since then, even though it has been a monumental struggle, and only rarely pleasurable. Nevertheless, an understanding of the nature of the energies at sacred sites, I felt, warranted a bit of effort on my part, so I have learned what I needed to, and been carried where my dowsing and questioning has taken me.

Someone who is very energetic told me recently that they had seen a presence, a white light, glinting near me. This was not the first time it had been seen (several times in late February 2009), but after having witnessed it several times they decided to mention it to me. It was at what can only be described as one of the most incongruous moments that everything stopped, the light was pointed out, and I was left to think about what had just been said in a somewhat bemused state!

“I have a white light that appears behind me?” I queried. “Where behind me?” I was shown a spot about six feet behind my left shoulder and a few feet out – in my blind spot that occurs just beyond my peripheral vision. It was the kind of place that you see shadows from when you’re out at night, so I am familiar with that position (and you can read about that in my post called ‘Alone in the Dark – Part 2‘). I remarked that the distance at which this light was supposed to appear was about the extent of my nemeton field. I made very few further enquiries, vowing to pursue it further once I got home.

At home I dowsed it to find out what was going on. Here are the results of my first round of questioning:-

1. Was this person right about there being a presence behind me? – YES
2. Is this presence attached to me? – YES
3. Is this presence benificent? – YES
4. Is the presence a living entity? – YES. Not sure if that nailed down whether it was a dead spirit, so…
5. Was it once a living human? – NO
6. Has it always been with me throughout my life? – NO
7. Is it with me now? – YES
8. Can I learn to communicate with it? – YES
9. Would communicating together benefit us both? – YES

Now I was curious. The line of questioning was beginning to go beyond its existence, or its presence, and to move towards finding out how I get in touch with it. I wanted to know a little more before I started anything off.

1. Has this presence manifested as part of the work I am doing? – YES
2. Is it here to help me with my work? – YES
3. Is it a spirit similar to that described by many authors as a spirit guide? – NO
4. Does it have a name? – Maybe (the rods slowly twitched together without much force, indicating a so-so answer, or an ambiguous question that could have many answers).
5. Do I need to know this presence by name in order to work with it? – NO
6. Is it ready to communicate with me? – YES

Right then. I was ready to speak to it too. I decided to write this up while I remembered the answers, and then began my meditation….but I fell asleep every time I tried to connect to it! It seemed to want to communicate tio me in a sleep state, but I had too many questions that needed answering first! Energy levels too low to connect any other way, I reverted to dowsing.

So, Round 3.  Another twenty questions:

1. Is this presence still around me? – YES
2. Is it in the same position on my nemeton? – NO, now due West of me, on left hand side.
3. Is its placement relevant to communicating with it? – YES, now more difficult to do in its current position.
4. Is the source of this white light from a specific celestial body? – YES
5. Is it a planet – a star – a sun – a moon? – PLANET, and STAR. More recognised as a planet. Aha!
6. Is it from a star that is only visible for me at particular times of the year? – YES
7. Is the star Venus? – YES
8. Is the purpose of it being around me so I can learn? love? live? – LOVE and LIVE
9. Is there a sacred site in the UK that is dedicated to the form of this energy? – YES, lots of them. All of them? NO.
10. Can it assist me in removing geopathic stresses? – NO
11. Do I need to do something specific to invoke its powers? – YES
12. Can I command this presence by voicing an intention? – NO
13. Can I call upon this presence to help me? – NO
14. Is this presence commanded using crystals/thoughts alone/intention/will power/harmony/co-operation/questioning/reasoning/pleading/prayer? – CRYSTALS, INTENTION, QUESTIONING, PRAYER
15. Is it empowered by particular times of the year/month/day? – YES to all three. 8th-9th March 2009 is strongest, also between MIDNIGHT-SUNRISE, and influence is from FEBRUARY-APRIL.
16. Is this presence protective / healing / empowering / informative / other? -  HEALING, EMPOWERING, INFORMATIVE.
17. Does this presence have a human form? Can it take one? – NO, and NO.
18. Can the presence be connected to by my manifestations, or by a natural source? – BOTH
19. Is this presence linked to anyone I know who works with energy? – NO
20. Is the position of the presence related to Venus’s position in the sky? – YES

You may notice that I quickly formulated questions relating to celestial bodies, and included stars and planets? For the last month I have been driving home from work in the early evening, looking at the shapes of the trees as they silhouetted against the deep blue evening sky. It’s only the last few weeks that I’ve noticed that all the way home, right in front of me in the sky, repeatedly drawing my attention, has been a bright star. I wonder which one that is?

Off I go to the internet to find out about Venus – who she is, where she is, when she’s in conjunction, or at her zenith….

MARCH 8th 2009: VENUS goes retrograde

From the pompously titled but nevertheless informative “The Psychic One” web site:

“The Venus Retrograde (March 6, 2009-April 16, 2009)

This retrograde deserves a page on it’s own because of the powerful effects this one planet can create. I know one of your main concerns when calling me is about love, romance, friendships, and money. Well this planet effects all these subjects. When we think of a Mercury retrograde we think , schedules, transportation, computers and how we think. When Venus retrogrades it can stir up more drama then what Mercury and all the other planets combined when they go retrograde.”

Question 21. Is this presence’s power at its peak when Venus goes retrograde in motion? – YES.

Venus as seen from Berlin Feb – Mar 09

MARCH 8th 2009:  SATURN is in opposition (opposite side of Sun)

From NASA JPL site:

“March 2009:
Saturn is at opposition on March 8th. It rises at sunset, transits at midnight (at its highest elevation, best time for telescopic views) and sets at sunrise. Saturn’s ring tilt opens to 2.3 degrees this month, and the planet is closest to Earth and therefore brighter.”

If there’s two things I hate it’s beetroot, coleslaw and astrology. OK, that’s three, but if you only count foodstuffs as one category I can get away with it. Seriously, I don’t do astrology, or even astronomy at that. I have one book about constellations, and it’s a small reference book for idiots like me who don’t understand these things, or refuse to look into them deeply enough. So – Venus goes retrograde on March 8th, and Saturn is in opposition. ??? Apparently, it’s a time for relationship strife, for not buying a new wardrobe or house, and Saturn is swinging by for a closer look at us. ???

Here’s another prediction from Alan Oken (cheque book open):

“March 8: Mars conjunct Neptune at 24.50 Aquarius.
This is not one of my favorite aspects as it brings out the influence of the Sixth Ray very strongly. This augments astral currents and is very much an influence of the urge to martyrdom, i.e. suicide bombings and other acts of violence in the name of religion and devotion to idealistic doctrines. If this aspect is in close contact with your natal chart, take care that you do not give up your sense of personal power for the sake of yielding to someone else’s needs or demands. Addictions flourish under this contact.

March 8: Mercury also enters Pisces on this day, further diminishing rational communications. In addition, the Sun opposes Saturn at 18.23 Virgo/Pisces, an aspect that opposes authority and challenges social order.”

Believe me when I say I’m not about to get sucked into this particular black hole that is astrology/astronomy. Yes, it would appear there is some celestial significance to sacred sites, and to times of particular energy fluctuations brought about directly by the conjunctions of astral bodies. However, it’s a long and winding path to understand the heavens, and I’m not sure I need to just yet. I’m going to sit back and watch what happens around those dates, maybe dowse a bit, and report back. It seems as though there’s something specific I need to be doing. Now I need to find out what that is before March 8th.

Gwas.

Following the Evening Star