The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘stanton moor’

Introduction

I had been looking forward to Beltane for a while. The promise of warmer, longer days to work in plus the chance to get back to some of the best ancient sites in Derbyshire had been whetting my appetite for a few weeks, making all else seem like filling in time until the Big Day. For us, we had worked out that Beltane was happening at the full moon on the 27th and 28th April. This is, of course, different from the ‘new traditional’ concept that Beltane is the 3rd May. Some say the 1sy May – May Day. Others maintain that due to the calendar shift caused by Pope Gregory XIII that the actual date is 23rd April.  You see how confusing this all is?

Our reasoning was simple – we timed the change from the third eighth of the year to the fourth as being when the full moon’s energies signalled a phase change, not on an arbitrary and disputed calendar date. After all, for us the interesting change was a change in subtle energies, so why not connect it to a major factor in the strength of those energies, namely The Moon?

Off we ventured with the intention of visiting as many sites as we could within one day. On our list were Arbor Low, Nine Stones Close, Doll Tor, and possibly Nine Ladies if we had time. Oh, we had time! Arbor Low, Nine Stones, The Andle Stone and Doll Tor will all be covered in this first post.

In part two of this set of posts I will describe our experiences at Nine Ladies, but also The Bullstones and The Bridestones which were also added to the list. We worked efficiently and effectively on this auspicious day and here’s the beginning of my account of our work and our findings.

1. Arbor Low and Ringham Low

The purpose we had set out with for this first site was to check our recent information about the movement of the ‘spirit of place’, the Genius Loci (henceforth – ‘GL’). Kal had found at Penmaenmawr and subsequent places that the GL enters an energised sacred site like a stone circle through an arc of neutral energy – like a fashioned gap or portal into the dome of energy covering the site. The same was true of the exit too – there was an arcing neutral energy that formed a kind of doorway.

Our intention was to verify whether the neutral arc I had found on my recent visit to Arbor Low was in fact an entrance or exit point for the GL. Here is what we found:-

• The Genius Loci travels along a neutral North-South ley line that connects to other distant sacred sites
• It enters the site at the place I identified last visit
• The exit is directly opposite, at the northern-most point of the stone circle
• The path of the GL oscillated more strongly as it approached the embankment of the site
• The path circles around the position where a standing stone would once had been placed on the earthwork (now all missing)

Satisfied with these findings we headed off to a site I had spotted marked on an OS map as being near to Arbor Low. This site as called Ringham Low, but when we got to the place where it was marked on the map, there was no sign of it. We walked the field for a while then got dowsing rods out. We found a circle thirty feet wide on the slightly sloping ground, and wondered what might once have been here. Then we moved on. More interesting work was due next at Nine Stones Close.

2. Nine Stones Close

Our second site was up on Harthill Moor, and was a site we were both very familiar with – our old friend Nine Stones Close. My intended purpose for visiting this site was to try to establish my wider purpose for the fourth eight-part of the year – the time between Beltane and Summer Solstice. We always have a little chuckle about what people might think when they encounter “Nine Stones”, with its four standing stones. Do they think it might once have had nine? It didn’t. Possibly five, but never nine.

Dull weather at Nine Stones Close

Despite the passing human traffic, ramblers and school outings everywhere, I was able to meditate quite deeply at Nine Stones, and to get a lot of dowsing done too. As a precaution, remembering the warning that I had been given by the Llangernyw Yew tree, I put up some energetic protection around myself. According to Kal that did its job, because a passing inquisitive person thought twice about approaching and came nowhere near whilst I has meditating. Just lucky, I guess.

Here’s what I found out:-

• I identified the purpose of the time between Beltane and the Summer Solstice
• The purpose of this time of the year is to learn how to diffract, dissociate and extract the different frequencies that my energy field can generate. Then to learn how to bring those frequencies together again to form a pure white energy form.
• I found that my meditation visualisations have changed from streams of fire to those of water – streams, fountains and geysers.

That purpose seemed like a natural extension of the research I had done for the previous eighth part of the year, which had been to learn how to work with neutral energy. I have yet to discover whether there is something about the energies of this time of the year that promotes or encourages that kind of work – this I will try to discover in the next few weeks.

From Nine Stones we headed towards the imposing gritstone structure that is named Robin Hood’s Stride.

3. Robin Hood’s Stride

There was not much to do at Robin Hood’s Stride. The huge outcrop of gritstone is impressive against the surrounding skyline of rolling hills and tree-studded fields, and something made us both want to go and pay it a visit. The one time we had felt like that previously we had found respective power centres, but that had been such a long time ago (in our minds) that we had forgotten where those were. We decided to re-dowse them to see if we could verify the original findings and to see whether that would jog our memories.

Minutes later Kal had found his centre in a small sheltered cave-like formation on the side of the Stride, whereas I was being directed into a crevice. I looked up the crevice to see that there was some kind of hit-like formation of rock slabs above me. Seems like I would have to climb up. I remembered from the last time that I had had to do that to find my power centre, so I hoped I could find it again, now that the rods had led me to this spot directly underneath this unusual slab formation fifteen feet above my head.

Once on top I followed the rods until they crossed and circled around inside a square box of a rock shelter. Inside I felt cushioned from the cold winds of early Spring and my voice resonated within the stone chamber as I called forlornly to my now absent friend below. As usual Kal had gone a-wandering. There was a beaten and chewed stick that some dog must have deposited within the chamber which kept attracting my attention. I picked it up and started to bounce it off the walls and floor of the chamber like a drumstick. For several minutes I beat out strange rhythms that seemed inspired by the sound of the wind on the walls of the chamber, but which were immensely pleasing. This was the place I had found the last time too.

Here’s a link to a YouTube video showing you Robin Hood’s Stride.

Read the rest of this entry »

 Eagle Tor, Derbyshire – 27th February, 2010

This is part two of our Derbyshire adventures. In part one we visited Nine Stones Close and had an encounter with a Pan Nature Spirit. In this part we visit a new site for us – Doll Tor – reputed to be in a lovely woodland setting, and so it turned out to be. It was  bit of a bugger to get to though. I think we probably came in from the wrong direction, because we had to hack our way across rutted fields at peculiar angles to reach the narrow strip of woodland that the GPS unit was insisting housed this new stone circle. Rarely have I been quite so relieved that modern technology saved me (mainly from the perishing cold).

Doll Tor: Mist and Mysticism

Having gone through such an ordeal I thought there was unlikely to be anyone around. I was wrong. Two ladies were perched on adjacent stones in the circle as we arrived. We exchanged pleasantries, but I was keen not to disturb their peace, even though I knew that even being there had already done just that for them. I was apologetic for that but Kal was less so, indicating that we were probably enlivening the atmosphere. Er, yes, quite. I’m sure we were.

 I set about dowsing the circle, essentially buying some time while the ladies inhabited the space. I would do my thing when they had done theirs. Kal went off hugging trees and generally making a holy show of himself. He was acting very strangely today. I mean, stranger than usual. I kept one eye on him while I dowsed around. There was some negative energy to one side of the small stone circle – down the slope, beyond an inlaid stone that had some engraved words on it:

Renovation engraved inlaid stone

The stone was marking the renovation of the site in 1993, apparently re-erecting a stone. The negative energy source was an engraved stone at the side of the circle. Well, whatever they had done something was amiss with the energies from the plaque downwards. There was a wide pool of negative energy hanging around. I decided that I should do something about this straight away, especially as people were there and using the site. I asked all the appropriate questions such as “May I?”, “Can I?”, “Do I have the ability..?”, “Is it the right time…?” all with  positive response. I got my incense out and began placing the five sticks that I had dowsed for. I knew it was a temporary measure, but I still wanted to do it.

Then a funny thing happened. I know the light wasn’t great, but the space was quite intimate and there were very few paths. Yet, somehow, I counted out five sticks, planted five, then could only find four of them when I came to light them in turn. The ladies watched me in amusement. “Lost something?“, on asked with a wry smile. “I thought I’d laid out five sticks, but I can’t find one now…”, I complained. One of the ladies said, “Why don’t you try putting one there?” and she pointed to a space at the edge of the circle, in the negative zone, which had a ribbon tied to a branch hanging over the spot. I dowsed warily….but the rods turned strongly at that point! I was more than a little surprised, but placed another incense stick and began to light them all. I thanked the lady for her keen ‘observation’ and she waved it away as though she did things like that all the time. Don’t you meet some interesting people at stone circles?

Lovely site - a staff, some mist, a ribbon

The ladies took their leave at this point and we have the place to ourselves as the sun began to make a more rapid descent towards the horizon. It was still light, however, but the mist was cooling us quickly, although Kal was hopping all over the place keeping warm. I decided to engage him in the process and asked him to dowse for the name of the Genius Loci. His initial objections melted away as he realised that I wasn’t joking. There are nine letters in the name, I stated, helpfully.

With that information, and the knowledge that we were dealing with an aether spirit (using Jaq D Hawkins’ definitions) I began to ask about the reason I had come: when should I have the first carved sigil on my new ash staff done by? The answer that came back through my meditations was not what I had expected – it was quite poetic and a little cryptic, and yet because of the style of language used I was able to understand it in terms of pictures rather than words. I was shown pictures of daffodils and saw them dying, accompanied by the phrase, “…by the time the daffodils disappear.” Er…end of April kind of time? Beltane? Anything else about it? I saw the Sun and Moon in the sky together – strong and vibrant – and knew that this meant a specific time of the day, month and year – when the Moon is full and the Sun is high – noon on a Full Moon day!

What other instructions could I glean whilst this information was flowing so easily and vividly, I wondered.  I felt that each of the elements should be involved in the carving process (somehow), perhaps with a call to them to participate in being bound into the shape being carved. But what should the shape be? I should be the sigil of this site, came the answer. The combined powers of this site, my energies, my staff and the elements will all go into the carving of the staff. OK, very strange! Here’s the shape I dowsed after experiencing this:-

Doll Tor stone circle sigil

After experiencing this I felt quite “spaced out” and had to spend the next few minutes jut coming back to full consciousness, despite the impending gloom, mist and cold which ought to have revived me quickly. Kal had disappeared down the hill and was busy exploring. I waited for him to return and dowsed for whether I had had any effect upon the negative energy area – it was mildly changing, and slowly, but would return to its negative state shortly after we had left. Ah well, this was obviously something that was going to take quite a bit more work when we had more time.

Some people had hung ribbons on the positive energy side of the site, possibly in similar attempts to “ward off” the negative energy. They had constructed stick figure mobiles too, which looked quite sinister in the gathering darkness. It was all very “Blair Witch Project“!

 In the enclosing mist the site felt cut off from everywhere else. We could have been the last two people on earth. It was quite magickal, and we should definitely come back here in late Spring to finish what we had started. I have some carving to do before then!

Gwas.

Stanton Moor and Eagle Tor, Derbyshire, February 27th, 2010.

Our little adventure in the Derby shire hills began on the first day of the Full Moon. Both Kal and I had felt its influence the previous night – for me it meant a sleepless night and a tight head. I love the Moon but it makes me pay for being so sensitive to it! Apart from the Moon we were astrologically unaware of what was around in the sky. All we were aware of was that  it was a Saturday, there was a full moon today, and we had an intention to awaken the energies of an ancient site.

Muck and Pandemonium

A brisk walk up the hill past Robin Hood’s Stride brought us into sight of the four remaining stones that still form Nine Stones Close. There never were nine stones, by the way. We got asked that by some passers-by. There were five, maybe as many as seven. I am sure that there is a stone missing on one side (opposite from the tree), but the tree side was very difficult to determine – the rods were “hazy” on that, which is a most unusual and disconcerting response. I think the word “Nine” is a corruption of an older word relating to “Noon”, or the high point of the sun. Given our findings at the site this day, it may well represent the low point of the sun too. But we’ll come to that soon enough.

When we arrived the first thing I noticed was that the field has been spread with manure – the stones were covered with it! Nice. And we had already struggled through patches of mud to get there too. Roll on Spring and Summer, I say! Terra firma is required, and some warmer longer days too, please!

A misty day

The first thing I did, after waiting for truckloads of schoolchildren to traipse through, was to go through some of my dowsing checklist. I think of it as a kind of warm-up exercise now (almost literally this cold misty day), as well as feeding into the Sacred Sites section of this site (eventually). Here are my findings for this day:-

• The site is energised by the position of the Sun at particular times of the year, for example Summer Solstice.
• The site was energised by the peaks of the Moon too, so was nearing a maximum again on this day.
• The site has an energetic alignment with Saturn – which signifies transformation.
• There is no Genius Loci at this site – it is devoid of external spiritual activity

Looks like we had times our visit right going there at midday on a full moon, but what of Saturn? On my return I decided to see what significance Saturn had. I started by looking at the celestial events around that time. Notice, from the quote below, that Saturn is making itself prominent in the sky on March 1st,

Sunday, February 28

 Full Moon (exact at 11:38 a.m. today EST).  

Monday, March 1 This evening Saturn shines left of the great big rising Moon, which is just past full and just past perigee. By dawn Tuesday morning they’ve shifted way over to the west-southwest, and Saturn has turned to the Moon’s upper right.

The exact wording about the position of various bodies is not what struck me. What made me jump was that we had spent the weekend discovering that Nine Stones Close was being influenced by Saturn, and here was Saturn about to loom large in the environs of The Moon at its peak. Energetically, I felt this was significant, influential even.

Preparations for Pan

So I look around and Kal is jigging about beneath his favourite oak tree. He invites me to record him on his phone doing this, so to humour him I do so. Right. Er…is that normal? I enquire as to his state of mind. “I feel the urge to dance. This site is invigorated by dancing energy.” he states. Of course it is, I think to myself, of course it is. And continue with some preparations for my real purpose at this site today – to awaken the site’s energies. This has been the theme of the Imbolc to Spring Equinox period – to awaken the energies of the sites through human intention.

My preparations involve placing my ash staff in its proper place to focus and collect the energy generated, and for me to place four sticks of incense at appropriate power centres on the inside of each of the four remaining stones. There are more power centres at this site (six – which leads me to think there were originally six stones) – but the other two centres are not required for this awakening. Then I place my hand over four of the cup-marks in the Key Stone (as I’m calling the cup-marked stone).

Kal looks over at me as I break off from this ritual declaring it complete and says to me simply, “Pan!” We make a connection between the dancing, the Trickster god so beloved of Kal and the return of Nature spirits to the newly awakened site. Interesting! I dowse to see what this means and come up with the idea that a Nature spirit, a Pan (not THE Pan – they are multitudinous) is preparing to return to the site. We wonder when this will occur but don’t dowse for a date – it doesn’t seem appropriate to do so.

Kal ignores tricky questions concerning his certifiable behaviour

Saturn, Pan and the Solstices

As if by magic, Saturn appeared! What I mean is, having dowsed for the energetic influence of Saturn I researched the associations. Pan is associated with Saturn because Pan is the name we have given to one of Saturn’s moons. OK, interesting coincidence, but what did it mean for Nine Stones Close? We had prepared the way for a Nature Spirit (Pan) to return to the site. There was once a genius lociat Nine Stones Close but it left over a thousand years ago because no-one believed in it any more. When I say “believed in it”, I think I mean, “maintained its presence energetically” – a process of feeding human energy into the site through intention in order to attract and retain the presence of a Nature Spirit. This is a more intense relationship that “worship” which can be done without any knowledge or interaction with The Other (the Nature Spirit) – more intense because it involves purposefully giving energy to maintain the correct ambiance.

Saturn, in mythology, is the god of agriculture and vegetation. Well, here we were in a field, recently manured, expecting the return of vegetation and in the midst of agriculture (surrounded by farmland). Nine Stones Close is particularly linked to agriculture, as it stands in a currently worked field. Not a stunning link, but a link. Saturn is also associated with the astrological sign Capricorn, and thus the Winter Solstice. My dowsing results showed that the position of the Sun was significant to the energies of the site, so I could see how the Winter Solstice position would be a significant time. Oddly, when I dowsed for an astrological symbol, I couldn’t find one. I don’t know why.

Stones covered in cow crap

The final piece of interesting information was dowsing for a sigil. Despite the fact that I knew there wasn’t a genius locihere (yet) I asked whether I could dowse for the sigil that used to be here representing that spirit. The answer, fortunately, was YES, I could. So I asked for the best location to do that and was directed to an area right next to my power centre. The shape that emerged was this double spiral shape, also called the Cornu spiral:

The sun sigil, or Cornu spiral

I have seen this spiral before – it is the double-headed spiral that is engraved on the entrance stone at Newgrange in the Boyne Valley in Ireland, and many other megalithic sites too; some well beyond these isles. According to one researcher, this double spiral represents the pattern that is traced by the path of the Sun as it moves across the heavens in relation to our Earth. It is a kind of universal pattern that emerges out of the patterns of Nature herself. It is Pan’s symbol.

Newgrange entrance stone showing double-headed spiral

Having prepared the way for the return of a Nature Spirit we left for the next site in high spirits. We had only intended a fleeting visit to Nine Stones Close, but again it had delivered a mystical and profound experience. Next, to a new site for us – Doll Tor stone circle on the hill opposite Robin Hood’s Stride.

Gwas.

Dowsing Results for 2009

At the start of the year I faithfully followed the proposed dates that aligned with the current Gregorian calendar. As the year progressed beyond Summer Solstice I came to feel that the dates that were marked as celebration dates bore little relation to the times when earth energies were specifically active. The Gregorian dates for the Pagan Festivals in particular felt wrong, and were egergetically unremarkable. I started to align my visits with other criteria. My reasoning was that, for Equinox and Solstice days - celebrations of the sun – then the exact day as stated originally was accurate. For the pagan festival dates I took the nearest full moon date to be the correct day to try to do some dowsing. Often, this didn’t quite work out because I had already booked the Gregorian dates off work and so was often only free to dowse at sacred sites on those dates.

Here were the dates that I had written down as being the days to test for subtle energetic potential:-  

• Imbolc – 1 Feb (First Quarter moon)
• Spring Equinox – Thu Mar 20 5:48 GMT
• Beltane – 1 May (almost First Quarter moon)
• Summer Solstice – Sun Jun 21 0:59 BST
• Lammas – 1 Aug (six days from Full Moon)
• Autumn Equinox – Mon Sep 22 16:44 BST
• Samhain – 1 Nov (Full Moon)
• Winter Solstice – Sun Dec 21 12:04 GMT

You will notice that I have used the original Gregorian dates rather than those that I shifted eleven days prior to these trying to account for the calendar shift in the Middle Ages. Here were my original propositions and thoughts as a reminder of what I was trying to do:

We’re going to have to dowse on those days as we go through the year and see what happens. When does it feel right, and when are the energies particularly active? … I would hope that the male energies would be more active on the days of solar worship such as Summer Solstice, or the Equinoxes. If we get sun in Britain on those dates then we have a chance to test this theory out by visiting some of the sites we went to over this Winter period, when the energies seemed distinctly quiet and weak, with no evidence of male energy activity at all. On active solar days we would expect to find the qualities associated with maleness – protection, transformation through initiation, and the manipulation of energy.

The festival dates when the moon is very present coincide with the lunar festivals of the cross-quarter days (Beltane and Samhain) this year. That’s lucky for us and we can report on the status of the female earth energies at sites on those dates. We expect that the traditionally female aspects will be in evidence on those dates, that is fertility powers, sanctuary and healing.

We hope to be able to answer whether the times of year of the festivals correlate to a particular quality of the powers of the moon or sun at that time. The White Virgin (the first stage of the goddess) is linked to Spring. Are fertility powers stronger at Beltane and Spring Equinox? May Day was always seen as a fertility festival. Imbolc is associated with Brigid and healing. Are the healing energy frequencies strongest at this time?

Not all dates were able to be tested due to circumstances or time restrictions, but where they could then I have recorded the results. My conclusions will be compared with my expectations as recorded at the beginning of the year.

I am very unhappy with the quality of the results for this experiment. There were notable times when we didn’t take any measurement of the relative strengths of the energies and this has made the results quite inconclusive. Therefore, I will endeavour to be more rigorous this year and to try to capture the information more reliably and objectively. Therefore, please consider these results as an “indication” of what might be the case.

I also believe that there are some factors that have come to light this year that affect the results, i.e. the position of various planets at that point in the year, the position of the sun and moon, how clear the skies were, and to take into account the strengths of male and female energies separately, as well as differentiating between earth and radiant energy strengths.

Therefore, all in all, I feel the results from 2009 are of purely subjective value. However, I am including what data I did gather so that I can compare this year’s information with it to see if anything at all does begin to form a pattern.

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IMBOLC – February 1st

Actual visit date(s): February 1st & 2nd

Moon Phase: Almost First Quarter

Location: Dyserth village

Sites visited: St.Bridget’s Church, Castle Dyserth (quarry where we made a stone circle), Graig Fawr hill, Dyserth Waterfall, Gop Hill

Dowsing results: A significant change in the strength of the male energies from 1st to 2nd February. As there was significant cloud cover I could not attribute this increase to the appearance of the sun.

Activities: Only dowsing. Nothing relating to energy specifically.

Post Link: Dyeserth 3

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SPRING EQUINOX - March 20th

Actual visit date: March 20th

Location: Bryn Celli Ddu, Anglesey

Sites visited: Bryn Celli Ddu, Penmaenmawr stone circle

Dowsing results: The energy “felt” balanced. We were not inclined to dowse much at all. What dowsing was done turned up a perfect balance between male and female energy strengths. Was this purely suggestive, or was it real?

Activities: Attuning ourselves on top of an ancient mound, healing a stone circle with positive balancing energies.

Post Link: A Balance of Light & Dark

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BELTANE – May 1st

Actual visit date: May 1st

Moon Phase: Almost First Quarter

Location: Helsby, Cheshire.

Sites visited: Helsby Hill, Woodhouses Hill and a modern man-made mound.

Dowsing results: Again, we failed to measure the relative strengths of the energies. Energy was successfully sent from one site to the next, however.

Activities: Lighting incense and manifesting energies from hilltop to hilltop.

Post Link: Firing Manifestations

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SUMMER SOLTICE – June 21st

Actual visit date: Jone 20th and 21st

Location: Glastonbury, Somerset,

Sites visited: Barrowbridge Mump, Wearyall Hill, White Spring, Glastonbury Tor, Gog and Magog trees

Dowsing results: Very strong male energies, overwhelming the female energy (which wasn’t weak either). Strongest male energy of the year.

Activities: Meditating at various sites, being intuitively led to them, and instinctively having our chakras opened at those places to receive an influx of positive inspirational energies.

Post Link: The Opening of the Chakras

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LAMMAS - August 1st

Rejuvenated forest clearing

Actual visit date: August 1st

Moon Phase: 5 days from Full Moon

Location: The Sandstone Trail, Cheshire.

Sites visited: Beeston Castle, Peckforton Castle, Utkinton, Delamere Forest, Frodsham.

Dowsing results: Finding healing white energy spirals (composed of female tree and earth energy).

Activities: Drawing energy from the land (energising), healing,

Post Link: Llamas and Lammas

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AUTUMN EQUINOX – August 22nd

Actual visit date: August 19th and 20th

Location: Wiltshire and Oxfordshire

Sites visited: Alton Barnes White Horse, Wayland’s Smithy, Uffington White Horse

Dowsing results: Unusually strong male and female energies that were well balanced. The sun was glorious for these two days, and I felt completely relaxed, to the point where I was “spaced out” by being at sites – this “good feeling” was due to the “white” energy of the balanced and combined male and female energies, I believe.

Activities: Using sigils, following intuition, a pilgrimage of ancient sites, balancing chakra energies, transformation process.

Post Link: Trail of the White Dragon

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SAMHAIN – November 1st

Actual visit date: November 2nd

Moon Phase: Full Moon

Location: Wiltshire.

Sites visited: Silbury Hill, West Kennet Long Barrow.

Dowsing results: Stronger response than first visit I made some months earlier. The energy was male energy atop this mound. It was so strong it made me dizzy! I felt highly charged with subtle energy, and I could draw upon both male and female forms. Dowsing response was incredibly strong under the full moon.

Activities: Meditating, shamanic flying, empowerment of energy fields.

Post Link: None.

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WINTER SOLSTICE – December 21st

Actual visit date: 21st December

Location: Anglesey

Sites visited: Bryn Celli Ddu, Bryngwyn Stones, The Soar Stone, Lligwy Chamber

Dowsing results: Stronger female energies surrounding Bryn Celli Ddu; minimal male energy coming only from the stones. Male energy at Soar Stone restricted to close to the stone. Weak in nature. Male energy at Lligwy was confined to power centres, whilst female energy was again enclosing the central stones, as though protecting them? Our normal alignments (m/f) were reversed for this day – Kal went for female energy whilst I sought out male energy.

Activities: transformation, shamanic flying, empowerment, balancing of chakras.

Post Link: Anglesey Winter Solstice

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CONCLUSIONS

There are hints within this set of information that various factors such as the time of year, and the position of the sun and moon, all affect the strengths of the subtle energies at sacred sites and elsewhere. However, the poor quality and consistency of the information I gathered does not allow me to make any clear statement to that effect. Therefore, this year I will try to take more accurate, consistent and objective records of this data, including the new factors that I believe may be relevant including the influence of planets, and whether the sun or moon are visible when the dowsing takes place.

Watch for this post next year to see if I can get anything that might be approaching a conclusion!

Gwas

30th April, 2009: Nine Ladies and Nine Stones Close, Stanton Moor, Derbyshire.

This was a difficult post to write. Here, for the first time, I got an insight into how a stone circle may have once been used. My issue then was, how much of this speculative information do I pass on? Given that Kaland I had detected energy working at the circle that we didn’t agree with…should I then go on to reveal this information, and potentially provide such people withwhat I feel is one of the keys that unlocks the power of Nine Stones Close? Do I have that right? With that in mind you will notice that I don’t go into detail about some things. If you’re really interested you’ll have your own methods of filling in the detail.

Stanton Moor and The Corkstone

This visit took place on a damp and cloudy April afternoon on Stanton Moor. If you go through the village of Stanton-in-the-Peak, take a left turn up the hill, past a quarry works and car park, then park at the edge of the woods at the top of the hill, you’ll find an information sign at the beginning of the walk across Stanton Moor.

To get to Nine Ladies stone circle from this point it’s pretty hard not to pass The Corkstone- a standing stone that now sports worn hoof-prints of the people who have climbed up it, assisted by the numerous iron spikes that have been driven into the rock face. Being one of the first things we noticed when we stopped at the stone Kal and I dowsed for the effect of these spikes – they impacted the energy field (|or nemeton) making it smaller, was what we found.

We found that the Corkstone was connected to a nearby solitary tree that lived twenty or so feet away at the junction of paths. It had no connection with the Nine Ladies stone circle, however, which we thought was unusual. Had it been connected before? YES. Then why would it be disconnected now? As if in answer we heard a rumble that sounded like thunder followed by a crash and the sound of engines. The nearby quarry was still at work. I had read about quarries being a huge source of negative or harmful earth energies, so I dowsed as to whether this was the reason why the stone was de-coupled from its neighbouring site? YES. As some form of protection, we supposed?

Despite being isolated from Nine Ladies the input of the nearby tree’s energy The Corkstone had a flowing nemeton that circled the stone three times. This stone’s energy field registered as being composed of the tree’s female energies, plus its own male energy. Kal fell in love with the tree, so I urged that we walk on to Nine Ladies – he would be spending all day here otherwise, walking the tree’s spirals!

Nine Ladies and The Wishing Tree Re-visited

We crossed the moorland following only paths that had good strong energies. These energy flows started just outside the area of the Corkstonebut seemed to circumvent a direct connection with it. We happily snaked our way across the moor walking fluidly and easily. Occasionally we would be distracted by a faerie ring and would dowse its contents – invariably finding small female spirals.

We arrived at Nine Ladies stone circle and deposited our bags under the Wishing Tree oak. All seemed quiet and calm. Nothing stirred and scarcely another person or dog wandered by. We wandered around ourselves, more contemplative than usual and not filled with the urge to dowse. I confirmed a few things such as: was the entrance in the same place? YES. Was there a ‘white stream’ nemeton of male and female energies around it? YES. Did the Wishing Tree still link to the circle? YES. Was there still a link between two of the stones in the circle passing through one of the circle’s power centres? YES.

Kal and I chatted about how dull it felt. It was as though it was sleeping…We sat under the tree a while whilst Kal tried to befriend it. His recent interest in trees made me more hopeful, but I still warned him about how he might approach the tree. He said he wouldn’t have a problem this time, in his usual inscrutable and confident way. A few minutes later he stepped out from under the tree – and didn’t bang his head, or trip, and was smiling. Success? Oh, yes – he responded. Well, connecting with Nature was going better than the dowsing today.

We felt there was little else to learn here at the moment, and headed back to the car to go on to Nine Stones Close circle – always a favourite of ours for some reason that we couldn’t explain. Perhaps because something interesting and enlightening or puzzling always happens there?

Nine Stones Closer

Nine Stones Close has always held a fascination for us. We return here a lot. When I visit it I get the feeling it is a central hub for the energies of the area, radiating that energy out to other sites. I don’t know why I feel that.  Perhaps it is the number of power centres that exist here, which is so many more than other stone circles. It feels like a meeting place. A place where druids and other energy workers met to collaborate on a ritual or to perform some energy work together.

Nine Stones has nine power centres. Five of them are male-oriented and the remaining four are inclined to the female frequency. The male centres are situated between the remaining four stones – four stones, five gaps, five male power centres. The female ones form a rectangle within the ring of the male centres. Nine is unusual – we normally only come across a couple of such centres at most circles.

The interesting thing we discovered here was the existence of a Map Stone. Other sites, such as MonzieCircle in Scotland,have map stones – cup-marked stones whose markings correlate with the position of important earth energy features. David Cowan, particularly, has described how these cup-makred stones are pivotal to understanding the features and flows of energy in large-scale circuits of earth energy. However, there is one feature about these stones that I think even he may have missed: they are not only a map, or energy source in themselves, they can also be a means to activating the power centres of a site.

What do I mean by ‘activate’? Well, that’s the detail that I want to leave out. I think it’s sufficient to say that if you understand what I mean by the concept of a power centre, and you can imagine how the stone could be a map showing the location of such centres, then that is probably enough material to work with. I will just say that through certain simple actions it is possible to make specific power centres ‘turn on’ and be available for use in your energy work. I still have to identify the particular characteristics of each power centre, but I do know that one of them is solely for the use of the person who understands these concepts. I suspect that the other power centres, once unlocked, require people aligned to either male or female to stand on the centres. Just what is possible by doing this, I don’t yet know.

After finding out how to use the map to activate power centres I returned to dowsing to verify the existence of the curious geometric energy formationsthat could be dowsed atop each power cente. I had found them on my last visit and now wanted to verify the information again now that some time had passed, and I had forgotten which shapes were where. Sure enough, when I re-mapped them I found that most of them were displaying the same shapes: circle, oval, triangle, square, spiral and figure of eight. Each power centre had energy formations consisting of unique size, shape and orientation, although some shapes were repeated. I now have two maps of these formations, and they tally almost exactly, differing only in Kal and my interpretations of scale, and in the detail of the shapes.

What this means, I don’t yet know. What purpose it serves is also a mystery as yet. The more one finds out the more there is to know in this game! I feel these signature shapes are important to understanding the ways in which this circle can generate energy from human interaction, but I cannot say what that is at the moment, The ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions are always more difficult to answer than the simple ’yes or no’ queries!

Gwas

Following geometric maps.

I have recently been reading the quite excellent and incredible revealing book by David Cowan and Anne Silk called “Ancient Energies of the Earth” (1999). Although I have only ventured a few chapters into the book so far I have been having to make notes as I go along due to the massive amount of information they somewhat randomly divulge.

I had found Cowan’s other book “Ley Lines and Earth Energies” somewhat difficult to stay with, either because it was beyond me at the time, or because his writing style assumed a great deal and stretched ideas across many chapters. “Ancient Energies..” is slightly better in that regard, and I have a greater understanding of the concepts being explored with the practical experience I have gained dowsing ancient sites this last year and more.

Now I am finding myself jumping at nearly every page saying: “That’s exactly what we’ve found!” in response to all these phenomena discussed in the book so far:-

• standing stone energy swirls
• double helix formations
• vertical columns of spiralling energies at blind springs (our power centres) that arc up into the air
• insects like gnats or midges swarm in columns of vertical earth energy
• passing through geomagnetic fields with increasing speed increases the voltage in the human body from 4 microvolts @ 1m/s to 400 microvolts @ 8m/s
• some plants grow better in faerie rings (which they call blind springs again)

The point I am at now in the book talks of the importance of cup marks and other petroglyphs (rock carvings) that seem to be maps of the energy formations in the local area. With that idea in mind I re-visited the pictures I had taken of the petroglyphs I had seen at a group of outlying stones near to the Nine Ladies circle.

I took a pencil and began to darken the dark spots on a print-out of the photo. Very soon a clearer picture of the patterns on the rocks emerged:

Map of the circle

This picture, I believe, denotes the position and qualities of the energy points of the stone circle in a symbolic format. Here’s a picture of the circle taken last year for reference. The picture is taken from the SW view:

The Queen Stone

On the left of the picture, the flat-topped square stone is the Queen Stone, which I believe transforms the radiant energies from the sun, moon and stars and thus maintains the circle’s energy flows. This flow seems to be governed by the ebb and flow of the relative position of the moon (perigee/apogee, new moon/full moon) and of the sun’s strength through the year (the seasons).

In the petroglyph this correspond with the stone marked by an outlying square shape (right-hand side of diagram).

The Straight Alignment Ley

A quite distinct straight line is shown between two stones – from the small stone (centre left in photo), through the circular centre patch, and into the stone to the left of the oak tree (in the photo). This marks a NE-SW cardinal alignment.

Connected to the stone at the northern end of the glyph is what appears to be two pyramid-shaped hills with a sun either rising or setting on the right-hand side of them. Is this indicating that the NE-SW alignment ley shows where the sun rises or sets against some surrounding hills?

In the right-hand centre of the glyph photo, inside the circle, is a circle overlaying a long triangle. The point of the triangle is directed North East, in alignment with the straight ley. South-West of the site are two other stone circles – Eagle Tor and Nine Stones Close.

The Pyramid Shapes

As well as the small pyramid shapes that are linked to the alignment line are two much larger triangles inside the circle. These happen to correspond exactly with the location of the two major power centres within the circle that Kal and I have found on every visit. The larger of the two triangles denotes the stronger female power centre, whilst the other one on the right hand side of the glyph marks the place of the male power centre.

The male power centre appears to be linked in the diagram to the male stone that is northernmost in the circle. This is also the point where I believe energies flow out of the circle down into the valley below the nearby cliff’s edge.

The Wide Flat Female Stone

On the left hand side of the glyph you will see I have ringed a large raised area. I don’t think I’ve made it as large as it is in the actual carving though. This is the location of the flat stone that dowses as female that lies close to the main power centre (also female).

Oak Tree Link

At the very bottom edge of the glyph photo you can see an external energy coming directly up to the circle’s edge. This, I believe, is showing the energy link to the big oak tree that lies exactly in that direction, a mere fifteen feet away from the circle.

The Black and White serpent energies

In the top left corner, coming into the place that I designate as the ‘entrance’ to the site, are two snakes – one black and one white. They are intertwined in a polarised male and female form, and I believe they come in from the nemeton that encircles the stones. The nemeton energy is sourced from the King Stone that sits above the circle, some thirty or so yards away.

I believe this images suggests the spiralling, intertwining, alternating male and female energy forms that describe the flowing energies of this site.

There may also possibly be a recurrence of this image at the top edge, inside of the circle in the glyph photograph. There is some kind of moving, twin-headed snake head image almost distinguishable there, and this would correspond with the path of the nemeton energy as it’s male form coils around inside the circle.

Other glyphs at the site

There are the faint sketches on some outlying rocks:

Animal and human sketches in rock

This is a photograph that I have again embellished with a few pencil marks to trace the lines and to darken some patches, but I have not added anything that is not there.

In the sketch you can see a boy or girl who wears a tall or long hat with a woolly or furry brim looking astonished at the sight of a whale, whose tail turns into a fish. Just above and centre is the outline of a horse. Notice the drawing is centred around a dark spot.

Was this some dramatic vision that an artist visiting the site felt compelled to record?

And the following spiral glyph appears on a rock nearby:

I hope that this prompts a further visit to this wonderful site so that Kal and I can confirm these suspected correlations. If the map is as accurate as I think it is then we could have found a vital key to the decoding of energies at other sites too, much as David Cowan and Anne Silk have suggested.

Gwas.

Follow the maps.

3rd November 2008

This is the last part in the account of our time at the Nine Ladies stone circle in Derbyshire. In this part I relate how we attempted some psionic experiments, I get to talk with the Wishing Tree, and we stumble upon the haunt of some exponents of sacred geometry. Oh yes, it’s all going on in this part of the tale! We really start pushing it now!

PART THREE

At the end of the last post we had been trying to figure out the unusual response (one rod straight ahead, one turning to point back at you, or swivelling round). We were thinking along the lines of Kal being attuned to male energies, whereas I was more attuned to female. On this full-moonlit night it seemed as though I was finding it easier to tune it to some of the features of the site in particular.

We decided to begin some experiments. We asked for the best place to do some energy work, and were each directed to a different power centre. Oddly, Kal was standing on the one where he had planted his umbrella, which I had taken to be the one I would go to. Oh no. I was directed to stand in the one that Kal had been sitting in, and had dowsed into a spiral earlier. So be it.

Nine Ladies stone circle

We decided beforehand that we would try to get into a state of mind where we might be able to connect to each other. The two power centres were linked by arcing neutral energies, connecting male to female, and travelling over and under in a vertically circular trajectory. We hypothesised that we may be able to send each other images. I tried to relax on the power centre, but I had a Kings of Leon tune running around in my head that wouldn’t shift. It kept repeating the same refrain. This was not funny! I was trying to work here! No good. I was mainly ‘awake’ and could tell my focus was wandering – what was Kal imagining, would it be a shape, or an animal? Oh, dear. This was hopeless! Despite the stillness of the dark night I kept dropping out of trance at the slightest sound – a distant rumble, a passing car on the hillside, a hooting owl, a gust of wind.

We tried. We failed. We weren’t even close. And it was because I couldn’t get into it. Was this another effect of the grounding stone? Had I not charged myself back up, or something? I pondered on that for quite a long time before heading off to the Wishing Tree for a drink. Time to get back to dowsing to reconnect with the stone circle. We headed to the grounding stone again, as it seemed to be the hub of the action this night. Hoping to get some answers I dowsed the stone again asking,

“Do I need to clear myself through this stone to regain my connection (with nature and the circle)?” I asked. The rods crossed for a ‘Yes’.

I put the rods down again and placed my hand on the stone instead of sitting on it I started to tune in. My mind started to gently swirl around like someone had taken the sink plug out and my brain was draining its water into the stone! Then it got faster. The vortex in my head reached such a pace that it sent me dizzy! I spun away from the stone, but kept turning around and around, staggering like a drunk whilst laughing elatedly at the madness of being spun around. My head was swimming in a really fun way, like having spun yourself around a broom handle and then tried to walk in a straight line.

Kal just stood looking on curiously as I waltzed around giggling and laughing. I asked something, anything, to give me a hand here! Couldn’t something help me to get out of this tailspin? A split second later I was prodded forcefully right in the back of the neck by one of the Wishing Tree’s branches! I jumped – woke up – and stopped spinning, thankfully. “Thank you!” I responded with genuine gratitude. I felt a warming under the tree’s canopy the air got lighter and more friendly. We had re-established a connection! That was just great. Now I was really happy, not giddy.

Back to the dowsing. Time must have been drawing on, but really I didn’t care what time it was. It wasn’t important. I had to know more before we left the site. Rods in hand I walked back to Kal in the circle to continue trying to locate some connections and flows. The first thing we found were the male and female spirals coming out each stone. Just like many other sites, but with the male spirals on the inside, and female spirals on the outside. Other sites have it the other way around.

Next we located the neutral lines that went between the stones. I went for the concept of opposing stones being connected and found a connection for each pair. Oddly, all of the lines were perfectly straight except for one, which bent back into the circle stone in a short curve. Was it going bending in order to avoid something? It seemed to coincide with the avoidance of the location of the two power centres we had been standing on. Noted anyway, if not understood. Kal, however, had found a few connections that were not a part of this perfect ‘spoked wheel’ pattern. Some stones connected with others that were not directly opposite. We vowed to return to map them all when it was lighter and we could draw them out.

Whereas our sketches of energy patterns at sites are representational (and not always to scale) you should compare them with those of StoneDowser on his site (listed also in our links section on the right hand side of this page). Mr. Ian Honeygood, now sadly passed away, was quite precise in some of his diagrams, although he only seemed to recognise two types of line: a radial spoke and a ‘ritual path’, which he surmises was the path taken by the worshippers at the sites. Well, that concept doesn’t convince me, I’m sorry to say, but that’s a discussion for another day. Either way, he has done some accurate and helpful diagrams to show those two types of energy formations.

StoneDowser’s ritual path is what I would call the unwinding of the nemeton of the site. Like Hamish Miller we often find three (he finds more, but then he’s like that) circles of male energy enclosing sites, and this energy trail then comes into the site to spiral to a point which we usually confirm as being a power centre for one of us (i.e. male or female oriented energies dwell in or emit from these points). Each time around the three outer spirals of the male nemeton energy the path gets closer to the stones. At Nine Ladies it started about three feet away from the stones, going to about one and a half feet, then six inches for the last time around. The path then turns into the ‘entrance’ of the site before looping into a spiralling energy centre.

On my last visit to Nine Ladies I had dowsed a link between the Wishing Tree oak and the main power centre, coming into the site via the ‘entrance’. I decided to verify if that was still present or not. It was. Exactly the same path, same entrance point, same power centre, same direction of spiral, everything. Good. Consistency was being achieved in some of this dowsing now.

As we were near the tree Kal decided to try his luck in doing a bit of communing with it. Now, I have already recounted my own difficulties with this species, and particularly this tree. It is amenable to contact, but it has to be handled very carefully and with great patience. Kal is, how can I put this, not one for such finesses! In all openness and in his usual hearty style I watched him outstretch a metaphorical hand of welcome. And then I watched him knock his head on a low branch and stumble over a tree root. I pretended I hadn’t noticed this blatant rebuttal. He tried again, complaining to it that he was trying to be nice. Nothing. What did he expect? He was not one for the patient building of relationships that such communications often insist upon. His talents lie elsewhere, I guess. I tried to wipe off my wide smile. “Give up, mate!” I implored. He was fighting a losing battle, it seemed.

One thing we both noticed about the site that night was how slow the energies were. As we dowsed them we walked slowly; as we circled the site the energy plodded along with us but didn’t overtake us as it has at other circles in sunlight, or my time at Moel-Ty-Uchaf. The Genius Loci was docile this evening. Nocturnal nature, however, was wide awake. Occasionally we would get a hint of agreement at just the right time whilst dowsing or communing – a sudden gust of wind, or a hooting owl would chime in at just the apropos moment.

Things had gone well. We had learned useful things about the way that energy was being transformed in the circles by specific stones. With this, and more, still buzzing in our heads we retreated one last time to the Wishing Oak to pack and leave. On my way there my eye was drawn for a fourth time to a twig of laurel lying by the north side of the circle – the moonlight made its dark leaves shine with an odd tint. I picked it up, and placed it inside one of the many crevices formed by the oak’s roots, and left it with thanks and good wishes to the tree. It gave enough out often enough – why not have some back?

As we wandered back to the car I asked if we could try to see what kind of place might be benefiting from the flow of energy that I knew went down the cliff edge via a steep gulley. Kal was game, so we drove down a side of the hill that I had never been down before. Kal said this was the way he often came up, so I was confident we could find our way back to the Bakewell area pretty easily soon enough. Ten minutes later Kal was saying, “Well, I’ve never been in this bit before!” as we trundled curiously through a small town that suddenly arose next to a river.

We passed a pub called “The Square and Compass” and that struck a chord – that was a masonic sigil. It would seem that Darley Dale, as the place turned out to be, was home to at least one group of people who were interested in ancient secrets! Societies are not for me, however. My path is mainly alone or with Kal, and my progress is swift because of that, I feel. It’s my path I’m treading, not following someone else’s agenda.

There was a lot to think about, and it kept us in conversation for several weeks afterwards. To recap, we learned:-

a) The rules of the collaboration with Nature must always be followed to get good results – a quiet mind is essential; good strong intent; a clean body (not caffeine-fuddled, tobacco doesn’t help the cause either); be prepared for fun, but do your work seriously and focused.
b) The double helix appears at several stone circles, possibly many more, linked to an outlier stone, which is identified as a main feature of the energy field system at a stone circle
c) Moon energy is slower, possibly weaker than sun energy. Certainly it is less vigorous.
d) A stone in or close to the circle, usually flat, acts like a solar, lunar and stellar panel that absorbs the radiant light.
e) In moonlight, on the correct power centre, we were both unable to experience any intuitive responses either between each other or towards any external location. The EMF was supposedly low, as it was night time. A lecture by Serena Roney-Dougal taught us that at times of low EMF are more favourable for telepathy and remote viewing. I blew that experiment by not being able to quieten my mind.
f) Although StoneDowser didn’t dowse this site (to our knowledge) his ‘ritual path’ was present – a spiraling line coming from outside to inside the circle. The radial links between the stones that he drew at other sites were also there. We thought that the lines bent between some stones sometimes, and that there were more links than simply those that were opposing stones.

It would seem that manifestation patterns can be willed into a particular shape, although my intention got transformed whilst I was forming it in my mind. Is this due to an interactive collaboration between human and nature, or was I simply unable to hold a shape using my willpower? The shape dowsed as increasingly complex when Kal came to verify it. I also verified Kal’s shape too. “Thaat be a pentangle, and no mistake, zurr.” What is it about wizards and their five-sided shapes?

Don’t phone in – it’s just for fun!

Gwas.