The Hedge Druid

Archive for the ‘Magick’ Category

I had deliberately kept the number of site visits low for Beltane. The daylight hours are still short, the distance we had to travel to get there was sufficient to drain away the day, and I wanted to be able to feel ‘unhurried’ when we got to a site. Almost as if enhancing this mood I had parked at The Broad Oak pub car park in the village of Strelley. It took us ten minutes to walk to Catstone Hill, and really it would have been easier to park right on the corner of the road just before the main village where there was ample parking, and the distance would have been more than halved. Such is life!

That wasn’t the end of our woes finding the site. Intuitively, and with only the barest map navigation, we found our way on to the hill. We inspected the broad flat plateau but couldn’t find any “capstones” for burial chambers. Were they hidden by the brambles and gorse? We tried to find more accurate maps on our phones but failed, so we resorted to dowsing rods. The rods pointed us out in the direction of a ploughed field. Our rationality kicked in and caused us confusion. We split up and went searching. Eventually I found the right place. It was at the end of the ploughed field and off the plateau behind a line of trees. The M1 motorway was is view below. Nice! Being off the main plateau was why we hadn’t seen it. We also realised there was a much easier way in if we’d only taken the steep tracks up the hill instead of following the main path. Once you know, you know – hindsight is clear.

Catstone Hill’s buried chambers

We inspected the area around the capstones. No entry into these chambers, if ever there was any. They were silted up to the brim now. Disappointment began to set in. We stumbled around tripping over the tangle of briars and bramble thorns, the thick dead grass and the outcropping tangle of shrub branches. Our sense of frustration was compounded when we discovered that the site had no energy signature either. There were no earth energies running through the site at all. The disappointment grew. Should we turn away and go somewhere else?

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Our holiday to Hungary was supposed to be a whole week off, and particularly for me a whole week of spiritual interests. In large part it was, but somehow the forces of the wild managed to break through into my full-on Tourist Mode in the middle of the week. It happened to be a full moon – Milk Moon – so I guess that was a contributory factor too. Budapest is a splendid laid-back city and after a couple of days touring around on a bus we knew where the interesting places were.

View over Budapest from Gellert Hill

On a typically sunny April day we were finding our way around the base of Gellert Hill. This hill was renowned for being the haunt of witches, which is always bound to interest someone like me. I like a bit of witchiness in life. We had just come out of the underground quaintness of the restored Gellert Hill Cave – a site still peddling its special aura on the basis of a later Christianisation.

Entrance to Gellert Hill Cave Church

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I first came across the idea of Devas when reading a book that mentioned the work of the Findhorn Community in Scotland. I was intrigued that a group of people would dedicate their whole lives and lifestyles to the idea of working with the spirits of plants and elementals which governed the form of the physical vegetation. I wanted to know more and so I bought William Bloom’s book on the subject, and read anything else I could discover too, including Marko Pogacnik’s book on Deva forms.

This year we have finally transformed our patch of bare clay soil, with its patches of eternal dampness, into a landscaped concept garden that is in its nascent state. Having spent all of the early Spring digging, moving, turning and tilling the soil, adding conditioner and compost to it, finally it was in a state to accept some plants. The process took days, even though the space was only twenty feet by six.

Devas may help this magnolia tree grow

The concept of the garden was typically druidic. M had given me free reign to design as I saw fit. As the pressure mounted to produce a design I turned to the inspiration of Nature and with a blank sheet of paper a form emerged in the symmetrical rounded rectangle: a quadrant of elemental ideals.

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Judy Hall – one of the foremost active authors on crystal working, has a new book out: Life-Changing Crystals. I was interested enough to consider whether the information that she was giving out in her book had general relevance – could anyone and everyone find the same uses for these crystals?

I dowsed each of the crystals she presents in the pages that can be viewed in Amazon’s preview, where she described the type of crystal and its properties. I asked the question “Would the stated energetic qualities of this crystal work for me?“. In every single case with one exception the answer was “No”. The one exception was Malachite, which apparently I can use for “stepping into my power”, whatever that means, I guess I’d have to buy the book to find out.

Can Judy’s book change your life?

Given that the other crystals had no correspondence with me I am not going to buy that book (although I did buy her book about crystal working at sacred sites – it was too enticing not to!).

So, what is the principle at work here? It’s not that crystals generally have properties and energetic uses that everyone can agree upon. It’s much more the case that crystals have properties that resonate with individual energy fields in very personal ways. You have to find out for yourself which crystals you can work with, and to what purposes they can be put. How do you do this? Who am I, Judy Hall?

I have a couple of methods.  They are:-

1. I shop for crystals in places where the energy feels good generally, and I feel like the crystals are powerful. Then I ask to be shown a crystal that I can use for a specific purpose. I am usually led to see or feel one that I can use.
2. I buy crystals that feel powerful and energetic. If I can dowse them I will. Then when I want to use crystals for a specific purpose I use my dowsing rods to dowse for suitable ones. I dowse for which type, how many I need, and sometimes even a configuration that I should lay them out in which best suits that purpose.

These methods have been continually proven to work for me. I have crystals whose uses have even changed over time as my energy has changed. So, even though some books may say “X crystal does Y” – does it always? Well, there may be some general guidance to be found from these ‘universal’ descriptions – they may lead you to consider what crystals can be used for. However, I have never found these general ‘uses’ the be useful for me.

I recommend picking crystals for yourself, for your own current purpose, and using them on a more personal basis than these guide books can every really inform you of. All such books are useful for is to suggest possibilities of uses generally. It’s then up to you to find or collect the types of crystals that you can make use of.

Gwas.

Given that we have almost four years of posts on Hedge Druid I often forget the truly amazing amount of material and experience we have covered. With that in mind you might be surprised to learn that I often peruse the blog in search of nostalgia, missed exploration paths (there are so many) and just to nudge my intuition. The other day I was on such a wander through its pages and came across a few articles that made me think. The first of these was from a house dowse that I did a couple of years. In that investigation I had found an energy centre in a home that was on top of a table in a living room. Questioning the owners revealed that until recently that position was occupied by a picture of the home owners much loved mother.

Energy Artefact

An Energy Artefact then is an unusual item that is giving off an energetic signature or spiral of energy. For instance, a plant, though it gives of energy spirals, isn’t an artefact. Gwas’s staff also isn’t one. A stone, that is part of a sacred site isn’t one either. But the image of a loved one might be, a bracelet or necklace might be too. On one occasion I was staying in a motel in Michigan, USA and found that the room had an amazingly bad energy resonance. I had dowsed for wat could help me in cleasing the room and the rods took me to my baggage and eventually to a postcard with the image of Lakshmi on it. Here is a link to that nightmare room experience. Since that time I have come across many other Energy Artefacts such as the photograph of a ladies mother, hanging on a wall and on another occasion on a small table. These were rather good energy producing artefacts. I have encountered a few bad ones too. Stories for another day.

My point in beginning this conversation is that Energy Artefacts don’t have to be sacred stones in some distant vale. They can and do exist in the most ordinary of places. I’ll continue on this conversation after I’ve spent some time learning more about object de energetic.

Kal Malik – exploring the unknown

In this final part of my Spring Equinox story I reveal the reasons why I had been linking the four elemental sites around Llangollen. I am also shown why this link was important, and how it relates to my work with the energy form of Galahad this year.

Ffynon Sara

Only a few miles from the edges of Clocaenog Forest is the beautiful secluded site of Sara’s Spring. The Sara in question may well be the Patron Saint of Laughter that Kal talked about after he visited the site. This day I wasn’t interested in discovering more about the energy form at the site, only to come with questions that needed urgent answers.

I began by offering an energetic gift. I placed incense all around the spring’s rectangular wall and then offered all of the story of my day and my quest for this part of the year. This was offered through my heart chakra, freely and with love. I hoped that this energy would be sufficient as an exchange for what I was about to ask.

I used the dowsing rods to confirm whether I could, should and may ask these questions here. Luckily the answers were all a positive and the feeling generally was that I should finally get some answers to my puzzling quest after such hard work this day.

Q. What was the purpose of linking the four sacred sites around Corwen?

In answer I was shown the white shield in the stone that I had energised in Valle Crucis Abbey. With that image came the following explanation:

The White Shield of Galahad is emblazoned by a red cross. The shield shape is formed by the four sites. The cross shape is formed by drawing links between them. I needed to have that symbol in my head as an elemental cross so that I could emblazon it on the shield that I had acquired from Valle Crucis. Without that emblem the shield would not be at full strength.

Sara’s sacred spring – a place of inspiration

“…at full strength”. That was an unusual phrase that I would try to deconstruct later. For now, I wanted to know more about the rituals at the four sites.

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In the fourth part of this Spring Equinox story I visit a new stone circle (or two), working with the energies and completing the sigil shape that I had been tracing in the Llangollen landscape.

Bryn Beddau cairn circle

Hidden in the murky depths of the Clocaenog Forest are two small cairn circles. One or maybe both of them are named Bryn Beddau. It’s difficult to tell from the Megalithic Portal article, because it shows both of them in the same description. They are very close to each other, though. One is accessible from one of the many compacted gravel forest roads, whereas the other is further inside the forest, accessible from a path linked to the first circle.

I was grateful that I had Ordnance Survey GPS and maps on my phone. Without that it would have been hard going. As it was I found the sites pretty easily, but first I had to traverse along the “new straight tracks” that Alfred Watkins would surely not have approved of. These long straight roads were not good for retaining energy! It was an effort not to lose all the energy I had gained so far while walking these uninspiring grey roads that vanished into the distance, then turned 90 degrees to get anywhere. A kind of Roman efficiency. I walked with a rapid stride and a musical rhythm.

Occasionally a scene of beauty emerged by the roadside as snow dripped from coniferous branches, water languished in near static pools and tall trees braced against the cold air. The only sounds were the occasional movement of birds in the treetops, signalling my presence to each other.

The first circle I discovered by treading carefully down a deeply rutted track that veered off at an angle from a junction of two forest roads. I was glad to get into the trees and off the grey gravel road. After only thirty feet of careful walking a clearing opened up and I got my first sight of a new circle in ages.

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