The Hedge Druid

Archive for the ‘Natural Magick’ Category

This is the first of a few posts telling you about my trip to the beautiful county of Nottingham. You may remember that I had dowsed using rods and map to find a location in which I could spend a few days of peace and quiet. The dowsing rods had done me a good turn. Hold on - I must stop saying it’s the rods themselves. The rods are an extension of an interaction between myself and my guiding spirits, with whom I have forged a psychic relationship. There. That’s better. Now you understand how I view this dowsing activity.

Before going to Creswell Crags I decided to have a relaxing walk in a forest that the landlady of my hotel had recommended – Clumber Park. Dowsing had suggested that I should be at Creswell Crags closer to midday, rather than in the morning. Clumber Park was very close by, so it was no bother to go visit it. I found it easily, and it was free to enter and to park when I got there (although there is usually a charge).

Clumber Park is a National Trust estate and so is consequently well organised and well kept. It was my intention simply to wander around for a while to acclimatise to the energies of the place, and to breathe in the warm late Winter fresh air – clear out my lungs and enliven the blood.

The estate is large, and once I had found the car park I began to wander around, feeling for a direction to walk in. The spire of the church nearby pulled me towards it. One of the signs promised peacefulness and this drew me in. The chapel was impressive from the outside – much bigger than you would expect for a chapel that must have served a s very small congregation. Interestingly, its dedication was to “Our Lady“. An indication to me that it was hedging its bets as to whether that was Mary or some other natural female deity.

I couldn’t dowse around inside because the building was closed for Winter refurbishment, but the surrounding trees made me feel welcome anyway, and I wandered off towards the stretched-out lake to watch the swans taking off and landing. The swans’ wings made the oddest rhythmic sound which captivated me for many minutes. Oh, the luxury of time – time enough to let oneself fall into the arms of Nature to feel her heart beating!

The Chapel of Our Lady, Clumber Park

Peach of a Beech

As I wandered away from the lakeside something made itself known to me and I began to walk in the direction of the ‘tug’ – the mental feeling that something was calling to me. Within minutes I was walking up a small mound of shrubs and trees to discover a huge beech tree on the top of the rise. I wasn’t surprised, but instead delighted.

I spent a few minutes in meditation with the tree, and asked how we might interact together. My suggestion was to rebalance my chakras using the tree’s helpful energies, in return for me providing the tree with as much growth energy as I could muster. I set to work generating some energy from a combination of my heart and sacral chakras and provided them to the tree’s roots. In return I felt the tree go to work on my aura, and after it had finished I felt rather good. This might be a useful preparation for things to come later, I thought to myself.

As I said my thanks to the tree, I heard in my mind “Good work, young Druid“. That was a nice touch. Young? Not how I would describe myself, but relative to the tree I suppose I was. And in terms of my druid knowledge – certainly in my youth there.

I was now feeling balanced and prepared for the day ahead. I seemed to have all the energy I could need. The recovery process was off to a great start. Now it was time to visit the caves at the crags and an unexpected meeting with an Earth Spirit, which I will report in my next post.

Gwas.

The year has only just started and already I am way out of line with my posts and the dates upon which the action took place. I fear this year is going to be SO busy that we are going to have to start posting smaller and faster just to keep up. In this post I revisit the Llangernyw Yew tree that is the starting point for many of my previous years’ quests and adventures. This year was no exception. This episode occurred in late January, before Imbolc. Yes, we have all the Imbolc posts still to come! So much to tell you about already this year. On to this story.

It is a philosophical point as to whether the tree really communicates with the druid. Perhaps its still nature and deep-rootedness simply allow you to go deep within yourself and find a small reflection of your own wishes that are then brought out to serve as an inspiration for the elaboration that is to come? Certainly, that is often how it appears, yet there is always something that you never actually know yourself, something that you couldn’t have known, something that surprises you and this element is the unquestioning influence of the yew tree itself. It is for this reason that I visit the tree so often, and always at the start of the year. The yew tree starts the year, offering me its guidance on the theme of my work for the coming turn of The Wheel.

The massive Llangernyw Yew tree

Kal and I split up as usual, he going off to tour the graveyard briefly before settling into his own meditations around the tree, whilst I got straight to work beneath the mighty ancient yew. The weather was cold, but crisp and the sun was shining which made the day feel warmer than it should have been at that time of year. The yew tree would normally have been subdued by a biting frost and a layer of snow in January, but instead it felt ready to burst back into life as though Spring were upon us, even though Spring was still two full months away.

I settled into a meditation after dowsing for the best place to work from, and a direction to face – into the Sun, unusually. Little did I know that this would become a recurring theme for this year, as I will show in later posts. Within minutes I was deep inside the yew tree after setting up protection and doing my grounding and centring visualisations. They came easily, and the yew responded with a warm and deep hum like the clearing of an ancient throat at length. In humility I directed a question, a thought-idea at the yew and hoped for a response: “What is my direction for this year?” I asked. Deep quiet. Long silence. Then a stirring, and a word moving up from the depths of the roots into my consciousness: “Renown”. Just that one word!

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Welcoming Nine Stones Close

This post is preceded by Part One (A Call to the Nine Ladies) and Part Two (Doll Tor and the Hidden Gem).

A trip to Derbyshire isn’t complete without visiting the fabulous Nine Stones Close sacred site. I have to say that our first visit to this site wasn’t promising. We had felt that the energies were strong there but not aligned with us. We were young, we were foolish, we were unrecognising the beautiful but ill Oak tree in the adjacent (but close) field.

Fortunately we have learned. Nine Stones is now one of my favourite sites. There I have danced with Pan, healed a so grateful Oaks aura and been blessed with its protection. I owe the site a lot and as I approached it across the muddy fields I knew without communingAn interaction with an invisible and natural sentient force that is independently identifiable, even if it cannot be named or classified. The interaction takes place at the level of a subtle amalgamation of the mind of the perceiver such that a dialogue or transference of feelings may occur between the two sentient parties. The interaction that is ‘communing’ is purposefully initiated by the perceiver for the express purpose of learning or simply to transfer feelings in a sympathetic manner. that it was shouting a tally-ho across the fields. I know sounds like a lot of hubris, but in some cases, I am sorry guys, you just have to be there. Experiences are visceral.

This was the third sacred site that I visited and I felt I was on a wonderful role. With my meeting the Maori spirit singer at nine ladies, the energised Lapis at Doll Tor and now the welcoming nine stones close. Okay I was up to my ankles in mud, but hey, the sun had broken through the clouds and I was joyous.

Propping my bag on the stone wall between the tree and the stones I did some preliminary dowsing…

• Was the Oak healthy? Yes. Good, that Oak is my friend.
• Was there any work for me to do at the site? Yes.
• Did the site need any healing? No. Good, since Gwas the Earth healer was absent.
• Was the work on myself? Yes.
• Did I need to meditate? No. O Okay.
• Did I need to visualise? Yes. Ah…er…what’s the difference?
• Did I need anything? Yes.

I asked to be taken to what I needed and was led to my bag. I opened the bag, which alas has so much clutter in it, it would make a Feng Shui practitioner scream. Anyway I asked which section of the bag I needed to look and was after a few more questions pointed at a folder of notes.

Side note: Having progressed along the path of getting my book published by Hay House (see Kals 3 Goals) I am in the process or rather beginning the process of creating an audio/visual version of it (Active Enlightenment). To that end I have been failing miserably at trying to order the book in accordance with its new form. The notes for this was contained in tha bove mentioned folder.

I have a theory, please let me know what you think in the comments. My theory is that if something is playing on your mind then dowsing and communing and visiting of sacred sites will take this obsessing into account in its direction – sometimes. What do you think? Why are we directed/guided as we are? For instance, what the heck is the Knights Quest all about? Would love your thoughts on this.

The beginning

And so I have been playing with this content for the last 3 weeks in attempt to bring order to chaos. Now, here I am with this pile of notes, in a muddy field, with four huge rocks in it. Question time…

• Are these notes what I am being directed at? Yes.
• Am I to read them to find what I am looking for? No
• Is it the notes as a whole? Yes.
• Should I do a visualisation on them? Yes

Okay, first thing is that there were a lot of questions – that in honesty I feel foolish in repeating, so I wont, secondly. I had no idea what “visualise on them” meant. The best I could manage was to sit on the stone wall under the oak facing the circle and look through my notes. And then it happened…

As I leafed through the notes, looking at all the permutations that the topics could go in, I saw what was needed. Not only did I see this but also the music from the Maori singer came to mind. She hadn’t been singing in a rhythm that went fast at all. She had been singing in a spiral. It was so clear that I saw the image float in 3D space in front of me. With the image came an unblocking, as if the mental gates had opened and the process could run freely. Honestly, I cried.

My purpose for the next few weeks is to create that vision,

Kal Malik

• Do you follow your dreams?
  

  Nine Ladies Sacred Site

The other night I was sleeping like a babe in arms when I awoke suddenly and was fortunate enough to recall the dream I was having. It was set in the (semi) wilds of Derbyshire at a sacred that many of you will now be familiar with, the Nine Ladies.

Was this a call to visit that site? Or just a reordering of my subconscious thoughts? I was after all reading through some of our exploits on this blog. Since I have just finished reading Dowsing by Elizabeth Brown (who keeps a set of rods in her handbag), I decided to grab the rods (yes, in the middle of the night, with eyes half awake) and ask…

• Was that dream an indicator to go to the nine ladies sacred site? Yes
• Should I go now (3:40a.m.) No. (In honesty I wouldn’t have gone at that time, but it would have been nice to know I was missing some opportunity).
• Should I go during the coming day? Yes.
• Was this because Imbolc had come early for me? No.
• Was there something for me to learn there? Yes.
• Was today the only time I could learn this? Yes.
• On a scale of 1-10 how valuable would this knowledge be? 9! Wow!
• Just as a comparison, what scale was last years Knights Quest be, relatively speaking? 23!

As it happened the next day was free and so I toodled off towards them there hills…As I drove the one and a half hours I wondered if I would encounter any of the spritely beings that Gwas had encountered upon his last visit. I have not had the fortune of having such a spirit infested experience but am game to frolic some (as Pan would testify I hope).

Nine Ladies

I arrived at the site with my usual wet feet (no rain but plenty of dew) and asked for permission to enter. Now I know what you’re thinking. Which alien has kidnapped Kal and could we have the sacred-site disrespecting fellow back please! But as my research, some of it which has filtered onto this blog, is showing me Thresholds are important.

• A quick note. I am currently in the middle of writing an eBook on Thresholds coming this summer.

Thus you find me connecting with the Genius LociGenius Loci means 'spirit of the place' and refers to the geological/gaian spirit of place. It is transfixed to a place – being an embodiment of the collective intelligence of the place. and asking for permission. It was granted instantly and I was my usual self of wandering around the site…letting it know me and me know it (energy-wise). I also nodded to the cantankerous Oak (we have issues) off to one side and meandered over to the King Stone.

All the while I had my senses out for any energies (pixies or anything else) and nothing was sensed. To be frank I think Gwas is so way ahead of me in communingAn interaction with an invisible and natural sentient force that is independently identifiable, even if it cannot be named or classified. The interaction takes place at the level of a subtle amalgamation of the mind of the perceiver such that a dialogue or transference of feelings may occur between the two sentient parties. The interaction that is ‘communing’ is purposefully initiated by the perceiver for the express purpose of learning or simply to transfer feelings in a sympathetic manner. with nature spirits. Anyway I was through the circle in the direction of the king stone when I spotted a lady up by the stone. Being sociable I slowed my walk a bit but continued on. Getting closer I had a shock.

Interlude…a fair few years ago (5 maybe 6) I was with a friend in Borders bookshop in Ellsemere Port. As I walked through the store along the enclaves of books at the back of the shop. My body snapped to a stop, did a double take and reversed passed the enclave I had just passed. Standing in the enclave was the most amazing woman I have ever seen. I’m not saying she was gorgeous or anything. It was that energy literally flowed out of her. In todays parlance I might have said that she was a walking power center of white light. I just stopped in front of her and stared. She didn’t bat an eyelid at this and smiled at me. Eventually I stammered something like, “you are beautiful” and stepped away.

I got the same reaction from this lady at the stone. She was stroking or touching the stone as I approached but boy did she radiate energy. As you may know I have communed with Caileach in the ast but that experience wasn’t as visceral and earthy as this. At that moment, this lady could have been a Goddess. I walked over to her (well the stone), almost in reverence and…was speechless.

• “the energies are warm today aren’t they?” she said. It was frickin freezing, but I acquiesced, “Yes, they are.”
• “I like this place, do you come often?” she asked me, “Perhaps once a season, how about you?”
• “It’s my first time, I’m not from around here”

The conversation continued as we walked around the sacred stones. She was a Maori and was visiting a email-friend in the UK. Interestingly she wouldn’t give her name (I was a trust-worthy person she said as she refused to say her name). I told her that I had had a dream that night and had thus travelled to this sacred site.

• “dreams often show us the start of a journey not its conclusion”

Interesting wisdom, considering Imbolc was approaching. I mentioned this to her, but she said that she was “one with her homeland” and thus it was still the summer “in her eyes”.

 I liked her turn of phrase I have to say and being highly mutable myself you may find such words escaping my lips. Though I don’t think I could replicate the panache (or is it aplomb) with which she spoke. Yes, I was quite captivated with her subtle energy.

She asked whether I was an energy worker and I replied that I was a modest worker (what happened to my ego? Wake up already).  “perhaps we could do some work together?” she asked and I said, what did you have in mind, to which she replied “I sing to energy” . Okay…

I was sat some five feet away from the king stone (her preferred stone to work with) in the direction of the circle and she sat on it. I had dowsed the position once she had intimated that she was going to sit on the king stone. I also dowsed for facing position and got a direction facing the nine ladies.

So, I was sat facing the stones as this Maori lady began to hum a tune. I don’t know what I was expecting. I guess the closest I have come to hearing anything from that neck of the woods is aboriginal twanging type noise. However this lass was letting flow a rhythmic sound. A bit like an angel choir. But whereas with an Angel choir you might have a slow and gentle rhythm, this lasses was quite fast and increased over time. As she sang I felt and saw energy flowing around me and through me down to the circle and then up again along paths that Gwas and I had dowsed on other occasions. It was as if her singing was pushing and pulling the energy around the circuit. Although one might think that this was an unpleasant experience, quite the contrary it was a lovely flow, like catching a warm breeze on a cold day.

We did this for quite sometime and I felt like the flow of energies was washing me clean, energetically speaking. After she was done singing I asked her what and why she had sung like she did. She said she hadn’t. “the earth sung me” Which I took to mean that she sang in harmony with the earth.

I would have loved to have talked to this visitor more but alas for her tempus fugit and so I was left thinking that this experience itself had been a dream. A dream that has left me with a new song to sing.

Kal Malik

In a way you judge someone by the quality of the places that they take you to. Recently I was taken to a place the day before Samhain this year. I had once so nearly visited but somehow circumstances had conspired to make me miss it by only a short distance. Now I had a tour guide with local knowledge. When Mike spoke of the place it was in reverential tones, and the hint was always that it was a magickal place. The kind of place where you may come away with the course of your life taking a slightly tangential turn. He had spoken of the place’s power for change in the way that people who have genuinely experienced life-changing moments do – hushed tones, distant eyes – as though recalling some kind or form of force that the Anglo-Saxon pillar was imbued with.

You are then left with a decision – do I believe the power of this place, or do I have to go test it our for myself? I have to test it, of course! Progress must take its course during the year’s treadmill. Places of power should be visited. The dilemma – who by? Yet the Land can have lessons for everyone, surely. Good or bad. Clever or stupid. If I tell of the place, then I advertise its wonder, and more people probably come. There are some wells near where I live that birthed and died through the advertisement of their miraculous energies, effects and efficacies. However, I will mention the place’s name. What people do with it will reap its own rewards.

Clulow Cross - A truly illuminating place

In a previous post about the nearby Bullstones I had supposed that this had been the magickal stone that Mike’s tales had been centred upon. I was wrong. The description of the surroundings had matched my previous finding exactly, so when Mike and friends had allowed us to follow them up into the Derbyshire moorland and hills I thought I knew exactly where we were going. As we parked and got out of our respective cars the other group appeared to be heading in the wrong direction, until I realised that it was me who had made the mistake. Clulow Cross was down in the field on the Congleton side of Hammerton Knowl, not standing on the other side of the Knowl’s ridge between Wincle and Wilboarclough. This was the pillar remainder of an actual stone cross, not just a place name to locate a hidden monolithic treasure. And hidden it is. Nestled in a clump of middle-aged beech trees, the cross itself is hard to spot until you are within striking distance with an acorn.

An Aside About Access

I have probably pussy-footed and tap-danced around this subject for many years on this blog. Let me state this right out now as an opinion, and then I will attempt to back it up.

I have a right to walk the land. My right. My land. I will walk it. I will be respectful, courteous, kind and gentle as I do so. But I will walk it. It is my, our, everyone’s land.

Anyone who believes they own land needs to consider this perspective – the land has been there before humans as a species were even invented. Once we were invented we were given intellect to allow the development of the concept of custodianship. We are all of us guardians of our own lands, the lands with which we identify in our hearts.

Yes, others may choose to abuse their rights, and those that choose to be discourteous and un-cooperative with the custodians will always exist, but they are a manageable minority who will cause ill-will in whatever environment they find themselves. They are a test of everybody’s patience, and are not exclusive preserve of the irate farmer, or the country estate employee, or the quarry worker, or the member of this and that Trust.

Those who consider themselves to be “land owners” will have to live with their own arrogance on a daily basis. You ought only to encounter it occasionally as you walk these lands. We have a right to roam. We always have. We always will.

So, now that you understand my position and haven’t yet stopped reading in outrage and humph-pah, well, you should read on to find out what magick awaits the pagan who claims the right to roam.

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For several weeks I had been passing by Old Oswestry Hillfort in Shropshire on my travels to Wales and to some of the closer megalithic sites in North Shropshire. Every time I passed it my eye was caught by its level top and the sheer size of it. I loved the sight of its steep front, and wanted to see whether it had any energetic remainders or interesting energy forms in it. One evening I couldn’t contain myself any longer, and I got on my motorbike and rode down to Oswestry on the pretext of giving the bike a bit of a run to charge up the battery. Any excuse!

At the back of my mind I had another agenda too. I had wanted to find out whether I could really make use of The Fitzalan ShadeA shade is the energy body of a human being that has become transfixed at a geographical location. The shade retains many of the qualities of the human that it was attached to (memories, character traits, a level of sentience, movement between places known in life). that I had picked up from Clun Castle the week before (see previous post: Clun Castle and the Shade of the Warlock) – the spirit of a warlock with whom I had negotiated a bargain for knowledge sharing. Now was the time to test this out. Would the arrangement be up to anything at all, or was I wasting my time?

Guinivere’s Touch

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of this story, let me take you on an interesting diversion. As often happens in my unusual life when walking The Shining Path (I give this questing life many names) I go to places that have intuitively called to me. Afterwards when I do my research on the sites I find that they have some link to my spiritual progression that I had not expected. Such was the case with Old Oswestry. To me, it was that hill fort that I kept seeing and which called to me this year (even though I have been passing it for many years now). This year has seen a change in my Arthurian archetype. Last year I was completely bound up in quests for Merlin, culminating with his spirit merging with my own at Dinas Emrys.

This year I have been inextricably woven into the fabric of Arthur’s life – first at Tintagel, then at places such as Arthur’s Cave at Symond’s Yat, then Arthur’s Grave in Pembrokeshire. The sites have been never-ending, each linked to King Arthur and me seemingly destined to visit when my tasks and destinations have been dowsed and plotted on maps. Such has been the course of this year. How intriguing then that when I researched Oswestry Hill Fort I find that it too is strongly linked with the Arthurian myth. More weft for the rich tapestry.

Oswestry: The Welsh name means City of Gogyrfan. According to legend, Gogyrfan was father to Queen Guinevere and therefore father in law to King Arthur. This fort was said to be Guinevere’s birthplace. (source: Oswestry Town Talk)

Ariel view of Oswestry Hillfort

Now I will tell you all about my first usage of the Fitzalan Stone and whether it truly does have magickal properties.

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Although we set off in the early afternoon Kal and I intended to pack as much as we possibly could into our day out in Shropshire. Our intention was to visit one of the few remaining megalithic circles in the county – Kerry Hill, close to the small village of Kerry (or ‘Ceri’, in Welsh). The site is also called Kerry Pole, which is good to know because that is the name of the hill on which it lies.

A signpost for Ceri Wood on Kerry Pole hill

Sadly, most of Shropshire’s megalithic history has been lost to the farmers of many centuries. When you drive through the rolling hills and lush pasture land you can perhaps understand why, yet many of the stone circles now listed as destroyed were in existence within the last hundred years, and we have hardly been on the brink of starvation as a nation at any time during those hundred year. Such a shame we have destroyed our heritage for the sake of a few measly ploughable acres. It can only be greed, ignorance or dis-respect that drove such destruction, none of which is an estimable human quality.

Back to the action. We followed the satellite navigation that brought us to the ‘back’ of the site – in other words we would approach the circle from the top of the hill instead of climbing up to reach it. Having visited before we knew approximately where the circle could be found, which is just as well because there are no signs to guide you, no indicators of any sort, and the stones that constitute the circle are very small making it difficult to spot. As with our first visit we were almost on top of the circle before we spotted it, hidden amid a herd of Herefordshire cattle. From the look on Kal’s face I could tell he was looking at the stocky black cattle and thinking “Bullocks!“.

Being watched at Kerry Hill stone circle

When we had dispersed the cattle we settled into the circle. Kal dowsed as to who was due to do any work here and found that it was for me, this trip. Before I would launch into my work I did some videos of my dowsing the unusual arcing neutral energies that flow from each of the stones into the central stone. The few other circles that remain in Shropshire have similar central stones, however this is the only one that we have found has these arcing energies into the centre.

Next I would prepare myself for interacting with the circle and seeing whether I could learn anything from it.

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