The Hedge Druid

Archive for the ‘Quick thought’ Category

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

“Ever Decreasing Circles” was a 1980s comedy series starring the recently demised Richard Briars - a British comedy actor famous for a much better series called “The Good Life“. ”Ever decreasing” was probably an apt description of the series’ viewing figures. It was pretty tame.

Ever-decreasing circles – not funny

Psychic Mike and I have been getting closer and closer in terms of when we send e-mails to each other unaware that the other has done so. Bearing in mind he’s offline for most of the time, and doesn’t sit there connected all day, the fact that we e-mail on the same day even is quite an odd phenomenon. The timing between when we “think of each other” has been going in ever-decreasing circles.

Today Mike and I hit the central point in that spiral. We sent e-mails to each other at exactly the same time. We hadn’t mailed each other in a month, but chose exactly the same moment to send e-mails! Within seconds of each other! I thought the synchronicity between the Richard Briers thing and our event was amusing. More amusing than Ever Decreasing Circles!

The other day I was around at a friend’s house and was mentioning that I had a ghost/haunting investigation coming up (stay tuned). She was fascinated and as was inevitable she immediately wanted me to dowse her home.

Wanting to do something different and gain some more knowledge about energies in the home, one of the questions I began with was…

Are there any power objects in this house?

In the past I have stumbled upon power objects whilst doing other work so on this occasion I thought I would take the bull by the horns. The dowsing rods lead me around the house and then to a table in the lobby. It had a draw in it and I asked whether I could look in it. Yes, was the answer so I mused over the contents of the draw and finally (with the help of the rods) settled on a set of keys on a chain. I asked whether it was a particular key and one of them was indicated. My friend (getting a bit bored) had wandered back to the living room and I joined her sans keys.

What’s this key for I asked, she looked up and said it was for the front door. Curious. Was this key a power object I double confirmed? Yes, yes.  Because it is the key to the home? Yes. My intuition kicked in and I asked whether having this key in my hand would give me power in the house? No. But…yes…if the owner gave me the key.

It’s funny how some things of legend have a basis in energetic reality. Although we can cross thresholds (the entrance into a persons demesne) but we lose significant energetic capability in doing so uninvited like vampire legends of old. Thus being invited into a person’s home is important when going to do energetic work and that invitation has to be explicit.

For example I was invited into my friend house i.e. she opened the door and I walked in behind her. I asked the rods whether my magic would be more potent if she specifically invited me in? Yes. By how much – 30/40%

Now, that’s a big percentage to say the least. But watch this. How much would it improve by if she explicitly gave me the key to the house? 70% Wow! That was a power object indeed! It seems to me that by giving me the key she was tantamount to giving me the threshold of her home. Was this the case? Yes, said the rods.

My conclusion for the moment is that having the threshold of a home gives one greater accuracy with dowsing and greater power to invoke energetic change in the house. Fascinating!

Kal Malik

Footsteps in the Sky

Potentially, it was the night of power (in Arabic, Laylat al-Qadr) and I was sat with a group of Sufi mystics. It was around 2 a.m. and the topic turned to the mysteries. The discussion turned to another night of significance in the Islamic calendar Lailat al Miraj (or the night of the ladder or ascension).

It is a fascinating account of the Islamic prophet Muhammad’s journey from the Mosque of al-Haram in Mecca Saudia Arabia to (the first stop) the Mosque of Al Aqsa (the furthest mosque) which, in Judaism is the holiest of holy places, the Temple of the Mount and then onward and upward to the seat of Allah (denoted by a tree, Sidrat al-Muntaha, where even Angels are forbidden to tread).

Curious how such faiths are connected in profoundly sacred (site) ways and yet divisive in the people of the faiths.

The conversation around the gathered mystics was concerning the path that the Prophets mystical (quite literally, heavenly) mount had taken on its journey heavenward. It is said that the Milkyway was formed from the wake of his journey. I found it amusing that this gathering was considering the part of the tale that no one bothers with i.e.

• How can it be that the Milkyway. which is basically our view towards the centre of our own galaxy and hence why the stars are brightest and so must have been in existence (and indeed visible) prior to the Prophets journey be the wake of a journey that took place a mere 1400 or so years ago?
• Rather than the mystical connotations of a journey into other dimensions (as I see it) that brought knowledge and illumination?

Just goes to show you, what strange puzzles occupy strange minds. As I listened to talk unfold I began to understand the deeper purpose for this discussion. The core was directed at a central paradox. How can reconcile the evidence of the physical with the belief of the divinely inspired?

In this blog we have on many occasions encountered this very same paradox which is encapsulated by the question, Is what we experienced really real? Or is it just our over active imagination? What we do throughout our experiences is to take the something from the real world and turn it into something magical via our perception.

It reminds me of a paragraph from Carlos Castaneda’s adventures…Carlos’s tutor Don Juan was telling his apprentice of the ability of Shamans to vanish or transform into animals at will. Carlos (with whom I am relating too often lately) asks his inevitable western rational question, “If the Shaman was in the middle of Mexico City on a busy Saturday, what would the people see when he transformed?” I’m laughing as I type this because I have the experiential answer. Often I look across at Gwas when he is in the midst of his work and see him sat motionless, head bowed, on a rock. Then he returns from his journey to reveal gems of experience and insight. Yet, surely he was just sat on a rock?

What is it to be then? Is the Milkyway the remnants of a prophetic journey or the densely populated stellar centre of our universal home?

When I am sat with a group of mystics on a clear star filled night it is the wake of a heavenly beast. When I sat looking through the powerful lense of an astronomical observatory, then it is a stellar marvel.

Kal Malik – squaring the paradox

Signs and Portents

On the nature of signs and portents

I have a pot in which I put things that I am certain of, there is a lot of spare room in it. One thing that I am convinced of is that it is our busyness that is our energetic downfall and our spiritual darkness. Wow! That’s a powerful conclusion to draw isn’t it? But I stand by it. As you know, if you follow my exploits herein, I am a great follower of signs. I used to believe that we attracted signs because of our energetic alignment. Thus the more aligned we were the more signs would come our way. Funny, because I still do believe that, however I make a very curious distinction (or set of distinctions).

Before I go into it, I want to be excused. The discussion below is just my humble view. It is not meant to persuade you to my way of thinking or to detract you from your own personal view on these matters. What I am doing is describing my understanding of things, that’s all.

The essence of my distinction is this, we have many sources of sign type information. However what I understand is that there are three main categories (oooh don’t you just hate it when people categorise stuff?) These categories are:

• Our Energetic Self (until now known as our higher self, a term that I have come to dispute)
• Our spirit (whatever that maybe, but for me it isn’t our higher/energetic self)

Hang on though, that’s only two. Yes it is. What I say is that our Energetic Self can provide us with intuitive knowledge or it can be an access point for other worldly beings to give us knowledge.

I’ll talk about Spiritual Guidance in another post (not that it matters, in my humble opinion, Spirit is a deeply personal affair and your own faith about it is much more precedent than my views, which after all are only my views).

Anyway, whether it is our personal Energetic intuition, other worldly guidance or spiritual guidance the obstacle remains the same. In Castaneda’s view of things it was our self-talk that was the ultimate culprit and the practice which stifled our genius (spirit). I don’t dispute it. However the journey to mastering our monkey chatter begins with a practice of stepping (as oppose to stopping) out of the busy world.

I was asked recently by a blog reader, on many occasions, you go out into the wilds with Gwas and it is he that is on some purpose whereas for you it is a case of just be how come you do that? Seriously? Surely the depth of friendship between Gwas and I is sufficient an answer? If not, then I will let you into a secret. Creating a habit of stepping out of the busy world and into nature is one of the best things you can do to get access to the constant signs and portents that the universe in one form or another is laying before your feet.

It isn’t that signs are more readily found in nature (after all isn’t everything nature?) it is more the case that stepping into nature gives us the clarity and emptiness to see signs wherever we are.

Other activities that support our access to the perception of signs is meditation, keeping a journal of what has happened (this blog forms a good one for Gwas and I, with all that has been said here we would be hypocritical in the extreme if we claimed that signs are non-existent). Listening is another.

It is completely unsurprising to me that the 5th and 6th energy centres are empowered by listening and silence, respectively (among other things).

“The catalyst for understanding is listening, the catalyst for perception is silence” Kal Malik Active Enlightenment

Am I leading somewhere with this post? Yes, This, if you like is an introduction to a few posts with regards to a recent night that I spent with some Sufi Mystics. The meeting between us occurred through some serendipitous events and I feel not in some small part to a cohesion of several disparate (and yet not so) parts. Are you curious? Stay tuned.

Kal Malik

Ace of Cups

I was visiting with an old friend of mine when she asked whether I had my Tarot cards with me. She had recalled that I had been an itinerant Tarot reader and wanted me to do a reading for her. Alas, I told her I hadn’t got the cards with me when she said, “why don’t you do a reading without them?”

I gave her a confused look and she related a short story. She had been at a gathering a few weeks ago when the organiser had a lady to read her tea leaves. Unfortunately they had no tea to drain the leaves from when the organiser suggested that she do it without the leaves. “How does that work?” the lady had asked and the organiser had responded by asking the question. Do you really need the leaves? Or are they a permission slip for you to be able to access your gift?

What an interesting concept and one that isn’t new in this blog. How many times have Gwas, I and readers (notably Liz) suggested that we lay aside our dowsing rods. Surely they provide a good analogy for a permission slip, don’t they? We have of course on occasion laid them down, however we still don’t leave the car without them.

Returning back to my friend and her request for a Tarot reading. I said, why not? I was game to see if anything useful comes from it. So I took an imaginary deck from my pocket and asked her to shuffle it whilst holding he question to mind. She did so and I took it back from her and laid out three cards…

1. Ace of Cups
2. Three of Cups
3. Judgment

I let my intuition interact with the drawn cards and gave her a reading. I was quite surprised when it correlated highly with what her question was. Indeed all 3 cards not only hit home but the words that I used to describe their impact also had synchronous overtones with my friend.

After I had left my friend I thought about the reading process and what it meant. Of course the cards create a random (or not) element to the result and then the reader brings his/her intuition into the mix. So why not have a random imagined set of cards that are drawn? After all I didn’t ask my friend about her question until the cards had been drawn. In any case, it was a fascinating little experiment and brought about another consideration.

What are you needing a permission slip for before you act?

Kal Malik

This short post is motivated by the incessant occurrence of a single topic of conversation related to the British people’s favourite subject: the weather. One of the popular topics amongst those who fail to keep track of life is the wail against the weather spouting from every mouth like some Romanesque fountain figure: “Why is it so wet this summer? Isn’t it awful?”

To understand why it is so wet do we need do no more than cast our minds back to the end of the last summer. In the middle of 2011 the weather was pretty awful too – June and July were very wet, but then things began to clear up and from then on – for almost six months until the middle of May 2012 – we have unseasonably dry weather. Remember? We weren’t snowed in. There wasn’t endless rain through the Winter. There were no Autumn storms. It was calm, placid, and particularly and peculiarly dry.

Looks at the pretty grey clouds – ah, summer!

Then, in early Spring, we had news reports where farmers and Water Board representatives were being interviewed about how they feared crop failure this year because the water table was so low. Reservoirs were almost drained. Water Boards put a hose-pipe ban in place at an unprecedented time of the year – normally they don’t issue restrictions unless there’s a particularly dry June and July.

Then we got to the middle of May and the rains came. And they didn’t stop! We have had almost two months of solid, strong, huge downpours of rain. Constant rain. Never-ending rain.We’re sick of the sight of grey clouds.

Yet, when we come to complain about this spoiling this event, or postponing that one; when we hear of floods in low-lying regions and flood plain housing estates; when we wonder whether we ought to take up foreign holidays again just as we were getting used to holidays in this land….let’s remember that to truly balance things out we should have another four months of rain. I don’t think that’s going to happen, but we ought to count our rain-soaked drowning blessings!

It’s not awful – it’s Britain re-balancing.

Gwas.