The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘alignment’

I recently found occasion to purchase some crystals. I was generally shopping during a week off and found myself in a new crystal shop that had appeared in my nearest large town. For no reason I could determine I bought two Fire Agate crystals, and two Black Tourmalines. When I got them home I put them in the sun and then began to carry them around with me until I felt they were used to me. Finally I felt ready to take a look to see what people said about the qualities of these crystals, knowing full well that they might mean something different to me, yet it was a starting point. In this instance it turns out that common consensus was accurate : both crystals are associated with protection in a psychic/energetic sense – and that was exactly what I had been informed I should spend time working on, both in meditation and in practise (see this post for a prime example).

So, as part of my “Make Magick Manifest” Manifesto for this time of the year, I present the questions I went through to determine how to use these crystals to set up protection for myself once I had discovered and verified that these specific crystals could be used for that purpose. Maybe they will help you find out how to best set up such protection for yourself. Remember – all these steps are specific to me. You may have to adapt the particulars to your own circumstances, e.g. different crystals, different formation, different alignments, etc. Nevertheless, there are some interesting general points that emerged that I think will prove useful to everyone involved in energetic work and who are considering the concept of protection from unwanted interference in that work.

1. Is it necessary for me to use crystals to protect myself from energetic interference during work?
NO. They help to focus and increase the focus, to make it easier to work.

2. How many crystals provide sufficient protection in all possible interference circumstances?
Five.

3. Which type of crystals (that I own) are best suited to this task FOR ME?
Fire Agate x 2, Black Tourmaline x 2, Pillar of Quartz x 1.

4. Which positions should the crystals be located?
Kite shape – agates and quartz pointing at the star Sirius, tourmalines on either flank to them. NOTE: I am investigating why Sirius is important to this alignment of crystals. According to the dowsing rods it is an essential component!

5. Will this formation allow the entry of energies that I expressly give permission to? YES

6. Can I create this same level of protection with will power alone? YES.

7. Once I have intended a protection shell, do I need to mentally maintain it? NO

8. Will trying to maintain a thought of it deplete my energy reserves? YES

9. How long can I currently maintain a mental block against the strongest forms of unbidden energy interference?
One month.

Pillar of quartz

10. Will quartz boost the power / strength / increase the time for the shield?
Crystals generally will improve the performance of the protective energy field, but quartz specifically would increase duration of the field and the types of energies that I could deflect or protect against.

11. Can I simply dismiss the shield mentally in order to remove traces of its creation?
If crystals are used then wash the crystals, otherwise simply imagine that the field is gone.

12. Can particular trees offer the same protection?
All trees can offer protection. The shape of a tree’s leaf creates the shape of the protection field around you. Imagine the leaf shape to link to tree’s inherent protection capabilities. This can occur even if the tree has no leaves because what you are connecting to is the tree’s innate conception of its leaf shape. NOTE: this is such an interesting discovery that I am going to come back to this at some point in another post.

13. What about stone circles / barrows / other man-made structures?
No man-made structures can offer this psychic protection by their structure or qualities. Note: I found this answer very surprising, and will be testing it out whenever I visit any man-made sites in the near future.

14. Do I need to set up energetic protection around my nemeton? YES

15. Can this protection be made to last a lifetime?
Yes, but you can’t do it alone. The energy of a more powerful being would be required to co-operate with that.

That was as far as I felt I needed to go at this time to understand how to set up a protection against unwanted energetic influences. If nothing else that should give you some idea of the possible, the practical and the perplexing! The most important finding, I felt, was that this could all be done mentally, and that no external paraphernalia is actually required to make this happen. However, crystals can enhance the effects and make it easier to set up, even though they have to be aligned to a specific place (in my case Sirius!). Time for some more investigation!

Gwas.

This is the third part of the story of my recent pil;grimage to Glastonbury. “Pilgrimage” – that’s what I’m calling these visits because that’s how I feel about them – they are modern-day pilgrimages to a “site of special spiritual interest”, to adopt and mutate the SSSI designation. Glastonbury itself recognises this and has a Pilgrimage Centre where people can go to get information about places to visit and what’s on – sort of like a Tourist Information Centre for Seekers.

So, in the last parts I told you how I sloughed off the energetic attachment of a trickster spirit, got a surprise at a crop circle, then took two trips up the Tor trying to totally tune my tantra. That’s not strictly accurate, but it was the only synonym I could find that was alliterative! I was in the process of working on my heart chakra – the chakra os assimilation, integration, love, emotion and…well, here’s what one site says:

“According to contemporary buddhist teacher Tarthang Tulku, the heart chakra is very important for the feeling of existential fulfillment” (source: Sensagent Dictionary)

‘Existential fulfillment’, huh? Well, I’m pretty fulfilled in that respect, being a trainee druid. So, the day before I had watched the sun set on the horizon from The Tor and this morning I set out with Kal to see where I would end up. There were no plans except a starting point – them’s the rules. Our starting point this day would be the “entrance portals” that are the Gog and Magog trees (now sadly, only one remains).

Guardians of The Entrance: Gog and Magog

No time was wasted this morning – we knew, after last year’s visit, exactly how to get to the trees. It was early (i.e. before tour buses arrived) so all was quiet, even on the campsite next to the ancient oaks. Kal hovered around outside while I clambered into the nettle-strewn glade that forms a triangular cordon around the trees. I was taken aback at how much the first tree (Gog apparently) had paled and depreciated in the last year since she had been burned on the inside by some ardent “worshipper” and his zealous candle. I’m sure there were vestiges of life last year. This year he was totally barren and crumbling fast. It was quite dis-heartening to see.

The legendary and dead Gog Oak tree

Luckily, although I felt the waves of trauma and sadness coming from his partner Magog, she was in decent health. In her hollow I placed the two things I possessed that had a healing energy: a special slice of rose-coloured crystal that I had been given as a gift specifically to use for heart chakra work, and my ash staff. How the giver of this crystal had known I was going to do such work is beyond me, but that’s another story. Alongside the crystal I put my staff in the bole too. I placed my hands on the gnarled bark of the tree and, after the waves of anguish had ebbed away I put some loving energy into the tree. She was clearly pining (or is it “oaking”?), and it seemed like the only thing I could do that wasn’t a selfish act. I wasn’t here to take this time – I was here to give.

Three is a magic number

Oh yes it is. Good things come in trees {sic} so having passed between the trees as a starting point to my morning’s processional way I rejoined Kal and we headed up the slope towards the ever-present Tor in the distance. This would be the third time in two days we would climb the Tor, and each time the energies, the feelings and the results were different. Today was no exception.

The climb up the Tor was straightforward, although again, I felt the need to do it in bare feet. Again, we went up the quick way, up the steepest slope at the ‘back’ of the Tor. Once on top Kal went off doing his stuff, dowsing and meditating for his own ends. I dowsed to find the best place for me to work with my heart chakra energies, and to commune with the Spirit of the Tor to know what I should do for the next part of the year’s cycle. This was my intention this morning – no messing about! Straight to the ‘heart’ of the matter!

It was only a matter of a few minutes before things began to happen. I had stilled myself, then sent my attention deep into the Tor and outwards up into the skies above, creating a channel between the two. I felt a deep rumbling from within the depths of the Tor! It was only slight, but it was palpable. Something was stirring! Was it within me, or within the earth? What was it that was awakening? Through my deep connection I felt the urge to stand and move to the doorway of St.Michael’s Tower – the building on the Tor’s summit. I was standing now in the Michael and Mary Line, the Great Dragon Line, the strongest ley line int he country that runs across this land’s southern width from one end to the other. My eyes glazed, and suddenly I saw a vision…

The Dragon Hill Vision

…The archway of the building framed Wearyall Hill in the town below. As my attention was placed upon it I saw that it was the shape of a sleeping dragon. I could make out a head curled in, folded wings on its flanks, and a tail snaking out and around the back of the hill. As I watched, an overlay, a transparent copy of the dragon woke and looked up at me. With a snort it unfolded its wings, stretched and then looked at me again as if waiting for an instruction. I wondered what to do…then I realised. It wanted to fly but had forgotten how, after such a long sleep. I sent back the instruction to it in my mind – “Fly!” I said, “Fly!”. The dragon vision lifted its neck, looked upwards, and then beat its huge wings until it raised itself off the ground.

Cultural images abound - e.g. Smaug

Once airborne it circled quickly around Wearyall Hill, still visible in front of me, and spiralled upwards and towards me. As the great red dragon flew over my head it disappeared. So authentic was this vision that I knew to be a vision, that for a moment I blinked in case it flew into me….then it was gone. There was no dragon now. Wearyall Hill was just a hill.

View of Wearyall 'Dragon' Hill through the tower

I understood, in a way that only true gnosis can reveal, what it was I needed to do for the next eighth part of the year. I needed to “wake the dragon” – whatever that turned out to mean. I had to wake it, then teach it how to fly, because it had been sleeping for so long it had forgotten. Straight away I was getting linkages coming through from my reading and learning: red dragon -> serpent -> male earth energy -> serpent fire -> kundalini -> ‘raising the serpent fire’ -> a hill -> flying -> shamanic flying -> raising consciousness…. the connections kept coming. It would take me a few weeks to contemplate what this might mean exactly for me, but the direction was clear and more powerful than ever before.

I thought that was the most revelatory thing that could have happened to me that day and I was content to know my direction, but the best was yet to come. We descended the hill and headed for the quiet contemplation space that is the Chalice Well Gardens. That was where the pilgrimage was truly fulfilled!

Gwas.

Sam Hill – it’s nearly Samhain!

The original Celtic New Year begins on the night of the Full Moon closest to October 31st and November 1st. This year that will be Monday 2nd November. It is the time when the Summer was overcome by the Winter – often played out as the Solar Hero being overcome by a Dark Knight (see Mummer Plays).

This time sees the beginning of the Dark Half of the Year – a festival honouring the dead, and importantly forming a link between the energies of those who have been before us, and those of us here now. Samhain is a gateway between the worlds of the Otherworld and the Middle Earth, and becomes passable by the denizens of either world – the “veil becomes thin” as some describe it. It is therefore an opportunity to commune or communicate with forces in a much stronger and clearer way that at other times.

There is lots of miscellaneous information about various customs relating to this time of year, old and new, to be found here.

Playing with Fire

Samhain is a Celtic fire festival, so inevitably one should look for a sacred site or grove that will enable you to have a fire without causing a disturbance, if you plan to celebrate it in style. Leave the fireworks for the sham that is “Guy Fawkes Night” though!

This being a fire festival means an opportunity to obtain the co-operation of a fire spirit if you do not already have such a relationship. This will promote change in your life and ways, so you need to know if this is what you want, or make adequate protection against inadvertant change being wrought through your life by a rampant fire spirit!

Samhain is a time of feasting on the profits of the year – whether that be literal feasting on food, or consuming the fruits of our labours and learnings over the profitable summer months. It is a time to gather in the rewards of your experiences, reflect upon them, and begin the process of working them into your life over the Winter months to come, ready for the next Spring.

Energetically we see the male earth energies, and those living energies produced by the trees, begin to retreat back into the earth, their influence waning. The celebration of the rising female energy influence is encapsulated in the celebration’s coincidence with the full moon.

You’re My Venus

Astrologically, Venus is appearing in the mornings. Jupiter and Mars are also in attendance over Samhain. Other major planets such as Mercury and Saturn have significantly disappeared from the northern hemisphere just before Samhain.

I’m looking forward to visiting a sacred site that is out of the way, and which is associated with Venus and the sacred number five. Last year none of that would have made any sense – this year I have learned that such specifics will mean that I am at a site that is energetically at its peak, and full of magical possibilities for me.

Enjoy your Samhain celebrations, whatever you do!

Gwas Myrddyn.

Hedge Druid.