The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘astrology’

My summary of the year could easily take up several posts, but I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to highlight the many important distinct elements that have taken place this year, and then provide links to the posts that illustrate these elements.

On the whole it has been an amazingly packed, dense, active year. If I were to summarise the whole year in one sentence I would say that this year I have ‘come of age’ in my druid work. I have accepted a level of responsibility, been given many new ‘powers’, skills and abilities, and I have seen a startling increase in my use of intuition. There have also been many surprises. I began the year expecting that I would be working with one type of energy which actually turned out to be something else. I have been to many familiar places, and some new ones too. Each time I have been astonished by the power of the experiences I have had.

It has been a truly rewarding and remarkable year for me, and for Kal too, I know, and yet again I couldn’t have done half of the work I do without his enthusiastic and sometimes madcap influence. So pleased to have such a great friend to work alongside.

Here are the main elements of my year, in roughly chronological order:-

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Year of the Dragon.

First there was the dragon vision at Dinas Emrys – a vision of a Dragon at the “Solstice Centre”. This idea led me on a quest to find the dragon energy or spirit form that might exist at the centre of the land, and to do that close to the Summer Solstice. The vision of the dragon at the centre of the land, followed by seeing the dragon sylph in the clouds at Moel Ty Uchaf.

I was then urged to visit Hanger Hill in Sherwood Forest for a second time in the year to find this centre, and there I had a strong vision of the dragon energy covering the whole island. Finally  at the end of the year I would see the sleeping dragon in Spain and wake the fire dragon when I linked the two mounds in Antequera with my friend Mike.

POSTS: The first dragon vision, The second dragon vision, Dinas Emrys red and white dragons, Spread of the Dragon, Hanger Hill, El Torcal, Fire Dragon of Antequera

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Renown

 ”I will be spending the year seeking out sources to increase my personal power“.

That was the prediction I made at the start of the year. How much did that come true? I have certainly felt that I have followed a path that had led to an increase in my personal spiritual power.

Renown has come to the fore in many ways – increased recognition (popularity of the blog), increased personal power (magickal energy), and through research into many historical and mythical figures that are closely linked to my own history.

POSTS: Imbolc, Careg-Y-Big stone and fame, Robin Hood and renown,

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Arthurian Archetypes

This year I expanded the number of Arthurian archetypes that I work with to four. 2010 was a Merlin year, 2011 an Arthur year, and this year has been a Gwalchmai year. I thought it was Merlin at Lud’s Church, but now I realise it was a knight figure and that was Gawain/Gwalchmai.

Time and again I would refer to The Green Man and associate this with Merlin. Looking back I can see that actually this was totally the wrong association. It should have been Gwalchmai all along!

POSTS: Arthurian Archetypes of the Cross, Remote Dreaming at Luds Church, Seeing Like The Hawk, The Hawk and The Dove

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Ancestors

Start of the year was the start of the quest at Vale Crucis. Being directed toward Roscommon, Ireland by the shade of St Duignan. Finding my ancestral home, and its warrior kings. The wonderful and strange encounters in that land. Finally feeling a true link to the land. The rewards of this journey were instructions about how to access ancestor energies that I had received as ‘a download’:

1. The first stage to unlocking the energies is to remember the quest that gained them, especially the moment when they were downloaded into me when I held the Eel Sword at the edge of Lough Key.
2. I should let my mind go free and let it link with the land. It also represents will. Some willpower is required to unlock these energies.
3. Use a feeling of joy to unlock the access to the ancestor energies once linked to the land and mindful of the downloaded energies.

POSTS: Ancestor Tarot Reading, The Burial Site, The Vision, Search for a Sword, The Abbey, The Throne, Forging a Sword, The Battle, The Coronation,

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Influence of the Stars

The link between my energy body and the stars that influence it. It started with Venus, but at the end of the year I was shown other specific stars that form a personal astrology – specific stars that influence some of my emotional traits.

The work came full circle on that subject. I now understand the very personal nature of astrology and its energetic effects.

POSTS: New dimension to stargazing

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Predictions for crop circles

I predicted that this year would see the last of the “real” circles. Was this true? Perhaps only next year will tell for sure.

Certainly it has been an incredibly poor year for circles to say the least. People put that down to the amount of rain. I don’t know what caused it – but oddly I felt a compulsion to predict it at the beginning of the year. The quality of the circles was astonishingly poor – I felt like most of them were clear and obvious man-made circles, which is different to other years.

POSTS: The Prediction, The Realisation

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Re-balancing via the Sun

At Imbolc I was told by the spirit of Brigid that I needed to re-balance. I would do this by allowing more sun energy into my energy field this year. I have certainly spent much more time using male/sun energy than in previous years where I was almost exclusively using female energy forms. An orb makes an appearance at The Bridestones as though to confirm this requirement from spirit.

POSTS: Imbolc 2012, Egypt 2012, Winter Solstice 2012

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Map dowsing

At the Spring Equinox Kal and I did a map dowsing experiment. We decided to choose a place to visit anywhere in the British Isles. When we compared notes we had map dowsed exactly the same square mile.

This is a skill that I have significantly improved this year. In fact, in many ways map dowsing started my whole year off with a bit of recuperation and some early site visits that would open a whole side to the country that I had neglected.

POSTS: Map dowsing my recovery, Spring Equinox 2012, Finding my Spiritual Centre, Heart of Paris

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Becoming a Druid

Feeling like I had been “upgraded” to the “oak” level – the druid level in Ireland. Understanding that this would mean turning my thoughts to teaching the information I had gained, rather than just obtaining it.

Also, a new sense of responsibility and a duty to give something back comes with this new level of ability. I have felt this as a deep connection with the land, and a desire to plant trees.

The final aspect of this evolution was to discover that my druid name was closer to “Vassal” or “Son of Merlin” than “Servant”. This moved me a stage closer to that energy frequency. I feel just a touch more integrated with that energy now.

POSTS: Anglesey Lecture, A Chance to Praise, Healing History, Coronation Rath, Son and Servant

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The Elemental Year

Can utilise the elements better as they move around the year.

• Earth from Feb to May;
• Fire from June to Aug;
• Water from Aug to Oct;
• Air from Nov to Feb.

Later in the year I began to say “Sky, Land, Sun and Sea” instead of Earth, Fire, Water and Air.

POSTS: Considering the Stations

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Powers of the Staff

Finding out that my staff has its own powers courtesy of the Elemental Masters of Tinkinswood. It became an indispensable and valuable tool this year. I have been guided to learn about the powers vested in it, and am now able to utilise those powers to define energy changes in an environment. This has been incredibly useful, but I have been led to realise that some of these powers have still to be mastered, and that invoking them is not enough. They also need skilful use.

This year more than ever people remarked on the staff and how beautiful it looks. I nearly lost it several times, but on each occasion I made a supreme effort to recover it. We have a strange relationship – one in which I mustn’t take it for granted. It has its own inherent powers now.

POSTS: Staff Powers 1, Staff Powers 2, Staff Powers 3

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Bran The Raven & Seeing like a hawk

Working with his presence and guidance all year. I have been to Dinas Bran so many times this year, and each time he has been there to assist me.

This was part of the Gwalchmai training. Ariel viewing, seeing hawk lines, silvery trails in the landscape. I would be taught by Bran the Raven about some techniques for remote viewing. He taught me how to use the raven’s bird’s-eye view to see far away, and how to project my attention to a far point.

I didn’t know why at the time but later I came to understand that remote viewing wasn’t just for acquiring knowledge of events distant in space but present in time. It could also be used for finding and healing past events.

POSTS: Seeing like the Hawk, Bran and The Metamorphosis of the Raven, Bran calling, Seeing through the eyes of Bran, Me and Bran visit Dovedale

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Opening the Third Eye

This long-term quest was presented to me to encourage me to spend more time trying to see psychically rather than dowsing for answers. I think it has worked because my visions are more frequent and much clearer.

I have also begun to feel the energies, rather than needing to dowse for them. Finally, I have begun to trust my intuitive responses and intuitive information much more than ever before.

POSTS: Pineal Gland symbolism and signs, Song for Merlin 2, Quest for the Third Eye

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Re-union

So many aspects of the year’s quests and events were related to the idea of Re-Union. At Pistyll Rhaeadr waterfall I was shown that union could mean recovering past energies that were left like stray threads through our lives,

Later, in Ireland, I was re-united with my ancestor energies,and integrated energies from people connected to me in the past into the present to make the present a unified and more powerful whole.

The whole Iona visit was centred on the energy of union – the island resonated with it. I also found out that the colour of Union is fuchsia pink. Odd! The walls around my desk at work have recently been painted this colour by a strange coincidence. It’s the first time they’ve been painted in 10 years, and before that they were beige.

POSTS: The Colour of Union, Merging with Merlin, Re-Union of past energies, Tarot to support Union, Winter Solstice 2012

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Tarot readings

Although I have learned some useful techniques for providing readings for others, the majority of the work I have done this year, and the most astonishing, has been when I have done tarot readings for myself.

I seem to get most out of these readings if I do them immediately before or after a significant quest.

POSTS: Personal astrology, Ancestor tarot reading, Powers of the staff reading, Third Eye quest reading

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Freeing Merlin

I released Merlin energy from the Underworld in 2010. Now in 2012 I was releasing Merlin energy from The Otherworld. I still don’t know the true significance of this, other than it required me to engage with some bardic skills, and this has re-kindled a desire in me to re-awaken many of the old bardic skills I used to use, but have since forgotten in all the excitement of my questing.

I had to visit several sacred sites to recover fragments of poetry in Old Welsh, then translate them, put them in order, and learn to recite the poem! I used to play musical instruments, write poetry and be able to recite some of it. I think I need to do this once more, so I will use Winter to begin again because I rather enjoyed the challenge of learning the poetry.

POSTS: A Song for Merlin – Part 1, A Song for Merlin – Part 2

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Aliens, Angels and Giants

Towards the end of the year things veered away from normality and into the kind of territory that I usually enjoy reading about but would not contemplate getting involved in. I got involved. I found that an energy that I had simply identified as “alien” was in fact angelic in origin, and  on Iona this energy had been deliberately infused into a stone that had been placed by a giant who had come over from Ireland. Well, I’ll leave that one there, I think! This kind of thing was the very reason I stopped looking at crop circles. Things got too weird!

POSTS: The Watcher, Giants, A Giant’s Grave, Angel Hill, My Own Angel

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Campaigning

As might befit a move into the realms of the “Druid” level (my own certification, I hasten to add - I’m not on the OBOD course or anything like that) I have begun to involve myself in local ecological campaigns. I have been supportive of the bees, the ash trees and local tree planting initiatives. I have also been working on a subtle energy level to re-balance and re-energise several sacred sites. This has not been arbitrary work done in passing, but work that I was called to do.

Most of my charitable work I do not advertise here on the site because it’s personal, and I’m not trying to tell people what they should do. You are your own example, I believe.

POSTS: The Bee Campaign

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SUMMARY

The year began with a frisson of anticipation. Would this year bring the catastrophe predicted for a long time? Would it bring the energy shift that was a hot topic in energy-worker circles? Would it bring an alignment with a galactic centre and a rush of transformational celestial rays that would sweep mankind into the next generation of being? Well, even in January I had the feeling that the answer was “No”. All through the year I was re-iterating this to all and sundry. The only transformation possible is within YOU and initiated by yourself. I have found this year that our personal energies ARE linked to the celestial influences, yet there has been no general “cosmic download” this year. My cosmic download came in May when I visited Ireland.

For me the year has been one of working with The Past. I have been healing energy ripples from earlier in my life, re-uniting my current self with my ancestral selves, and learning about the power of re-unification generally from bathing in its frequency, to discovering its colour vibration, to washing myself in the uniting waters of three waterfalls. The year has all been about re-unification. The energy that has come from this process has been what I call “renown”. This is the energy that increases one’s personal power. A signifier that this was happening was my move into the druidical final grade – “druid”.

Thank you for reading our exploits on this year’s turn of the spiral. We are very grateful, and as we await another amazing year beginning in February 2013, we hope you continue your journey with us.

Gwas.

As I was travelling home from work last week I felt a strong connection with a star that wouldn’t leave my attention. It was Friday 13th, and although unlucky for some, it felt like a lucky occurence for me. I had that “Lucky Star” feeling – that this was a significant energy that I was feeling and that the star had a personal connection to me.

I decided that I shouldn’t ignore such a powerful emotion, and so I drove past my home exit and instead drove towards my nearest hill in order to get an unobstructed and unpolluted look at the star from height. Being January and cold there was no-one else around as I sat in my power centre gazing at the captivating star. Using my phone’s StarWalk application I was able to identify the celestial object as Venus in conjunction with Neptune.

(source: Wikipedia)
As I went into a light dazed state of mind, directing my unfocused attention to the twinkling pair of objects above, I felt an energetic connection on two parts of my body. I first felt a tug on my heart chakra, which I opened. A flood of gentle, clear and pure loving energy seemed to fill my being. Then there was a tug on my head, but I couldn’t identify which chakra point that was connected with exactly so I opened them all to its influence.
I felt like there was a direct connection with me and the planets – the shining star’s radiance was filling me with a distant but powerful light. The Venus connection almost made me cry with its strong emotional content.

The Neptune connection had a less identifiable influence. However I felt an incredible emotion of a pure love. I sort of expected this in as much as I knew this was Venus’ influence. It was nice to have this echoed back to me later when I read an astrologer’s interpretation of this conjunction:

“Venus conjunct Neptune invokes the principle of ‘higher love’ — the kind that’s not beset by jealousy or possessiveness but which has an egalitarian, humanitarian spirit” (source: PlanetWaves.net)

That was exactly how it felt. A pure love not connected with sexuality or a single relationship, but a wider feeling of love and kinship with all things. Very unlike my usual traits!

Here’s something else that struck me. I have been getting all sentimental in the last few weeks – buying old movies of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. I love their dancing in particular, but I must confess that my wife and I have been enjoying their old-fashioned romantic plot lines too. This is VERY MUCH not like me. So not like me that my wife has commented on how I must be going soft in my “old age” and even saying “What’s happened to you?“.

Here’s another astrologer’s interpretation of the Venus-Neptune alliance:-

“Sentimental and compassionate, natives with Venus conjunct Neptune are easily touched by others’ kindness, music, poetry, dance, and most any art that evokes emotion.” (source: CafeAstrology.com)

Research since then has led me to conclude the following:-

a) I am being strongly affected by the movement and position of the planet Venus this year. More so than any year previously.
b) Whilst I am developing a certain ‘vulnerability’ and sensitivity to Venus’ influence, I am also being shown that this is a means of tapping into an “emotional content” that will become a part of my energy-working and hedge druidry later in the year.

I have a feeling that emotional content is going to be an energy signature that pervades my work this year.

Gwas.

Well, I see that Kal got his summary out first. Still, “if you can’t beat them…”

Generally, what type of year it has been? Dis-jointed, slower than last year’s breakneck speed, measured, with lots of deep synchronicities. When I come to review the year I realise that I still made lots of progress on the various tasks that I was lead to perform in order to progress along my path of Druidry.

Below are the main topics that I have picked out from this year’s blog posts. I have tried to keep the explanations to a minimum, so have included links back to the original postings if you want the detail for each of the topics. What I thought was a quiet year has actually turned out to be incredibly packed and busy. The topics are in no order whatsoever, which kind of fits with the way that the year’s learning has come about – seemingly haphazard, but all threading into and through itself like some kind of cat’s cradle whose overall pattern will only be known when the final moves have played out.

26 topics I have been involved in this year:-

a) Healing – Most of the year has been spent developing healing skills, whether that was using remote energies, balancing the chakras, healing with the hands, or with crystals. I have realised that I am more attuned to healing places than people currently, but that is changing. The healing energies can be attuned to different colours for particular effects. To work with these energies I need to understand which “colour” is missing from a site and then call upon the energies of the local living entities to gather together to create this missing colour and thus heal the site. [related posts: My Five Healing Rays, Healing Rays Explained]

Also, in conjunction with my friend Mike, we created a new healing centre at The Bridestones in Cheshire. [related posts: A New Healing Centre]

Chakra colours, energy frequencies and healing may be linked

b) Re-discovering the bard - Discovered great new music (and that I like the new forms of folk music) at The Green Man Festival, and saw Roy Harper in concert in London. This year music has really connected with my heart and stirred great emotions. I have written more poetry this year than in other years too. [related posts: Green Man Festival, Roy Harper]

c) Astrological links to Venus, Orion’s Belt and Sirius affirmed at almost every site. Also Scorpius, astrological links to Arthur and the Great Bear constellation. The constellations of Serpens, Corvus and Perseus have been especially meaningful to me this year, guiding me along a very meaningful path from one end of an energy ley to another. [related posts: Serpent at Castlerigg, Arthurian Archetypes of Corvus, The Berth and Death of Scorpius, The Three Stars of Fertility, Absorbing Orion at Lud's Church]

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I rarely use Tarot Cards. That’s mainly because they are so damned spookily accurate! They make me nervous. There was a spell when Kal was using the cards regularly, for himself and for others, and he found the same. He told me how it was useful for obtaining the kind of information about a situation that couldn’t be obtained (or would take a very long time to narrow down) with dowsing. So, I gave it a go. I learned a single layout, and then I used a couple of reference books to interpret the cards. One word – accurate. Those of you who may have tried this will know what I mean. This is not your “Sun Sign Astrology” tabloid newspaper kind of accurate. This is the “are you reading my mind?” type of accurate.

Of course Tarot cards are symbols, symbols of some human psychology, and there are levels of interpretation required to make something meaningful come out of a reading. Yet, whenever I have done it, and I can count the number of times still on one hand, I have been flabbergasted, nay overwhelmed by the pertinence, the serendipity, the degree of coincidence, however you want to term it. It was spot on. Whether for me, or for someone else. I have been told that I “have the gift” with the cards. Well, so did Solitaire (Jane Seymour) in the James Bond film “Live and Let Die” and look what happened to her! (Actually, what did happen to her, I can’t remember….?)

'Pick a card..any card ...(except that one)'

Why Druids should use Tarot

Good question. Sounds like a statement but it’s also a question – why should druids use Tarot, or any method of divination? Well, the druid revivalist culture seems to purport that there is some historical precedence for a link between forms of augury or divination and the druid class. The Romans (and where would we be without the Romans, with their aqueducts, laws, sewage systems….etc) included instances in their reports of Britain about the scrying and divining abilities of the druids.

Don’t let history (even if it was dubious political history) be your only guide, however. There are other sound reasons to adopt a form of divination. Is dowsing not a form of scrying, of obtaining knowledge from a gnostic source, that can easily be turned towards divination tasks too? Indeed it can. The humble dowsing rod can be used for many purposes, but the further away from dowsing in connection with the land the less credible the results feel to me. This may be a personal thing, however, because I admit to having used dowsing for divination, even if the results have always seemed less reliable and more likely to change. But then, that’s the future for you – always changing!

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Section 7. Summary of the Year

In order to organise our thoughts Kal and I came up with some questions the answers to which we hoped might summarise the way that year has gone for us – what were the bits we expected, what exceeded our expectations, and which things arose to meet us on this path that we didn’t anticipate? Here are my answers to this year’s questions.

What did I think I was going to learn?

1. Whether specific periods of the year are more energetic than others, and whether those periods align to the calendrical eight-fold year.
2. How stone circles work in terms of their energy
3. Whether specific geology affects the energetic responses from sites

By the summer of 2009 I had already established to my satisfaction that there was a difference in the strengths of energies at the Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. I was sure that there was more powerful sun energy (i.e. stronger male energy) at the Summer Solstice. The Spring and Autumn Equinoxes were very similar in strength, and were a balance of male and female earth energies. At the Winter Solstice the male energies were very weak, as was the Sun. The female energies fluctuated only in relation to the strength of the Moon and the input from nearby trees, again weaker in Winter.

Determining any objective means of measurement was difficult, as our own energy levels seemed to be a factor in how well we could dowse or do energy work at a site, however a scale of measurement (strength from 1-10) seemed to work for the purposes of obtaining some data that could be compared between sites. The solstice and equinox dates depended upon the quality of the Sun to determine the amount of additional energy was at the site compared to our visits to them on other dates.

The Celtic Festival dates (Lammas, Beltane, Samhain and Imbolc) in between those times were much harder to figure out. These dates seems to depend upon the position of the Moon for their effects upon ancient sites., rather than the Sun’s effect. I will be posting much more on this soon, complete with a table of the relative energy levels at various sites dowsed this year.

Further theories have emerged concerning the operation of energies at stone circles and other sites too. See the Earth Energies and Ancient Sites Summary posts for details on those.

We have kept a weather-eye on the geology of sites whilst dowsing this year. It started for me in Carnac when I discovered that the stone rows were placed along a shelf of rock quite different from the surrounding geology of the rest of the nearby coastline. We have concurred with the popular dowsing theory that geological faulting is important to the situation of ancient sites, as is often the presence of water, but we do not wholly agree with the necessity of water (or a ‘blind spring’ formation) being present at all ancient neolithic sites. Some major sites such as Stonehenge and The Rollright Stones do have this water formation, however, and we think these popular sites may have led to the popularity of the idea amongst the dowsing fraternity that such a formation is necessary to a strong energy site. We do not find this to be true.

'CARNAC: Des Pierres Pour Les Vivants' by Pierre Mereaux

What’s been the surprise?

1. Crop circles being designed by some intelligence beyond the confines of this planet – expected them to be of human design and manufacture.
2. The energetic and healing potential of running water – Pistyll Rhaeadr and Viktor Schauberger convinced me of this at different ends of the year. At Pistyll Rhaeadr waterfall my wife’s twisted ankle was healed in minutes. Later I read Schauberger’s theories on the properties of water and I understood how this could have come about.
3. A spiritual pilgrimage being worthwhile doing, and not some soulless religious historical trail as I had imagined it to be.

1. Astrology - There is a correlation, a link, between the relative positions of the stars and a human being. My natal chart is stunningly accurate in assessing my personality traits. Kal and I have also discovered that we are energetically linked to particular planets – Kal to Mercury and myself to Venus. We are more energetically ‘loaded’ or ‘charged’, and more energy work is possible, when our respective planets are visible. I have tracked this since the beginning of the year and have each dowsing response confirms this.
2. Elemental beings and cloud sylphs – I see some this year on four separate occasions and each time I was stunned by the effect – this was no mere simulacrum. Seeing faces in the clouds must be the third and conclusive qualifying factor in any signs of madness developing – that much I do appreciate, but nevertheless, they have been present at quite specific times of high energy.

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Section 4. Astrology and Astronomy

This is the fourth in the series of posts that review the findings of this year. In this particular post I am discussing the relationship between earth energies, human energy fields and the wider cosmos.

I have used the classification of ”astronomy” to describe the information I have discovered (of course, ‘re-discovered’, or ‘uncovered’ would be more appropriate terms) that relates the movement of the major planetary bodies of our solar system to the energy fluctuations in our remaining ancient sacred sites. Very little “astrology” comes into it, really, except that we describe the influence of such bodies upon ourselves.

4-1. Star energies : These types of energy include the influence of planets, which have more effect than we had realised. At the beginning of the year we discovered that “star” energies are also being drawn down into stone circles, just like sun and moon energy. Later we discovered that it was the energy of specific major planets that was being drawn into the circles, or cast upon them. In particular I found a couple of instances where the energy of Venus was being used, and this was at stone circles where the design of the circle itself was based upon the sacred number of that planet (see table below).

4-2. Sacred Numbers : There is a relationship between the planets within our solar system and numbers. This correspondence was obtained by dowsing for this relationship. The number relates to an association between the number and the planet, and that correspondence has a link to the geometry of sacred sites and their dedications. For example, a site dedicated to the goddess ‘Venus’ is found to have a structure that is based upon the number five.

Here is the list of correspondences:-

          1 = Moon
          2 = Mars
          3 = Mercury
          4 = Earth
          5 = Venus
          6 = Jupiter
          7 = Saturn
          8 – Uranus
          9 = Neptune
        28 = The Sun (7+6+5+4+3+2+1)

4-3 Planetary Influence: I learned this year that Venus has an influence over my energetic being. When it is present I am “stalked” by the white light of its presence (seen physically by some people), and am drawn to sites that are in some way connected to it, either geometrically or energetically. Kal is influenced by Mercury’s presence.

4-4. Site ‘alignments’: Some sites are solar-dominated, whilst others are lunar. I react well to lunar sites, whislt Kal feels better at solar sites. Balanced sites suit both of us. Sites that are aligned to the sun have dominant male energies, whilst those that are aligned to the moon have female energy in abundance. No sites that we have found so far are predominantly aligned to any specific star, constellation or planet. In 2010 we will check this more thoroughly, however, as it’s not a question that often gets asked.

4-5. Astrology: My astological natal chart is incredibly accurate in describing my tendencies and characteristics. It goes wrong when the topic is broadened to “how my type of people” think and feel, but when it refers specifically to me, and describes the influence of specific planets upon my birth, then it would seem to me that such tendencies have indeed been “stamped” into my very core, and are still being exhibited some 40 years later.

Gwas.

Although I often notice the occurrence of synchronicities, which makes me smile to myself every time they happen, today seemed replete with them from the moment I awoke. Something was in the air. I am currently working away from home in Germany and so my normal routine does not apply, including not having my usual trinkets and trappings around me.

The first inkling I got that today was going to be different was actually late yesterday. I had been making arrangements with a colleague in a nearby office for us to meet up for lunch. She is part of my extended team, and this was a chance to meet the rest of her colleagues and make some valuable connections that might help me in my work, as they all have many more years experience than me. We had been Instant Messaging each other yesterday afternoon and somehow, during the course of the conversation, she hinted that she was a witch. Only hints, mind you, but it made the prospect of today’s meeting more interesting. Was she in fact a witch? Or just enjoyed all things ‘witchy’? Perhaps today I would find out.

That in itself set the scene for the day. In the morning it was raining steadily – not a good omen, as it would make travel less enjoyable. I set off to work on the train and arrived at the office only to realise I hadn’t got my usual cigarette lighter with me. Never mind, there was a colleague in the office who smoked too – he would have one. For the first time in two weeks he wasn’t in today. Never mind, I could ask someone in the designated smoking room for a light. I double-checked my bag – did I have a spare lighter in there? After a thorough search I concluded that I didn’t. I began to rehearse the German phrase for ‘Have you got a light, please?’ – ‘Haben Sie feuer, bitte?’.

In the middle of the morning I got up to go to the smoking room. I’ll just double-check my bag again. The first pocket I went to – there was a lighter! Eh? I had really searched it before, but here it was – straight into my hand. Odd. I gave it not a second thought, but went upstairs for a smoke. The smoking room is full of people sitting alone at tables or in small groups, and rarely if ever does anyone approach anyone else. Today, as I sat down a man approached me saying, ‘Haben Sie feuer, bitte?’. My eyebrows raised and I smiled to myself. I was going to say that! No-one had ever approached me before in the whole two weeks I had been there. Today – someone asks me the same question I was going to ask them!

I confirmed the arrangements for lunctime and joked with my colleague that, as it was now sunny she must have magically affected the weather for our meeting. She responded that a witch never tells her secrets, and I chalked that up to our previous discussion where the word has been mentioned before. Coincidence, I thought.

Midday arrived and I set off on the shuttle bus to the nearby building, a few miles away. I had never seen my colleague before, but a couple of weeks ago I had looked her up on the staff directory and thought to myself then, ‘You remind me of someone.’ I regretted not having refreshed my memory again before I left, and I hoped that she would recognise me as much as I recognised her, and that we would somehow meet up alright. I sat staring out of the bus window trying to remember who she was similar to, and then it came to me – her hair was like Kate Bush from her ‘Wuthering Heights’ era, when she first emerged onto the pop scene. That’s who she reminded me of! I sat back, satisfied that I should just look out for someone who looked like Kate Bush, and I was sure I would recognise her. Ten seconds later the German radio station that was playing stopped chattering, and with a jolt my ears pricked up: what was that introductory refrain from? Which song? The opening lines blared out in the confines of the small quiet bus:

“Out on the wiley, windy moors
We’d roll and fall in green
You had a temper, like my jealousy
Too hot, too greedy.”

(Kate Bush - ‘Wuthering Heights‘, 1978)

I smiled a broad smile. Coincidence number two! Already today was shaping up to be a magical day. I took that as a good omen, and sure enough I met my colleague without any trouble, and we shared a lovely lunch time eating, walking, buying presents for my colleagues back home, chatting and meeting her team. I didn’t mention anything about her possibly being a witch though – it didn’t seem the polite thing to do – perhaps I was mistaken, and she was just using it as a symbol of her empowered femininity? Anyway, I left it unspoken. Later that afternoon I messaged her again thanking her for her hospitality, and again she dropped hints of things ‘supernatural’. Now I wasn’t imagining things!

Later in the day I was heading back to the apartment a few miles away from the office. A short train ride away. That gives me just enough time, sitting at the station and on the train, to read another few pages in the excellent book ‘Spirals: Patterns of Existence’ by Geoff Ward. I have nearly finished it now, so I picked up at the point where I had left off yesterday where he was talking about C.G.Jung and synchronicity. Aha, so of course it was uppermost in my subconscious this morning. I read about Jung and Wolfgang Pauli, who was trying to find a scientific basis for dream synchronicities and worked with Jung on the concept. Then suddenly the text changed tack. Now it was talking about Astrology, and not your Sun Sign tabloid daily guff about meeting talk dark strangers and making career choices, but as he termed it ‘serious’ astrology. Ward made a statement that really resonated with me, he says, talking of Dr Percy Seymour’s book ‘The Science of Astrology’ (2004) :

‘Seymour’s challenging view is that ‘serious’ astrology… is an attempt to understand our own internal schedules formed over long periods of time and which we inherit genetically. He thinks that the fluctuations in the geomagnetic field synchronise the internal biological clocks of the foetus which control the moment of birth. The ‘tuning of the foetal magnetic antenna’ is carried out by the inherited genes, and this to some extent will influence personality characteristics. The positions of the planets at birth do not alter what we have inherited genetically, but instead ‘label’ our basic inherited characteristics of personality. Cautious support for Seymour’s ideas has come from an unexpected quarter – no less than Richard Dawkins…’

Well, well. Dawkins. Arch-enemy of all things mystic. Is there any clearer sign of convergence between science and mysticism?

That quote was as far as I got when the train stopped and I had to put the book away. As I walked back to the apartment something was nagging me about that passage. It seemed awfully familiar….oh yes – I had written a draft in preparation for my fourth part of the year’s summary of findings only last night. In the draft I had written a paragraph about how this year, one of the most startling findings for me has been to discover that planets have an influence on myself and Kal. They actually affect our behaviour, and determine what activities are going to be more beneficial for us. I’m not going to spoil the draft post, but needless to say I had left it at that point, wondering how on earth I was going to explain that. How was I going to be able to justify that I had suddenly become a believer in astrology? From having rubbished it all my life, to now saying, ‘actually, there’s something quite profound in it.’

I had even gone further, for last night I had gone to the online Astrolabe program and had let it draw up (or ‘cast’ I believe is the correct term) my natal chart. It even gave me a small reading explaining the influences of the planets on my behaviour. I had no idea why last night I would do this. None. And anyway, I was truly all prepared to pick fault with it, just as I had done with so many newspaper and magazine horoscopes before, except that I couldn’t! It was absolutely accurate. Completely me. Now, I’ve also seen that Derren Brown trick where he gives 12 people the same horoscope and because of the way it is written they all think that it is them to a tee, but this was different. There was very little generalisation, it was quite specific and certainly would not apply to anyone else I know.

So, another very major synchronicity. I had been “looking” for some way to explain my new stance on the subject without sounding superficial, and Mr.Ward’s book kindly provided it to me on a plate, just when I could make use of it.

Today has been a day of witches and synchronicities, and it has been hugely enjoyable. I hope all our days are just like this too.

Gwas.

p.s. Here’s one of my personal favourite Kate Bush clips.