Posts Tagged ‘awakening’
Dinas Emrys: The final awakening
April 4th, 2010 | 
Author: When I last posted about my journey towards the Spring Awakening I told you about the Lady of Gop Hill, who as it turns out was not Boudicca, but rather was a female spirit or genius loci that watched over the hill. My task that night was to awaken one of the last sites before the Spring Equinox, as this was my task for the duration of the time between Imbolc and Spring. Only a few nights later I was called to visit Dinas Emrys, the last and most difficult of the sites to reach for a number of reasons – firstly, because it was furthest from my house, but also because it was a damned steep and dangerous climb to get up there. The last set of circumstances that I wanted to visit Dinas Emrys in were the ones that I found myself faced with on that Friday night – a cold and wet night with a howling gale blowing. Oh dear.
I tell you, my life was so much easier before I got into this druidry lark, and I could happily have stayed at home that evening, but there was a nagging imperative. It was saying to me that although I had gone through a ritual to awaken Dinas Emrys from afar, there was nothing like actually being in the place to make the awakening real. Was I prepared for the challenge? Oh yes. Let’s do it! So I set off in the pouring rain for a good hour and a half driving across the expanse of North Wales, all the way telling myself that this was sheer madness, and what the hell was I doing?
As I drove over the slopes of Snowdon towards Beddgelert the mist descended and made progress even more dangerous. The gale-force wind was lashing rain across the windscreen at horizontal angles. Unperturbed I picked my way down the single-file winding steep road that led to the River in the valley of Gwynant below. Madness. Total lunacy! As I breathed with relief at the sight of the long straight road that followed the valley floor I was now on the lookout for the parking place that is at the foot of the steep rocky hill that forms the perch for the hillfort of Dinas Emrys . To me, Dinas Emrys is a place that is inextricably associated with Merlin, and this had become firmly fixed in my mind when I had visited the place at the end of the last summer. On that visit the sight of eagles at auspicious moments had had quite an impact on me, and it was a place that made me feel very close to the spirit of whatever it is that Merlin represents to those of us who consider themselves to be following a spiritual path that includes many of the symbols, thoughts and feelings that we associate with the Merlin stories.
If Gop Hill had been a test the feminine aspects of my world: my sensitivity to the energies, my sense of respect, the intuitiveness – then Dinas Emrys was set to test the male attributes already: my courage for a start, my determination to succeed, and my physical ability to see the event through. I parked and got myself kitted out beneath the shelter of the boot of my car, donning waterproofs, walking boots and taking my ash staff with me. The one or two cars that passed me must have thought I was insane at the idea of walking in the middle of the night, and they were totally correct.
I decided to walk up the hill with minimal lighting, so as not to attract attention from any nearby farmers or passing law enforcement. This was one time when I could guarantee that I would have the place to myself and I wasn’t going to let anything intrude on that. I walked up the winding path along the bottom of the hill, enjoying the silence of the night. As I walked the wind and rain were already dying away quite quickly, much to my surprise. Perhaps it was just because I was in the lee of the hill, I thought. I found the path leading steeply upwards and began the lung-bursting climb. My staff proved invaluable in helping my to pick out good solid ground to walk on, and to find protruding rocks. One slip in this weather, in this lonely place, and I would be the kind of casualty that the rescue services write reports about: “This idiot decided it would be a clever thing to do to climb a steep hill along a treacherous path in the middle of the night!” went the imagined opening line of the apocryphal tale. This was when I needed to reach out to other forces for guidance – I was unlikely to be able to do this alone without something happening to me. I stopped and went into a light trance, deepening my connection with the trees and energy forces that I knew were all around me, with the sky, the planets, the night itself, the hill, the rocks….I tried to feel them all. Once I felt connected I asked for guidance to find the right path up the hill to reach my goal unharmed. The remaining breeze brought me the sound of an owl somewhere far away and the trees rustled their protective response. I began to climb again in the darkness, slowly, carefully, but with confidence now.
I got beyond the sheltered plateau that was almost half way up and began to move out onto the thin pointed ridge of rock whose worn surface denoted the steepest and most slippery part of my ascent. Here there were few trees to shelter me and the wind was still blustery enough to cause me to sway occasionally when caught off guard. Also, the path was mainly rock at this point with nothing to get hold of on either side to steady myself. I stopped at the bottom of a section where I could see a steep drop on either side. My boots had already slipped a number of times on the rocks lower down so I knew how dodgy it was when they were wet. Here I was, blown by the winds, teetering at the bottom of a climb along a ridge with treacherous drops on both sides, and very little else to rely on. I paused some more, my mind racing again with the irrationality of it all, “Could I make the fifteen feet stretch along the ridge without falling? What if I slipped? How could I stop myself from falling all the way down? If I was going to turn back this was the point. Why not turn back now, save yourself the bother? Why was I here anyway?”.
At that precise moment when my courage was ebbing away in the face of this uncertainty I heard the cry of an eagle not far above me and to my left. It completely stunned me. It was a single call in the night, but it had the effect of totally brushing away all the doubts that had risen. I knew this was a motivating sign – a call that meant something to me. It was Merlin’s symbol, and it was speaking directly to me telling me to continue. Confidence flooded back into me and I gathered myself and marched on, without a second thought. Next thing I knew I was striding atop the hill with the full force of the wind lashing at my coat. Wow, I felt amazing! Totally charged with emotion and elation at having made it to the top in the face of such a challenge, and straight away I thanked the eagle for giving me that moment to make that happen.
Moments later I was inside the remaining tower walls and beginning a ritual to awaken the sites energies. This involved only two incense sticks, one placed outside the walls on a ledge overlooking the valley below, and in line with the place where I suspect the eagle’s eyrie lies (although I haven’t been over to that mountain opposite to check this – it’s just a feeling I have). The other incense stick went inside the tower right in the centre of the blackened fire that someone had lit within there. I connected with the ash tree nearby and asked for it to contribute to the process of awakening the energies of the site, and this felt like a positive act with a positive response.
As I stood there with my ash staff feeling the connection with the elements that were so palpable upon that exposed perch I felt the wind quicken in response to the work I was doing. I lifted my staff in response to the wind and in the still darkness I let forth a vocal response that started as a low moan and rose to a howl as the wind picked up in direct proportion to the movement of the energies that I felt was going on around me. This only served to further excite me and the vocalisation became a shout into the strong winds that fought my breath for volume. It was extremely thrilling to be one with the winds and as I came to the end of my energy visualisation so the wind died off in proportion to the amount of input that I was making. My voice echoed this and began to trail off too. This was a phenomenon that I was now getting familiar with. This kind of thing has happened a number of times now when I have done such work, so much so that it is no longer startling, and is something that I welcome.
I was standing in my power centre just behind the fire where the lit incense stick was burning brightly, fanned orange by the wind’s recent activity. I disconnected and returned back to normal consciousness. I was eager to whether the genius loci of the place had awoken in response to the enlivening of the energies that I had done. I understood now why being there was so much more important than remotely working on the site. No amount of remote work could replace the sensations I had just experienced, or witness the synchronicities of the eagle’s cry, or the wind’s response to my work. I picked up my dowsing rods and began to do some confirmation.
- Had I awakened the energies of this site? – YES.
- Was there a genius loci present at the site? – YES.
- Was it male or female? MALE.
- Was there a sigil that signified the presence of the spirit of place? YES.
I asked to be shown me the shape of the sigil, and was directed a foot away to the blackened charcoal of the old camp fire. A shape began to emerge as I dowsed that fire – it was a long clockwise spiral – a male spiral – and this was the sigil for the energy form that was now present again at the site. Whatever the genius loci means, and however one can interact with it, there was a new energy formation here at the top of Dinas Emrys and it had appeared as a result of my work this night. With it being male I had one last question – was the genius loci connected with Merlin? I got a “sort of” response. Was it Merlin? NO. I was barking up the wrong tree with this line of questioning, trying to make this fit because I wanted it to be something that it wasn’t. I decided not to force fit the questions. It was enough that something old had reappeared that night, and I was happy to have re-awakened the energy for this ancient site, and to have fulfilled my final awakening for the Imbolc to Spring phase.
I was in high spirits as I walked back down the hill not caring now about whether I was spotted and so using all the light I had available. When I got back to the steep ridge I realised just how precarious the path was over the slippery rock and gulped. In a way it was a good job I couldn’t see it properly on the way up or I would surely have turned around at that point. As it was I went down it on all fours, picking my way very carefully. I drove home in silence, but felt immensely fulfilled. All the mist, the rain, the gales and the distance had been worth it. All the danger had been forgotten in the delighted glow of achieving something wonderful, even if I was the only person in the world who appreciated what had happened that night.
I now looked forward to the next phase of the year – Spring Equinox to Beltane. What would that phase be about for me? Undoubtedly something unusual and equally challenging, I felt.
Gop Hill: Waking the sleeping lady
March 11th, 2010: waning crescent moon.
There I was, firmly ensconced at home and beginning to plan for the Spring Equinox outing that is coming up next week. Rather foolishly I asked the dowsing rods whether there were still any sites that I needed to awaken in the intervening week. The answer came back: TWO. Two? Where was I going to find the time to visit two sites in a week, and especially considering that I knew it was going to be a busy week with little free time anyway? Two!
I decided to take them one at a time. I dowsed as to whether they were new or known sites. KNOWN. Which countries were these sites in? Both in Wales. So, I opened up my list of sacred sites and began working my way down the list asking the dowsing rods to identify the two I needed to visit. The first answer that came back was Gop Hill. Gop Hill? I couldn’t imagine why this site would be on a list of places that I was particularly linked to, I mean, nothing particularly interesting had ever happened there before. Still, when I double and triple-checked – yep, Gop Hill. Well, at least it was fairly close. I got myself ready to go in the middle of the night. No rest for a working druid!
What follows is a very detailed description of the process of awakening this site. I hope you will find some value in the method, although I have found that each site is subtly different, even if the general principles are consistent.
"..the largest man-made cairn in Britain, Gop Hill, reputed to be the burial place of Queen Boudicca."
A Gentle Surprise
How wrong could I have been about Gop Hill? Answer: none more wrong. I knew as soon as I was within ten feet of the base of the hill that there were some strong energies here on this hill this evening. It was like walking into a wall of subtle jelly! The bonus of being out here in the middle of the night in such an infrequently visited site is that I had to place to myself and I felt at home straight away. Tonight, the hill was mine alone, which meant I had the freedom to dowse and do druidry as I saw fit. I walked around the front edge of the hill and stood in the hollow of the centre, watching the cars pass on the road below for a few minutes. listening to the other sounds around – distant voices in the village below, traffic on the A55, noises from the woods surrounding the hill. I breathed in the place through all my senses and relaxed into being there.
I looked for a place to sit down. There was a shallow pit of flint chips near to the centre and despite this looking like the most uncomfortable place to sit I deposited my staff and bag there. Out of the bag I got my dowsing rods. Right – where was the best place for me to sit? The rods turned back on themselves to lead me back to the place where my staff and bag were – the shallow flint pit! Looks like, yet again, I had picked out the right place to be without the aid of the rods.
Whilst I had the rods to hand there were some things I wanted to check. Where was the most magical place to be on this hill? It was a shallow round depression at the back and top of the hill. OK. A question that often arose relating to sacred sites was to do with “primal” water, so I did my duty and checked it out. Was there a blind spring at this “magical” spot? No. Was there a blind spring anywhere on, in or under the hill? No. Was there any water affecting the energies in this mound? No. OK – bored of all that now. These questions always seemed to be a resounding “no” for most of the sites we visit. Only a few have every registered any water affecting the energies. I remember Lundin Farm Circle in Perthshire had some water affecting the King Stone, but that was all I could recall.
Assessing the Gender
The only other dowsing I wanted to do that night was to find a the strongest male and female power centres.
If you’re a regular reader you’ll be beginning to see a pattern form here about how I am assessing these sites, obtaining only the information I need to perform my druidical activities these days. I haven’t updated the sacred sites page for a while now, and I’m aware of that. I’ll do the work on the mapping of the energies of more sites this year when the days get longer and warmer, I promise.
I asked to find the strongest male power centre and was led back to the steep side of the hill close to the path through the forest – the usual side to approach from. The power centre itself was a scar on the edge near the top of the hill. I stood looking at it for several minutes. Something didn’t feel right about it, so I asked if this was the strongest male power centre by design – no. It was only the strongest by dint of the fact that material had come loose by people walking there! (Imagine how many questions that took to dowse that answer!). Where was the male power centre that was originally designed to be the outlet for male energies – just a few feet behind the small flint scar, in a small depression. Again, a small circular depression, like the last one over the other side of the hill that I had found minutes before. I entered the male power centre in a long winding clockwise spiral. I felt I was following the course of the energy within it.
I asked the rods to take me to a female power centre and was led back to where my staff and bag were – I had sat there automatically. We’re doing this more and more now.
View from Gop Hill
I began the process of discovering how I might awaken the energies of the site. As I had done this many times during the “season” from Imbolc until now, I was familiar with the line of questioning I should employ:
- Was it possible to awaken the energies of this site? – YES.
- Could I use incense to assist me in this process? – YES.
- How many sticks of incense should I use? – I counted until the rods crossed at FOUR.
I checked my bag – the packet of incense had four sticks remaining. A beautiful coincidence that made me smile. Although I was used to using my dowsing rods to discover the pattern of behaviour required to awaken the energies, tonight I felt like I should begin to feel my way through the process somewhat as well. I decided to only use the rods for finding the spot to place things. Any other work I would do without them.
Walking in circles
So, to recap, I had identified three power centres so far. The first was a female centre that was a cut-out area that was roughly body-shaped that was in the middle of the top section of the hill. The second was a male power centre that looked very similar – a hollowed-out area at the tip and edge of the hill that registered as the most powerful male centre. Then there was the original male centre – the one “designed” or created by the makers of the hill, and which was a few feet further back from the edge, at the highest point of the hill and in a slight hollow circular depression.
I sat in the female centre first. It felt more “homely” and natural to do so, despite a carpet of sharp flint that dug into my softer portions. I simply moved them around a bit until I could lie back comfortably. As I did so I noticed that I was enclosed in a head-shaped area. I felt the earth right next to me head – I smelt it. It was in my hair. It was up my nostrils. I felt the hill, it’s essence very close to me. As I lay there I cleansed myself (dissipated any external energies I may have brought with me) and then drew this female energy from the hill.
When I felt sufficiently “powered up” I picked up my ash staff and walked to the ‘designed’ male power centre. It felt right to do so. I tuned into the flow of energy there and soon I was walking around in a sun-wise fashion working my way inwards. At the centre point I walked back out, on a “female” path, if you like. Suddenly I had the feeling that doing this right on top of the male energy spiral was mixing the two forms of energy. So I went back in on the male spiral and back out on the female spiral again and again – mixing the two frequencies of energy as I went (if that’s possible). The more I walked the stronger the wind blew around me, and I noticed this. When the wind died away I moved out of the male power centre and walked back to the female centre again.
In the female, where only minutes ago I had been lying down, now I circled around in an anti-clockwise direction, feeling ym way along the natural path that the female energy formed there. Reaching the centre I reverse the path and walked outwards on the male clockwise line. Despite being in a dip, out of the reach of the full force of the wind, I could hear it increasing again as I walked back and forth around these paths. I felt this was a good sign that ‘power’ was increasing in those centres as the energy was being mixed.
The Candles On The Cake
So, I had mixed the energies between the two opposing power centres and now I felt they were flowing back and forth between each other. What next? I had four incense sticks left, and so I wondered about getting the rods out again to check where I should place these sticks. I was unsure…did I need the rods? I decided to do the first one and see if I could intuit the rest. I dowsed for the location of the first stick of incense and was led up to the ridge that runs along the back of the hill. The first location was a circular depression that looked just like the male power centre I had just come back from.
It's your birthday!
Having established the type of place that I should put the incense I walked along the ridge at the back in the dark feeling for where the next stick should go. I came across another circular depression close to the gap in the ridge that led to the central gully. I placed an incense stick there, the moved on. Another such circular depression existed at the same distance on the other side, so I place one in that too. When I came near to the end of the ridge, close to where the “new” male power centre was I felt ‘tugged’ towards the old male power centre. I placed an incense stick in the gap in the rocks that formed the back of the circular depression there. That was four sticks in four circular depressions – another interesting coincidence, because that was all the sticks I had, and this was all the circular depressions that there were along this back ridge! I realised that when I had placed and lit each one there had been a gust of chilly North wind which blew past me and rustled the grass on top of the hill. All more stupid coincidence, of course.
I went back to ‘my’ power centre. I felt it was the best place for me to call upon the spirit of the place. I quickly dowsed some questions – was there such a spirit here? YES. Was it male or female? FEMALE. Then definitely this was the right place. Rods away, back to working without them. I picked up my staff and lay with it along the length of my body. I connected with the site in a deep and energetic way, then called upon the spirit of the place to awaken – to work with me, to enliven this site, to make it special again, for us to be able to work with Nature to improve the environment…all these things I implored this spirit to respond to.
After a few exciting minutes I had an urge to get up and to dowse for a sigil – the form of the spirit of the place, the genius loci. I picked the rods up again eagerly and asked to be taken to a place suitable for dowsing this sigil. I was led to a clear space at the front and top of the hill – here the grass was flat and clear of obstruction. Useful! I asked to be shown the sigil shape and began to dowse a sort of ‘U’ shape. I expected it to turn back upon itself, but to my surprise it continued back towards the very centre of the hill in an unusually direct straight line – very unlike most flowing sigil shapes. Then I recognised what it was - it was the shape of my staff!!!
Well, that blow my mind. I was totally stunned. I had to leave at that point because my mind was in bits. I packed and left. As I stood at the top of the edge of the hill in the (new) male power centre the wind blew quite strongly making the trees whisper and rustle before me. It was quite a sight, even in the dark, yet strangely easing and I felt ‘cleaned out’ by the wind. As I descended the hill I made a sweeping movement with my staff and felt as though I had annulled the energies and connections I had made that night. I returned to the car and drove home in absolute silence. It would be a few hours before I could pick up the loose ends and try to make sense of it all.
Tying up the loose ends
The lady's curves
When I got home later that night I dowsed more about what had happened:-
- Have I awoken the spirit of place of Gop Hill? – YES.
- Is that spirit now associated with my staff? – YES.
- Is there some energy from that spirit in my staff? – YES.
- Is the whole of the spirit in my staff? – NO.
- Is it some spirit energy that wishes to work with me? – NO.
- Is it some energy that I can utilise? – YES.
- Is it a similar concept to the Crogen Oak energy (when healing energy from the broken tree transferred to my staff) – YES.
- Is this like a gift for waking the energies at Gop Hill? – a strong YES.
- Is the Gop Hill energy different in the way it can be used to Crogen Oak healing energy? YES.
- What type of energy is it? Is it death energy? NO. Life energy? YES. Is it male/female/neutral – NONE. Elemental? – NO. Spirit/aether energy – YES.
- Was the spirit energy at this site related to Queen Boudicca? …..NO.
Whoever Boudicca was there was no evidence via the dowsing rods that she was associated with the hill, or that her energies still influenced the place. Whoever the guardian spirit of Gop Hill is, it isn’t the energy form that we recognise as Boudicca.
I tried to pull all this together. This energy I had received into my staff was a kind of gift from the female spirit of Gop Hill. It is a magickal energy that can be turned to a specific magickal purpose, which I have yet to discover. I guess my quest now is to find out when I can use it, and to use it wisely.
Gwas.
Posted in Ancient site visit reports, Dowsing, Energy work, Modern Druidry, Wheel of the Year | 
Tags: awakening, crogen, flint, Gop Hill, Hedge Druid, imbolc, incense, north wales, oak tree, power centre, sigil, spirit energy | 
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Llandrillo by Night: Awakening The Circle
When I get a call to go to Moel-Ty-Uchaf then I know that I have to go. Sooner or later I have to go. It starts, as Kal has explained in other posts and so have I, as a coincidence, then becomes a niggle, then a constant presence, and finally a nag. For me, I woke up with the words ‘Llandrillo’ going around my head constantly like a stuck record. There’s only so much of this you can take before you do something to appease a plea like that. Let’s face it – it’s always a plea that brings some kind of reward, even if the damned effort of getting to Moel-Ty-Uchaf stone circle should be accompanied by a medal ceremony and full brass band.
As I walked up in the darkness of the night I remembered my last visit – the stars, the Milky Way, the spectacle of the incredibly clear but moonless night…Tonight was the polar opposite – the moon was hidden somewhere behind the veil of clouds and I could feel its presence. There was nary a star to be seen except three bright stars that almost formed a line. Initially I thought they might be Orion’s Belt, but later I realised that they weren’t. It was difficult to orient myself astrally that evening.
As I walked higher up the steep slope I was somewhat surprised to come across the remnants of the previous week’s snowfall. Somehow I hadn’t been expecting to see any, and its appearance reminded me that I was going to be high in the hills of Wales tonight, and that it might get cold. I added gloves and a scarf at this stage, before pressing onwards and upwards towards the circle. Despite the backlit darkness I knew my way by now and picked my path carefully. Clearly, tripping and spraining an ankle alone in the darkness with no phone coverage was not an option. I trusted my welfare to Nature’s guiding hands.
Some questions answered
I reached the top of the hill and spent a few moments recovering my breath. This stone circle always makes you work hard for your rewards, and I was paying in sweat again – a sweat that was congealing quickly in the penetrating cold night air. Hanging about dithering wouldn’t help me tonight, so I quickly took the reins and set about my work. What was my work tonight? I reminded myself that it was to activate the energies of this circle. I confirmed this with some quick dowsing:
- Was that a suitable thing to be doing this evening – Yes.
- Was I ready and able to do it? Yes.
- Did I have permission to do so? Yes.
- Was that the purpose of why I was here? Yes.
Always worth checking, or I would have been forced to simply sit there and meditate to find another reason for my journey. Of course, I am always fully prepared to do that – but that was last year’s direction – to sit and wait to discover the purpose of such visits. This year I had been forced into a situation where I had to know my purpose before I visited, and it seemed to be working out just great. I was getting good confirmation that this was the correct course of action. Not only were the dowsing rods confirming this for me, but everything that happened was seemingly occurring in just the right way – things were being done easily, and there were confirmatory signs accompanying the work. This is good ‘intel’ that the right methods are being employed, and I am ‘on the path’. The right path.
A slight philosophical diversion at this point. It seems to me that we spend much of our lives wondering why the forces of Nature are against us and why ‘Fate’ is working against our plans. We wonder why we cannot achieve the things we believe we want – why unseen forces work against us, unpicking our plans, making us look and feel stupid and clumsy in our efforts to make progress. We (sometimes literally) stumble around, tripping ourselves up, then looking for the culprit who tripped us. I have found that once one acknowledges one’s place in the flow of the way of being, the flow of the forces of Nature, and takes on the rightful role of making one’s life flow in that same direction, then the walk becomes easy.
To work in harmony with that flow and acknowledge our own humble place in that all-encompassing scheme of the flow of time and destiny that IS Nature’s movement in the Universe is a right and fitting goal to life. Things click into place. Help is at hand. The struggling is eased. The work is still hard, don’t get me wrong. Harder than ‘normal’ life even. But the rewards are endless, proportionate, useful, purposeful and beneficent. If your life is a struggle for fruitless progress, then perhaps it may do you some good to take yourself out of that flow that you are currently in, take time for yourself to examine your place, and commune with Nature to ask her to show you how you might make some changes to re-align yourself with a truer purpose – your true purpose in this life.
Amazing things can occur on a daily basis. This is what I have found, and since I have, my only goal is to keep making those right and true choices, because life is so much more fulfilling ‘in the flow’ and ‘on the path’.
I stood at the King Stone of the circle, an outlier some forty feet from the main circle. I could see the stone circle of Moel-Ty-Uchaf outlined perfectly, like a set of ragged teeth against the deep blue misty backdrop of the night sky. I decided to do some dowsing first. Where was the aura of the circle tonight – this might indicate the strength of the energy that I would be working with? It was close to the King Stone, some thirty feet from the circle – twice as wide as my last visit, or any other time I had tested that. Was this strength related to the position of the Sun? No. To the Moon? Yes. To the position of Venus? No.
I continued asking about Venus, since I had discovered that this circle was aligned to and energised by Venus when I had read that the circle’s design was based upon the number five, and that it was once dedicated to the goddess Venus. Was this circle influenced by Venus? Yes. Was it designed based on the number five? Yes. Was Venus influencing the energetic state of the circle tonight? No. Was this aura’s size a product of the Moon’s energy alone? Yes.
Well, that was as much as I needed to know at that stage. Something was tugging at my attention trying to make the dowsing stop – a sudden sharp gust of icy wind caught my attention and broke my dowsing concentration (or rather, ‘un-concentration’, a totally different type of focus is required to dowse). Some form of bird made a loud call in the still chill air, and a sheep joined in the noise too. I was aware that I was being ‘told’ to get on with my purpose, so I put the rods away and went back to pick up my staff from the King Stone. Time to go to work.
Flowing and knowing
I stood with my staff and relaxed, attuning myself in a similar way than I would if I were dowsing, but to a much deeper extent. This was more meditation mind than just ‘zoning out’ and not letting rational thoughts bubble up. This meditation involved projecting myself outwards, upwards, downwards and inwards in cycles of shifting attention, moving my energy around and through the earth, the site and the celestial objects around me. Soon I was introducing myself again, stating my name and purpose – preparing myself and the site for the energetic interchange I hoped would take place, although the exact workings of how that would be done are never planned – I just let them occur as they will. They have their own paths, just as I have mine. I am simply working to a directive, but I never insist upon the direction. I am an actor in this play, not its director.
I entered stage right, through the gap in the site’s aura and the gap in the stones of the circle. This I felt for, rather than dowsed. By now I was working with my senses and intuition, feeling the gentle subtle edges and flow of the site’s energy fields, and how they flowed and interacted, ebbed and spun. I have good druid teachers to thank for realising this: every sense should be used to take in and respond to Nature’s information: sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing. But especially the sixth sense of intuition – that unified sense of knowing.
However, saying that, I still have moments where I need ‘real’ confirmation. I do not yet totally give myself over to intuition, I don’t totally trust it yet. It’s a weakness I feel, and I’m working on it. I needed some guidance about how to proceed: where was the best place to stand? I followed one dowsing rods in a circle as it led me to a place that I recognised – this was the same power centre that I had identified on previous visits. Damn. I should have known that. Right, could I use incense to help me create the right ambiance to awaken the energies? Yes. Was incense a necessary component? No. Would incense help me to do the work? Yes. How many sticks would I need? Six. Hmmm…not five, I noticed. I dowsed for the places to position them, and was led around the inside of the stone circle from my power centre inwards in a male clockwise spiral. As I neared the centre of the circle the incense sticks got closer together until the last one was directly in the middle. I lit them all in the order I had placed them (with my windproof lighter, although there wasn’t a breath of wind to speak of).
I began one final question with the rods, but by this time I already “felt” the answer. Which direction should I face, I asked. The rods moved around until the faced down the valley to the north-east. I already knew this, for some reason. I put the rods away for the final time tonight. They were of no use now. I was attuned and things were becoming known. I could feel a strong connection with the circle and revelled in the sweet smell of the incense as I sat on my female power centre, offset from the middle of the circle. I realised I was facing the powerful female flat stone in the northern side of the stone circle and my attention was drawn to it no matter where I looked. Clearly, this was my starting point.
Awakening the energies
I traced a path of energy coming out of the female stone, and spiralling clockwise around the inside of the circle, following the line of incense sticks glowing in the darkness. Their inwards spiral drew the energy down into a sink-hole in the centre, down into the earth. My eyes moved to the outlying King Stone. Here I felt the energies re-emerge, to re-join the outside of the stone circle, again clockwise, and travel around and into the ‘entrance’ gap in the stones. The trail of energy then went through me, and joined to inward spiral again to form a complete circuit. Around and around I traced this path, over and over, each time it became more definite, more self-propelled, needing my input less and less. This energy path was being defined for itself. These energies were now awake, I felt, working for themselves.
As I detached slightly from the process, simply sitting in their flow now, a thought struck me. These energies had emerged from the female stone. Why were they then flowing clockwise? Shouldn’t they be flowing anti-clockwise, I wondered? I decided to see what would happen if I tried to get an anti-clockwise flow going. I concentrated again on the female stone and drew out more energy, trying to trace a counter flow to the existing circuit. My eyes traced only a few feet when it all felt wrong – and the energy got swept up into the clockwise flow again. How odd! Clearly, this was not the right thing to be doing! I got the dowsing rods out again. I walked from the outside of the circle dowsing the ‘flavour’ of the energy – it was male as it came out of the King Stone and flowed around the circle, then as it crossed the entrance it changed to female energy inside the circle, disappearing into the centre. How odd! Something similar to this had been found at Bryn Celli Ddu one time, when the flow went male-female-male-female all around that ancient mound, much to our puzzlement. Something similar was at work here – male then female as it flowed around, then inside the circle.
I felt I needed to do one last thing. I walked around the outside of the circle, pushing the energy along as I went. With each circumperambulation of the stones I felt the flow’s speed increase, and with it the strength of the cold night air increase from a whisper to a roar! Yes, the wind was increasing in proportion to my walking! This was truly astonishing. On my third time around the energy had a flow all of its own and I stepped out of the subtle energy flow knowing that I could do no more. I listened to the increasing sound of the wind blowing across my ears, and watched it begin to bend the grass and blow my coat with more and more strength. Amazing! Literally a minute before there had been utter stillness and silence.
The circle has been woken – the energies were alive! As I stopped walking something caught my attention. I could clearly see every blade of grass – why? I looked up and saw that The Moon, close to full, was shining through a tiny gap in the blanket of clouds illuminating the site. I couldn’t help a huge smile and sigh at that point. Job well done!
In this time between Imbolc and the Spring Equinox I had now awoken several sites – stone circles, mounds, trees, all sorts. This felt like the most right thing to be doing at this time. What I still didn’t know was – how many more would I have to do before I moved into the next phase of the year, and what would the purpose of the next phase be? All in good time. The Spring was rapidly approaching, even if the snow still lay on the higher ground.
Gwas.
Posted in Ancient site visit reports, Dowsing, Energy work, Modern Druidry, Wheel of the Year | Tags: A5, aura, awakening, corwen, Dowsing, Hedge Druid, llandrillo, moel-ty-uchaf, stone circle | 3 Comments »
