The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘burial chamber’

Friday 28th May - Knowth, Country Meath, Ireland.

The series of large megalithic structures concentrated in the Boyne Valley was the target of our first full day in Ireland. We were stationed nearby at Duleek, so getting to the Newgrange complex was a breeze, and we were properly fuelled by a hearty breakfast including locally-reared produce and home-made soda bread and jams.

We followed signs for Newgrange, knowing that this was the popular site and that it probably would lead us to the rest too. Sure enough as we aprked in the jazzy new car park at the Visitor Centre and walked down to the main door, we knew we were in for the full tourist treatment. Even knowing that didn’t prepare us for the officialdom that was to follow:-

• visitors are directed to state which combination of the sites they want to visit: Newgrange only, Knowth only, or both. Clearly, most went for both or just Newgrange
• a sticker was placed upon you in a visible location indicating your bus time, and then you were directed to the cash point to pay 5 Euros per site (actually, 6 for Knowth becuase it’s a tad further)
• you paid and then were informed about how to reach your first bus, which was a 200 yard walk through the centre, out the doors, across the Boyne, along a winding path, and then up to the circular bus pick-up point.

To say these guys had this regulated was an understatement! Although initially appalled by this we were actually quite grateful that this system, which only permitted a group of around thirty people at a time in a site, actually allowed everyone to enjoy the site’s features without bumping into people all the time. It made sense, even if it was far from what we were used to. It reminded us of visiting Stonehenge.

Rock Art as Energy Symbols

One of my objectives for visiting these popular megalithic sites was to get a comparison of the famous rock art shapes with those that we had discovered through our dowsing adventures over the last few years. Did any of them match? Would we be able to make a sensible guess at the forms and shapes, the symbols and swirls that our neolithich ancestors had taken so much time and trouble to inscribe into rock?

As we waited for our bus I took pictures of the rock art displyed in photographs and pictographs in the free exhibition in the Visitor Centre. On arriving at Knowth half an hour later (after listening to a few minutes of the guide’s useful commentary then making our excuses) I went around with my camera taking snapshots of all of the rock art on the base supports of the large mound. I wanted to compare our energy findings with the shapes represented in the stone. Here are some examples of the interesting symbols. In a subsequent post more of these symbols are explained, but for now, here are the ones we could identify immediately:-

Spiral of seven rings between two standing stones acting as portals

If one looks at the image above as a two-dimensional depiction of a three-dimensional energy field then things become a little easier to understand. The spiral is, of course, what we would call a “power centre” – a point on the earth where the energies of the earth emerge and merge with the radiant solar and lunar energies. The most ‘sacred’ of these types is the power centre that merges the three ‘alignments’ or types of energy – male, female and neutral.

The two arcs on either side of the spiral are the neutral entrance and exit arcs that we have begun to discover at numerous sacred places, usually stone circles. These arcs form ‘spaces’ in the energy field through which poeple and spirit energies can pass without ‘interfering with’ or being affected by the overall energy field, because to pass through the energy field around a site is to interact with it. These neutral entrances and exits seems to be a bypass to that trip-wire effect, possibly to allow for the ‘safe passage’ of spirit energy through the site, unhindered by the site’s design and potential.

Seven levels of radial energy

It is entirely possible to read too much into the decorative swirls and shapes that adorn the rocks surrounding Knowth’s major mound, and yet one gets the sense that they are not purely decorative. After all – someone has gone to a lot of time and trouble to do this work, and even today we rarely decorate in stone just for the sake of it. Stonework usually has some kind of symbolic significance at least, even if only to express a wider design concept in keeping with our culture. So, it is with some hesitance that I point out the desing of seven concentric circles in the stone above, and mention that this might have a link to the seven chakras. Then, in the stone below, we see five circles. Five pathways for the incoming energies into the human body, according to C.W.Leadbeater in his book “The Chakras”. Again, perhaps the information is for me only to interpret in this way, but 7 and 5 are cropping up again at a site that is associated with human consciousness transformation processes.

Read the rest of this entry »

After Bryn Celli Ddu we travelled further along the southern coast road towards the village of Brynsencien. We had discovered some interesting new patterns of energy around the ancient mound and chamber, and had spent time drawing upon the Winter Solstice energies. Now we wanted to see whether those energies might change at the next set of sites we planned to visit: The Bryngwyn Stones and The Soar Stone.

2. Bryngwyn Stones: SH462669 – off the A4080 towards Newborough (South West Anglesey) 

We had a vague idea about the whereabouts of the remaining two massive stones that had once formed part of two small circles, and it was much easier to find the location this second time. We parked in a small lay-by next to the A4080 just past the village of Brynsencien and made our way over a stile through the heavily muddied fields towards the imposing sight of the two tall stones in the stark sunlight. 

What's left of the Bryngwyn circles

 In contrast to the smooth clean paths to Bryn Celli Ddu the Bryngwyn stones were surrounded in deep mud, and I was glad of my walking boots. If you plant o visit these stones – be warned – choose a dry summer’s day, and watch for the heavily pitted approach to them, as cows have turned the fields into battlefields. 

The Bryngwyn Stones fascinated us on our last visit because they dowsed as being two small circles, despite the imposing size of the stones themselves. The remaining stones mark the boundary between two fields, but also between the two circles – each original circles must have been in either field. Oddly, we decided to dowse for the position of a King Stone, which I got to be some thirty feet away from the remaining stone in what can only be described as a faery ring – that unique circle of differently-coloured grass in a ring that marks this feature. Kal confirmed the position for me, and we judged that the King Stone was probably quite close to the outer edge of the original stone circle, almost providing the view in the photograph above.

Excellent hide-and-seek material

Kal began to become interested in bathing in the sunlight that was being captured by the smaller female stone (the one with the flat top). I, on the other hand, had positioned myself resting in the completely diametrically opposite position of lying against the flat and upright male stone in the shade. Not a position I would have chosen, ordinarily, but one which the dowsing rods had led me to take up. Again, this was not something that we noticed initially, but realised when we came to talk to each other – “Oh – look where we’re positioned – opposite each other and standing against the stones that are opposite to our usual polarities!”.  Yes, these are the kind of conversations we have.

I meditated in the shade of the tall male stone and I felt the energy that I have gathered at Bryn Celli Ddu begin to, well, I can only describe it as…consolidate, or agglomerate. It was like it was re-arranging itself and compacting at the same time, sort of…sorting itself out, if you like. Later, Kal described much the same process, and we again were astonished at the similarity of the experience. We had both experienced it differently, but the effect was the same. We both used different terms to describe it, but the process we were describing was unmistakably similar.

Rear view of the Bryngwyn stones showing the thin male stone

 As I “came to” from my meditation I began to focus on a point in the distance. I had my back to the flat male stone was the angle made my eyes unvaryingly come to rest upon a small mound that stood out in the middle distance that seemed to have a megalith or a structure on top of it. I couldn’t make it out properly at the time, but when I got home I found that this line led to a Dolmen called Bodowyr.

One day I will walk to it and investigate it, because at the time I felt it was a significant alignment, if only for me. Apparently it stands on a rise that has a view down to the Menai Straits, exactly where the Bryngwyn Stones are situated.

3. Soar Stone, SH319864 – Llanfaethlu village on the A5025 (North West Anglesey) 

The tall Soar Stone is situated next to a church building just off the A5025 Valley to Cemaes road at Llanfaethlu village. It is in a field right next to the road. The stone is about 10 feet tall, flat and encircled by male earth energy. This stone is not connected to other sites, but is self-contained, which is rather unusual, so we have found. We took some photographs, did enough dowsing to realise that there was only a ring of male energy around the stone and that’s it, and then Kal wanted to go. I didn’t, however.

The Soar Stone next to a church

I stood on the sunny side of this male stone. Kal did not need to do any energy work at this site, so stood idly by complaining about the bitter cold and how I should hurry up. I relaxed and began a quick meditation, ignoring his complaints. The only purpose I could determine for this stone was to further charge up my heavily-depleted male energies. I came to realise that I had been working almost exclusively with female energy over the last year, and that over that period I had created a huge imbalance. The Soar Stone, catching the Winter Solstice sunlight square on and being enclosed by a male earth energy field, was helping to bolster my male energy and bring my into a state of equilibrium. After five minutes I felt very balanced (purely subjective, of course) and we were able to take our leave. Simple – effective. 

The 'powering up point' of the Soar Stone

Now that I had achieved and energetic balance Kal was eager to get to the final site that we needed to visit on our little tour of Anglesey – Lligwy Chamber. He felt that something exciting was going to happen there on this special day, and his infectious enthusiasm meant that we headed there without distraction or delay. You can read all about that, including a new energy map of the site, in the next post. 

Gwas Myrddyn.

At the Mid-Winter Solstice Kal and I ventured forth to Anglesey again. In the following set of three posts I will share with you all the encounters we had, the energies we mapped and worked with, and the discoveries on our tour of Anglesey on 21st December 2009.

1. Bryn Celli Ddu (South Anglesey) 

We started at our favourite Anglesey starting point – the neolithic mound of Bryn Cell Ddu. It has all the right ingredients – it’s away from traffic but easy to get to; it’s close to the Menai Bridge; it’s beautiful; it’s aligned to the Winter Solstice. Perhaps that last point was the most important!

We missed the sunrise moment, but arrived at about 11am, in time for the midday sun. The previous day’s weather had been appalling making us wonder whether we’d be out here at all, but today the sun was out and the sky was blue, despite being very cold. Not impossible weather to dowse in if kitted out with gloves, hats and sturdy boots (well, I was anyway).

Almost the first moment we began to dowse we noticed something rather unusual – our usual alignments (myself = female, Kal = male) had been inverted! When I asked to be taken to a compatible power centre I arrived at a male power centre atop a recumbent stone at the edge of the mound. Later, when I caught up with Kal this was the very first thing he said to me: he’d been drawn to female centres and lines. We had confirmed each other’s findings, even if we didn’t understand why this was so. 

Winter Solstice sun path

We set about dowsing. I had vague memories of when we had last mapped the site’s energies and was keen to see whether that had changed at all, given that this was the Winter Solstice. Oh my word, had it changed! The energy flows were significantly different from when I had dowsed here last. Either that, or we are finding more and more layers to the existing energy structures. However, when I had finished dowsing I asked if there were any more energy formations and the rods indicated that there were not, so I suspect the flows have modified, rather than us finding more and more new formations. This, of course, makes the idea of mapping the energies a moving target, as they would have to be mapped over the course of a year the get a full picture of how they change. 

Energy flows

The mound was enclosed in the loving ‘hands’ of female energy, which stayed clearly outside of the ‘moat’ feature that surrounds the mound. A ‘tunnel’ of female energy was diverted into the mound’s interior along the ‘Entrance’ path and flows into the gap in the rear of the chamber. As I had found previously the female energy then hugs the walls of the passageway, and flows up and over the mouth of the passage as it emerges at the Northern end. It seems as though this ‘entrance’ is the entrance for energy, whilst the passageway is the human entrance to the structure. 

Midwinter Solstice energy fields

Inside the chamber I found that the male energy was the same as the last time – it emerged from the petrified tree trunk (as proposed by Rupert Soskin, see this YouTube link for details, from the video ‘Standing With Stones‘), and from the recumbent stone outlying the mound, but within the moat area. 

Sun in the passage at Bryn Celli Ddu

The male energy was confined to the stones within inner circle of the mound area. The male recumbent transformer stone gathered the sun’s energy and fed it to the standing stone at the back of the mound in a circular link. The standing tree stone inside the mound chamber gathered energy from somewhere inside the mound (possibly male earth energy beneath the stone) and fed it out of the back of the chamber, around the mound, and pulled it back inside to the tree stone again. No other male energy formations could be found this day. 

The carved energy patterns

These energy formations were nothing like our previous experience of the mound in the summer months when energy had been evenly distributed between male and female. This shows us that our energy maps are going to change depending upon the time of year that we map them, making the maps even more dynamic than we anticipated! 

Thinking and stinking

To conclude we both did a little meditation and lighting of incense. This also involved us walking around the tree stone inside the chamber. It was an attempt to connect to the specific energies of the Winter Solstice and to try to gather them up, and indeed that was what happened. Both Kal and I felt as though we had managed to infuse ourselves with the Solstice energy and that it was being stored within us, ready for our next site visit, where we hoped to understand what might happen next. We were still at the stage of “letting things occur”, but adding in a little direction ourselves by stating our purpose for using the energies.

In the next post I tell of how we ventured further along the southern edge of Anglesey to the Bryngwyn Stones, and then up to the Soar Stone in the North West, and how the energies of those places interacted with the energy we had gathered from Bryn Celli Ddu. In the final post of this series we do some valuable energy work at Lligwy Chamber, and I map the energies again.

As I mentioned in my post about an update to the Sacred Sites page recently here is a more detailed account of my recent visit to the rather small but beautifully formed site that is The Bridestones. By some accounts what remains is but a small part of an originally much larger collection of stones and chambers. Here is a quote from the Unknown Phenomena Investigation Association’s web site:

“The site is very different to its original structure; many tons of stone were taken from the cairn by the builders of the nearby turnpike road in 1764. Other stones were used to build the adjacent house and farm, and more were recycled into an ornamental garden in Tunstall Park.
However, before this large scale ransacking occurred, it appears that the Bridestones was an incredible monument, perhaps unique in England. Evidence from a variety of sources indicates that it was a chambered tomb of massive proportions with a paved crescent forecourt and a port-holed stone dividing the main chamber. The complex was supposedly 110 metres in length with the horned cairn being 11 metres wide. A report from the 18th Century notes that in addition to the main chamber which still stands today, a further two subsidiary ones were located at a distance of 55 yards. No traces of these have ever been found, but there is much debate as to whether they are located east of the surviving chamber, or west. The latter seems more likely as they were probably covered by the same cairn as the main chamber.” (source: UPIA web site)

My task on this visit was not to investigate the former scale of the site, but to map the remaining energies in detail. I set about the task with some vigour as there was a cool wind and the sky was thickly clouded – not a day to be hanging around sun-bathing!

Luckily for my work the site was empty and there was little passing traffic from Dial Lane – the road passing the site across the adjacent field. The field contained a small group of young bullocks, though, and brought to mind several dowsing visits where cows had curtailed such dowsing endeavours. This spurred me into action all the quicker!

Yet I couldn’t start dowsing just yet. I had to have a good look around and get “into attunement” with the site, which is simply a question of being there, without thought, tuning into one’s senses and taking in everything at once without analysis. Moments later I felt myself blend into the site much better, and then I was ready to start dowsing its energies.

I started at the entrance and worked inwards to the chamber. Once I found a connection to the chamber I stayed in there for a while finding its power centres, denoted by terminating spirals. The alignment of the power centres seemed beautifully balanced – a male here, then a female, then a male and female centre combined. It felt lovely to be dowsing here – some sites feel ‘difficult’ or complex, but this site was beautiful in its simplicity and balance.

Inside the chamber

I stepped into the chamber by the right-hand edge’s gap and felt a compulsion to light a stick of incense in there. These days I go with such feelings, so I lit one and it scented the air nicely as I dowsed the rest of the chamber. Were the remains of the dividing wall between the two parts of the chamber the place where there was a hole that could fit a man, allowing access between the two when there had been a roof? It was hard to tell. The dowsing rods indicated that possibility, but were not conclusive about it.

Re-emerging from the chamber an intriguing lone pointed (male) stone caught my attention and I found that it had a connection to an energy that formed a ritual path into the nearby chamber. I was finding this feature almost every time I dowse a site now, and am beginning to think that Stone Dowser may have been on to something with his ‘ritual paths’. It does indeed seem like there was a specific way to enter some sites, irrespective of simply finding entrances.

The bullocks begin to take an interest and come over to see what’s happening. We have a short one-way conversation where I quiz them about why they might be interested in my dowsing. When questioned they move away as though they had never been interested after all.

I followed the spirals I had found to their termination points. Where did they go? Were they self-contained or did they link to other sites, I wondered? The female-to-female spirals I knew were self-contained, as was the male energy around the outlying male stone. It was the male/female power centre that needed to be explained. I followed the female energy to a large spiral a few feet outside the entrance to the chamber. The male energy flowed through a gap at the back of the chamber to sinew its way out of the back of the site but I couldn’t follow it far through the thick rhododendrons, brambles and assorted other obstacles that sealed off the rear of the site.

Some sort of rambler’s club began to make their presence known by gabbling loudly as they walked up the lane to the site. I decided this would be a good time to retire to consider what I wanted to do next, and leave the site to them for a few minutes. In my experience visitors to ancient sites are usually frequent, but fleeting. And so it proved. Minutes later your anti-social Hedge Druid had devised a set of questions to ask at the site and was back on the job without distractions – even the curious bulls had retreated faced with the retirement party.

I made a more respectful entrance, introducing myself to the guardian of the site, stating my name and purpose, and asking for permission to enter. A curious ritual, but one which I have learned from reading about and trying to understand the mind of The Druids. It was at this stage that things began to take a mystical turn!

I’ve posted recently on the strange phenomenon of the sun making an appearance when Kal and I meditate at sacred sites. Standing on the power centre in front of the tall stones outside the chamber I felt a gradual warmth penetrate my eyelids. I opened my eyes to see the whole site, and only the site, bathed in the spotlight of sunbeams the were radiating through a gap in the thick cloud cover that had been the constant feature of the day’s weather. This was highly improbable, but certainly very welcome!

Power centre lit up by sun

I smiled. I felt integrated with the site’s energies, and in response the sun was smiling down on me. Of course, it’s pure coincidence, but when it happens like this you feel something special is happening. I felt this was a good time to get the rest of my questions answered.

Here are the questions I asked the dowsing rods to help me answer about this site:-

1. Is this site still capable of performing its original function? YES.
2. Is the site still energetically active? NOT RIGHT NOW. (3:50pm on 3rd October 2009)
3. Can the site be activated? YES. AT SAMHAIN.
4. Can the site be used for education, revelation, healing, transformation, communication or something else? EDUCATION by nature spirits, REVELATION, HEALING, and TRANSFORMATION.
5. Does the site need restoring, healing or balancing? NO to all.
6. Is there a genius loci present at this site? YES. FEMALE.
7. Does this site respond to human interaction, the position of the sun, moon or stars? YES to all. Specifically the FULL moon, and the sun at NOON. Stars, less so.
8. Is the site an observatory, a calendar, an initiation chamber or a burial place? OBSERVATORY, CALENDAR, INITIATION CHAMBER.
9. Is there underground water at this site? YES.

With that information in mind I went back to do some quick dowsing for where water might be present at the site to see if it had any obvious significance in terms of where it might flow. As you can see from my sketch below there were two main flows of underground water crossing the site, and indeed they did tally with significant places for energy – namely the female spiral links just behind the entrance to the chamber, and the other, wider stream being marked by an outlying stone.

As I drove away from the site back towards Congleton I saw the group of bullocks react. They saw me driving away and began to gallop as a tight group stalking the car from across the field. I watched in a kind of amused shock. What were they doing? Then they turned like a flock of starlings straight towards me as they approached the end wall of the field. Now they were galloping towards me with a speed I could never have supposed a bovine to be capable of! I waved to them and wished them a cheery good day as my car dipped down the hill and beyond the confines of the field. Very strange behaviour!

From the information gleaned from this site I can see that there might be more to be learned, but that the next interaction would need to be a much more spiritual affair, guided by the information that I have obtained from dowsing. I think this clearly demonstrates the way in which dowsing can be used as a powerful investigative tool that can lead one quickly to understand qualities of a site, and the times when these qualities can best be utilised for the purposes that the site was designed for. We shall see!

Gwas.

A quick visit to The Bridestones of Congleton yesterday furnished me with enough information to provide an energetic map of the place for you. Check it out in the Sacred Sites section for more details. I’ll do a post of the visit, and add some pictures to the Gallery soon to fill in some extra information too.

Wiltshire – August 20th, 2009

There’s something mystical about Wiltshire. This county has more than its fair share of ancient sacred sites and now crop circle formations too. Wiltshire boasts Avebury, Stonehenge, Old Sarum, West Kennet Long Barrow, The Ridgeway ancient track, the list goes on and on. ‘Plan A’ was to find any remaining crop circles to dowse them – ‘Plan B’ was to ‘follow my nose’ and see what happened.

Yes, We Have No Crop Circles

If you intend to visit and stay in Wiltshire you could do far worse than to stay at The Seven Stars pub. It is close to Marlborough and the Ridgeway, and more importantly for cereologists, it is close to Alton Barnes and The Barge Inn – now landmarks of renown on the crop circle tours. The landlord and landlady were incredibly helpful and the food at this pub was outstanding. Highly recommended if you plan to stay in this area. If you want to see any crop circles, however, I’d recommend going in July.

The names of the places are all vaguely familiar if you’ve been reading books and web sites about crop circles for long enough: Alton Barnes, Ogbourne St.George, Banbury Castle, Silbury Hill. These are quaint names that evoke thoughts of ancient Britain, stone monuments, wheat fields, chalk figures and old churches. They are also places of renowned earth energy – possibly not a coincidence to the crop circle phenomenon.

There’s one thing that’s modern about Wiltshire though: the farming methods are bang up to date. On the day I arrived, a new moon, there seemed to be a note in every farmer’s diary – “Thursday 20^th: Harvest stupid crop circle fields today.” Sadly, by the time I had travelled down from Cheshire and then had dilly-dallied with a handful of the wealth of sacred sites that are sprinkled liberally around this part of Britain, all of the crop circles that remained only day earlier had been harvested. In fact, the last one was being bailed as I drove out to find it. Ah well, maybe a slight change of plan was required for the next day. Nevertheless I had spent an intriguing day travelling along the white dragon’s trail. What dragon’s trail? I’m so glad you asked! ‘Plan B’ was in action.

The Setting

The Ridgeway is a line of chalk stone that forms a ridge running from Overton Hill near Avebury in Wiltshire to Ivinghoe Beacon hill, near Tring in Berkshire. It’s around 87 miles in length and predominantly runs along a chalkstone ridge. It is an ancient trackway, possibly a ceremonial or processional path too. This links in with the recent idea that Stonehenge was once used for large-scale celebrations at specific solstice times of the year. The area may have harboured tribes who worshipped horse gods – the so-called Epona Cult – and consequently there are several white chalk horses carved into the hillsides of the valleys of the North and South Downs. The most famous of these horses – The Uffington White Horse – is something different, however, and I will come to that in the next post where some evidence suggests an alternative perspective.

An Old Straight Track

I parked at the Uffington White Horse car park, and headed for a site that I had longed to visit: the intriguingly named “Wayland’s Smithy“.

The character of Wayland The Smith has a long pedigree. I first came across him in Susan Cooper’s trilogy of books called “The Dark Is Rising” in which she interwove a modern setting with traditional Celtic characters and motifs. John “Wayland” Smith makes an appearance to forge magical symbols from elements to create a crossed circle which was then fitted to a belt of power. The elemental magic item was then used to repel the rising forces of The Dark, symbolised as the forces of Winter.

The essence of the Western Mystery Tradition was embedded in these excellent stories, and the maturation, the transformation and rebirth of a young adult named Will Stanton, a solar hero. His achieving union with the forces of The Light and Summer was the grand finale of this epic struggle. Another elderly character, Merriman Lyon, is a thinly-veiled personification of Merlin meanwhile.

The Ridgeway was evocative of The Old Straight Track of ley line history, or the track spoken of in the rhymes in her books that I used to memorise:

When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back;
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.

As I walked the chalk track up to Wayland’s Smithy, such thoughts came back to me like a much-loved song.

For more about Wayland, here’s an article from a Berkshire history web site. For me, Wayland symbolised a place or person who could help you to forge a symbol or sign of value that could be used to advance one’s learning and progress in the ways of the western mystery tradition.

Lucky for me then, that without any forethought that’s exactly what happened. Symbols must have been on my mind.

Lair of the White Dragon: Wayland’s Smithy

The site is almost hidden by trees, and is only noticeable because of a small signpost pointing the way to the copse of beech trees huddled amidst farmed fields. I dowsed straight away for an entrance point to the site. As no-one was around at the time I respectfully waited at the two tall beeches that guarded the entrance way and felt a gentle tug at my sacral chakra point, which indicated assent, so I entered.

I then asked to find “my place” or power centre where I could take stock of the site from. I was taken to a place on top of the barrow where I de-camped my gear. Next, I wanted to determine what type of energies were present around the site. No matter where I went I read for male, female and neutral energies all around. The whole site seemed to be a complete white stream energy field encircled and enclosed by a ring of old beech trees.

At the back of the barrow, off to one side in a small circular clearing where someone had had a fire I found a strong terminus point for a white stream. At this spot there was a bare patch of earth. I decide this would be the place to ask for a manifestation of the site’s own symbol, as I had done at other sacred sites before. The shape that had been manifested I took as a sigil of the site – it’s symbolic expression of energy – it’s signature, if you like.

A sigil generator based on Rosicrucian ideas

I don’t know how the Rosicrucians derived their  ideas of how to discover such symbols, but my own sigil was discovered through deep meditation. Finding the sigil for the spirit guardian of Wayland’s Smithy was done by asking and then dowsing the shape. Perhaps it was my polite manner, or good fortune, but one appeared for me at the termination point of the spiralling white stream energy that flowed across the site. Here is the symbol I dowsed – Wayland’s Sign:

Wayland's Sigil

As I wandered back to my power place I contemplated the mood of this site. It seemed like a great place to prepare yourself, perhaps for a spiritual journey – very calming, peaceful, and reassuring. The dappled light from the tall beech trees made it feel calming and I found myself smiling a great deal while I was there.

I went back to the entrance to the site, between the two tall beech trees in front of the main large stones, where there is a small bare patch of earth. I drew site ‘key’ sigil in the earth with my staff and felt a much stronger pull from the guardian trees. I walked back up to my power centre and ate my lunch whilst various visitors briefly inspected the site, then left contented that they had ticked their itinerary box.

As I sat on my power centre located on one of the three capstones to the chamber’s entrance, seated in a small depression in the rock, it occurred to me to draw my sigil in chalk on my power centre. As I did this my attention was drawn to the cup marks in the stones on either side of the chamber. I wondered if they were anything like the marks in the stone at Nine Stones Close in Derbyshire. I wondered if they would activate the site in some way. I dowsed the marks and found that I got agreement with this idea, but today was not the day to work with this site, I felt. I wasn’t ready to do that yet.

Instead I just meditated in the cooling afternoon breeze, lulled by the sound of the tree’s branches brushing each other gently. As I went into a trance I heard a phrase repeated over and over. “Go for a ride” it said. Go for a ride? On what, I wondered? On the nearby white horse of Uffington perhaps? I sprang up, mobilised. Of course it was. I packed and left to head back to where I had parked – I could pick up the path to the chalk horse from near the car park.

En route I picked up a small crab apple lying in the path heading for the chalk horse – it seemed like an apple might do very well for a horse! I made my way towards Uffington Castle to reach the great carving. Little did I know that a revelation was awaiting me.

Gwas Myrddyn

On the trail of the White Dragon…

One thing that has always seemed incidental to my research into stone circles and other megalithic sites has been the discrepancy between dowsing responses and the official reports on the purpose of such sites. These official histories can be found placed outside the sites by helpful country councils eager to attract tourists to any old thing they can offer on a rainy English summer day that might seem cultural or educational.

Every one of these signs, without exception, is adamant that, because a tweed-attired chap with a trowel and monocle dug up a small pile of cremated bones from the centre of the site in 1921 that this is categorical evidence that sites from then on should be designated for “burial” purposes. Don’t get me wrong – valuable archaeological work has been done at ancient sites, and I do not dispute the accuracy of the work done, or the professionalism brought to bear on the excavation in modern times. However, I believe that in respect of human remains and funerary practises the evidential tale takes a major leap into “faction” – a curious meld of fact and fiction that then becomes a widely-publicised and accepted “truth”.

Inscription for Lligwy Chamber

Here is a list of unscientific things that I find contradict this widely-held scientific hypothesis:-

1. Every time we dowse a site where bones have been found to see whether it primarily served the purpose of a burial site – the clear and unequivocal answer has been “No”. We have to say ‘primarily’ because of course bones have been buried there, so if we asked the questions differently we might get a misleading answer.
2. Why would you bury people in a stone circle that was clearly intended for astronomical use? This was the calendar of the ancient peoples, and the movement of posts to track the heavens would have required regular visits. Clearly, stone circles in particular served a calendrical purpose above that of being a cemetery.
3. Cromlechs and “passage graves” are always labelled “burial chambers”, yet many cromlechs have interior spaces that are too small to hold a human skeleton. Yes, many remains have been cremated, but even so the “real estate” is quite limited. Passage graves are aligned with astronomical bodies, not dead bodies, and their passages stream with light on specific important dates. Their chambers also resonate sound superbly, and the mounds above the passage are structured like Wilhelm Reich’s Orgone Accumulator – layers of different materials that retain and transform nature’s energies. A sophisticated structure for a grave, with may superfluous features, wouldn’t you say?
4. If the site was for burial, why would you bury a small number of people there? The stock answer is that it was the site of the burial of heroic people – druids, famous warriors, chieftains. So, why do you only get a select number of skeletons there, and not lots layered on top of each other, as successive generations marked great people? This would indicate that the structure served a one-off purpose of the burial of specific people, possibly for a specific purpose. The argues against the idea of the function of such sites being primarily for burial.
5. Many of the funereal urns containing the charred remains dug up from stone circles are dated to around the latter end of the Bronze Age (3200-1200BCE), yet stone circles have themselves been dated from thousands of years before that. It seems that the burials were later additions to the ceremonial aspects of these sites.

If your old religion and civilisation was being systematically destroyed by invaders, as the last in the line of the Circle Builders, where would you wish to be buried? An ancient site. Was it a final act of dedication, a magical attempt to preserve the energies of the sites through their sacrifice and burial at astronomical positions? Or were they places where communication with and inspiration from the ancestors could be obtained at specific times of the year when the veil between worlds was thinner?

So, my theory is that the ancient sites were indeed used for burying some people, but that this was not the primary purpose of such sites. I do not see any evidence at all that the design, the layout, the siting, and the structure of the ancient sites have anything at all to do with burial as an inherent and continuous part of their purpose.

As Aubrey Burl puts it:-

The most likely explanation for these bizarre collections of bones, some of them lacking skulls and far too few to represent even a minute fraction of the population, is that they were the remains of an ancestor cult in which the living ritually used skulls and longbones, believing that the ghosts of the dead would protect them just as dedicatory burial would add potency to a ceremonial monument. In the new stone age death and the dead obsessed the living. But, needing to control these powerful and dangerous spirits, the people confined the bones inside ‘magic’ rings of earth or stone.

I have a slightly different perspective on that which includes aspects of “death energy” being ritualistically interred into the sacred site in an attempt to bring stability to a community (a rallying point), fertility to the land, and perhaps to retain the presence of that person’s spirit by “fixing” their presence into the energy formation at such crossing points on the earth energy grid.

Gwas.