Posts Tagged ‘carlos castaneda’

Energetic Double – a mystery

Over the past few months I have been interacting with my Energetic Double (albeit from a distance) and I have puzzled many a time as to the question of…what exactly is an Energetic Double.

At the moment the answer is I don’t know, but I am willing to speculate from knowledge I have garnered over the years.

Castaneda

In his monumentally informative works Castaneda describes a double as…

“No sorcerer knows where his Other is. A sorcerer has no notion that he is in two places at once. To be aware of that would be the equivalent of facing his double, and the sorcerer that finds himself face to face with himself is a dead sorcerer. That is the rule. That is the way power has set things up. No one knows why.”

and also thus…

“By the time a warrior has conquered dreaming and seeing and has developed a double, he must have also succeeded in erasing personal history, self-importance, and routines. So doing is the means for removing the impracticality of having a double in the ordinary world, by making the self and the world fluid, and by placing them outside the bounds of prediction.”

With these two in mind I have to ask myself, am I encountering my double in the sense that Castaneda puts it? A correlation is that I have also been told that if I interact with my Double the it would be fatal. But I have also been told that I should head towards a stage where I will be able to interact with it, so…?

Also I have not consciously worked on developing my double and I don’t know what “knows where his Other is” means. I knew (well to some extent) where mine was, I may be oversimplifying this though.

“A sorcerer may certainly notice afterwards that he has been in two places at once. But this is only bookkeeping and has no bearing on the fact that while he’s acting he has no notion of his duality.”

Again, my interactions seem to be with another consciousness rather than me being in two places at the same time. Although to interact with it, I was technically in two places.

Conclusion so far…I dont think it is a Castanedian Double type that I am engaging with.

Doppleganger

The word is of German origin and means “double walker”. As this wiki page illustrates there are several characteristics that are associated with such a, hmmm, entity?

From the above link the definition “ka” or spirit walker sounds intriguing and curiously enough a name that I have been given in the past. I wonder now as I type this whether there is any significance in this coincidence (Gwas always says there is no such thing as coincidence).

Although the wiki page declares that a “ka” is…

In Ancient Egyptian mythology, a “ka” was a tangible “spirit double” having the same memories and feeling as the original person. In one Egyptian myth titled “The Greek Princess”, an Egyptian view of the Trojan War, a ka of Helen was used to mislead Paris of Troy, helping to stop the war.

Further research on the Internet also suggests that the “ka” is the spirit that leaves the body after one dies. So although on first reference that definition hinted at something interesting. I am left pondering…

Here is what another site says…

KA. . The ka is usually translated as “double”, it represents a person’s double. It is what we would call a spirit or a soul. The ka was created at the same time as the physical body. It was believed that the ram-headed god Khnum crafted the ka on his potter’s wheel at the time of a persons birth. A persons ka would live on after their body had died. It was thought that when someone died they “met their ka”. The ka existed in the physical world and resided in the tomb (House of the Ka). It had the same needs that the person had in life, which was to eat, drink, etc. The Egyptians left offerings of food, drink, and worldly possessions in tombs for the ka to use.

Again possibilities arise, however one obvious distinction is that the Double that I have encountered seems to have prodigious abilities.

In my paranormal studies I have encountered tales of people having encountered the double of a person they knew and then meeting the actual person and relating how they had just met them before in another place. In these instances the doppleganger certainly had all the memories and characteristics of the “original”. One has to ask, which is the original?

In my two encounters to date I have not seen the face of my double and only know that it is vaguely humanoid in shape. In both instances it was shining so brightly with inner light that I couldn’t make out its features.

Astral body

Could what I am encountering be described as my astral body? This is unlikely and to be honest, I think that when I am encountering it I am doing so via my astral body. Astral body has so many differing descriptions that it is virtually impossible to get a grip on what it is, where it exists or how to objectively talk about it. Suffice for this moment in time to say that I think this is the least likely candidate.

Where does this leave us

At the moment, my Energetic Double seems to have features from both camps. It seems to have the powers and capabilities of a Castanedian type double but also some of the features from a Doppleganger/Ka type double.

Kal Malik ~ as puzzled as ever

The Number 117 ~ Wisdom from the Yew Part I

Imbolc was a reasonably fantastic day for us. However if you have the fortune (sic) of going to Anglesey you will realise that the coastal areas are quite nice but…it’s a bit barren in the middle. So it was that Imbolc was pretty tree-less and since I am rather partial to Trees I wasn’t having any of it.

It being a wonderful sunny, but with a hefty cold breeze I decide to hove of to my all time favourite Tree. Yes, you got it “Ye olde Yew”

Ancient Yew

Alas, on the way I got a bit lost – darned sat nav! and so I didn’t arrive there until the sun had well and truly hit the dirt.

Still with a cloudless night the stars were lovely in the heavens. And to boot the ice cold wind had abated so it was looking to be a fine evening of contemplation and dowsing.

And so it was…Almost immediately I was in state and conversing with my ol’ friend. and what a conversation was to be had, on so many levels. Please note that I am typing really fast lest it fade from mind.

It began, inevitably about wand lore. I wont go into that here as it rather nicely fits in over at The Wand Maker. However after this came the subject of 117.

Side Note: for the last couple of weeks (has it only been that?) I have had this number floating around my head. I divined its origins to be something to do with wand making but apart from that I couldn’t find any other relevance (actually even in wand making it had no relevance!)

Anyways, I have been pondering it on and off and trying to avoid getting into the scenario where I was seeing it every where aka the film Number 23

23

Don’t want to end a loon like that guy huh?

So, I was sitting nicely amongst the graves and Yew tree (hmmm ok…) when the number 117 popped into my head.

What does 117 mean I asked, Is it meaningful? The answer was a yes. O and would you like to explain why? Because you have made it so. Did I do something to make it meaningful? Yes. What did I do? You made it meaningful. How did I do that? By making it meaningful. I know, but how? What did I do? You made it meaningful.

OK so now I’m thinking of Jim Carey here i.e. going nuts. Then intuition (as it does hit me) Do you mean I made it meaningful because I thought it was. Yes. But does it have meaning other than what I ascribe to it? No.

Obviously this was going in circles (spirals?) and I wasn’t getting anywhere, or was I? 117 has only the meaning I give it? Yes. Why did I give it some meaning. I don’t know, ask yourself that. O lovely – obviously The Trickster was about someplace.

Does 117 inherently have any meaning? Only to you, because you have made it so. Now you should use it. Ah…interesting…Use it how? Make your plans divisible by it, multiples of it. You mean like 117 days? Yes, and 58.5 and 39 and 19.5 and 234 hours, days.

So is 117 related to time? No, But…117 is nothing, it is an illusion, it means nothing! But…You gave it meaning, it has meaning for you and yet it has no meaning.

And then, wow a penny dropped with a huge tidal wave. I’m conning myself aren’t I? Yes (and I could feel the smile) Is this like controlled folly? Exactly like that but with a hint of stupidity, Instead of practicing it on others you are practicing on yourself.

Side note: For those who are not versed in the Shamanistic world of Carlos Castaneda, here are some of his words or rather his teachers words on the matter…

“I told you once that our lot as men is to learn, for good or bad,” he said.  “I have learned to see and I tell you that nothing really matters; now it is your turn; perhaps someday you will see and you will know then whether things matter or not.  For me nothing matters, but perhaps for you everything will.  You should know by now that a man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting.  A man of knowledge chooses a path with heart and follows it; and then he looks and rejoices and laughs; and then he sees and he knows.  He knows that his life will be over altogether too soon;  he knows that he, as well as everybody else, is not going anywhere; he knows, because he sees, that nothing is more important than anything else.

In other words, a man of knowledge has no honor, no dignity, no family, no name, no country, but only life to be lived, and under these circumstances his only tie to his fellow men is his controlled folly.  Thus a man of knowledge endeavors, and sweats, and puffs, and if one looks at him he is just like any ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under control.

Nothing being more important than anything else, a man of knowledge chooses any act, and acts it out as if it matters to him.  His controlled folly makes him say that what he does matters and makes him act as if it did, and yet he knows that it doesn’t; so when he fulfills his acts he retreats in peace, and whether his acts were good or bad, or worked or didn’t, is in no way part of his concern.  A man of knowledge may choose, on the other hand, to remain totally impassive and never act, and behave as if to be impassive really matters to him; he will be rightfully true at that too, because that would also be his controlled folly.”

Source

So what should I do? Carry on practicing it…It has meaning for you now. But that meaning is a lie…So? Er…So its a lie, an illusion, Maya…Isn’t that wonderful? Think about it.

And I did think about it for ages. And it makes a kind of weird sense that is difficult to explain because the reader needs to understand Castaneda’s use of “controlled folly” to understand the…how can I say it, funny side of this. Let me have a go…

It’s like making up an arbitrary fictional goal post and trying to score a goal in it, whilst all the while knowing that there is no post, ball, indeed, there is no game. But you still try really hard to score.

This was only a part of tonight’s star-filled commune with Ye olde Yew – more later.

Kal

Nine Ladies stone circle: Dancing in the dark – Part 3

3rd November 2008

This is the last part in the account of our time at the Nine Ladies stone circle in Derbyshire. In this part I relate how we attempted some psionic experiments, I get to talk with the Wishing Tree, and we stumble upon the haunt of some exponents of sacred geometry. Oh yes, it’s all going on in this part of the tale! We really start pushing it now!

PART THREE

At the end of the last post we had been trying to figure out the unusual response (one rod straight ahead, one turning to point back at you, or swivelling round). We were thinking along the lines of Kal being attuned to male energies, whereas I was more attuned to female. On this full-moonlit night it seemed as though I was finding it easier to tune it to some of the features of the site in particular.

We decided to begin some experiments. We asked for the best place to do some energy work, and were each directed to a different power centre. Oddly, Kal was standing on the one where he had planted his umbrella, which I had taken to be the one I would go to. Oh no. I was directed to stand in the one that Kal had been sitting in, and had dowsed into a spiral earlier. So be it.

Nine Ladies stone circle

Nine Ladies stone circle

We decided beforehand that we would try to get into a state of mind where we might be able to connect to each other. The two power centres were linked by arcing neutral energies, connecting male to female, and travelling over and under in a vertically circular trajectory. We hypothesised that we may be able to send each other images. I tried to relax on the power centre, but I had a Kings of Leon tune running around in my head that wouldn’t shift. It kept repeating the same refrain. This was not funny! I was trying to work here! No good. I was mainly ‘awake’ and could tell my focus was wandering – what was Kal imagining, would it be a shape, or an animal? Oh, dear. This was hopeless! Despite the stillness of the dark night I kept dropping out of trance at the slightest sound – a distant rumble, a passing car on the hillside, a hooting owl, a gust of wind.

We tried. We failed. We weren’t even close. And it was because I couldn’t get into it. Was this another effect of the grounding stone? Had I not charged myself back up, or something? I pondered on that for quite a long time before heading off to the Wishing Tree for a drink. Time to get back to dowsing to reconnect with the stone circle. We headed to the grounding stone again, as it seemed to be the hub of the action this night. Hoping to get some answers I dowsed the stone again asking,

“Do I need to clear myself through this stone to regain my connection (with nature and the circle)?” I asked. The rods crossed for a ‘Yes’.

I put the rods down again and placed my hand on the stone instead of sitting on it I started to tune in. My mind started to gently swirl around like someone had taken the sink plug out and my brain was draining its water into the stone! Then it got faster. The vortex in my head reached such a pace that it sent me dizzy! I spun away from the stone, but kept turning around and around, staggering like a drunk whilst laughing elatedly at the madness of being spun around. My head was swimming in a really fun way, like having spun yourself around a broom handle and then tried to walk in a straight line.

Kal just stood looking on curiously as I waltzed around giggling and laughing. I asked something, anything, to give me a hand here! Couldn’t something help me to get out of this tailspin? A split second later I was prodded forcefully right in the back of the neck by one of the Wishing Tree’s branches! I jumped – woke up – and stopped spinning, thankfully. “Thank you!” I responded with genuine gratitude. I felt a warming under the tree’s canopy the air got lighter and more friendly. We had re-established a connection! That was just great. Now I was really happy, not giddy.

Back to the dowsing. Time must have been drawing on, but really I didn’t care what time it was. It wasn’t important. I had to know more before we left the site. Rods in hand I walked back to Kal in the circle to continue trying to locate some connections and flows. The first thing we found were the male and female spirals coming out each stone. Just like many other sites, but with the male spirals on the inside, and female spirals on the outside. Other sites have it the other way around.

Next we located the neutral lines that went between the stones. I went for the concept of opposing stones being connected and found a connection for each pair. Oddly, all of the lines were perfectly straight except for one, which bent back into the circle stone in a short curve. Was it going bending in order to avoid something? It seemed to coincide with the avoidance of the location of the two power centres we had been standing on. Noted anyway, if not understood. Kal, however, had found a few connections that were not a part of this perfect ‘spoked wheel’ pattern. Some stones connected with others that were not directly opposite. We vowed to return to map them all when it was lighter and we could draw them out.

Whereas our sketches of energy patterns at sites are representational (and not always to scale) you should compare them with those of StoneDowser on his site (listed also in our links section on the right hand side of this page). Mr. Ian Honeygood, now sadly passed away, was quite precise in some of his diagrams, although he only seemed to recognise two types of line: a radial spoke and a ‘ritual path’, which he surmises was the path taken by the worshippers at the sites. Well, that concept doesn’t convince me, I’m sorry to say, but that’s a discussion for another day. Either way, he has done some accurate and helpful diagrams to show those two types of energy formations.

StoneDowser’s ritual path is what I would call the unwinding of the nemeton of the site. Like Hamish Miller we often find three (he finds more, but then he’s like that) circles of male energy enclosing sites, and this energy trail then comes into the site to spiral to a point which we usually confirm as being a power centre for one of us (i.e. male or female oriented energies dwell in or emit from these points). Each time around the three outer spirals of the male nemeton energy the path gets closer to the stones. At Nine Ladies it started about three feet away from the stones, going to about one and a half feet, then six inches for the last time around. The path then turns into the ‘entrance’ of the site before looping into a spiralling energy centre.

On my last visit to Nine Ladies I had dowsed a link between the Wishing Tree oak and the main power centre, coming into the site via the ‘entrance’. I decided to verify if that was still present or not. It was. Exactly the same path, same entrance point, same power centre, same direction of spiral, everything. Good. Consistency was being achieved in some of this dowsing now.

As we were near the tree Kal decided to try his luck in doing a bit of communing with it. Now, I have already recounted my own difficulties with this species, and particularly this tree. It is amenable to contact, but it has to be handled very carefully and with great patience. Kal is, how can I put this, not one for such finesses! In all openness and in his usual hearty style I watched him outstretch a metaphorical hand of welcome. And then I watched him knock his head on a low branch and stumble over a tree root. I pretended I hadn’t noticed this blatant rebuttal. He tried again, complaining to it that he was trying to be nice. Nothing. What did he expect? He was not one for the patient building of relationships that such communications often insist upon. His talents lie elsewhere, I guess. I tried to wipe off my wide smile. “Give up, mate!” I implored. He was fighting a losing battle, it seemed.

One thing we both noticed about the site that night was how slow the energies were. As we dowsed them we walked slowly; as we circled the site the energy plodded along with us but didn’t overtake us as it has at other circles in sunlight, or my time at Moel-Ty-Uchaf. The Genius Loci was docile this evening. Nocturnal nature, however, was wide awake. Occasionally we would get a hint of agreement at just the right time whilst dowsing or communing – a sudden gust of wind, or a hooting owl would chime in at just the apropos moment.

Things had gone well. We had learned useful things about the way that energy was being transformed in the circles by specific stones. With this, and more, still buzzing in our heads we retreated one last time to the Wishing Oak to pack and leave. On my way there my eye was drawn for a fourth time to a twig of laurel lying by the north side of the circle – the moonlight made its dark leaves shine with an odd tint. I picked it up, and placed it inside one of the many crevices formed by the oak’s roots, and left it with thanks and good wishes to the tree. It gave enough out often enough – why not have some back? ;-)

As we wandered back to the car I asked if we could try to see what kind of place might be benefiting from the flow of energy that I knew went down the cliff edge via a steep gulley. Kal was game, so we drove down a side of the hill that I had never been down before. Kal said this was the way he often came up, so I was confident we could find our way back to the Bakewell area pretty easily soon enough. Ten minutes later Kal was saying, “Well, I’ve never been in this bit before!” as we trundled curiously through a small town that suddenly arose next to a river.

We passed a pub called “The Square and Compass” and that struck a chord – that was a masonic sigil. It would seem that Darley Dale, as the place turned out to be, was home to at least one group of people who were interested in ancient secrets! Societies are not for me, however. My path is mainly alone or with Kal, and my progress is swift because of that, I feel. It’s my path I’m treading, not following someone else’s agenda.

There was a lot to think about, and it kept us in conversation for several weeks afterwards. To recap, we learned:-

a) The rules of the collaboration with Nature must always be followed to get good results – a quiet mind is essential; good strong intent; a clean body (not caffeine-fuddled, tobacco doesn’t help the cause either); be prepared for fun, but do your work seriously and focused.
b) The double helix appears at several stone circles, possibly many more, linked to an outlier stone, which is identified as a main feature of the energy field system at a stone circle
c) Moon energy is slower, possibly weaker than sun energy. Certainly it is less vigorous.
d) A stone in or close to the circle, usually flat, acts like a solar, lunar and stellar panel that absorbs the radiant light.
e) In moonlight, on the correct power centre, we were both unable to experience any intuitive responses either between each other or towards any external location. The EMF was supposedly low, as it was night time. A lecture by Serena Roney-Dougal taught us that at times of low EMF are more favourable for telepathy and remote viewing. I blew that experiment by not being able to quieten my mind.
f) Although StoneDowser didn’t dowse this site (to our knowledge) his ‘ritual path’ was present – a spiraling line coming from outside to inside the circle. The radial links between the stones that he drew at other sites were also there. We thought that the lines bent between some stones sometimes, and that there were more links than simply those that were opposing stones.

It would seem that manifestation patterns can be willed into a particular shape, although my intention got transformed whilst I was forming it in my mind. Is this due to an interactive collaboration between human and nature, or was I simply unable to hold a shape using my willpower? The shape dowsed as increasingly complex when Kal came to verify it. I also verified Kal’s shape too. “Thaat be a pentangle, and no mistake, zurr.” What is it about wizards and their five-sided shapes?

Don’t phone in – it’s just for fun! ;-)

Gwas.

Nine Ladies stone circle: Dancing in the dark – Part 2

3rd November 2008

This is part two of a three part account of our time at the Nine Ladies stone circle in Derbyshire. We visited in the late winter evening and in this part we found out the importance of particular stones in the circle.

PART TWO

We continued our dowsing in the moonlit deep and misty darkness of Stanton Moor’s finest neolithic structure – The Nine Ladies stone circle.

We had identified this particular flat-topped square stone in the northern side (due north), when we had dowsed the circle earlier, as being a stone that had a mixture of male and female energies. When we sat upon it there was the distinct impression that something was being drawn out of you slowly. If you sit on such stones in circles for more than a few minutes you feel sapped of energy, literally lethargic and your mind is drained of will power – you can’t think of anything worth doing! It’s very strange. You have to try to shake yourself out of it – almost re-invigorating yourself to make neurons fire again and generate some momentum. Kal called these stones “grounding stones”, which contains the implication of in some way discharging the body of electrical energy, of neutralising it.

A test of this phenomenon might be to identify people with different energy levels, and to see what effect the stones have on them. Is the draining effect stronger on those with more energy? Would this mean that we should see the greatest effect with such people, the greatest degree of change in mood and activity? We will check this in due course.

In addition to any grounding effect Kal identified that this stone would also be the stone to re-balance any imbalances in our own energy fields. I have little experience in such things, so I am open to simple experimentation, and I usually try these things out. This time I found that when I sat on it I got the same draining effect which I left until the very last moment when I felt I had enough will power to do what I needed to do next! Which was to head for the main power centre to “re-charge” myself – which it duly did, and very quickly. I noticed this at Cerrig Pryfaid recently too. A discharged body feels a much greater surge of energy when standing on a power centre in a stone circle than if you are already well balanced and full of energy. Feel free to disagree with that outrageous generalisation and irrational assumption as you see fit. I would go test it for myself, if I were you.

I remember walking for over and hour and a half, and finally up a very steep hill to get to Pentre Ifan in Pembrokeshire (see previous post). By the time we arrived at the stunning cromlech I was exhausted on what was a very warm day. I will never forget the feeling that both M and I got from standing with our backs to the central pillar stone. It was a surge of joyful energy so emboldening that I burst out laughing and had a moistness in the corners of my eyes. It was that incredible. Never forget it. I haven’t laughed so much since the last time I saw Bill Hicks. Except this was a rush of pure joy. An ecstatic moment.

Oh, I’m rambling again. Back to the story for a brief spell (there’s one of those puns again). Feeling re-invigorated we wondered at the purpose of these stones. Were they for discharging energies that were blocked, absorbed by people, or built up to harmful levels? How was this stone being powered? What was the nature of the energy exchange in and around this stone?

Kal identified that the stone was the most important stone in the circle, but not the most important at the whole site – that was the King Stone. Again we spent a moment considering the implications of this gnowledge we had been given by the dowsing rods. Even if we were merely expressing some of our own guesses at a subconscious level this was taking us in an interesting and very coherent direction. It was suggesting to us that the King Stone as the engine of the energies. With it being the source of the twin energy streams that formed the double helix which ultimately encircled the whole site the King Stone was vital, in every sense of that word, to the functioning, the correct and continued functioning of the circle’s energies. This was a very important working assumption that felt like confirmation of something we had guessed but never really thought about.

Recently, after this episode, I found a site where energies were again fed into the circle by an outlying stone, and which also split into two streams – a male line going anti-clockwise around to join a large circle stone, and the female line that went in a clockwise direction to also re-join in the same large stone. Clearly, to me, this was showing me that the circle was powered, and its energies contained, by the outlier, or King stone, and that the two streams formed a complete circuit of energy. Does this specific formation occur naturally anywhere else? Has anyone found such a formation anywhere else? I haven’t heard of anything like that elsewhere, or found anything similar at natural features such as Lud’s Church ravine, or in a cave. In places such as that the energies are much more organically distributed and connected, whereas at man-made sites the energies form geometric patterns, shapes and alignments.

So, what was the grounding stone’s part in the circle. Kal identified that it was important to the circle, and it’s functions. We determined to find out a bit more about its function. I suggested we start by determining how the stone was using energy. For every question we asked we told each other what we were going to ask so that we could do the same. Even though we were only feet away I couldn’t see what Kal was doing other than making out that his shape was getting larger as he moved forwards. Well, another validating test, I mused. We looked up at the bright full moon. Hmmm. We asked about the stone:-

  • Was there moon energy going into this stone? – Yes. Strongly yes. Full across-the-chest crossing of the rods.
  • Was there sun energy going into this stone? – A tiny bit. A tiny bit? Well, we considered, moonlight is actually reflected sunlight, so…. we suppose that’s technically correct!
  • Was there star energy going into this stone? – Yes. A small amount. A bit more than the sun energy registered for.
  • Was there male energy going into the stone? – Yes.
  • Was there female energy going into the stone? – Yes. Oh – so both – that confirms our earlier dowsing findings.
  • Was there neutral energy going into the stone? – No.
  • Were male/female/neutral energies coming out of the stone? All three got a positive response.
  • What about a combination of the types? Was the sun energy the same as the male energy? Yes. And the moon energy was the same as the female? Yes. Was the star energy the neutral energy? No. So there was some alignment there, but neutral was not the same as starlight energy.

On to questions about how the stone worked now. Still with us? Good. We asked:-

  • Was the stone absorbing the moon and other energies? Yes. Tonight it was predominantly the moon, of course. You could almost feel it being stood over it – the top of the stone was perfectly reflecting the moon directly above it. It looked like a lunar and solar panel. not forgetting starlight.
  • Was the stone literally transforming the moonlight and starlight into energy that fed into the circle? Yes. Strongly yes. Strongly is not the right word. More…encouraging: “Well done, you’ve got it!”. It’s funny, You feel a little pleased during the reaction of the rods that you asked the correct question.
  • Were the male and female energies coming out of the stone powered by that transformation of energies? Yes. I’m giving you the highlights here.

There were some stupid questions that I’ve omitted for brevity (Ha ! Brevity !) and you’ll know which those are as soon as you dowse them. I try to ignore my stupid questions and hope they’ll go away in their own time.

Our next set of questions related to, well, how we related to the stone. How else can I say it? We didn’t intend it that way, but that was how it turned out. I asked whether the stone was inherently ‘male’ in itself. I got a positive response. Kal did the question and got the same response. I asked if it was also female. It was. Kal dowsed it and got his funny reaction again. He got one rod turning in at 90 degrees, the other didn’t move. Aha! A chance to see if we could work this out. I got Kal to ask exactly what I had asked. Same response. But I got a positive response – clear – typical. Kal’s was atypical, that’s for sure.

I asked a straight out direct question. Was the reaction Kal was getting due to our own differences as people? Yes. Kal confirmed this as he dowsed the same question. We already knew that Kal had more favourable responses, and was intuitively guided to, power centres of pre-dominantly male energy, whereas I had an affinity for the female power centres. Here was Kal being unable to dowse for the inherent female-ness of the stone, but he could for the male. Under the strong moonlight I could do both. Was the moon having that effect, or was there the possibility that the roles may be reversed elsewhere in bright sunlight? We wait for some bright sunlight to test this! It is winter in England.

Sunlight is at a premium!

Gwas

Follow a moonlit path.

Nine Ladies stone circle: Dancing in the dark – Part 1

3rd November 2008 (full moon)

This is the first installment of a three-part post about a visit that Kal and I undertook to Nine Ladies stone circle in Stanton Moor, Derbyshire one dark winter evening. It’s a tale of adventure involving dowsing, druidry and darkness.

PART ONE

It was a dark and stormy night….no, it wasn’t actually. It was a fairly light evening, misty and very still, with only the occasional breeze stirring anything at all. We drove over the Cat & Fiddle route (A537) from Macclesfield and straight into a fog bank near to Tegg’s Nose Country Park (how can a nose have a whole country park to itself – surely a gross waste of space!?).

Inching along we managed to find our way back to Stanton Moor on the far side of Bakewell in Derbyshire by instinct alone (and the fact that we’d been here many times each independently, and once together). Tonight was different from all other times though. It was night time and the moon was full. Oooh! Spooky! Not really. If you’ve followed my recent posts “Alone in the Dark” (Part 1 / Part 2) then you’ll know I’ve been preparing myself for things like this already. Kal has been trained by long night walkabouts and so we were both completely unfazed by the journey across dark fields, through the woods, and into the circle of stones on Stanton Moor. The gentle hooting of owls was almost comical. Comedy was the theme of the evening, as it turned out, but I’ll come back to that later.

In the ambient moonlight cast through the low thin cloud cover there was a silver path picked out through the woods by a quirk of the angle of light. It led us with ease towards the circle without putting a foot wrong in the darkness. We both remarked, somewhat gratefully, that the going was easy and pleasant on this unseasonably warm evening. There was a slight haze of mist, but that just added to the wondrous effect.

As we approached down the sandy and subtly moonlit path I again felt the urge to arrive at the circle via the short path through the trees. We had walked in from the Stanton Lees village side (not across the moor) as this path was shorter. As we walked up the rise to the circle I felt a wave of energy that hit me, as before, gently in my stomach. “Can you feel that?” I asked Kal. “Oh yes.” he responded. Then he walked ahead of me and began to really feel it. He stopped too, “It’s really strong here.” “I’m sparking with it!” I responded. My hair felt like someone was holding a balloon above it and my face was tingling gently. This was either a particularly energetic time, or we were getting better at detecting it. An owl hooted in agreement, and I smiled. Coincidence.

The circle awaited us like some sleeping giant’s crown waiting to be snatched by midnight thieves as we stole up to a point ten feet away and breathed in the night air. It was as though we were taking in the aura of the place, deep into our lungs, in order to quickly acclimatise to the flowing, sweeping energies we could feel that the site was bathed in.

We placed out backpacks just below the rise to the circle and got out our copper L-rods. Why copper? Because they look nice. Our first mission was to get accustomed to the circle again. We consulted our crib sheet of questions and suggestions for things to look for. We started by sitting on each of the stone in turn to see if we could find a stone that drained energies. We had found one here before, and I had found one since then at Cerrig Pryfaid. Quickly we identified it as a small stone with a flat top, perfect for sitting on. Just like the one at Cerrig Pryfaid. Good start. “A draining stone!” I claimed. “A grounding stone!” Kal retorted. Possibly either or both, we agreed. Same function, different slant.

Kal walked off to the King Stone with his rods clinking his location as he disappeared into the night’s shadows. I decided to approach the tree. As I got within a few feet of the edge of its canopy, I introduced myself to the tree (rather matter-of-factly, on reflection) in my mind. Immediately I felt a block pushing against my stomach, the area that Castenada would call the Assemblage Point. I recognised this from previous encounters with oak trees – I was being barred! I didn’t need a second hint, so I stopped and walked away back towards the circle, vowing to return soon when I was in a better frame of mind. Too hasty! I scolded myself. Always too hasty with oaks. They’re slow, old, and demand a greater respect than other types of tree. One day I will abide by The Rules. I’m still trying to work out what they are, but the nature spirits (or Genius Loci, as Kal refers to these sentient entities) are being very patient and consistent with me, which is helping the process along nicely.

I walked up to the King Stone to see what Kal was up to. He was dowsing down towards me in a tell-tale meander from side to side. “Male line.” he responded to my pending question. “Coming out of the King Stone.” I had found such a line on a previous visit, as had Kal. I was sure I remembered there was a female line coming out too, so I dowsed for that, and found it going alongside the path Kal had just described for the male energy line. I did the male line as well and found it curved in exact opposition to the female line. Another double-helix formation like Cerrig Pryfaid! We dowsed some more questions – taking turns to verify each others findings, which seemed particularly validating because we wouldn’t take any visual cues from each other as we could only see each other’s rods as we got a foot or so away from the stone.

  • We asked for the direction of the flow? – The rods swung towards the stone circle.
  • Was the King Stone the source of the energies? – Yes.
  • Did the King Stone have a connection to the circle? – Yes.
  • Did the King Stone have any energy of its own? – Yes.
  • Was the King Stone exclusively male? – No.
  • Was the King Stone exclusively female? – No. – Oh! A surprise there. Could it be neutral?
  • Was the King Stone exclusively neutral – No. NO! Well, then what was it? A combination?
  • Was the King Stone a combination of male and female ? – Yes. Ahhhhh. Interesting!
  • Did the energy go out of the King Stone away from the circle as well as towards it? – No.

Kal then dowsed the auric extent of the King Stone on the side away from the circle and found it to be about 7-8 feet away, surrounding the stone in a circle. So that was the extent of that stone’s ‘influence’, if you like. Its energies were contained within a small circle, and bound to the stone circle down the way from us, linked by a double helix of male and female energy lines.

So it seemed the stone, containing a combination of male and female energies was able to either split the energies and propel them towards the stone circle, or, the circle was drawing male and female energies simultaneously but separately from the King Stone, and drawing them down to itself. Either way it was connected, so where did it go after it left the King Stone? I followed the two lines simultaneously by instructing one rod to follow the male line, whilst the other should follow the female line. Would it work? Indeed it would, but it was very easy to get into all sorts of weird Hannibal Lecter poses if you weren’t careful. At times the relative amplitudes of the waveforms meant that I lost connection with the waves until they converged again further down their paths. Eventually they parted company at a point five feet in front of the stone circle, each going around the circle – male left, female right – until the male line continued around the circle to rejoin itself. The female line spiralled into a flat stone on the right of the circle (looking from the King Stone). This flat stone registered for female energy too. You’d think so, I guess, if a female line comes into it, but I thought I’d check anyway. These things have a habit of overcoming your assumptions regularly, and making you look like a lost Mark Thatcher.

As I stood on one side of the circle I found that I could see the stone circle’s nemeton, the energy positioned seven feet away from the circle, as a band of pale moonlight. I gazed amazed. It was probably because that’s the path that people take to walk around it and the grass is flattened down making it shine, I told myself. It’s a trick of the light caused by the reflection of moonlight on the ridge here that’s reflecting the light down to its base and…I looked at other places where people walked – other paths – no light. And I could see the nemeton circling the site, so it wasn’t a feature of the light falling at a particular angle relative to where I was standing – I could walk around along its path and it was still visible as a whole circle around the stones at every point.

I stopped wondering how I could see the ring of light, and just wondered. It was a clear path like to one I had followed down from Moel-Ty-Uchaf one night, the path that had delivered me safely to the farmer’s track without a stumble. Then it had flowed in straight lines, turning at acute angles when it needed to bypass uncomfortable drops in height. I had considered it to be starlight because the stars were the only source of illumination; but on this night, with the cloud cover and a full moon, this must be moonlight, right? Flowing in a circle. I don’t know. But it was there – a ghostly pale ring of light that formed a perfect circle around the stones.

I wanted to know more about it so I confirmed that the nemeton’s direction of flow was clockwise, and then set off with an instruction to the rods to follow the nemeton energy. I know what you’re thinking – did he check which gender the nemeton registered as? Yes, I did. Remarkably I remembered to do that this time – it was male, in line with the direction of flow of the male line coming out of the King Stone. Oh, was this the King Stone energy then? I followed with interest to see if the line rejoined itself. It was looking like the male energy line was forming the outer energy extent – it’s auric reach.

I followed the nemeton’s line around back to the entrance gap in the circle. There it moved slightly inwards from its seven foot diameter. Now it was a foot to the right, a foot nearer the circle. I walked around again. At the entrance it moved again. Now it was tracing a circle, still clockwise, alongside the stones themselves. This was the third revolution. As I came to the entrance a third time the line dove into the circle to describe a spiral inside the circle itself. It spiralled round about four or five times before ending at the exact centre of the circle. Not a place we had really investigated yet. I remember that the exact centre was the crossing point for the neutral lines that criss-crossed from stone to opposing stone. That I had found on my last visit. Would they be here again? I made a mental note for us to check tonight.

While I had been busy with the nemeton, Kal had been dowsing the energies inside the circle. He had found female energies inside that went between certain stones – a handy-for-sitting-on flat stone, and a stone about four positions away from it. He had also stuck his umbrella in the power centre that I had found on all my visits there. I was barely visible in the gloom, but you could see it before you walked into it, which saved us from castration on several occasions. Wherever we dowsed inside the circle and outside of it we always ended up back at that power centre, slightly offset from the exact centre, close to the entrance gap in the stones. This thing was a hub for these lines. Male lines flowed into it, and female lines flowed out of it. The male lines came in clockwise, and the female lines emerged roughly anti-clockwise (some went through the air, and under the ground, but their direction of flow was always anti-clockwise). I laughed uncontrollably sometimes as I arrived yet again directly to the umbrella unfailingly even though it was barely visible (a black umbrella – I ask you! Luminous orange would have been more helpful!) Kal made a quip about the circle not having seen such mirth since mediaeval times, or something. Well, you have to enjoy yourself, don’t you? It tickles me when the dowsing is so unerringly capable of sending you round a path a hundred metres long, only to bring you back to join again at exactly the place you started from – in the dark. The Cosmic Giggle is felt in many ways. ;-)

Other formations that we found at the site that night were:-

  1. arcing energies both over and under ground from and to the power center and a stone
  2. a manifestation that I made on the power centre of four petals (I had tried to visualise three, but it changed in my mind to four)
  3. Kal made a manifestation of what he called a “PentiKal” – a five sided shape.

We stopped at this point for a break. Much of the preparation for energy work seems to be to dowse for the placement, orientation and nature of the energy lines first. Then we have a starting point for any energy work later. Now was the time to switch tack. We ate our snacks underneath the Wishing Tree oak, but I could tell Kal was restless there, whereas I was perfectly at ease.

I took the chance to do a proper re-introduction to the Wishing Tree oak as Kal went off to do some more dowsing on the King Stone. I wasn’t looking for anything ‘deep and meaningful’ with the oak, just a chat, so I only went into a light trance. I was pleased to get a polite but friendly connection (how can I describe that feeling? It’s how you feel, not anything you hear or see). In that state the oak and I shared snappy funny comments with each other, and I ended up laughing heartily again. This was a sure sign of madness. Look it up in “The American Psychiatric Publishing Textbook of Personality Disorders (

You may remember from previous posts that it

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Making friends with wise trees.

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** COMING SOON ** - Our Imbolc 2012 day out posts.
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* Moon Page updated with 2012 Full Moon table (Jan)
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Brighid Song
Kellianna's song 'Brighid' from her album 'Lady Moon'. Seemed appropriate.
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