The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘celtic’

As a follower of a seasonal path, and someone who has developed their sensitivity to the variety and strength of the energies available throughout the year, Imbolc - February 1st – marks the opening of the new year. For me it symbolises the return of the male energies. What does this mean exactly? It means that up until the beginning of February the Sun’s light has been too weak to feed the activity of the male subtle energies that inhabit the Earth, and which are present in living things. Therefore, for me, Imbolc marks the beginning of an increase in the strength and vitality of anything that is enlivened by the influence of male (or Sun-sourced) energies.

In Britain this year there has been an exception to this general rule concerning the presence of male energy. Male ‘subtle’ energy has in fact been available, albeit in a very weakened form. This has been due to the amount of sustained sunlight that we have been receiving. You can feel it in the land – the birds are singing, the buds are appearing, there have even been flowers blooming in January – normally a time when most delicate biological entities retreat into themselves and rest. An unusual year indeed. At this exact moment the frost and cold has returned to bite, yet the sun continues to shine. It is a most unusual beginning.

The heat and height of the Summer

The unusual start makes it difficult to contemplate how the year might work itself out. Are we going to see the seasons having “unseasonal” weather? Are they going to be unrecognisable from our traditional weather patterns? What will this mean for the strength and prevalence of the Earth’s subtle energyA form of energy that has so far eluded scientific definition. It is neither electric, magenetic, nor electro-magnetic, so far as our current technical equipment can measure. It does, however, exhibit many of the characteristics of magnetism and electricity in terms of its effects and properties. It may be a form of either or both of those energies that we have not yet identified. forces, and for the living biological energy of its inhabitants? My feeling is that we are going to see a real peak in Sun energy this year. This may require some balancing out by those of us who work well with Moon energy (female), as we feed a calming influence into the land through selected node points on the energy grid. Let’s not get all hot-headed and hysterical just because the Olympics are coming to town in the height of Summer! It’s just a game, an amusement, a distraction.

As with all previous years that I have followed my spiritual path I returned to the Llangernyw Yew Tree for inspiration. CommuningAn interaction with an invisible and natural sentient force that is independently identifiable, even if it cannot be named or classified. The interaction takes place at the level of a subtle amalgamation of the mind of the perceiver such that a dialogue or transference of feelings may occur between the two sentient parties. The interaction that is ‘communing’ is purposefully initiated by the perceiver for the express purpose of learning or simply to transfer feelings in a sympathetic manner. with this tree seems to set the spark on the year’s tinder and soon a flame of encouraging light emerges from the kindling provided by this ancient life force nestled deep in the heart of a small village in North Wales. I will talk about the visit in more detail soon, but the outcome was one word: “Renown“. I will be spending the year seeking out sources to increase my personal power. Renown is a subject that I will return to and explain more fully in subsequent posts. No doubt I have much more to learn about it as the year goes on.

Now let’s talk about specific preparations that I am making for Imbolc, and that you could make too.

Read the rest of this entry »

In this third part of our South Wales trip I talk about our visit to a museum of stones, and then go on to discuss the amazing findings at the Samson Stone – a standing stone linked in to a very ancient network of energies related to the myths surrounding King Arthur. You can also watch a video of Kal dowsing the stone, and I discuss my latest theory on the energy flows of standing stones. First, however, we visit a museum of petrified crosses…

Realising that we were quite a way west of our starting point of Chepstow and that we may need to begin to work our way back, we looked on the map for nearby locations that were large enough to get a tourist symbol, and we identified something near to Port Talbot that sounded interesting – The Stone Museum, Margam, Neath Port Talbot, Glamorganshire, South Wales. [info]. It might be good, it might be rubbish – but at least it was on the way back, and there seemed little else within thirty miles of where we were and in the right direction. Off we went.

When we arrived at Margam Abbey we found that we had just missed the lunch sitting for the only restaurant within miles. And we were starving. However, being troopers and dedicated to the cause we put aside hunger and turned our attentions to getting hold of the key to get into the Stone Museum. A notice on the door said that if it was locked we should ask at the restaurant. Cruel, considering our hunger levels. We waited while the chef finished what she was doing, and then she let us into the museum unattended. Great! We could dowse to our hearts content!

We scanned the open-plan museum and realised that the “stones” were all carved crosses that had been gathered from the local vicinity – within about a thirty mile radius of Margam. The carved crosses dated from Celtic to Christian, and some smaller broken bits of stones that had no labels. Kal inspected upstairs while I took some photographs but reported that there was nothing to see on the upper level, so we concentrated on the lower floor’s artefacts.

Always the way

Unmarked but energetic stone, Margram

Isn’t it always the way? We quickly found that the only stones of energetic interest were those not labelled?! There was a small remnant of one of the stones that the museum had literally been built around, and that had no information about it at all. The integral stone was originally part of the building that had been there before the abbey next door, we dowsed. It was the strongest, most energetic stone in the whole collection. No information plaque or anything to explain it. The only other stone in the collection that had any energy in it at all was the broken corner of some carving that was mounted on a wall, again without any explanation or date at all.

Read the rest of this entry »

Often Kal and I time our visits to meet the requirements of whether the ‘sacred date’ (of the Celtic Year) comes closest to a Full Moon or a New Moon. One such visit coincided with a New Moon on July 30th. This coincided with the Lammas (or Lughnasagh) Festival. We decided that a visit to Lud’s Church in Staffordshire would be the best option because it combined Kal’s wish to see the place with the idea of going to a place “underground” to coincide with the new moon energies. Our hope was that this coincidence would be good for allowing visions and getting answers to questions.

We did a hasty jaunt out to the Staffordshire and Derbyshire border, very close to the Macclesfield Forest. I went via a route that I didn’t normally use, and soon we were lost! In the right area, but definitely lost. Kal had to turn on his charm and extracted useful directions from a local old man. Soon, I recognised where I had gone wrong and we were only minutes away from the Gradbach village (which doesn’t appear on any of my Satellite Navigation systems as a valid destination – helpful!).

Lud's Church near Gradbach

If you plan to go yourself, take my advice and use SatNav to guide you to SK17 0SU, or to one of the following nearby villages: head for Allgreave if you want to come in from the North or West. Head for The Roaches via Danebridge if you want to come in from the South or South-West. Head towards Flash just off the A53 of you are coming from the East (say, from Buxton). None of those villages will get you to Gradbach, but they’ll get you close! Once in that area you will find Lud’s Church here.

The sun was setting as we arrived finally at the car park that is at the base of a hill leading to the Gradbach Scout Camp and Youth Hostel. A gentle walk at a brisk pace up the hill and down into the dale where the Black Brook flows brought us to the ‘entrance’ to Lud’s place – the entrance being a huge beech tree that I felt compelled to show to Kal. He was awestruck by the majesty of the tree and could immediately feel its power, as I have many times. We briefly stopped to pay our respects, and I asked permission to enter and for the tree’s blessing on our vision work to come. This delightful beech tree seemed only too pleased to be asked, and to have some form of reverence shown to it. Of course! What else would a Hedge Druid do?

So, with the beech tree’s blessing, we began to climb up to the our destination – the temple of the god of light.

Read the rest of this entry »

St Catherine’s Well – Boot – [Portal] [Map]

In the fourth part of our Spring Equinox journey you find the intrepid adventurers heading for the Eskdale Valley – a ravine of insurmountable beauty that forms the vista for the Hard Knott Roman hillfort at its eastern end. In the basin of the valley is the village of Boot. Perhaps I should have said “At the foot of the valley…”? We parked at Dalegarth railway station and walked to the junction where the Brook House Inn marks the starting point for many of the walks in the area. We were heading southwards towards the River Esk in search of St.Catherine’s Well – a recently re-discovered and restored well that was somewhere on the hillside nearby.

St Catherine’s Well

Taking a right turn at Brook House Inn we walked along the track past some houses until we reached a small church, To my eyes it had the distinct look of a Templar church design – a flat design with protrusions at either end but which were staggered rather than directly opposite each other.

St Catherine's Church, Boot - a Templar design?

From the church the path then follows the River Esk, and soon we were walking upwards onto the slopes of the hills that border the river. We stuck to the left-hand side and when we came to a fork in the path we chose the left-hand path. This led us to a gap in a wall where we found a beautiful path of moss-covered stones leading up the hillside. We were sorely tempted to follow it, but the spot on the map indicated that the site might be further along so we continued for a short while, but then Kal twisted his knee in a moment of over-exuberance. We stopped and re-assessed. Was this a sign not to continue on this lower path? We turned and walked back to the mossy path and picked our way through the rocks up the hill until it opened out into a thrashed bracken heathland, spotted with old gorse bushes. Now we felt we were close to the well. Moments later we felt we had found it.

A beautiful mossy carpeted entrance

There were two possible sites. One was ringed by a stone construction but didn’t appear to have much water in it, and the other was more watery, but had fewer stones around it. As they were next to each other we got the dowsing rods out. Which one was the correct well? They both were! They were connected and the spirit of whatever we might determine “Catherine” to be was at both of them. We settled down in the afternoon sun to rest a while and breathe in the Cumbrian ambience. It was delightful – Spring was making itself felt and I for one was letting it!

Read the rest of this entry »

I see that a combined team of Manchester and York University archaeologists have uncovered Britain’s oldest house to date in the ever-more-fascinating Star Carr site near the seaside town of Scarborough in the North East of England. Julian Cope was referring to Star Carr many years ago, long before many people were even aware of its significance (check out his S.T.A.R.C.A.R. track off the Autogeddon album). Talking of album references – the title of my post is a passing reference to the title of The Fall’s latest album, which I recommend to anyone from Bury. I’m not from Bury.

Back to the thin strand of information that I refer to as “the plot”. The plot thickens. This old house that they have dug up contained some well-preserved items in the trench that they sank into the coastal soil, and what they pulled out of the treasure trove were some interesting items, from a druid’s perspective.

1. An antler headdress

This dates the use of ritual antler horn headwear to around the age of 8,5000 B.C.E. That’s quite some precedence for a ritual that only recently dwindled in popularity! Some would say that it is still continued in the concept of the “stag” weekend that prospective grooms undergo throughout the northern hemisphere cultures.

“The site has yielded far more possessions than would have been acquired by bands of hunter-gatherers on the move. They include a boat paddle, beads, arrowheads and antler headdresses, suggesting rituals developed alongside domestic life” (source: The Guardian)

Milners of Britain display their summer range

To me this backs up what a lot of Celtic shamanism writers have said about the rituals of early tribal shamans. It would appear that the rituals (that may have included dance, drumming, initiations and rituals) are about as old as the post-Ice Age human civilisations that began to re-establish themselves in the northern hemisphere after the retreat of the ice caps. Shamanism from the outset, it would seem. Magic at the heart of social life.

John Matthews has this to say about the deer totem:

“The importance of the deer among the Celts is testified not only by the number of appearances it makes in the mythology, but also by the astonishing number of words used to describe it. It was also seen as a magical creature, which could lead one into the Otherworld, and often appears in the guise of a beautiful woman who can take the shape of a deer at will…There is evidence of a deer cult, in which the animal was worshipped as a goddess. The deer thus represents travel to the Hollow Hills or the faerie realm, shapeshifting (the perception of the world from different viewpoints), and the natural deer-like qualities of grace, swiftness and keen scent.” (source: Chapter 3, ‘The Celtic Shaman: A Practical Guide’)

2. A preserved tree stump

The discovery of a large trunk from an old and sizeable tree shows us that the veneration for trees is also as old as the hills.
Again, this reverence for trees hints at some form of shamanistic lifestyle, and who knows how long that lasted, for the Druids of these same islands carried those same items of devotion through into their history, such as we can understand it.

“The population also appears to have respected venerable trees. One of the team’s other startling finds is the trunk of a large specimen with the bark still intact, which was spared from the flints used to carve the rest of the settlement’s timber.” (source: The Guardian)

Delphi's belly button

We have no information yet as to what type of three it might be, but it would not surprise me that it was a yew tree, possibly one of the trees that symbolised the concept of The World Tree – the omphalos or navel, the central point around which a settlement was constructed. Rather than this being something left alone, it could have been the centre of attention. Just a thought.

Gwas.

Saturday 29th May - Four Knocks, County Meath

On the morning of Saturday 29th May I roped Kal into one of my crazy ideas. We would spend the next two days on a modern pilgrimage, just like we had done at Glastonbury the year before. We would find a starting point and then let the dowsing rods direct us from site to site. For me, I would set my intention for this pilgrimage to be to work on each of the seven chakras and to see what came out of trying to do that. For Kal, he would just do what he does – see what happened at each place and go with it. So, with the help of the iMegalith iPhone application and my SatNav system we trekked off to the starting point, which I had determined would be a henge and mound close to Four Knocks.

We didn’t get very far trying to find the henge and mound. The mound was visible in a farmer’s field, but the supposed henge had been… well, let’s assume it was removed and ploughed out of existence! Not a good start. Was there anywhere else we could pick up the quest? Our dowsing showed that nearby Four Knocks would be suitable. As soon as we got the rods crossing we kind of knew that this had actually been the right place all along, but something had been preventing us from dowsing that from afar. We sort of had to be in the area to zoom in on it. Perhaps we had prevented ourselves from ‘finding’ Four Knocks prior to actually being there because we knew you had to obtain a key in order to get in? Who knows. We obtained the said key (by the way – the directions are not very clear – but we found the house eventually and got the key by leaving a small deposit with a nice lady) and went to discover this famous mound’s secrets and begin a quest.

Entrance to Four Knocks

We opened the iron door up (iron – aaargh!!) and began to settle in. I needed some stuff from the car that I had forgotten, and by the time I got back to the mound it was swarming with a minibus-load of tourists from various parts of the world – America, Japan, Australia….all over. Their guide had clearly gone off to get the key without realising that we already had it. Ten minutes later he was in the mound beginning his guided tour of the place, which I earwigged into, of course. Hey – it was free for me to listen!! And jolly interesting it was too, although I could see Kal twitch every now and again, and I was biting my tongue at some of the speculative leaps the guide was making to fill the gaps in the archaeology with fantasy and pure imagination. He was very careful to preface everything with “My guess would be...”, or “Perhaps they might have…”, and even in the dim light I occasionally caught Kal swinging his dowsing rods behind the guide, shaking his head as though to say, “Nope!” It’s funny how dowsing can sometimes make you feel quite confident about being able to find out hidden knowledge, and yet later in the day that confidence would be completely reversed, but we’ll come to that in a later tale.

I don’t know if this is the traditional position but at Four Knocks we have the female on top and the male underneath. Yes, on top of the rounded mound there was female energy all over it. All around the outside of the mound was a male energy lineThe direction energy takes when moving. It may be straight or curved, in several dimensions and be composed of one or more different types of energies, i.e. negative, positive or neutral. Energy lines can be found at standing stones and ancient sites but are a general feature in all energy fields., waving and running around in a sunwise direction. Kal was spending quite a time outside, pacing around and around, working something out, but I decided to get myself inside to take some pictures of the rock carvings and to try to work out what I might have to do to work on my Root Chakra – the first part of my modern pilgrimage. That was the intention, but instead Four Knocks had its own agenda for working my chakras!! I will explain in a moment.

Inside there was more than the usual amount of decoration. Many of the swirling circular shapes were familiar to us, but there was an abundance of zig-zag lines and lozenge shapes carved into the lintels of the recesses in the mound that seemed to be quite unique to this particular chamber, or at least rarely seen in such quantity elsewhere.

Zig-zag lintel decoration at Four Knocks

Read the rest of this entry »

Section 3. Tree Spirits, Elementals and Death Energies

This is such an important set of topics that I feel I have to provide some context and background information on them. How, exactly, did we get from the position of not believing in spirits of any kind at all, to having contact with tree, elemental and death spirits, all within a year? Well, it was something of an experiment that wasn’t supposed to work that worked, and which then caused a complete reversal in our understanding and belief system involving the world of energy.

This year we have gone into areas that we never thought we would need to delve into. Kal became embroiled in an interesting spiritual life choice: to become a “Spirit Walker”, or to choose the life of an ordinary person. By making this choice to become a Spirit Walker (as he terms it – i.e. one who walks with the presence of spirits) he has chosen a path that he would not have carved out for himself, as it involves becoming used to the energy formations of death. Even though his choice is made, I know he is reluctant to accept this. Nevertheless, it is an area that we now are engaged with to some degree. I will leave him to summarise this in the final summary post of the year, as it has been exclusively his work.

Kal’s other development this year has been to finally overcome his inability to communicate with trees. Now he has become their friend, to the point where his first contact at an ancient site if usually with any nearby tree. I have also retained this connection, but have not sought to develop it much further yet. It has been enough for me that I have overcome my reluctance to speak to Yew trees, for fear of what they might reveal, being associated with death, rebirth and transformation, as they are.

Influential book

My greatest development this year has undoubtedly been in the area of elemental spirits. Kal has a tentative relationship with his death spirits - I have developed a relationship with earth, air, water, fire and aether spirits. Obviously, I don’t say that kind of thing lightly. One doesn’t simply come out one day saying “Today I recognise the existence of spirits.” Such a development has been a progression from my work with the spirits of trees. Once I understood how to communicate with trees I could attempt to contact other sentient entities. During my researches I had read of the possibility in the book “Walker Between The Worlds”. I invited any sentient spirits in the area of a benevolent nature to enter into my wooden staff that I leave perched against an apple tree in my garden. I forgot about having made this request for several weeks, then one day I just really noticed the staff – standing against the tree – making itself known to me. I grabbed my dowsing rods and began to ask questions. The result was my first encounter with a spirit of the elements,(although she insisted that she was not a being known as an ‘elemental’, she was a spirit who had command of the air element – altogether different, apparently).

Having made an initial contact I went on to contact three other elemental spirits, and now my ambition is to foster and work with those relationships in the next year to see what can be achieved for both my ambitions and theirs. One spirit, however, was different. It dowsed as an aether spirit, and came about in a different way. Again, prompted by the Walker Between The Worlds book, I attempted to initiate contact with my “spirit guide”. Another concept I had great difficulty in accepting, and was highly sceptical of, but I was curious too, and eager to learn what did and didn’t work in this magical world of spirit. One deep meditation later I had made contact with an entity in a dark cloak who would never show her face. I dowsed the alphabet to determine her name, and since then she has been my constant companion in my magical journeys and at sacred sites.

So, this year, both Kal and myself have done a volte-face on such topics. We still deplore the sensationalisation of many of the so-called proponents in this sphere of magical working (you all know such people – Derek Akorah and his ilk, who prefer to be ‘entertainers’ rather than researchers), but we have had to come to terms with the presence and guidance of some sentient entities that we had previously dismissed and deplored ourselves. What a curious world this is!

Here are some things we have learned about spirits and spirit energies of all kinds:-

3-1. Guide Spirits: I have obtained the assistance of five spirits: four elementally-based spirits, and one that is what can only be described as “an ascended master”. They can be contained in a set of crystals chosen for the purpose, and invoked during natural magic to assist with elemental-based energy work, or with vision quests and guidance on the path. These spirits operate in a hierarchy of sentient energies, despite my protestation to the contrary. I now have to retract that. I have used dowsing rods and tarot cards to determine this, but have not continued the investigation beyond determining that there IS a hierarchy.

3-2. Connecting with trees: both Kal and I are able to connect with trees, to retrieve stored history, have questions answered, and to receive empathic responses in answer t our enquiries. Sometime we are shown visions, or given emotions that correspond to affirmative or negative responses to our questions or intentions. When deep connections have been sought then the presence of a voice can emerge through our thoughts, and internal dialogues begin, sometimes in our own voices, often in voices that are quite definitely not ours. Knowledge of things unknowable to us otherwise can result from these interactions – and this in particular is some kind of confirmation that it is not all thought-play or invention. Facts that are testable are often delivered to us, and we can then check them. They always turn out to be true. This is, clearly to us, some form of more wide-ranging and more ancient knowledge source. The trees are very wise and know many things that we don’t. Their counsel is balanced and meaningful.

3-3. Healing trees: Kal and I can also heal trees that have diminished auras, using techniques similar to those we learned to re-attune geopathic stress in houses or at sacred sites. We have re-established auras (nemeton fields of living energy) by clearing blockages much like the process of acupuncture.

3-4. Cloud sylphs: Never thought that the unusual cloud formations sometimes seen were anything other than unusual cloud formations – then I had a face loom out at me from the sky when I was communingAn interaction with an invisible and natural sentient force that is independently identifiable, even if it cannot be named or classified. The interaction takes place at the level of a subtle amalgamation of the mind of the perceiver such that a dialogue or transference of feelings may occur between the two sentient parties. The interaction that is ‘communing’ is purposefully initiated by the perceiver for the express purpose of learning or simply to transfer feelings in a sympathetic manner. with Nature under an old pear tree one day, and it blew me away. Since then this has happened several times, and each time it is incredibly overwhelming. They are there if you choose to look for them and to recognise them. I notice this has only happened since I got in touch with an Air Spirit, though.

3-5. The spirit of ancient mythical figures can be contacted through visits to the sites associated with them. For example, Dinas Emrys, long associated with Merlin, produced contact with an eagle that dowsed as being the spirit of Merlin. I will be trying this out at other associated sites in the near future to check it again.

3-6. Yew treescan be communed with to learn lessons concerning rebirth and transformation processes in your life. I have contacted several different yews over the course of the year, and each one was able to show me the potential for a transformation. The actual process of transformation always seemed to be something that I had to create and make happen, though. Despite their proverbial connotations of death and morbidity, I have found my connections with yew trees to be nothing other than profoundly moving and rewarding. I have come away from the experience feeling entirely relaxed and peaceful. For me, the yew tree represents peace, and they are not the fearful monsters that I expected. Quite the opposite.

3-7. Site guardians: CommuningAn interaction with an invisible and natural sentient force that is independently identifiable, even if it cannot be named or classified. The interaction takes place at the level of a subtle amalgamation of the mind of the perceiver such that a dialogue or transference of feelings may occur between the two sentient parties. The interaction that is ‘communing’ is purposefully initiated by the perceiver for the express purpose of learning or simply to transfer feelings in a sympathetic manner. with some ancient sites involves asking the permission of the genius lociGenius Loci means 'spirit of the place' and refers to the geological/gaian spirit of place. It is transfixed to a place – being an embodiment of the collective intelligence of the place. – the site guardian. Not all sites have one that is accessible to me, but where I have felt their presence and have dowsed for their permission, I was often able to obtain it (not always at the first attempt, though). Once permission is obtained an interesting experience is guaranteed. I found that the site guardians, when worked with appropriately, guided my experience through intuitive suggestion, and if I responded appropriately then a chain of such intuitive responses could be followed leading to a rewarding experience spiritually or intellectually.

This year has been the year for contacting and communingAn interaction with an invisible and natural sentient force that is independently identifiable, even if it cannot be named or classified. The interaction takes place at the level of a subtle amalgamation of the mind of the perceiver such that a dialogue or transference of feelings may occur between the two sentient parties. The interaction that is ‘communing’ is purposefully initiated by the perceiver for the express purpose of learning or simply to transfer feelings in a sympathetic manner. with spirits of all kinds for both myself and Kal. We have gone from neither of us having any belief whatsoever in any form of spirit, to a healthy relationship with spirits of all sorts. Let me qualify that a little – I think that by November, 2008, I was beginning to think that trees as living entities may be contacted in some way, but that was the start of it, I would say, and not much was done after that until 2009.

I would not say that we have opened the floodgates wide to these things. Instead we have been measured, and have trodden very cautiously and with a great deal of preparation before we attempted to open ourselves up to such an experience. Caution is still our watch-word, and we still analyse the experiences carefully to ensure that we have not just been fantasizing. The line between creative mental thought-forms and an interaction with nature spirits can be a difficult balance to strike, and we do not always get it right, I am sure. However, every experience we have is scrutinised for similarities, methods, structure, pathways and known psychological phenomenon to try to clear out the genuine encounter from a daydream, as far as that is credible to do so.

Gwas.