The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘Cheshire’

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

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

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

26 topics I have been involved in this year:-

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

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

Chakra colours, energy frequencies and healing may be linked

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

c) Astrological links to Venus, Orion’s Belt and Sirius affirmed at almost every site. Also Scorpius, astrological links to Arthur and the Great Bear constellation. The constellations of Serpens, Corvus and Perseus have been especially meaningful to me this year, guiding me along a very meaningful path from one end of an energy leyA straight line of neutral energy linking two or more sacred sites or other energetic centres. This is often confused with Alfred Watkins’ concept of the Ley Line. Strictly speaking a ley line does not necessarily mean a neutral energy line, only a sight alignmentAlignment relates to the concept that humans have their own energy fields that are oriented or formed in a specific way such that the person is either suited better to one energy source of another. Some people have their energy fields empowered by the direct subtle energy force of The Sun, whilst others are empowered by the indirect subtle energy of The Moon. Due to the historical associations and symbolisation of The Sun with masculinity and The Moon with femininity we designate these alignments as either being ‘male’ or ‘female’ alignments accordingly. We interchangeable refer to people as being ‘sun-aligned’ or ‘male-aligned’ and similarly with the female alignment. between notable places, whereas an energy ley is like a radial spoke in a wheel, with energy flowing outwards across the land in a straight line. It has sometimes been found that the energy ley can be diverted from its strict straight path by changes in the landscape or strong attractors that pull it away from its original course. Energy leys may have inter-twining streams of male and female energies weaving along them, as though the energy ley is an attractor, a pathway or a conduit for the male and female energies. to another. [related posts: Serpent at Castlerigg, Arthurian Archetypes of Corvus, The Berth and Death of Scorpius, The Three Stars of Fertility, Absorbing Orion at Lud's Church]

Read the rest of this entry »

In a way you judge someone by the quality of the places that they take you to. Recently I was taken to a place the day before Samhain this year. I had once so nearly visited but somehow circumstances had conspired to make me miss it by only a short distance. Now I had a tour guide with local knowledge. When Mike spoke of the place it was in reverential tones, and the hint was always that it was a magickal place. The kind of place where you may come away with the course of your life taking a slightly tangential turn. He had spoken of the place’s power for change in the way that people who have genuinely experienced life-changing moments do – hushed tones, distant eyes – as though recalling some kind or form of force that the Anglo-Saxon pillar was imbued with.

You are then left with a decision – do I believe the power of this place, or do I have to go test it our for myself? I have to test it, of course! Progress must take its course during the year’s treadmill. Places of power should be visited. The dilemma – who by? Yet the Land can have lessons for everyone, surely. Good or bad. Clever or stupid. If I tell of the place, then I advertise its wonder, and more people probably come. There are some wells near where I live that birthed and died through the advertisement of their miraculous energies, effects and efficacies. However, I will mention the place’s name. What people do with it will reap its own rewards.

Clulow Cross - A truly illuminating place

In a previous post about the nearby Bullstones I had supposed that this had been the magickal stone that Mike’s tales had been centred upon. I was wrong. The description of the surroundings had matched my previous finding exactly, so when Mike and friends had allowed us to follow them up into the Derbyshire moorland and hills I thought I knew exactly where we were going. As we parked and got out of our respective cars the other group appeared to be heading in the wrong direction, until I realised that it was me who had made the mistake. Clulow Cross was down in the field on the Congleton side of Hammerton Knowl, not standing on the other side of the Knowl’s ridge between Wincle and Wilboarclough. This was the pillar remainder of an actual stone cross, not just a place name to locate a hidden monolithic treasure. And hidden it is. Nestled in a clump of middle-aged beech trees, the cross itself is hard to spot until you are within striking distance with an acorn.

An Aside About Access

I have probably pussy-footed and tap-danced around this subject for many years on this blog. Let me state this right out now as an opinion, and then I will attempt to back it up.

I have a right to walk the land. My right. My land. I will walk it. I will be respectful, courteous, kind and gentle as I do so. But I will walk it. It is my, our, everyone’s land.

Anyone who believes they own land needs to consider this perspective – the land has been there before humans as a species were even invented. Once we were invented we were given intellect to allow the development of the concept of custodianship. We are all of us guardians of our own lands, the lands with which we identify in our hearts.

Yes, others may choose to abuse their rights, and those that choose to be discourteous and un-cooperative with the custodians will always exist, but they are a manageable minority who will cause ill-will in whatever environment they find themselves. They are a test of everybody’s patience, and are not exclusive preserve of the irate farmer, or the country estate employee, or the quarry worker, or the member of this and that Trust.

Those who consider themselves to be “land owners” will have to live with their own arrogance on a daily basis. You ought only to encounter it occasionally as you walk these lands. We have a right to roam. We always have. We always will.

So, now that you understand my position and haven’t yet stopped reading in outrage and humph-pah, well, you should read on to find out what magick awaits the pagan who claims the right to roam.

Read the rest of this entry »

In this post I am going to tell you about the single most powerful and fascinating true story of some work I did with a healer friend as we worked on resolving a long-standing energy problem at a sacred site in Cheshire. Every word is true and as it happened. I think you will find it a good example of earth energy healing, a telepathic incident, and also a curious tale of an encounter with a dark energy form.

I have talked many times with my friend Michael about energy healing. Sometimes he talks about me getting involved in healing, with the presumption that this means people. Sometimes I talk to him about healing, with the presumption that I mean earth energy healing. Sometimes we are on the same wavelength. One evening I went to see Michael in Congleton and I felt like it was the culmination of a series of events that were bringing our wavelengths together.

Michael barely had time to say hello before I was asking whether he could accompany me on a special journey to a local site. He didn’t need much persuading, and in a few moments we were heading off to The Bridestones – a site that Michael lives close to but which he had never visited close up (he has passed by on many occasions). He said he never felt that there was anything there for him to go for. I understood that feeling, for it is exactly the same feeling that Kal has about the site – a distaste for it.

As we drove the few miles out of town I explained how I had come to choose this site. I had been doing a tarot reading about where I should take my healing work and it had suggested I would work with someone who was already skilled in healing. Well, I only knew one person who fitted that bill! Then the cards suggested earth energy healing, and I began to wonder where Michael would fit into this particular picture, as he was a healer of people. He responded that actually he had been receiving information telling him that he would be doing more earth energy healing soon. Looks like I turned up at the right point then?

Finally, I explained how I had found the site by dowsing questions. After going through a list of “North/South of Britain”, “East/West”, type of questioning I began to narrow it down to specific counties, and then I could begin to narrow the search down by asking whether it’s a site I have visited before. When the answer came back that it was a known site I only had to go through a list of the sites in that county, and soon I had my answer -  The Bridestones. I knew instantly that the choice of Michael by the tarot cards was perfect – he had local knowledge, and healing abilities. It was a perfect match and it felt right.

So, we visited The Bridestones on a sunny evening in late July, just as the sun was moving towards the horizon and the shadows growing long. Here is the tale of our epic work at this site.

Read the rest of this entry »

I had been out on a walk along the Cheshire Landscape Figure of the Hawk on a previous evening and had seen the sun set below the crags near to the Sandstone Trail at the village of Willington in Cheshire. It was a walk that I remember doing in part when I first moved to Cheshire, but I had never been able to find the path again (although I had not really tried that hard). This time I stumbled across it again, and remembered how nice it was.

I noticed that there was a path marked on the map that followed the Cheshire Hawk’s outline exactly. On my first attempt to find it – let’s call the first outing a “scouting” episode - I was scouting the landscape, feeling for what I should do to further my quest, and knowing only that the outline of the Hawk of May in the Cheshire landscape was part of that work. On that first scouting journey it was going dark when I found the crag-side path, and I was literally stopped in my tracks by the appearance of a badger at a fork in the path that evening. Not wanting to scare the badger I was forced to take the lower path back down to the road. I vowed to return and to walk the path all the way along the crags at a time when Nature gave me the right signs.

A badger makes me change my path

I went back one cool but dry evening in early June. I was properly equipped this time with crystals, incense and the right intention – to meet The Hawk of May (Gwalchmai). I knew I had to get this completed before my Summer Solstice pilgrimage, and I wanted the “decks cleared” and this quest completed before then. Solstice is always an amazing but wholly engaging experience, so it was important for me not to have any residual side-quests going on.

Just a reminder, my Beltane quest had developed through the use of Tarot card that had been giften to me by a friend who is very intuitively connected, shall we say? The cards (see previous post) had told me three useful things:-

1. I would meet the Hawk of May in the Underworld
2. I would need to provide him with an intuitively-selected gift
3. The result would metaphorically to be able to ”control the winds” and take on “the power of lightening”.

All very mystical, unlikely, but exciting as a prospect, and certainly a challenge to my abilities. It also held the promise of an enhancement to my abilities – just like the last quest for Spring Equinox. I’m all for that! So now this brings me to the part where I went to meet The Hawk of May.

The Way Is Easy When It Is Right

I walked along the hidden path that hugged the crag above Willington and found that it was carpeted with soft small pine needles> The soft feel of the path made me hanker for walking un-shod again, so I took my shoes and socks off and walked barefoot along the path in the setting sun light.

My Beltane quest, to be completed before the Summer Solstice, is the “See with the eyes of The Hawk”. That was the message from the ever-useful Llangernyw Yew tree meditation that I did within the hollows of one of its ancient branches. Whilst trying to interpret this information I had tried to elicit a bit more information from the other sites I had visited that Beltane day on the 1st May and had found out that the vision was an ariel view of a landscape figure showing a hawk in flight.

Whistlebitch Well

The starting point to find this figure in my locality would be a sacred spring or holy well somewhere in Cheshire. It didn’t take me long to draw up a list of the 20+ wells in the county and then work my way through them with the help of the dowsing rods to eliminate all but the last – Whistlebitch Wellnear Utkinton. Seemingly, at one time this was a much-visited attraction, but its whereabouts are much harder to discern today. I went out one evening in the fading sunlight to try to find it. If it still existed then perhaps I could try to get in touch with the spirit of the well and reveal some more information about my quest?

I passed a gentleman walking his dog in the woods close to the well and asked him if he knew of it. He knew of many of the features of the surrounding woods, having spent thirty years walking the area, and was able to show me pictures of many of the features too! He was unsure about the well, though, unless I meant the old St Stephen’s Well that was close to where we stood chatting? That must be its alternate name, I said, there was only one well in the area. He said he thought it was connected to the stream we were standing on top of, so I bade him a kindly farewell and followed my instincts to walk through a field next to the stream. Then I heard what sounded like a water source in the damp ditch next to the field. I gingerly waded through the nettles to find the remains of a signpost and a square iron cover – just like the pictures on the Megalithic Portal – this was it!

Whistlebitch Well near Utkinton, Cheshire

After having uncovered the well and washed my crystals in its waters I laid them our around me and meditated to the sound of the trickling waters. Soon I was in contact with the spirit of place, a male water spirit, who was very glad that someone had visited and more so that they were being respectful of the place. I asked the spirit what he knew of The Hawk of May, but he was unable to expand upon that concept. He was only a lowly Nature spirit watching over this well, and who did not go anywhere else or meet any Hawk of May spirits. I would have to figure this one out alone.

The Landscape Figure

Back at home I began to investigate maps of the area around Whistlebitch Well. Would anything reveal itself to me about the outline of roads, paths, tracks and rovers in the area, or be revealed in the names of places? I had experience of reading about Katherine Maltwood‘s Glastonbury Zodiac figures, and Mary Caine‘s subsequent revival of the concept which she then began to apply to the Kingston-Upon-Thames area too. I knew what a landscape figure might look like, but could I find one in a modern map?

After several hours of scrying, this figure appeared:

The figure is formed primarily by the crag ridge of Willington village, and is centred on the village of Utkinton. It extends as far as Cotebrook at its east side, and Duddon to the west and Boothsdale to the north. At its northern extent is the natural feature of Primrose Hill, and within that is Whistlebitch Well. A road extending from the hawk’s beak seems to tether it to the village of Clotton. [full size map here].

The shape of the figure was suddenly so obvious to me that I started to get excited. What could this mean in terms of my current quest? Now that I had identified a possible landscape figure, what next? I was at a loss as to what to do with this information, and when in such a situation I tend to turn to a favourite divination tool of mine – the tarot.

Tarot reading about the quest

It just so happened that a friend of mine had gifted me some tarot cards that they didn’t want. They thought they would use them, but actually they weren’t suitable, but they thought that they would be perfect for me to use. I already have the Druidcraft Tarot, and was perfectly happy with the success of this deck, but nevertheless I decided to try out the “new” deck – The Tree Angel Oracle – to see how effective it might be. I must admit, I was slightly put off by the “Angel” reference and wondered if they might be a bit too “New Age” and “airy fairy” to be useful.

I would start simply – a three card draw to answer three simple questions about how I should interact with this Hawk of May and the landscape figure.

1. What gift should I bring for the Hawk? Card = The Pear – the gift should be intuitive.
2. How will we interact? Card = The Yew- in silent meditation, possibly at a yew tree, crossing into the Otherworld to meet The Hawk of May.
3. What will I gain? Card = The Sycamore – “Precision of the eagle”, “Clarity of the blue skies”, “The power of lightening” and “Breath of the winds.”

This is remarkable considering the reading was about my quest for “Meeting the Hawk of May”. Did this mean literally control of lightening and wind? I asked a psychic friend to interpret these symbols for me, and he told me that it was more to do with the wind symbolising the concept of sound, a sweeping away of barriers, and that this would signal the rise of a clairaudient ability. The lightening flash, he said, was symbolic of the ability to control these new druid powers that I was gaining. I was a little embarrassed by this, and the proof of it remains to be seen.

Soon I will recount the tale of meeting the Hawk of May and how prescient and useful these tarot card readings would be!

Gwas.

To coincide with St.George’s Day Gawsworth Hall are running their annual dowsing day, and I will be hosting the day along with my good friend Michael Clowes. This stunning old Cheshire hall and gardens provides the perfect setting for a day’s discussion and practical dowsing sessions interspersed with Gawsworth’s famous catering in the form of teas, coffees, cakes and sandwiches. Perfect for the beginner or intermediate dowser the course will go through a history of dowsing, its practical uses, techniques for getting started, and discussions about the many avenues in which dowsing can take the practitioner. Beginners get to learn their new skills in practical sessions in the Gawsworth rose gardens, and intermediate dowsers can hone their skills with a variety of different dowsing implements to test their skills.

Gawsworth Hall in Cheshire

In the afternoon there is discussion of the more esoteric aspects of dowsing including topics such as colour dowsing, spirit forms, divination and earth acupuncture. This is followed by another practical session in the grounds where a series of fun tasks are set to test your skills suitable to you level of ability. For booking, prices and general information please visit the web site at:

http://www.gawsworthhall.com or ring 01260 223456.

Come enjoy a lovely day out in the countryside and learn something fun, intruiging and exciting – it may change your life!

Gwas.

Follow the Hedge Druid on iTunes too

We have started the New Year back on track with the release of our first podcast.

There’s plenty to get your teeth into in this episode, including new books I’ve received this month, plus reviews of the ones that I have read too.

For the first time on a podcast I do a reading of a Ted Hughes poem, there is some response to reader feedback, and some indications of the directions we will be going in for the coming year.

Of course, there are all your favourite regular features too, so sit back and enjoy the latest podcast, to be found as always on our podcast page.

Happy New Year!

Gwas.