The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘chi gung’

This year, 2011, I spent Samhain at two places. Not at the same time, obviously. That would be impossible even for a hedge druid who is accustomed to the unusual. I first spent some time with a group of friends in Derbyshire (more about that soon) and then I went with my wife M to Pembrokeshire. In Pembrokeshire we first climbed the hills to visit Arthur’s Grave (see previous post this month) and then I made an unannounced stop off at Pentre Ifan, because I remembered that it was quite close to the route we would take to get back home. Never one to miss an opportunity, I saw this as a chance to discover what the remainder of the year might offer in terms of my healing quest.

As far as I was concerned the visit to Arthur’s Grave an hour earlier had been the culmination of a spiral that had begun at Spring Equinox and had completed this Halloween.  I wasn’t sure, therefore, what I would get out of visiting Pentre Ifan. All I knew was that I felt drawn to it, and that i wanted to see whether its incredible energies would spark any further revelations about my tasks for the year. Perhaps it might confirm that actually all was done and I could rest for the remainder of the year? No more site visits or blog posts, perhaps? All quiet now? Rest and recuperation? Not a chance!

View of Pentre Ifan at Samhain

We stopped at the site information board to take a look at how the archaeologists have reconstructed the mound. Their representation seemed remarkably familiar – it matched the reconstruction done at Tinkinswood in South Wales. Perhaps the neolithic people were all working from a similar template, or perhaps the geometry or the physics of the places simply suggested a natural configuration that was now generally agreed upon amongst The Intelligentsia of our times? I wonder what became of all the rubble that one surrounded the great stones? The site is so clean now. The information sign put the entrance portal at the south. I have previously dowsed the same, so that’s one aspect I agree with.

How Pentre Ifan may have once looked

I re-introduced myself to the site,. seeking the permission of the Spirit of Place before attempting to enter its energetic boundary. Being successful (politeness and respect seem to be viable currency with the spirits that inhabit such places) I began to dowse for the best starting point for me at the site. It was a flat round rock at the eastern edge of the main uprights, and I recognised this as the same stone upon which I had started and energised when I had previously visited the site in the late summer of 2008. That seemed like someone else’s life, and a whole lifespan away, and I found it hard to relate to the person who had stood there only three years ago. Yet it was me. How would the site react to me now, I wondered?

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Saturday, June 19th, 2010 – Wiltshire.

I am breaking into the sequence of Ireland posts to bring you the first of a three-part installment of Glastonbury Solstice posts. I do this because I feel they are very important. Whereas the Irish posts tell the tale of how I prepared myself through working the various chakra points, and the tales are interesting in themselves, the high point of the year for me is usually the Glastonbury Solstice. Last year it was amazing, This year I think it was more interesting and more useful. I will explain as I go along.

In this post I just want to go over some of the things we did before we got to Glastonbury for the Summer Solstice. In particular I want to recount an incident with an energetic being, and to explain how the power of a crop circle was employed to get rid of it. I hope you find this interesting. It’s all as it happened, so take that how you will. Related to this post is the one about Baltinglass in Ireland.

A Walk In the Wood

On this Saturday we were to be guided by intuition. We had a few seemingly random items on our wish list, but everything was up for change. For example, it just so happened that through a combination of a thwarted visit to a crop circle that we couldn’t find and some bad traffic, we ended up going past Stonehenge. As we turned off towards Marlborough what should appear on a brown heritage sign, but Woodhenge!

My power centre at Woodhenge (note circle in grass)

Of course, we stopped and paid a visit, dowsing entrances, exits, power centres and generally amusing ourselves with its stumpy oddness. You may note in the picture above that a dog has kindly ‘marked’ the edge of the power centreA place where a person of a particular 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. (see ‘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.’) feels particularly comfortable and empowered. The place is an energetic centre where a particularly beneficial combination and formation of energies is formed into a pattern that is harmonic with the person for whom it can be called a power centre.. Actually, we find this a lot! Animals like to exctrete on power centres! It’s an oddity of these energetic cones and spirals that they affect animals in this way. We came away from the site ourselves feeling quite cleansed and we discussed this feeling: seems like we both felt we had been grounded at Woodhenge. However, we were on the lookout for a public toilet from that point onwards! Strange.

Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish

Our next site was a crop circle. Having failed to find one earlier it inly made us more determined to visit one come what may. Which was fortunate because we had a lot of trouble locating the next one, despite the fact that CropCircleConnector had given us a very good map of the location. Well, in our defense it wasn’t visible from the roads around, so we ended up trekking up a nearby hill and then spotting it back down in the dale. Kal had another incidence of losing a dowsing rod as he raced past me down the hill. Luckily he realised this time as we re-traced our steps and he found it.

I joked that this reminded me of “The Leprechaun Incident” in Ireland recently, and Kal suddenly grew suspicious. He dowsed me immediately – did I have any vestige of a leprechaun’s influence around my energy body? YES. What!! Could my dowsing be relied upon? NO! Immediately I became an outcast! Kal kept away from me, outside the edges of my aura and I realised I would have to take steps to deal with this troublesome malign energy, much as I had done once before when such a thing had infested my home. As a protective measure I sealed myself off energetically, and threw a wrapper of energy around this thing, which I could feel was behind me on the right-hand side, some five or six feet away. I had him on a leash now, and muffled too. As soon as I did this I felt a dull ache in my right-hand side, level with my kidneys, as though the ‘leash’ of energy were being pulled. Interesting – so he didn’t like that and was struggling to free himself, eh? I knew I had to act quickly now.

We finally found the right place to park to access the crop circle, were prompted by the farmer to contribute to his kitty appropriately, and then began to enter the field following the tramlines through the corn. We felt the aura of the crop circle some sixty feet away from its outer edge. Kal dowsed it (no point me doing so!) and confirmed its position. I only had one thing on my mind – to rid myself of this unhelpful energy that was attached to me and which was skewing my results. I rued my lack of caution in Ireland, and wished I had learned the lesson of protecting myself from such things.

As I entered the crop circle I tightened the mental noose that I had around this damned ‘thing’ and muffled its ability to draw power from the circle’s formation. I immediately found a power centreA place where a person of a particular 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. (see ‘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.’) feels particularly comfortable and empowered. The place is an energetic centre where a particularly beneficial combination and formation of energies is formed into a pattern that is harmonic with the person for whom it can be called a power centre. near the middle of the circle that would act as a ‘safe space’ to work in. I just hoped the rods were working enough for me to rely on that finding! I was working on instinct and intuition alone, now.

Within that safe space I intuited that the leprechaun’s name was Fegan, and that he had attached himself to me at Tara. I had been through a process before where I had rid my house of a similar entity – an energetic “blob” that seemed to have sentience and drained people of energy if they sat in the wrong place. Then, I was a beginner at energy work. Now I was much more experienced, and I was confident that I could dispense with this troublesome sprite. So confident that it verged on over-confidence. I wanted to extract whatever ‘goodies’ this sprite might have! Bad move.

In order to rid myself of this leprechaun I needed to let it go completely, and send it back to where it came from. There was no way to take anything from it. Not with my level of knowledge, anyway. I did, however, succeed in drawing in the power of the crop circle to fling the sprite back westward, over the Irish Sea, and then to drop what we call an “energy bombAn energy bomb is (for me) the pulling in of energy from the surrounding environment and then causing an explosive release. It is highy effective against Leprechaun Energy but not so much against energetic draining energies and shades.” – a powerful dispersal of energy that has the effect of clearing and neutralising anything around. It worked. Boy, did it work! I physically felt the force of the clearance and stood amazed. I asked Kal to confirm the ‘riddance’, and we were both relieved to find that the coast was clear. Was my dowsing back to normal? YES. All was well again. Lesson learned? Maybe…

Chirton Bottom Crop Circle

Now that I was free to investigate the circle it was time to get back to the dowsing.

Chirton crop circle

Here are some things we found out at this circle:-

• The crop was lying in one direction but the energy moved in the opposite direction, e.g. if the crop lay clockwise, the energy flowed anti-clockwise
• The circle was filled with an energy that was neither male, female or neutral- it was a ‘fourth kind’, as Kal put it.
• The energy was only present during the day – at night it dissipated, faded or switched off
• The Sun’s radiant energy was an inherent part of the circle’s “fourth” energy kind
• The effect of the pattern was not felt within the circle, but only when the circle was viewed in its entirety
• The circle was not made by human hands – i.e. it was not flattened by a team of people
• Again we found the dowsing rods responding to the idea that the source of the circle’s design was not human, yet was terrestrially-based, but not earth spirits or elemental forms of sentient earth energy.

We met a couple who were “croppies” who were meditating within the circle. As we chatted the lady revealed that she felt as though the energy “pulsed”, that it was not always here, or waxed and waned. When we tested her idea we found that indeed the energy was only present as long as the sun was around (i.e. during daylight hours). Then we dowsed a link between the Sun’s radiant energies and the energy at the circle. This fourth kind of energy we named “primal” energy, because we determined that it was unformed – i.e. it had not been transmuted by the sun into male energy, nor by the moon or stars into female energy, nor by the earth into neutral energy. I remembered that I had learned about this type of energy at Gop Hill in April this year. I understood now the possibilities of using this primal energy to shape into a form that I could use, and so I set about doing that.

I sat down in my power centreA place where a person of a particular 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. (see ‘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.’) feels particularly comfortable and empowered. The place is an energetic centre where a particularly beneficial combination and formation of energies is formed into a pattern that is harmonic with the person for whom it can be called a power centre. circle and began to accumulate the primal energy, drawing it from the formation and storing it in my upper and lower dantien channels, as though I were storing chienergy through qigong meditation. Once I had accumulated enough I began to form it like a potter forming clay, spinning it around me but mentally and physically moulding its shape into a cocoon around me. I left two areas open though – a hole at the front of my heart and one at the back. These holes formed a chamber passing through my heart which would allow the energies of Glastonbury’s various sites to funnel heart chakra energy into my energy body. That was how I mentally shaped the primal energy into a coherent form. Finally I called upon the sun’s light to seal the shapeto preserve it’s form, using the energy from my upper dantien (my third eye) to act as the channel through which the sunlight could travel. I stood up and dowsed – it was done. I could now dowse the shape around me! I wondered if it would work at channeling the heart energy at Glastonbury. I would soon find out, I suppose.

We paid our dues at the conveniently-placed tin box, said our goodbyes to the other people there, and left for Glastonbury and whatever adventures that would bring for the Solstice.

Gwas.

Throughout this year there has been a single overriding concern that has permeated everything that I do regarding dowsing or druidry: there must be a purpose to it. By that I don’t mean that I haven’t had fun, or avoided doing frivolous things. Not at all. However, each visit that I have embarked upon has been characterised by my having a purpose to go there with. This was the message that I got out of the consolidation period at the end of 2009, that period between Samhain and Yule when one should bring all things learned in the year together, sort through them, and resolve them into a unified approach for the next year’s work. Like some kind of meta-idea, the concept emerged that for 2010 my task would be to determine the purpose of each eighth part of the year – to understand the eight-fold year.

There seems to be a common acceptance of what is considered to be the revived concept of the eight-fold year amongst Neo-Pagan and Wiccan circles. This has all the dates that are close to what may be the ‘original’ divisions of the year. Truth is, no-one really knows how the divisions of the year were named, or upon which dates these divisions actually fell. What has been reconstructed has come to us through a combination of modern research into old customs, or through the collective acceptance of dates that feel familiar and proper. It has largely been a process of re-appropriation of existing festivals such as Christmas, Easter and Hallowe’en, wresting them from the clutches of the Christian sovereignty.

Whilst there is a certain concensus as to what those specific division dates mean, what is not clear is what the time in between those divisions means. I have been following the year’s divisions closely since Winter and have communed and divined for myself what those in-between days (cf. The Cure) mean to me.

There is a certain difficulty with being precise about these division dates too. Nature does not appear as being very precise to us humans because we cannot comrpehend all of the factors involved in what makes The Great Clock tick! The combination of influences from stars, planets, conjunctions, and who knows how many other influences is simply beyond our comprehension. Therefore, we can only “best guess” when these times arise besed on previous experience, and then we need to be flexible about it all, because we probably won’t guess entirely correctly. Does precision matter in working out these division times? I don’t think so, becuase most of the divisions are largely dependent upon the Moon, and the Moon’s influence occurs over several days, and this gives us a certain amount of lee-way.

One final caveat: the information I have discovered is, I believe, probably quite personal to me. I am not, therefore, espousing a new system to explain the Eight-Fold Year as a replacement for other systems that are out there or that you may be using already. Nor am I trying to back up my claims with astological, scientific or any other form of knowledge system. These explanations may be entirely my own – I don’t know until I have had perhaps several years worth of data to analyse. This is my first year of gaining this knowledge, so please bear that in mind when you read this. It is for your edification and information only, and it is merely presented so that it may suggest things for you to try out for yourself.

So, that said, here goes. So far I have discovered the following stages:-

YULE to IMBOLC

The division line may actually be Twelfth Night rather than Christmas Day. I will have to check that when it comes around again this year to get the precise cut-over, not that any of these divisions are precise, because they’re not. However, I think it’s worthwhile me finding out whether it’s Christmas or Twelfth Night.

PURPOSE:

1. To be still and quiet.
2. To engage in no activity of a magickal nature at all.
3. To cleanse the mind of the information from the previous year.

Anything that has not sunk in already after the period immediately prior to this one (which I think is about consolidating information) should not be brought forward into the new year. The purpose of this period is to cleanse oneself of all that “baggage” and to leave the mind in a state whereby new knowledge, new seeds, can be planted upon a well-prepared but settled soil. As with meditation, achieving stillness is the key to appreciating this time of the year. The “season of peace” indeed!

IMBOLC to SPRING EQUINOX

PURPOSE:

1. To awaken the energies of ancient sacred sites.
2. To awaken, pay homage to, or recall the guardian spirits of such places.
3. To prepare the ground for the year’s energy work, by preparing self and place.

This is an interactive stage of the year, and is the first involvement by the participant (the seeker) with the land and its spirits and energies. I found that I was asked to visit many of the places that I had found the be especially find of (read – ‘connected to’, or ‘aligned to’) and that when I was there I would go through a process of firstly finding out what state the place was in, then I would connect to the site, and finally, if necessary, I would invoke the spirit of the place – that guardian spirit – to ask that it return if I found it to be absent. Of course, I could only make a request of the spirit to return, and only if I had prepared the ground appropriately, so to speak.

All of this work, of visiting sites, connecting to them and contacting or invoking the spirit of place, it was all a form of preparation for the work that was to come. A sort of re-introduction, a gentle re-awakening to energies and spirits.

SPRING EQUINOX to BELTANE

PURPOSE:

1. To connect to the earth’s energy grid.
2. To understand the nature of Neutral earth energy forms.
3. To extract and utilise Neutral energy.

I think there is a general principle at work during this period, and that is for the seeker to learn to connect into the land. As the earth energies begin to be enlivened by the radiant energy of the sun, and together with the moon this draws life from the land. That signals the time for the seeker to spend time connecting with this upsurge of energy. In some mystical systems the human is the mid-point between the Sky and the Earth, and I think this is a symbolic memory of our ability to actually be the conduit and focal point for the two forms of energy – earth and radiant. We are the combiners.

As for myself this year, I have found that there was an additional task which was to learn in a theoretical and a practical way how I could extract the neutral energy form and store it within me. I learned how to re-charge myself with this energy using my navel chakra point as a storehouse for the neutral energy form – in exactly the same way as in chinese qigong meditation.

In addition to simply drawing out and collecting this energy I learned how to use neutral energy to ‘coat’ objects in order to preserve their energetic imprint. This was a means of creating so-called “power objects” I realised. In other words, it was a way of retaining those special qualities that people had invested into an object – whether that be a memory, a feeling, or some other form of energetic input. I learned how that energy could be retained within the object by using raw neutral energy to preserve it like a coat of varnish.

BELTANE to SUMMER SOLSTICE

PURPOSE:

1. To understand the nature of the neutral or white light energy form and how it is composed
2. To practise diffracting and re-combining the seven coloured frequencies of light
3. To make practical use of these energies to elevate consciousness

I believe this part of the year’s cycle concerns the effort to raise one’s level of consciousness to an opportunity point in the middle of the year when the energies are at their strongest, and one stands the greatest chance of elevating into an enlightened state, or achieving a blissful and revelatory state of mind.

So far I have found that for me this will involve me learning about how to bring together the two inner energy centres – the neutral energy store of the lower dan-tian or navel chakra point, and to combine that with the influx of light energy through the third-eye chakra point in order to diffract the energy into any of the seven frequencies of 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. that I require to be able to perform whatever task I need (for example, to heal an imbalance, or to utilise a particular frequency for a specific task). At this moment I don’t know what tasks those frequencies can perform, but that is learning that I still have to go through.

I suspect that there may be some esoteric benefit to being able to draw in each of the frequencies of this spectrum of light individually and to recombine them somehow to form a white light frequency, and that this may be the “light at the end of the tunnel” or the blinding inspiration that is described as accompanying an enlightenment process. My quest, however, is to understand the purpose of being able to do that, not just the mechanics of making it possible!

So, not much to do then in the next few months!

Summary

That is my current understanding and recap of the year’s inspirations and the paths along which I have travelled during this year. I feel that much of that information is general enough for most people to get some correspondence with, or for it to resonate with most people. Much of it is also personal and relates to my own quest for knowledge, understanding and wisdom in working with the energies of Nature. You decide where that take you. I will, as ever, go my own way.

Gwas.

Related post: My Eight Fold Year – the final four folds