The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘cleansing’

Often my wife has to work away from home. She gets to visit places the length and breadth of these islands, which has broadened her own horizons considerably. As a lone traveller, though, apart from the solitary travel there is also the feeling of being in a new place on your own – it’s not always a liberating experience. Of course we stay in touch as all modern couples do, but sometimes there’s an extra touch required.

Now, usually I keep my work separate from my ‘ordinary’ life. Occasionally the opportunity arises for the two worlds to cross over, and I am now happy for that to happen because it is sometimes less profitable to keep them apart. After all, this is the year that I am being more authentic, so I need to begin to practise the skills I have been taught.

Which brings me to this incident. If you stay in hotel rooms a lot you will have come across this phenomenon for sure. The feeling that there’s something in the room with you. That somebody perhaps left something of themselves in the room. In older hotels and boutique places that use old artefacts to create ambience, sometimes the items in the room carry the energetic attachments of previous owners.

M called me to have our usual evening chat from her hotel in Swansea, South Wales. Did she have a nice night’s stay in her posh room, I asked? No, terrible, she responded. I was surprised because I thought that the hotel was away from the usual city-centre hubbub and that there weren’t many guests at this time of year anyway. What had disturbed her – air conditioning, radiator pipes, televisions blaring, or the sirens of ambulances and police cars? None of the above. Instead she told me of crazy strong dreams, turbulent thoughts that she didn’t feel were her own, and a feeling of a presence in certain places around the room.

I offered to help her out. This was a good chance to get to know my new spirit guide better.I asked M to send me photos of the places that she felt were “wrong” and I would see what I could glean from the pictures, and then decide what to do remotely from then on. Minutes later three photos came though in separate e-mails. I examined each one in turn.

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Water Adventure

I could feel the energies of Imbolc on Friday 1st of Feb but still believed that the best day to be out was on the 2nd. Gwas and I had agreed to a 7:30am start. Phew! Fortunately, I had been getting up early throughout the week anyway so this was not an inconvenience.

We had met earlier in the week and over a delicious meal considered what our purpose would be on this first outing of the year. As it happens I had that question in hand, what with going to see the Oracle of Delphi in a couple of weeks. MY question (questing?) then was simply to find out what question I would need to ask the Oracle on my visit.

The weather on either side of Imbolc was rain and snow. On the day itself however we were extremely fortunate. The sun blazed throughout the day and although it was cold to the quick we at least had the auspices of the Sun to guide and accompany us.

It took more than two hours to reach our first goal, a sacred well dedicated to St. Anna. Gwas laughs but it seems that every outing has some adventurous escapade waiting for me and today was no exception. On the to the well we had to navigate some watery ways and for a moment it was touch and go as to whether I would be taking an early dive. As I clambered along the side of the path a voice silently told me to align my energy to the roots of the trees as opposed to grasping the nettled twigs. It seems that luck was with me today and I arrived high and dry at the Well of St Anne.

As is often the case Gwas and I went our separate ways in greeting and communing with the spirit of this sacred place. For me this was going to be a place of cleansing, energetically speaking of course. I dowsed for the best place for me to commune and was taken to a place by the side of the building so that I was facing the sun with the Well behind me.

I opened my thoughts and let impressions of the sacred drift in. For a while there was nothing but the sun streaming on my face and the cold biting at my fingers. Then I felt a flutter behind me and was caught of guard as a spirit flipped over my head, using my shoulder as a stepping stone. With light-foot the spirit of the place (who I assume was known as Anna) landed some few feet in-front of me.

St Anna

Bowing with respect (see? I am learning) I inquired as to her well-being. She responded with a light, laughter filled voice. “I have awoken” An interesting synchronicity would be to read Gwas’s account as his experience was that of awakening the spirit. He also found (via dowsing) that the Genius Loci was located at exactly the spot where I had seen her land.

I mentioned that I was here to celebrate Imbolc and to ask for any guidance that might be in the offing. She responded that this wasn’t the place for such answers but that I should not worry, “today is a day of awakening and answers will be forthcoming.” I was just grateful to her for not saying those dreaded winter words, “have patience”.

With expectation coursing through my spirit I was feeling ecstatic. Gwas and I finished our commune at roughly the same time and we each lit some incense with an intention of thanks and gratitude.

Finally, movement!

Kal Malik – Journeys Beginning

Timber Frame Church

I was looking forward to Imbolc with an anticipation that couldn’t be contained. What with such a fantastic start to last year I was expecting an equally fate-filled day. Our first stop was to be Lud’s Church, a place that has had some significance for me since my Knights Quest began. However Gwas had a Church in mind and so, being one to follow the flow on sacred days I was happy to tag along.

We picked up a friend of Gwas’s, Mike and headed to the very close by church. As I stepped up the steps and through the surrounding graveyard I got a funny feeling. There were no shades here. Dowsing confirmed this intuitive leap. I asked as to the reason why and was led to a beautiful Yew tree in the corner of the church-yard.

I pondered as to whether I could find a use for being in this bright and fresh church yard and got an answer of, Yes. I was led again to the very same Yew tree and decided to spend some time under its eaves. Several moments later I felt a wash of energy trickle down my back and into the ground. I knew I had been energetically cleansed. Again my dowsing rods confirmed this. Thanking the Yew tree for its help on my journey. We went on to Lud’s Church

Kal Malik – off to a cleansed start

Changes with The Moon

My wife had a friend. She has worked with this friend a long time ago and they used to have happy times, but then her friend began to succumb to the stresses and strains of working in the mental health profession, and rapidly began to suffer from the very symptoms she was trying to cure. Friendship became strained. Honestly, her friend has never really recovered properly. and now, perhaps cruelly, her name is often accompanied by the prefix “Mad…” Everyone who knows her expects a whirlwind visit near to a full moon. Oh yes, despite what sceptics say, experience has taught me that this so-called myth is very true – people affected by the moon are prone to lunacy when the moon is full.

One night I heard a knock at the door. My wife was away and it was 8pm. I opened the door and Mad Lady walked straight in, chattering about seeing our cats, and 101 other topics within a ten-second burst. Definitely “hyper”! She is a buddhist and spotting an ornamental buddha perched on our fish tank she began to bow to it in little fast bows, hands clasped in prayer, and muttering incomprehensible mantras to herself and her deity. I calmly asked whether she would like a cup of tea, if she was staying? To my surprise she said yes, so I began to prepare the necessaries. All sorts of thoughts were going through my head. Mostly, “What am I going to do now?“. To be honest I had always let me wife take the brunt of her behaviour and had taken every excuse possible to slip away.

Sounds harsh, bur this lady has a lot of issues and she is a vortex of negative energies. She is a “taker”, but when well is equally a “giver”, so you just have to know when to catch her right. Sadly, she visits people most often when she’s in need, and in “take mode”. Tonight was clearly such an occasion, and this time there as no escape. this time I would have to deal with her on my own. The test was obvious to me. She was going around in circles with grief, stuck in a time loop, weighed down by the grief and guilt that accompanied the suicide of a former lover. She is spiritually and intellectually active but I know that very few of the people that she encounters are prepared to deal with her frantic and overpowering curiosity combined with such a strong neediness. People often are willing to help, but she is like a vortex of neediness that people get quickly depleted.

This time, however, the test was mine and mine alone. I prepared myself.

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Harthill Moor, Derbyshire – Saturday 20th November

We picked our way carefully down the slope towards Doll Tor. “Give me more details!” I hear you say, “How do I find Doll Tor?” You find it when you’re ready, and if you’re committed enough. Otherwise, just sit back and enjoy this tale instead. Where was I? Oh yes, we picked our way through the cow-rutted clods and across swamps of mud until our feet hit solid ground on the small path that takes you down to the circle, tucked away out of sight in a clump of trees. Kal, as usual, had taken an alternate route that didn’t endanger his trainer-shod feet, whereas I was sensibly attired and ploughed through the middle. Always taking the middle way, eh? It was a good job I had good balance.

I had been warned by our friendly druid at the Nine Stones that there were some ‘decorations’ (known colloquially as ‘clouties’) left at Doll Tor from the Samhain celebrations. Little did I realise quite how intrusive those decorations were until we arrived at the circle. May I just take a moment here to say this to all those who go celebrating at sacred sites – I was always told that the mark of a respectful pagan is that when they have finished you would hardly know they had been there. This has stuck with me, but some, it seems, never got the message. All the trees around the circle were covered in coloured ribbons, either tied around their trunks or wrapped around branches. Several mobiles hung from the trees too. Pretty, but as we were about to discover, not always beneficial.

Pretty ribbons strangling the trees

We began dowsing to assess the the character of the site – always useful to have an impression of how the site is feeling and how it is reacting on any particular visit so that you can tune in to do your best work. This day we found that the energy was not very good there and it was because the good energy associated with the ribbons at the time of their placement had worn off. In fact, some of the people who had tied the ribbons were still energetically linked to them, and because they were not giving off good energies, so that was feeding into the site’s energy field too, by some form of quantum mechanical linkage (in the sense of action at a distance).

There was also a bunch of white flowers laid in the centre of the circle. This had been good, but now was allowing harmful energies to come into the site like some kind of conduit. There was an important lesson being learnt here: objects retain links to their donators unless those links are deliberately severed.

Gifts with links

We worked out fairly quickly from discovering this that out purpose here today would be to break the links between the people and their ribbons, mobiles and flowers. Whilst we found that they had been drawing in good energies at the time they were given, some of the objects were not attracting bad energies through those links. Maybe the people who had donated them were giving off bad vibes, or having bad luck? Either way, the links had to be neutralised, and so we set about doing that.

Kal did one side while I did the other. We lit incense (on a still day for a change) because this seemed to offer a better option for cleansing than crystals. I walked once around the perimeter of the site, widdershins, cleansing its aura. Then I meditated to cleanse, power up and protect myself. I could see Kal doing the same.  When ready we lit more incense and wafted it around the trunks of the trees affected by this bad energy connection (not all were).

The air was pungent and swirling with the wisps of opium incense as it wove its way around each tree , gathering curiously around the coloured ribbons and moving its cleansing air-force through the twirling diagonal mobiles. I imagined that the spirits of the air and fire were assisting with our work. When the last tree was done we planted incense around the decaying bunch of flowers in the centre of the circle and as we did so the air lifted indescribably and subtly as the last bond was released.

When we finished that was all there was to do here so we left, happy that we had done some useful work today. So, beware. If you intend to leave gifts for the goddess, please make the unconditional and unlinked gifts. By all means add your love and gratitude, but please disconnect your self from the act, leaving the gift quantumly untainted!

Gwas.