The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘death energies’

OK, chastise me if you will, I have been away from this blog for ages. That is not to say that I haven’t been having adventures. Quite the opposite. Many exciting and revealing times continue to pass my way on a almost daily basis.

I am going to have a monumental go at catching up here! It seems a task that may be beyond me. Instead of going back in time and trying to recall my adventures. I will start from this point in time and work my way back and forward.  Good luck to me, I will need it.

Those who are keeping up with our adventures may recall that over the last two years I have gained a few “names”.

Alderley Wizard

The first was “Edge Wizard” and I was given this in a rather unusual way in the forest of Wizards in Alderley Edge Cheshire. I didn’t know what it meant at the time but since then it has become more clear and focused as we shall see.

Ostensibly at the time I thought this was due to my explorations at the edge of normality, which as it happened was true…see below.

Old Yew

About a year or so after this christening I was given the name “Spirit Walker” which I gained as a title at that wonderful old Yew tree in Llangernyw, Wales.

At the time I was given this moniker I was exploring “Death Energies” a truly fascinating exploration of the border between this life and the next. As readers will know it was an uncomfortable and rather scary journey.

Early this year I was given another “nom du guerre” this time it was the odd title of Wand Maker. Again this naming was in that wonderful forest in Alderley Edge.

Enthusiasm in following this “new” path was initially filled with exciting discoveries and possibilities as demonstrated by this website I set up…The Wand Maker blog.

I have been puzzled over the last week about what was going on with all these namings and what they meant for my path. So I had spent some time meditating on this subject and finally the frustration of not getting anywhere had me off to a source of wisdom. Ye oldie yew!

Yesterday, I arrived there in the early hours of the evening and entered the quiet gardens with determination and a list of questions.

Here are some of the answers that were forthcoming…

• If you lack focus and intent, answers are given in accordance with your state.

I was given these names because that was where my thoughts were at the time. Looking back this makes sense, since I was in a period of mourning the passing of my mum when I first became seriously interested in Death Energies.

• The initial name was the best descriptor for me – “Edge Wizard” – the other names are a reflection of this name.

Spirit walker is the exploration of the Edge of this world and the next. As I was given to know at that time but had forgotten. In the experiences I gained at the yew and since. It was/is to gain an understanding of “energy” from a transitional perspective. If we imagine a Venn diagram…

A is life and B is death or existence on the other side. This trip to the Yew garnered that whist we are in life our exploration can only concern the life aspect ‘A’ and the ‘A+B’ bit.

• What of the “B” or existence after life?

The answers I got for this is that it would be fruitless to explore it, In Castaneda’s terminology the “B” lies firmly in the Unknowable. Exploring only leads to confusion and answers that do not make sense. I guess this falls in line with the so many confusing and conflicting tales about what it is like in the after-life.

• How do the other names fall in line with Edge Wizard?

It seems obvious (as it always does after the fact) Spirit Walker is the ‘A+B’ part of the above and Wand Maker…helloooo! “Wizard”? It seems that dowsing energy has non-temporal properties. Thus the naming is something that we can become.

• Where does this leave me?

Focus, the absolute key for me at this time is to focus. Co-creation has a key component of focus. I had this really funny experience at the Yew this time.

I saw a car driving along a long road, like the American highways. As it was going along bits were falling off here and there. I saw sign posts along the road which said things like “Goals This Way”…

It was a puzzling vision. Obviously it was telling me that I should or was heading towards my goals but why the breaking up of the car. As I watched this “drama” unfold I got a close up of the car. It had a sticker on the side with the word “Intent” written on it.

After receiving this vision. I wandered to the back part of the Yew Garden to “walk the path of understanding”, which effectively is a wonderful walk-way between the graves but has been very useful in walking and dowsing for understanding of visions.

I got the idea that although we can have an intent which propels us towards our goals (the car) if we don’t look after our other energies then our intent becomes useless (or broken). What are these other energies (that were falling off the car)?

Our every day thoughts, our physical wellbeing, our energetic well being, everything we do has energetic consequences. Emotional being, what we eat and drink. All these things to some extent have an effect on our being. So if we don’t “fix” these then our intent suffers.

What an analogy! I wonder how my brain (Yew Tree?) comes up with these? I am curious because I thought I was pretty good with all this “life balance” stuff. So my questioning/dowsing continued and I got that I was. Actually I was way better at it than a lot of people (ego?)

• Was this an ego thing?

Apparently not, being “good” at balancing is like being good at art or science. It has no value basis, as in being “better” than anyone else. Phew!

So I have been pretty good at this balancing stuff, well what were the bits falling of the car? It seems that I am on the fine tuning side of things now. Having got rid of the major issues I have now to deal with the fine tuning.

• The verdict?

Carry on as you are McDuff! Be confident that “you” are on the “right” path for “you”.  Can’t say fairer than that!

Bless,

Kal Malik ~ Edge Wizard!

Personal note

Some might say that dowsing at a graveyard is disrespectful. I have considered this question many times, ever since our first set of dowsing at Norton Priory. If you pop over to that post for a moment you will see that my sentiments at the time were…

It was simply this: this was a cemetery and it was a bad state of affairs to be going around dowsing in it – as if I couldn’t find anywhere else to dowse? It wasn’t a case of ‘you shouldn’t dowse here’ - but more of a case that – ‘it’s nice (of you) not to dowse here’. If that makes sense?

So what has changed since then? Well, I still have a deep respect for such places however I have grown to appreciate a “deeper” connection with such matters and until someone can give me a good reason as to “why” it is disrespectful I will take my inner knowing as a guide.

Paying respects

Okay, one might think I am some kind of grave-yard haunter but this time I have a good excuse. In this particular grave-yard my dear mum is buried. She passed away Autumn last year and although I have visited the site probably about once a fortnight this was the first time I ventured forth with my dowsing rods in hand. I didn’t know why at the time but then – we rarely do right? So here I am about 10:30 at night in the wonderful light of the full moon and pretty clear sky too, in as I said, a grave-yard.

fox covert view at night

My mums grave is quite far into the site (and in a section that is for Muslims only, don’t ask why its a religious thing) anyhow after spending some time paying my respects I took out the rods and wondered about what to do with them.

Dowsing for an interesting place

After some musing I thought to ask if there was some interesting place nearby that I could learn something…then answer was an immediate yes and I was off, fortunately the rods were being respectful today (tonight rather) and avoided the graves keeping to the paths. A few minutes later I was over to nearly the other end of the cemetery when the rods span (or helicoptered as we now call it) and I came to a stop.

Fox Covert

So time to ask some more questions…

Questions questions

Readers of this blog must understand and appreciate the extra work that goes into dowsing which often times isn’t seen here on this blog. By this I mean that often to get to a question that has a “yes” answer, we often have to go through many “no’s” first. By the time we get to writing up a report here we have forgotten many of the “no” questions and thus focus on the “yes” ones herein.

That said, I began with confirming that this was a place of interest? Yes it was. Excellent! Now to discover why it was of interest. I was quite close to what looked liked a freshly dug grave and a little “aha” tripped in my brain. We had done some work around the energies of “notable” people before and so my first question was. Is it interesting because of the grave? Yes, aha! Is it because the person buried here is important? No. O what a shame. That was a bit of a blow. But I continued, on with the questions and finally came to these…

• Is it because this is a fresh grave? Yes.
• Is it something to do with the energies here?Yes
• Does anything need to be done for the spirit here? No – now that was a bit of a stopper for a while!
• Does anything need to be done for the “energies” here?Yes

Just as a quick aside I wondered of into asking some questions about energy and spirit and the way in which they are not the same thing! Another post Sivuplay?

Okay, since I have some knowledge (knowledge? Who am I kidding) on such matters now I kind of figured out that the energies needed to be grounded. If you recall my posts from the “Ancient Yew” in North Wales, this is what the “yew” tree was doing in a graveyard, grounding the energies.

• Do the energies need grounding here? Yes
• Will they become grounded if I don’t do anything? Yes – kind of
• Will it take a long time? Yes
• Can I do anything to speed it up? Yes
• Should I? Yes
• How…

O, sorry about that, what am I supposed to do? The “how” and often followed swiftly by the “why” of things are questions that a dowser is confronted with and has no recourse from the rods. Of course this is where intuition, previous experience (though not often) and informational knowledge gained from other people/books/web-sites (again not often I have to say) comes in useful.

Knowing without knowing

So here I was with a dilemma…

Let me digress for a moment…I believe that we all have talents, something that we are just a “natural” at. Indeed many of have more than one talent. When friends have asked what I consider my talent to be I instantly answer “connection”. I know I’m blowing my trumpet. Hey you blow yours in the comments section below. Anyway my talent is connecting disparate things.

…So, as I stood there looking out at the fantastic night sky a thought (connection) came to me. I don’t know if Gwas has mentioned this but about the middle of last year Gwas started to do something odd when he came across road-kill. As he was driving to where-ever if he spotted some dead animal he would visualise a spiral of energy lifting from the carcass. Why he did this he wasn’t clear but after he told me I too started to do it. Again the why wasn’t clear “it just felt right” is about the best answer you would have got out of  me.

And right at this moment, that thought fluttered into my psyche. The rods flipped up and I asked is “that” how to ground the energies? You guessed it, the answer was a resounding yes!

So I sat down by the side of this grave and visualised a spiral of energy lifting from it and floating upwards – whilst holding the intent of grounding the energies.

A bit weird to be honest because it seemed to be counter intuitive, in that I was spiraling the energies upward, which was in turn grounding the energies. Remember this was nothing to do with spirit. I wasn’t “helping” the spirit along or anything like that! Please!

This took only about a couple of minutes and I asked whether the energies were grounded, it was a soft yes, a bit more than a “kind of” answer. I asked whether more could be done by me? Yes. O terrific and it was cold too. So…

• Did I need to do it again? No
• Did I do something wrong? No
• Did I need to use something else? Yes, O Parsley Sauce! I forgot to ask that question before!
• Incense, crystals, meditation, sound, music all got a No.
• Do I have what I need to use with me or in the car? No
• In the house? No
• So I cant really do anything can I? Yes – more Parsley Sauce!

By the way, if you hadn’t cottoned on, I’m not partial to using “bad” language hence my most extreme expletive for the moment is “Parsley Sauce”

• What you are saying is that if I had this “thing” whatever it is I would be able to do more? Yes
• But since I haven’t I cant? Yes

Well, that settled it. To do more work here I needed something, I know not what. However since I didn’t have this something I was at a loss to proceed. Thus I concluded my stay and departed with another piece of wisdom added to the pot.

Addendum

About a couple of days after this event I was round at my brothers house (where incidentally my mum also lived) and he was telling me that a really good, and close, friend of my mum, who lived across the road from her house had passed away a week ago.

You know when you get one of “them” moments. Well I got one right then because I just knew that it was this ladies grave who I had visited a few nights before. So without much ado I was off to the cemetery to find out, in daylight this time of course.

Half an hour later I was there checking out the grave-site. There was no name on it. So I was off to the office, which is about a mile away from the cemetery. Arriving there just before closing time I asked the attendant and…it was my mums friends grave!

What are the chances!!

Kal

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 communing 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: Communing with some ancient sites involves asking the permission of the genius loci – 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 communing 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.