Posts Tagged ‘dragon line’
Glastonbury Solstice – Part 3: The Dragon Vision
June 30th, 2010 | 
Author: This is the third part of the story of my recent pil;grimage to Glastonbury. “Pilgrimage” – that’s what I’m calling these visits because that’s how I feel about them – they are modern-day pilgrimages to a “site of special spiritual interest”, to adopt and mutate the SSSI designation. Glastonbury itself recognises this and has a Pilgrimage Centre where people can go to get information about places to visit and what’s on – sort of like a Tourist Information Centre for Seekers.
So, in the last parts I told you how I sloughed off the energetic attachment of a trickster spirit, got a surprise at a crop circle, then took two trips up the Tor trying to totally tune my tantra. That’s not strictly accurate, but it was the only synonym I could find that was alliterative! I was in the process of working on my heart chakra – the chakra os assimilation, integration, love, emotion and…well, here’s what one site says:
“According to contemporary buddhist teacher Tarthang Tulku, the heart chakra is very important for the feeling of existential fulfillment” (source: Sensagent Dictionary)
‘Existential fulfillment’, huh? Well, I’m pretty fulfilled in that respect, being a trainee druid. So, the day before I had watched the sun set on the horizon from The Tor and this morning I set out with Kal to see where I would end up. There were no plans except a starting point – them’s the rules. Our starting point this day would be the “entrance portals” that are the Gog and Magog trees (now sadly, only one remains).
Guardians of The Entrance: Gog and Magog
No time was wasted this morning – we knew, after last year’s visit, exactly how to get to the trees. It was early (i.e. before tour buses arrived) so all was quiet, even on the campsite next to the ancient oaks. Kal hovered around outside while I clambered into the nettle-strewn glade that forms a triangular cordon around the trees. I was taken aback at how much the first tree (Gog apparently) had paled and depreciated in the last year since she had been burned on the inside by some ardent “worshipper” and his zealous candle. I’m sure there were vestiges of life last year. This year he was totally barren and crumbling fast. It was quite dis-heartening to see.
The legendary and dead Gog Oak tree
Luckily, although I felt the waves of trauma and sadness coming from his partner Magog, she was in decent health. In her hollow I placed the two things I possessed that had a healing energy: a special slice of rose-coloured crystal that I had been given as a gift specifically to use for heart chakra work, and my ash staff. How the giver of this crystal had known I was going to do such work is beyond me, but that’s another story. Alongside the crystal I put my staff in the bole too. I placed my hands on the gnarled bark of the tree and, after the waves of anguish had ebbed away I put some loving energy into the tree. She was clearly pining (or is it “oaking”?), and it seemed like the only thing I could do that wasn’t a selfish act. I wasn’t here to take this time – I was here to give.
Three is a magic number
Oh yes it is. Good things come in trees {sic} so having passed between the trees as a starting point to my morning’s processional way I rejoined Kal and we headed up the slope towards the ever-present Tor in the distance. This would be the third time in two days we would climb the Tor, and each time the energies, the feelings and the results were different. Today was no exception.
The climb up the Tor was straightforward, although again, I felt the need to do it in bare feet. Again, we went up the quick way, up the steepest slope at the ‘back’ of the Tor. Once on top Kal went off doing his stuff, dowsing and meditating for his own ends. I dowsed to find the best place for me to work with my heart chakra energies, and to commune with the Spirit of the Tor to know what I should do for the next part of the year’s cycle. This was my intention this morning – no messing about! Straight to the ‘heart’ of the matter!
It was only a matter of a few minutes before things began to happen. I had stilled myself, then sent my attention deep into the Tor and outwards up into the skies above, creating a channel between the two. I felt a deep rumbling from within the depths of the Tor! It was only slight, but it was palpable. Something was stirring! Was it within me, or within the earth? What was it that was awakening? Through my deep connection I felt the urge to stand and move to the doorway of St.Michael’s Tower – the building on the Tor’s summit. I was standing now in the Michael and Mary Line, the Great Dragon Line, the strongest ley line int he country that runs across this land’s southern width from one end to the other. My eyes glazed, and suddenly I saw a vision…
The Dragon Hill Vision
…The archway of the building framed Wearyall Hill in the town below. As my attention was placed upon it I saw that it was the shape of a sleeping dragon. I could make out a head curled in, folded wings on its flanks, and a tail snaking out and around the back of the hill. As I watched, an overlay, a transparent copy of the dragon woke and looked up at me. With a snort it unfolded its wings, stretched and then looked at me again as if waiting for an instruction. I wondered what to do…then I realised. It wanted to fly but had forgotten how, after such a long sleep. I sent back the instruction to it in my mind – “Fly!” I said, “Fly!”. The dragon vision lifted its neck, looked upwards, and then beat its huge wings until it raised itself off the ground.
Cultural images abound - e.g. Smaug
Once airborne it circled quickly around Wearyall Hill, still visible in front of me, and spiralled upwards and towards me. As the great red dragon flew over my head it disappeared. So authentic was this vision that I knew to be a vision, that for a moment I blinked in case it flew into me….then it was gone. There was no dragon now. Wearyall Hill was just a hill.
View of Wearyall 'Dragon' Hill through the tower
I understood, in a way that only true gnosis can reveal, what it was I needed to do for the next eighth part of the year. I needed to “wake the dragon” – whatever that turned out to mean. I had to wake it, then teach it how to fly, because it had been sleeping for so long it had forgotten. Straight away I was getting linkages coming through from my reading and learning: red dragon -> serpent -> male earth energy -> serpent fire -> kundalini -> ‘raising the serpent fire’ -> a hill -> flying -> shamanic flying -> raising consciousness…. the connections kept coming. It would take me a few weeks to contemplate what this might mean exactly for me, but the direction was clear and more powerful than ever before.
I thought that was the most revelatory thing that could have happened to me that day and I was content to know my direction, but the best was yet to come. We descended the hill and headed for the quiet contemplation space that is the Chalice Well Gardens. That was where the pilgrimage was truly fulfilled!
Gwas.
Hamish Miller dies: my tribute
HAMISH MILLER 1927 – 2010
Hamish was probably the most publicly-known dowser at the time of his death. He had built a reputation as a tireless educator in the field of dowsing, and there is not a single character in the field who will be able to step into the gap he leaves. His boisterous yet gentle character and permanent smile in the face of what must have been endless questions about the subjects he loved and live were an inspiration to me and I’m sure to many others who will have got the chance to see him dowse, hear his lectures, and learn from his wealth of experience over the last few decades.
He died on the 25th January this year, aged 82. I had read many of his books (in fact, only a few weeks ago I re-visited is seminal “Definitive Wee Book of Dowsing” for some pointers as to a seminar article am writing myself and found him, yet again, to be an inspiration to my work.
His initial inspiration to dowse came from a near-deathexperience (which he talked about every time I saw him). It was to turn his life around in his latter years, after having initially been a blacksmith and businessman. When he turned to dowsing he maintained the blacksmithing, forging his own style of dowsing rods.
His inspiration
When I first came across dowsing I was looking for as much information as possible – buying every book I could find, and trying to see how people went about doing dowsing – what issues did they come up against? What was their technique? What kinds of things could they find? Hamish Miller took part in a pilot programme which subsequently did not go to air, but made it to DVD, released as “The Spirit of the Serpent”, and featuring both Hamish and Ba Russell (his long-time partner), and Rupert Soskin and his wife. Oddly, Claire Grogan fronted the programme! A bit incongruous indeed. The team investigated the Merry Maidens stone circle in Cornwall over two days.
What inspired me about this program was the way in which Hamish visually defined the earth energy spirals he found by placing pegs in the ground at intervals and then looping ribbon around them to visually demarcate the lines. I was inspired by this, and enjoyed listening to his explanations to a bemused Altered Images pop starlet about the way these energies could be discovered.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-D2qHKUC0E
What he brought to the subject
For me he introduced me to the concepts of the spiral form of energy and how it could be traced against the background patterns of the criss-crossing Hartmann and Curry grids. His detailed explanation of this fed into my own work on finding the spirals out in the land at so many places around ancient sites. Others may have found this before hand (Underwood or Michell perhaps) but Hamish brought it to life for me.
He also demonstrated concepts such as manifesting energy, in other words, using the power of the mind to ‘bring out’ patterns that already exist within the earth. These manifestations, he showed us, could be chained together from one site to another with increasing complexification occurring downstream. Another practise that I tested myself and found to be somewhat valid (my patterns got increasingly simple!).
His inspirational books
Hamish might be best remembered for his classic dowsing treatise “The Sun and The Serpent”. A seminal work with Paul Broadhurst (another author whose work I admire). Together they followed the Great Dragon Ley Linethat John Michell had identified earlier. This line is an earthenergy line that can be found all the way from Norfolk to the tip of Cornwall. Miller and Broadbent added to this identification by dowsing the male and female “Michael” and “Mary” earth energy lines that moved around this national ley line. Fascinating stuff, and inspiring to a new dowser like myself.
His unique dowsing rods
Hamish was, as I mentioned, a blacksmith. He used his skills to create his own style of dowsing rods. Frankly, I didn’t like or understand them, but that was probably my problem. Hamish certainly made expert use of them, and I could rarely disagree with his findings, although we did differ on the detail, and I was also quite surprised that he never elaborated greatly on his findings in any study paper. But then he was a very practical man, and such things were probably anathema to him.
Hamish's unique and unusual hand-forged rods
Miller – The Teacher
I will remember him best for his practical demonstrations of dowsing, and for his unswerving enthusiasm, even in his later years. I’m so pleased to be able to say that I saw him, learned from him, questioned him, and that he was my inspiration for taking dowsing to even deeper levels. I wish him his peaceful rest.
Gwas Myrddyn
Following on from the Great Man.
Posted in Modern Druidry | 
Tags: curry grid, dowser, dowsing rods, dragon line, hamish, hartmann grid, john michell, ley lines, manifestations, miller, paul broadhurst, southern serpent, spirals, sun and serpent, teacher | 
1 Comment »
