The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘fire festival’

As a follower of a seasonal path, and someone who has developed their sensitivity to the variety and strength of the energies available throughout the year, Imbolc - February 1st – marks the opening of the new year. For me it symbolises the return of the male energies. What does this mean exactly? It means that up until the beginning of February the Sun’s light has been too weak to feed the activity of the male subtle energies that inhabit the Earth, and which are present in living things. Therefore, for me, Imbolc marks the beginning of an increase in the strength and vitality of anything that is enlivened by the influence of male (or Sun-sourced) energies.

In Britain this year there has been an exception to this general rule concerning the presence of male energy. Male ‘subtle’ energy has in fact been available, albeit in a very weakened form. This has been due to the amount of sustained sunlight that we have been receiving. You can feel it in the land – the birds are singing, the buds are appearing, there have even been flowers blooming in January – normally a time when most delicate biological entities retreat into themselves and rest. An unusual year indeed. At this exact moment the frost and cold has returned to bite, yet the sun continues to shine. It is a most unusual beginning.

The heat and height of the Summer

The unusual start makes it difficult to contemplate how the year might work itself out. Are we going to see the seasons having “unseasonal” weather? Are they going to be unrecognisable from our traditional weather patterns? What will this mean for the strength and prevalence of the Earth’s 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. forces, and for the living biological energy of its inhabitants? My feeling is that we are going to see a real peak in Sun energy this year. This may require some balancing out by those of us who work well with Moon energy (female), as we feed a calming influence into the land through selected node points on the energy grid. Let’s not get all hot-headed and hysterical just because the Olympics are coming to town in the height of Summer! It’s just a game, an amusement, a distraction.

As with all previous years that I have followed my spiritual path I returned to the Llangernyw Yew Tree for inspiration. CommuningAn interaction with an invisible and natural sentient force that is independently identifiable, even if it cannot be named or classified. The interaction takes place at the level of a subtle amalgamation of the mind of the perceiver such that a dialogue or transference of feelings may occur between the two sentient parties. The interaction that is ‘communing’ is purposefully initiated by the perceiver for the express purpose of learning or simply to transfer feelings in a sympathetic manner. with this tree seems to set the spark on the year’s tinder and soon a flame of encouraging light emerges from the kindling provided by this ancient life force nestled deep in the heart of a small village in North Wales. I will talk about the visit in more detail soon, but the outcome was one word: “Renown“. I will be spending the year seeking out sources to increase my personal power. Renown is a subject that I will return to and explain more fully in subsequent posts. No doubt I have much more to learn about it as the year goes on.

Now let’s talk about specific preparations that I am making for Imbolc, and that you could make too.

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Sam Hill – it’s nearly Samhain!

The original Celtic New Year begins on the night of the Full Moon closest to October 31st and November 1st. This year that will be Monday 2nd November. It is the time when the Summer was overcome by the Winter – often played out as the Solar Hero being overcome by a Dark Knight (see Mummer Plays).

This time sees the beginning of the Dark Half of the Year – a festival honouring the dead, and importantly forming a link between the energies of those who have been before us, and those of us here now. Samhain is a gateway between the worlds of the Otherworld and the Middle Earth, and becomes passable by the denizens of either world – the “veil becomes thin” as some describe it. It is therefore an opportunity to commune or communicate with forces in a much stronger and clearer way that at other times.

There is lots of miscellaneous information about various customs relating to this time of year, old and new, to be found here.

Playing with Fire

Samhain is a Celtic fire festival, so inevitably one should look for a sacred site or grove that will enable you to have a fire without causing a disturbance, if you plan to celebrate it in style. Leave the fireworks for the sham that is “Guy Fawkes Night” though!

This being a fire festival means an opportunity to obtain the co-operation of a fire spirit if you do not already have such a relationship. This will promote change in your life and ways, so you need to know if this is what you want, or make adequate protection against inadvertant change being wrought through your life by a rampant fire spirit!

Samhain is a time of feasting on the profits of the year – whether that be literal feasting on food, or consuming the fruits of our labours and learnings over the profitable summer months. It is a time to gather in the rewards of your experiences, reflect upon them, and begin the process of working them into your life over the Winter months to come, ready for the next Spring.

Energetically we see the male earth energies, and those living energies produced by the trees, begin to retreat back into the earth, their influence waning. The celebration of the rising female energy influence is encapsulated in the celebration’s coincidence with the full moon.

You’re My Venus

Astrologically, Venus is appearing in the mornings. Jupiter and Mars are also in attendance over Samhain. Other major planets such as Mercury and Saturn have significantly disappeared from the northern hemisphere just before Samhain.

I’m looking forward to visiting a sacred site that is out of the way, and which is associated with Venus and the sacred number five. Last year none of that would have made any sense – this year I have learned that such specifics will mean that I am at a site that is energetically at its peak, and full of magical possibilities for me.

Enjoy your Samhain celebrations, whatever you do!

Gwas Myrddyn.

Hedge Druid.

May 1st, or May Day, is the ancient Celtic fire festival of Beltane. It traditionally marks the appearance of the Pleiades star cluster in the constellation of Taurus, an event linked to the start of the farming calendar (which ends at Samhain, or All Hallow’s Eve). It is a fire festival in recognition of the rise of the fire element (i.e. the power of the sun) at this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere, and so solar deities and mythical royal figures are linked to this time in the year. They are said to flourish in their youthful phase, starting at Beltane when they begin to rise to prominence. I planned to mark this by lighting a small fire or a stick of incense at each site to ceremoniously mark this event. I hoped the spirit of the year would travel with me as I journeyed from one site to another, linking them through energy work and fire.

The beautiful Pleiades

We decided to keep our work local today. I wanted to visit a familiar haunt that meant something to me, as well as discovering a new one, so I planned three sites: Helsby Hill, Woodhouses Hill and the site of a structure that looked like a hill fort close to Frodsham. The two hills had hill forts marked on the Ordnance Survey map of the area. They are the sites of ancient hill forts. I say ancient, because the hill forts, I suspect, are a much later addition to sites that had some spiritual and energetic significance long before they were fortified or stocked with invading Roman soldiers. A tourist sign in Helsby village reminds us that the archaeology has dated the sites to having habitation since the Iron Age – approximately 800 B.C.E – 42 C.E.

I walked up Helsby Hill in the mid-morning sunshine hoping for a clear day to do some energy work. My intention was to try something that Hamish Miller had suggested: that manifested (i.e. visualised) patterns can be imprinted onto a place, then they will appear in a more complex form at a connected site. By connected I assumed he meant a sacred site that had some kind of energetic connection to a nearby site. I wasn’t going to rely on that though: I had some ideas in mind to make that connection myself by forming an energetic bridge from one site to another.

Atop Helsby Hill I dowsed to find the location of ‘The Spirit of Helsby Hill’. I didn’t know what that actually might mean, but it seemed a good thing to ask for, as it would involve the co-operation of Nature in my work. I found a circle of lush grass just back from the cliff edge. There I asked to dowse to formation that was the symbol of the hill’s spirit. I traced the following shape: a serpent-like curved zig-zag shape that ended in a sphere. It reminded me of a caduceus symbol without the wings, or at least one half of that shape. I meditated until I felt that I had a connection to this spirit, then added a circle around the symbol as my own identifying mark.

Then I projected that image to the next site, even though I had never visited Woodhouses Hill. I simply looked at the map and sent the image to that place. I formed an energetic link by visualising a bridge of energy arcing from one place to the other, and then imprinted the symbol at the other side, and hoped for the best. Woodhouses Hill was a couple of miles’ walk so off I trudged, with Kal in tow acting merely as an animated observer to this energy-play. Most unusual that he didn’t want to participate today, but that he was having too much fun prancing around pretending he was 30 years younger!

We climbed the very steep sides of Woodhouses, taking the most direct route up to the hill fort site at the top. All along the route crows had been flying around Kal, seemingly accompanying him on his journey. Often I pointed them out, sitting in tall trees that marked our route, or hovering on the wind just in front of us as we walked. Kal just laughed at this. He has come to accept their presence quite naturally, and is beginning to try to tune into any significance they might have as signs or omens. Certainly they have become his totem bird.

Kal’s not one for heights, but he danced up and down the hills that day as though he were unafraid and on springs! Since a recent episode with a tree (post coming soon about that) he had gained a little voice that informs him that he will be just fine when he finds himself on the high edges of paths. A year ago he would never have even come up Helsby Hill, never mind the run up the dizzying sloped of Woodhouses Hill! How we have progressed since starting this journey. We have both overcome things that would make our former selves squirm in fear! ‘Fortune favours the brave’, I believe the saying goes.

We stood now in a beautifully varied and pleasingly-spaced wood at the top of the path, looking around for signs that we were actually in a hill fort – only the slope of the ground would indicate that we were. I dowsed to find the location of where my Helsby Hill circled half-caduceus symbol might have ‘landed’. A minute dowsing through the trees and I found it in a circular clearing between some birch trees. Kal was busy touching trees and occasionally muttering things to them. ‘Edge Wizard’ indeed! He was turning distinctly ‘druidy’ so I ribbed him about it. Of course he protested!

I dowsed for the symbol as Kal watched, It was looser than the original, but it was the same shape, circled strongly by my additional energy. It’s at times like this that you begin to doubt your sanity. Had I just found that because I wanted to find it? Who knows? There it was, responding to the rods whilst I tried to maintain a clear trance-state to be as objective as possible about it. I checked it several times. It was as ‘there’ as anything I had ever dowsed. I was convinced. Kal was surprised and childishly delighted too. I spent a few minutes sending the same pattern on to the next site, just like last time. Again, the destination was not somewhere I had visited before, although I had passed it many times. I could visualise it generally, but not a specific ‘landing site’ for the energy. I wondered what would happen?

We headed off down the slope heading for the back of Frodsham Hill. As we descended the back of Woodhouses Hill we met a man surveying the earthworks that ran along the hill. ‘What are you surveying?‘ we asked after introducing ourselves. The earthworks apparently, to construct a 3D map of the site. Great! All good information that might reveal something interesting, and may add to our understanding of its age and the ways of the people who spent time here.

We arrived at the final site. It turns out it is a man-made long construction, with locked trapdoors in its roof. Was it one of the many World War II bunkers that peppered the hillsides around here? It certainly felt like one, but it was huge – a hundred metres in length and about fifteen metres wide, by about five metres tall. Who knows how deep it went into the hillside? This was no hill fort site! Nevertheless, I wanted to see whether I had sent the symbol onwards as I had done at the two previous sites.

Somebody else thinking of patterns around here?

I dowsed in the strong winds that buffeted the now rain-sodden grassy bunker roof and found a pattern some ten metres away from where we had sheltered behind one of the many turrets. It was a circle again. Inside the circle was the snaking three energy curves, and the sphere at the bottom, but the rods continued on a different path! They rods wove back and forth in ever-longer sweeps to form a snake pattern that was exactly the opposite of the original form. Now I had a whole caduceus symbol of opposing energy paths coming together at the circular base (or head) of the formation. Wow! Like Hamish Miller had experienced – the manifestation had complexified from one site to another. What did that mean?

I felt that the experiment had been a resounding success. Perhaps I even missed at trick when dowsing the formation at Woodhouses? I couldn’t be sure. However, the main objectives had been achieved. It is possible to send energy from place to place, both a symbol from the land itself, and my own energy formation too in the shape of the enclosing circle. Perhaps next I should see if I can draw a formation from another site that has a manifested energy pattern?

Gwas Myrddyn
Following a local path, for local people.