The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘glastonbury’

Okay, just in case you haven’t got the other 4 related posts on this, here is a link (Knights Pilgrimage) to them. Excellent! Now continue….

Steps of the Pilgrims

Let’s start with a recap.

1. I was waylayed by my Totem into going on a pilgrimage that I hadn’t needed or planned for, impromptu you might say.
2. Then I found a couple who were lost in the Forest of Dean.
3. I, with reluctance on their part, helped them find their way out.
4. Only to find that, in all the forest, both our cars were parked within feet of each other.
5. The importance was the fact that they had been lost.
6. Then it was off to the Merry Maidens (only 5 hours away!) to have a dream about the Dragon and the Phoenix
7. Then a realisation that this was something that I had lost from the quest, an opportunity to create a Knights Crest.
8. The next day I was off to Tintagel, where a vision of Cailleach told me that I needed to accept help from a Knight.
   

   My personal spot

And now, I had just arrived at Glastonbury from Tintagel. It was 3.30pm in the afternoon and I was stiff from all that time in the car.  Grabbing some food I headed to the place I knew I wanted to be. The Chalice Well gardens. I get lucky with that place often, i.e. the whole garden to myself. This was no exception. I didn’t need to dowse for my power spot in here. It was beneath the hawthorn tree. I sat and meditated for a good half-hour. Feeling thoroughly relaxed and refreshed. I had closed my the whole time and when I finished them I looked in front of me and there were three people sat there facing me.

Okay… now that is freaky. Two ladies and a gent were sat in front of me, some ten feet away and meditating too. I kind-of gave a bit of a cough and one of the ladies, opened her eyes. She smiled at me (fortunately not one of those psycho-killer smiles) and I smiled back (un-encouragingly).

“We saw the energy coming out of you,” she said quietly, not disturbing the others. “Ah, okay,” I said, thinking, what energy? Her companions had also come out of their meditation now and were smiling disconcertingly at me. “Yes,” the other woman said. “You were radiating like the sun.” Er, ok, I replied, I didn’t notice.

The man asked me whether I was a healer, I replied that I occasionally dabbled. He told me that I had a gift for it and that I should share it. Seriously? Career advice?

“Thank you,” I told him, “but I think it was more the trees energy than mine.”

“Ah yes, of course it was, we are but the channel.”

“We are indeed,” I intoned as I hastened from the gardens.

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Well, I see that Kal got his summary out first. Still, “if you can’t beat them…”

Generally, what type of year it has been? Dis-jointed, slower than last year’s breakneck speed, measured, with lots of deep synchronicities. When I come to review the year I realise that I still made lots of progress on the various tasks that I was lead to perform in order to progress along my path of Druidry.

Below are the main topics that I have picked out from this year’s blog posts. I have tried to keep the explanations to a minimum, so have included links back to the original postings if you want the detail for each of the topics. What I thought was a quiet year has actually turned out to be incredibly packed and busy. The topics are in no order whatsoever, which kind of fits with the way that the year’s learning has come about – seemingly haphazard, but all threading into and through itself like some kind of cat’s cradle whose overall pattern will only be known when the final moves have played out.

26 topics I have been involved in this year:-

a) Healing – Most of the year has been spent developing healing skills, whether that was using remote energies, balancing the chakras, healing with the hands, or with crystals. I have realised that I am more attuned to healing places than people currently, but that is changing. The healing energies can be attuned to different colours for particular effects. To work with these energies I need to understand which “colour” is missing from a site and then call upon the energies of the local living entities to gather together to create this missing colour and thus heal the site. [related posts: My Five Healing Rays, Healing Rays Explained]

Also, in conjunction with my friend Mike, we created a new healing centre at The Bridestones in Cheshire. [related posts: A New Healing Centre]

Chakra colours, energy frequencies and healing may be linked

b) Re-discovering the bard - Discovered great new music (and that I like the new forms of folk music) at The Green Man Festival, and saw Roy Harper in concert in London. This year music has really connected with my heart and stirred great emotions. I have written more poetry this year than in other years too. [related posts: Green Man Festival, Roy Harper]

c) Astrological links to Venus, Orion’s Belt and Sirius affirmed at almost every site. Also Scorpius, astrological links to Arthur and the Great Bear constellation. The constellations of Serpens, Corvus and Perseus have been especially meaningful to me this year, guiding me along a very meaningful path from one end of an energy ley to another. [related posts: Serpent at Castlerigg, Arthurian Archetypes of Corvus, The Berth and Death of Scorpius, The Three Stars of Fertility, Absorbing Orion at Lud's Church]

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This is the final part of my Summer Solstice 2011 quest in and around Glastonbury. In the first part of the day I had meditated at Glastonbury Abbey and seen a vision of Arthur and Guinivere, visited the Holy Thorn tree, and then mixed the red and the white waters from the Tor’s streams together. Now I was heading to Cadbury Castle – a site I had tried to find the time to visit on previous pilgrimages, but had never managed to get to.

5. Cadbury Castle

Finding the castle was easy. I set the navigation systems for South Cadbury village, and from there the signs were obvious – there were small brown tourist signs telling me where to go from that point. No esoteric signs required, and still no dowsing rods needed (which was fortunate because I hadn’t brought them deliberately). This was intuitive work, and I was being tested to see if I could hack it.

I parked the car and noticed a girl walking her dog was wearing wellingtons despite the outrageous heat of the day. I wondered if she knew something I didn’t. As I walked up the dark tunnel made by hawthorn trees that led me up the hill to the castle I realised that she did know something – the path was incredibly rutted and muddy! The ascent went slowly as I picked my way through the delightful remainders of a cow’s digestion, the inches deep mud, and the streams of…well, I didn’t dare contemplate what they might be, but I hoped they were water.

As I neared the top of the slope I was presented with various possible paths. I decided to follow my intuition again. Which was the correct entrance for a servant of Merlin, I wondered? I felt a path to the right was the correct one, so I took it despite it being surrounded by high nettles. Soon there was no path any more, only nettles. I stopped because I couldn’t go any further and I looked down at my feet as something caught my eye – there was a black feather to go with the white swan feather that I had brought with me for some reason. A complimentary pair! I picked it up and picked my way up the hill, somehow finding the path I came in on and then I was able to climb into the castle, mounting its embankments to survey the scene.

It's a black and white situation

The scene was difficult to imagine as a castle. There was a flat wide-open space, slanting uphill towards a concrete pillar at the summit, and the field was enclosed by six-feet high embankments that enclosed a herd of grazing cows. The wind was also rushing sternly across the top of the hill ensuring that I didn’t hang about wistfully imagining a fantasy Arthurian Camelot scene. Instead I headed for the lee side of the slope at the peak of the site where the wind was stiller and the sun beat down like a proper English summer day. I rested there with my staff, breathing in the summer air, listening to the insects at work, and delighting in the occasional call of a songbird.

When my lazy urge had passed I set about creating an elemental crystal layout and tried to unify the two feathers in terms of their energy, like Arthur and Guinivere. I positioned the feathers in what I felt was a unifying manner, and then surrounded them with the four quadrants of the elements – the cardinal points. Frustratingly nothing felt as though it was happening. I tried several configurations of crystals. Maybe I just had them int he wrong position, or the wrong order, or….nothing was happening. At that moment when all hope had vanished and I had cleared the paraphernalia away I was interrupted by a jovial set of old Americans who proceeded to give me a short history of the castle unbidden. No harm in that! We passed the time and then I departed for more hospitable places – the wind was spoiling the beautiful summer day heat.

What had happened to the magical moments of this pilgrimage? Had I taken a wrong turn? I returned to Glastonbury feeling like a simple tourist.

6. Chalice Well Gardens

What better place to while away the time before the sunset than at the most beautiful small garden in Somerset? Chalice Well Gardens are a haven from the bustle of the town and the Tor on a Solstice afternoon.

I was just in time for the gardens at what must be their quietest time of the day – late afternoon. I admired the flowers and plants, then headed for a high spot to meditate. It was difficult, so I went to the spot between the yew trees and called the Goddess, like a famous druid had told me to do. This worked well and soon i was feeling energised, but still no information was forthcoming. One last try – I went to my favourite spot and looked at the dappled sunlight through the trees. It worked.

Ironically, the message that I got was that I had to work on patience. I had to learn to be more patient with people, and to wait for situations to come about as they would, not to force things. This was exactly what a friend had said to me recently. I promised to the unseen forces that I would try. One of the other things to come out of the meditation was the news that the feathers could only be used for the last part of the day’s work on the Tor itself at sundown. That was why they hadn’t done anything at Cadbury Castle. Now I understood. Should have been more patient, eh?

7. The Tor

For the last part of the day Kal re-joined me in Glastonbury town. Yet again he had trekked across the vast wastelands of the south-western fringes of civilization to partake in some jocularity and light-hearted piss-taking. Oh, and he may have been there for the solstice sunset too, perhaps. He had, of course, his own quest to follow so as I told him of my day’s work he picked up on the waters of the red and white stream that I had mixed. He will tell you his own tale of how he found out some critical information whilst meditating in the Glabbey grounds, and how then he found he needed the waters that I had mixed to complete his own health quest. That’s a story worth telling in its own right. For now, let me continue with my story.

We walked up the Tor by the easy route, but started it just above the two springs. The climb was much easier now that we were both a lot fitter. At the top of the Tor I waited for the “right time”. With no dowsing rods this was difficult, but eventually, about 9:40pm, I was ready to work. I went to the west slope and put the two feathers in formation. I had picked up a grey pigeon feather from my walk through the town earlier and the three of them seemed to make sense now – white, grey and black, This seemed to signal the end of the Hawk of May quest – officially.

One the Tor I was getting nothing for my meditation. Perhaps it was too busy or too noisy? Maybe the wind was too strong? There were a hundred excuses but the result was the same – I couldn’t see or intuit anything on this ancient place of power about where my quest would go next. Nothing was forthcoming. Then I remembered one of the elements of the tarot that I had drawn at the start of the quest – “Don’t be afraid to ask“, and also remembered that in the grail myth Gawain failed the quest initially by not asking the important question that would release the grail to him. Suddenly I knew what to do. I had recently been in contact with The Hawk of May – Gwalchmai. This archetype or spirit is associated with Gawain and the Grail Quest too, but I knew that in the myth it was Percival who fails to ask the question. Was I Percival in this quest? Was I failing to ask the right question – to ask for help? Could Gwalchmai help me now?

I sat before the Tor’s church tower and called upon Gwalchmai three times. Suddenly I saw and simultaneously was a hawk circling the Tor. I could see it from where I sat and yet I was the hawk too, looking down on my distant figure below as I meditated. I asked the Hawk to show me what my next quest would be. I saw a hawk in my mind circling the Tor, then it flew straight through the building and out to Wearyall Hill. The hawk landed on the cage surrounding the Holy Thorn. The indication was clear to me – I would be doing more healing work, possibly more protection work too.

I knew that for the next six months I would be learning how to heal. This was an area I had been staying away from, but now the signs were clear and unrelenting. It was time for healing work – serious healing work. I had to learn to be a healer whether I liked it or not, and it would take…key word of the day….patience.

Gwas.

As regular readers may know I have begun a tradition – to visit Glastonbury for the Summer Solstice. I go alone, but usually at some point Kal is involved and joins me for part of the quest. This solstice was no different so Kal will make an important appearance throughout this quest’s tale, but I spent the solstice day itself alone in Glastonbury performing a pilgrimage from site to site, meditating or performing some ritual acts at each place.

This solstice I did some preparation for the forthcoming journey by drawing some tarot cards to guide me because when I had dowsed as to what activities I might be doing at Glastonbury the only answer that had come back was that I must learn to follow my own intuition, and that I must not take my dowsing rods! You can imagine how much this filled me with a sense of wariness, because I use dowsing rods for almost all quests and journeys involving energy or decision-making. Oddly, even though they were my primary information sources, the one thing the dowsing rods insisted on was that they would not be involved in this solstice quest! Well, that information has been coming to me from many sources recently too, so I took the hint and left all of my rods at home.

Saturday 18th June
I did a tarot card reading before I got to Glastonbury using the new WildWood Tarot cards that I had recently purchased. Like all the tarot decks that I seem to respond to this reading proved incredibly portentous, very personal, and contained mainly important face cards, rather than innocuous suit cards.

The WIldWood Tarot set

The draw would be five cards. Three cards to give me enough information to work out a starting point for my quest, and then a card to tell me which obstacles I would face on the quest, and a card to inspire me with a reward if the obstacle was overcome. I drew the cards with the intention of the card in mind, and then revealed and interpreted each one in turn.

• 3 cards to identify the start point:

1. Queen of Stones – The Bear – “Often linked to Arthurian legend, the bear remains a symbol of power and protection of the land.” If the King Bear is Arthur, then the Queen Bear is Guinivere. The constellations Ursa Major and Ursa Minor – fixed stars in the cycle around the Pole.
2. The Ancestor – could relate to burial sites, meeting ancient archetypes. The Pathfinder. Elen of the Roads/Ways. Ley line and ancient places of power.
3. King of Arrows – the Kingfisher – The Fisher King. The guardian of the Grail. Associated with Bran the Blessed – the Celtic god of regeneration – whom I meet regularly at Dinas Bran. Links the health of the land to the health of the king. Gwalchmai and Gawain associated with this image. Impulsiveness.

• 1 card to identify the obstacle:

Eight of Vessels – Rebirth, learn from past mistakes, take positive action, don’t fear to ask.

• 1 card to identify the reward:

The Journey – Renewals, a new birth, a new quest, death to the old modes and concepts.

Monday 20th June

I arrived in Glastonbury with mixed weather – dark clouds all around and threatening a downpour. I got into my accommodation and picked up my piece of paper which contained the hastily scribbled notes about which tarot cards I had picked. The best place to find a decision is at the bottom of a glass of locally-brewed real ale, so I headed off to a local hostelry with the intention of seeking inspiration. Luckily, Kal had ventured into town for the evening so we strode into the King William pub and began to get inspired. As I quizzed him about possible interpretations of the tarot cards I kept noticing that the pub was bedecked with Arthurian paraphernalia - a genealogy of Arthurian personae and a map of the country’s best Arthurian sites were situated right in the corner where we sat and chatted. I looked around the pub – no other walls had such decorations! Our first coincidence.

We interpreted the reading as meaning that I should start my quest at a place where an ancestor was buried, where ley lines run, and linked to Arthur and Guinivere. I knew this place to be the burial site of Arthur & Guinivere at Glastonbury Abbey. I happened to be staying at a Bed & Breakfast called Magdelene House. I had picked the accommodation because it had been the only one in the town that had a room close to the solstice because I booked quite close to the midsummer date. When I arrived I found that Magdelene House is the closest accommodation you can get to Glastonbury Abbey short of camping in the abbey grounds! The second coincidence of the journey so far. The signs were good.

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Over the last 2/3 years Gwas and I have ventured to Glastonbury on numerous occasions. Whether individually or together that place has been a definite experience generator. So it was that one fine Saturday in April 2011 I was heading out to Glastonbury. My main purpose was to meet up with the High Druid Brian Conquer and ask about a Wand making workshop. Since I have been directed that I will need a wand as part of the Knights Quest.

Glastonbury Tor

As always, I was also looking for clues, divination’s and any other signs and omens along the way. My first stop was the Chalice Wells. A totally beautiful place with an energy that always delights me. Although the day was gorgeous, warm and sunny I had exclusive use of the gardens. After completing a relaxing commune with the Hawthorne tree there (nothing to report) I headed to the desk to enquire about the High Druid. Alas the fella had been unwell for some time and no classes were forthcoming.

Having reached and empasse on that front I decided to venture up the Tor. I recall the first time I climbed the Tor and being out of shape and suffering from some vertigo issues I found the experience semi daunting. Now however I walked up the Tor, following my dowsing rods, without a care. Just shows how far I have come with that issue.

Reaching the top and slightly off to the side of the structure (which is where the rods finally spiralled) I sat down and communed with the Genius Loci. My thoughts were around my continuing Knights Quest and whether there was anything I could learn here. The answer…No. Not very helpful, I thought, so I pursued the “why” of it and finally my dowsing rods and intuitive answers aligned. Because this is a place of beginnings.

It seems to me that fabled Isle of Avalon is a place to begin quests, or to realign ourselves with a quest should we become lost. Since at this time I was doing rather fine on my quest there was quite literally nothing for me at Glastonbury.

Kal Malik – Knight Errant

My Beltane quest, to be completed before the Summer Solstice, is the “See with the eyes of The Hawk”. That was the message from the ever-useful Llangernyw Yew tree meditation that I did within the hollows of one of its ancient branches. Whilst trying to interpret this information I had tried to elicit a bit more information from the other sites I had visited that Beltane day on the 1st May and had found out that the vision was an ariel view of a landscape figure showing a hawk in flight.

Whistlebitch Well

The starting point to find this figure in my locality would be a sacred spring or holy well somewhere in Cheshire. It didn’t take me long to draw up a list of the 20+ wells in the county and then work my way through them with the help of the dowsing rods to eliminate all but the last – Whistlebitch Wellnear Utkinton. Seemingly, at one time this was a much-visited attraction, but its whereabouts are much harder to discern today. I went out one evening in the fading sunlight to try to find it. If it still existed then perhaps I could try to get in touch with the spirit of the well and reveal some more information about my quest?

I passed a gentleman walking his dog in the woods close to the well and asked him if he knew of it. He knew of many of the features of the surrounding woods, having spent thirty years walking the area, and was able to show me pictures of many of the features too! He was unsure about the well, though, unless I meant the old St Stephen’s Well that was close to where we stood chatting? That must be its alternate name, I said, there was only one well in the area. He said he thought it was connected to the stream we were standing on top of, so I bade him a kindly farewell and followed my instincts to walk through a field next to the stream. Then I heard what sounded like a water source in the damp ditch next to the field. I gingerly waded through the nettles to find the remains of a signpost and a square iron cover – just like the pictures on the Megalithic Portal – this was it!

Whistlebitch Well near Utkinton, Cheshire

After having uncovered the well and washed my crystals in its waters I laid them our around me and meditated to the sound of the trickling waters. Soon I was in contact with the spirit of place, a male water spirit, who was very glad that someone had visited and more so that they were being respectful of the place. I asked the spirit what he knew of The Hawk of May, but he was unable to expand upon that concept. He was only a lowly Nature spirit watching over this well, and who did not go anywhere else or meet any Hawk of May spirits. I would have to figure this one out alone.

The Landscape Figure

Back at home I began to investigate maps of the area around Whistlebitch Well. Would anything reveal itself to me about the outline of roads, paths, tracks and rovers in the area, or be revealed in the names of places? I had experience of reading about Katherine Maltwood‘s Glastonbury Zodiac figures, and Mary Caine‘s subsequent revival of the concept which she then began to apply to the Kingston-Upon-Thames area too. I knew what a landscape figure might look like, but could I find one in a modern map?

After several hours of scrying, this figure appeared:

The figure is formed primarily by the crag ridge of Willington village, and is centred on the village of Utkinton. It extends as far as Cotebrook at its east side, and Duddon to the west and Boothsdale to the north. At its northern extent is the natural feature of Primrose Hill, and within that is Whistlebitch Well. A road extending from the hawk’s beak seems to tether it to the village of Clotton. [full size map here].

The shape of the figure was suddenly so obvious to me that I started to get excited. What could this mean in terms of my current quest? Now that I had identified a possible landscape figure, what next? I was at a loss as to what to do with this information, and when in such a situation I tend to turn to a favourite divination tool of mine – the tarot.

Tarot reading about the quest

It just so happened that a friend of mine had gifted me some tarot cards that they didn’t want. They thought they would use them, but actually they weren’t suitable, but they thought that they would be perfect for me to use. I already have the Druidcraft Tarot, and was perfectly happy with the success of this deck, but nevertheless I decided to try out the “new” deck – The Tree Angel Oracle – to see how effective it might be. I must admit, I was slightly put off by the “Angel” reference and wondered if they might be a bit too “New Age” and “airy fairy” to be useful.

I would start simply – a three card draw to answer three simple questions about how I should interact with this Hawk of May and the landscape figure.

1. What gift should I bring for the Hawk? Card = The Pear – the gift should be intuitive.
2. How will we interact? Card = The Yew- in silent meditation, possibly at a yew tree, crossing into the Otherworld to meet The Hawk of May.
3. What will I gain? Card = The Sycamore – “Precision of the eagle”, “Clarity of the blue skies”, “The power of lightening” and “Breath of the winds.”

This is remarkable considering the reading was about my quest for “Meeting the Hawk of May”. Did this mean literally control of lightening and wind? I asked a psychic friend to interpret these symbols for me, and he told me that it was more to do with the wind symbolising the concept of sound, a sweeping away of barriers, and that this would signal the rise of a clairaudient ability. The lightening flash, he said, was symbolic of the ability to control these new druid powers that I was gaining. I was a little embarrassed by this, and the proof of it remains to be seen.

Soon I will recount the tale of meeting the Hawk of May and how prescient and useful these tarot card readings would be!

Gwas.

Signs

It was a freezing winter Saturday and I was suffering from a terribly tickly cough that I decided that a trip out into the world of Edge Wizardry was out of the question.

As an alternative haunt I decided to opt for the warmth of Costa coffee cafe with extra helpings of toast. As I sat there listening to some classical music on the ol’ iPod (much better than the ever-present xmas tunes) the playlist gave an uncharacteristic lurch and landed in an audio book by the master of motivation, Tony Robbins. He was right in the middle of a tirade on not putting off until tomorrow what you can do today…

I stopped sipping my drink at this sudden interuption and after only a moment of pondering and breaking the “comfort” of the warm lazy seat I was up and out into the blast of a ultra cold wind.

My heart had been set on Glastonbury as a place to visit for a few days and so within minutes of leaving the cafe I had turned my car in the direction of that fabled Avalon and was off.

The journey time was around one and a half hours and as I drove down the main road towards the M5 (I was setting off from Barnstaple) the hills and fields were covered in a gorgeous snow.

Even as lunch time approached the sun came out of the clouds and shined down upon me. As readers will know, the sun has ever been an auspicious sign and this was no exception.

The Plan

As I left the M5 and made my way down the winding road towards Glastonbury I was planning where and what to do. My thoughts turned to our last visit this summer and I concluded with the following order of things…

• Chalice Wells – Tor – Abbey

I arrived in the town and drove around aiming for a parking signs, the first two were full and the third one luckily was half-empty. With relief I drove in and as I got out to get a ticket I realised that I had parked in the Abbey car park.

If there is any place in the country where dowsing rods are an accepted feature it has got to be Glastonbury. So without a thought I got my rods out and asked…

• Is the first place for me to go the Abbey? Yes!

Excellent, paying my dues I wandered into the ruins of the ancient abbey.

The Abbey

Cold wasn’t the word for it, freezing might be more accurate as me and a couple of other souls shivered our way around the abbey.

I had the rods take me to the most beneficial place for me to be and I ended up facing a couple of large ruins that for all the world resembled a portal.

Since Gwas wasnt with me on this sojourn I had brought along my own selection of crystals and incense. I asked the rods whether any of these were required for this visit? Three incense sticks was the response. As I laid them out I realised that they formed a triangle, with me in the center.

Before I began my commune I asked whether there would be anything relating to my Energetic Double going to happen? No. O well.

So I stood, the ground was wet, on the grass facing the portal and awaiting any thoughts/feelings/impulses.

After a few seconds it started to snow.

I could only last about ten minutes before I was in danger of solidifying and nothing intuitive was coming to mind so I finished up with a thank you and wandered off towards the exit.

As I got close a woman and her daughter (or sister) were coming in. The younger of the two ran across some of the more jaggedy rubble and was being told off by the elder to keep to the path and not do dangerous stuff. A curious message as we shall see later.

The Tor

As I left the abbey I wanted to go to the chalice wells. It was the place I had come most to visit. However a quick check of the rods pointed me in the direction of the Tor. So off I trotted as per there direction.

You can’t really miss the Tor it being a huge man-made mound however, I wanted a more intuitive route up it and so I let myself be guided by the rods.

As I should have known, they took me off in the opposite direction to the Tor, which wouldn’t have been bad on a sunny summers day but on this icy day, seriously?

Anyway after a hike of about a mile in an adjacent direction and a hop over a fence or two I recognised my approach to the Tor. It was the same as the one Gwas and I had used two years ago when we had created a pilgrimage around a visit to Glastonbury.

Now If you had asked me to find that route again, I would never have been able to do it. My navigational skills are legendary in there inaccuracy (as Gwas will testify) and yet…here I was making my way up a couple of fields that had been part of our pilgrimage path! Amazing!

The walk up the Tor was truly tremendous! In that it was a continuous blast of cold. It was frozen icy and slippery ground.

As I made my way up I realised that I was the only fool who was silly enough to be making this trek in this weather. So be it!

After a long cold slog I had made it to the top. The view from the top was crystal clear. and the wind was truly biting. I managed to dowse for a good spot to stand and surprisingly the rods took me to an edge of the building that was least wind facing of all. There I was directed to light two incense sticks (it was 3 at the Abbey).

Unbelievably I managed to light 2 nag champa sticks (im sure they have been made to test the patience of Druids) and stuck them in the walls of the building atop the Tor.

Huddled into the tight space against the chill of the wind I attempted to meditate. After a few minutes I heard the noise of people and found myself in the company of the two ladies from the Abbey.

Again, and this is when I noticed the conversation, the elder was telling the younger to be careful of the edge and not to go too far. The younger lady was again ignoring this advice.

I wondered about this synchronous message…did it mean anything? Was it a warning or a enticement?
With the weather as it was, I decided that it was a message of some kind, that I had received it successfully and that it was time to get the flock out of there (as the actress said to the bishop).

As I made my way down, I recalled how on my first visit to Glastonbury, only two years ago (feels like a lifetime) when Gwas and I had stopped in the late evening on passing this way. How afeared I had been. Being a sufferer of vertigo I had been quite apprehensive on that trip. And now I was leaping down the mound like a goat.

Chalice Wells

As I have already mentioned my navigational skills are exceptional in there absence and so at the bottom of the Tor I looked out for a sign to the Chalice Wells and found the garden right at the exit, so to speak, of the path leading down from the Tor.

I love the gardens, they have been the site of some magnificent meditations (well two, since that is the number of times we have been there).

I paid my dues at the entrance and wandered around the gardens, which were slightly subdued in the winter but still rather gorgeous.

After paying my respects to the couple of Hawthorns (children of the great tree of Arimathea fame). I followed the rods to a suitable place to meditate and was led to the back of the gardens, just by the Well from which the garden gets its name.

With no surprise at the answer I was directed to light one incense stick.

Although an interesting synchronicity had occurred I was pretty unimpressed with my visit to Glastonbury. After the previous visits had been so highlighted.

But I speak too soon…

Of the three places that I had visited the Chalice Garden was the most welcoming weather wise. Perhaps it was the seclusion of the walls and the little nooks and crannies that made it so, or maybe it was the lack of people, again I was the only one present in the whole garden.

Anyway I was happily snuggled into a corner of the garden awaiting inspiration. I had followed the dictates of the rods in exacting detail. Surely some reward would be forth coming…

After a few minutes of meditation I got an odd feeling. At first I put it down to the cold or the seclusion of the garden. But as I mentally ruled them out I could feel that the odd tone of the place was still there.

I wondered whether it was because of the energies of the place, so I got to my feet and did some quick dowsing… Was there anything unusual about the energies of this place? No. Was there any shrouds or other out of the ordinary presences? No. Was I just feeling the cold? No. Was there something to the mood that I was feeling? Yes.

Some quite neat dowsing led me to an interesting but not relevant piece of information. The energies Glastonbury are much more strongly aligned with the sun and summer energies than with winter ones. The best work at that site can be done in the Summer.

So there I was with an odd feeling to explore. I sat back down and pondered the state of things? Something was wrong? That was the culdesac that I kept being pointed at.

Again, I got up and did some more dowsing…Was this wrongness to do with the Garden? No, Was it bigger? Yes, Was it bigger than this area (I was thinking of the Tor)? Yes. Bigger than Glastonbury? Yes.

Wow! Sometimes when Gwas and I get really unreasonable answers from the rods we have to ask a few checking questions. Post our Ireland trip the foremost of these is often…Am I being affected by any Leprechaun energy? I got a No answer, phew! More mundane “testing” questions are “Do pigs fly?”, “Am I alive”. You get the picture.

Anyway they all were no, so it seems that I was on target. So was this “wrongness” county wide? No, Was it Albion (Blame Gwas for the terminology) wide? No.

I took a deep breath, Was this wrongness at a world level, was there something wrong with the world? Yes…

What are you supposed to say to that?

I double and triple checked and got the same answers. I sat back down on the bench and pondered this result. What could be wrong with the world? What could I do about it? Was I supposed to do anything about it?

You might be thinking that these are questions for the rods, right? The thing is, while you havent asked the answer you dont have to do anything about it. So I wasn’t about to explore this odd turn of events at this time.

A couple of days later I was on the phone to Gwas with this tale and he asked whether I had dowsed correctly, the answer was a startling yes.

Kal Malik – worried about the world