The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘isle of lewis’

This is the third place visited on my chakra trail in Ireland. In this part I was looking to unblock, balance or boost my solar plexus chakra. Kells is a town steeped in history, and one whose reputation precedes it. However, if you’re not aware of its reputation, let me list some of the things that Kells is famous for:-

• The Book of Kells – an early illustrated manuscript depicting and relating the four Christian Gospels of the New Testament.
• The Abbey of Kells, withits round tower, associated with St Columba
• The five large celtic crosses in the churchyard at the Abbey.
• Pierce Brosnan lived in Kells from a young age until he was about 18.

…and that’s all you need to know about Kells. Basically, there’s a strong Christian connection, with a subtle undercurrent of Celtic paganism.

Guided information about the church, tower and crosses

A Helpful Warning

This is probably one of the most controversial posts I have made so far, and I do realise it may alienate some people. If you have followed me on this journey so far then you might be in a better position to read this post and see what I am saying. If you are reading this post in isolation from the journey I have made so far then this might be a bit too much to take, and I would ask you to skip back a bit to catch up! Let me give you fair warning. Some of the subjects covered in this post are:

• reclaiming the Christian cross symbol
• ascended masters / spirit guides
• chakras

The terms “ascended master” and “spirit guide” are interchangeable in this context, so read whichever you are more comfortable with. I kind of “broke the seal” on this kind of thing when I posted recently about the ‘leprechaun’ entity that I had encountered. I have held off telling you anything else because….well, frankly, I wouldn’t know how to take this if I were reading it! I only know that, deluded as I am, I’m reporting what I find. I know what you’re thinking – what happened to the good old “do a bit of dowsing, report the findings…” blog that you used to know and love? Well, it was the dowsing that has taken me to these areas in the first place, so blame that! There’s a point you reach where you begin to test some of these esoteric ideas, and then a path opens up….well, if you’ve been following me for a while you know how I got here. There’s no turning back now! What can I say?

“The world is not only stranger than we suppose – it’s stranger than we CAN suppose!” (to mis-quote JBS Heldane).

Luckily, to support my soon-to-be-revealed point of view I quote Haldane’s other memorable conception:-

“I suppose the process of acceptance will pass through the usual four stages:
(i) this is worthless nonsense;
(ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view;
(iii) this is true, but quite unimportant;
(iv) I always said so.”

Solar Plexus mandala

I think it is pertinent for me to list some general information about that chakra to start with, because it will help to make sense of what happened to me at Kells. General properties associated with the Solar Plexus chakra are :-

Physical Location – solar plexus

Purposes – mental understanding of emotional life

Spiritual Lesson – acceptance of your place in the life stream. (self-love)

Physical Dysfunctions- stomach ulcers, intestinal tumors, diabetes, pancreatitis, indigestion, anorexia/bulimia, hepatitis, cirrhosis, adrenal imbalances, arthritis, colon diseases

Mental and Emotional Issues – self esteem, fear of rejection, oversensitivity to criticism, self-image fears, fears of our secrets being found out, indecisiveness

Information Stored Inside Sacral Chakra – personal power, personality, consciousness of self within the universe (sense of belonging), knowing

Area of Body Governed – upper abdomen, umbilicus to rib cage, liver, gallbladder, middle spine, spleen, kidney, adrenals, small intestines, stomach

(source: About.com)

Click below for the interesting bit of this story.

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Recently I was toying with my five Callenish stones. I bought five stones from the gift shop when I was there last year, and now I wanted them to be ‘charged up’ with subtle energy in readiness for any forays I may have to make that would require their use. These stones, made of Lewissian Gneiss, are practically the only stones I have left, after having lost other sets and leaving others around the country to do their work restoring some subtle energy imbalances.

Lewissian Gneiss forming beautiful folds

My usual method of charging such stones is to place them within my favourite (and most favourable) power centre in my house, and to leave them there for however long the divining rods say they should be left. This I did, simply plonking them into a rough pile in the centre. The rods indicated that they would take five days to fully charge up. Hmmm….leaving them for five days in a prominent place might present a problem – what if one of our cats disturbed them, or they got kicked? Was there a faster method, I wondered?

The divining rods indicated that there was a faster way. I asked the rods to show me where I should place the stones in order for them to charge up faster than the specified five days. One by one I dowsed for their positions. One here, one there, one next to this one, one near to that one, etc. I stood back once they had all been placed and looked at their formation. The formation was clearly a parabola, with the focal point directed towards…well, towards Callenish actually! I asked the rods how long it would take to charge the stones up using this formation – one day!

So, was the parabola the most efficient form for collecting and focusing subtle energy? Not quite. It was the right shape for charging up radiant energies (i.e. Sun, Moon, Planet or Star energy) but not for Earth Energy. The formation most effective for collecting earth energy is a circle. Superficially you could say that a crescent moon shape and a sun shape are the perfect subtle energy forms. I rather think the concept has more to do with the efficient qualties of the parabola and the circle than any correspondence with the shapes of The Moon or The Sun, however.

I find it interesting that, given Kal and I have discovered that subtle energy forms conical shapes above and below ground with the centre point being the surface of the earth, a parabola is described as being a through-section of a cone:

“In mathematics, the parabola is a conic section, the intersection of a right circular conical surface and a plane parallel to a generating straight line of that surface. Given a point (the focus) and a corresponding line (the directrix) on the plane, the locus of points in that plane that are equidistant from them is a parabola.” (source: Wikipedia)

Construction of a parabola

This discovery reminded me of when Kal dowsed to discover the perfect crystal layout to try to dispel a powerful negative pool of energy that had accumulated close to his house. He too formed a parabola shape, and the actions of the Sun and Moon over a period of time managed to dispel it. Another thing for us to look out for, but this is not the first time we have formed this shape “accidentally” by placing each stone in a place suggested by the dowsing rods.

I would also seem a reasonable hypothesis that stone circles were created with the intention of collecting and generating earth energies using the most efficient design possible for this.

Gwas Myrrdyn.

Section 8 – SITE VISIT LIST for 2009

The penultimate post is a reminder of the sites we have visited this past year. The sites are ordered from North to South.

• Callenais I, II and III, Dun Carloway Broch, The Truiseil Stone and other sites on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland [Callenais I, Callenais II, Callenais III, Truiseil Stone]
• The Eassie Stone, Glamis Castle, St.Fergus’ Well, The Fowlis Wester cross, Lundin Farm circle, and Monzie circle in Scotland [Eassie Stone, Glamis Castle, Fergus' Well, Fowlis Wester cross; Monzie Circle; Lundin Farm]
• Castlerigg circle, Long Meg and Her Daughters circle, Little Meg circles, Mayburgh Henge, Oddendale, Kalmott ring cairn, Gamelands circle in Cumbria [Mayburgh, Kalmott, Oddendale & Gamelands; Long Meg; Little Meg; Castlerigg]
• Pendle Hill in Lancashire [Pendle Hill]
• Arbow Low, Nine Ladies stone circle, and Nine Stones Close circle in Derbyshire [Arbor Low 1, Arbor Low 2, Nine Ladies, Nine Stones Close]
• Alderley Edge, Delamere Forest, Frodsham Caves and The Bridestones in Cheshire [Alderley Edge, Delamere 1, Delamere 2, Bridestones]
• Bryn Celli Ddu, The Soar Stone, the Bryngwyn Stones and Lligwy Chamber on Anglesey [Bryn Celli Ddu 1; Bryn Celli Ddu 2]
• Cerrig Pryffaid, Dyserth, Moel-Ty-Uchaf, Penbedw Park, Pistyll Rhaeadr Waterfall, Dinas Emrys, Snowdon, and Penmaenmawr Druid’s Circle, Rhosesmor, Hawarden and Conwy Falls in North Wales [Dyserth, Moel-Ty-Uchaf, Pistyll Rhaeadr, Dinas Emrys, Druid's Circle, Rhosesmor]
• Golden Grove and St.Elmo’s Summer House in Mid-Wales [St.Elmo's & Golden Grove]
• Llangernyw village, Lake Vyrnwy and Bala Lake in Wales [Llangernyw 1, Llangernyw 2, Llangernyw 3]
• Mitchell’s Fold and The Hoarstones circle in Shropshire [Mitchell's Fold & Hoarstones]
• The Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire.
• Waylands Smithy, Uffington Chalk Horse, and The Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire [Wayland's Smithy, Uffington, Rollrights 1, Rollrights 2]
• Alton Barnes White Horse, Winter Hill, Windmill Hill, Silbury Hill, West Kennett, and Avebury in Wiltshire [Alton Barnes, Silbury Hill, West Kennett 1, West Kennett 2, Avebury]
• Crop Circles at Knighton Hill, Alton Barnes, Silbury Hill and others in Wiltshire [Knighton Hill, other crop circles]
• Stanton Drew stone circle, Barrowbridge Mump and Glastonbury in Somerset [Stanton Drew, Glastonbury]
• Carnac, Locmarquier, Créhen, Lampouy, Ile Grande, Merlin’s Tomb, Mont St.Michel, Champs Dolent and St.Uzek stones in Brittany, France [Merlin's Tomb, Lampouy, Créhen, Carnac 1, Carnac 2, Carnac 3, Champ Dolent, Mont St.Michel, Ile Grande]

====================================================================================

Gwas.

We had left Callanish II in a slightly confused state of mind. Callanish III had been lovely, Callanish II the complete opposite. We picked ourselves up and headed for the recommended Carloway Broch – a partially reconstructed shelter that we expected would be like a small stone shelter big enough to possibly fit us both in. Our sense of scale was about to be flabbergasted.

Dun Carloway Broch looked like a small pillar-box hat on a bald man’s head as we approached it from the landward side. The winds had decided to have a contest to see which of the Four Winds could rip our faces off, but still we approached the round stone tower.  As we neared the small entrance portal we were literally stopped in our tracks by the screams of the winds. I crouched and entered. Complete silence! I was startled, my mind thinking that perhaps I had made the wind up or something. I bobbed my head back out for a second only to get an ear-lashing blast that made my hat shift nervously and made my eyes squint. Back in again – pure silence. Amazing!

Both inside now we marvelled at the architecture – half exposed circular staircases that spiralled upwards between two layers of stone. Cavity walls! Around the base were three small square openings. This looked like dowsing territory, so I whipped them out (sounds like a Frankie Howard gag).

I started with one of the square openings. A female line came out and spiralled four or five times into the very centre of the broch. Good start.  Female lines came out of and went into each of the holes, one of them leading out of the entrance door. I dowsed for a male line in the doorway. Yes, there was one which spiralled loosely into the broch and then joined to a mound of irregular stone on the floor inside the broch. This stone had not been cleared or chipped away to make the floor even like the other parts – and it had two parallel lines etched into it. The male line came into the stone and then followed the line and width of these scores in the rock.

Lines on stone in broch show male energy line location and direction.

I went back to the entrance again. A male and a female line here on either side of the entry. Wat about the middle? I dowsed across to find a neutral line there and followed in straight to the back wall – completely straight. I turned around to see where this line through the doorway pointed…

At a nipple, by the look of it! I got out my compass and checked the alignment. I was facing due North. It struck me that this all fitted into some kind of design principle and aligned with something that I couldn’t determine at this scale. I would check to see if it was connected directly with something further south or north one day soon. I went to sit on the unusual rock, which had a white stream power centre on it. We both did. We smiled.

As we sat there, me stratching my head at the fact that the energies seemed to map themselves along the lines scored in the rock, who should make an appearance? The lone mad cyclist. He looked wild-eyed and inquisitive and we chatted briefly about the splendour of the construction, and his foolhardy choice of a day to be cycling. We retreated to the car to let him absorb the same atmosphere of stillness that we had just enjoyed, sheltering from the elements.

Having heard, however, that Sunday was not a day to be without provisions on an island this far from a corner shop we had sandwiches, and were now seeking out a good place to eat them before continuing our site visits. Dalmore beach (Dail mor) looked promising, so we determined to head for that. We parked up to watch the white horses on the waves tumbling backwards in the high winds then crashing in orchestral union across the expanse of the bay. The birds had grounded themselves and hung around on the beach looking pensive and shifty, out of their element.

M and I spent some time drawing spirals, shapes and names into the pristine expanse of sand, then headed back to the car with a buzzing feeling in our heads and hearts.

We stopped briefly at Na Gearrannan Village – a vision of how people once lived. It was a restored and rebuilt village of thatched longhouses called blackhouses. We spent far too long in the toilets examining the way these buildings were constructed, but luckily we were the only visitors for the duration. Not a tourist day today!

Our last stop that day was the Truiseil Stone – a huge menhir, twenty or so feet high. I dowsed it eagerly finding that the stone was strongly male (not a great surprise). I wondered if it had a wide-ranging energy field, as it was so high. I retreated down the small aimless path to a good distance and began dowsing for its edge. About thirty feet away I got a barrier response and looked down to spot a stone embedded in the path at that point. It extended to the same length on both sides.

There were male lines sinewing fairly directly into the stone along the centre line of the path. Female lines wavering around to touch each edge of the path (skirting along edge of a dip in the path on one side). There was a feeling of immense power when walking into the nemeton field. I asked the rods to find the strongest and most beneficial place for me to stand. I walked around the stone’s base until I stopped at the flat side (facing camera in picture below). Here I felt warm, bubbling with subtle gentle rising energy which felt like an internal bubble bath. I hung around for a while enjoying the experience. Where was the wind? I could see its effects in the grass of the fields around me but couldn’t really hear much of it, and could barely feel it blowing, yet I knew it was still very strong all around me. Strange.

Showing extent of nemeton, from pillar to outlier – 30+ feet.

We had enjoyed a full weekend of interesting, amazing sites and sights. The highland lochs, the pass of Glen Coe, the Argyll & Bute forests, the mountains of Skye and Harris, the Coullins in perfect white shroud, Callanish stone circles aplenty, lone standing stones, ancient stone towers of superb construction, a huge menhir, eagles and deer, bays and beaches. It really had been a treat for the senses and the soul.

Gwas.

Following the northern lights and sights.

Sometimes it’s only when you finish writing a post that you realise what it was all about, and can summarise it. Well, as an introduction to this post I want to warn you that if you’re feeling anything but extremely up-beat at the moment then you might want to skip to another cheery post, like “The Hanging Tree“. Maybe not. We do have cheery posts, but this one is different. Different for an interesting reason. Even while M and I were having the experience I am about to relate, we knew we were being dampened by some force when we visited Callanish II stone circle. We had just come from Callanish III, which is only a minute’s drive away. I, in particular, was quite buoyant at my findings at Cal II, and was eager to find more stuff. Then we arrived.

Callanish II is also known as ‘Cnoc Ceann a’Gharraidh‘ in the original Gaelic, which translates as “Hillock at the end of the wall”. Sounds better in the Gaelic, I think. It is, however, this kind of uninspiring name that seems befitting to a site that on this day was immensely uninspiring. Maybe it needs a sunny day, or perhaps a flock of eagles to fly over, or something. Of all the sites we visited during our early Spring weekend to Lewis, this site had to be one that left us with a feeling of “we shouldn’t have bothered”. Which is quite remarkable, because the circle has some big impressive stones remaining. It should engender a feeling of wonder and the idea that at any moment something magical might happen. But it didn’t for me.

It is neatly sandwiched between the main Callanish I and Callanish III sites, but lacks their splendour or majesty. Saying that – here’s a link to a very moody shot of the whole circle: http://www.ancient-scotland.co.uk/picframe.php?a=284

As an example, we parked at the end of the small lane leading up to the circle. No-one else was there, except a family of spotted pigs that trotted past us, hurrying to reach their shelter in the abandoned house alongside the field next to the circle. The pigs had, as you would expect, lovingly churned up the ground so that it was lumpy and awkward to cross their field.

We entered the stone circle site to be confronted by the five remaining tall stones. I dowsed around the edge to find out how many there had originally been and counted … well, I don’t know how many. I knew at the time but now my GPS trail is impossible to follow for some reason, I remember I was having all sorts of fun trying to press the buttons through my gloves. That was the kind of lethargic, frustrating and debilitating feeling I was getting from the site.

We’ve come across this quality of an area that is imbued with negative energy. It causes arguments, saps your desire to do anything purposeful, thwarts your attempts to overcome it, and then makes you not able to even form the idea that there might be some unhelpful energy forms there. You just prefer to leave everything alone. You can’t rouse yourself to make any positive change. It’s only later, when you’re away from its grip, that you begin to wonder why you let that happen? Why didn’t you think to do something about it? Cunning stuff, this black energy! It has innate qualities that promote its own survival, and keeps it from being detected and eradicated on the spot. We find that dis-embodied sentient energies have similar qualities.

What I did manage to achieve there was to dowse for missing stones, I think I found at least three, possibly as many as five, places where stones had been removed. Again – why can’t I tell you exactly how many I found? Why didn’t I record it in my notebook that was in my pocket? Why is it the only circle whose GPS trace data is so unclear that I couldn’t discern anything useful from it? No reason, of course. Just coincidence, eh?

A couple of former stone placements were already marked by someone who had put a small stone on those places (the obvious ones). I found the less immediately obvious ones with my trusty copper L-rods and where possible I marked it with a stone that was from outside the circle. In the picture below I have just nudged a stone back into place that had been shifted. Maybe the pigs have been doing quietly marking them?

Whatever the purpose of this stone circle was it was now suffering from some form of malaise. Both M and I could feel it as we walked around. Neither of us were happy to be there and we both wanted me to get the dowsing 0ver and done with as soon as possible. I had one more thing I wanted to look at, which was the inner ring of stones that marked the cairn that had once been built within the circle. Within that – at the very centre of the circle (well, off-centre, but central) was a small ring of small stones and a central white stone. I dowsed for it having had human habitation within it, but then the rods fell to my side again and I aimlessly wandered about again.

I summoned up some half-hearted enthusiasm. What if I located a white stream power centre? I walked around asking to be taken to one, if one existed. I was taken to a flat female stone that was near to the parade of three tall standing stones that formed the remainder of what must have been a once-impressive circle. This female flat stone also dowsed for male energies, and for white stream energy. Would this be beneficial to me? I asked. “Of course”, came the dowsing response. I kept that in minf and put the rods down again. Look at that white stone in the centree, I said to myself. Hmmm. Hmmm, what?

You could get a good view of Callanish I on the next hill over the Loch. And if you crane your head between the stones you can make out Callanish III on the ridge a few hundred feet on the other side. How strange to build three circles so close to each other! What purpose did that serve, I wondered? I mused. Rain fell. Winds blew. Pigs grunted.

I shook my head again vigorously to recover. It bought me a few seconds of time to step onto the female transformer stone, where I drew some energy into myself – enough to protect myself from the seeping negative feeling. Immediately I felt warmer and more relaxed. Unfortunately M didn’t, so I picked the rods up and formulated more questions in my energy bubble.

This site was full of male pointed standing stones. There were one or two female stones – only one, if I remember rightly, was for a still standing stone. Again that female transformer stone was flat. I wanted to dowse for the energy patterns coming in and out of it, like usual, but didn’t.

One last thing to try. I picked up my staff and walked around the circle three times clockwise to try to invigorate the energies in the nemeton. This usually had a positive effect. By the third time around I could feel the energies flowing with and around me. Well, at least I had stirred things up a bit!

We went to sit back in the car as the rain struck up another orchestra of pings, splats and drips. The rain started heavily now, lashed sideways by the increasing winds coming in from all corners. Then to our surprise a cyclist arrived. He walked to stones, once around, got out and inspected a little paper bundle, and then ten seconds later rode off again.  Tick-in-the-Box, I said. But a bloody hardy one!

Having felt as though we had recovered our senses a little, and re-kindled our enthusiasm, we drove off towards the other interesting sites along the north-west coast of Lewis.

Gwas

Following the main road away from Cal II quickly.

This is part two of my Isle of Lewis posts. I visited the island of Harris and Lewis recently with my wife ‘M’ and we had a lovely (if windswept) weekend exploring the many megalithic sites of west Lewis. Previously I posted about the main site Callanish I, and in this post I will explore Callanish II and III. “Callanish” is our anglicisation of the gaelic (and preferred) “Calanais”. As I am inter-changeably sympathetic to both parties I will use whichever one I happen to type!

We started our Sunday on the Isle of Lewis by heading straight for Callanish III circle at Garynahine (thereafter shortened to “Gary”). It was the closest site to where we were staying, and is easily accessible from the main road, perched on a slight hill that became a promontory overlooking Loch Ceann Hulabhig.

Loch Ceann Hulabhig

The weather was so different to the day before. On Saturday it has been bitter cold but bright and sunny. Today was cloudy and cold, with a wind that brought drizzle like a fine mist. We were not going to get stunning vistas in our photographs today. I concentrated on the dowsing instead.

Callanish III (Cnoc Fhillibhir Bhig) is a beautiful circle to visit. Nothing about its positioning or proximity to the local populous would bring you to expect that from the road. A short walk up a slight incline, however, reveals something quite magical. Two concentric rings of tall stones made from the impressively pink Lewissian Gneiss that is unique to this landscape.

The outer ring still has eight of its original thirteen stones in place, although there are embedded stones or discoloured grass marking the other places (mostly). As I arrived I saw its inner four stones standing proud amidst a set of nearly-submerged faerie rings (small circles of different-coloured grass). I walked around the outside to get a feel for the site, and to locate an entrance. The bitter cold wind and drizzle meant that I was working expediently – only asking essential questions.

Where was the entrance?  I found two embedded stones (both of which dowsed as containing female energy). The entrance was aligned NW/SE. The stone that I am pointing to on my left (your right) was identified as the Transformer Stone. Within a stone circle certain stones can be found to dowse positively for specific qualities. A transformer stone will be transform the radiant energies of either moonlight, sunlight or starlight – sometimes a combination of these. The energy then gets transmitted into the circle’s nemeton, or energy field. Soon I would discover just how this theory worked out, but that’s to come.

Were there any black streams? NO. Glad about that. It didn’t feel like there were. Any white streams? YES. So, there were some good energies at this site – a mixture of female and male energies combined forming ‘white stream’ energy. I had somehow returned to the entrance again, so I walked out of the circle and dowsed for the size of the circle’s nemeton – it’s area of influence, if you like, or the range of its energy field. It was about six feet out and dowsed for male, female and neutral energies. However, it was too cold to get into sorting that mixture out, so I pressed on.

I walked back into the circle to investigate the tall elegant inner four stones. One tall straight stone near the centre was the most powerful. Standing next to it I could feel an energy stream flowing out of its edged side. We see this a lot at sites – a stone that is almost triangular in shape, whose apex edge seems to focus energy along that edge of the stone. I dowsed for the qualities of the tall central stone and discovered that it could charge, discharge and control energies. Again, too cold to go into more detail. Next time I’ll come back in the height of summer!

Next – and with little hesitation – I turned my attention to the concept of finding any cross-over points or accumulations of energies. We call these ‘power centres’ because they always turn out to be the places we need to sit at in order to effectively work with the site’s energies.  There was a male power centre in a clump of faerie rings inside the circle where there is a gap between some of the outer stones. The female transformer stone in the outer circle dowsed as being a female power centre.

I went around checking the qualities of each stone. Amongst all the stones there are three female stones amid predominantly male stones.

The last thing I wanted to know was how the site got its power – where were the sources of the male and female energies that combined so well to form a good white stream all around the site? I dowsed the male path and found that it circled the site twice (at least). Then it went into the transformer stone. Was this the origin? YES. I dowsed to see which radiant energy was producing the male energy. Surprise, surprise – it was sunlight.

I repeated the exercise for the female energy and was surprised that a female line squirmed out of the female transformer stone that formed part of the entrance, and headed off around the circle, then swerved out into the heathland on the south side. I tracked the line for five minutes as it marched me up hill and down dale. Finally it stopped at a two feet high stone, beautifully sculpted into a smooth mound, that was practically hidden in the heather about 50 feet away from the stone circle. This stone dowsed as drawing female earth energies out of the ground, and supplying them clockwise into the circle’s nemeton field.

All in all a well balanced and beautiful site on any day of the year. In the next Lewis post I will describe a very quick visit to Callenish II, and the Truiseil Stone – a quite spectacular standing stone hidden away in west Lewis.

Gwas.

Following windswept trails.