The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘jaq d hawkins’

Introduction

When I ask the powers that be (the ones that reveal knowledge previously lost or hidden from me through the medium of my dowsing rods) I can often begin down a road whose destination is so far over the horizon, and along so many potential paths, that I initially believe I can never reach the end in my lifetime. Then The Other places helpful signposts along the way, and coupled with my intuition and reason I begin to unveil some of the mystery and begin to walk the paths with more confidence. One such path presented to me was the mystery of The Lunar Eleven. In the following series  of posts I will be discussing my current theory that the numbers Five, Seven and Eleven share a mystical resonance, and that this resonance has particular usefulness for those of us who have identified ourselves as having a “lunar alignmentAlignment relates to the concept that humans have their own energy fields that are oriented or formed in a specific way such that the person is either suited better to one energy source of another. Some people have their energy fields empowered by the direct subtle energy force of The Sun, whilst others are empowered by the indirect subtle energy of The Moon. Due to the historical associations and symbolisation of The Sun with masculinity and The Moon with femininity we designate these alignments as either being ‘male’ or ‘female’ alignments accordingly. We interchangeable refer to people as being ‘sun-aligned’ or ‘male-aligned’ and similarly with the female alignment.”, i.e. those of us who feel related to or spiritually guided by the powers of The Moon.

However, to get to The Eleven I first had to go through two other numbers – The Five and The Seven. Whilst following my spiritual path I came across a directive that asked me to consider the meaning of The Five and The Seven. I took this to mean that the two numbers had some form of relationship and that one I found the nature of this relationship then I would know what to do : something would make itself known to me that involved five and seven. That was true, I did manage to find the relationship, but as with so many of these riddles one question led to another. No sooner had I discovered the meaning of The Five and The Seven than the next riddle was offered to me to solve – what was The Eleven to me?

The first thing you will notice is that I have turned those numbers into proper nouns. They were clearly identified to me as representing all possible forms of their real numerical values, yet the implication in the riddle was that the numbers would mean something in particular for me, and that I had to find out what that was. Here in this series of three posts I will try to explain what each of those numbers meant to me, and to hopefully inform you of some interesting tidbits of knowledge about those numbers along the way. Don’t worry – this is not a mathematical treatise! I began this journey into these numbers knowing only the most basic of mathematical knowledge, and I haven’t needed to move far from there to find my answers, and I don’t believe you will need to either.

In the first of the posts I will deal with The Five.

The Number Five

From the shape of leaves and petals, to the internal form of fruit, to the proportions of the human skeleton, Nature is defined by the form of five. There is a relationship between the form of five and the number twelve because twelve pentagons put together will form a dodecahedron – a twelve-sided shape which is supposed to be the inherent form of the earth’s geometry.

Human Pentagram

If a five-pointed star is drawn by lines then the form contains a pentagon at its core. If the points of that pentagon are joined then another five-pointed star shape is drawn. This regression can go on infinitely, and so five-sided shapes contain the concept of fractal geometry – the repetition of self-similarity within an infinitely regressing design. It is said that the Pentad – the five – underlies the form of the spiral via the Fibonacci sequence. The Fibonacci series is created by zero and one (nothing and everything) adding to itself successively. For example, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, etc… The series is a self-accumulating sequence that grows from within itself and it takes nothing from outside the sequence in order to grow. Growth is the essence to the Pentad’s principle of regeneration – self-replicating growth – which begins from nothing and becomes all.

Interesting, but not where we’re heading right now. Let’s get back to how we use the number five. Mankind has developed systems involving the number five. Specifically I am thinking of the Chinese five elements, but five also relates to the druidic system of elements too: air, fire, water, earth and the fifth element of aether.

The Fifth Element

When we think of The Elements as discussed in traditions such as druidry we think of the four elements that we usually assign to the cardinal points, particularly as described in Wiccan ritual. My five is the druidic elements slightly altered: water, fire, air, earth and wood. The wood comes from my staff, which I take with me to sites and which stands with me in power centres – it has a central role. I have the co-operation of four other ethericSomething tangible to the heightened senses, but invisible and beyond the normal range of everyday human senses. We use the term to describe the subtle energies that surround the human body. We also use the term “etheric” to describe the energy forms of Nature’s sentient spirit energies that can be detected through dowsing, or through deep meditation or states of heightened awareness. spirits – one for air, water, earth and fire.

The fifth element that I associate with wood, wood being the physical representation of that element, is aether. Aether is essentially synonymous with spirit in the sense of “essence”. I differentiate essence from other  manifestations of spirit, such as death energy, energetic shroudAs coined by Kal after reading the definitions of C.W.Leadbeater – the early 20th Century mystic. Leadbeater considered that man, when he died, could become stuck in a “ShadeA shade is the energy body of a human being that has become transfixed at a geographical location. The shade retains many of the qualities of the human that it was attached to (memories, character traits, a level of sentience, movement between places known in life).” – an energetic shell that would retain many of the characteristics of the human in his physical life. It is frequently taken to be what is termed a ‘ghost’ but although it has a certain amount of sentience, it would seem to be limited in terms of its ability to move from the space within which it has anchored itself. It must be stated – it is NOT the person who has died – it is a remainder copy that contains the memories and characteristics of the original energetic fields of the human, but now has no physical organism to work with., apparition, earth light, UFO, poltergeist, or any host of other names for spirit. When I say spirit I mean the essence of an energy form that contains a sentience, and awareness, an intelligence. Jaq D Hawkins defines it as the medium through which sentience is permeated, a kind of spiritual dark matter. I mean it as a discretely identifiable sentience, often which can be identified by a name. Classically these may have been thought of as the pantheon of spirit energies from gods and goddesses reigning over a civilisation, down through to lowly nature spirits watching over the growth of a small cluster of plants.

As an interesting aside I had an encounter with the force of the aether spirit in such a small way the other day, but which made such a direct choice in my life. I was simply looking for the next book to read that would help me on my way down The Path. I closed my eyes in front of four long shelves of books and asked my spirit guide Theodora to guide me hand to the book that was most useful for me next. My fingers came into contact with a book and I lifted it out off the shelf without looking. I opened my eyes, “The Spirits of Aether” by Jaq D.Hawkins. The one in the series that I hadn’t fully finished reading. Clearly, now was the time!

Everybody say "MOOlti-pass"

“The Fifth Element” is also a futuristic sci-fi romp starring Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich, and happens to be one of my favourite films. It’s the only film I’ve watched more than three times, and I never get tired of it. Ideally, I suppose, I should watch it FIVE times.

The Geometry of Five

Five petals like five fingers

The geometry of five became important to me in a series of revelations that formed a connected pattern over the space of a few months in 2009. Firstly I was shown Venus in the night sky, and traced a sigil that I then associated with that planet. [see post]. Then I visited Moel-Ty-Uchaf and discovered that the circle was aligned to Venus, and that it drew its power from that planet’s influence. [see post]. Finally, I read about the orbit of Venus and how it forms a five-pointed star as it moves around in the night sky relative to the Earth. Finally, I dowsed that Moel-Ty-Uchaf stone circle is based upon the sacred geometry of the number five and the pentagon. Together, this information showed me the importance of Venus and the sacred geometry of the number five.

Five is the “number of life”, so-called because it is the form through which Nature expresses the life force. Much growth in Nature is performed through the five shape – the pentagon, the pentagram, and it is the number associated with making the life force transform into magical force – through the pentacle.

When it comes to my own work with Nature, five is number of external power shaping my consciousness, and assisting me in my weaving of the elemental forces into natural magickal form. The five powers that I employ – air, earth, water, fire and aether or spirit are the natural powers of Nature that I align myself with, and ally myself to, and the ones with which I have the most empathy, sympathy and resonance.

The Fifth Chakra

The fifth chakra is the Throat Chakra (not the Solar Plexus, as previously published in error). During my work with chakras I had to do a lot of work using my fifth chakra. Traditionally, this chakra is associated with communication:

“The Throat chakra would seem to rule the faculty of speech, being midway between the heart and the tongue.  It is also associated with clairaudience (hearing spiritual voices), and with hearing sounds, words, and music, and with taste, smell.  Another function associated with this chakra is taking in and assimilating of physical and emotional nourishment.  On the gross level this manifests as sensuous desire and enjoyment for food.  This chakra could be associated with the astrological sign of Taurus, which in current astrology is said to ruled by the planet Venus.

In Tibetan Buddhism, this chakra is associated with the dream state of consciousness.  Both Tibetans and Taoists use this chakra to access the dream state and develop the faculty of lucid dreaming.” (source: Kheper.net)

C.W.Leadbeater talks about the five channels of the chakra energy entering the human body. These five energies then get channeled to the seven chakra points in the body (possibly more in some systems). For me, there seemed to be a transition from learning about five into learning about the relationship between five and seven.

That seems like a natural segway into investigating the number seven in the next post.

Gwas.

 Eagle Tor, Derbyshire – 27th February, 2010

This is part two of our Derbyshire adventures. In part one we visited Nine Stones Close and had an encounter with a Pan Nature Spirit. In this part we visit a new site for us – Doll Tor – reputed to be in a lovely woodland setting, and so it turned out to be. It was  bit of a bugger to get to though. I think we probably came in from the wrong direction, because we had to hack our way across rutted fields at peculiar angles to reach the narrow strip of woodland that the GPS unit was insisting housed this new stone circle. Rarely have I been quite so relieved that modern technology saved me (mainly from the perishing cold).

Doll Tor: Mist and Mysticism

Having gone through such an ordeal I thought there was unlikely to be anyone around. I was wrong. Two ladies were perched on adjacent stones in the circle as we arrived. We exchanged pleasantries, but I was keen not to disturb their peace, even though I knew that even being there had already done just that for them. I was apologetic for that but Kal was less so, indicating that we were probably enlivening the atmosphere. Er, yes, quite. I’m sure we were.

 I set about dowsing the circle, essentially buying some time while the ladies inhabited the space. I would do my thing when they had done theirs. Kal went off hugging trees and generally making a holy show of himself. He was acting very strangely today. I mean, stranger than usual. I kept one eye on him while I dowsed around. There was some negative energy to one side of the small stone circle – down the slope, beyond an inlaid stone that had some engraved words on it:

Renovation engraved inlaid stone

The stone was marking the renovation of the site in 1993, apparently re-erecting a stone. The negative energy source was an engraved stone at the side of the circle. Well, whatever they had done something was amiss with the energies from the plaque downwards. There was a wide pool of negative energy hanging around. I decided that I should do something about this straight away, especially as people were there and using the site. I asked all the appropriate questions such as “May I?”, “Can I?”, “Do I have the ability..?”, “Is it the right time…?” all with  positive response. I got my incense out and began placing the five sticks that I had dowsed for. I knew it was a temporary measure, but I still wanted to do it.

Then a funny thing happened. I know the light wasn’t great, but the space was quite intimate and there were very few paths. Yet, somehow, I counted out five sticks, planted five, then could only find four of them when I came to light them in turn. The ladies watched me in amusement. “Lost something?“, on asked with a wry smile. “I thought I’d laid out five sticks, but I can’t find one now…”, I complained. One of the ladies said, “Why don’t you try putting one there?” and she pointed to a space at the edge of the circle, in the negative zone, which had a ribbon tied to a branch hanging over the spot. I dowsed warily….but the rods turned strongly at that point! I was more than a little surprised, but placed another incense stick and began to light them all. I thanked the lady for her keen ‘observation’ and she waved it away as though she did things like that all the time. Don’t you meet some interesting people at stone circles?

Lovely site - a staff, some mist, a ribbon

The ladies took their leave at this point and we have the place to ourselves as the sun began to make a more rapid descent towards the horizon. It was still light, however, but the mist was cooling us quickly, although Kal was hopping all over the place keeping warm. I decided to engage him in the process and asked him to dowse for the name of the Genius LociGenius Loci means 'spirit of the place' and refers to the geological/gaian spirit of place. It is transfixed to a place – being an embodiment of the collective intelligence of the place.. His initial objections melted away as he realised that I wasn’t joking. There are nine letters in the name, I stated, helpfully.

With that information, and the knowledge that we were dealing with an aether spirit (using Jaq D Hawkins’ definitions) I began to ask about the reason I had come: when should I have the first carved sigil on my new ash staff done by? The answer that came back through my meditations was not what I had expected – it was quite poetic and a little cryptic, and yet because of the style of language used I was able to understand it in terms of pictures rather than words. I was shown pictures of daffodils and saw them dying, accompanied by the phrase, “…by the time the daffodils disappear.” Er…end of April kind of time? Beltane? Anything else about it? I saw the Sun and Moon in the sky together – strong and vibrant – and knew that this meant a specific time of the day, month and year – when the Moon is full and the Sun is high – noon on a Full Moon day!

What other instructions could I glean whilst this information was flowing so easily and vividly, I wondered.  I felt that each of the elements should be involved in the carving process (somehow), perhaps with a call to them to participate in being bound into the shape being carved. But what should the shape be? I should be the sigil of this site, came the answer. The combined powers of this site, my energies, my staff and the elements will all go into the carving of the staff. OK, very strange! Here’s the shape I dowsed after experiencing this:-

Doll Tor stone circle sigil

After experiencing this I felt quite “spaced out” and had to spend the next few minutes jut coming back to full consciousness, despite the impending gloom, mist and cold which ought to have revived me quickly. Kal had disappeared down the hill and was busy exploring. I waited for him to return and dowsed for whether I had had any effect upon the negative energy area – it was mildly changing, and slowly, but would return to its negative state shortly after we had left. Ah well, this was obviously something that was going to take quite a bit more work when we had more time.

Some people had hung ribbons on the positive energy side of the site, possibly in similar attempts to “ward off” the negative energy. They had constructed stick figure mobiles too, which looked quite sinister in the gathering darkness. It was all very “Blair Witch Project“!

 In the enclosing mist the site felt cut off from everywhere else. We could have been the last two people on earth. It was quite magickal, and we should definitely come back here in late Spring to finish what we had started. I have some carving to do before then!

Gwas.