Posts Tagged ‘john michell’

A Yorkshire Imbolc – Part 3: Bolton Abbey

In this third and final part of our excursion to Yorkshire I talk about the fascinating experiments that we did at Bolton Abbey – site of a ruined priory and a working church. There was so much good dowsing work done at this site that it needed a whole post to itself to do it justice. I reckon we’ll still be discussing and debating these findings for many years to come!

6. Bolton Abbey. [Bing map]

Bolton Abbey is an evocative place for me. It is probably the first place that I remember visiting as a child. I remember that my mother really wanted to go for some reason. I remember a tall long hallway with a lovely grass surface and the early Spring sunshine shining through the glassless ruined windows. I also remember it being cool and windy. So, it was with some delight that I found that this place was easily reachable as we ventured around the various megalithic sites in the area. I also knew that it was the kind of place that would be ideally suited to us doing some experimental dowsing, and I had lined up a lot of questions to work through.

How Bolton Priory used to look

We managed to find the exact hall that I remembered and did our dowsing work there, even though the area was timidly fenced off. I wasn’t going to be put off from that – I had questions that needed answers and memories to evoke! We wil shortly be releasing several Druid Diary MP3s of the long recording that we took while driving back to Cheshire that day – these recordings go over many of the results recorded below and put them in context. Watch out for those soon.

A summary of the results would be that we worked with magnets on male, female and neutral energies finding that magnets affect earth energies, but there is a cost. We also found that the site was now aligned with Deneb in Cygnus constellation, drawing upon blue/green/yellow spectrum of energies to promote fertility. Within those hallowed walls we got out a long set of questions to ask about various topics.

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Cornwall – The Misty Hurlers

Sunday 22nd August, 2010 – The Hurlers, Minions, Cornwall.

Having driven through the village of Minions to get to Trethevy Quoit the night before we were fairly confident about finding the famous stone circles called “The Hurlers”. There was a big brown sign pointing to them and everything so how could we miss them? We missed them. The morning mist was so dense that visibility was down to twenty feet, and as we trudged along the damp granite path our attention was on avoiding the larger puddles. At one point I stopped, intuitively feeling something was nearby. As I looked up I could see a small marker stone making an unusually prominent shape in the white misty background. We decided to head in that direction across the moorland and soon other shapes were coming out of the mist confirming that we had made a wise choice. Luck was with us and we hadn’t gone too far past, and soon dark shapes were appearing in regular patterns like dull ghostly sentries. We remarked how ‘atmospheric’ it was, which translated meant, “Dammit – why couldn’t it be sunny – this is spooky!

What the Hurlers can look like

The Coach and Four

Other people were knocking about too, somewhere. Occasionally we would hear the sound of feet on the path and calls to a dog, or a group of walkers crunching past. It seemed that everyone else was missing the stone circle too because we were not disturbed during our hour long visit by anyone else, despite hearing man other voices nearby. Talking of which, as Kal and I convened on our way back we discussed the sounds we had heard in the mist and realised that both of us had heard the same strange noise. It was the sound of a carriage being pulled by horses. Undoubtedly. I’ve heard that sound in so many films that I couldn’t mistake it. I heard the sound of at least two horses, more like four, and they were accompanied by the sound of wooden wheels crunching on the path. There was no engine noise accompanying it. Most odd. Maybe some people with horse and cart were going past at nine in the morning? Even odder, the sound didn’t fade into the distance as you would expect, but disappeared as it passed us. You heard it clearly for a moment, and then as it passed by it died off quickly, it didn’t fade away. Again, very odd. I shivered a little in the morning gloom, and put it down to the atmosphere, but then when I mentioned it to Kal he nodded – he’d heard the same, and he added his own impressions of the noise which confirmed mine. However, on to the circles….

The Hurlers – The Male Circle and the Cross

There are three circles marked on OS maps, but in the mist we only found two of them. The Secret Cornwall site tells us that we are even wrong about that:

“The remains of a smaller fourth circle have recently been found north-north-east of the obvious three circles and a further fifth circle has been suggested between it and the others” (source: Secret Cornwall)

The first circle we encountered was the larger of the two, then there was a small pathway which linked to a slightly smaller ring of stones a few feet further north. One of the first things we independently dowsed was that the larger circle had a female characteristic, whilst the smaller circle was male.

Can you spot the stones?

Kal spent his first hour in the female circle, or rather, around its periphery, whilst I tried to get to grips with the male circle. I had come to the circles with an idea: I wanted to know whether it was possible to connect to the Sirius star energy, and what would happen if I did. I found a power centre and began to work with it, connecting to its core. I identified the location of Sirius, and then sat facing it. Almost immediately I got the impression that I should walk around the circle to stir up the energies. I dowsed for the start point, and then which direction – clockwise. No surprises there. I walked around twice, the second time the path began to weave as though the energies around the stones were becoming agitated. This was good – I had done a similar thing at Mitchell’s Fold stone circle once. At that Shropshire circle I had walked around five times, each time dowsing a more erratic path with higher peaks. This was similar, but only required two perambulations to get the energies flowing enough to work with.

Male circle Power Centre marked by feather and staff

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Hamish Miller dies: my tribute

HAMISH MILLER 1927 – 2010 

 Hamish was probably the most publicly-known dowser at the time of his death. He had built a reputation as a tireless educator in the field of dowsing, and there is not a single character in the field who will be able to step into the gap he leaves. His boisterous yet gentle character and permanent smile in the face of what must have been endless questions about the subjects he loved and live were an inspiration to me and I’m sure to many others who will have got the chance to see him dowse, hear his lectures, and learn from his wealth of experience over the last few decades. 

He died on the 25th January this year, aged 82. I had read many of his books (in fact, only a few weeks ago I re-visited is seminal “Definitive Wee Book of Dowsing” for some pointers as to a seminar article  am writing myself and found him, yet again, to be an inspiration to my work. 

His initial inspiration to dowse came from a near-deathexperience (which he talked about every time I saw him). It was to turn his life around in his latter years, after having initially been a blacksmith and businessman. When he turned to dowsing he maintained the blacksmithing, forging his own style of dowsing rods. 

His inspiration 

When I first came across dowsing I was looking for as much information as possible – buying every book I could find, and trying to see how people went about doing dowsing – what issues did they come up against? What was their technique? What kinds of things could they find? Hamish Miller took part in a pilot programme which subsequently did not go to air, but made it to DVD, released as “The Spirit of the Serpent”, and featuring both Hamish and Ba Russell (his long-time partner), and Rupert Soskin and his wife. Oddly, Claire Grogan fronted the programme! A bit incongruous indeed. The team investigated the Merry Maidens stone circle in Cornwall over two days. 

What inspired me about this program was the way in which Hamish visually defined the earth energy spirals he found by placing pegs in the ground at intervals and then looping ribbon around them to visually demarcate the lines. I was inspired by this, and enjoyed listening to his explanations to a bemused Altered Images pop starlet about the way these energies could be discovered. 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-D2qHKUC0E 

 What he brought to the subject 

For me he introduced me to the concepts of the spiral form of energy and how it could be traced against the background patterns of the criss-crossing Hartmann and Curry grids. His detailed explanation of this fed into my own work on finding the spirals out in the land at so many places around ancient sites. Others may have found this before hand (Underwood or Michell perhaps) but Hamish brought it to life for me.

He also demonstrated concepts such as manifesting energy, in other words, using the power of the mind to ‘bring out’ patterns that already exist within the earth. These manifestations, he showed us, could be chained together from one site to another with increasing complexification occurring downstream. Another practise that I tested myself and found to be somewhat valid (my patterns got increasingly simple!).

 His inspirational books

Hamish might be best remembered for his classic dowsing treatise “The Sun and The Serpent”. A seminal work with Paul Broadhurst (another author whose work I admire). Together they followed the Great Dragon Ley Linethat John Michell had identified earlier. This line is an earthenergy line that can be found all the way from Norfolk to the tip of Cornwall. Miller and Broadbent added to this identification by dowsing the male and female “Michael” and “Mary” earth energy lines that moved around this national ley line. Fascinating stuff, and inspiring to a new dowser like myself.


His unique dowsing rods

Hamish was, as I mentioned, a blacksmith. He used his skills to create his own style of dowsing rods. Frankly, I didn’t like or understand them, but that was probably my problem. Hamish certainly made expert use of them, and I could rarely disagree with his findings, although we did differ on the detail, and I was also quite surprised that he never elaborated greatly on his findings in any study paper. But then he was a very practical man, and such things were probably anathema to him.

Hamish's unique and unusual hand-forged rods

Miller – The Teacher

I will remember him best for his practical demonstrations of dowsing, and for his unswerving enthusiasm, even in his later years. I’m so pleased to be able to say that I saw him, learned from him, questioned him, and that he was my inspiration for taking dowsing to even deeper levels. I wish him his peaceful rest.

Gwas Myrddyn

Following on from the Great Man.

The Rollright Stones – Part 2: The King’s Men and the Whispering Knights

This post follows on from the first part of the Rollright Stones complex, which can be found here. In the previous post I had been dowsing arounnd the King Stone. I had identified a female line that followed the course of the path that leads up to the stone, and now I was following it back to see whether it connected to the King’s Men stone circle, as it appeared to if I followed the line of sight.

I wandered across the road following the zig-zag motion of the female energy line, which got decreasingly erratic as is moved towards the King’s Men circle. The rods showed me that the line went into the northern end of the circle, so, as I couldn’t follow it directly through the fence and hawthorn trees, I opted to pick it up again from the other side. So I made my way into the signposted stone circle area, where I was accosted my a modern day highwayman! Stand and deliver! He wanted a whole engligh pound sterling from me, which I duly obliged him.

As it turned out, a pound was a cheap price to pay for some priceless dowsing tips from the old man. We started off on the wrong foot as he challenged my tools of the trade for being un-sheathed. His, by comparison, were contained in copper handles, but looked too thin and wiry to be of any use in a stiff breeze. I retorted that there were no rules regulating this dowsing lark, and that my opinion was different to his – I liked to feel the response of the rods as they turned so that I could gauge the strength of the reaction, and feel for whether it was a true response or caused by an external factor like the wind. This didn’t go down well – a relative youngster debating with a seasoned pro – and he went on to present his credentials: 50 years dowsing and a former member of the BSD (“too many silly people with their own pet theories“). Oh dear, I didn’t let on that I might be one of those very people whom he detested – an independent thinker with my own ideas. I did the polite thing and appeared impressed, but in my experience longevity is not a good indicator of ability.

Kings Men circle - Eastern entrance

We discussed the nature of the site, and he swung into action with his own theories on “positive” and “negative”, or helpful and harmful energies. He was a healer who had spent a lot of time at this circle, which he claimed had healing properties because it was composed of limestone, which was porous, and therefore capable of absorbing harmful energies and purifying them. This he opposed to granite sites, which he categorised as generally harmful and the cause of illness. “Ah, geopathic stress” – I responded. I mentioned that I wasn’t much into healing, but that I was interested in understanding the workings of the site’s energies. “Well, you’ll find lots of energies here.” he stated emphatically. He wasn’t wrong.

Later, as I dowsed, I was treated to both a display of his “twirling rods” as they helicoptered and whirred around in the centre of the circle, and then to a display of his healing capabilities as he wobbled a lady’s head around until she told him she felt better. I’m not going to say anything about either display, as I’m a mere youngster who understands nothing, and have much to learn yet.

Kings Men circle - healing session

The Nemeton’s Edge

I started my own investigations by looking for an aura, or nemeton for the circle. I got a boundary response from the rods about 25 feet outside the stones on the south side (the site is approached from the south-east end). I followed this male edge line clockwise around the site and found that it narrowed up to the stones themselves at the western side before increasing again to about 10 feet wide coming back around the northern edge. By the time the nemeton was back at the south side it was back out to 25 feet wide.

Cross Leys and Entrances

Two neutral alignment leys traversed the site – one running North-South and the other travelling East to West. At the point where the east-west ley line hit the western edge of the circle, at the nemeton’s thinnest point, I found an entrance to the circle. I later discovered that there were two entrances to the circle – one for lunar-aligned people, and another for solar-aligned people. The western entrance was for those people aligned to the moon’s energies, whilst the more “famous” southern entrance was that discovered by archaeologists and other dowsers, many of whom must have been solar-aligned people, I reckon.

As a reminder, you’ll know if you’re solar or lunar aligned from standing in the power centre that is either male or female. If you stand on one that is not aligned to your energy field (and it doesn’t matter if you’re male or female as to whether you’re solar or lunar aligned) then you’ll feel a certain discomfort after a while, such as a tense head, even a headache, feelings of queasiness or a tight stomach, or more generally just an inclination to move away from that place. Luckily, most of us intuitively go to stand on places to which we are aligned. Sensible us!

Rollrights - southern entrance

Central healing spirals

After having seen the old gentleman doing his twirly rods show for tourists I decided to take a look at the centre point. I firstly dowsed for a male energy and found a spiral starting some six feet out from the brown bare patch of earth that marked the middle. A tight spiral (unusual) of male energy spiralled densely-packed lines into the centre, but the outer edges didn’t go anywhere – this spiral was self-contained. Again, quite an unusual finding.

Next I dowsed for any female energy, and found a much looser spiral going anti-clockwise and overlaid on top of the male energy spiral. This female spiral was not quite so tightly-wound (again, quite unusual), but its terminus point was outside of the circle, as the energy of the third spiral snaked off through the western entrance and into the trees and the setting sun.

In my experience a combined male and female energy, in addition to the crossing of the two ley lines, would form a powerful positive energy formation, and this seemed to be what the old man was demonstrating with his healing and twirling displays. As he looked on I credited him with choosing the perfect spot to perform with energy work, to which he winked knowingly.

As I dowsed for the suitability of the site to various purposes the only strong response was to “healing”. Again, it looked like the old man was right to say that the limestone circle was suited to healing and purification. Equally, despite his idea that granite-based rocks generate “bad” energy, I was certain from my own findings that granite stone circles are suited to transformation of consciousness. But he didn’t look like he cared for that kind of thing, so I kept it to myself.

Rollright Stones - Western Entrance

Western entrance to the right of the stones

Male and female stone balance

I decided next to dowse each individual stone to find out how many were male and how many were female. The general outcome was that there were two banks of female stones consisting of at least two sets of 5-8 stones at the western and eastern points. The northern and southern edges were much more complicated, alternating frequently between small groups of male then female stones, sometimes even single stones going M-F-M-F. There were, however, three banks of male stones consisting of at least 5 stones in the south-western edge, the north-western edge and the eastern edge. All in all the number of male or female stones seemed well balanced, and this was certainly how the site felt.

‘Hairy’ stones

Each stone has an energy spiral coming out of its exterior face, and a short spiral going around the base of the stone. Female spirals are anti-clockwise (although they start off circling clockwise around the stone before turning back on themselves outside the circle to form an anti-clockwise spiral). Male stones do the opposite, but with slightly less tight spirals (fewer turns). We have found this at many other sites like Gors Fawr and Nine Ladies to name but two where we have looked for it.

Rollright Stones - view south

The Southern View

The King Stone connection

I found the female line from the King Stone over the road coming in at the north-eastern edge of the circle. This line terminated at a female spiral at the northern end of the circle. However, there were four other female centres connected to this line, and they appeared all around the western edge of the circle, going from the north to the south, and including my own power centre. In all, five female power centre spirals connected to each other on the western side of the circle.

This was somewhat mirrored by the two male power centres I found that were connected to some circle stones on the eastern side of the circle. Starting at the eastern edge a male energy line moved in and out of the stones, sometimes circling them, to eventually terminate at a spiral in the south-eastern edge inside the circle.

Both sets of male and female connected centres had energy flows that were bi-directional – they flowed back and forth between the first and last power centres, and presumably back to the King Stone in the case of the female lines. The male centres were again, like the central spiral, a self-contained energy system.

Kings Men circle - Rollright (4)

Staff marking my power centre

Finally I asked a series of questions that I have asked at other sites recently. They were:-

  1. Is the site still capable of performing its original function? - NO.
  2. Is the site still energetically active? - YES.
  3. Can the site be activated, or when is it best to activate it? – Activated by human activity at Samhain (Oct/Nov).
  4. Is the purpose of the site education, revelation, healing, transformation, communication, purification or some other purpose? –  HEALING, PURIFICATION.
  5. Does the site need restoring, healing or balancing? – NO.
  6. Is a genius loci present at the site? – YES, a female energy.
  7. Does the site respond to human interaction, the position of the sun, moon, or stars? – HUMANS, SUNSET, FULL MOON.
  8. Can the site be used as an observatory, a calendar, for initiation or as a burial place? – CALENDAR, INITIATION
  9. Is there underground water at this site? – YES, at the western entrance flowing SE out of the circle. (i.e. from the point of the narrowest part of the nemeton to the point where it was at its widest).

Whispering Knights

Armed with that information I headed off South East towards the site of the Whispering Knights, a ruined dolmen that stands at the south-easterly edge of the adjacent field to the King’s Men circle. When I arrived I was of course disappointed to find that these stones were also caged. Presumably to stop them wandering around the countryside mauling unsuspecting meek children?

I found that the aura of the stones was again contained within the iron cage, but there was a combined male and female line coming out of the north-westerly edge, and the rods were pointing directly at the King’s Men circle. I dowsed as to whether the two sites were connected by this line and got a positive response.

In addition to this there was a line coming out a little further north. It was a male energy line that connected to the raised mound I had seen next to the King Stone some hours ago. So, more dowsing will have to be done to prove that this line connects directly to that mound, but that is how is appears at the moment. I will have to do some more work on that mound next time I come down to the Rollrights.

Gwas.

Visiting an old stalwart.

The Rollright Stones – Part 1: The King Stone

What follows is a description of a visit to the Rollright Stones that are a complex of megaliths perched on the Oxfordshire/Warwickshire border, near to the village of Little Rollright. I will, in due course, sketch out all of the findings and put them onto the Sacred Sites page so that you can see the things I am about to describe. For now, you will have to use your imagination, which will be helped enormously if you have visited the site yourself already.

I had intended to try to do some druidry work at the site, but the sheer number of visitors made concentration difficult, although, as you will soon read, this didn’t put off one old man who resplendently displayed his skills. How he concentrated I’ll never know! I have much to learn, as he was all to eager to point out.

I parked in a little lay-by which carried a sign telling me that I was only parking there at the gracious behest of the site’s trustees, and that I ought not to outstay my welcome by still being around after sunset. A warm southern welcome indeed. *I decided to head for the King Stone, situated on the other side of the road some hundred feet away. Yes, I still count in old measurements. Don’t start me on that discussion! Let’s just say such measurements are beyond “imperial” of any variety and should be considered “divine” instead. See John Michell‘s “The Dimensions Of Paradise” for a full explanation. As usual, I digress.

I approached the King Stone without my rods. What was the point? I knew there wouldn’t be any nemeton to dowse because I could see that the standing stone was caged in an iron railing that hemmed it tightly. This is a disgrace! Of course, modern people can’t be trusted, and so despite the fact that it has stood for over 4000 years, it needs to be caged, right? I suspect, therefore, that whatever energetic capabilities this site used to have they have been severely restricted by this action. I dowsed for the nemeton – yes, exactly at the railing. What a coincidence!

Nevertheless, I began to see which earth energies were travelling into and out of the stone. I found a male line coming in from somewhere in the direction of the hills around the village of Long Compton – well, that’s the direction is was heading in anyway. On either side, fanning out and following the shape of the wilder grass were two female lines. The first zig-zagged along the path that people walk up to the stone along. The second followed the lower edge of the rise behind the stone. The first female line intruiged me – it appeared to head to the road, and possibly might cross it and go into the stone circle there? I would check this later.

King Stone - Rollright (1)

The male line was of interest to me as well. The King Stone was clearly male. I have seen and dowsed enough male stones (at Carnac – row after row after row of them) to recognise them by sight now. This was a male stone. It was essentially flattish, with a ridged edge pointing in the direction of the energy flow. Despite it’s “unusual” shape, this was a classic “repeater” stone that would pulse male energy onwards to another place. I checked the other side and found that only the male line emerged, strongly, and went into a grassy tumulus a few feet away. Check the link above about the King Stone to read what this tumulus might be.

Judging by the pitted nature of the stone this was limestone or something very similar. Soon I  would find out some new information about the significance of this.

I must point out – I deliberately didn’t read ANYTHING at all about this site before going. Sometimes that works in my favour, because I get fresh responses without prejudice, but sometimes I miss important elements. Needless to say, this is a site that warrants more investigation that I could manage in an afternoon.

King Stone - Rollright

Two men had been standing on the ridge behind me looking out over the valley below. Now I could see one of them approach me, an older man with white hair and a pair of flimsy-looking dowsing rods in his hand. I stopped what I was doing as he walked up to me and began a conversation. He was a relative beginner, he said, and wondered what I was looking for. I made a special point of stating that I wasn’t, as most people expected, looking for water but instead for earth energies. He didn’t seem too surprised at that, so I went on to tell him what I had found so far.

He seemed to absorb that, and much more, before he asked my opinion on what he should be looking for. I laughed, and replied that it was not my place to tell anyone how they should conduct their enquiries with dowsing rods, it was a matter of determining for oneself what information on was seeking, and to what extent the response could be trusted. He said he was rather afraid that I would say that. I mentioned some authors for him to look at – perhaps Tom Graves, or Sig Lonegren? He seemed distinctly unimpressed by anything I said which amused me somewhat.

I laughed at his thin and wiry rods. “No good in today”s wind, I’d say.” and showed him my thicker copper rods. He seemed daunted by their lack of copper cuffs to aid rotation, and by their weight. This amused me too as his eyes boggled at their relative weight in his hands.

I decided he had been inquisitive enough, and it was my turn. What was his background? He was a scientist, he stated. This amused me even more! “Then you’re in for a fun time with dowsing!” I warned. He was either going to chase the “what is this energy” question forever, or he would have some very tricky ontological questions to resolve. He seemed to respond to that with a resigned shrug and a disappointed “hmmmm”. I wasn’t sure I was helping him at all! He asked me how I had started, and I told him of a TV programme “Tomorrow’s World” that I had seen when I was young that demonstrated dowsing, and this had inspired me to try it out, but I didn’t have enough incentive to pursue it further at the time. He jumped – “I saw that programme too!”. He shouted over to his friend, “This man saw that same programme about dowsing!” he said to his friend, calling him over to join us. The great Scottish dowser David Cowan apparently saw the same programme:

“Twenty-five years ago, I watched a programme on “Tomorrow’s World” on the use of divining rods, and, to my absolute amazement, discovered for myself that they really did work.” (source: The Leyman web site)

We briefly discussed the unlikelihood that we would both have been started in dowsing by the same programme, only shown once, and revelled in the coincidence of it. Then he bade me farewell, happy now, and let me carry on following the subtle energy lines.

I picked up my pack and rods, and dowsed my way back down the path that had the female line following it, wandering back and forth, looking like a right prat, until I crossed the road and found the line went into a small gap between the elder and hawthorn trees that edged the King’;s Men stone circle. Time to go and find out what all the fuss was about with the Rollright Stones then!

Gwas

Glastonbury Solstice : The Opening of the Chakras

Glastonbury Pilgrimage Notes – Summer Solstice (June 2009)

On June 20th and 21st Kal and I went down to Glastonbury to begin a spiritual pilgrimage. That wasn’t our intention initially, but very quickly that’s what it turned out to be! We had no set agenda, other than a starting point that I had identified after reading Mary Caine’s book about the Glastonbury Zodiac in which she had revealed that the Girt Dog of Langport may have been the first place that initiates to the ancient druidic colleges and mystery schools landed by boat on the Isle of Avalon, the only high ground in the flooded Somerset Levels. This first contact was at Burrow Mump at Burrowbridge. So that was where we started too. From that point onwards I was hoping for some guidance from elsewhere as to the path I should take.

Little did I know quite how successful that approach would be! What follows is an account of how we were lead through the Isle of Avalon, each site opening at least one of my chakras, to profound effect. Follow me now as I show you the trail and the experiences I had – truly a solstice to remember.

Stage 1: Burrow Mump – Throat Chakra

We started the morning looking for the nose that formed the Girt Dog of Langport. Having read Mary Caine’s book about the Glastonbury Zodiac I was interested that she considered it to be the entrance way for the initiate into the Isle of Avalon and the Mystery School transformation process. Not that I was going to subject myself to some sort of masonic ritual! I believe the tradition to be far older than that, and to have been a spiritual initiation of the kind that is symbolically referenced in ancient Welsh bardic texts. Certainly, now that I am recounting this story I feel as though it is the transformation that you seek for yourself that you find, and nothing to do with arcane and involved rituals. Just time, patience, endeavour and a willingness to try.

I was not convinced as to the existence of all 12 of the zodiac signs in the Glastonbury landscape (13 including the dog) despite Mary Caine’s well-argued case. I felt that some of the signs were older – especially the incongruous Girt Dog, which equates to the dog Dormarth – the companion of Gwyn ap Nudd. I am starting to formulate the idea that there may have been only five original shapes – the original fixed zodiac signs and the dog, but that’s an argument that I will spell out in another post. The Girt Dog fitted with the Gwyn ap Nudd tales, but was out of place with the zodiac signs, many of whose shapes I feel were a bit ‘forced to fit’. Nevertheless I felt there as something in the Dog, and that it would form a good starting point, as I hadn’t visited it before on previous visits. We bought an Explorer Map of the area and located it.

Barrowbridge Mump to Wearyall Hill - Glasto09 (1)
The Church of St.Michael

Barrowbridge Mump to Wearyall Hill - Glasto09 (6)We followed dowsing rods to locate the most energetic paths for ourselves to the top. As usual, Kal’s solar path weaved a little but was almost direct, whereas my lunar-oriented path wandered around ascending at intervals and circling around each of the trees on the slope’s southern side. Then we arrived at the ruins of the St.Michael’s Church on the top of the Mump. If you’ve been reading our posts on this site for a while you’ll know the significance of St.Michael – the archangel of Christianity who pins the dragon energy, or Dark forces, under his sword of Light. However, another way of seeing it, as I saw it that day, was that the Archetype of Light was dominating the natural balance of energies. There ought to be a constant battle between Light and Dark, as is the flow of the forces in Nature. To dominate and subdue the dark forces throws the human world into a state of imbalance. This is how I felt standing in St.Michael’s Church on Burrow Mump – the earth and radiant energy forces were being subjugated by the design and designation of the church. The design channelled the energies, whilst the designation ensured that generations of believers would imbue the site with their dedicatory energies, maintaining the imbalance in the name of the Light (the Sun, the Male force).

Is not Christianity just such a religion? Does it not promote The Light and seek to eradicate The Dark, vilifying it as “evil” and un-holy? Has it not tried to associate all the worst aspects of humanity with the forces of darkness, of night and of magic? The result has been 2000 years of what Terence McKenna would call “the dominator culture“, promoting masculine ideals, favouring male energies, denigrating and subjugating the feminine. Only now is the tide slowly turning in the last hundred years as we slowly transfer alignment to the new Aquarian age from the Piscean. For the established Christian Church trying to maintain masculine sun energy exclusively in the face of this turning tide will bring about the dissolution of these established institutions – unless they can change.

Dowsing The Mump
The St.Michael church was of course aligned East-West. It could hardly fail to be so. Having read Ross Nichol’s article about the layout of churches in the selected collection of his works called “In The Grove of the Druids” I knew that this ancient Sun alignment was important, as was the structure of the church, which also conformed to the divine proportions and layout of almost all early Christian churches. It also happens to be on the St.Michael ley line that the late John Michell re-discovered, and which was popularised further by Hamish Miller and Paul Broadhurst.

We set about discovering the ley lines and earth energy formations of the site. We immediately identified a strong and powerful ley line consisting of neutral, male and female energy lines. It travelled all the way through the large empty windows set into each end of the ruined church. We quickly found our respective power centres – on opposite sides of the church’s North-South walls. Mine was to the south, and consisted of female and neutral energies, whilst Kal’s was directly opposite on the northern side and registered for male and female energies. I took the picture below whilst standing in my power centre, and Kal’s was just through the arch on the opposite side.

Barrowbridge Mump to Wearyall Hill - Glasto09 (10)

There was also a power centre slap bang in the centre of the church. This was very interesting indeed – we learned something new here. The three types of energies coming into the church along the East-West axis was hitting a female earth energy point in the centre of the church. As it did so it split into two rays that were channelled by the church’s walls outwards in North and South directions, effectively forming….a cross! To the south this extended through my power centre as a female and neutral line. On Kal’s side (north) the line was refracted as a male and female line. What we don’t know is how the power centres at those points affected the constitution of those lines, but perhaps we can leave that for someone else to determine until we get back there another day?

As Kal will no doubt relate he was wearing a bracelet of blue stones. An unusual thing for him to do, as I had never seen him wear it before. Turns out I needed it. I dowsed for which of my chakra points this Burrow Mump energy centre would affect and got a response for the colour blue – the throat chakra. I didn’t have any context for what that might mean, but Kal decided to offer me his blue bracelet. He felt it may help my meditation, so I took it.

I used the L-rods to find the point at which I should meditate (something we are getting accustomed to doing now). A point was detected about ten feet away from the central crossing point. If you consider that the church’s design is an elongated cross resembling a human being with outstretched arms (see Ross Nichols’ essay on church design and human proportion) then this point would have equated to …you know what’s coming, right? The throat of course. I only realised this once I came to write this post. My higher self is obviously a lot more intelligent than my normal self.

From that spot I could see a visible earth energy line flowing across the landscape to the south-east. It was like a line I had seen before when I ascended from Llandrillo stone circle late one night. A softly-glowing overlay on reality. Quite beautiful and mesmerising. I saw it snake across the Levels towards a hill in the distance. It curled around the hill and out of view but I felt that this hill was the next place to visit. At this point I knew not why – Burrow Mump was our starting point but there was, as yet, no sense of any journey or purpose to our weekend visit. Oh, how that was about to change!

Barrowbridge Mump to Wearyall Hill - Glasto09 (2)
When we checked the map to determine where the line went (based on my description) it was pointing at Wearyall Hill (instinctively I knew which hill it was even though I’m not familiar enough yet with Glastonbury’s local geography)! Kal had been meditating on his power centre and had seen a new power centre forming at a spot that my imaginary line crossed, at the south-east corner of Burrow Mump. Kal located it with his rods, and shortly afterwards I did the same. However, the moment we had both recognised what it was, it disappeared! We decided to head for Wearyall Hill and see what we could find. Again – no agenda – no preconceptions. Just following our lines and intuitions.

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** COMING SOON ** - Our Imbolc 2012 day out posts.
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* Moon Page updated with 2012 Full Moon table (Jan)
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Kellianna's song 'Brighid' from her album 'Lady Moon'. Seemed appropriate.
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