The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘kundalini’

Sunday 25th July – Cadair Idris, Gwynedd, Wales.

To walk up Cadair Idris was the culmination of the set of tasks that I had been guided to follow in order to fulfil this particular stage of the year, from Summer Solstice to Lammas. The vision I had received was that I needed to “wake the dragon“. Cryptic indeed, but after a series of further exploratory encounters I had worked out that this would be done on Cadair Idris, and that I could call upon the spirit of Mab – the faerie queen – should I need assistance to do this. Well, all of these things would be fulfilled but not in the way I expected them to occur, as I will now relate.

The walk was surely one of the most beautiful walks I have ever done, from start to finish. The Breath of the Dragon – a light swirling mist – occasionally veiled the mountain, rolling along its slopes and through its valleys as though the dragon was waking to the ringing of my footsteps on its stone-scaled back.

Idyllic start to the walk up Cadair Idris

For anyone who may have been as confused as I was about the name of this mountain – “Cadair” is the Welsh spelling, whilst “Cader” is the anglicised version. I will stick with “Cadair” as I am trying to learn Welsh, albeit very slowly.

The Welcome Sign with its suggested trails

Cadair Idris is a strange mountain: there is a well-defined path to the top of the mountain, yet relatively poorly defined paths to descend again. I wish I had taken more notice of this when I started out, but I assumed that such a well-visited mountain would have well-defined paths. That was to be my undoing later in the day! However, in the morning M and I ascended in a state of bliss marvelling at the abundance of beautiful trees, ferns and mosses that made each turn a photo opportunity.

An old hoary tree wrapped in a coat of moss

If it wasn’t a beautiful old tree turning our heads it was a waterfall….

A hundred beautiful photos await you at Cadair Idris

Read the rest of this entry »

I have been thinking a great deal about the riddle that defines this eighth-part of the year – the time from Summer Solstice to Lammas. The riddle given to me was “Wake the dragon and teach it to fly.” I have therefore been considering what “waking the dragon” might be to start with.

That time is nearly up, and as I promised myself I have managed to schedule a walk up Cadair Idris – Wales’ second highest mountain after Snowdon. I’m also walking up Snowdon soon, too, in aid of the Love Hope Strength cancer charity. I’ll spare you the JustGiving page, because I’m not asking for your money – I’m just spilling my thoughts into the electronic void that is this blog. I just mention it because it’s Snowdon – a favourite mountain of mine.

Inj this post I want to discuss two concepts that have emerged recently – the dragon breath and the dragon pose. Also, I want to look at the various aspects of the idea of “waking the dragon”. As soon as I started looking into “waking the dragon” here are some news, events, concepts and ideas that emerged:-

1. “Waking the dragon“: Proposed giant sculpture.

A new sculpture to mark the pride of Wales could be built by October 2011 at Chirk in North Wales.

Proposed new giant in Wales

Chirk is the town that is in between two other sites that I like to visit – the old oak trees around Pontfadog village, and Dinas Bran, the sublime mound that overlooks the town of Llangollen. Turns out that in between these two oft-visited druidical sites they plan on plonking a huge 200ft statue to rival the Angel of the North and the gigantic White Horse planned for the South of England. It wasn’t surprised that it was a dragon, so much as surprised that it was entitled “Waking the Dragon”. Seemed quite auspicious.

Link: The Daily Mail (yikes!)

2. Raising Kundalini : The Serpent Fire

Something mentioned in hushed tones by C.W.Leadbeater in his various books, especially The Chakras. In that book Leadbeater cautions against this dangerous action being undertaken without the supervision of a guru - the action of raising the serpent fire energy from its sleeping position coiled at the base of the spine like a serpent, and rising through each of the chakras in turn.

I must admit I don’t see the necessity of going through this process. Kal and I have discussed what it means to be “enlightened” and have decided that if it means walking around in a bliss state then it’s not for us.  If it means having a perception of the whole universe in a moment, then we’ll pass on that too. The small steps we have taken to balance and enhance our own chakra points as a means to creating a faster and more efficient interface with the various sentient forces at work in the world we inhabit, then that’s enough for us.

3. Dragon Mounds – Wearyall Hill and Cadair Idris

Wearyall Hill in Glastonbury was the focal point of my vision during the Summer Solstice, a vision of a dragon waking from sleep. After it had awoken I needed to direct the dragon to unfold its wings and fly again after a long slumber. This was the trigger for me to begin to try to understand how this image translated into my life for the next few weeks. Only the next day after the vision I was already somehow certain that Cadair Idris mountain was important and more local to my task.

Cadair Idris mountain translates as something like “The Chair of Idris”. No-one seems to know who Idris was – a Saxon poet, a giant (or both), or something else. Perhaps I get the idea of Cadair Idris from the works of Susan Cooper or from Ivor The Engine, but I associate Idris with a dragon.

Other associations with dragons related to Cadair Idris can be found in Celtic lore:

Dragons and winged serpents were also reported around Lleyn and Penmaenmawr in Gwynedd, the ravines of the Berwyn Mountains, Cadair Idris, the wilds of Cardigan (Dyfed), Radnor Forest (Powys), the Brecon Beacons, the marches of Carmarthen and Worm’s Head, Gower. (source: Celtic Encyclopeadie)

4. Associations with King Arthur

There may be some link between The Pendragon – Arthur – and Cadaer Idris. In an essay published online August Hunt explains:

Triad 52 of the Trioedd Ynys Prydein concerns itself with the “Three Exalted Prisoners of the Island of Britain”. After listing the three prisoners, the Triad continues as follows:

“And one [prisoner], who was more exalted than the three of them, was three nights in prison in Caer Oeth and Anoeth, and three nights imprisoned by Gwen Pendragon, and three night in an enchanted prison under the stone of Echymeint [Llech Echemeint]. This exalted prisoner was Arthur.”

…The word anoeth is used in the STANZAS OF THE GRAVES, where it is said of Arthur that his final resting place in this world is a “wonder” (“anoeth bid bet y Arthur”). As an adjective, anoeth means “difficult” or “wonderful”. The Caer Oeth and Anoeth placename is also mentioned in the Mabinogion tale CULHWCH AND OLWEN, where it is one of the castles Arthur boasts of gaining entrance to. Once again, in the STANZAS OF THE GRAVES, we are told that the burial ground of the host of Caer Oeth and Anoeth can be found in Gwanas, a mountain tract located near Cadair Idris in Ceredigion.

A fuller explanation of some of the more obscure references to archaic Welsh literature and its meaning in this context is given here: http://www.maryjones.us/jce/oethanoeth.html

5. The Dragon’s Back

Looking at an ariel view of the mountain of Cadair Idris I am reminded of the very shape that I saw in the vision of Wearyall Hill. See if you can see what I mean:

The sleeping beast

6. The Dragon Breath and Dragon Pose

One evening I ventured to my new favourite haunt – my nemeton – to further my quest. Once I was firmly ensconced the rain began to come down in buckets. I slowly let myself attune to the atmosphere…the thud of the water, the smell of the leaf-laden earth, and then CRACK – THUMP!! A huge branch from a tree only a few feet away dropped to the floor and landed with a loud bump which startled me, making my blood pump in alarm! I laughed…and then relaxed into the atmosphere again. Clearly, I needed to be both entranced and alert at the same time. A little reminder perhaps?

I began an impromptu ritual of being cleansed in the rain,  adopting a strange pose in response to the feel of the water. I began to think about my task at hand:  waking the dragon. My body began to react to the stream of cold water and my breath began to be forced out. Two thoughts came to mind – this was the physical answer to my question “How do I wake the dragon?”, and that the breathing was “the dragon’s breath“. With this realisation I knew what I needed to do on Cadair Idris. As well as remembering that I could call upon Mab to assist.

The incident with the falling branch reminded me of this quote from the film ‘Excalibur’ (another Arthur/Merlin/Dragon link):

Merlin: What are you afraid of?
Arthur: I don’t know!
Merlin: Shall I tell you what’s out there?
Arthur: Yes, please!
Merlin: The Dragon! A beast of such power that if you were to see it whole and all complete in a single glance it would burn you to cinders!
Arthur: Where is this Dragon?
Merlin: It is everywhere! It is everything! Its scales glisten in the bark of trees, its roar is heard in the wind and its forked tongue strikes like… like…
[a bolt of lightning strikes nearly at their feet]
Merlin: Oh, like lightning! Yes, that’s it!

I reminded myself that, although I was in my nemeton, it was not my space – I was just a privileged visitor to Nature’s space.

How to adopt the Dragon Pose

Legs shoulder width apart and relaxed. Knees slightly bent, as if for skiing. Hands out in front, with palms upwards at stomach height, and cupped as though waiting to collect something in them. Very similar to the position adopted now by Rugby players when they take a kick, but not as exaggerated as that, more relaxed.

I recreated the Dragon Pose today. As soon as I was in the correct position my face flushed and I got a tingle along my spine! I began to feel light-headed, the way I do before some kind of revelation happens. I felt the sweet familiar tingle all over that accompanies me getting totally in tune with Nature. It was very startling how a simple posture could recreate all this! I knew then that this posture was important to me.

What a poser!

I now need to understand more about the dragon’s breath – is it qigong? (e.g. this site) Or something else? I remember a line from the film ‘Excalibur’ in which Merlin mentions the Dragon’s Breath as being a writhing mist or vapour called forth by the Charm of Making. Perhaps I should revisit that charm and consider learning it. Might it be useful to call that upon Cadair Idris whilst adopting my Dragon Pose? Some things will only be revealed during the next week. I’ll report back after my walk up the mountain.

Gwas.

Over the last two weeks my wife and I have been journeying to and staying in the Brittany region in the North Western end of France in my auntie’s guest house near St.Brieuc in the Cotes D’Armour. It was to be our first proper holiday of the year, and to an area renowned for its megalithic history. A fortunate coincidence, as this meant I got to go to some of the great sites available in that region, and managed to dowse many of them too.

In the near future I will be posting on topics such as the Carnac alignments, Locmarquier, Mont St.Michel, roadside Celtic crosses, dolmens, passage graves and many other things discovered on this holiday. I’ll be posting regular stories of some of those sites, revealing some of the Celtic mythology and history that is embedded into the culture, architecture and mythology of the region. I hope you will find them either a useful travelogue for your own expeditions in northern France, or will obtain some useful information about the energy formations and their purpose through my dowsing revelations.

Winchester cathedral – Monday 4th May

As we journeyed from the north of England to its southern-most end we decided to stop off in Winchester to relax, and take a look around. My brother had mentioned to me that it was an historical town with some beautiful features, and so I took his recommendation without hesitation, as I had encountered Winchester’s name appearing frequently in accounts of important ancient towns of our land.

On arrival we made straight for the spire of the cathedral that seemed to be the focus of most of the tourist signs as we walked around. On this occasion, our brief stop-over necessitated a sharp focus. Winchester Cathedral was our goal, and pretty soon it hoved into view, its massive minarets trumpeting its importance. The grass to its side had a floor plan of the original site of the church when it had been established by Benedictine monks in the 7th Century. Three hundred years later it was rebuilt on its current alignment, and added to over the years. Later in the week I would happen to read Ross Nichols‘ essay on the layout of churches and their correspondence to kabbalistic and celtic concepts of the the divine body, where the holy church mapped onto the holy body in its search for spiritual development. [cf. "Esoteric Architecture" from 'In The Grove of the Druids' by Philip Carr-Gomm, a collection of Ross Nichols essays].

We arrived inside the cathedral as preparations were being made for an evening service. This meant that we were the only tourists left at this time of day and so had the public parts of the place to ourselves. We walked down the impressive central aisle, of course aligned East-West to catch the sun, and observed a series of strange wall hangings depicting slightly surreal elements of the Christian pantheon. One showed a unicorn central, with a large lizard and snake crawling around its legs. Now, I’m no David Icke but that struck me as quite an unusual image that I couldn’t relate to any Christian story that I had heard of. I could, however, relate it to the concept of St.George and The Dragon, or The Green Man slaying his Winter counterpart in an ancient Celtic mythological context. But surely I was mistaken.

On to the next image: a tree with seven branches grew out of a river, had a snake with a spiral tail coiling around it, and was flanked by the images of a male and female face, which also had a line of red dots going through them. Ah, surely more straightforward – this could be the Garden of Eden story, although I’m not sure what to make of the red dots, or the stylised tree with its three rays at the tip, or the reason for the spiral tail of the snake. To my mind it could equally have been a depiction of the way that earth energies of male and female properties can be drawn out of the earth and combined to facilitate the opening of the seven chakras to achieve spiritual enlightenment. Hey ho – I suppose you begin to see whatever you understand of symbols in your own context, right?

Kal: As I study the symbology of the Tarot more and more certain correspondences jump out at me! For instance Gwas mentions the ‘red dots’. Note that there are 12 dots in total – 6 on each side of the snake. Twelve often symbolised the “twelve” disciples of Christ however, from a much earlier perspective 12 symbolised the signs of the Zodiac and hence the heavens.

Instinctively, but completely according to my alignment as I found out by reading Nichols’ essays later that week, I headed for the northern transept, which is apparently aligned to the feminine principles. As a man brought up in a western culture that has become dominated by the power of the masculine it is a difficult thing to assimilate the idea that one might be aligned to the feminine – but that was what the dowsing had showed me time and again, and my energy work always profited from me accepting and working with this alignment of energies. I’m not stupid – if it works for you there’s something right about it. Eventually you begin to be able to make positive use out of this understanding and to grow both spiritually and intelligently. I felt comfortable on the left-hand side of the church, at its northern end, and when we moved across to the other side I hurriedly moved away from it and found somewhere else to be standing.

Dragons were everywhere in the carvings that adorned the cathedral. Everywhere I turned I saw dragon scales, head and tails wrapped around the eaves, the statues and the columns. Occasionally we would come across a prostrate bishop bound in stone with a dragon curled up at his feet. Had these men tamed the kundalini fire serpent and achieved ‘sainthood’ that way, I wondered. Or was this a symbol of how these men had been successful at repressing the previous culture’s knowledge of these spiritual techniques – the gradual deconstruction of the pagan beliefs and their christianisation?

Another esoteric element that caught my eye was the use of the measurements of sacred geometry of the proscenium arches, the layout of the church itself, its size, the placement of pillars – all was done using divine proportions. Later in the week I picked up another book on the geometry of the golden section, and I will post more about this as I re-learn some fundamental mathematics. It all made for beautiful architecture. These same proportions are found in megalithic structures too, according to Professor Alexander Thom‘s measurements.

Winchester Cathedral's Western entrance

As we left the cathedral and walked through the parkland adjoining it we stopped at the sight of a strangely-formed tree. It looked like the legs of someone who’s head was stuck in the ground. I wondered if this was a metaphor for what I was becoming: someone whose head was constantly stuck into the earth and its energies! As we rounded the corner from the cathedral I caught sight of The Eclipse Inn, with its sign depicting a moon eclipsing the sun. The signs were that this was going to be an interesting ten days of dowsing in Brittany, and so it turned out to be.

Gwas

Following the Brittany ferry to France.