Posts Tagged ‘ley line’
A Yorkshire Imbolc – Part 2: Druid’s Altar twice and Barden Tower
This is the second part of our Yorkshire outing at Imbolc. In this half of the day we had our serious heads on. We went looking for a mighty stone circle, then passed a curious tower that we had to investigate, went to dowse at Bolton Abbey priory as the light began to fade, and then made a rapid return to the stone circle to clean up. All will be explained.
4. Druid’s Altar stone circle at Bordley on the B6285 north of Skipton. [Megalithic portal link - Bing OS map]
Beyond Malham Cove we realised we have gone the wrong way. We shouldn’t have been going through Malham, beautiful as it was. We stopped and re-calibrated our route. Another half hour to the stone circle – really? It had seemed so close on the map. We checked our route once more as the road turned into a single car-width track but we were on the right road. Upwards we climbed, glad of the four-wheel drive and new tyres, but my poor suspension paid a heavy price for our wilderness visit.
We parked and made out way to where a cairn was marked on the map. There was no stone circle in this area and this cairn was all we had to go on. Nobody that we passed knew where this ‘Druid’s Altar’ stone circle was. how could they miss it – it seemed huge and distinctive? The warning signs began to tingle like an over-active spider-sense. After fifteen minutes walking along a path to nowhere we decided to climb up to the nearest peak to see what we could see. It was hard going in the icy grass. At the top we saw…nothing. On the way back to the car I had a brainwave – what if I could find the OS Map co-ordinates and use my GPS2OS application to locate the site? It worked. Frustrating moments later we had our directions – must remember that trick! We were only a mile out in both longitude and latitude! Bacon saved.
To be honest we still struggled to find the Druid’s Altar stone circle even when we had the exact co-ordinates! The images on web sites had not quite shown the diminutive scale of the stones. I thought they were six feet tall – they were three feet tall. We found our respective power centres and had lunch. My power centre was fortunately on the lee-ward side of the tallest stone, so I was sheltered. The power centre felt good, and it was comfortable too, which was surprising.
I was soon up dowsing again – the end of January is still bitingly cold when you’re still, so I was soon dowsing all over, asking questions about the circle, where the energies were, where they flowed to. One of the checks I have started to do is to ask whether there is anything that needs modifying. I put it that generally because it is a kind of “balanced” question – neither supposing that positive nor negative energies need be applied, only asking whether the circle is properly energised as it was originally intended to be. The answer was, “Something needs to be done”. Taking a lead from Kal, I asked to be led to the place that had the problem. Moments later I had wound my way to the only other large standing stone in the circle – the one that had a great big horizontal crack in it.
A Yorkshire Imbolc – Part 1: Shipley, St Helen’s Well and Malham Cove
Imbolc – 29th January, 2011 – Yorkshire
It had been a long time coming. Kal and I had intended to go to Lindisfarne in Northumberland for Imbolc, and in fact I had stated as much in the previous podcast for January, but when I worked out how much of the short day I would be spending in the car…well, we turned our attentions to one of our other focal areas for this year – Yorkshire. Now, I’m a Yorkshire lad, born in the county but having moved after only a few years there. I don’t remember anything about it, so whilst it felt like a homecoming of sorts, it didn’t feel like my spiritual home, which is Wales.
The had an itinerary of sites to visit which Kal had dowsed, and then I had added to and plotted the most efficient journey between them. Seemed like a perfect combination, although asking Kal to navigate is like asking Norman Wisdom to be your wedding planner – comic moments were bound to arise!
The day’s sites
1. Shipley to test the Northern ley line from Arbor Low. [Shipley on a map / Link to Arbow Low Energy Ley map]
Shipley is not the most picturesque town in northern England. I’m sure it has some redeeming features but we felt, as we stepped out of the car, that we ought to get our dowsing done as quietly as possible and as soon as possible. Kal deferred to me to do that job – thanks Kal! Using a single dowsing rod I asked whether there was a ley line passing through Shipley – there was. I asked to be shown to where it was, and to get directions at each junction. As we walked towards the junction of each road I got the dowsing rod out and it quickly swung to show me which way I should walk. Left, then right, the slightly left, then left again, right…now we were walking down a back street with very few people around. Better for dowsing than the main market square which was thronging with Saturday shoppers. Just as we were wondering what on earth there could be to see down this back alley we arrived at the Hockney pub and the rod took me right up to the door and spun around – a sign that we were at a conclusion point.
I got out my iPhone compass application and set it to magnetic North in the settings. I ahd to wait a while because the compass had interference again. Every time I come to use a compass in an energy ley – there’s interference. Eventually it settled down and caught up with itself. I aimed in the direction of the ley line – North. Due North. The line ran North-South. Exactly as expected, even though we had no idea which direction we were facing when we got the rods to align to the energy ley. Proof enough for me. Here was the final test – I asked the dowsing rods whether this line was the same line that existed at Arbor Low – YES. Strongly affirmed.
The orientation of the energy ley was a 45 degree angle through the front entrance porch of the pub. Oddly, I took several photographs of the pub and the entrance but they have all disappeared from my camera. Hmm…more interference. In the photograph below the ley line follows the angle of the telephone wire that you can see.
We followed the line back towards the centre of Shipley town now that we had an orientation to follow. As we approached the market area we came across a couple of surprises. We saw how the line went through a statue of a ram sitting upright. In heraldic terms this silver ram denotes peace and authority. This statue was dedicated to the memory of Princess Diana, which seemed odd for it to be on an energy ley. This is reminiscent of things that David Icke talks about in terms of the memorial that was placed on top of the Pont D’Alma bridge under which the ill-fated Mercedes car crashed on the night she died. There is a theory that energy leys form a network of channels along which both good and ill energy can be spread. Hamish Miller, the legendary dowser, had a keen interest in this aspect and would work with a group of like-minded friends to attempt to restore these lines to have beneficial properties.I say “restore” because I believe that at one time this is how they were charged – with positive energies.
From that point the energy ley then goes through a simplified mediaeval labyrinth design inlaid into the floor of Shipley town centre. Notice the intertwining red and black serpent shapes. I find it interesting that this coincidental pattern is at the exact spot where the energy ley is. Perhaps the spot was chosen because it “felt right” or it was the symbolic centre of the town. Either way – it is a rapid way to identify the ley’s crossing point now. We should have walked the labyrinth, but it didn’t occur to us at the time – we were more interested in sandwiches, if I recall! A wonderful opportunity presented but missed, I feel.
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.
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.
Caerleon: lost with a compass
Sunday 23rd June, 2010 – Caerleon, Newport, South Wales.
On our way back from Glastonbury, having stopped off at the pretty village of Priddy (actually, it was more like a bare triangle of grass, but..) we headed for Caerleon. The damned cheap SatNav I was using on my phone got us totally lost and we ended up having to double back some 20 miles to get here. Add to that the rather confusing one-way system in Caerleon itself, and the roasting hot day, you’ve got a sense of how glad I was to get out of the car and get my feet on the ground to try to find the South-Western ley line that I believed came from Arbor Low down through Caerleon.
Ley Lines in Caerleon
Just to remind you, I was at Arbor Low one day taking compass bearings of the various radial lines that Kal had found in the centre of the site. My compass probably wasn’t very accurate, and neither were my readings (all done with line of sight). However, at least one of the end points has recently been verified by one of this blog’s readers (thanks, Serpenteer – see our comment stream at the bottom of this post) who actually visited Lindisfarne Priory and found our northerrly line. In the same spirit I wanted to see whether my South-Westerly line could also be verified.
The search began at the car park on Cold Bath Lane, a lane so-called presumably because the Roman baths are very close by. As is the Roman fortress that was supposedly the site of King Arthur’s court, as mentioned by Geoffrey of Monmouth.
We found the line some two hundred yards further on from the edge of the remains of the roman fortress. It emerged into a playing field used by the local rugby club, and they were in the middle of a training match when we arrived with our rods. So, not conspicuous at all then! We took some surreptitious readings with the dowsing rods and I got out my iPhone to try to get a compass brearing. Strange things began to occur. While in the ley line taking a compass reading we couldn’t work out why it appeared to be 20-30 degrees out from what we expected. We took other dowsing readings but none of them explained why the reading was out. Then my iPhone switched itself off – the screen went blank and no buttons worked, despite having a full battery. I resorted to the rods, and they showed SSW as being where we expected it to be, not where the iPhone had indicated. When I walked out of the ley line the phone started working again.
I have often found that Roman structures rarely lie upon ley lines. They are usually off to one side, safely off the line itself. So-called Roman roads, actually built upon the old corpse roads of much more ancient times, are often built upon ley lines however. It seems that the properties of a ley line is compatible with movement, but not with residence. It wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case here too.
Another possibility is one which I first speculated about when I discovered a ley that ran from the Isles of Scilly to Italy. At the end of that line the ley seemed to curl into a spiral (or at leats – that’s the form which best linked the place names I was tracing). I wonder whether the fortress at Caerleon also forms a spiral terminus point. It’s something I will have to go an test. It’s only an idea at the moment.
When I got back home and adjusted the line to align my “on the ground” results with my Google Map of this line several more places whose names ended in “ley” began to surface. I now need to go along the line verifying the locations of the points I suspect have ley lines, and then verifying the exact angle of the ley line, possibly using other navigational aids other than the iPhone! I also still do not know where the line ends, and whether it continues outside of Caerleon.
More soon when I have some better correlating evidence.
Gwas.
Glastonbury Solstice – Part 3: The Dragon Vision
This is the third part of the story of my recent pil;grimage to Glastonbury. “Pilgrimage” – that’s what I’m calling these visits because that’s how I feel about them – they are modern-day pilgrimages to a “site of special spiritual interest”, to adopt and mutate the SSSI designation. Glastonbury itself recognises this and has a Pilgrimage Centre where people can go to get information about places to visit and what’s on – sort of like a Tourist Information Centre for Seekers.
So, in the last parts I told you how I sloughed off the energetic attachment of a trickster spirit, got a surprise at a crop circle, then took two trips up the Tor trying to totally tune my tantra. That’s not strictly accurate, but it was the only synonym I could find that was alliterative! I was in the process of working on my heart chakra – the chakra os assimilation, integration, love, emotion and…well, here’s what one site says:
“According to contemporary buddhist teacher Tarthang Tulku, the heart chakra is very important for the feeling of existential fulfillment” (source: Sensagent Dictionary)
‘Existential fulfillment’, huh? Well, I’m pretty fulfilled in that respect, being a trainee druid. So, the day before I had watched the sun set on the horizon from The Tor and this morning I set out with Kal to see where I would end up. There were no plans except a starting point – them’s the rules. Our starting point this day would be the “entrance portals” that are the Gog and Magog trees (now sadly, only one remains).
Guardians of The Entrance: Gog and Magog
No time was wasted this morning – we knew, after last year’s visit, exactly how to get to the trees. It was early (i.e. before tour buses arrived) so all was quiet, even on the campsite next to the ancient oaks. Kal hovered around outside while I clambered into the nettle-strewn glade that forms a triangular cordon around the trees. I was taken aback at how much the first tree (Gog apparently) had paled and depreciated in the last year since she had been burned on the inside by some ardent “worshipper” and his zealous candle. I’m sure there were vestiges of life last year. This year he was totally barren and crumbling fast. It was quite dis-heartening to see.
Luckily, although I felt the waves of trauma and sadness coming from his partner Magog, she was in decent health. In her hollow I placed the two things I possessed that had a healing energy: a special slice of rose-coloured crystal that I had been given as a gift specifically to use for heart chakra work, and my ash staff. How the giver of this crystal had known I was going to do such work is beyond me, but that’s another story. Alongside the crystal I put my staff in the bole too. I placed my hands on the gnarled bark of the tree and, after the waves of anguish had ebbed away I put some loving energy into the tree. She was clearly pining (or is it “oaking”?), and it seemed like the only thing I could do that wasn’t a selfish act. I wasn’t here to take this time – I was here to give.
Three is a magic number
Oh yes it is. Good things come in trees {sic} so having passed between the trees as a starting point to my morning’s processional way I rejoined Kal and we headed up the slope towards the ever-present Tor in the distance. This would be the third time in two days we would climb the Tor, and each time the energies, the feelings and the results were different. Today was no exception.
The climb up the Tor was straightforward, although again, I felt the need to do it in bare feet. Again, we went up the quick way, up the steepest slope at the ‘back’ of the Tor. Once on top Kal went off doing his stuff, dowsing and meditating for his own ends. I dowsed to find the best place for me to work with my heart chakra energies, and to commune with the Spirit of the Tor to know what I should do for the next part of the year’s cycle. This was my intention this morning – no messing about! Straight to the ‘heart’ of the matter!
It was only a matter of a few minutes before things began to happen. I had stilled myself, then sent my attention deep into the Tor and outwards up into the skies above, creating a channel between the two. I felt a deep rumbling from within the depths of the Tor! It was only slight, but it was palpable. Something was stirring! Was it within me, or within the earth? What was it that was awakening? Through my deep connection I felt the urge to stand and move to the doorway of St.Michael’s Tower – the building on the Tor’s summit. I was standing now in the Michael and Mary Line, the Great Dragon Line, the strongest ley line int he country that runs across this land’s southern width from one end to the other. My eyes glazed, and suddenly I saw a vision…
The Dragon Hill Vision
…The archway of the building framed Wearyall Hill in the town below. As my attention was placed upon it I saw that it was the shape of a sleeping dragon. I could make out a head curled in, folded wings on its flanks, and a tail snaking out and around the back of the hill. As I watched, an overlay, a transparent copy of the dragon woke and looked up at me. With a snort it unfolded its wings, stretched and then looked at me again as if waiting for an instruction. I wondered what to do…then I realised. It wanted to fly but had forgotten how, after such a long sleep. I sent back the instruction to it in my mind – “Fly!” I said, “Fly!”. The dragon vision lifted its neck, looked upwards, and then beat its huge wings until it raised itself off the ground.
Once airborne it circled quickly around Wearyall Hill, still visible in front of me, and spiralled upwards and towards me. As the great red dragon flew over my head it disappeared. So authentic was this vision that I knew to be a vision, that for a moment I blinked in case it flew into me….then it was gone. There was no dragon now. Wearyall Hill was just a hill.
I understood, in a way that only true gnosis can reveal, what it was I needed to do for the next eighth part of the year. I needed to “wake the dragon” – whatever that turned out to mean. I had to wake it, then teach it how to fly, because it had been sleeping for so long it had forgotten. Straight away I was getting linkages coming through from my reading and learning: red dragon -> serpent -> male earth energy -> serpent fire -> kundalini -> ‘raising the serpent fire’ -> a hill -> flying -> shamanic flying -> raising consciousness…. the connections kept coming. It would take me a few weeks to contemplate what this might mean exactly for me, but the direction was clear and more powerful than ever before.
I thought that was the most revelatory thing that could have happened to me that day and I was content to know my direction, but the best was yet to come. We descended the hill and headed for the quiet contemplation space that is the Chalice Well Gardens. That was where the pilgrimage was truly fulfilled!
Gwas.
Brittany 4: Le Champ Dolent Stone
Brittany, Thursday 7th May
This is the fourth post in my Brittany dowsing series, and for a brief moment I will be back-tracking. On the same day as we went to Mont St.Michel we had a small diversion to Dol De Bretagne, a town just off the main route along the Cotes D’Armour coast between St.Brieuc and St.Malo. In this town, reputed to be the source of the Stuart royal dynasty, we found the Dol De Bretagne menhir, or the Champ Dolent stone.
The Champ Dolent Stone
It would have been rude to pass up such an obvious invitation to dowse some stones before the main event. The fairly large-scale road map we had showed a menhir located in the town of Dol De Bretagne called ‘Le Champ Dolent’ meaning the Field of Sorrows, supposedly. Well, on arriving at the stone the clouds parted and the sun began to smile down on us. Whilst we were at the roadside site (with picnic tables) that surrounded the stone there was a constant stream of visitors. People are still fascinated by these menhirs and ancient sites. I wonder what it makes them think about? I think about the energies there.
Creation Myths made cartoon
As you approach the well-maintained path to the gigantic menhir there is some information on a sign. The cartoons depicted the various ‘creation myths’ that accounted for its presence of the stone, and a tale warning of disaster if it was allowed to wear down to nothing! We see that God dropped the stone to separate two warring armies, and also that Satan, in a jealous fit, threw the giant stone at an Abbey that had been built nearby, but missed. Always amusing how these stories are quite similar all around the megalithic zones along the west coasts of Europe.
The Dowsing Bit
What a stone, though! As I poised the rods I took a moment to take it all in. I didn’t even see the picnic tables dotted around the small avenue of trees and grass that cushioned the narrow path to the menhir. I was captivated by its size. This stone was at least thirty feet high and six feet thick. It was slightly squared and tapered to a beautifully crafted peak. Again, it seemed to be made of the local pink or light salmon-coloured granite. It had very few marks on it either. A few lines and battles scars, but mainly perfectly smooth and sculpted – ‘dressed’ as they say.
I started dowsing at the small ‘King Stone’ that was close to the site’s entrance. This stone was about a foot and a half wide by two or three feet long and just an inviting height to want to sit on. I asked if it had any energy of its own? NO. Was there any energy around it? YES, a female spiral. I dowsed that it came to a spiral on the stone. If this wasn’t the stone’s own energy then I wondered if this stone was just transforming some energy source? I asked if the energy was coming up from the earth into the stone? NO. From the sun (which was now shining merrily)? NO. Going well! From the moon? YES. Fitted with the female spiral. Was this a transformer stone? YES. Like Nine Ladies and many others. A stone that transforms the moon’s radiant reflected energies in some way.
I looked for a link to the big menhir some fifty feet away. Was there any energetic link between the two, I asked the rods? YES. I followed the female spiral out of the Queen Stone as it wound its way from tree to tree, side to side up the avenue of ten feet tall tree that lines the route between the two stones. It ended up going around and close to the menhir before pulling the rods into the left-hand side. Good. A connection made.
The connection between the two stones prompted me to think about the consequences of that link. Which stone was feeding which with this female energy? I checked the direction of flow. From the large menhir to the small stone. But then where? I dowsed to find where the energy went after it reached the Queen Stone and was taken in a circle, across the road on which we had parked, into the field opposite (luckily they don’t go for hedges much in France) and back to the smaller stone again. It was a twenty feet wide circle of a feminine energy field emitted from the Queen Stone. Interesting. I wondered what effect that had on anything, after all – it’s fine to find these fields but what are their effects? I didn’t yet know, either here or anywhere else yet. I turned my attention back to the menhir again.
After my recent experience with the St Uzec stone I was keen to see what the nemeton of this stone was like. I walked all the way back to the small road we had come in on, close to the outlying Queen Stone. I dowsed up the path to the menhir but only travelled some five feet before the rods gave a barrier sign! That was massive – the biggest nemeton field I have ever dowsed, for definite. HUGE! The picture above shows the extent of it. I dowsed all the way along the nemeton’s edge and found it to be not quite as large on the other side where it went through a ploughed field (only twenty-five feet or so). Nevertheless, it encompassed almost all of the path leading up to itself on the side where people would approach it, I checked for male lines – none. Neutral lines? None. This was an exclusively female + moon energy site.
I now felt like doing a little energy work. I asked to find the best place to stand to be in tune with the stone and to feel re-charged, Well, I was on holiday! The rods led me to the left-hand side of the stone again. I tried not to stand in the small dog turd at that spot. We find this kind of thing often at power centres. Animals like to defalcate there for some reason. Not always but too often to have gone unnoticed as a coincidence. I stood near to the stone at that side, touching its huge side and relaxed. Soon I felt a dual drawing-out motion at my feet and a filling-in from above, like being showered in very smooth and light water.
I picked up the rods again, Please show me the most energetic path to walk, I prompted. The rods moved around the back of the stone to pass over the small un-energetic stone that lay at the base of the menhir (another handy chair for tired tourists) and then down through three female spiral power centres until finally curling back around the Queen Stone, inviting you to sit on it and muse awhile, which I duly did. This site felt great. Not at all like the St Uzec stone. Both M and I felt completely at home here, happy to linger for ages. Many people came by, had their sandwiches gazing at the stone, then left only to be followed by yet another person “just stopping off”. It was nice to see that other people agreed with this feeling. It was nice to be around such a beautiful and energetic monument to an ancient people’s harmony with nature,
I asked M to follow me as I wound my way down this energetic trail of three power spirals, and she felt the stone’s intense buzz as she neared it. She had a low grade headache that morning (probably from squinting in the bright sunlight) but by the time she had walked the trail this had disappeared. Coincidence, I’m sure, but this is not the first time that has happened. Psychological and auto-suggestive it may be, but it works every time.
The powerful and impressive Dol De Bretagne menhir is certainly worth a visit if you’re in that area. But I guarantee you won’t be the only one there!
Gwas.
Following everyone else, it seems!

















