The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘meditation’

A few nights ago I got a ‘pull’ to go to Helsby Hill the day before bonfire night. It was late in the evening. Dark, yet with a strange light that allowed everything to be seen easily.

I parked in my usual place and walked up quietly. Something told me to stop part way up just at a bend in the tree line. I thought it was to light some incense, but that didn’t really make sense – that was my rational brain trying to think about why I might have stopped. Second after I pulled some incense sticks out, I saw a torch light coming down the path from above. I walked quickly back down the path being familiar with it I could go quite fast. I moved out of the sight of passers by and waited until they had gone past. I have nothing against people, but I like my own space and peace when I’m wanting to meditate.

When I went to see my favourite oak, the one that has been half cut away by maniac “land management engineers” – or fucking idiots, as I call them, I noticed that the tree had again suffered. One of its smaller inner branches had been snapped (by the wind or by someone swinging on it, I don’t know). I offered some healing and tried to light incense but it was clear that the wind wasn’t going to allow it to stay lit for any useful period of time. I wished I had taken some crystals up too. Must remember that incense and crystals have their usefulness, and that each has their purpose in different conditions.

I wanted to learn how merging with the spirit of Merlin had made any change to me, so I asked the rods to take me to a suitable place to meditate. They took me round behind the line of trees and into a place I had never visited before on the hill, but it was perfect – an oak tree with wonderful spiralling branches and a fantastic sitting place. I spent ten minutes getting to know the oak, and letting it get to know me. I had to get my mind perfectly still and quiet for this to happen, and finally I got my call to come and meditate, having presented my credentials and allowed the tree to verify me.

When I meditated I learned that Merlin’s spirit was simply an archetype within my mind, not the actual spirit of Merlin, whomsoever he may have been. I had been exploring my own mind at Samhain, and recent meditations had been reminding me of that all the time – not to get too carried away with these mythical figures because they were only archetypes that I was working with to unleash powers and thought patterns within my own mind space.

Imagine this but moonlit instead of sunlit

I asked about how the change had affected me I got my answer – hadn’t I noticed how much quicker it was for me to work magic now? Hadn’t I felt that everything of that ilk had become much more innate now? That was the benefit gained by the Underworld journey to recover the spirit of Merlin. My magickal tasks such as energising the land would become much easier to perform.

Something else was revealed to me. When I had completed the linking of various earth energy sites, I should join them up into some form of shape. The shape would reveal a very special sigil that I could use in the future. That was the promise, the enticement, to continue with that particular work, and I was glad that there was at least some end point to it.

As I emerged out of the tree’s canopy I slipped quietly along the tree line. I was in neutral colours and would have been barely visible despite the mysteriously bright moonlight (unexpected because we were practically at new Moon when there should be almost no moonlight! I noticed some lads messing about with what I presumed to be a box of fireworks on the top of the hill. Using my invisibility skills I slipped away unnoticed in the bright clear night, yet I could make them out clearly. Yet again I was thankful for my new-found skills, and so amazed at how easily they could be evoked since my experience with Merlin.

Gwas.

In my previous post “A mid summer nights dream” I was given 5 unshakable tasks. As I mentioned there I was told not to reveal the nature of the tasks until I had completed each of them.

Last night I completed one of the five tasks. by going into the forest alone and spending a wakeful night listening to forest, branch, creatures and earth.

It was about 8pm in the evening and I had figured that tonight would be the night to do this. I had my instructions…go as you would normally go, which meant to me that I shouldn’t take any extra gear.

I dowsed to see whether Alderley Edge forest or Delemere forest was suitable. They both were and so I picked Alderley Edge as it is one that I feel warm to.

I arrived at the “wizards” forest around 9pm and took:

• my dowsing rods
• some candles
• crystals
• lighter (and matches)
• incense

Noticeably I didn’t take my mobile phone!

Dark and Silent

I guess that the sun was on the horizon if not below it when I ventured into the forest. The Edge being quite high relatively speaking there was still light penetrating enough to give it a magical feel and though it has been raining a lot over the last few days it was reasonably dry in the forest.

Honestly I wasn’t too happy going in but the promise (of the next level of the spiral) kept me from turning around and heading back out.

It was quite funny as I walked into the depths of the forest. I wasn’t scared of getting lost in the dark since my intention was to stay until the morning. That made me laugh as I walked deeper into the darkening gloom.

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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.

The legendary and dead Gog Oak tree

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 DragonDragons are spirit or energetic beings that reside in sacred sites and have a particular location in them and also move throughout the day (and or season). They also leave the sacred site on occasion, which again differentiates them from Genius Loci which don’t. Line, the strongest ley lineThe term used by many British dowsers to describe an energy leyA straight line of neutral energy linking two or more sacred sites or other energetic centres. This is often confused with Alfred Watkins’ concept of the Ley Line. Strictly speaking a ley line does not necessarily mean a neutral energy line, only a sight 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. between notable places, whereas an energy ley is like a radial spoke in a wheel, with energy flowing outwards across the land in a straight line. It has sometimes been found that the energy ley can be diverted from its strict straight path by changes in the landscape or strong attractors that pull it away from its original course. Energy leys may have inter-twining streams of male and female energies weaving along them, as though the energy ley is an attractor, a pathway or a conduit for the male and female energies.. It is easily confused with ley and therefore its use is not recommended by dowsers. 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.

Cultural images abound - e.g. Smaug

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.

View of Wearyall 'Dragon' Hill through the tower

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.

The Carlanstown Spring

Cleaning up Carlanstown Spring

Gwas.

Saturday 29th May - Four Knocks, County Meath

On the morning of Saturday 29th May I roped Kal into one of my crazy ideas. We would spend the next two days on a modern pilgrimage, just like we had done at Glastonbury the year before. We would find a starting point and then let the dowsing rods direct us from site to site. For me, I would set my intention for this pilgrimage to be to work on each of the seven chakras and to see what came out of trying to do that. For Kal, he would just do what he does – see what happened at each place and go with it. So, with the help of the iMegalith iPhone application and my SatNav system we trekked off to the starting point, which I had determined would be a henge and mound close to Four Knocks.

We didn’t get very far trying to find the henge and mound. The mound was visible in a farmer’s field, but the supposed henge had been… well, let’s assume it was removed and ploughed out of existence! Not a good start. Was there anywhere else we could pick up the quest? Our dowsing showed that nearby Four Knocks would be suitable. As soon as we got the rods crossing we kind of knew that this had actually been the right place all along, but something had been preventing us from dowsing that from afar. We sort of had to be in the area to zoom in on it. Perhaps we had prevented ourselves from ‘finding’ Four Knocks prior to actually being there because we knew you had to obtain a key in order to get in? Who knows. We obtained the said key (by the way – the directions are not very clear – but we found the house eventually and got the key by leaving a small deposit with a nice lady) and went to discover this famous mound’s secrets and begin a quest.

Entrance to Four Knocks

We opened the iron door up (iron – aaargh!!) and began to settle in. I needed some stuff from the car that I had forgotten, and by the time I got back to the mound it was swarming with a minibus-load of tourists from various parts of the world – America, Japan, Australia….all over. Their guide had clearly gone off to get the key without realising that we already had it. Ten minutes later he was in the mound beginning his guided tour of the place, which I earwigged into, of course. Hey – it was free for me to listen!! And jolly interesting it was too, although I could see Kal twitch every now and again, and I was biting my tongue at some of the speculative leaps the guide was making to fill the gaps in the archaeology with fantasy and pure imagination. He was very careful to preface everything with “My guess would be...”, or “Perhaps they might have…”, and even in the dim light I occasionally caught Kal swinging his dowsing rods behind the guide, shaking his head as though to say, “Nope!” It’s funny how dowsing can sometimes make you feel quite confident about being able to find out hidden knowledge, and yet later in the day that confidence would be completely reversed, but we’ll come to that in a later tale.

I don’t know if this is the traditional position but at Four Knocks we have the female on top and the male underneath. Yes, on top of the rounded mound there was female energy all over it. All around the outside of the mound was a male energy lineThe direction energy takes when moving. It may be straight or curved, in several dimensions and be composed of one or more different types of energies, i.e. negative, positive or neutral. Energy lines can be found at standing stones and ancient sites but are a general feature in all energy fields., waving and running around in a sunwise direction. Kal was spending quite a time outside, pacing around and around, working something out, but I decided to get myself inside to take some pictures of the rock carvings and to try to work out what I might have to do to work on my Root Chakra – the first part of my modern pilgrimage. That was the intention, but instead Four Knocks had its own agenda for working my chakras!! I will explain in a moment.

Inside there was more than the usual amount of decoration. Many of the swirling circular shapes were familiar to us, but there was an abundance of zig-zag lines and lozenge shapes carved into the lintels of the recesses in the mound that seemed to be quite unique to this particular chamber, or at least rarely seen in such quantity elsewhere.

Zig-zag lintel decoration at Four Knocks

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Throughout this year there has been a single overriding concern that has permeated everything that I do regarding dowsing or druidry: there must be a purpose to it. By that I don’t mean that I haven’t had fun, or avoided doing frivolous things. Not at all. However, each visit that I have embarked upon has been characterised by my having a purpose to go there with. This was the message that I got out of the consolidation period at the end of 2009, that period between Samhain and Yule when one should bring all things learned in the year together, sort through them, and resolve them into a unified approach for the next year’s work. Like some kind of meta-idea, the concept emerged that for 2010 my task would be to determine the purpose of each eighth part of the year – to understand the eight-fold year.

There seems to be a common acceptance of what is considered to be the revived concept of the eight-fold year amongst Neo-Pagan and Wiccan circles. This has all the dates that are close to what may be the ‘original’ divisions of the year. Truth is, no-one really knows how the divisions of the year were named, or upon which dates these divisions actually fell. What has been reconstructed has come to us through a combination of modern research into old customs, or through the collective acceptance of dates that feel familiar and proper. It has largely been a process of re-appropriation of existing festivals such as Christmas, Easter and Hallowe’en, wresting them from the clutches of the Christian sovereignty.

Whilst there is a certain concensus as to what those specific division dates mean, what is not clear is what the time in between those divisions means. I have been following the year’s divisions closely since Winter and have communed and divined for myself what those in-between days (cf. The Cure) mean to me.

There is a certain difficulty with being precise about these division dates too. Nature does not appear as being very precise to us humans because we cannot comrpehend all of the factors involved in what makes The Great Clock tick! The combination of influences from stars, planets, conjunctions, and who knows how many other influences is simply beyond our comprehension. Therefore, we can only “best guess” when these times arise besed on previous experience, and then we need to be flexible about it all, because we probably won’t guess entirely correctly. Does precision matter in working out these division times? I don’t think so, becuase most of the divisions are largely dependent upon the Moon, and the Moon’s influence occurs over several days, and this gives us a certain amount of lee-way.

One final caveat: the information I have discovered is, I believe, probably quite personal to me. I am not, therefore, espousing a new system to explain the Eight-Fold Year as a replacement for other systems that are out there or that you may be using already. Nor am I trying to back up my claims with astological, scientific or any other form of knowledge system. These explanations may be entirely my own – I don’t know until I have had perhaps several years worth of data to analyse. This is my first year of gaining this knowledge, so please bear that in mind when you read this. It is for your edification and information only, and it is merely presented so that it may suggest things for you to try out for yourself.

So, that said, here goes. So far I have discovered the following stages:-

YULE to IMBOLC

The division line may actually be Twelfth Night rather than Christmas Day. I will have to check that when it comes around again this year to get the precise cut-over, not that any of these divisions are precise, because they’re not. However, I think it’s worthwhile me finding out whether it’s Christmas or Twelfth Night.

PURPOSE:

1. To be still and quiet.
2. To engage in no activity of a magickal nature at all.
3. To cleanse the mind of the information from the previous year.

Anything that has not sunk in already after the period immediately prior to this one (which I think is about consolidating information) should not be brought forward into the new year. The purpose of this period is to cleanse oneself of all that “baggage” and to leave the mind in a state whereby new knowledge, new seeds, can be planted upon a well-prepared but settled soil. As with meditation, achieving stillness is the key to appreciating this time of the year. The “season of peace” indeed!

IMBOLC to SPRING EQUINOX

PURPOSE:

1. To awaken the energies of ancient sacred sites.
2. To awaken, pay homage to, or recall the guardian spirits of such places.
3. To prepare the ground for the year’s energy work, by preparing self and place.

This is an interactive stage of the year, and is the first involvement by the participant (the seeker) with the land and its spirits and energies. I found that I was asked to visit many of the places that I had found the be especially find of (read – ‘connected to’, or ‘aligned to’) and that when I was there I would go through a process of firstly finding out what state the place was in, then I would connect to the site, and finally, if necessary, I would invoke the spirit of the place – that guardian spirit – to ask that it return if I found it to be absent. Of course, I could only make a request of the spirit to return, and only if I had prepared the ground appropriately, so to speak.

All of this work, of visiting sites, connecting to them and contacting or invoking the spirit of place, it was all a form of preparation for the work that was to come. A sort of re-introduction, a gentle re-awakening to energies and spirits.

SPRING EQUINOX to BELTANE

PURPOSE:

1. To connect to the earth’s energy grid.
2. To understand the nature of Neutral earth energy forms.
3. To extract and utilise Neutral energy.

I think there is a general principle at work during this period, and that is for the seeker to learn to connect into the land. As the earth energies begin to be enlivened by the radiant energy of the sun, and together with the moon this draws life from the land. That signals the time for the seeker to spend time connecting with this upsurge of energy. In some mystical systems the human is the mid-point between the Sky and the Earth, and I think this is a symbolic memory of our ability to actually be the conduit and focal point for the two forms of energy – earth and radiant. We are the combiners.

As for myself this year, I have found that there was an additional task which was to learn in a theoretical and a practical way how I could extract the neutral energy form and store it within me. I learned how to re-charge myself with this energy using my navel chakra point as a storehouse for the neutral energy form – in exactly the same way as in chinese qigong meditation.

In addition to simply drawing out and collecting this energy I learned how to use neutral energy to ‘coat’ objects in order to preserve their energetic imprint. This was a means of creating so-called “power objects” I realised. In other words, it was a way of retaining those special qualities that people had invested into an object – whether that be a memory, a feeling, or some other form of energetic input. I learned how that energy could be retained within the object by using raw neutral energy to preserve it like a coat of varnish.

BELTANE to SUMMER SOLSTICE

PURPOSE:

1. To understand the nature of the neutral or white light energy form and how it is composed
2. To practise diffracting and re-combining the seven coloured frequencies of light
3. To make practical use of these energies to elevate consciousness

I believe this part of the year’s cycle concerns the effort to raise one’s level of consciousness to an opportunity point in the middle of the year when the energies are at their strongest, and one stands the greatest chance of elevating into an enlightened state, or achieving a blissful and revelatory state of mind.

So far I have found that for me this will involve me learning about how to bring together the two inner energy centres – the neutral energy store of the lower dan-tian or navel chakra point, and to combine that with the influx of light energy through the third-eye chakra point in order to diffract the energy into any of the seven frequencies of subtle energyA form of energy that has so far eluded scientific definition. It is neither electric, magenetic, nor electro-magnetic, so far as our current technical equipment can measure. It does, however, exhibit many of the characteristics of magnetism and electricity in terms of its effects and properties. It may be a form of either or both of those energies that we have not yet identified. that I require to be able to perform whatever task I need (for example, to heal an imbalance, or to utilise a particular frequency for a specific task). At this moment I don’t know what tasks those frequencies can perform, but that is learning that I still have to go through.

I suspect that there may be some esoteric benefit to being able to draw in each of the frequencies of this spectrum of light individually and to recombine them somehow to form a white light frequency, and that this may be the “light at the end of the tunnel” or the blinding inspiration that is described as accompanying an enlightenment process. My quest, however, is to understand the purpose of being able to do that, not just the mechanics of making it possible!

So, not much to do then in the next few months!

Summary

That is my current understanding and recap of the year’s inspirations and the paths along which I have travelled during this year. I feel that much of that information is general enough for most people to get some correspondence with, or for it to resonate with most people. Much of it is also personal and relates to my own quest for knowledge, understanding and wisdom in working with the energies of Nature. You decide where that take you. I will, as ever, go my own way.

Gwas.

Related post: My Eight Fold Year – the final four folds

I awoke to a wonderful sunny day today and since such solar energy is not to be wasted I decided to hit the road and see where it took me…

Roads go ever ever on,

Over rock and under tree,

By caves where never sun has shone,

By streams that never find the sea;

Over snow by winter sown,

And through the merry flowers of June,

Over grass and over stone,

And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on

Under cloud and under star,

Yet feet that wandering have gone

Turn at last to home afar.

Eyes that fire and sword have seen

And horror in the halls of stone

Look at last on meadows green

And trees and hills they long have known.

(Source J.R.R Tolkien ~ The Hobbit)

Before I knew it, I was heading towards the hills and dales of North Wales. As I drove along, several destinations came to mind.

• The 4000 year old Yew tree?
• Pistyll Rhaeadr ~ waterfall
• Llandrillo Stone Circle
• Penmaenmawr ~ Druids Circle

Decisions, decisions. I thought to stop the car and grab my dowsing rods and let them decide. However as I turned the car off the road I realised that I had arrived at the place where I had done a “sea meditation” many months ago – with little success I might add.

Since I didn’t blog that event – let me take a moment to embarrass myself…

It was a nice sunny day some months ago, when I felt the desire to connect with the ocean – or with some feminine energy that water provides. Thus it was that I found myself sat between two large boulders on the Welsh coast looking out at some rolling waves.

I sat and reflected on the ocean, waves, water and gods. After some time of quietude and reflection I found my thoughts wandering to the great Poseidon. With my recent success with Tree, I wondered whether I could beg an audience with the Oceanic God.

Thus you would have found my small voice calling out to the great wide expanse and listening for some sense of acknowledgement. Alas it was not happening! At some level I knew that my call had gone out, but the over-riding impression I got in return was…nothing. I would have been happy with a acknowledgement of my existence, even a sniff of disdain from His Majesty, but no. It was as if I didn’t exist. It was a blow to my vaulted ego. Never mind though eh? My ego can take it

Never a one to give in after a first attempt, here I was ready to knowck on them there vaulted doors. So it is that I found myself sitting upon – quite probably the same rock – and watching the waves on a sunny but windy day.

Was I going to be fool enough to commune with Poseidon? Nah, I am good at learning lessons. This time I sat there and put out a call for something more communable. My intent was simple…If there is anything out there that is “of-the-water” and would like to chat and exchange energies, then I was available for the duration.

For many moments I sat and patiently waited, not knowing in what form (if any) a message would appear. Would it be a feeling, a visualisation or what?

After a while my gaze wandered from the sea and to the rocks, pebbles and shells that surrounded me. A large shell caught my eye because of its peculiar shape and that it had water in it. I turned my attention to it wondering if it was something to collect…

As those avid readers of this blog will know – Gwas and I have discovered the ‘meaning of life’ – or at least one of the meanings of life, and that is to move rocks from one place to another. In more extreme cases this has been elevated to include feathers, seeds, crystals and conkers. Perhaps it was time to include shells?

As I looked down on this little container I imagined its edge being the shape of a face. Like cloud viewing the shape morphed in my imagination and with a bit of start I realised it had the shape of one of the statues of Easter Island fame.

Easter Island Statue

It was quite uncanny how I managed to see the profile of the above image in the simple cracks of a shell. As I observed this morphing I recalled something that had come to me the other day when I was wondering about Wand creation.

One of the requirements for my wand would be to acquire water from the middle of the pacific ocean. Yeah right! Further deliberation on this revealed more detail, in that the water was to be collected from the beach, off the coast of Easter Island. Now, as I sat upon a rather hard rock, letting myself drift into a hypnagogic state I felt a connection come into existence. It wasn’t with Poseidon – that would have been improbable (o.k. impossible!) but rather it was with a water spirit. Indeed it wasn’t the little bit of water that was in the shell I was focusing on. More accurately it was “using” that water as a conduit to commune with me.

Yes, I took all this with a huge dollup of salt, but suspended judgement whilst the “instruction” took place.  It is interesting to note that the “voice” of the spirit was actually more like air than water. How can I know? Good question.

Anyway the instruction took on an interesting aspect as it went into the particulars about why and how I could infuse the energy of the oceans into my wand. For more details on that you will have to nip to the wandmaker site.

How did this commune work? Quite simply it was like a chain of questions, I would ask a question, receive an answer, which would lead to another question. Yes, I could have just been talking to myself. But as Gwas and I have pointed out on so many occasions. How come the answers aren’t anything like what we would have come up with on our own?

In essence it boils down to this…what ever the source, the path becomes more interesting every day and for that, my dear reader, for that, what price would you pay?

This “QnA” continued for a while and then it bumped into a wall. How do I get to Easter Island? An interesting pause occured, which kind of seemed like a small crack opening in front of me and then growing wider and wider. I looked down into the chasm and it was quite deep, bottomless is probably a more accurate description. I paused until the “vision” faded and asked the same question again, with the same response.

But I don’t know what that means! Darn these communes, they don’t half leave you puzzled!

It looked like this was going to be the end of this commune and indeed this unanswered question marked an end. I bobbed down to pick up the shell I had been gazing at and a handful of seagulls caught my attention…Ah a sign? I grabbed my rods and asked, “Should I take the shell?” No, was the sharp response. At last a sign that I understood. Progress!!

I felt the need to create an appreciative gesture and though I am certain that a simple thank you would have sufficed I decided to go for lighting some incense sticks.

It’s not so much what you do, it’s the intent with which you do it.

Oh, and on a complete aside – for those of us that have intent issues such as…”the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Let me ask you this simple follow-up question to that, “What is the road to heaven paved with?”

Waves

It seems that life is getting to be more interesting by the day.

Kal