The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘north wales’

Finally I have got around to writing up my Samhain experiences. It’s only the back end of November, and this occurred at the beginning of October! One aspect of this year’s work has been the incredible amount of material we have had to deal with. Only a fraction of it appears on this blog. This year we will end up with 200 draft posts that didn’t get finished. But now – back to the tale at hand.

Yew Know What To Do

We start, as usual, at the Llangernyw Yew tree. 4000 years of dendrochronology pulsing through its dark boughs. On the way to the village of Llangernyw (yew) I was heading towards a rainbow which coincidentally seemed to land on the village as I approached. Coincidence, of course, because this light phenomenon is linked to one’s position relative to the light refraction.

The churchyard was quiet. This gave me the space to follow my intuition. I walked down to the graveyard and sat on the wooden bench where I had once met a shade. There was nothing there now, but I felt I needed to be here first before moving back up to the tree. Perhaps I needed to be grounded before approaching the tree, or energetically harmonised? Soon I was back at the top of the churchyard standing on the edges of the yew tree’s canopy. I asked for entry…waited…and it was granted.

Llangernyw Church with its magnificent yew tree

For some reason I had brought some new crystals with me. I felt I should place them along one of the yew’s branches. In the early morning sunlight they glowed with their respective colours and I left them to do whatever it was they were doing. Sometimes such acts have no intention on my part. This is where trust comes into the equation. I felt around for the best place to sit and found that it was not in my usual place. As I settled in I noticed that I was sitting in the place where I got a particularly sparkly view of the sunlight through the branches. That was lucky, eh? I began to drift off…therefore before I went completely I asked the yew tree to help me discover my quest for the next part of the year… and then my mind went blank as the sunlight danced in my eyes and the spark of wonder that drives my spiritual path began to surface.

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Having joined The National Trust this year I was happy to see that their suggestions for the top five places to see autumn colour included a relatively local place – Bodnant Garden near Conwy in North Wales. I say local – I mean less than an hour’s drive away. 

M and I chose a day to go, and invited friends to accompany us, so of course it began to rain heavily as we set off that morning. Nevertheless, we were determined to go. Now I’m so glad I did. Were we too late in the year, we wondered? Had we missed that autumn colour? Luckily, we hadn’t. The gardens were a resplendent vision of dying colour even in late October.

Here are some of the best photos from that visit:

Gwas.

Oh blimey! We’re so far behind with our posts. Here’s one from the early part of June that I’ve just got around to. It’s the second part of the story of our Wales visit during the Venus Transit early in the month. I think I put “Mid June” at the start of the last post, but actually it was early June. Wishful thinking! I’m determined not to fall further than a month behind with these posts. We’ve got so much to tell you still! Onwards!

In this post I will tell you about some dowsed history of Dinas Emrys, and then another experiment we did with sound and chakra points. The scene starts with curtain up on a wide valley steeped in wisps of flowing mist like the breath 0f a Welsh green dragon filling the world with its presence.

Mist in the Nantgwynant Valley

Breath of the Dragon

As we turned the corner and passed over the crest of the A498 heading towards Beddgelert were were greeted by a sight that literally made us gasp in astonishment and wonder. The sweeping panorama of the lake and valley of Nantgwynant is stunning on any day of the year, but today there were wisps of cloud hanging on to the sides of the mountains that made the whole scene magical. Snowdon had never looked more mysterious, and broad smiles were pasted to our faces for the rest of the journey into the valley below.

Parking in one fo the handy lay-bys at the side of the road we got our wet-weather gear ready, despite the humidity. It was definitely going to rain. It had been raining all morning everywhere around us on the journey in. All surfaces were wet and slippery. I put my sturdy boots on. Kal went in trainers. He surely had to expect wet feet again?

We climbed over the iron gate, got to the path, and climbed up past the static caravans up the less steep side of the hill to the first plateau. Once reached I reminded Kal that this was the place where the mythological red and white dragons had their battle as Merlin and King Vortigern watched. Kal ignored this wonderful piece of information and reminded me that his vertigo had gone. I’m sure he misheard me!

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When Kal suggested a visit to Gop Hill on a fine late Winter evening my first thoughts were “A feminine site on a full moon night? I’m supposed to be working with male energy and Light!”. The scenario seemed contrary to my supposed direction this year, so I had to re-shape the proposal. How could I take advantage of this wonderful opportunity, and still fit in with my directive? I pondered a while and came up with this – what if I tried to speak to the energy form known as Merlin, and to ask him whether he could assist with with spirit release work? I am currently reading Sue Allen’s book “Spirit Rescue” and in the current chapter it has been talking about Merlin being an excellent resource to call upon to help with Spirit Rescue.

As we navigated through the darkness without torches we were ‘lucky’ not to trip or stumble. I guess we have become accustomed to walking in such conditions now. You would have expected that the Full Moon light would have guided us, but the moon was nowhere to be seen. We sort of felt cheated, but then realised that there was currently a great deal of solar activity (an X-Class flare was blasting our ionosphere at the time). The fullness of this solar energy seemed to balance the fullness of the lunar energy, and this night felt like a good night for working. We reached the hill and I stopped to ask for entry. Granted. We walked to the top of the hill.

On the top of the hill we suddenly were made aware of the strength of the wind. Up to that point I can’t say I noticed it, but on top of Gop Hill the air was roaring around us. Kal lay down and mentioned that the wind was much easier to deal with lying down. I lay down too and the wind just…well…stopped! I could hear it roaring above me, but there was nothing touching me at all. I looked left and right – no barriers or crests on either side of me – so how was….? I switched off my rational train of thoughts. The rational part of my brain was now beginning to get in the way.

I sat in the power centre that I had found for myself with the wild wind stilled temporarily as though deflected by a pure glass dome that I couldn’t see. The space I was in was warm and comforting – I was in the bosom of the female spirit of the hill, I felt. Yet, my quest at this time was to meet with a male force, so I turned my attention to that instead. I connected by grounding and centring myself into the hill and around it. The connection came easily with all the energy around that evening. I began to send out the intention that I wished to communicate with the spirit that I recognised as Merlin….

..there was a sharp and noticeable gust of wind that managed to find its way into the stillness centre that I was lying in, and it made itself known to me. Rational Brain began to pipe up, “Just a gust of wind; could have happened at any time; maybe will happen again if you wait; can’t get meaning out of that; it’s just wind….etc.” I fought to turn the dialogue off again. Honestly,the rational brain is like some kind of geyser – when the pressure of silence has held it down for too long it has to blow in a gush and a rush of babbling nonsense disguised as a logical thought process. I went back into meditation again, concentrating but not concentrating on being still and quiet.

I had encountered coincidental gusts of wind before. They were usually a sign (not always, but often). Taking the gust of wind as a sign that Merlin was around, I then asked if he would join with me and my spirit guide to help us at some future point should we need to do some spirit release work, returning energies to a state of equilibrium and harmony. I’ve been listening to some talks by Christian Kyriacou recently and I am coming around to his idea of re-balancing energies in the “energy matrix”, rather than the traditional approach of sending spirits to the light. The series of podcasts published by the British Society of Dowsers is a good starting point for understanding this point of view.

In response to this request for assistance my right ear got a short blast of air. I took this as an answer, but was it a YES or a NO? I asked another question to which I knew the answer was a definite no, and the short blast resounded in my left ear this time. I therefore knew that the first answer was a YES. Always testing.

Pareidolia for Pagans

Soon after I began to emerge from my meditative stare. I half-opened my eyes, looked straight up into the darkening sky and noticed the cloud formation directly above me. There was a definite shape to the one cloud that had any distinctive elements to it. There was a man in a pointed hat sat at a desk reading a book. It was Merlin! Of course we always make the amorphous shapes of clouds into shapes that we recognise. I understand that. I have experimented with such things on many occasions both as a child and as an adult. I know how this works – there’s even a psychological terms for it – pareidolia. More often than not there is no discernible shape to any cloud, and it takes a monumental feat of imagination to form one into anything even remotely similar to a recognisable shape. Yet here – almost upon request – was the shape of a bearded wizard figure reading a book. There it was. Unchanging. unmistakable, unique and probably only for me to see.

Of course, all this is a manufactured coincidence created within my febrile mind due to lying about on a cold hill in early March. Yet I came away from that evening with the feeling that I had gained an ally in my inevitable future work with healing sacred places.

Gwas.

Not another reality TV show, by pointing at the stars I am referring to “standing” stones that are deliberately angled to point to particular stars at certain times of the year. One such stone is the ’Careg Y Big’ stone [megalithic] that is high on the tree-lined southern hills above Llangollen. Getting up there is a test of your car’s engine, that’s for sure! As we parked in a small lay-by close to the top of the hill we could smell the heat from the engine and the brakes as the steep road and sharp corners had taken their toll.  The view, however, was worth all the (car’s) effort!

We had taken the small road from the centre of Llangollen out past the Plas Newydd Museum, and heading towards the village of Pontfadog. As the crest of the hill appeared and the road became a T-junction the stone could be seen in the field to the right-hand side of the hill road, nestled and almost hidden by a line of hardy and gnarled trees about two miles out of Llangollen itself.

Quickly! Careg Y Big is falling over!

Once you hop into the field (by gate or by low dry stone wall) it is a short skip to the stone itself. As you arrive you notice that the line of trees forms a sort of avenue along which some ancient trackway may once have been dug into the landscape. It’s almost a small cursus feature, and if it had been a corpse road or similar then it would have been quite wide, I feel. Enough for a thronging procession to carry several biers side by side!

The stone itself struck me immediately, not only for its unusual angle, but for its composition. I had seen this type of agglomerate before – like round pebbles in cement – at Harold’s Stones in Monmouthshire. How interesting that Harold’s Stones were of a similar composition and similar slant too! Coincidence or design carried across several counties distance?

I next turned my attention to trying to find out which astrological body this stone might have been erected to point to – Sun, Moon? Neither – the dowsing revealed that it was a particular star/constellation of stars. By dowsing the date on which the star that this stone is aligned to would be in alignment with the stone this year we got the date April 9th at 10:00am. I set the Starwalk app to this time and date and then placed it on the stone to show me which stars would be in view along the stone’s axis and angle. The result was: Neptune was passing through the Aquarius constellation.

Careg Y Big stone's astral alignment on April 9th 2012

Astral alignments explained

Now that I had determined the specific astrological connection - Neptune passing through the Aquarius constellation – what is the relevance of such a conjunction to this stone? Why was it set to align to this conjunction? I could find only some general information relating to the thirteen year cycle of Neptune, which is apparently moving into Pisces currently. However, the information may be relevant so let’s look at it. I show my ignorance of astrology here by deferring to other commentators! According to one astrologer:

“Neptune represents the broader economic currents. Therefore Neptune in Aquarius represents times of economic reform or revolution. Since the “spirit of the times”, the “zeitgeist”, is represented by Neptune as well, the economic changes spring out of a new spirit, a new vibration. There was a scientific and artistic revolution during the last Neptune in Aquarius period — and there was a corresponding economic revolution  ….

Based on past periods, Neptune in Aquarius will be a time of religious freedom and reform. Likely, the old faiths, whether faith in science or religious faith, will undergo dramatic change … The underlying spirit of Neptune in Aquarius is a need to break out of the ordinary, to breakthrough to new spiritual states, to change life, to go for something larger than yourself.”

(source: GuidingStar.com)

The economic bit seems rather accurate at the moment! There is also an alignment to the Pegasus constellation. What might this mean?

 ”Pegasus is the hippocampus of your brain. The place of memory.” (source: HiddenMeanings.com)

“Symbol of wisdom and especially of fame from the Middle Ages until the Renaissance…..Personification of the water, solar myth, or shaman mount, Carl Jung and his followers have seen in Pegasus a profound symbolic esoteric in relation to the spiritual energy that allows to access to the realm of the gods on Mount Olympus.” (source: Wikipedia)

“Pegasus is the white horse that caused the fountain of the Muses to activate on Mount Helicon. Consider meditation and the spiral energy called Kundalini or the coiled serpent which rises up from the base of the spine to the Pineal Gland of the brain. ” (source: CrystalLinks.com)

Also rather interesting! Like a reminder or a signpost the standing stone may be there as a reminder that stones are linked to the stars. Maybe the stone itself contains memories that a sympathetic intuitive mind could access? maybe it was planted and aligned as a means of connecting the Earth with the stars? Maybe it is an access point through meditation to connect to the constellation’s energies and move the mind into a higher dimension? Maybe it enervates the chakras when meditated upon in April 2012? Will I get the chance to re-visit the stone at that time? “All this coming up soon in the continuing adventures of…The Hedge Druid“.

I also find the interpretation of Pegasus being associated with fame as notable considering that my over-arching quest for the year is to claim the power of “renown”. I will discuss this term and this quest in more depth in subsequent specific posts.

Standing stone disguised as tree trunk - Careg Y Big, Llangollen

Finding this alignment and its significance to a specific conjunction of stone and star begs the question about why some standing stones point at particular stars? This is an area that I hope to investigate further when the weather warms up a bit. Standing in the raw Winter winds that whipped across the hilltop field that day I was less than inclined to dowse for an hour to try to make inroads into such a complex question. That will have to wait for another day.

Gwas.

In this post I will be explaining how I was shown that the next stage in my quest to regain the energy of my ancestors is in Ireland, and that a new form of energy at the other end of the spectrum from death energy was discovered, which I will call “conception energy”.

After visiting Dinas Bran we made a quick stop off at Vale Crucis Abbey, Llangollen’s imposing ruins that block the very light of the day. With its original furbishing it must have been resplendent. In the weak rays of a Winter morning the sun was trying to refurbish the walls with light and in parts it succeeded at re-introducing warmth. Out of the sunlight the shadows were seasonably chilly.

For me Vale Crucis Abbey was the location where I had been set upon a quest to recover ancestor energies when I encountered the shade of a holy man called St Duignan. St Duignan, I discovered through dowsing and research, had come over to Vale Crucis from Ireland. The Duignans were intimately linked to my ancestors and the region I had always known my family to have originated from. I could find no record of “Saint” Duignan in Ireland, so I presume that his canonisation may have resulted from his services whilst in Wales. I have more detective work to do concerning this.

Ancestor energy is a term I have used to describe the subtle energy imprints left at a particular place of power (a power centre, perhaps) by our ancestors – those family connections from whom we are descended and have a genetic link to.

Vale Crucis Abbey - January 2012

As Kal flitted around finding a meditation spot to work in I began to ask whether there was anything I could do here that would progress my spiritual path. Surely, in a place with such particular links for me, I would find some information source or task that I could learn from. The rods came out and I began to objectively quiz them. They gave a rapid response. NO. No? NO. Nothing to do here! Obviously, the next question is “Why?”, but as we know, “Why”-type questions are notoriously difficult to get answers to through dowsing, which requires something of a binary technique (questions with distinct YES or NO answers give the most trustworthy responses).

I began to narrow the scope down by investigating the circumstances of what I had been asking about. I had wanted to interact with the shade of St Duignan – the answer had been NO. I began to question along this line.

1. Was the shade of St Duignan present here at this site? NO.
2. Did the shade still exist in the form I had encountered it? YES. Then it must simply be elsewhere.
3. Was the shade in this country? NO.
4. Was it in Ireland? YES. Aha! But why….? Always the ‘why’!
5. Had the shade returned to the place from which it originated? YES.
6. Does that mean that it had returned to the place that it was born when physically human? YES.

I knew where this would be. I had done my research and have a trip planned there for late Spring this year. Now that I had located the shade, the remaining spirit energy of someone possibly linked to my own ancestors, I was curious to know why it was important that the shade returned to its place of origin. This seemed like the most important thing I could possibly need to know. An overwhelming feeling of importance flooded through me. I was riveted to the spot. This was something vital for me to know about my quest this year – something that would guide me way. The hunt began with the dowsing rods and I kept my intuitive senses alert for any other feelings or information that might filter into my tiny blank brain.

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At the end of August 2011 I found myself with an evening free and an urge to visit a sacred site where I could learn more about the five healing rays that I have been studying. As a reference for those of you who haven’t been following this particular series from the beginning, here are the related posts:-

• My five healing rays - in which I identified the rays, and their basic principle

In this visit I was hoping to have some information revealed to me that would show me how these healing rays could actually be used, in other words – how does one invoke them, and how are they utilised once invoked? The beautiful circle of Moel Ty Uchaf was to be my teacher this evening.

A stunning rain and sun backdrop above Llandrillo

On my journey up the steep trackway to Moel-Ty-Uchaf stone circle I was welcomed by a rainbow, which was somehow fitting considering I was here to try to get some more answers about the nature of the healing energy rays that I can work with. Apparently I have until Samhain this year to get my theory and practise all sorted out, because then I will face a challenge, a task, a test of skill, perhaps an opportunity to progress. I knew what failure meant – another turn on the Wheel of the Year to go around in a circle rather than a corkscrew movement upwards. I was taking every opportunity I could to do my homework.

As I passed the trees that line the lower part of the route up the hill I asked them about their energies. Are they male if the tree is male, and so on? The answer was that trees have no gender, they are both male, female and neutral, and so they can create living energy lines that are of any of these “flavours” depending on what the tree wishes to harmonise with, draw from, or support. Its own intent creates the required alignment.

With all my physical training I found that I didn’t need to stop once going up the hill. At the top I was breathing deeply, but not out of breath for once, nor tired or leg-weary. My calf muscles were also intact for once. Amazing result! But nowhere near as amazing as the view that I was about to be presented with as the clouds that had dogged my ascent began to part letting through the rays of the setting sun over the Conwy Mountains. In the picture below, look for the unusual photographic artefact of the sun converging to a turquoise point! Or is it something from the ground opening a hole in the clouds?

The sun appears over Llandrillo - view from Moel Ty Uchaf

I ate my Co-Op convenience catered tea at the King Stone and began to introduce myself once more to the Genius Loci, asking for permission to work with her to ask questions about healing. Using my rods I determined that she would co-operate with that, but I felt that I would have to offer her something in return. Intuitively I was given the sense that there was some earth energy healing that I would have to put into practise here. This wasn’t going to just be a one-way theoretical lesson!

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