The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘pentagram’

Introduction

When I ask the powers that be (the ones that reveal knowledge previously lost or hidden from me through the medium of my dowsing rods) I can often begin down a road whose destination is so far over the horizon, and along so many potential paths, that I initially believe I can never reach the end in my lifetime. Then The Other places helpful signposts along the way, and coupled with my intuition and reason I begin to unveil some of the mystery and begin to walk the paths with more confidence. One such path presented to me was the mystery of The Lunar Eleven. In the following series  of posts I will be discussing my current theory that the numbers Five, Seven and Eleven share a mystical resonance, and that this resonance has particular usefulness for those of us who have identified ourselves as having a “lunar 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.”, i.e. those of us who feel related to or spiritually guided by the powers of The Moon.

However, to get to The Eleven I first had to go through two other numbers – The Five and The Seven. Whilst following my spiritual path I came across a directive that asked me to consider the meaning of The Five and The Seven. I took this to mean that the two numbers had some form of relationship and that one I found the nature of this relationship then I would know what to do : something would make itself known to me that involved five and seven. That was true, I did manage to find the relationship, but as with so many of these riddles one question led to another. No sooner had I discovered the meaning of The Five and The Seven than the next riddle was offered to me to solve – what was The Eleven to me?

The first thing you will notice is that I have turned those numbers into proper nouns. They were clearly identified to me as representing all possible forms of their real numerical values, yet the implication in the riddle was that the numbers would mean something in particular for me, and that I had to find out what that was. Here in this series of three posts I will try to explain what each of those numbers meant to me, and to hopefully inform you of some interesting tidbits of knowledge about those numbers along the way. Don’t worry – this is not a mathematical treatise! I began this journey into these numbers knowing only the most basic of mathematical knowledge, and I haven’t needed to move far from there to find my answers, and I don’t believe you will need to either.

In the first of the posts I will deal with The Five.

The Number Five

From the shape of leaves and petals, to the internal form of fruit, to the proportions of the human skeleton, Nature is defined by the form of five. There is a relationship between the form of five and the number twelve because twelve pentagons put together will form a dodecahedron – a twelve-sided shape which is supposed to be the inherent form of the earth’s geometry.

Human Pentagram

If a five-pointed star is drawn by lines then the form contains a pentagon at its core. If the points of that pentagon are joined then another five-pointed star shape is drawn. This regression can go on infinitely, and so five-sided shapes contain the concept of fractal geometry – the repetition of self-similarity within an infinitely regressing design. It is said that the Pentad – the five – underlies the form of the spiral via the Fibonacci sequence. The Fibonacci series is created by zero and one (nothing and everything) adding to itself successively. For example, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, etc… The series is a self-accumulating sequence that grows from within itself and it takes nothing from outside the sequence in order to grow. Growth is the essence to the Pentad’s principle of regeneration – self-replicating growth – which begins from nothing and becomes all.

Interesting, but not where we’re heading right now. Let’s get back to how we use the number five. Mankind has developed systems involving the number five. Specifically I am thinking of the Chinese five elements, but five also relates to the druidic system of elements too: air, fire, water, earth and the fifth element of aether.

The Fifth Element

When we think of The Elements as discussed in traditions such as druidry we think of the four elements that we usually assign to the cardinal points, particularly as described in Wiccan ritual. My five is the druidic elements slightly altered: water, fire, air, earth and wood. The wood comes from my staff, which I take with me to sites and which stands with me in power centres – it has a central role. I have the co-operation of four other ethericSomething tangible to the heightened senses, but invisible and beyond the normal range of everyday human senses. We use the term to describe the subtle energies that surround the human body. We also use the term “etheric” to describe the energy forms of Nature’s sentient spirit energies that can be detected through dowsing, or through deep meditation or states of heightened awareness. spirits – one for air, water, earth and fire.

The fifth element that I associate with wood, wood being the physical representation of that element, is aether. Aether is essentially synonymous with spirit in the sense of “essence”. I differentiate essence from other  manifestations of spirit, such as death energy, energetic shroudAs coined by Kal after reading the definitions of C.W.Leadbeater – the early 20th Century mystic. Leadbeater considered that man, when he died, could become stuck in a “ShadeA shade is the energy body of a human being that has become transfixed at a geographical location. The shade retains many of the qualities of the human that it was attached to (memories, character traits, a level of sentience, movement between places known in life).” – an energetic shell that would retain many of the characteristics of the human in his physical life. It is frequently taken to be what is termed a ‘ghost’ but although it has a certain amount of sentience, it would seem to be limited in terms of its ability to move from the space within which it has anchored itself. It must be stated – it is NOT the person who has died – it is a remainder copy that contains the memories and characteristics of the original energetic fields of the human, but now has no physical organism to work with., apparition, earth light, UFO, poltergeist, or any host of other names for spirit. When I say spirit I mean the essence of an energy form that contains a sentience, and awareness, an intelligence. Jaq D Hawkins defines it as the medium through which sentience is permeated, a kind of spiritual dark matter. I mean it as a discretely identifiable sentience, often which can be identified by a name. Classically these may have been thought of as the pantheon of spirit energies from gods and goddesses reigning over a civilisation, down through to lowly nature spirits watching over the growth of a small cluster of plants.

As an interesting aside I had an encounter with the force of the aether spirit in such a small way the other day, but which made such a direct choice in my life. I was simply looking for the next book to read that would help me on my way down The Path. I closed my eyes in front of four long shelves of books and asked my spirit guide Theodora to guide me hand to the book that was most useful for me next. My fingers came into contact with a book and I lifted it out off the shelf without looking. I opened my eyes, “The Spirits of Aether” by Jaq D.Hawkins. The one in the series that I hadn’t fully finished reading. Clearly, now was the time!

Everybody say "MOOlti-pass"

“The Fifth Element” is also a futuristic sci-fi romp starring Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich, and happens to be one of my favourite films. It’s the only film I’ve watched more than three times, and I never get tired of it. Ideally, I suppose, I should watch it FIVE times.

The Geometry of Five

Five petals like five fingers

The geometry of five became important to me in a series of revelations that formed a connected pattern over the space of a few months in 2009. Firstly I was shown Venus in the night sky, and traced a sigil that I then associated with that planet. [see post]. Then I visited Moel-Ty-Uchaf and discovered that the circle was aligned to Venus, and that it drew its power from that planet’s influence. [see post]. Finally, I read about the orbit of Venus and how it forms a five-pointed star as it moves around in the night sky relative to the Earth. Finally, I dowsed that Moel-Ty-Uchaf stone circle is based upon the sacred geometry of the number five and the pentagon. Together, this information showed me the importance of Venus and the sacred geometry of the number five.

Five is the “number of life”, so-called because it is the form through which Nature expresses the life force. Much growth in Nature is performed through the five shape – the pentagon, the pentagram, and it is the number associated with making the life force transform into magical force – through the pentacle.

When it comes to my own work with Nature, five is number of external power shaping my consciousness, and assisting me in my weaving of the elemental forces into natural magickal form. The five powers that I employ – air, earth, water, fire and aether or spirit are the natural powers of Nature that I align myself with, and ally myself to, and the ones with which I have the most empathy, sympathy and resonance.

The Fifth Chakra

The fifth chakra is the Throat Chakra (not the Solar Plexus, as previously published in error). During my work with chakras I had to do a lot of work using my fifth chakra. Traditionally, this chakra is associated with communication:

“The Throat chakra would seem to rule the faculty of speech, being midway between the heart and the tongue.  It is also associated with clairaudience (hearing spiritual voices), and with hearing sounds, words, and music, and with taste, smell.  Another function associated with this chakra is taking in and assimilating of physical and emotional nourishment.  On the gross level this manifests as sensuous desire and enjoyment for food.  This chakra could be associated with the astrological sign of Taurus, which in current astrology is said to ruled by the planet Venus.

In Tibetan Buddhism, this chakra is associated with the dream state of consciousness.  Both Tibetans and Taoists use this chakra to access the dream state and develop the faculty of lucid dreaming.” (source: Kheper.net)

C.W.Leadbeater talks about the five channels of the chakra energy entering the human body. These five energies then get channeled to the seven chakra points in the body (possibly more in some systems). For me, there seemed to be a transition from learning about five into learning about the relationship between five and seven.

That seems like a natural segway into investigating the number seven in the next post.

Gwas.

Ok, fair dues, It has been so long since we returned from Ireland that I am not going to give a blow by blow account of the trip, frankly I couldn’t recall it all. However I still want to relate some of the more salient and interesting points and so here goes…

Knowth

Setting the scene

On this particular day we had arrived at Knowth and were intending to spend an hour there and then tootle of to Douth, which from all the touristy literature sounded the least exciting of the three main sites in the Boyne valley.

We took the bus from the main entrance to Knowth and the sun was truly favouring us as we wandered around the site exploring the marvelous energies and intuitively divining the use and purpose of the mounds you can see surrounding the main dome. These are described by Gwas in this interesting post.

Just about as the hour was up Gwas and I had separated and I was wandering around the opposite site of the mound to the entrance thinking it was time to go when a pile of bowling ball sized quartz rock crystals caught my eye. As I stared at there white shining surfaces in the sun light I felt an odd sensation.

I can’t recall why I had done it, I certainly had no questions in mind, but suddenly felt the urge to take up a few of the crystals and carry them closer to the mound. Intuitively I pulled out the my rods and asked how I should place them. But as soon as I did I got a call of Gwas to say that the bus was due and that we should go. However I had a real “feeling” about this so I asked him to hold fire because I was on to something.

The rods helped me place the crystals in a pentagram shape and I sat cross legged in the centre facing the sun.

As I mentioned it was quite a warm day and the sun was making my forehead really hot as I sat and tried to meditate. At one point I put my hand on my cheek to see if that was as hot as my forehead. It wasn’t, something else was going on.

A few minutes later I had a vision of white beams of energy coming out of the five crystals placed around me and hitting my forehead. It was as if they were focusing the energy from the sun onto my forehead.

One of the conversations that Gwas and I had been having during our visit to the Boyne was how these massive mounds had been built. We had speculated on mans toil and that it must have taken many years to make.

Now, with these streams of energy “opening” my third-eye chakra I could “see” how they had been made.

In my vision I saw people, sitting around the place where the mound was to be built. Like myself they had crystals placed around them and they too had beams of light being focused on their 3rd eye’s. With this focused power, I saw that they lifted stones with the power of their minds and placed them to create the mound. I also “felt” that it took them around 8 months to build each of the three mounds at Boyne.

As the energy continued to burn into my third eye I could feel that I too could possibly levitate a stone so I looked around the floor for a small pebble to try this on. I found one and focused my mind on trying to life it…nothing! A realise came to me that this wasn’t enough, I lacked the mental discipline those old, what would you call them, priests? had had.

This whole vision lasted only for about 15 minutes before I had to “break it off” I was getting burned out, literally. I moved out of the pentagram and lay in the sun until the heat from my brow had faded and went in search of Gwas to reveal this interesting tale. As I did, I dowsed the veracity of my vision and the rods gave there opinion that it was true.

In my next post I will tell of the profound revelation this “3rd eye opening” had on me at Douth.

Kal Malik

Section 2. Dowsing and Earth Energies

A lot of work was done by Kal in particular this year relating to the modification of energy centres within houses. Some people call this “house dowsing” or “healing sick houses”. It relates to a concept called “geopathic stress”, but we have found that this “stress” has more causes than simply a water course running under the house. There was a fantastic checklist produced by a British Society of Dowsers member in the December issue of the group’s quarterly magazine ‘Dowsing Today’, which lists these causes, and I will post more on that soon, because I think the information bears repeating and distributing.

I was lucky enough to spend a day at Carnac in France this summer. It was a most glorious day and highly productive, but I absolutely must go back to spend longer there. I feel there is more to be learned still from this massive and impressive site. Other interesting sites this year include: Druid’s Circle above Penmaenmawr; also Nine Stones Close and Nine Ladies stone circles in Derbyshire. I will publish a full list of sites as one of the summary posts in this series.

Here are some of things we learned about dowsing and earth energies this year:-

2-1. House dowsing:

• We can dowse houses accurately, either locally or remotely
• We can either send and receive energy to specific points in the house, providing the house has not been “sealed off” and permission is given
• We can modify the energy formations on site
• Crystals can be used to repair this energetic state, and to change unhelpful or misaligned energies into helpful and aligned ones
• Plants can be asked to contribute to this
• The beneficial effects take some time – depending on how far the energy has to convert from harmful to beneficial, this can take from hours to weeks to achieve. Also dependent upon the amount of new positive input into the formation(s).
• The Moon or Sun can also contribute to the energetic change, acting as a catalyst for the change, and also providing either male or female energetic input.

2-2. Flat recumbent stones attract female energy (moon), whilst pointed stones attract male energy (sun). We don’t yet know which elements of a site attract star or planetary energies, but we know they are present at sites, especially stone circles.

2-3. Kal found that certain geologically faulted locations with water running through them can pin energy to a place.

2-4. Ironwork and iconography (in the case of stones in Brittany I found that it was Christian crosses) can restrain the energy of a standing stone, reducing its aura (field of effect).

2-5. Earth energy spirals are created from sacred geometrical principles and number. Even manifestations created by us have the same properties. Of particular significance has been the discovery that stone circles are based upon sacred geometry in their design. For exmaple, Moel-Ty-Uchaf stone circle in North Wales is based upon a pentacle,or five-sided shape. I have found that this is linked to specific “deities”, but more importantly, that these deities are actually one of the planets. The pentacle therefore is associated with Venus, which itself describes a five-sided geometrical figure around the earth in its annual travel.

2-6. Power centres are the central point of two cones of energy- one going up into the air, the other going down into the ground. Also confirmed by Viktor Schauberger’s research.

2-7. Avenues or rows of standing stones have male and female energies intertwining, and travelling the length of the line of a stone rows of standing stones.

2-8. Tumuli can provide a terminus pointfor energy to sink back into the earth. As an example, I found this double mound pictured below was a terminus point for the energy running through the Kermario avenues of standing stones at Carnac in France.

2-9. Cup-marked stones often provide a rising point, a focal point or source of earth energies entering into sacred sites. Some standing stones that are cup-marked are a map of the energy power centres nearby.

2-10. “Hand spread” patterns of energy fields can be dowsed on the side of circles where energy is being dispersed out of the area. They indicate areas of high fertility energy.

2-11. Many neutral 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. leys travel the length and breadth of lands, and have accumulated sacred sites and churches along them. I suggest this is similar to the geometirc patterns that many dowsers and researchers have discovered overlaying the British Isles, and some say, the whole of Earth (cf. John Michell)

2-12. “Martin”, “Margaret” and “Anne” are other synonyms for the male and female energy lines surrounding national leylines, as well as the better-known “Michael” and “Mary” energies. This year I traced what I call The St.Martin Line running from South-West England through France and into Italy.

These findings should be viewed in the context of the complementary section coming soon on our findings at Ancient Sites. I hope next year to concentrate on water dowsing, or rather, dowsing the energetic properties of water, sap and blood. Next in the series – Part 3 – I will be summarising our findings relating to tree energies, elemental spirits and death energy.

Gwas.

When Kal and I first visited the Moel-Ty-Uchaf stone circle at its lofty perch above the village of Llandrillo near to Bala in North Wales, I was particularly taken with it. Despite the immensely steep climb to reach it I have always felt that the view was worth the effort, but there was more to it than that – from the first visit I felt very comfortable in the circle – even attracted to it at the oddest times of the year and the most inappropriate times of the day and night.

Keith Critchlow’s Time Stands Still book says that Moel Ty Uchaf stone circle is geometrically configured based upon a pentacle shape. In other words, when it was designed and laid out the geometry used to create it was based upon five circles, with the stones marking the outer perimeters of those circles.

Critchlow associates the number five, and therefore the dedication of this stone circle, with Venus. Why? As he says on p.205:

“Venus, as seen from Earth, moves around us, looping in close five times in eight years before repeating the cycle…It was on the basis of this pentagonal archetype that we proposed Moel Ty Uchaf  may have been dedicated to the goddess ‘Venus’ or by whatever name the building community called this planetary archetype.”

The geometric pattern descrbed by this motion is pentagonal in nature.

Of course I was not prepared to simply accept this theory – as a dowser I intended to do some additional work to verify this correspondence between sacred geometry, number and planetary dedication. Venus, goddess of love, may seem like a Roman divinity, but to me, the Venus under discussion here was clearly the planet and its appearance as the Morning or Evening Star at particular times of the year. The calendrical alignments of stone circles has been proven time and time again by a continuous overlay of theories since the discoveries by academics like Professor Thom.

Before I had even read “Time Stands Still” I had found a strong Venus connection when I dowsed there in late 2008, but had no idea why such a correspondence was significant until I read Critchlow’s book. As soon as I read about the layout and the potential dedication of the site memories came flooding back to me – memories of how I had been called by some invisible urge to visit the site on 22nd October when, in a moonless clear sky, the Milky Way and all the stars were on display and I had spent several hours gazing in awe at them sitting in the stone circle, wondering what I was doing there. You can read about that experience here.

So, was Venus around on that date? I consulted the internet to find out, and found this on the AstroPlanet blog:

“Venus is the Evening Star for the entire month of October. Venus begins the month in the constellation Libra, the Scales, and on October 17th, moves into the constellation Scorpius, the Scorpian.”

At the start of October I had been spending time with a friend who has an ability to see energies around people as points of light. He had informed me that he had begun to notice just such a light perched over my left shoulder, above and behind, and he simply pointed it out to me. Intrigued, I had spent a while dowsing the possibilities of what it could be. After a week or so I had worked out that it was a planet – the planet Venus specifically. I tracked its presence for a few weeks and noticed that it changed position around me, starting off over my shoulder and moving around to about 90 degrees to me on my left side over that time. Unsure of what to do about this discovery, I didn’t think any more about it – until I got the urge to go to Llandrillo.

That night back in October 2008 I discovered the power of the stars, and their effects upon my ability to connect with the energies of the Moel-Ty-Uchaf stone circle. Now I realise there was probably another influence in effect that night – Venus. I notice that I needed to draw upon “love” energy in order to connect with the energies.

Wishing to discover more about the planets, sacred geometry and numbers I dowsed for the association between the planets in the solar system and their respective number in terms of the geometry of sacred sites, specifically stone circles. I came out with the following results:-

1= Moon
2 = Mars
3 = Mercury
4 = Earth
5 = Venus
6 = Jupiter
7 = Saturn
28 = The Sun (7+6+5+4+3+2+1)

Now, this does not correspond with Critchlow’s reading. He has a more classical interpretation which has the sun in the centre, whereas I have the Earth centrally placed. Also, in my scheme the Sun is the sum of all the other numbers. However, I find the result pleasing, and interestingly, Venus is five. I will now see how that corresponds with stone circles I have visited, and will include this aspect in future site visits. I am considering dowsing their geometry from pictures I have taken of sites, as I think that may be possible, but I would prefer to dowse the geometry on site – there’s something more “real” about being there.

Venus on Anglesey

There’s one final twist to this tale – another coincidence, another piece of the puzzle, another bit of information that I missed at the time, but which makes perfect sense to me now that I have done more research. That is the riddle of the Venus Symbol that I obtained from a visit to Bryn Celli Ddu on Anglesey. The post related to this visit can be read here.

So, again, where was Venus on March 16th this year? [note: this was corrected from 24th - 16th was the visit date, 24th was the date of the post about it]. Here’s an extract from another of those helpful astrological sites:

“In the evenings, you will see Venus slipping closer to the horizon, eventually merging with the Sun and becoming lost from sight toward the last week in March. Venus makes a conjunction with the Sun on March 27 and then begins the part of her journey as the morning star, which will become visible early in the mornings during the first week of April.

Venus making this transition in her sign of exaltation, Pisces, is especially powerful. Venus is the planet of connection, relationship, love and beauty and it is located in Pisces, Jupiter’s water sign, that represents the domain of universal understanding and wisdom.”  (source: PlanetaryInfluence.com)

What I had seen then, in the western skies whilst sat on top of Bryn Celli Ddu’s mound, had been the sliver of Venus’ crescent. Only now, after listening to Manly P.Hall’s excellent lectures on AstroTheology – The Zodiac and The Platonic Year –  do I realise that this is what I was seeing. Again, the first few minutes of his lecture caught my ear:

“We find in other parts of the ancient world (other than ancient China) the full and obvious knowledge that the Egyptians, the Greeks and the Persians, at an ancient time, knew definitely that the planet Venus was never visible to us as a complete sphere, but most often like a minute lunar crescent.”

This was all beginning to make sense. I was drawn to Bryn Celli Ddu one night, going there to contemplate why I have dowsed that I am being tracked by the planet Venus, and to find out why I seemed to have some kind of connection to it. As I sat on the mound I observed a strange star and saw a symbol, which I recorded. That symbol contained a crescent shape that was not the moon, which puzzled me at the time. Now I find that the shape was Venus itself!

So, bringing all this together I think I can now say that I do finally understand the Venus Symbol. I now understand that I am influenced by the position of Venus – its presence in the sky, and that this influence in some way affects my energy field, jst as I have previously discovered that the phases of the Moon do. I can also see that something was trying to tell me about this influence, because many things began to coalsce in a short span of time that brought together all of the evidence I would need to work it out. Of course, dowsing helped a great deal, as it always does, but meditation and listening to that intuitive call from “somewhere” meant that I was in the right place at the right time to experience what I needed to see and feel in order to gather this evidence.

For me then, sites that are dedicated to Venus, and thus, by implication sites that are geormetrically constructed using the number five, or pentagonal design, are sites that I seem to have particularly powerful energetic and meaningful experiences at. This I have now learned, and will begin to make use of that when I plan my visits to sites next year. I will now be asking – what is the geometry of the site? When is the planetary influence for this site most active? Just another aspect to working with these ancient marvels of engineering and astronomy to add to the growing list!

Gwas.

Sam Hill – it’s nearly Samhain!

The original Celtic New Year begins on the night of the Full Moon closest to October 31st and November 1st. This year that will be Monday 2nd November. It is the time when the Summer was overcome by the Winter – often played out as the Solar Hero being overcome by a Dark Knight (see Mummer Plays).

This time sees the beginning of the Dark Half of the Year – a festival honouring the dead, and importantly forming a link between the energies of those who have been before us, and those of us here now. Samhain is a gateway between the worlds of the Otherworld and the Middle Earth, and becomes passable by the denizens of either world – the “veil becomes thin” as some describe it. It is therefore an opportunity to commune or communicate with forces in a much stronger and clearer way that at other times.

There is lots of miscellaneous information about various customs relating to this time of year, old and new, to be found here.

Playing with Fire

Samhain is a Celtic fire festival, so inevitably one should look for a sacred site or grove that will enable you to have a fire without causing a disturbance, if you plan to celebrate it in style. Leave the fireworks for the sham that is “Guy Fawkes Night” though!

This being a fire festival means an opportunity to obtain the co-operation of a fire spirit if you do not already have such a relationship. This will promote change in your life and ways, so you need to know if this is what you want, or make adequate protection against inadvertant change being wrought through your life by a rampant fire spirit!

Samhain is a time of feasting on the profits of the year – whether that be literal feasting on food, or consuming the fruits of our labours and learnings over the profitable summer months. It is a time to gather in the rewards of your experiences, reflect upon them, and begin the process of working them into your life over the Winter months to come, ready for the next Spring.

Energetically we see the male earth energies, and those living energies produced by the trees, begin to retreat back into the earth, their influence waning. The celebration of the rising female energy influence is encapsulated in the celebration’s coincidence with the full moon.

You’re My Venus

Astrologically, Venus is appearing in the mornings. Jupiter and Mars are also in attendance over Samhain. Other major planets such as Mercury and Saturn have significantly disappeared from the northern hemisphere just before Samhain.

I’m looking forward to visiting a sacred site that is out of the way, and which is associated with Venus and the sacred number five. Last year none of that would have made any sense – this year I have learned that such specifics will mean that I am at a site that is energetically at its peak, and full of magical possibilities for me.

Enjoy your Samhain celebrations, whatever you do!

Gwas Myrddyn.

Hedge Druid.

Bryn Celli Ddu: Monday, March 16th 2009

I don’t know what possessed me to go the almost 75 miles to Anglesey straight after leaving work last night. It’s not something a sane person would contemplate, but I was on my motorcycle and felt an urgency to get there before the sun set. Sunset time was scheduled for :

Date: 16 Mar 2009 / Sunrise: 06:28 / Sunset: 18:22 / Length of day: 11h 54m 42s

I arrived at some time close to 6:30 pm and walked to the mound in the slowly-forming twilight. I spent about ten minutes inside the mound dowsing for places to sit, and what the strength of the energies were at that time of day (although I had no previous marker to base that on). I soon came to feel that I wasn’t in the right place and decided that I should leave my stuff inside whilst I went outside.

In the open air I felt colder but more relaxed. I dowsed for the best place to sit in order to meditate and was directed by the rods to the top of the mound. There I sat and began to switch off. For some reason I was facing West. For some reason I was staring at a bright star which seemed to be the only one in the sky – certainly the only one I was noticing.

As I stared at it I noticed something unusual : there appeared to be three points of light to this star, and they formed a shape. I stared more intently. Yes, definitely a shape. A white shape with crescent horns protruding from the upper left hand side, and the two smaller points of light forming a forked ‘tail’. It reminded of the white horse of Uffington in reverse, for some reason:

I blinked and blinked again. No, still there. I got my camera phone out and took a picture. Zoomed in I could see it through the lens, but after taking a picture the result showed nothing but flecks in a grainy dark sea. Still the image remained prominent in the sky. Was this a sign? I determined to memorise the shape and set about emblazoning it on my retina and into my memory. This was, I felt, why I was here. From the top of the mound I could feel undulations of energy pulsing upwards through me. This was special, I thought. I knew there was some connection I had with Venus at the moment, and so I dowsed whether this was Venus I was seeing. Yes. Then this was even more interesting. After ten minutes the cold really hit me and I decided to get along home like a sensible person. I left a gift of tobacco and my thanks, then rode home with freezing hands but high spirits.

Picturing Venus

When I got home I immediately knew I had to capture the image that was still so vivid in my memory, but also I had a desire to know more about this star. Which zodiac sign were we in at this point in the year? Pisces was giving way to Aries – we were on the cusp. I have no concept of the relevance of that, but it did seem to me that the image I saw had elements of a horns atop a fish-shape. Noteworthy, but nothing that made me have any greater understanding of a significance at this stage of my development. Here’s the shape I drew trying to capture the area of light that the star was spanning:

Why had I needed to ride out to Bryn Celli Ddu? What was the reason for needing to go there?At the time I had no clue. Now I understand why – it was so that I could use that shape later in the week when I was to visit a stone circle above Penmaenmawr at the Vernal Equinox, but that story will be posted soon enough.

Why was that star so visible from that place – because it’s so westerly? Venus was the last element of twilight this night. It felt magical dowsing my way to the top of the mound and I could feel energy being pulsed up through the top where I sat, perched over the western edge. All I could see was Venus. All I could look at was that bright star. And then I saw three points. Then a pair of horns bent upwards from the main bright point to form the symbol pictured above and below. It stayed in that formation and shape and intensity until I left. As I looked back it had returned to a single point and other stars were beginning to make themselves seen more clearly. I had been there at just the right time to see Venus at her most distinct, and she showed me something of herself. I asked if it was a symbol for me, a power glyph or something like that. I dowsed a strong yes when I asked whether I could use it for energy work. I nearly dropped the rods! Use it for what!!?

Venus: her names and symbols

Venus, the Morning and Evening Star, is forever associated with love and relationships. I was interested to find out how Venus had been named, represented and revered down the ages so I started a little research going. I drew the symbol I had seen many times, and in as many ways as I could muster. Here’s a close representation of what I saw. Venus is often seen as a diamond shape, or a crescent due to her relationship with the light, my symbol was not like that.

The Venus symbol seen in the Western twilight a week before the Vernal Equinox

So I began hunting around to see what other symbols Venus had been represented by – was my symbol something traditional, or something just for me to represent her by? I scoured the net for information. Venus was the planet that orbited the earth 8 times in the time it takes our planet to orbit the sun 5 times, I had heard:

“...if Venus orbits the sun 13 times while the earth does 8 times, then Venus must pass us 5 times during those 8 years.” (John Pratt’s Astronomy site)

Venus’ 5-time passing is also the reason why the pentagram is one of her symbols, as depicted below in a diagram from a masonic text. Chinese Traditional Medicine (TCM) often depicts if five element system by a pentagram in a circle.

The pentagram has a great deal of sinister and occult history associated with it, as does the Morning Star and Evening Star references. Lucifer, the fallen angel, is often considered to be The Morning and Evening Star, however, that designation is also held by many other pivotal characters such as the Greek Hesperus (or Phosphorus), the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, the goat-headed Baphomet beloved of the Masons, and also Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Venus has many names, and those are just her written historical names.

Venus and Astrology

Venus is the ruling planetary influence of the astrological signs of Taurus and Libra. From Wikipedia:

“Venus is the modern ruler of the 2nd and 7th houses, but traditionally ruled the 5th and 12th houses – the 5th house of play and the 12th house of self-undoing! Unsurprisingly, Venus is said to have ‘joy’ in the 5th.“

The astrological interpretation of her influence recently (i.e. going into retrograde motion) is that she brings the possibility of undoing your own comfort and pleasure within your relationships, and despite my wish to completely ignore this element of astrology I have to confess that under her influence in the past week I have alienated a friend and had a blazing row with my wife! Anyone who knows me well knows that this is not something I am particularly prone to, and it has certainly taken me by surprise! I am still stubbornly refusing to acknowledge this aspect of Venus, however, so let’s move on.

I have five stones in my Venus crystal layout. Coincidence, of course. I dowsed for clearer answers: the crystal layout is specifically for capturing the energies of Venus whilst she’s passing. When she moves away then I’ll need other crystals and other geometries for whichever other sympathetic energies are nearby. Don’t know what yet – some luminary. Could be any!

The Moon on that night was waning gibbous heading to the New Moon. Pretty much like in the picture of the Taurus symbol above.

Gwas.

Follow something you don’t believe in until you do.