Tintagel

It was a fabulous sunny Sunday and there was no way I was going to be staying in my rooms in Devon-shire with the Solar deity virtually shouting my name.

So without a thought I decided to wander off to the legendary home of King Arthur, namely Tintagel. I had been there twice before, once with Gwas last summer (when it rained) and the last winter when it was sunny but windy.

Today had the promise of a summers day in Spring! I arrived at the great castle around lunch time and was pleased to say that the weather couldn’t have been better than today. I walked about the grounds of the castle looking for some inspiration. As I looked over parapets and walls I realised that although not completely gone, my sense of vertigo had improved a lot over the last year.

Finally I sensed a place that would be good to do a commune and taking my rods out I quickly confirmed this. Excellent.

Last summer Gwas and I visited this castle and Gwas was able to have a wonderful commune with Merlin. I was eagerly expecting a similar experience.

I lay on the grass in one of the outer ‘rooms’ of the castle and asked to be put in the presence of the magician. A fair while passed with no response or acknowledgement. Perhaps I wasn’t going to be as privileged as Gwas? Never mind I thought, the sun was nice and warm and so I relaxed into the grass a bit more and let the warmth fill me.

I really am a Sun person, I pondered. You couldn’t doubt it. Another voice in my mind agreed with me. “Yes student, you are a Sun person” There was a bit of a cynical tone to the voice I thought and the word “student” definitely had some undertone to be sure. Of course I recognised the voice instantly,Cailleach!

My eyes were closed but there she was, in all her gorgeous glory. As I admired her figure a question popped into my head. Why was it that people portrayed her as a hag or an old crone when to me she was a beautiful presence?

“Are you really going to ask me that?” She looked at me, smiling a smile the kind of which I have only seen on her face.

Quite poetic that line

No, I guess not. I responded and then pondered her presence. I was expecting a grizzled old man, staff and all, Merlin, but I get, Cailleach, and there was that “student” thing again.

“You worry too much,” she said, again in a charming voice.

Shouldn’t I be worried? I asked.

“No, all goes well for you, you are on the path, well and truly.”

I was glad to hear that, I had been worried about how my quest was going.

“Do not worry about it, it is going to happen,” I noticed something odd about the way she spoke then. She wasn’t using contractions. She spoke full, complete words.

Anyway, she continued, “I have a gift for you” O I thought, sounds good. She smiled, knowing my thoughts again.

As a side note I realise now of course that “of course” she would as she was in my head, doh!

Waterfall at Tintagel

Anyway (again) “Go to the waterfall below and you will find it.” Before I could ask whether this was a ‘blue key’ or what it was, or what I was to do with it. She was gone. I got up immediately, which startled a couple who had taken a seat some feet away from me. And was off scampering down the steps towards the sea.

As you can see from the pictures the waterfall was a small but beautifully placed one. I stood just to the side of the bottom of it and looked around. My attention was immediately caught by a glistening double-fist sized lump of quartz crystal. It sparkled as the water ran over it. What quite surprised me was the number of people (and children) that were around the waterfall and yet none had stooped to pick this piece up.

I immediately did so and carried it off to sit in the sun and dry it off. What a fabulous gift. I didn’t have to dowse to make sure this is what I was looking for. So another clue towards gaining knighthood had een found. I wonder of what use it will be.

I still had a lot of exploring to do at Tintagel and now thanks to that dame Cailleach I had to lug a huge lump of crystal with me!

Kal Malik – a step closer

So, as part of my “Make Magick Manifest” Manifesto for this time of the year, I present the questions I went through to determine how to use these crystals to set up protection for myself once I had discovered and verified that these specific crystals could be used for that purpose. Maybe they will help you find out how to best set up such protection for yourself. Remember – all these steps are specific to me. You may have to adapt the particulars to your own circumstances, e.g. different crystals, different formation, different alignments, etc. Nevertheless, there are some interesting general points that emerged that I think will prove useful to everyone involved in energetic work and who are considering the concept of protection from unwanted interference in that work.

1. Is it necessary for me to use crystals to protect myself from energetic interference during work?
NO. They help to focus and increase the focus, to make it easier to work.

2. How many crystals provide sufficient protection in all possible interference circumstances?
Five.

3. Which type of crystals (that I own) are best suited to this task FOR ME?
Fire Agate x 2, Black Tourmaline x 2, Pillar of Quartz x 1.

4. Which positions should the crystals be located?
Kite shape – agates and quartz pointing at the star Sirius, tourmalines on either flank to them. NOTE: I am investigating why Sirius is important to this 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. of crystals. According to the dowsing rods it is an essential component!

5. Will this formation allow the entry of energies that I expressly give permission to? YES

6. Can I create this same level of protection with will power alone? YES.

7. Once I have intended a protection shell, do I need to mentally maintain it? NO

8. Will trying to maintain a thought of it deplete my energy reserves? YES

9. How long can I currently maintain a mental block against the strongest forms of unbidden energy interference?
One month.

Pillar of quartz

10. Will quartz boost the power / strength / increase the time for the shield?
Crystals generally will improve the performance of the protective energy field, but quartz specifically would increase duration of the field and the types of energies that I could deflect or protect against.

11. Can I simply dismiss the shield mentally in order to remove traces of its creation?
If crystals are used then wash the crystals, otherwise simply imagine that the field is gone.

12. Can particular trees offer the same protection?
All trees can offer protection. The shape of a tree’s leaf creates the shape of the protection field around you. Imagine the leaf shape to link to tree’s inherent protection capabilities. This can occur even if the tree has no leaves because what you are connecting to is the tree’s innate conception of its leaf shape. NOTE: this is such an interesting discovery that I am going to come back to this at some point in another post.

13. What about stone circles / barrows / other man-made structures?
No man-made structures can offer this psychic protection by their structure or qualities. Note: I found this answer very surprising, and will be testing it out whenever I visit any man-made sites in the near future.

14. Do I need to set up energetic protection around my nemeton? YES

15. Can this protection be made to last a lifetime?
Yes, but you can’t do it alone. The energy of a more powerful being would be required to co-operate with that.

That was as far as I felt I needed to go at this time to understand how to set up a protection against unwanted energetic influences. If nothing else that should give you some idea of the possible, the practical and the perplexing! The most important finding, I felt, was that this could all be done mentally, and that no external paraphernalia is actually required to make this happen. However, crystals can enhance the effects and make it easier to set up, even though they have to be aligned to a specific place (in my case Sirius!). Time for some more investigation!

Gwas.

On our second day on the Ireland megalithic tour we were going around the main Boyne Valley sights. It would be rude not to, seeing as we were in the vicinity. It would be interesting to contrast how the Irish valued their sites compared to the English, Welsh and Scottish. That said, I don’t think were were prepared for the…organisation levels that we were about to encounter.

To get to Newgrange from Knowth you have to…er…go past Newgrange, back to the bus terminal near the Visitor Centre and catch the bus back to Newgrange. Of course you do! On arrival we had to wait for the guide to, er…open the small two feet high unlocked gate and to tell us to walk up to the standing stones in front of Newgrange’s famous entrance. The arrangements are all a bit of a faff, but it began to dawn on us that this was necessary to control the number of people at the site and make the experience rewarding for everyone. In the end we capitulated, although Kal still went off and did his own thing whilst I endured the guided tour to get some background on the site first. Later we walked back rather than hurry for the scheduled bus. We wanted time to dowse, of course.

I’m going to recount things out of chronological order now, because I want to relate the interesting stuff together, so bear with me! We found that the constant influx of tourists into the mound was causing a build-up of negative energies. It was only slight, and took a while to accumulate, but was there.

The accretion effect I suspect may be due to the fact that tourists in no way “prepare” themselves for entering such sites. Why would they? Of course they wouldn’t, and yet in my experience this can often be a necessary part of approaching these sacred places – to cleanse oneself of the subtle energies from the places we have visited (or live in) that is like wearing a smelly coat!

We walked around it the ‘correct’ way – clockwise, sunwise. This ancient (and now partly modern) construction  was a chamber whose energies we left were in synchrony with the Sun’s movements primarily. We wondered as to why the main path invited tourists to walk around it in a contrary, widdershins, direction. This was something that we found to be the case at Stonehenge too, Tourists were ‘invited’ to walk around the structure in a way that would neutralise positive energy flows and keep the place feeling…drained. It would take quite a strength of will for a tourist to walk around in the opposite direction to the flow of everyone else. Of course, we did just that! Swim against the stream, young salmon!

One thing we did wonder about was this: if the flow of energies during Spring was clockwise, would it change direction at other times of the year? Perhaps someone who lives closer might be able to tell us that?

As we stood outside the entrance being given the known history of the site both Kal and I were separately thinking about the hidden history of the place. Kal had gone off exploring, and my mind was split between taking in the historical information and feeling for the energy coming from the nearby standing stones. As my eye wandered absently along the line of the stones I saw that there was an 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. with nearby tumuli (or mounds) closer to the Boyne River down in the valley floor. Interesting that all these sites are aligned to the path of the Sun, and that they all were built within the bounds of this wide bow bend in the river.

Now it was time for the guided tour of the inside of the Newgrange chamber. We all filed into the chamber, careful not the scratch the artwork, and emerged in the central corbelled chamber. Then Kal appeared again and I could see that he was holding his dowsing rods. He wouldn’t, would he?

Inside Newgrange there are three chambers – one with a triple spiral inscription, another with a white bowl in it. We didn’t get to see the third too well due to the number of people in there, but if you want to have a look around yourself then you can do so on this wonderful site – go take a virtual tour!

The guide was very eloquent, speculating as to how it was used, what the bowls might have been for, what the inscriptions might have meant. The Irish have a long history as bards and story-tellers. Of course, it was all labelled as speculation, and no-one took it as anything else. Some asked questions, most realised there was no more sensible reaction to this place than to try to absorb its atmosphere and take some of that home.

We were given a demonstration of the way in which the passage had been designed to allow a slight shaft of sunlight through and the mound was plunged into sudden darkness as the guide talked us through the sequence. It was quite amazing to see the cleverness of the design which allowed the light of Midwinter sunrise to penetrate so deeply into the chamber for 17 minutes over the course of several days around the Midwinter Solstice of 21st December.

The lights came back on but the atmosphere did not alleviate – instead id deepened for me. I felt distinctly odd in there. At one point, as I stood directly underneath the “square” roof cap (it looked five-sided from where I was standing) my head began to swim. I had felt like this many times – this was the onset of the trance state that I enjoyed duirng magickal episodes. Was something about to happen here? My whole body shivered with the swelling magickal atmosphere developing as people began to file out, having seen all they wanted to see.

Just then Kal handed me some dowsing rods and whispered “Try dowsing the chamber as you go out. See what you get.” I realised we were the last to leave now and so I began to hang back and dowse the passage. I followed a weaving male line down the passage, and then found a neutral one next to it, in opposition to the male line (in terms of amplitude). Kal confided that the line was not very positive, and we began to speculate that this might be linked to the way the site was being treated, unwittingly of course.

Before we leave the main mound, let me just talk about the triple spiral that appears on the left-hand side of the entrance stone and again in the left-hand chamber of the mound itself. I feel this is a symbol of the coming together of the three frequencies of energy : male, female and neutral. We call this formation a White Power CentreA place where a person of a particular 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. (see ‘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.’) feels particularly comfortable and empowered. The place is an energetic centre where a particularly beneficial combination and formation of energies is formed into a pattern that is harmonic with the person for whom it can be called a power centre., as it tends to form as either a triple-headed spiral pattern or as three spirals overlaying each other on the same spot. Whenever we find it at sites it signifies the presence of an active and powerful  Genius LociGenius Loci means 'spirit of the place' and refers to the geological/gaian spirit of place. It is transfixed to a place – being an embodiment of the collective intelligence of the place.. The energy in this form is highly beneficial to humans, especially when seeking to transform one’s consciousness or perform other magickal acts, including healing processes.

Interesting then about the way I felt inside that central chamber…it made me wish we had more time inside to work it all out properly. In the next post about Newgrange we discover something that no-one else seems to have discussed about that site. That will be interesting reading!

Gwas.