The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘rainbow’

Karnak Temple

Karnak temple is only a few miles outside of Luxor. The temple is connected to Luxor temple via a row of hundreds of carved sphinxes – nothing like the size of the famous Giza sphinx, but with each one being at least man-sized or slightly larger that makes for one hell of an impressive sight when you see them lined up in a vast avenue. There is a dowsable energy ley line linking the two temples of Karnak and Luxor along which the sphinxes are placed.

Talking of impressive, the Karnak temple complex covers a vast area in itself. With several generations of pharaoh adding their own impressive extensions to the original temple there ended up being six distinct “pylons” or gates before an invasion of Persians then Romans put a stop to the proceedings. In addition to the huge main area dedicated to Amun-Re (the Precinct of Amun-Re), there are smaller satellite temples dedicated to the female deity Mut, and their son Montu. This makes the place sound quite simple – in fact it is incredibly complex having been presided over the at least thirty pharaohs.

View along the main Karnak temple aisle

The Aura of the Scarab Statue

The final touch is the inclusion of a sacred lake, and a scarab beetle statue which has a myth attached to it concerning it being a wishing status. The idea is to walk around the statue seven times in an anti-clockwise direction and your wish will come true.

I started the dowsing in the middle of a crowd of tourists at the scarab beetle statue. M wanted to walk around the scarab, so I let her. She was the only one doing this at first, but within two circles she was being joined by others who were copying the idea. By the fourth time around she had about 20 people circling around with her! I began to dowse when she started the perambulation. Was she generating any energy doing this, I wondered. She was, it seemed. I took a reading of the aura of the statue at that point. It was about ten feet wide.

As she continued to circle and more people joined her I could feel the aura expanding. I kept taking readings all the way through her walk. The aura seemed to be expanding faster than I could take dowsing readings! The more people that joined in, the faster the aura expended. Soon I had to stop at the lake that was 20 feet away because the aura was heading out into the water! She came back to join me. I didn’t ask what she’d wished for. It was for her to find out if such ideas came true.

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Delamere Forest, Cheshire:  Sunday 18th January 2009

Let me set the scene: a cool but calm Winter’s day, two fools with copper rods and petrol station sarnies in backpacks wander purposefully and expectantly towards a specific place. All around the sometimes leafless trees flick from deciduous to evergreen and back again as they pass hesitant hordes of fresh air fans who are cycling, jogging or walking without so much as an upward glance at the majesty around them. Occasionally one or other of the fools stops to remark upon a tree’s shape, its size, its qualities. Children hooked to parents are pulled by at a mildly-exhilarating pace, pedalling reluctantly.

Such was the scene as we headed deep into Delamere Forest last weekend. I guided Kal towards a place in the forest where I knew two trees that grew side by side – a tall elegant pine next to a sturdy and established beech that leant over the main path. As we arrived Kal walked between the two and spent a moment feeding his energies. I smiled because I had been there before and knew why he had chosen that spot. Like Don Juan Matus in Carlos Castaneda‘s books, Kal had instinctively located the most energetic place where the energy of the two trees melded and swirled in a little power centre of a female vortex of life force. He seemed reluctant to be drawn away from it, but we had work to do.

This part of the forest, although on a main path, was unusually quiet and calm. Only occasionally would we be disturbed by bemused and slightly anxious families, or the rare smile of someone who was either amused at our activity or knew what we were doing. We were dowsing again. The first ‘proper’ dowsing field trip of the new year. And this year we had guaranteed ourselves was going to be one hell of an active twelve months! ‘Proper’ because we had been dowsing in our houses, creating and relaying our manifestations to each other, and then the day before we had been on an only partly successful trip out to North Wales. Details to follow on that one. That’s going to make interesting reading, is all I can say about that now,  if only for the things it didn’t show us, as much as for its revelations. Kal, of course, blames The Trickster – his anthropomorphic embodiment of a prankster spirit that is wholly accountable for our occasional failures. Frankly, though disappointing at the time, our failures are often as revealing as our findings.

Today, in the depths of the forest, and with renewed vigour and intent, I felt something was going to kick start our dowsing year, and so it proved to be. As we dowsed we only had the remnants of the previous day’s torn-up question sheet to remind us where we were headed with our work. As we were surrounded by trees, and I was still intent on finding out what effects the time of year was having on the natural energies, we started asking questions about energy paths, tree nemetons (or auras) and our typical topic – colour bands.

Here are some of the things we found that afternoon:

Tree and Earth Energies

• The trees emitted female earth-sourced energies, which described circles that spiralled into a hollow or gap in the bark of the trunks of the two big trees, and which flowed in a clockwise direction.
• The beech tree spiralled five times, whilst the pine only three.
• Both trees had nemetons that extended as far as their respective canopies stretched, and which were shaped in the same manner, i.e. the nemeton of the beech tree was not circular, but ovoid, elongated outwards across the path in line with the branches that extended over the path too.
• The trees had a narrow 12-18 inch band of neutral energy pooled around their trunks, which dowsed as being static (i.e. having no flow).
• The source of the energy spirals was defined as the earth’s own energy. The neutral pool came from the tree’s own energy systems.
• The aura of the tree emerged from a point at the height of the green heart chakra level.

Rainbow Colours

• The extent of the rainbow colour bands was greater than the radius of the trees’ nemetons. The rainbow colours extended some 20 feet or more, whilst the nemeton only reached 9-10 feet. Curiously, a decaying wooden signpost marked the nemeton’s reach for the beech tree.
• The rainbow colours were the same radius as the roots of the trees. When we dowsed for the edge of the root system it reached the exact same marker we had been using to mark the edge of the violet colour band.
• The source of the rainbow colour band energies was dowsed to be water. This gave us a real “D’oh!” moment when we suddenly put roots, water, nourishment, and energy conversion together and came up with the bleeding obvious again!
• The colours were in the same rainbow prescribed order of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet.
• The bands were wider in turn as they moved from red to violet. The red band was only 6 inches wide, but the violet band was 5-6 feet wide.

Ch’i  Energy

• The stars give off chi – er – isn’t that obvious now that we have discovered it!!
• Chi energy is given out by each of the radiant energy sources of  star, sun and moon. It enriches the tree’s energy system.
• The amount of chi energy radiating from the stars, sun and moon is dependent on, or related to, the times of the year – which in turn may be related to astrological events. This year’s calendar dowsing should help us to confirm or confuse ourselves again!
• Both auric barrier and colour barrier could be energetically pushed.

Yes, pushed. I have been returning to my martial arts studies, but this time from the internal energies angle. Consequently, I wanted to see if I could feel the chi energies, so we tried a little experiment. I stood with my back to Kal and concentrated on my own nemeton. Kal then walked towards me dowsing for its edge. When he found it he pushed it with his hands. When he did that I involuntarily swayed forwards, feeling like a had been gently pushed in the back! I put my hand up to indicate that I had felt it and swivelled to find Kal crouched with his hand in position and looking slightly startled. He had seen me sway as he pushed.

We tried again, this time using my colour-band field. I concentrated on firming the outer edge of the violet band of my energy field. After a few seconds I felt the gentlest of pushes and put my hand up. Again, Kal confirmed the dowsable range he had marked, and was holding his hand at that exact point, transfixed in position. Stunned, almost.

Curiosities and confirmations

• The power centre between the trees – was it the interference patterns caused by two energy systems so close together, or the crossing of underground water. Could it have been the energy from the water in the root systems?
• The energies seemed very weak compared to stone circle dowsing – was this because of time of year (season, moon phase, time of day), or are they inherently so?
• All dowsing was confirmed by both dowsers. We checked and re-checked each others findings as we went along, and for some of the energy paths we got the same shapes but slightly differing positions for the energy lines (by a few inches only).

Followers of Kal’s up-and-down relationship with trees may wish to hear that Kal spent a nice afternoon in the presence of these most kindly beech and pine trees. I had been lead there the previous summer whilst arrogantly commanding the rods to show me the most energetic and powerful tree in the forest. Well, it had worked at Alderley Edge, so I thought I was on to something. Little did I understand The Rules back then. Now I am much more humble in my approach!

I knew this beech tree to be easy to work with, and honest in its responses. Sounds mad, but if you get into this dowsing stuff, you may find yourself being lead astray on more than one occasion, and it pays to learn a little respect and humility early on if you don’t want to end up panting, covered in sweat, and lost in the dark heart of a forest whilst you try to extricate yourself from a fool’s errand.  “When she was good, she was very very good, and when she was bad, she was wicked.” Isn’t that how the rhyme goes? So true.

Gwas, with helpful notes from Sideshow Bob (Kal)

Following the lesser known path through the forest.

Here is a list of phenomena that Kal and I keep experiencing when we visit sacred sites. It is the first of a series of posts to try to catalogue the formations and phenomena found at sacred sites when we dowse them.

List of energy formations at stone circles

• Male energy coming out of circle stones in a short spiral – often on the outside of the circle, but not necessarily.
• Female energy coming out of circle stones in a short spiral – often on the inside of the circle, but not necessarily.
• Two stones of the circles that don’t have spirals, but have a circular energy path (or arc) that has one hemisphere that goes underground and the other goes through the air as it flows between them. The one that goes underground can sometimes lead to a different stone. The place where the energy goes upwards has a female signature, the place where it enters the earth again has a female signature. It is speculated that the energy rises in a spiral formation as seen in one of Hamish Miller’s presentation slides. The actual arcing energy has a neutral signature. Such arcing – 3D – energies were first discovered at Arbow Low.
• An outlying stone (outlier or King Stone) that interacts with the energies of the circle, often connected by both a male and female energy line that together form a double helix pattern.
• An ‘entrance’ to the circle. This can often be a gap in the stones, or at the side of a particularly large or unusually shaped stone. Such a stone often dowses for female energies.
• A tree or bush that is connected by a male energy line that flows through an outlying stone before coming into the circle and forming a spiral. This energy always enters a circle through its designated ‘entrance’.
• A neutral alignment ley running through the site, and along which particular stones are positioned so as to be in perfect cardinal alignment. Powerful leys run in the primary cardinal directions, but less powerful lines often cross-cross the site with less-obvious alignments.
• Power centres. Some circles have many, others have one. The power centres have a dowsable gender, and suit particular types of people (i.e. some people feel more comfortable on particular types). They seem to form a connection point between human and energy formation. Also the energy centres are rarely in the center of the circle – usually they are off to one one side.
• Rainbow-coloured bands in concentric spheres approaching the centre of a circle. The colours usually dowse in the order that they are found as constituents of light (ie red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. and we have found that their position is unique to each dowser. As the dowsers become more ‘in tune’ with each other the positions of the bands becomes more synchronous.
• A nemeton, or auric extent is always dowsable at stone circles for us. Each stone circle seems to be encircled by a sphere of energy whose radius is dynamic. The nemeton can contract to the exact radius of the circle, or extend out from the circle by up to about twelve feet, possibly more. The nemeton’s energies are often made up of multiple lines of energy, all flowing in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction. A clockwise direction feels more positive and healthy than the opposite.
• Nemetons can be composed of three concentric circuits of the circle stones before entering the circle and spiralling to a point.
• Circle stones can be linked together by neutral straight lines of energy. The lines are dowsable the full height of the stones.
• Outlying stones are often linked to the site by lines that terminate in a connection to one of the stones in the circle.
• It is possible for particular stones in the circle not to register for any energy being connected to it, or inherent in it.
• A draining stone is sometimes discovered amongst either the circle stones or one of the outlying stones that are connected to the site. This stone draws out energies (beneficial or malign) to leave the person touching it ‘neutralised’, ‘cleansed’ or ‘drained’.
• Radials are neutral energy spokes that come out of the center of some circles like the spokes of a wheel. This formation was first discovered at Arbow Low and needs to be confirmed at other sites. The StoneDowser’s site displays many diagrams of radial energies at stone circles.
• Shifting male and female energies – there is a possibility of energy lines that shift from male to female as you traverse them – but it might be that they are so close that there is no distinguishable difference between the two. We first saw this effect at Bryn Celli Ddu burial mound in Anglesey.
• Energies can be felt as bad, negative or malignant and can be found in the stone circles themselves, or in the surrounding area.

I will post more lists of common features of dowsing at sites soon. Next up – The Dolmen (or Cromlech).

Gwas.

Follow an uncommon path.

East Wales, Sunday 12th October 2008

1. Pistyll Rhaeadr Waterfall

We started our day in bright sunshine, heading south towards the town of Oswestry on the A483, close to the border between England and Wales. Three times previously Kal and I had tried to find a waterfall called Pistyll Rhaeadr. I think our misdirection had come from a mapping web site’s mistake which meant we were looking in totally the wrong area! This time I had prepared – I had cross-checked, double-checked and validated the directions until I could do them in my sleep. This time – we found it. As we approached the view was stunning….

The road to the waterfall was narrow and winding, but that morning we encountered no problems with other traffic. We parked at the base and headed straight to the bottom of the falls. A few other people were knocking about too. I headed off to the far side, across a bridge, and up onto the slope amid the pine trees to get a better place to take photo from. On the little promentary I could only see the waterfall in front of me, and it felt like I was alone with the tumult of water. I stood soaking in the awe-inspiring power of the falls, and feeling the light mist of droplets wash my face. Stood there with my staff it felt wonderful to be alive. I drew in that feeling, deep into myself.

When I glanced over to Kal, he was slithering around on the flat rocks in the river trying also to get a good photo opportunity – splosh! Oops! I caught a sneaky picture of him standing deep in the water and laughed heartily – sorry, Kal! Looks like a damp start to a sunny day!

We hiked to the top of the waterfall (Kal took a little persuading – heights are not his favourite places). We found, on arriving, the most beautiful glades next to the gently rippling and fluming river that suddenly plummeted over the sheer precipice that forms the waterfall. It all had a very druid-like atmosphere and I felt very comfortable there.

2. Take your medicine

I had a headache which had persisted from the previous evening. I couldn’t relax and enjoy the surroundings with this tight head. I looked to the largest tree which stood in the lovely glade. I walked towards the tree by passing between two unusually placed stones. I asked to approach the tree respectfully, then placed my bottle of water in a handy knot-hole in the tree’s trunk. The tree allowed me into it’s enfolding nemeton, and I relaxed, seeking communion.

When connection was established I asked for assistance in getting rid of my headache. The answer came gently: “Take of the waters.” Just that. How quaint! I hadn’t heard that syntactical construct for years..”Take of…”. Lovely. The water had a brown rust tint to it, so I wasn’t keen on drinking it – nevertheless I carefully gathered some in an empty water bottle and sipped a bit. Yikes! Not the nicest I’ve tasted!

Minutes later we had ventured down to the, seemingly, purpose-made rock shelter that overlooked the head of the falls. My headache was still there. Then Kal had his boots off and was paddling in the river! Was he crazy? He invited me in too – no way! However, he persuaded me it was a nice feeling on the smooth pebbles in the shallow section, so I walked in too. It was freezing!!! But lovely. When I got out I realised my headache had gone. I had “taken of the waters” and was cured of my malady. Just coincidence I’m sure.

We dried our feet by lying with our feet in the sun beneath this superlative rock formation, gazing peacefully out over the head of the falls into the quiet valley beyond. “This is a good place to meditate.” Kal stated. Indeed it was.

We gathered our things together, put our boots back on, and I retrieved my staff, which I had placed in a slot between two rocks that was, well, almost custom made for it! See for yourself in this photo:

Before we left I picked out two smooth rocks from the river which appealed to me: one hand-sized and flat, the other the same size but round and with thick marbled veins. Handy for later, I thought to myself. With that, we descended back down the hill to head off to Llandrillo, on the other side of the mountains to Pistyll Rhaeadr.

Llandrillo – Moel-Ty-Uchaf circle

Kal and I have discussed this stage of the visit, and have considered that the whole episode was sublimely balanced, instead of, as we expected, an exultant experiment in energy work. It seems that Nature has a way of keeping the energy work within certain parameters, and with us being so powerfully energised and eager to dowse after visiting the waterfall, well, our positive energies got balanced out by a strong negative influence. The end product was a satisfactory and balanced result, which was more fitting. Let me explain!

1. The Lost Sheep

On the long steep slog up from the outskirts of Llandrillo village towards Moel-Ty-Uchaf we met a farmer blocking the road. He had stopped to rescue a young sheep that had got itself stuck between the wire fence and the short hawthorn hedge on the edge of the field next to the road. On our last visit we remembered coming down from Moel-Ty-Uchaf and finding a lamb in the road which had broken free from its designated field and was eager to return to its mother. On that occasion we helped by herding it back until it found the break in the hedge from which it had squeezed an exit. Now here we were helping again! We noted the coincidence, and forged upwards once the young sheep was safely on its way, thanks mainly to the rugged tugs of the old farmer, for whom this must be a daily occurrence.

As we got within a few minutes of the stone circle I got out my new list of dowsing questions. I had a new category: “Questions to ask on approaching a sacred site“. We will publish this list soon, once we tidy the post up a little. From this set of questions we determined that today was a good day for doing energy work, that we were in the right frame of mind, but that everything was not in order – a malevolent influence or unhealthy energy stream was causing dysfunction at the circle. We decided to wait until we were at the circle before we delved any deeper. This level of dowsing questions seems to be more effective the closer you are to the source of your inquiry. Of course this would be contradicted by quantum theory, in which distance would not need to be considered, but we have found that stronger readings are possible, and answers are clearer the closer you get to the source or object of the query. The circle was undeniably registering some sort of imbalance, and that was enough to spur us on.

We reached the knoll near the circle’s King Stone and parked ourselves in unceremonious exhaustion, to drink in the view over the western range of hills and lush Welsh valleys. Are you sure this is October in Britain? We were sweating like a nun’s…never mind.

After a few minutes of relaxation we grabbed our dowsing rods and started asking our next set of questions concerned with finding the layout and energy types that make up the outline and patterns of the site. We started at the King Stone and asked about its relevance to the site. One glance and Kal saw the face in the rock! Just like the stones at sites such as Lligwy Chamber and Alderley Edge (see previous posts on those sites). Interestingly, the top three holes form the layout of the three key energy points within the circle – the two power centres are the right eye and nose, whilst the left eye is the large female rectangular stone that dominates the northern edge. Their spacing proportions you should check with the map I drew of the energies in our Sacred Sites section. Look for Moel-Ty-Uchaf. Sometimes we find these “maps” on outlying stones – take a look at the outlying stones at Nine Ladies in Derbyshire, for example.

Kal dowsed that its eye sockets were a good place to leave our bottles of water, so we put them there and wandered off to the circle itself. later Kal would grab his water and decide it wasn’t such a good place after all! If you check the diagram you’ll see that he put his bottle where the female stone is – he has more affinity with male energies. My bottle was on the female power centre’s location. I felt no such qualms at leaving the water there. Coincidences, only coincidences.

2. Describing The Circle

As we approached the circle we asked whether there was any particular entrance point – No, came the reaction of the rods. We instinctively wandered around to the northern side and began to ask more questions about the purpose of the site – was it for healing? No, not healing. What about communication? A slight reaction. OK, so not it’s primary purpose. Was it used for spiritual transformation? Yes. Strongly, yes.

We moved into the circle to look for the power centres. Kal found the same one he had last time, and I did the same. Kal’s registered as a male energy centre. Mine was a female centre. Typical! We’ve found this before at other sites too, although we don’t often find two centres in one circle.

We dowsed for any connection between the centres, as we had found at Arbor Low. Indeed there was. A neutral line connected the power centres. Kal dowsed further. We dowsed for aerial and underground lines – yes – they were there too. Also of a neutral type. But there was more to this connection than just its 3D neutral connections – there was a female line that went either side of the central mound that formed the centre of the circle. The lines (neutral and female) could be traced going into either side of the large rectangular stone that stood out in the northern edge of the stone circle. Intriguing, that they seemed to form a circuit weaving underground, along the ground and through the air as they traced paths through the three main elements of the female power centre, the male power centre and then the large stone, and back.

Kal then dowsed for radial (alignment) leys running through the site and reported back that there were three lines that intersected close to the centre of the circle, running in the two main cardinal directions of North-South and East-West, but also one running NE-SW too. One seemed to be missing….

3. Hairy circles and a male embrace

The circle felt similar to The Nine Ladies circle in Derbyshire, so, like that circle I dowsed each stone for a reaction. Like Gors Fawr in Pembrokeshire too, this circle had a male spiral emanating from every alternate stone, and a female counterpart spiral on the inside. When drawn out it looked like a beard of spirals inside and outside the circle! You can’t get a more endearing image of gender equality than hairy males and females!

Our last ‘topograhical’ question concerned the male lines. The female lines were in the circle itself (again, a regular occurrence now). We dowsed inside and out for male lines and found one coming from each side of the King Stone, curling to an end alongside the northern and southern extremes outside the stones of the circle. It looked like the King Stone was embracing or cupping the circle! Like a game of ‘cup and ball’ (see Blackadder II for that reference: “How about a game of cup and ball and a slap-up tea at Mrs. Miggins’ pie shop?“).

We stepped out of the circle to do some testing of the perimeter. How far did the circle’s nemeton (or auric edge) extend? About ten feet, we found. We checked the direction of flow of the nemeton – anti-clockwise. Was that right? Surely not! We asked if this was having a beneficial effect on the circle’s energy systems – very strongly NOT. OK – but was the effect simply a matter of the time of day, or the time of year? Was it a normal effect that needed no attention? We double and triple checked our findings with variations on the questions. The answers all came back quickly and strongly – ‘Something should be done to correct this‘ – that is the purpose of your visit. Point taken. We can take a hint! This was an effect to consider correcting. However, we still had some more questions.

4. Rainbows and cute reactions

Further to our experiences with rainbow colour reactions at Runcorn Hill we tested for rainbow colours moving in from about twenty feet away. At ten feet we got the nemeton’s edge and it read for the colour ‘red’. Then we did ‘orange’, ‘yellow’, ‘green’, ‘blue’, ‘indigo’ and ‘violet’. We consistently got them in that order, but always at different widths from each other! Again we checked our results. Same. We picked random colours from the list – same results. OK. That tallies with our initial efforts at Runcorn Hill where we got that effect, but then as we agreed on questions to ask our results began to merge together. A lesson there. Today we kept our questions to ourselves!

We were just about to stop dowsing when Kal moved towards the circle and got a funny reading close to the circle’s outer edge – one rod was stiffly pointing straight forward, and the other had swung inwards at a 90 degree right angle. He tried again, Same result! “Hey – come and look at this!” he shouted to me. “What did you ask for?” I said, curiously. “A power centre for spiritual transformation.” he said. Strange! We never get this odd reaction of one rod doing something different to the other!!! I tried. I got the same! It felt weird though, not like a normal reaction, and this formation wasn’t even in our dictionary! I walked slowly forwards, close to the circle. The left-hand rod continued to swing around, now pointing straight back at me, then stopped moving and went stiff like the right-hand rod. “Hey Kal – it’s turned right around, and what’s with this static solid right hand business?” I asked. We looked at each other blankly. What did this mean? We were very confused. Without any question being asked the rods were determinedly pointing in opposite directions along a North-South axis, through the gap in the southern side of the circle.

We shrugged and decided to peg out one of the female and male spirals with some ribbon Kal had bought, and some plastic pegs I had acquired for the purpose.

5. Transformers – robots in disguise.

We cleared the circle and commenced our energy work. As usual we had no pre-prepared ritual or script – this would all be done intuitively, and with dowsing to direct us. We asked if we should sit on our respective centres – Yes. Should Kal use the transformational power of this circle? No. Should Gwas use a druid connection to reverse energy flow – Yes. My turn to be the focal point, then. OK. I was ready, excited even.

Should we use crystals to focus the energies? – No. Oh! OK. Let’s see what happens. All we know is that we need to reverse the nemeton’s energy direction. Let’s see how it goes! Kal sat on his male centre. I walked around tapping my two stones against the stones with cup-mark depressions in them. Kal meditated. I asked him later if the sound had had any affect? No. Except to form a beat to meditate to. I hadn’t felt anything whilst doing it. I’ll try vibrational sound when I go somewhere a bit quieter.

I took my two stones from the top of Pistyll Rhaeadr waterfall and placed the flat one underneath me, put my staff across my lap, and held the second stone in cupped hands. I meditated to try connecting to the energies of the site. Kal got up and started walking around the circle carrying his rods. I started to quieten my thoughts and relax into the energies of the site so that I could feel them. After a minute I was beginning to make progress, and barely noticed Kal parading around the circle’s outer edge.

6. The adrenal dump of Negatives

Suddenly there was a man’s voice! He quickly approached up the southern slope, and stopped at the southern gap, shouting questions at Kal with a very aggressive rather than inquisitive manner. Asked what the tapping noises were. Kal deflected his questions with innocent, curt, closed answers and carried on walking. I tried to block him out and maintain search for connection, but I could feel the huge amount of negative energy this man had brought with him seeping into the circle as he walked around with Kal, still quizzing him as he walked around, standing very close to him, observing.

“Are you doing a ritual?” – “What are you doing?” – “What was that tapping noise?” – “Did you know this site is protected by English Heritage, you know that?” – “Have you got the permission of the farmer? He looks after this site…..” The questions came regularly and I faltered in my concentration, becoming bound up in thoughts of this intruder into our work. I hadn’t put up a protective shell or circle to protect against this. This is exactly what Emma Restall-Orr warned about, as have many other druid books on these subjects. Oh no!

Kal started to clank together his dowsing rods as though to ward the stranger off! I wasn’t going to be phased by the commotion, though. I pushed out a protective ball of light which described my nemeton, and hardened it against noise and the negative energy. Then I imagined energy flowing through me from the sun, drawing it down into the stone, through my staff, and into the smaller stone I was sitting on. From there is circled around the inner circle, to Kal’s power centre, and then to the female rectangular stone, back around the inside of the circle underground, and back to me. Then it described the same path but in its opposite form – through the air, along the earth, underground, and back to me. And this flow got stronger and faster as I held the vision.

At first my eyes were following the flow easily, soon the flow was going around this 3D lightbulb formation that the inner energy paths were describing – but now too quickly to follow as a flow, it became the image of a glowing lightbulb. As I realised this the flow broke out to spin around the inside of the circle, sunwise. As this flow too became too quick to follow – forming a complete ring of energy with no gaps – so it moved through the female stone out to the outer edge of the circle’s nemeton.

On the outer edge the energy flowed sunwise, faster and faster as Kal walked around and around, seeming to pull it along with him until it overtook him. The energy became a complete band of light spinning around the circle clockwise inside and out and around the lightbulb formation in a dizzying formation that reminded me of those long-exposure photographs of car lights at night where the lines all merge into a blur of white curved lines.

7. Blissed out but chastened

At that moment I came slowly back to an awakened state. I felt blissful. I saw Kal slowing to stop, and he looked over at me as he came back towards me. We knew we had done something positive, despite the presence of the inquisitive walker. I placed the stone I was holding on top of the stone I had been sitting on and walked towards Kal and the stranger.

Kal stormed past me onto his power centre and sat with his eyes closed, in a quite deliberate disconnection from communication with the stranger. Still feeling blissed out, but ensuring that my nemeton was firm and strong (I could almost see it at that point) as I gauged the distance to stand so that the man could feel its outer edge. Kal later told me that he had assisted me in protecting myself by imagining a protective sphere around me as well as himself (a ‘shell’ he calls it). I’m sure the positive vibes helped, because I was able to chat and answer his questions easily, and maintained an air of assuredness and content which seemed to neutralise his pointed questioning. Instead I ended up questioning him! “And so what is your purpose in visiting stone circles?” I asked forthrightly. He swayed a touch and muttered something about “History, and a bit of spirituality.” Indeed. Why not?

8. Manifestly a manifestation

Kal awoke and stated we needed to leave. We gathered up our belongings. Before I left I dowsed to see if there was a manifestation where I had been sitting (marked by Kal in the picture above) – a small four petalled flower had formed, interwoven with four larger petals that reached to touch the circle’s stones. I smiled.

We dowsed the nemeton again to check which direction the energy flowed in. It was now strongly flowing in a sunwise direction – clockwise. I had learned a lesson in protection. I had sounded the stones thinking I was connecting with the circle, or generating positive energies, when actually it seemed to draw towards us an incarnation of negative energy! When it happened I hadn’t protected myself against the effects of this and had to struggle to maintain discipline of mind to ignore his activities and deflect his bad energies. As we were leaving the stranger drifted down the hill awa from the circle. Within moments he had disappeared beneath the slope’s convex horizon.

I will endeavour to remember to invoke this protective sphere myself whenever I need to work again. Emma Restall-Orr says it, several other books about druid magic say it, the diminutive gentleman at Alderley Edge couldn’t contain himself from telling me that I should, and was astonished when I said I didn’t. Even my thick skull can sometimes be porous enough to absorb information. Lesson learned.

Gwas

Cup and ball – Holy Grail

It was a dark, starry night when Gwas and I set off towards the far distant destination of Cirencester and the British Soc. of Dowsing annual conference. It was a 3 hour trip and we aimed to get there for about 8:30a.m. A monumental feat since my clock doesn’t have a such early times on it.

Nevertheless – my motto is very simple – Its the company that counts – and since that was fantastically provided by my dear friend. The journey promised to be filled with lively debate.

So…with hearts filled with adventure and minds yearning for new knowledge and meetings we set off – heading almost into the sunrise

Some of the questions that came into our minds on the journey were: Would we know enough to fit into the conference? Would the conference speakers fulfill our expectations…It was an interesting speculation to be sure. I have to confess a couple of the titles in the presentation list did not inspire me with confidence.

Anyway – the journey was wonderful, with mist and fog rising at certain points and they days promise of sun was all we needed to keep our spirits enlivened.

We arrived at the wonderful Agricultural College (where the conference was set) in good time – Gwas will no doubt furnish the blog with pics – and we walked about the crisp autumn coloured grounds with coffee in hand wondering what the day would unfold.

Dr Serena Roney-Dougal

To begin with we attended a lecture by Dr Serena Roney-Dougal entitled ‘Where science and magic meet’ – and I was completely engrossed – I felt a real connection with Dr Serena – The way she brought ideas together and connected disparate pieces of information and wisdom was very much akin to the way that my mind works – There were several salient points that she brought to bare on the topic some of which I will note here:

• A calcite crystal forms in the brain at puberty
• The pineal gland (thought to be influential on Psi activity) decreases as one ages – beginning at puberty
• The earths GMF affects the Pineal Gland
• Decrease in GMF helps Telepathy and Remote dowsing type activities
• Increase in GMF promotes healing abilities and interestingly poltergeist activity

There was plenty more – but my mind is still assimilating the ideas and so patience is needed.

Nothing more could show my enthusiasm for Dr Serena’s work in that I immediately went in search of both her – alas slightly old books.

There was a one hour interlude where I – synchronistically? – met a lady who had a fascinating tale to tell – which I have pinched for my other blog originalpurity.wordpress.com.

The rainbow maze that wasn’t

In one of the quads they had laid out a maze using coloured ribbons – the purpose of this escaped both Gwas and I. However, we dowsed it and found that the coloured ribbons which were laid out in circles should have been spiraled and that the center was off by about 3 feet.

And since we have recently come into dowsing colours – we dowsed the coloured concentric circles and found that the ribbons were about 2 foot less in radius. or about a colour out if you like. In our estimation, red was where they had put orange, orange was where they had marked yellow, and so on.

In the centre they had marked a manifestation pattern – two in fact. The inner pattern was familiar to me – a trefoil, three leaves of a flower. The outer pattern was a shamrock shape with three leaves again. We could only confirm the inner petals; the outer petal shape eluded us. Dead centre they had placed a flower pot containing several roses not in water. Inside those they had placed a pot with water, and in the water they had placed some shard of coloured glass. Most intriguing!

Hamish Miller

Gwas has on many occasions mentioned Hamish and his theories and experiences. I was prepared to meet a dowsing ‘giant’ and from the few glimpses of him during the day he did seem to be the part. The father of Dowsing – hmmm. And so I was so looking forward to Hamish’s presentation.

Hamish is a world renowned writer and dowser having dowsed many ancient sites across the globe. An interesting phenomenon he mentioned is that a manifestation pattern he found at one juncture of a major – world crossing ley line – will grow and change as one travels along other junctures along the line.

He also told a story of a manifestation created by a Maori girl in a sacred spot. She manifested an energy pattern through song and rock.

For the latter part of his talk, Hamish concentrated on the responsibility of Dowsers to aid in the “setting to rights of the world” – I am all in favour of setting the world right – but I have no more responsibility of it than anyone else has.

And in essence those were the salient points of his talk, I was left deeply disappointed and now that I think on some of his experiences I find myself wondering…see upcoming post…on his theory and recollection.

Some aura work and Ego’s

Gwas and I were prone to laze in the afternoon sun as most of the other participantsof the conference were. However since this was a ‘dowsing conference’ we decided to stray from the norm and er…well…do some dowsing.

Whilst I was sat on the grass, Gwas dowsed my aura (ok – “Nemeton”!) and found it to be some 3/4 foot slightly oval shaped around me (with a bit of a bulge in the back (hmmm – was that were the tree was?)

I said to him – “Dowse it again and I will make it bigger” As Gwas walked away, I visualised my aura expanding (by filling it with crown chakra channelled energy) to about two and half times the size he previously measured it – and sure enough his rods flew apart at that distance! Fantastic!

Another conference participant was sat some feet away and Gwas asked to measure her aura. She agreed and it came to about 5 feet away from her body. She said she would expand it. Gwas asked “How far back shall I walk” The lady replied all the way to the end of the Quad – this was some 60 metres away…

As she was directing Gwas further and further across field – I felt a tinge of trickery enter my oft devilish mind – and so while Gwas was dowsing her aura – I placed a shell that pushed her aura in and in – and so it was that Gwas eventually arrived at a foot before her body before the rods announced the boundary. She was highly disappointed and I had a grin on my face – and Gwas looked at me with a suspicious druid eye

Then it was turnabout and I dowsed Gwas’s aura. He told me to wait a moment as he settled under a tree. I started to dowse and found his aura expanding some 30 feet before him? It was my turn to raise a suspicious eye now – why did he sit under the tree? Mr Druid

Michael Bott

Michael has done a lovely DVD (“Standing with Stones”) of his and his mates’ visits to over 100 sites – really nice and artistic. Dowsing content = nil point! Still – nice to see! O and I did say we should go to something else – but too late we had already sat down – still – nice DVD [Gwas notes: Actually, the alternative lectures were already full - that's why we ended up at this one.]

And so…

Well the conclusion of our trip left me with the following:

• We are definitely in frontier territory already – see my intent blog item from only last week! It was worth the money just to know that
• Serena has some really interesting stuff on Parapsychology – I might even get in touch with her and see if I can get involved – ok – I was impressed!
• I’m a people person and I got a lot to assimilate from my chat with…see my own blog – link above
• Hamish is a nice guy on a mission
• We (Gwas and I) really need to sort out a methodological way of reporting and making notes – because although we know loads – our conversations are spattered with “o i forgot that we knew that or did that”
• We have to visit some of the sites Michael’s DVD showed – Callanish in the Hebrides of Scotland – is definitely a contender

O yes I forgot

There was a guy (Dr Darvill) who did a one hour talk to tell us that Stonehenge was used for healing (D’oh!) – O and he was also the guy who was on the Timewatch program this weekend (see blog date) just gone.

Kal

PS – notes:

• use ribbons to map out spirals and energy paths
• video our dowsing activities
• be more concise with note taking
• never throw away a theory or suggestion no matter how wild – indeed the wilder the better

Helsby Hill, Cheshire. September 21st 2008

A short while ago I got back up Helsby Hill. I had been reading about Hamish Miller finding rainbow ‘ribbons’ of energy, and I needed to get a handle on that. As Kal has mentioned in a comment to the previous post our brains had been scrambled by the malign energies emitted from the electricity pylons on top of Runcorn Hill, so I wanted to repeat the experiment at a place that I knew was unencumbered by such things. Helsby Hill is close, and clear of energetic obstructions!

At the top, I already knew that the trig.point marker was the centre of the energetic patterns on the hill. I also had dowsed along the paths nearby and knew where the boundaries of the energy fields were, so i deposited my bag of rods outside that area, took a pair in hand, and started heading towards the trig.point.

The first colour I asked for was RED. It was the first one I found, marking the boundary of the path which leads past the summit, and that connects to the path leading off the hill at the back. Next I chose GREEN. This had been Hamish’s next colour, and he had stated that he didn’t think the colours were in the same order as rainbows, i.e. red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. I walked about six or seven feet and then got a splitting of the rods indicating a boundary for this colour. There was quite a gap between red and green! If the distances of the bands at Runcorn Hill was anything to go by then there ought to be something in between those, I thought to myself.

I went back to the start again, and this time I dowsed for a random colour (but not indigo, I couldn’t envisage that colour at that moment). I imagined YELLOW. Where woudl that appear? I went past the red marker, and a few feet later it registered for yellow. OK. Yellow is past red. “Richard Of York…” – I went through the old mnemonic for remembering the order of the rainbow colours. If that was the correct order I should get ORANGE in between red and yellow. I stepped back and started from the outer edge again. In between red and yellow I got orange’s boundary. “Red and yellow and pink and green...” sang a little ditty in my head – STOP – those aren’t in the right order  – don’t follow that!

So now I had red, orange, yellow in the right order, and beyond that green. Given the fairly even 3 feet width of the bands so far I reckoned there was enough room for one more band before green. Wonder if it would be blue? I set my head for BLUE and repeated the dowsing from the outside edge again. Yep – there it was! Right where I had expected it. Now I quickly dowsed for VIOLET and found it only a few feet out from the trig.point. What about INDIGO? I still couldn’t picture its colour spectrum. I took a moment to recall it – it was a mixture of blue and violet wasn’t it? So, if I just picture such a mix…..Now I found it. About three inches from the stone pillar. Excellent! All in almost rainbow order.

RED – ORANGE – YELLOW – BLUE – GREEN – INDIGO – VIOLET

Although, I would swear when I first dowsed it Indigo and Violet were the other way around too, but I put that down to my inability to picture indigo as a colour the first time I found it. Perhaps something else was going on. The sun was just starting to set, and I wondered of the bands might change order depending upon the time of day? I can verify that next week by going to the same place at different times of day.

With the order and placement verified many times, extremely consistently in terms of placement of the boundary markers and the strength of the rod’s response, I turned my attention to direction of flow. Miller had drawn a diagram of several bands of energy which went in differing directions. I dowsed for the direction at each of the markers :-

Red – went sunwise; Orange – sunwise; Yellow – widdershins; Blue – sunwise; Green – widdershins; Indigo – widdershins; Violet – sunwise.

Next I measured the distance between the markers, using my foot as a measure (I take UK size 12 boots, so they’re about 15 inches in length). The measurements were:-

Red band – 3 paces; Orange band – 2 paces; Yellow band – 7 paces; Blue band – 6.5 paces; Green band – 6 paces; Indigo band – 2 paces; Violet band – 3-6 inches.

I thought next about dowsing to see if they formed a complete circle around the trig.point. I had the idea of following the direction of flow to do this. I started with red, and went left. It formed a wide oval around the stone pillar to return exactly to where I had started. I did the same for orange, which made a slightly smaller oval, passing slightly closer to the central point at its narrowest point. Then I did yellow. And it took me off behind where I had started, into the long grass at the back of the hill! Well, I didn’t expect that!

Now I was baffled, so I paused for a moment to think about it. I had followed the direction of flow for the first two and they had formed an oval around the centre. Both times I had gone left. I dowsed the yellow band heading left against its direction of flow. It formed a smaller oval inside the orange band! OK! I was able to do the same for the other bands too, and each one got smaller and smaller and always returned back to the corresponding marker.

So, what happens if you dowse the other way? I started with red, and it formed a large oval on the other side of my start point – down the hill, instead of around the central pillar – behind me instead of in front. Orange and yellow and blue lines did the same. The yellow line actually spiralled into itself as it came back towards the path, but didn’t touch it. How often do we see that? Energy morphing itself to fit in without touching other lines?

Satisfied with that much I watched the sun setting over the Weaver estuary, and then set off back down the hill. On the way down I felt myself ‘click into’ the snaking energy current that came off the hill. It pulled me downwards and made me walk left then right, then back again. I concentrated on trying to observe where I felt that feeling within my body. There was a pull in my head, around the temples, and also in my legs. Suddenly, I felt a sharp tug to the left, to veer in a tight arc off the path. I felt the urge to circle around quickly, so I stopped and wondered whether I was really following an energy trail.

I used my rods to dowse back up the path. I had been walking along the strongest path of energy, and it did indeed swirl to the left at exactly the point I felt the tug in my head and legs! Further dowsing  showed that the energy trail began to break up into a series of spirals that lead off to the left of the path into the undergrowth.

Well, now I’m beginning to know what that feeling is in my head, and to be able to recognise it as the tug of energy. Could be useful!

In his book “It’s Not Too Late” Hamish Miller (see our book recommendations panel on the right) takes us through his early dowsing experiences in Chapter Eleven. In one paragraph he is talking about finding bands of energy within a wide line that he has picked up with the rods. Of finding deeper qualities he says:

“I became aware that some of the lines in the band responded to a visualisation of different colours. It was the earth’s gentle way of telling us thick humans that we were of different frequencies.”

This is what we found at Runcorn Hill (now Rainbow Hill in my mind!). I think we said to each other that the changes in the bands were probably registering different frequencies. At the time Kal used the Chakra system to determine the order and correlation with the human body’s energies. Miller goes on to say of the energy line:

“…it was made up of twelve separate bands. The colour spread was a mirror image starting from the centre, but not in the normal rainbow sequence.” and “…it became apparent that the direction of energy flow, whilst remaining constant in one coloured ribbon, tended to reverse at certain times.”

Aha! Now we see why on Runcorn Hill we started by dowsing completely different colour sequences, not at all in the order of the chakras or the rainbow colours. It was only after we had started to hypothesise that the lines might be in that order that they ‘magically’ came to be in such an order.

We will now have to go back with an unformulated mind to dowse the colours again. This will see if there really was an order, or whether our self-imposed order would be found to be correct. For Miller it was random. For us it was random first time. When we formulated a theory, the colours began to emerge in that sequence according to the theory!

A warning message to us AGAIN to formulate our theories away from the site, and to try to only gather evidence whilst there. It’s so easy for the rational mind to begin to impose itself during a dowsing session, when what is really required for accurate data collection is a free mind, relaxed but intent upon an answer.

Gwas

Follow the right path this time