The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘signs’

After the evening at Gop Hill (see  nightly revelations) I had missed the message that my knights quest had completed, successfully I might add. As I said in that post I was rather disappointed at its conclusion as I had been looking forward to the challenge of completing a south-north pilgrimage. And indeed had been informed at Dinas Bran (see Dinas Bran shows the way) that my pilgrimage should start at the Forest of Dean.

Anyway a week had past since our visit to Gop Hill and I was beginning to accept the completion of my quest. You might “how did it feel?” Not any different I’m afraid. I have to say that I was/am looking forward to the Spring Equinox ( a week away) which being a sun person will, I feel be very enlightening.

It was a bright sunny morning and I had decided to go for a drive and a walk. I had plenty of work to do so did not feel the urge to go too far, perhaps an hours drive. North Wales seemed like a reasonable destination. A few minutes in the car however had me feeling that maybe the Wizards wood at Alderley Edge would be a better direction. So I took the relevant turn and off I went. Some 10 minutes later I came to a junction where the left would have taken me towards Alderley. I had a strange compulsion to take the right turn instead and so I did.

I pondered whether I should stop the car and determine a destination via the dowsing rods, since I was getting some intuitional urges. I left the matter for the moment and carried on driving, fortunately the night before I had filled the petrol tank to the max.

I drove along the motorway for some 40 minutes before deciding to pull into a service station. As I sat in the car pondering whether to get out a grab a coffee and sandwich a noticeable crow flew over my car, circled in a wide arc and flew off in the direction I had been driving. Okay, I thought, forgot the coffee and hit the highway again. I had driven along this particular stretch many times and knew that there was a distinct lack of sacred sites along it. Unless…

As I drove, I realised that this route would take me south and towards the Forest of Dean and beyond. But it was a 2.5 hour journey to the forest, not including the hour I had already driven. Surely not! I hadn’t prepared for such a long journey, and what if it continued on after that?

Well, I wasn’t going to make that journey without more concrete instructions than a Crow! So, again at another service station I stopped, this time at a quiet corner of the car park to do some surreptitious dowsing. But I didn’t get the chance. As soon as I got out of the car 3 Crows flew over squawking and in the direction of travel. Okay! So be it. I got in the car and set the Sat Nav for the Forest of Dean (which was to be the beginning of the adventure).

Kal Malik

What I most enjoy about the work I do with sentient entities is the way that it is possible to get both immediate feedback, and then sometimes you will get a sign or a little gift later on when the whole episode has been integrated into your being. Such was my double dip reward at The Bridestones this Imbolc. Firstly I had the absolute pleasure of spending it with some good friends – the best I have – and secondly I got a visual reward when I found that Brigid herself had made an appearance on camera.

Signs for Britain’s Sickest Village?

As this was the final site visit of Imbolc we happened to arrive very close to sunset, with just enough time to prepare for the setting sun. Very little of our visits are planned in terms of timing, and this was another occasion when we just happened to have arrived when we needed to. Something was certainly involved in guiding us that day as a whole. We had encountered “signs” related to being stuck, and having barriers in our way as we travelled around the Derbyshire countryside. For example, Mike had mentioned that one particular village – Swythamley – had some terrible energies, and that we should go an experience this for ourselves. Kal was not keen on this at all, but I dutifully followed navigational directions in order to drive through the place out of curiosity. As we got closer to the village we encountered a huge lorry stuck in the middle of the road on a bend. We narrowly missed being squashed as it squeezed past the car. Then there were two near misses with other lorries that also caused us to have to either brake severely and swerve, or stop completely to allow the lorry to pass. Not particularly unusual in Derbyshire, but it was the coincidence of these events happening as we approached Swythamley that made Kal in particular take notice of the signs, and begin to express his dread fear that we might not get out of the village alive!

I noticed the energetic field around the village as we approached the outskirts of the first buildings indicating the village boundary. The place began to feel increasingly dreadful. Awful, horrific energies pushed my sacral chakra point relentlessly making me feel more and more nauseous. I nearly vomited as we reached the centre where people had parked their cars to go walking in the nearby hills. “Why would they park here!” I opined, disbelieving that we were the only ones that could feel this awful throbbing darkness. As we left the village, to the relief of everyone, particularly me, I noticed that the village lay at the end of two long straight rods that were channelling energies into the basin of Swythamley village itself. A warning: if you’re energetically aware, please don’t ever go there! Not even out of curiosity. For the next five minutes I spent my time energetically cleansing myself with silver and gold light visualisations.

The fading light of Imbolc at The Bridestones

As we arrived at The Bridestones a lorry tried to turn into the tiny lane leading to the quarry next tot he site. We sat for five minutes in the road watching in disbelief as the strange stuck lorry syndrome was repeated. Please, I begged, don’t let this be another sign that the energies are terrible. Not after all the work that Mike and I had done to try to repair the energetic framework of the site. We entered the site after the lorry abandoned its fruitless task and as we walked through the gate and the yew bower everyone agreed that the site felt much much better than they had ever expected. Phew! Things were looking good.

Diversions aside, we began our preparation for the Imbolc sunset.

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the sign of the crow

I was looking for some software on the Internet yesterday and as I looked up a crow flew across my window. I acknowledged it and continued my search. A few seconds later it flew by again and I gave it a couple of seconds of pondering before continuing on. Some 15 minutes later I had failed to find a legitimate copy of the software but had found a dubious one. I downloaded it and was preparing to install it when the crow flew by and landed on the tree in front of my room. I looked out at it and recall having the thought, “you’re warning me not to install this, aren’t you?” Of course my rational brain kicked this thought into touch and I hit the INSTALL button.

Later that day I started to notice the odd strange thing happening to my computer and it wasn’t long before I realised that it was infected with a virus. Argghhhh!!!!

Question for you guys: Was the crow warning me? or am I just connecting two random dots?

 Kal Malik – telling himself to pay attention to the signs!

RJ Stewart - scares the pimples off toads

Every now and again I come across and idea that I can really tune into. One such idea is espoused by author R.J.Stewart in his book “The Well of Light – From Faery Healing to Earth Healing“. Something tells me from Mr.Stewart’s demeanour that spending time with that man might be a scary experience, and he looks a bit mad. But then, look at some of the ideas that I now go along with – several years ago I would have said the same of myself!

The idea that got me excited was his concept of the Seven Aptitudes required to work with the Faery entities which could provide a gateway into developing skills such as healing. So, what is “faery healing” and what are these “seven aptitudes” he espouses? Well, let’s examine his concept of faery healing.

Stewart says that faery healing is a healing process that involves energy-working involving the co-operation of energetic beings who we have traditionally called “faery folk”. He spends some chapters explaining that there are different types of faery folk, and that they present themselves to us in different ways. He goes on to label the smaller kinds as one sort, and the hive or larger, more complex entities as something else – yet stressing that they are all size and quantity differentiations of the same thing – an intelligent spirit form that is all around us if only we bothered to pay attention to it.

Without getting any further into the healing aspects – which I will cover once I have read, absorbed, and worked through the book – I wanted to bring out the “aptitudes” that he mentions as being the seven aspects through which you might encounter the faery realm, and through which you can work with it.

He states that we all have these aptitudes within us, but that they are often latent unless accidentally triggered or brought out through working on them, or naturally develop as part of some spiritual work we may be involved in.

The seven aptitudes he lists as being:-

1. Working with Water
2. Working with Stones
3. Working with Allies and Co-Walkers
4. Working with Plants and Herbs
5. Working with Living Creatures
6. Working with Touch (palms of the hands or fingertips)
7. Working with Signatures (patterns in the landscape)

Let me do a little translation and explanation of these aptitudes based upon the work that Kal and I do, and you may begin to see that we work with almost every aspect of these aptitudes, although we clearly favour one or two more than others.

Working with water is the energising of water with subtle energy. Kal especially has done a lot of work with this and it is now a part of his daily routine to energise water. For me, water is in balance with the other elements that I work with, but I favour Air above the other forms. I have a particular affinity with Air and its spirits, and I leave Water work to those who feel this affinity. I can find water with my dowsing rods, but I don’t make that a regular feature of my work because I live in Britain where water is an abundant resource.

Working with stones is defined as working with standing stones, stone circles, stones that have an energy signature, or ones that we pick up and use. Into this category I would also add crystals. Well, this is almost 90% of what Kal and I work with at any given sacred site! We are forever picking stones up, using crystals, and working at sacred sites. This would be one of our foremost aptitudes, I would say, but the rods say otherwise! The dowsing rods indicated to me that this was an aptitude I had, but not a strong one! Well, I live and learn.

Working with Allies and Co-Walkers. For me this translates as working with faery entities and “ascended” human forms. I define it as all of the “Underworld” and “Otherworld” work that we do in communion with spirit forces, and I include death energy forms in this too. In recent years this has gained a certain degree of prominence in our work, as I’m sure you have discovered by reading this blog! When I dowsed whether this was a strong aptitude for me I got a very strong response. News to me!

Working with plants and herbs is not something we do particularly. We tend to limit this work to our interactions with teaching trees. I have a couple of books on herb lore and tree lore, which I intend to read up on at some point, but this is not our major focus. Stewart emphasises that this aptitude is not related to the substance of plants, but to their spirit forces. There are other people for whom working with plant spirits is very important. I am not one of those people at the moment, but I respect their work.

Working with living creatures is something that we have begun to recognise in our work with birds and totem animals. Reading the signs of bird behaviour is something that I attach to almost every task now, and my totem is the hawk, but this is not exclusive. Recently a badger guided me to return to a task at a particular and more appropriate time, for example. I would again say this is not our primary focus, but we do recognise its increasing significance in our work.

Healing from the palm chakras being developed

Working with touch is something that I wrote about recently in two ways. The first was when I discussed druid divination techniques that involved “deviceless dowsing” or feeling for energy through the medium of touch – through the hands. Also I have recently posted about my experiences about being guided on my current healing task by being shown that my palms chakras are the way that I should take in and give out healing energy forces. This is going to assume much greater significance over the next six months, I’m sure. Also, remember how I was shown an image of being able to work with plants through touch this Spring? I would classify this as an aptitude that I am getting increasingly involved with. Add to that Kal’s Reiki master level training and I think we have this one covered!

As far as the dowsing rods were concerned this was another area that responded positively and very strongly. Possibly the strongest response of all, indicating that for me this healing path is something I am going to have to let emerge, as it seems to be a talent I have been keeping hidden for too long.; Interestingly, this was what my psychic friend Mike had said to me many months ago but I had put it to one side at the time.

Working with signatures in the land is the final aptitude that Stewart discusses. Stewart defines a signature as being a pattern of behaviour in the landscape, in Nature, that delivers a message to the natural magician. For example, Kal and I often talk of seeing “signs” or “omens” in our surroundings – the appearance or sound of birds, clouds, wind, an animal crossing your path. The patterns in the landscape can take any form and they are always only available and meaningful to you personally – they mean nothing to anyone else. They are specific to place and time, and to your frame of mind.

I would like to add another aspect to this particular aptitude. Kal and I think of these energy signatures as being “sigils”, or subtle energy in geometric forms. A quick search on the site will reveal many posts in which we describe and utilise these energy signatures in our work. These were particularly important when we started with the dowsing aspects of our work, but now that we have moved on into other areas these sigils are less important for us. Nevertheless, I do not diminish their significance, only the use for us at this time.

R.J.Stewart, in a bid not to alienate his audience, states that we ought to have at least one of these aptitudes, and that will suffice. I think we can say that Kal and I have developed most of these aptitudes by following our spiritual paths without prejudice or undue preference. Obviously some have developed more than others, and some may never develop much further than us trying them out and seeing where they take us at that time, especially as we begin to concentrate on those aptitudes that we gain the most from, or which give the most to others.

Going with the flow of the universe has been a challenging but incredibly rewarding learning course for us. We welcome developing all seven aptitudes, and can’t wait to see how they lead us through this healing phase of our work. I think this is an interesting framework to keep an eye on whilst we develop, and see whether each area has something to offer our healing capabilities as they mature.

Gwas.

More information:

• R.J.Stewart’s DreamPower web site
• His book publishing site
• Stewart’s books on Amazon

A few months ago I was returning from work on a lovely sunny afternoon when a bright shining light caught my attention. Hold on, it wasn’t anything mysterious. It was the sun sparkling of the face of a distant church. I was surprised by the sight and felt a calling to it. As is rarely the case these days, I ignored this intuitive call and continued on my way home.

Since that time I have occasionally had a twinge to go and look for this hidden church but have resisted the urge with remarkable rationality. Recent circumstances have suggested to me to move away from my current residence and look for a new place to stay. Although my current residence was found through very synchronistic means and one of those rare occasions when your higher self intervenes directly in your affairs. We are co-creators and it is about time to make another shift.

I was perusing the rent-a-room site looking for a place when my eye was caught by an advert. I read the description, it was perfect. I sent an email off straight away and considered my position. My main criteria had been broadband internet access, which my current landlord for various reasons was averse to installing. However, I had an issue. The room had a minimum stay of 3 months and my contract was/is due to finish in one month. An interesting conundrum.

The following evening I went to view the property and found to my surprise that it was adjacent to the above mentioned church. As I was walking up the slight hill, I recognised the building immediately and since I had some spare time. I decided to wander through it and feel the energies. It has a remarkable feel to it and I thought that it would be great to be living by it and explore the energies at my leisure.

As a follower of signs I knew almost at once that this was the place for me. Signs are signs! I visited with the delightful residents of the house and we got on famously. I have to say though that they had had much interest in their place and even though I offered to take the place immediately they asked to reflect on it.

For about 5 minutes I wondered whether this was a path I should be following. Nah! Of course it was. I knew that I would be offered the room. And even as I walked past the old sign, the church of St Mary, I knew that my work contract would be extended by the required three months.

I am not into predictions but I am into future confidence and I am confident that both of these truths will come to pass. Let’s see if they do!

Kal Malik

Addendum: In complete disregard of what might be I have just returned from paying the first months rent on a place that I might not even need.

Addendum 2: A week later my boss called me into his office. You have your extension he said, we’d like to keep you on for 14 weeks. I was bemused, because my intent was for 12 weeks. I apologised to him and said that I could only accept 12 weeks. He looked surprised. After all contractors were supposed to be happy with “more” time not less. I, however stuck to my guns and said that I could only work until 14 Oct. He went off and consulted with higher authorities and returned with the same 14 weeks. Again I apologised and said that  could only do 12. But on impulse I suggested we look at the calendar. We did so and found that I was mistake. It was 13 weeks that took me to the 14th. So we were still a week short of the required time. My manager went off a second time.

It was at this point that a friend called me up and asked whether I was free for the weekend. I replied no, and his comment was, “Why, are you working the weekend or something?” What a revelation! I approached my manager and gave him some middle ground. I would work the extra 5 days over the weekend (at the same cost as a weekday) to make the 14 weeks.

Kal Malik ~ Knight Errant

One of our readers Tina, commented on this post about signs and coincidences, I thought it deserved a post because of how related to out work guides and totems are. Here is Tina’s comment:

“Fox is one of my guides, and that began with some amazing experiences of meeting real ones too. I once had to stop for one that crouched in the middle of road and did not get off as I approached in my car. I put my high beam on, and in the brighter light, I could see, in the darkness behind him or her, another fox was crossing with their babies trotting behind. The front fox was risking being run over (obviously I never would but some people here in Oz would have) in order to protect its family.

To me they represent otherworldliness, but tempered with practicality, and they don’t lose their sense of fun either (I was lucky enough to see one playing/dancing in a paddock once) and they are able to adapt to so many conditions. They are true survivors and fantastic guides.”

The first point to make is that what I am about to say is description of my current beliefs, it is what I am holding to be true for me at this moment in time. It doesn’t invalidate what you believe nor does your belief impinge on its validity.

1) My first rule regarding signs, omens, portents or any other word one cares to use is this, that they are deeply personal. A sign is for you. Indeed if you don’t think of an event as a sign, then by definition it isn’t. This is  an important distinction to make as it brings to the fore that another person can’t persuade you that an event is (or isn’t a sign).

2) The second point leads from the first really, an event doesn’t have to be uniquely pointed at you to represent itself as a sign. For example, for me, the Sun coming out of heavy clouds to shine on me whilst I am engaged in work is a sign. Now obviously the sun came out for many other people to, but because I gave it meaning, it becomes a sign.

3) Mutiple people can claim an event as a sign, taking the sun as an example again, Gwas and I often claim this as sign. Each for our own reasons. Thus it is difficult to see how one can lay claim to a sign.

4) A psychological argument is that because we expect a sign, we get one, after all dog barking or a cat mewing can be taken for a sign. Indeed one could find signs everywhere if one is loose enough with their interpretation. I agree. There is no place to go with this counter position.

Examples of signs

Some signs that Gwas and I have experienced and that we regularly encounter is the Sun (less so, the Moon and even less so the Stars) as portents of work that has been well received. Almost unbelievably often, even in the depths of winter and cloud filled skies, work that we have done at sacred sites has resulted in a bathing of sunlight. Specifically this work has to be within the realms of healing the site in some way.

Other signs come from our totems, for instance I adopted the Crow as my totem some years ago (or so it feels, in actuality it may only be two!) and since that time it has been a harbinger of direction. A kind-of: don’t go left, go right or “well done”. We will look at interpretations in a moment.

I distinguish guides/spirits and other sources of information (for instance for me, Ancient Yew Trees) from signs and portents becuase I feel the former are much less cryptic that the latter. Signs to me are Koans to ache the brain. Whereas communing with beings is much more formative, at least the message is a lot longer than just a bird flying in a particular direction!

Good and bad

I don’t believe that signs are good or bad, they are signs. An omen that tells you that there is something bad ahead gives you the chance to avoid it. I think that this misrepresentation of signs comes from people who aren’t good at reading signs (myself included) and thus:

1. they see an omen
2. cant figure out what it means
3. blunder into that which it was warning about
4. associate the omen with the bad event

Sounds like a fair assumtion to make.

Reading omens

This is a tough one, considering that i’m not too brilliant at it myself. Is there a way to get good at it? Yes, I believe so. The key, I feel to omens is intuition. Omens speak to us through our intuition and it is here were work needs to be done to get  better handle on portents.

One of the major difficulties is that we are so mired in reason that if we can’t find a reason for something then we wont follow that path. Reason is a pretty useful characteristic but it needs to take a seat when information comes in through intuition.

The argument that following my intuition leads me into a mess. doesn’t hold very well for the simple “reason” that following your reason can lead you into a mess too. So where does that leave us?

Exercising your intuition isn’t about using it, but about following it. In my humble opinion it has to start with a little faith. This faith of course is in yourself, your trust in your intuition. Recent (the last 6 months frankly) have seen me follow my intuition and it has been an absolute blast. But that’s me!

Prediction

There is a certain element of prediction that goes in with signs and omens. I am in two minds, I have had experiences that have clearly broken temporal law (not only that but have had personal conversations with many others). I have also had ones where I think a confluence of events have precipitated a knowledge of where things seem to be going. As some wise-acre said, if we could figure out the position and trajectory of every atom in the universe we could predict the future.

Our intuition might simply be able to:

1. see a lot more of whats going on
2. recall a lot more than we can cosncioulsy remember
3. add all of this up and come up with a miraculous number
4. present this number to us in an out of the ordinary way

The above scenario is one that I like for most of my intuitive leaps, especially if you thro into the mix that intuition has access to what’s going on in the energetic domain.

It is also quite possible that other beings have access to more info or non temporal information and are passing it on to us. But again I don’t count this as signage.

If you push me for an answer I would say:

1. that energy has a non temporal component
2. this can echo backwards in time
3. because our reason is so stupid it gets in the way of reading this information
4. we thus feel it as an intuitive kick or perceive it as a sign.

Here again we are seeing that it is we that decide on what a sign is and thus we that choose our totems if you will.

A totem isn’t a totem unless you think it is!

Well, I hope that’s provided some points to muse over.

Kal Malik – following signs

Prelim…Source…

Beyond the walls of the old house and buried in a tangled mound of short tufted shrubs and undergrowth, is the mouth of a cave – or fogou as it is known in Cornish. The entrance, lipped with pillars of granite, nestles between two mossy banks, sucking life into its womb…

…You want to cling to reality and block the voices out. But they are insistent, and you listen because although you hear them with your mind, they speak with a voice that is not your own. And locked in here for centuries, they want to be heard… Jo May – A journey into the underworld

Signs

Saturday morning had arrived and I was feeling a little apprehensive. A couple of weeks ago I had set out with the same destination in mind (but with signs saying not to) and had only got 8 miles into my journey before I was stopped.

My destination was of course the Boleigh Fogou in the deep south of Cornwall. So the question I was asking myself was, was it a good idea to go? The rods said it was, but they also said that I didn’t needto go. A fair answer, but I wanted more. With that need for a sign I toddled off for an innocent coffee in town.

By 8:30 I had had my coffee, read of paper, update of Facebook and was returning back to my lodgings sign-less. I stopped off to get some cash from a ATM and just as I was putting in my number a crow dropped on aledge above me and cawed to high heaven. I looked up and realised it was the sign I was looking for. There was no stopping me now.

A sign is only a sign if you believe it to be a sign

The weather hereabouts was a drizzly grey and hopeful as I ever am,as I drove off into the south I looked down at my light blue jeans and patently non-waterproof white trainers. Hmmm looked like it was going to be another wet feet and visibly muddy day. There again as I was about a hundred miles into the journey the sun came out of the clouds and shone brightly for the rest of my journey…Indeed…another sign for the sign seekers.

Boleigh Fogou

I was lucky, I had tapped in “Newlyn” – as the nearest town to the Fogou and had arrived there with no problems. But from there it was going to be a bit of a try your luckbut as shot in the dark I stuck Boleigh into my satnav and it responded with a destination in 3 miles! Amazing.

I reached “my destination” and was at a loss. According to the Internet the Fogou was at the back of a bed and breakfast rooming house called Rosemerryn. But alas no signs for such were forthcoming along the road that it was supposed to be off. I stopped the car in a lay by and decided to try my luck with my recently purchased Techo-Mage tool i.e. my iPhone. As I pulled it out I spotted a young man walking up the road towards me. So I opted for good old fashioned local knowledge instead and asked him.

“Ah, you be looking for the Foogu? I knows where that is”

Fantastic! With the sun shining like a early summers day (honestly) me and my erstwhile guide Dan were off into the woods. He told me that he usually snuck in from the back of the B&B thus avoiding any possibility of being shooed off the land.

As readers will know I am not averse to Guerrilla Dowsing but something was nagging at me as we made our way down the lane and then back up again through the woods. It didn’t feel right this time. So I stopped my guide and asked him instead how I could get to the house instead.

He warned me that because I hadn’t phoned ahead I would be turned away at the door. Still I decided to go with my instinct and said farewell to my guide. Making my way back up the lane and towards the main house I was met by the owner, Rob. I asked him if this was the place of the Fogou (Foogu), he asked if I had phoned ahead? Oh dear, I replied that I hadn’t but had come a 3 hour drive to see it. his impressed him and he led me around the back of the house to where the Fogou was located.

It suprised me as to how close to the house the Fogou was and that had I come in through the woods I would have been spotted by the owners almost imediately and turfed out.

Rob left me in the company of the Fogou.

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