The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘south west’

Sunday 22nd August, 2010 – The Hurlers, Minions, Cornwall.

Having driven through the village of Minions to get to Trethevy Quoit the night before we were fairly confident about finding the famous stone circles called “The Hurlers”. There was a big brown sign pointing to them and everything so how could we miss them? We missed them. The morning mist was so dense that visibility was down to twenty feet, and as we trudged along the damp granite path our attention was on avoiding the larger puddles. At one point I stopped, intuitively feeling something was nearby. As I looked up I could see a small marker stone making an unusually prominent shape in the white misty background. We decided to head in that direction across the moorland and soon other shapes were coming out of the mist confirming that we had made a wise choice. Luck was with us and we hadn’t gone too far past, and soon dark shapes were appearing in regular patterns like dull ghostly sentries. We remarked how ‘atmospheric’ it was, which translated meant, “Dammit – why couldn’t it be sunny – this is spooky!”

What the Hurlers can look like

The Coach and Four

Other people were knocking about too, somewhere. Occasionally we would hear the sound of feet on the path and calls to a dog, or a group of walkers crunching past. It seemed that everyone else was missing the stone circle too because we were not disturbed during our hour long visit by anyone else, despite hearing man other voices nearby. Talking of which, as Kal and I convened on our way back we discussed the sounds we had heard in the mist and realised that both of us had heard the same strange noise. It was the sound of a carriage being pulled by horses. Undoubtedly. I’ve heard that sound in so many films that I couldn’t mistake it. I heard the sound of at least two horses, more like four, and they were accompanied by the sound of wooden wheels crunching on the path. There was no engine noise accompanying it. Most odd. Maybe some people with horse and cart were going past at nine in the morning? Even odder, the sound didn’t fade into the distance as you would expect, but disappeared as it passed us. You heard it clearly for a moment, and then as it passed by it died off quickly, it didn’t fade away. Again, very odd. I shivered a little in the morning gloom, and put it down to the atmosphere, but then when I mentioned it to Kal he nodded – he’d heard the same, and he added his own impressions of the noise which confirmed mine. However, on to the circles….

The Hurlers – The Male Circle and the Cross

There are three circles marked on OS maps, but in the mist we only found two of them. The Secret Cornwall site tells us that we are even wrong about that:

“The remains of a smaller fourth circle have recently been found north-north-east of the obvious three circles and a further fifth circle has been suggested between it and the others” (source: Secret Cornwall)

The first circle we encountered was the larger of the two, then there was a small pathway which linked to a slightly smaller ring of stones a few feet further north. One of the first things we independently dowsed was that the larger circle had a female characteristic, whilst the smaller circle was male.

Can you spot the stones?

Kal spent his first hour in the female circle, or rather, around its periphery, whilst I tried to get to grips with the male circle. I had come to the circles with an idea: I wanted to know whether it was possible to connect to the Sirius star energy, and what would happen if I did. I found a 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. and began to work with it, connecting to its core. I identified the location of Sirius, and then sat facing it. Almost immediately I got the impression that I should walk around the circle to stir up the energies. I dowsed for the start point, and then which direction – clockwise. No surprises there. I walked around twice, the second time the path began to weave as though the energies around the stones were becoming agitated. This was good – I had done a similar thing at Mitchell’s Fold stone circle once. At that Shropshire circle I had walked around five times, each time dowsing a more erratic path with higher peaks. This was similar, but only required two perambulations to get the energies flowing enough to work with.

Male circle 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. marked by feather and staff

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20th August, 2010 – Trevethy Quoit, St Cleer, Cornwall

It is not very often that Kal and I go on a wild goose chase. We are usually quite well prepared, and we have technology to back us up. More often than not we have hard copies of bits of Ordnance Survey maps accompanied by copious notes. For our journey into Devon, however, we had none of that and were utterly reliant upon a good internet connection, and the usually good advice of Aubrey Burl’s ‘Guide to Stone Circles’.

Let me please advise anyone planning a journey into Devon – neither of these sources is going to be good enough if the rains come down, the mist rolls in, and fog settles on the moors! We wasted a full day in persistent foggy drizzle and lashing rain traipsing back and forth trying to follow vague directions and a high level map that didn’t include most megalithic sites. Poor preparation, and we paid for it. By the end of the first day in Devon we had all but given up hope of finding a stone circle with relatively good access that was in good condition, despite having a list of at least four candidates! A dismal day.

All that was about to change, however, as we moved towards Cornwall. Bless lovely Cornwall! I picked a site that was at least marked as a tourist attraction on my high-level map, and we decided to attempt to make that our destination for a night-time visit. Yes, despite missing stone circles in the fog and mist in the day time, we were prepared to venture out into the fog and mist at night, expecting to find Trevethy Quoit! Were we mad? Luckily for us, fate lent us a hand and we were guided in using all the techno equipment we could muster!

Trevethy Quoit just as I sketched it yesterday

Scanning the site

Once we got some space to dowse when the local village dog-walkers had retired for the evening, we did so. I went about finding the energetic aura of the site, which was about thirty feet around the site, although I didn’t follow it all the way around to where the houses backed onto the site. It may have flattened there, I don’t know. I’m lax – slap me! (“Hi Lax, you’re a slacker” – *SLAP*).

Before things got interesting I dowsed to see if there was any form of energetic entity in the area. I have been practising putting up protection recently so I wanted to know if I needed to do that here too. Apparently I did need to, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Kal had found a male 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. and I found out that I wasn’t compatible with that and that it was wise for me to protect my energies in such circumstances. This seems to be generally true – I am moon-aligned (i.e. compatible with female energy forms) and so if I encounter a site which has a male energy signature I have found out that it is sensible for me to protect my energy field from degradation, depletion or attack.

Death energy path to quoit entrance

Another good reason or me to put up protection was that there was an energetic shroudAs coined by Kal after reading the definitions of C.W.Leadbeater – the early 20th Century mystic. Leadbeater considered that man, when he died, could become stuck in a “ShadeA shade is the energy body of a human being that has become transfixed at a geographical location. The shade retains many of the qualities of the human that it was attached to (memories, character traits, a level of sentience, movement between places known in life).” – an energetic shell that would retain many of the characteristics of the human in his physical life. It is frequently taken to be what is termed a ‘ghost’ but although it has a certain amount of sentience, it would seem to be limited in terms of its ability to move from the space within which it has anchored itself. It must be stated – it is NOT the person who has died – it is a remainder copy that contains the memories and characteristics of the original energetic fields of the human, but now has no physical organism to work with. (or ShadeA shade is the energy body of a human being that has become transfixed at a geographical location. The shade retains many of the qualities of the human that it was attached to (memories, character traits, a level of sentience, movement between places known in life).) that was still registering an energetic imprint on the site. This death energy form was buried at a spot facing down the hill from the quoit, but it had a series of five linked male power centres which curved in a parabolic sweep right up to the entrance of the quoit’s inner space. This death energy was still active and could be utilising whatever went on inside the quoit to persist and replenish its own energy. I wasn’t going to be party to that! I had recently been reminded about protection and this was a good opportunity for me to re-visit an old mental routine for establishing that protection. I could have used a crystal layout but I prefer to be able to do things mentally if possible, using crystals as a last resort only if the mental space is too crowded (from noise or other distractions). The dowsing rods led me outside of the site’s aura as a safe space within which to set this protection up, and I did so gratefully.

The Sirius Meditation

TQ in sunlight - possibly the only photograph in existence

I will be publishing a post soon with lots more detail about the information I have discovered about the star Sirius, but for now let’s just say I had some questions that I still needed answers to because it was a difficult subject to take on board without boggling the brain. With the Moon almost full I squeezed into the quoit’s cramped inner dark space in order to connect with the site and get some answers. Four sticks of incense were required to help me. In such a small space that was quite pungent!

TQ's rabbit hole

Fifteen minutes later I emerged with some interesting information that would challenge many of the assumptions that I had read about and which many magicians take for granted, especially natural magicians. Such a series of assertions was going to have to be well researched and considered, but I want to give you the highlights so that you can be considering your own questions to bring to the Sirius post. Hopefully I will have managed to weave together enough information by then to make it all coherent and intelligible. For now, here is what I learned for you to think about, challenge and test for yourselves:-

• It is Sirius, not The Moon, which governs the forces of fertility and protection
• Sirius emits a powerful radiance which facilitates the process of enlightenment for humans – the frequency of its rays resonate with our ethericSomething tangible to the heightened senses, but invisible and beyond the normal range of everyday human senses. We use the term to describe the subtle energies that surround the human body. We also use the term “etheric” to describe the energy forms of Nature’s sentient spirit energies that can be detected through dowsing, or through deep meditation or states of heightened awareness. energy points known as chakras.
• Sirius is a strong force radiating blue light which resonates with our throat chakras, facilitating communication. More so than Mercury is supposed to.
• Above all, Sirius’ light is a motivational force – it is the impulse that drives humans to learn. The more aware and open a person is to the forces of Sirius then the more they are motivated to learn and grow mentally and spiritually.

That was the information gleaned from the first site visit in Cornwall. I have three more to post including The Hurlers, The Cheesewring and Tintagel Castle. Hope you enjoy them soon.

Gwas.