The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘st patrick’

Sunday 30th May – Hill of Tara, County Meath. Ireland.

This is the final post relating to my chakra work in Ireland in late May this year. It has been a long haul for anyone who’s been reading them all! I appreciate you taking the time to stick with it. If you want to read them all in sequence then you just need to search for the tag “gwas ireland” to get them all at once. You think YOU have been babbled at? Wait until you hear about my final chakra encounter at the Hill of Tara complex on our final full day in Ireland!

The place was mobbed. Sunday visitors had the run of the place. We bided our time wandering around and went our separate ways for a while marking time and occasionally dowsing a few things to answer questions that popped into our heads.  I went off to the far north of the site and found an entrance to the site. The entrance consisted of an arc of neutral energy forming an archway. At the base of the archway were two circles of neutral energy, each about two to three feet in width (how many megalithic yards is that – one?). The archway was about five to six feet in width and seven or eight feet in height.

I went in “properly” (i.e. with awareness of what I was doing) through the arcing neutral bridge. Often this changes the way a site responds to your work, and it may account for what happened shortly afterwards.

Two faint faerie rings mark an energetic entrance to Tara

As I wandered back up the slop, following an earth energy line for the hell of it and snaking around from side to side, I decided I had time to visit some of the things that we had skimmed over on our last brief visit. As I had more time I went to each feature and tried to engage with it energetically, with awareness. This approach is always more rewarding that simply being a tourist and taking pictures and wondering why you are there.

The Un-Radiant Stone

I was trying to be clever when I visited this stone. I didn’t dowse it, but instead tried to “feel” it. Sorry. I was crap. I have no information to report back about the stone. It felt kind of…dead. I should have dowsed to see whether it had any energies surrounding it, but I didn’t. Possibly because it was dead? I like to hope so. So, what can I say about it…er…it had a radial brickwork pattern around it – similar to the top of Pendle Hill. The views from that point were stunning and expansive, and the stone was a major attraction for almost everyone visiting the site. I hear it’s a modern reconstruction. Probably why it felt uninteresting. People would arrive, look around, then move on.

View west from the standing stone at Tara

Next on the pagan tick-list was the wishing tree on the western edge of the site. Clearly, this was a more “specialist” attraction. I found that the tree felt rather proud to be bearing the wishes and hopes of so many people – but again this was feeling, not dowsing. The hawthorn was in full bloom and smelled divine, which was reason enough to spend time around the tree. Some people seemed to have attached the most bizarre objects to it, though, including something that looked like a mini pink surfboard! I won’t mention the word “appropriate” in this context. It’s a shame that from the picture you can’t really make out the hundred other small ribbons discretely attached to every branch and twig. A lot of love is hanging on those small old branches.

Wishing tree at Tara - check out the surfboard!

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We are still on our first day in Ireland, having just landed at the hotel and taken a breather from our long journey through the “non toll” roads of Dublin, we decided to hit out for Tara.

As Gwas will no doubt relate some of the historical aspects of this site I will deal with an interesting experience that occurred there for me.

We arrived, the long way around (this seems to have been a popular theme in Ireland) and the sun was just setting across the western countryside.

I wandered around the many gentle mounds of the site and eventually ended up in the church yard that is situated there.

The church is dedicated to St Patrick and to be honest, that late in the evening with the many crows nests above, it could have easily doubled as any Hammer House of Horror setting.

With the crows squawking there sleeping call I sat where the dowsing rods had led me i.e. in the church yard there looks to be the remains of a wall. You can see it in the picture below. So there I was, having been “called” to this haunting place by the rods promise of an “interesting” place.

After many moments of contemplation, with no result and it getting a bit cold, the day had been gorgeously sunny but the night was much cooler. I was thinking that it was about time to leave.

When a couple of crows landed right infront of me. They gave me a true fright and I half got up to run, but in the past I have had strange portents with crows so I decided to watch these with intent. They both jumped about and seemed to be fighting over some food on the floor, but I couldn’t see any. Then after a few minutes they let off an almighty screeching…it sounded to me like they were screaming “kay-leech, kay-leech” after a couple moments of this one flew off, then the other. I was dumb struck by the behaviour of these creatures and the mesasage they were trying to communicate.

About fifteen minutes later I met up with Gwas and we exchanged experiences. I asked him whether he had heard of anything called kay-leech. His response was no, so I let it skip from my thoughts. Then some time later to fill a curious void I decided to google it (at great expense!) and as I put in the words, google suggested …”caileach”

What! Seriously! I delved further…

“The cailleach is a sort of mystery; a Goddess who survived eons after her worship died out. she is vastly ancient, so ancient that we virtually nothing of her original myth and ritual. she can be found in Ireland and Scotland and England, traced through folklore, through the names of ancient monuments and natural wonders, and through enigmatic verses and stories.
It is not possible to obtain an idea how long she was worshiped, or by whom. The Celts came to the lands of the Cailleach some 2000 years ago. bringing their own pantheon of Gods and Goddesses. The new arrivals recognized the Cailleach as already ancient, for as a famous Irish poems says, ‘There are three great ages; the age of the yew tree, the age of the eagle, the age of the Cailleach.’ It is impossible to know what this Goddess meant to her original worshipers.
Cailleach must have been very important, for she did not disappear as countless other divinities have, If nothing is truly known about her, paradoxically she is still alive, still a power in the lands once dedicated to her. from these vestiges, we can reconstruct  something of the powerful original figure of ancient times.
She had many names Cailleach Bheur or Carlin in Scotland; Cally Berry in northern Ireland; Cailleach ny Groamch on the Isle of Man; Black Annis in Britain; the Hag of Beare or Digne in Ireland. She was of fearsome appearance, with only one eye an eye of preternatural keeness, in the middle of a blue black face.  She was noted to have red teeth and hair white as a frosted snow covered mountain top. Over it she wore a kerchief and over her dull grey clothing a faded plad shawl.” Source: Order of White Moon

What did this mean? I was at a loss to explain it that night, but the next day had more revelations and a deal to be had. But if you want a hint…it is right there in the text above…”There are three great ages; the age of the yew tree…”

Just before I finish this post I want to mention the locations that this path took:

• It started at Tara and St Patrick
• More was revealed at Knowth
• Concluded at Four Knocks

Google is a fantastic tool and I searched for a connection with these terms and found one that connected Tara, St Patrick, Caileach and Four Knocks… An Imbolc Celebration , stay tuned for more!

Bless,

Kal