The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘stone circle’

Despite the previous night being a great night for star-watchers, I felt a ‘pull’ to go to Llandrillo’s stone circle on Tuesday 15th March. The day was cloudy and murky, but relatively warm, and the evening was the same. There would be no star-gazing this evening!

I was going to Moel-Ty-Uchaf for many reasons:

1. To confirm a recent warning received via Kal from the Llangernyw Yew tree and to see what mitigating action I might need to take
2. To pay my respects to the people who have died in the Asian Pacific region recently, and to send calming thoughts to the earth in that region
3. To test my fitness – it’s the steepest longest climb I know to any sacred place except Snowdon
4. To create an energetic shield to fight off infection and heal myself

I better explain that last point. It wasn’t that I was ill as such, just that there were at least two people who I worked close to who were coughing and sneezing and, as seems to be the case these days, making no attempts or efforts to block those coughs from being spread all around the air-conditioned room. I felt like it was a matter of time before I came down with something – and in fact that evening I had felt my stomach being a little bit upset. Was this the sign that I was about to get ill? I didn’t want that – let’s see if I could modify my energy field at a stone circle to prevent it.

Moel Ty Uchaf evening shot

The evening was misty but the roads were dry and the mist was a welcome addition to the atmosphere of this extraordinary place. As I walked up – without my staff for once, I wanted to do this work unaided entirely – I began to work my way through the various chakra points, five in all, and I used my recently-acquired knowledge of the correct vocal sounds to activate them in sequence. By the time I reached the top of the hill I was aware that I was energetically ‘ready for action’ as it were, and I put up some protection too in order to retain this energy, to stop it from dissipating or being taken by anything that I wasn’t expecting to be on this hill. Best to be safe than sorry, eh?

I made it to the top of the hill in record time, with no stops on the way to catch my breath, and with my calf muscles tight but not burned out. This was a major improvement over the last time I visited when I stopped at least three times, was covered in sweat despite it being the middle of Winter, and I had to take a 10 minute rest on the top. Tonight, no rest was required at all! Progress.

I sat on the King Stone for a moment to decide what I should do first. My first decision was that tonight I would not use my dowsing rods. I would have a dowse-less experience and see what happened. It was a long way to climb to get it wrong, but sometimes you have to test yourself to the limits to make headway and break barriers.

I decided firstly to pay my respects and try to do some remote earth healing. It seemed a bit like I was spitting into a forest fire by doing such a thing, but maybe the intention was worthy in and of itself? I took out three sticks of incense and lit them. I approached the stone circle, feeling for the energies and was taken off to one side, around the edge of the circle at a distance of eight feet or so from the stones. I walked around until I came to the southern entrance and waited for permission to enter, which was duly granted. Now the fun was about to start…

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This is the second part of our Yorkshire outing at Imbolc. In this half of the day we had our serious heads on. We went looking for a mighty stone circle, then passed a curious tower that we had to investigate, went to dowse at Bolton Abbey priory as the light began to fade, and then made a rapid return to the stone circle to clean up. All will be explained.

4. Druid’s Altar stone circle at Bordley on the B6285 north of Skipton. [Megalithic portal link - Bing OS map]

Beyond Malham Cove we realised we have gone the wrong way. We shouldn’t have been going through Malham, beautiful as it was. We stopped and re-calibrated our route. Another half hour to the stone circle – really? It had seemed so close on the map. We checked our route once more as the road turned into a single car-width track but we were on the right road. Upwards we climbed, glad of the four-wheel drive and new tyres, but my poor suspension paid a heavy price for our wilderness visit.

We parked and made out way to where a cairn was marked on the map. There was no stone circle in this area and this cairn was all we had to go on. Nobody that we passed knew where this ‘Druid’s Altar’ stone circle was. how could they miss it – it seemed huge and distinctive? The warning signs began to tingle like an over-active spider-sense. After fifteen minutes walking along a path to nowhere we decided to climb up to the nearest peak to see what we could see. It was hard going in the icy grass. At the top we saw…nothing. On the way back to the car I had a brainwave – what if I could find the OS Map co-ordinates and use my GPS2OS application to locate the site? It worked. Frustrating moments later we had our directions – must remember that trick! We were only a mile out in both longitude and latitude! Bacon saved.

To be honest we still struggled to find the Druid’s Altar stone circle even when we had the exact co-ordinates! The images on web sites had not quite shown the diminutive scale of the stones. I thought they were six feet tall – they were three feet tall. We found our respective power centres and had lunch. My 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 ‘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. was fortunately on the lee-ward side of the tallest stone, so I was sheltered. The power centre felt good, and it was comfortable too, which was surprising.

I was soon up dowsing again – the end of January is still bitingly cold when you’re still, so I was soon dowsing all over, asking questions about the circle, where the energies were, where they flowed to. One of the checks I have started to do is to ask whether there is anything that needs modifying. I put it that generally because it is a kind of “balanced” question – neither supposing that positive nor negative energies need be applied, only asking whether the circle is properly energised as it was originally intended to be. The answer was, “Something needs to be done”. Taking a lead from Kal, I asked to be led to the place that had the problem. Moments later I had wound my way to the only other large standing stone in the circle – the one that had a great big horizontal crack in it.

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We have started the New Year back on track with the release of our first podcast.

There’s plenty to get your teeth into in this episode, including new books I’ve received this month, plus reviews of the ones that I have read too.

For the first time on a podcast I do a reading of a Ted Hughes poem, there is some response to reader feedback, and some indications of the directions we will be going in for the coming year.

Of course, there are all your favourite regular features too, so sit back and enjoy the latest podcast, to be found as always on our podcast page.

Happy New Year!

Gwas.

Harthill Moor, Derbyshire – Saturday 20th November

We picked our way carefully down the slope towards Doll Tor. “Give me more details!” I hear you say, “How do I find Doll Tor?” You find it when you’re ready, and if you’re committed enough. Otherwise, just sit back and enjoy this tale instead. Where was I? Oh yes, we picked our way through the cow-rutted clods and across swamps of mud until our feet hit solid ground on the small path that takes you down to the circle, tucked away out of sight in a clump of trees. Kal, as usual, had taken an alternate route that didn’t endanger his trainer-shod feet, whereas I was sensibly attired and ploughed through the middle. Always taking the middle way, eh? It was a good job I had good balance.

I had been warned by our friendly druid at the Nine Stones that there were some ‘decorations’ (known colloquially as ‘clouties’) left at Doll Tor from the Samhain celebrations. Little did I realise quite how intrusive those decorations were until we arrived at the circle. May I just take a moment here to say this to all those who go celebrating at sacred sites – I was always told that the mark of a respectful pagan is that when they have finished you would hardly know they had been there. This has stuck with me, but some, it seems, never got the message. All the trees around the circle were covered in coloured ribbons, either tied around their trunks or wrapped around branches. Several mobiles hung from the trees too. Pretty, but as we were about to discover, not always beneficial.

Pretty ribbons strangling the trees

We began dowsing to assess the the character of the site – always useful to have an impression of how the site is feeling and how it is reacting on any particular visit so that you can tune in to do your best work. This day we found that the energy was not very good there and it was because the good energy associated with the ribbons at the time of their placement had worn off. In fact, some of the people who had tied the ribbons were still energetically linked to them, and because they were not giving off good energies, so that was feeding into the site’s energy field too, by some form of quantum mechanical linkage (in the sense of action at a distance).

There was also a bunch of white flowers laid in the centre of the circle. This had been good, but now was allowing harmful energies to come into the site like some kind of conduit. There was an important lesson being learnt here: objects retain links to their donators unless those links are deliberately severed.

Gifts with links

We worked out fairly quickly from discovering this that out purpose here today would be to break the links between the people and their ribbons, mobiles and flowers. Whilst we found that they had been drawing in good energies at the time they were given, some of the objects were not attracting bad energies through those links. Maybe the people who had donated them were giving off bad vibes, or having bad luck? Either way, the links had to be neutralised, and so we set about doing that.

Kal did one side while I did the other. We lit incense (on a still day for a change) because this seemed to offer a better option for cleansing than crystals. I walked once around the perimeter of the site, widdershins, cleansing its aura. Then I meditated to cleanse, power up and protect myself. I could see Kal doing the same.  When ready we lit more incense and wafted it around the trunks of the trees affected by this bad energy connection (not all were).

The air was pungent and swirling with the wisps of opium incense as it wove its way around each tree , gathering curiously around the coloured ribbons and moving its cleansing air-force through the twirling diagonal mobiles. I imagined that the spirits of the air and fire were assisting with our work. When the last tree was done we planted incense around the decaying bunch of flowers in the centre of the circle and as we did so the air lifted indescribably and subtly as the last bond was released.

When we finished that was all there was to do here so we left, happy that we had done some useful work today. So, beware. If you intend to leave gifts for the goddess, please make the unconditional and unlinked gifts. By all means add your love and gratitude, but please disconnect your self from the act, leaving the gift quantumly untainted!

Gwas.

It’s not often that we encounter like-minded folk on our travels – even at stone circles. When we do it is always a pleasure and rarely a chore. On Saturday 20th November Kal and I headed out to Derbyshire again. Kal had come back for a weekend of fun and frolics, so I put a stop to all that by insisting that he accompany me to some special places for old times’ sake, and because it was a full moon. We chose Nine Stones Close, Doll Tor, Bakewell Church and finally Five Wells chambered cairn. This post will discuss the serendipitous outcome of the Nine Stones Close visit.

I apologise now for my lack of detail. I tend not to store facts and figures these days – I don’t see that they have much use – and so I won’t be able to tell you the names of those involved, nor the details of their social interactions, nor many other details that one might consider to be the normal amount of information gathered from a long discussion. Didn’t get any of that. What I did retain was the interesting stuff, and that’s what I’ll report in this post.

For this trip I had taken everything including the kitchen sink. I knew that I would need incense (and I had stacks of it) and for some reason I felt I needed to bring crystals. So I brought around three different collections which all have different purposes. I also dug out a set which Kal had mistakenly left with me and I was determined to give them back to him, which I did. This set was a chakra balancing set of stones with a varied assortment of useful crystals. When we met I explained the mistake and Kal accepted them crystals back again.

A Casual Query

As we walked up me were hailed by a man in a wide-brimmed Australian bush hat with a south midlands accent. He asked if we were local, to which we replied we weren’t, but nevertheless I asked him to ask his question – we might be able to help. He said that he thought there was a hermit’s cave roundabouts and would we know where it was? We did indeed know, having been up there recently having found the cave eventually. Despite visiting many times we had only found it after being a bit curious and wandering way out of our way – thankfully it was a kinder month than November and we were rewarded by finding the cave and some significant other places that were power centres for us to work in should we ever need them. So we directed the man and his two young lady companions (nice work if you can get it, eh?).

We headed on up to the stone circle…

Kal dowses his favourite circle

We did some preliminary dowsing and discover that today is a good day to do some work. As usual I spent a lot of my time in my particular 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 ‘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 found that I could do some meditation to find out more about which direction I should take my research into spirits and death energies. Kal indicated that he would be working with his favourite tree but instead of it being him healing the tree, this time the tree would be involved in healing him! Most mysterious, and I hope he posts as to what that was about.

I lit some incense and began to prepare to do some meditation, but the group of three arrived interrupting this wok before it got started. We got talking – the girls attracted to the nimble toned physique of Kal (he wishes), whilst the middle-aged gentleman was lumbered with me. I soon identified from his terminology that he was a pagan of some variety and so I mentioned druidry and he responded positively. This was followed by a lengthy account of the Scottish sites we had both visited – he telling me about the wonders of the Orkney Isles, and me responding with my limited repertoire. He recommends that I visit during the Midwinter Solstice. A lovely idea, but it’s a long journey, even from the North of England. One day.

Meanwhile Kal was offering the girls some of his newly re-acquired crystals. Moments later one of the ladies (did I say girls? I was being a gentleman) came over asking her male friend to identify the crystal. He almost said “Lapis lazuli” and I helped him to recall its name, but Kal interjected – “It’s a blue sodalite.” The lady almost fell backwards exclaiming, “That was the crystal that Chinese healer told me I needed to heal my throat.”

For Kal this was a meaningful coincidence – getting the crystals this day, then the lady picking the perfect one out. It was certainly fortuitous.

Our unexpected guests

Kal did some energy healing work with the nearby tree (this time it healed him) and I finished my meditation at my usual stone in the circle. Then I picked up my staff, which I had propped up in one of the stone’s long grooves) and I went to stand in the “unusual” stone’s aura. Which is the unusual stone? Well, it’s the one that we initially picked up bad vibes from, and which seems to have a strong connection to Robin Hood’s Stride – the nearby sandstone ridge. This particular stone is also a funny shape, being wider at the top than at the base. Standing there I got a mental picture of bright aquamarine or topaz – a sort of phosphorescent bright green with just a hint of blue. I tried to meditate again, this time asking whether there was anything else I should be working on – the answer was “Merlin”.

As I stood by the unusual stone I was quivering with energy and asked Kal to dowse me. He found that the energy I was receiving was a new form of energy! We haven’t yet found out what that is or what it might be for. I went back to my power centre and sealed the energy in like a battery storing it for later use.

Charging my staff

Now we headed off to nearby Doll Tor. Luckily now we are familiar with how to get to and park at these places. Kal was wittering on about how marvellous he felt and singing a single note of awe at regular intervals. I advise him he should stop before he got a staff rammed down his throat! What the hedge druid gives with one hand, he takes with the other. Balance, see?

Gwas.

Nine Ladies stone circle, Stanton Moor, Derbyshire – October 13th 2010

Firstly, apologies for the poor quality of the pictures used in this post. I forgot to bring my camera and had to rely on the camera on my phone to get some contextual images. At least they illustrate the point, even if they wouldn’t make a decent backdrop.

Let’s start the post with a giggle. Raise your hands all of you who expected that Kal would have learned his lesson about approaching the grumpy old oak tree that sits alongside the Nine Ladies stone circle! How many raised their hands? All of you? Well, you’d all be right. We arrived, stood for a moment comtemplating the beauty of the circle from fifty feet away, and then Kal bounded over to the oak tree almost demanding that it communicate positively with him. I laughed at the sheer inevitability of what was to come. A poke in the eye from a low-hanging branch for Kal, yet again!

I approached the tree sedately, feeling its aura close to its canopy of still-green leaves. I skirted the edge, rounding the tree once widdershins, occasionally letting its lower outer branches stroke my face. Then, at the correct entrance point I stopped to ask if I might enter. I felt a slight tug at what I am now calling, in Castenada’s terms, the Assemblage Point, and I knew I was alright to enter. We got on, this tree and I. I knew it demanded a careful respect, and I was amenable to that. After all – I was invading its space, not the other way around. Kal grumbled about its grumpiness and I chuckled, reminding him of what he needed to do in order to pass into the tree’s favour. He grumbled again. He hates deference. I don’t call it deference, I call it mutual respect, and that makes the whole thing work automatically, like automatically saying ‘sorry’ if you bump into someone, no matter who bumped into whom.

The Cleaning Job

As Kal paid his penance at the foot of the oak tree I headed to the circle of small stones that formed the dainty monument that is Nine Ladies. Something felt funny, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was exactly. I decided I needed the help of my dowsing rods. I cleaned them down (a matter of stroking the rods from stem to tip and shaking your hand afterwards – a mere ritual, but it seems to keep the rods free of energetic interference). After cleaning I readied the rods in my usual shoot-from-the-hip stance, elbows in at my side and rods perfectly balanced and level, free to swivel as the energies may direct them.

I asked the rods a question, “Did this circle need re-balancing of the energies?” – in other words, was there too much of one particular type of energy? NO. OK, now for the follow up, “Did this circle need cleansing?” – i.e. was there an influx of unusual energy not native to the circle that could be causing disruption to its function? YES.

Distinguishing these two types of energy work is important, I feel. Re-balancing and cleansing are two very different activities requiring different approaches. For re-balancing I seek to either draw up and create more energy for anything that is required to create a balance between the energy types, or else I dampen down the effect of an over-lively energy form in order to bring it back to the levels of the other energies at the site. Cleansing requires me to eliminate some ‘alien’ energy form (usually human-sourced) and to leave the site with only its natural energies (unless the alien energy is actually benefiting the site).

Which brings me to my final question before I begin the work, “Is the additional energy beneficial to the site?”. NO. Right, then it did need to be dealt with. Could I use incense for this work? YES. How many sticks would be required to cleanse the energy? SIX. Six!” Seriously?? That was more than I had ever needed to use before for such work. Usually it’s two, three, maybe four. Six was something that took this work to new heights for me.

Incensed at having to clean this circle

I lit the incense sticks, placed them where the rods dictated I should, and then dowsed for how long they would take to clear the problem energy – six minutes. Ha, today was all sixes! Strange. Next I noticed another strange coincidence.

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It was the finest day of a long series of fine days that were typifying the last of the lingering end of year sun. We were loathe to call this Autumn when it felt like Summer. The sun was shining, the air was warm, the ground was dry, and there wasn’t a hint of wind. We set sail for Derbyshire in the mid-afternoon, heading for Arbor Low. Surely, if any day, today was the perfect day to avoid getting blown over, dying of hypothermia or being flooded out? Surely, today was the day to have a pleasant experience at Arbor Low?

I had no set agenda when we arrived at the small lay-by near to the farmhouse (that is actually a guesthouse too!). I was here merely to bask in the rays of the evening sun and to marvel at the fact that it was pleasant to be here for once. As often happens when I head out on such journeys to sacred sites my expected peacefulness was shattered by a small amount of dowsing that I did. You know, sometimes you should just leave things be! No, I’m glad I did it because I got to meditate in the evening sunset and found out some useful information, and picked up a new skill into the bargain.

Entrance into the Otherworld

The Spirit of Arbor Low

I had entered the site asking to find the current location of the Spirit of Place. I was taken around the trench that rings the site in the shadow of the raised embankment. When I stopped I was standing at the left-hand edge of the southern entrance. I felt a little shudder, which is how I know that I am in the presence of an energetic form. I then asked to be shown the path that the spirit had taken, from the current moment back to midnight. I began to follow a path that curved around one of the many recumbent stones that formed the inner circle of Arbor Low’s henge, and then into a tight spiral that turned anti-clockwise.

I reversed the path so that I was now following the chronological sequence. I unwound the spiral, travelling clockwise as I traced the spirit’s path through the dark hours of the night and into the morning. At the position that represented dawn the path straightened, and then began to turn anti-clockwise as the “day” unfolded beneath my rods. This was the inverse path of one that I had dowsed for another Spirit of Place at Moel-Ty-Uchaf, which had followed what I assumed was a convention of being clockwise in the day and anti-clockwise at night. Clearly, such assumptions are fallacious, yet the principle remains that the Spirit of Place traces a double spiral pattern on its journey around the site during the course of a day.

The Spirit of Place's path over a day

I stood once more in the place where the spirit was currently located and tried to commune with it. As I entered into a trance state  I asked, “What can I learn about my forthcoming task of meeting the spirit of Merlin?“. A feeling came through that made itself resolve into a notion that I could learn about invisibility here at Arbor Low, that this was a place where learning was easy, and in fact the site was designed for this purpose. I came back out of trance, thanking the spirit and began to dowse again, “Take me to a place where I can learn about invisibility.” I asked of them. They led me to a slight dip in the ground near to the central stones.

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