The Hedge Druid » summer solstice

Missing a beat

Gwas — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 15:18:50 +0000

You may have noticed the lack of podcasts this year on Hedge Druid? There’s a reason for that. In the first half of the year the reason could be put down to a mounting pressure of “work”. Mostly this was spiritual work, and with all the good weather we have had in England this year then the Great Outdoors claimed a large part of my time, and this was reflected in the amount of time-consuming podcast work that I could do. Right, that’s my pathetic excuse out of the way. Now, what about the recent months? I did intend to re-establish the podcast once the weather got worse. It has worsened, but still I don’t feel inclined to get back into the studio to record and edit an hour’s worth of audio. Why not? I think there’s a deeper and wider reason.

I have been noticing that other pagan blogs have also begun to falter in their regularity and their commitment. Could it be that we all expanded too quickly, and pushed ourselves too hard to produce content? Possibly, but I think the real reason is due to a difficulty in maintaining momentum when this year has been out of synchronisation with itself. Let me explain.

The Moon, The Sun and The Earth sources

Last year our blogs flourished. Mostly these are blogs that are talking about magickal work, mystical happenings and spiritual progress. What general effect has happened that could account for the difference between last year’s ease and this year’s difficulty? Simple. It is the synchronisation of the phase of the Moon with the Celtic Festival dates. Last year the high points in the solar cycle were matched by high points in the lunar cycle. In other words, at the major lunar festival dates the Moon was also usually in its Full Moon phase.

Celtic Wheel of the Year

The Celtic Wheel of the Year is a cycle that records the high points of the year’s energies. It tells the pagan watcher when the Earth itself is producing the most energy in its co-operative cycle with The Sun. In my experience, and I speak only for myself here, I do not use The Sun as my primary magickal power source. For me it is The Moon. Last year was therefore a “bumper year” in terms of the number of coincidences between the Solar and Lunar high points. Magick was abundant and easy. Motivation was plentiful, and so a great deal of work flowed, and many posts got produced. Blogs flourished that dealt with these subjects.

This year the story has been completely reversed, and how dispiriting must that have been to many of our pagan friends whose magickal sources are Moon-dependent? This year the Full Moon phases NEVER coincide with any of the Solar Festival dates in the Celtic Year. Only Spring Equinox came close. The result of this, goes my tenuous hypothesis, is that motivation has taken a battering. Magickal people must have found themselves either doing Sun OR Moon work, but never being able to being the two together.

Mis-aligned Full Moon phases in 2011

What you may have seen is that partnerships of couples where one was sun-based and the other moon-based have been put under strain, and may even have come apart. Take our case, for example. Last year Kal (Sun) and I (Moon) worked together on every Celtic Festival. This year? We have barely been able to force ourselves to come together for one or two. It has been a monumental effort to make it happen, and when it has happened it has never been as powerful as it was last, year. Never as easy. We have had to work very hard. I daren’t even tell you what happened to our friends on the Walking the Hedge blog. So sad.

Predictions for 2012

My friends, take heart. Next year things are looking better. We will again struggle at the beginning of the year all the way up to and beyond the Summer Solstice, where we will have either First Quarter or New Moon phases on our Earth Energy days. Our friends in the Southern Hemisphere will be fine with that, but here in the Northern half we will lack those useful reflected energies for longer than we would like.

Then in August, for Lammas, things begin to coincide again. We get Full Moon coincidences for Lammas, Samhain, before just missing the Winter Solstice, but coinciding with the ”dead days” before New Year. Therefore, I predict that 2012 is going to be a strange year, beginning with more mis-alignment, before coming right at the most important time of the year, at the culmination of our tasks, our quests and our desires. Who knows what energies will be available for the December 21st 2012 date? Let’s just wait and see what happens. So, when will you see the podcast again? Er…soon I hope!

Gwas.

Summer Solstice 2011 and a lesson for a knight

kal — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 09:54:05 +0000

Glastonbury Abbey

Talk about a quest! In a previous post I told of how I had to incorporate healing my diabetic condtion as part of the “strength of arm” blue key on my knights quest.

And then last weekend I was out at the KnightsHeys national trust site having made a potetial list of ways and means of healing trying to figure out what and which would help me towards achieving this key.

I came back with a good set of answers and had spent a couple of days refining them into a program of change. With this program already in action I set off for Glastonbury on the summer solstice of 2011.

A curious note. I was waiting for news of a contract extension at work, having predicted that I would get one in this post here. After waiting all day and an extra hour to boot for this news, I found myself frustrated at not having the answer on the Solstice day. Finally I left my work place vowing to the my manager that I had the extension, and to just sort out the details. He was non-plussed of course. But the signs are the signs, right?

Guerilla Dowsing

I arrived to meet Gwas at around 7:30pm, he had been there all day and had pretty much concluded his day with the exception of a visit to the Tor. I felt that the Tor wasn’t the place to go right away and suggested we head for Wearyall hill and the Thorn bush of Joseph of Arimathea. Gwas had already been there but like a trooper was engaged into another visit.

As we walked along the streets of Glastonbury I passed a side street that led to a metal fence guarding Glastonbury Abbey. For a split second an idea to climb it and gain access to the Abbey for some work there, entered my mind and I smiled at my own daring.

It was around 8pm as we turned a corner and walked passed the entrance to the Abbey. Having just had the notion of guerilla dowsing on my mind, I looked up to the opening times and found, to my surprise, and delight that the Abbey was open until 9pm during the summer months. I virtually dragged Gwas into the abbey, over his protestations that he had been there before and had also lost his ticket.

I wasn’t having any of it, after having the vision of guerilla dowsing and then finding the Abbey open, we had to go in. At the ticket counter I said to the lady behind the counter that I would like a ticket but my friend had been in earlier but had misplaced his ticket. In one of those pleasing moments the lady believed us and let us in.

Negative Confirmations

We spent half-an-hour eating tea and discussing Gwas’s Glastonbury adventures, which he relates herein. I had given him a 30min limit as I felt that I could do some conformational dowsing here in the Abbey grounds and wanted the final 30 mins of its opening time to do that.

At the allotted time I got up and asked whether there was any place I could go in the Abbey to learn some answers. The rods immediately took me to the nearest tree to where we were sitting.

I double checked that “this” was indeed a good place to garner some confirmations and the rods flew inwards. I began by asking whether the program I had developed was going to heal me? I got a half and half answer. It looked like I needed something more. So I asked whether I had sufficient knowledge to heal myself? The answer came back as a disappointing no!

I pondered my knowledge and asked, as percentage how much knowledge did I have? I started at 10% and counted up in 10′s the answr was again very disappointing, 30%

I was very disappointed at this result and felt some despair creeping in. To confirm this I tried reverse counting from 100% down and got the same answer, 30% My understanding was that I was lacking 70% of the skill/knowledge needed to heal myself. Wow! considering the detail of the list that I had made and dowsed three days ago I was truly feeling a bit lost.

Genius Loci

Falling Water

On pure impulse mixed with some desperation I asked whether there was anywhere in the Abbey I could go to learn more about this missing 70%. Again I was surprised by a YES answer.

I followed the rods and they took me to patch that was marked by some broken walls. I didn’t look at the notice that was stuck in the grass, but sat in the directed place facing almost westward (as directed).

There I am, sat near the middle edge of the remains of a building just a few feet from the main Abbey wall, hoping to garner some insight into this missing 70% After closing down my thoughts I gave an invitation to the Genius Loci, asking for what? Healing? Guidance? Knowledge? I guess it was all three, whatever fit the bill.

After only moments I heard the sound of churning water as if from a waterfall, of course this was an internal sound and indeed as I focused on it I realised that it was water that was running inside of me.

It gushed from the top of my body (though it felt like it was falling from even higher up) through the length of my body and crashed on something that was as hard as stone, indeed it felt like it was something encased in stone. My intuition was telling me that it was my pancreas that it was trying to break through to. Almost in resonance, this vision produced an off-shoot sense of a hammer smashing down on rocks to break them open.

Whilst this dual vision was occuring I also heard a voice saying, “Slow down, be like water” in a continuing cadence.

On a side note, earlier on that evening Gwas had given me a gift that he had gotten hold of some months back but had just cropped into his consciousness again. It was s small sign with the words “Tempus Fugit”. Curiously in the midst of my meditation I also saw this plaque but upside down, the meaning that I got from this was that there was plenty of time.

Be like water

Chalice Well

After the ‘rocks’ had been bashed open I got the feeling I was done and rose up feeling something different but not significantly. I grabbed my rods and asked a question that I was expecting to get a no to. Have I just gained the other 70% of the knowledge I need? YES. Seriously!?!

Was the water bashing my pancreas a significant image? Yes, Did some healing occur at that place? Yes. Did I know have all I needed to heal myself? Yes.

I have to say that my rational mind wasn’t taking any of this seriously. After all 70% in barely a 10 min meditation? At a place that I was “just happening” to pass by?

I told my tale to Gwas with some credulity and wasn’t surprised by his sceptisicm too, after all 70% in a 10 minute meditation!

The only consolation I have is that we keep finding that time, is an almost irrelevant component of any of the ceremonies. Some take a long time, some a surprisingly (as in this instance) short time.

Having finished my work at the Abbey, I offered up my thanks to the place and made a note of the place where I had done this healing, it was St Dunstan’s Chapel and we were off for the Tor.

Gwas wanted to drive up the road (by the side of the lovely Chalice Wells) somewhat to the Tor but it seemed that there would be no space so we reversed back and walked up. As I did so Gwas pointed out the blessed water rushing out of a pipe from the wells and I recalled the rushing water from my meditation and on impulse bent over and took a gulp.

Gwas noted that I had opted for the male energy oriented water. I wasn’t surprised, after I am a Sun aligned guy! Still, as I we walked further up the mound I pondered whether I should have drank from the female too. To alleviate this minor angst I took out the rods and determined that, yes, I should drink from both. I was about to head back when Gwas reminded me that earlier on he had collected a mixture of both of the waters. We laughed at the apparent synchronicity and I asked the rods, half in jest as to whether Gwas had collected the water for me, the answer was yes. What are you supposed to say to that?

We reached the Tor and the wind was truly howling. I had the feeling that I was done for they day and that the Abbey experience had been my Solstice event, this was confirmed by the rods so I was content to enjoy the sunset amongst the other spectators.

Kal Malik ~ Knight Errant

My Eight-Fold Year – the final four folds

Gwas — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 12:40:21 +0000

This post is the second half of a post I did after the Summer Solstice. My purpose was to record the eight points in the year because at each of these artificial stages which were roughly aligned to the Celtic or Neo-Pagan calendar I would be seeking a task by communing with Nature. The task would be a guiding principle that I could use in order to develop spiritually along my chosen path of being a hedge druid.

You can read about the first four “folds” of the year in my previous post, here. However, I will briefly recap the first four, before going on to describe the final four:-

Yule to Imbolc – to be still, and to cleanse myself in preparation for the unfolding year. Accordingly I did nothing at all!
Imbolc to Spring Equinox – to awaken the energies of sacred sites; to contact spirits of place and prepare myself and sacred sites for the work ahead. I spent time communing with Spirits of Place and walking circles to awaken them.
Spring Equinox to Beltane – to connect to the earth’s energy grid; understand the nature of Neutral earth energy forms and to extract and utilise Neutral energy. I began to link to various sites, and connected myself to the earth grid. I investigated neutral energy and found something that I later called Primal Energy.
Beltane to Summer Solstice- to learn how to diffract, dissociate and extract the different frequencies that my energy field can generate. Then to learn how to bring those frequencies together again to form a pure white energy form. I learned how to extract a single energy colour from my whole field, and how to combine them all into a white light energy.

All of this work seemed like a preparation for something. Little did I know! Now I present the final four folds of the year, and their increasingly complex task assignments:-

SUMMER SOLSTICE to LAMMAS

Summer Solstice

The Summer Solstice is the easiest point in the year for us to define. Being sun-based this day is fixed upon the rise of the sun on the longest day of the year. As has become our custom this year would see Kal and I in Glastonbury for the Solstice, working on our heart chakra and finding out what the next part of the year was about.

PURPOSE:

To wake The Dragon and let it fly.

I firstly had to ensure that my heart chakra was well balanced and filled with the energies of the sun and the solstice. With the sun at its peak the perfect place to be for the Solstice always seems to be Glastonbury with its reputation for being the heart chakra of these islands, and Glastonbury Tor has a reputation within that reputation for being the heart of the Glastonbury. Well, yet again, we were not disappointed, either with the copious amounts of heart energy available in this town, or with the wonderful energies of this time of the year.

My task to waking the dragon would take me eventually to Cadair Idris where I would walk along the back of the dragon to its head. There I did a walking meditation, collecting dragon’s teeth and using them to act as acupuncture points to release the spirit of the dragon. All this was done surrounded by the dragon’s breath – the mist.

Since doing that act I have been able to feel energy much better than before. My dowsing response is also much stronger, and I often don’t need the rods to feel auras or to follow energy lines. I have also taken on a new appreciation for the power of the mountains.

LAMMAS to AUTUMN EQUINOX

Lammas - time of harvest

As the summer ripens the crops so the year’s quest began to get more juicy. Rather than receiving some kind of prophetic vision instead I was given three little words, and from that phrase I had to extrapolate my own tasks. This was beginning to make me more independent.

PURPOSE:

To make magic manifest
To bring magic into daily use

I began to find meditation spaces in nature that I could retire to in order to do more work regularly. This worked while the weather stayed good and I got out often and did an almost daily meditation in nature. I began to work with my navel chakra and learned how to draw out invisible threads of energy that could be used to perform magic with. I incorporated several methods of connecting and drawing energy from nature to form energetic shapes around me for different purposes.

At the end of this phase of the year I was much more familiar with, and happy to use, natural magick on a daily basis. It had become a part of my routine and was now woven into the fabric of what I was trying to do to progress. Incense and crystals were valuable tools in this work, and I was using them often.

AUTUMN EQUINOX to SAMHAIN

The rise and fall of autumn

As the leaves turned brown and fell I found myself enveloped in a long-term quest to re-energise particular sacred sites. The first one was local to me, but the second was in the town of Llangollen in North Wales. I found myself going to the hill of Dinas Bran a few times at all hours of the day and night after I received a curious riddle concerning Merlin.

PURPOSE:

To journey into the Underworld and wake the Spirit of Merlin from his sleep

The instruction was accompanied by a riddle that gave me directions to follow in order to fulfil the quest to meet the spirit of Merlin. This quest involved the preparation of a wand of rowan, the location of a special stone church surrounded by ancient yew trees, and a deep meditation into the Underworld. This journey required me to learn new skills such as how to protect my energy body and make myself invisible to shades.

When the quest was completed I had new stronger keener abilities, and I had performed a sort of alchemical wedding by combining within myself the forces of male and female energy.

SAMHAIN to WINTER SOLSTICE

A time of the year associated with the veil between worlds, with death and the Underworld, with spirits and ghosts. It came as little surprise then that my new quest would be revealed at the tree most symbolic of this threshold – the yew.

So many of this year’s quests have involved the ancient yew tree at Llangernyw that I have lost count. It seems to be our natural starting point because of its incredible energies, and its association with the concept of shamanic journeying. It is truly a gateway between worlds. The Samhain quest began with the tree too. As with many of the quests it sounded simple, but was actually the most complex and dangerous yet.

The frost returns

PURPOSE:

To free spirits.

Such a simple statement, but when unpacked, so complex to deliver. For this task I have had to do a lot of background reading about the concept of spirit rescue or release.

I have also had to confront a great deal of my own inner philosophical prejudices concerning the way that the world is constructed, and what it means to venture beyond the veil of death. This feels like a natural extension of my journey into the Underworld, which at the time I took to be a metaphorical journey until the seriousness was impressed upon me. It was a real journey, and failure to prepare could result in actual physical repercussions.

This quest also has a serious side. Whilst I am tasked with learning new skills, and understand that performing spirit rescue is a question of choice, nevertheless there could and no doubt will be some hairy and scary moments along this path, for which I have to prepare properly.

Summary

The first half of the year was concerned with me locking myself into the rhythm of the seasons. It involved tasks that were mainly preparatory – at the start of the year I was idle, resting, recuperating my energy levels and winding myself up to race headlong at the year. Then I was gently re-introduced to the energies of the land as they returned, and was given the task to co-operate in the re-introduction of energy back into the sacred sites that I love.

The turning point was the Summer Solstice. From then on the quests became very personal and very challenging. They began to involve me having to learn new skills. The quests sometimes included riddles for me to solve, clues to information that would help me to achieve the results. I worked hard to embrace each new quest, and tried my utmost to meet the requirements in the timescales laid out by the passing of the year. I was rewarded at each stage with new powers, new skills and new insights into the world of Natural Magick, subtle energies, and the world beyond the senses.

I know that each of the quests that I undertook was but an introduction to the breadth and depth of the skills that a hedge druid could be required to master. I now look forward to repeating this process next year, and once I have a second year to compare this year to, I will look to see whether there are any obvious correspondences and patterns which will allow me to be even better prepared in the following years.

The Wheel of the Year has rolled forward and I have moved with it. Now I feel the wind rushing through my hair and it is exhilarating!

Gwas.

The Solstice – Plegmund’s Well

Gwas — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:13:11 +0000

Having just returned from a visit to Glastonbury with Kal (more about that very soon) I wanted to do something for the Summer Solstice and to keep it local. Where better, then, for me to go than to our local holy well – Plegmund’s Well in the little hamlet of Plemstall which adjoins the larger village of Mickle Trafford in Cheshire.

I had visited Plegmund’s Well earlier in the year on what was something of an uneventful excursion (hence no post), but now there was a good reason to go again because at this time of the year a local committee have revived the ancient ceremony of well-dressing. On my previous visit I had tested the energies of the well. They were weak to the point of non-existence, and the only energy that I could find was that left by people’s devotions (i.e. intentions of good-will, or adoring energy). No earth energy at all, which was unusual for a well, as running water, especially primal water that has passed through rock and minerals is usually quite energetically active. Here, there was none of that, although a set of iron railings prevented me from seeing inside the well itself (iron again! are people insane? iron at a sacred site nullifies energy!).

Who the smeg was Plegmund?

So, if this is Plegmund’s Well, who was Plegmund? Well, it turns out he was quite the scholar in the time of King Alfred. Here’s what the interweb has to say about the fellow:

“He was of Mercian descent and is believed to have lived as a hermit on what was at that time an island which became known as Plegmundeshamm or “The Isle of Chester” at Plemstall in Cheshire. He would have been affiliated to a monastic community either at nearby Chester or near the site of the current church of St Peter, Plemstall.” (source: Wikipedia)

The well dressing ceremony took place on Sunday 20th June, but the panels of creatively decorated flowers stays in place for the Solstice Day too. M and I went down to the church of St.Peter’s that was the original island that Plegmund lived on. There we found that we were fortuitously in time for a bit of tea and cake. As a huge cake lover I was particularly pleased.

We bumped into a friend of ours – a lady who was the last person to have been baptised in the waters of the well. That had been a tradition for all the children of the area for as long as anyone could recall. We chatted about the well-dressing ceremony, got a bit more background history, then went off to experience the well itself.

The Dressed Well

Britannia - emblem of The Lady in Britain

The lady depicted in the floral decorations around the well was Britannia – a mother goddess, a genius loca of the British Isles, and a personification of the nation. Britannia is the kind of emblem that has such modern connotations of nationalism, and yet has been a depiction of the Mother Goddess (The Lady) for so long that she inhabits the corners of the mind of every denizen of these isles, whether they realise it or not.

What I did do was to create a posy of wild flowers after asking permission from the local plants, and threw it into the well dedicating it to The Lady. You’ll see why I did that dedication when I reveal my Glastonbury experience soon.

No water flows through the well now since the nearby Shell plant lowered the water table of everywhere nearby when they extracted all the local water for their own purposes. This probably accounts for the lack of earth energy at this sacred site. That makes the ceremony of well dressing in this case is now just an echo, a memory of what its purpose once was, and a way of bringing local people together – a positive aspect and worthy for sure.

Britannia composed of seashells and flowers

Happy Solstice to all you druidic and dowsing people out there. May you keep alive, nay found your own local tradition to celebrate flow of the seasons.

Gwas.

Seven Sites for Beltane – Part 1

Gwas — Sun, 09 May 2010 18:25:18 +0000

Introduction

I had been looking forward to Beltane for a while. The promise of warmer, longer days to work in plus the chance to get back to some of the best ancient sites in Derbyshire had been whetting my appetite for a few weeks, making all else seem like filling in time until the Big Day. For us, we had worked out that Beltane was happening at the full moon on the 27th and 28th April. This is, of course, different from the ‘new traditional’ concept that Beltane is the 3rd May. Some say the 1sy May – May Day. Others maintain that due to the calendar shift caused by Pope Gregory XIII that the actual date is 23rd April. You see how confusing this all is?

Our reasoning was simple – we timed the change from the third eighth of the year to the fourth as being when the full moon’s energies signalled a phase change, not on an arbitrary and disputed calendar date. After all, for us the interesting change was a change in subtle energies, so why not connect it to a major factor in the strength of those energies, namely The Moon?

Off we ventured with the intention of visiting as many sites as we could within one day. On our list were Arbor Low, Nine Stones Close, Doll Tor, and possibly Nine Ladies if we had time. Oh, we had time! Arbor Low, Nine Stones, The Andle Stone and Doll Tor will all be covered in this first post.

In part two of this set of posts I will describe our experiences at Nine Ladies, but also The Bullstones and The Bridestones which were also added to the list. We worked efficiently and effectively on this auspicious day and here’s the beginning of my account of our work and our findings.

1. Arbor Low and Ringham Low

The purpose we had set out with for this first site was to check our recent information about the movement of the ‘spirit of place’, the Genius Loci (henceforth – ‘GL’). Kal had found at Penmaenmawr and subsequent places that the GL enters an energised sacred site like a stone circle through an arc of neutral energy – like a fashioned gap or portal into the dome of energy covering the site. The same was true of the exit too – there was an arcing neutral energy that formed a kind of doorway.

Our intention was to verify whether the neutral arc I had found on my recent visit to Arbor Low was in fact an entrance or exit point for the GL. Here is what we found:-

The Genius Loci travels along a neutral North-South ley line that connects to other distant sacred sites
It enters the site at the place I identified last visit
The exit is directly opposite, at the northern-most point of the stone circle
The path of the GL oscillated more strongly as it approached the embankment of the site
The path circles around the position where a standing stone would once had been placed on the earthwork (now all missing)

Satisfied with these findings we headed off to a site I had spotted marked on an OS map as being near to Arbor Low. This site as called Ringham Low, but when we got to the place where it was marked on the map, there was no sign of it. We walked the field for a while then got dowsing rods out. We found a circle thirty feet wide on the slightly sloping ground, and wondered what might once have been here. Then we moved on. More interesting work was due next at Nine Stones Close.

2. Nine Stones Close

Our second site was up on Harthill Moor, and was a site we were both very familiar with – our old friend Nine Stones Close. My intended purpose for visiting this site was to try to establish my wider purpose for the fourth eight-part of the year – the time between Beltane and Summer Solstice. We always have a little chuckle about what people might think when they encounter “Nine Stones”, with its four standing stones. Do they think it might once have had nine? It didn’t. Possibly five, but never nine.

Dull weather at Nine Stones Close

Despite the passing human traffic, ramblers and school outings everywhere, I was able to meditate quite deeply at Nine Stones, and to get a lot of dowsing done too. As a precaution, remembering the warning that I had been given by the Llangernyw Yew tree, I put up some energetic protection around myself. According to Kal that did its job, because a passing inquisitive person thought twice about approaching and came nowhere near whilst I has meditating. Just lucky, I guess.

Here’s what I found out:-

I identified the purpose of the time between Beltane and the Summer Solstice
The purpose of this time of the year is to learn how to diffract, dissociate and extract the different frequencies that my energy field can generate. Then to learn how to bring those frequencies together again to form a pure white energy form.
I found that my meditation visualisations have changed from streams of fire to those of water – streams, fountains and geysers.

That purpose seemed like a natural extension of the research I had done for the previous eighth part of the year, which had been to learn how to work with neutral energy. I have yet to discover whether there is something about the energies of this time of the year that promotes or encourages that kind of work – this I will try to discover in the next few weeks.

From Nine Stones we headed towards the imposing gritstone structure that is named Robin Hood’s Stride.

3. Robin Hood’s Stride

There was not much to do at Robin Hood’s Stride. The huge outcrop of gritstone is impressive against the surrounding skyline of rolling hills and tree-studded fields, and something made us both want to go and pay it a visit. The one time we had felt like that previously we had found respective power centres, but that had been such a long time ago (in our minds) that we had forgotten where those were. We decided to re-dowse them to see if we could verify the original findings and to see whether that would jog our memories.

Minutes later Kal had found his centre in a small sheltered cave-like formation on the side of the Stride, whereas I was being directed into a crevice. I looked up the crevice to see that there was some kind of hit-like formation of rock slabs above me. Seems like I would have to climb up. I remembered from the last time that I had had to do that to find my power centre, so I hoped I could find it again, now that the rods had led me to this spot directly underneath this unusual slab formation fifteen feet above my head.

Once on top I followed the rods until they crossed and circled around inside a square box of a rock shelter. Inside I felt cushioned from the cold winds of early Spring and my voice resonated within the stone chamber as I called forlornly to my now absent friend below. As usual Kal had gone a-wandering. There was a beaten and chewed stick that some dog must have deposited within the chamber which kept attracting my attention. I picked it up and started to bounce it off the walls and floor of the chamber like a drumstick. For several minutes I beat out strange rhythms that seemed inspired by the sound of the wind on the walls of the chamber, but which were immensely pleasing. This was the place I had found the last time too.

Here’s a link to a YouTube video showing you Robin Hood’s Stride.

4. The Andle Stone and Doll Tor

We headed up to the Stanton Moor area again. We liked this area – several sites all close together, and an air of mystery about a place that is frequently wreathed in mist. This had been the weather pattern last time we had been this way searching for a new circle to us – Doll Tor. Thanks to GPS we had found it, but now in the warm light of a clean Spring afternoon we were shocked to practically walk into the Andle Stone rising out of a mass of rhododendron’s and lined by a dishevelled wall. How on earth had we missed that last time we had walked this way?

The stone provided a fun diversion as we dared each other to climb its iron-handled ladder, but there was nothing energetically interesting about the place other than a fantastic view to gladden the heart. On to Doll Tor!

Many of the visits we had planned for this day out were returning to sites we knew well, Doll Tor was an exceptional exception. We had only been to this stone circle once before, and as part of that experience we already knew that we had practically a written invitation to return “when the daffodils had died“. Now was just that time – there were very few daffodils left in bloom and most were not just dry husks of previously resplendent white and yellow flowers. Time to return to Doll Tor to carve my staff with a symbol of my learning about sigils so far. I was nervous about doing this. But it had to be done.

I did some preliminary dowsing: was the Genius Loci still here? Yes. Was it sympathetic to my idea of carving, and would it help me? Yes. Was this the right day to do this – well, this day, the next, and then the energies would begin to wane. Aha – as would the power of the full moon, that was with us today and tomorrow, but which would then wane.

I carved the formation I had discovered at Dinas Bran some months earlier. The sun shone above the crowded tree canopy, and the stone circle was quiet apart from the sounds of Springtime – birds twittered and distant cattle lowed. Within minutes I had my shape in the ash staff, and I wondered if this was enough. I dowsed for the answer, and found that two other things remained to complete the carving: an energetic sealing of the shape, and the need to add “more definition”. Quite how, I haven’t yet discovered, but some form of tinting might be in order to do that.

The energy seal work I could do, so I called upon the spirit of place to add its energies to the process as I drew out neutral energy from my power centre at Doll Tor and coated the staff in its protective form. A shaft of sunlight broke through the tree canopy above me to bake the seal at exactly the right moment. I couldn’t help but simply smile at the serendipity of that particular moment.

One thing that I enjoy about the Doll Tor site is the obvious amount of devotion and the level of emotional presence there. People leave tokens of their spiritual time, work and hopes all around the site, and some are the most creative and natural that I have seen anywhere. There was activity at the site that ranged from from ribbons, stones, crystals to hexagrams and wood and leaf mobiles.

I have learned not only what the purpose of the time between now and Summer Solstice is, but also a technique for how to actually practically dissociate and recombine the energies that I am working with. This, I feel, is a very important step in my quest to understand the reasons for why stone circles and other ancient sites were constructed. At Arbor Low I had found that stones were positioned in order to form male+female energy fields – to trap and combine the energies.

All this was shaping up nicely! There is much more to come in part two, however, as we move on to the lovely Nine Ladies site, meet some fellow circle seekers, and then visit a new site for us, to finish the day as the sun set at the deep and dark Bridestones site near Congleton.

My Eight-Fold Year – the first four folds

Gwas — Tue, 04 May 2010 21:20:28 +0000

Throughout this year there has been a single overriding concern that has permeated everything that I do regarding dowsing or druidry: there must be a purpose to it. By that I don’t mean that I haven’t had fun, or avoided doing frivolous things. Not at all. However, each visit that I have embarked upon has been characterised by my having a purpose to go there with. This was the message that I got out of the consolidation period at the end of 2009, that period between Samhain and Yule when one should bring all things learned in the year together, sort through them, and resolve them into a unified approach for the next year’s work. Like some kind of meta-idea, the concept emerged that for 2010 my task would be to determine the purpose of each eighth part of the year – to understand the eight-fold year.

There seems to be a common acceptance of what is considered to be the revived concept of the eight-fold year amongst Neo-Pagan and Wiccan circles. This has all the dates that are close to what may be the ‘original’ divisions of the year. Truth is, no-one really knows how the divisions of the year were named, or upon which dates these divisions actually fell. What has been reconstructed has come to us through a combination of modern research into old customs, or through the collective acceptance of dates that feel familiar and proper. It has largely been a process of re-appropriation of existing festivals such as Christmas, Easter and Hallowe’en, wresting them from the clutches of the Christian sovereignty.

Whilst there is a certain concensus as to what those specific division dates mean, what is not clear is what the time in between those divisions means. I have been following the year’s divisions closely since Winter and have communed and divined for myself what those in-between days (cf. The Cure) mean to me.

There is a certain difficulty with being precise about these division dates too. Nature does not appear as being very precise to us humans because we cannot comrpehend all of the factors involved in what makes The Great Clock tick! The combination of influences from stars, planets, conjunctions, and who knows how many other influences is simply beyond our comprehension. Therefore, we can only “best guess” when these times arise besed on previous experience, and then we need to be flexible about it all, because we probably won’t guess entirely correctly. Does precision matter in working out these division times? I don’t think so, becuase most of the divisions are largely dependent upon the Moon, and the Moon’s influence occurs over several days, and this gives us a certain amount of lee-way.

One final caveat: the information I have discovered is, I believe, probably quite personal to me. I am not, therefore, espousing a new system to explain the Eight-Fold Year as a replacement for other systems that are out there or that you may be using already. Nor am I trying to back up my claims with astological, scientific or any other form of knowledge system. These explanations may be entirely my own – I don’t know until I have had perhaps several years worth of data to analyse. This is my first year of gaining this knowledge, so please bear that in mind when you read this. It is for your edification and information only, and it is merely presented so that it may suggest things for you to try out for yourself.

So, that said, here goes. So far I have discovered the following stages:-

YULE to IMBOLC

The division line may actually be Twelfth Night rather than Christmas Day. I will have to check that when it comes around again this year to get the precise cut-over, not that any of these divisions are precise, because they’re not. However, I think it’s worthwhile me finding out whether it’s Christmas or Twelfth Night.

PURPOSE:

To be still and quiet.
To engage in no activity of a magickal nature at all.
To cleanse the mind of the information from the previous year.

Anything that has not sunk in already after the period immediately prior to this one (which I think is about consolidating information) should not be brought forward into the new year. The purpose of this period is to cleanse oneself of all that “baggage” and to leave the mind in a state whereby new knowledge, new seeds, can be planted upon a well-prepared but settled soil. As with meditation, achieving stillness is the key to appreciating this time of the year. The “season of peace” indeed!

IMBOLC to SPRING EQUINOX

PURPOSE:

To awaken the energies of ancient sacred sites.
To awaken, pay homage to, or recall the guardian spirits of such places.
To prepare the ground for the year’s energy work, by preparing self and place.

This is an interactive stage of the year, and is the first involvement by the participant (the seeker) with the land and its spirits and energies. I found that I was asked to visit many of the places that I had found the be especially find of (read – ‘connected to’, or ‘aligned to’) and that when I was there I would go through a process of firstly finding out what state the place was in, then I would connect to the site, and finally, if necessary, I would invoke the spirit of the place – that guardian spirit – to ask that it return if I found it to be absent. Of course, I could only make a request of the spirit to return, and only if I had prepared the ground appropriately, so to speak.

All of this work, of visiting sites, connecting to them and contacting or invoking the spirit of place, it was all a form of preparation for the work that was to come. A sort of re-introduction, a gentle re-awakening to energies and spirits.

SPRING EQUINOX to BELTANE

PURPOSE:

To connect to the earth’s energy grid.
To understand the nature of Neutral earth energy forms.
To extract and utilise Neutral energy.

I think there is a general principle at work during this period, and that is for the seeker to learn to connect into the land. As the earth energies begin to be enlivened by the radiant energy of the sun, and together with the moon this draws life from the land. That signals the time for the seeker to spend time connecting with this upsurge of energy. In some mystical systems the human is the mid-point between the Sky and the Earth, and I think this is a symbolic memory of our ability to actually be the conduit and focal point for the two forms of energy – earth and radiant. We are the combiners.

As for myself this year, I have found that there was an additional task which was to learn in a theoretical and a practical way how I could extract the neutral energy form and store it within me. I learned how to re-charge myself with this energy using my navel chakra point as a storehouse for the neutral energy form – in exactly the same way as in chinese qigong meditation.

In addition to simply drawing out and collecting this energy I learned how to use neutral energy to ‘coat’ objects in order to preserve their energetic imprint. This was a means of creating so-called “power objects” I realised. In other words, it was a way of retaining those special qualities that people had invested into an object – whether that be a memory, a feeling, or some other form of energetic input. I learned how that energy could be retained within the object by using raw neutral energy to preserve it like a coat of varnish.

BELTANE to SUMMER SOLSTICE

PURPOSE:

To understand the nature of the neutral or white light energy form and how it is composed
To practise diffracting and re-combining the seven coloured frequencies of light
To make practical use of these energies to elevate consciousness

I believe this part of the year’s cycle concerns the effort to raise one’s level of consciousness to an opportunity point in the middle of the year when the energies are at their strongest, and one stands the greatest chance of elevating into an enlightened state, or achieving a blissful and revelatory state of mind.

So far I have found that for me this will involve me learning about how to bring together the two inner energy centres – the neutral energy store of the lower dan-tian or navel chakra point, and to combine that with the influx of light energy through the third-eye chakra point in order to diffract the energy into any of the seven frequencies of subtle energy that I require to be able to perform whatever task I need (for example, to heal an imbalance, or to utilise a particular frequency for a specific task). At this moment I don’t know what tasks those frequencies can perform, but that is learning that I still have to go through.

I suspect that there may be some esoteric benefit to being able to draw in each of the frequencies of this spectrum of light individually and to recombine them somehow to form a white light frequency, and that this may be the “light at the end of the tunnel” or the blinding inspiration that is described as accompanying an enlightenment process. My quest, however, is to understand the purpose of being able to do that, not just the mechanics of making it possible!

So, not much to do then in the next few months!

Summary

That is my current understanding and recap of the year’s inspirations and the paths along which I have travelled during this year. I feel that much of that information is general enough for most people to get some correspondence with, or for it to resonate with most people. Much of it is also personal and relates to my own quest for knowledge, understanding and wisdom in working with the energies of Nature. You decide where that take you. I will, as ever, go my own way.

Gwas.

Glastonbury Solstice : The Opening of the Chakras

Gwas — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:29:38 +0000

Glastonbury Pilgrimage Notes – Summer Solstice (June 2009)

On June 20th and 21st Kal and I went down to Glastonbury to begin a spiritual pilgrimage. That wasn’t our intention initially, but very quickly that’s what it turned out to be! We had no set agenda, other than a starting point that I had identified after reading Mary Caine’s book about the Glastonbury Zodiac in which she had revealed that the Girt Dog of Langport may have been the first place that initiates to the ancient druidic colleges and mystery schools landed by boat on the Isle of Avalon, the only high ground in the flooded Somerset Levels. This first contact was at Burrow Mump at Burrowbridge. So that was where we started too. From that point onwards I was hoping for some guidance from elsewhere as to the path I should take.

Little did I know quite how successful that approach would be! What follows is an account of how we were lead through the Isle of Avalon, each site opening at least one of my chakras, to profound effect. Follow me now as I show you the trail and the experiences I had – truly a solstice to remember.

Stage 1: Burrow Mump – Throat Chakra

We started the morning looking for the nose that formed the Girt Dog of Langport. Having read Mary Caine’s book about the Glastonbury Zodiac I was interested that she considered it to be the entrance way for the initiate into the Isle of Avalon and the Mystery School transformation process. Not that I was going to subject myself to some sort of masonic ritual! I believe the tradition to be far older than that, and to have been a spiritual initiation of the kind that is symbolically referenced in ancient Welsh bardic texts. Certainly, now that I am recounting this story I feel as though it is the transformation that you seek for yourself that you find, and nothing to do with arcane and involved rituals. Just time, patience, endeavour and a willingness to try.

I was not convinced as to the existence of all 12 of the zodiac signs in the Glastonbury landscape (13 including the dog) despite Mary Caine’s well-argued case. I felt that some of the signs were older – especially the incongruous Girt Dog, which equates to the dog Dormarth – the companion of Gwyn ap Nudd. I am starting to formulate the idea that there may have been only five original shapes – the original fixed zodiac signs and the dog, but that’s an argument that I will spell out in another post. The Girt Dog fitted with the Gwyn ap Nudd tales, but was out of place with the zodiac signs, many of whose shapes I feel were a bit ‘forced to fit’. Nevertheless I felt there as something in the Dog, and that it would form a good starting point, as I hadn’t visited it before on previous visits. We bought an Explorer Map of the area and located it.

The Church of St.Michael

We followed dowsing rods to locate the most energetic paths for ourselves to the top. As usual, Kal’s solar path weaved a little but was almost direct, whereas my lunar-oriented path wandered around ascending at intervals and circling around each of the trees on the slope’s southern side. Then we arrived at the ruins of the St.Michael’s Church on the top of the Mump. If you’ve been reading our posts on this site for a while you’ll know the significance of St.Michael – the archangel of Christianity who pins the dragon energy, or Dark forces, under his sword of Light. However, another way of seeing it, as I saw it that day, was that the Archetype of Light was dominating the natural balance of energies. There ought to be a constant battle between Light and Dark, as is the flow of the forces in Nature. To dominate and subdue the dark forces throws the human world into a state of imbalance. This is how I felt standing in St.Michael’s Church on Burrow Mump – the earth and radiant energy forces were being subjugated by the design and designation of the church. The design channelled the energies, whilst the designation ensured that generations of believers would imbue the site with their dedicatory energies, maintaining the imbalance in the name of the Light (the Sun, the Male force).

Is not Christianity just such a religion? Does it not promote The Light and seek to eradicate The Dark, vilifying it as “evil” and un-holy? Has it not tried to associate all the worst aspects of humanity with the forces of darkness, of night and of magic? The result has been 2000 years of what Terence McKenna would call “the dominator culture“, promoting masculine ideals, favouring male energies, denigrating and subjugating the feminine. Only now is the tide slowly turning in the last hundred years as we slowly transfer alignment to the new Aquarian age from the Piscean. For the established Christian Church trying to maintain masculine sun energy exclusively in the face of this turning tide will bring about the dissolution of these established institutions – unless they can change.

Dowsing The Mump
The St.Michael church was of course aligned East-West. It could hardly fail to be so. Having read Ross Nichol’s article about the layout of churches in the selected collection of his works called “In The Grove of the Druids” I knew that this ancient Sun alignment was important, as was the structure of the church, which also conformed to the divine proportions and layout of almost all early Christian churches. It also happens to be on the St.Michael ley line that the late John Michell re-discovered, and which was popularised further by Hamish Miller and Paul Broadhurst.

We set about discovering the ley lines and earth energy formations of the site. We immediately identified a strong and powerful ley line consisting of neutral, male and female energy lines. It travelled all the way through the large empty windows set into each end of the ruined church. We quickly found our respective power centres – on opposite sides of the church’s North-South walls. Mine was to the south, and consisted of female and neutral energies, whilst Kal’s was directly opposite on the northern side and registered for male and female energies. I took the picture below whilst standing in my power centre, and Kal’s was just through the arch on the opposite side.

There was also a power centre slap bang in the centre of the church. This was very interesting indeed – we learned something new here. The three types of energies coming into the church along the East-West axis was hitting a female earth energy point in the centre of the church. As it did so it split into two rays that were channelled by the church’s walls outwards in North and South directions, effectively forming….a cross! To the south this extended through my power centre as a female and neutral line. On Kal’s side (north) the line was refracted as a male and female line. What we don’t know is how the power centres at those points affected the constitution of those lines, but perhaps we can leave that for someone else to determine until we get back there another day?

As Kal will no doubt relate he was wearing a bracelet of blue stones. An unusual thing for him to do, as I had never seen him wear it before. Turns out I needed it. I dowsed for which of my chakra points this Burrow Mump energy centre would affect and got a response for the colour blue – the throat chakra. I didn’t have any context for what that might mean, but Kal decided to offer me his blue bracelet. He felt it may help my meditation, so I took it.

I used the L-rods to find the point at which I should meditate (something we are getting accustomed to doing now). A point was detected about ten feet away from the central crossing point. If you consider that the church’s design is an elongated cross resembling a human being with outstretched arms (see Ross Nichols’ essay on church design and human proportion) then this point would have equated to …you know what’s coming, right? The throat of course. I only realised this once I came to write this post. My higher self is obviously a lot more intelligent than my normal self.

From that spot I could see a visible earth energy line flowing across the landscape to the south-east. It was like a line I had seen before when I ascended from Llandrillo stone circle late one night. A softly-glowing overlay on reality. Quite beautiful and mesmerising. I saw it snake across the Levels towards a hill in the distance. It curled around the hill and out of view but I felt that this hill was the next place to visit. At this point I knew not why – Burrow Mump was our starting point but there was, as yet, no sense of any journey or purpose to our weekend visit. Oh, how that was about to change!

When we checked the map to determine where the line went (based on my description) it was pointing at Wearyall Hill (instinctively I knew which hill it was even though I’m not familiar enough yet with Glastonbury’s local geography)! Kal had been meditating on his power centre and had seen a new power centre forming at a spot that my imaginary line crossed, at the south-east corner of Burrow Mump. Kal located it with his rods, and shortly afterwards I did the same. However, the moment we had both recognised what it was, it disappeared! We decided to head for Wearyall Hill and see what we could find. Again – no agenda – no preconceptions. Just following our lines and intuitions.

Stage 2: Wearyall Hill – Sacral Chakra

The legendary Joseph of Arimathea Thorn was on this hill. If you are a devout Christian then you may wish to look away now. We found it was not anything to do with Joseph of Arimathea. This was pure legend, probably inspired by the fledgling Christian presence trying to gain a foothold in the sacred domain of Avalon, but as Mary Caine points out quite astutely the huge Roman road The Fosse Way passes very close by to Glastonbury and the Romans were less than tolerant of the Christian community. She makes the point that Romans were highly unlikely to let Christians begin to settle or make religious shrines so close to their major thoroughfare, especially as there was an edict from the Emperor to hunt them down and eradicate this new religious group!

The Thorn was surrounded by an iron cage which was containing its energies. We have come across iron cages recently at the Penbedw stone circle and at The Hoarstones in Shropshire. They contain and constrain earth energies, reducing their energetic potential and dulling their aura. The thorn’s aura was only a few feet wide, but when we dowsed for what it would be if the cage was not there it extended out to some fifteen feet.

At the North end of the hill, in the quieter part not often visited, I found a power centre in the middle of some nettles (nice). A less than perfect spot, but this was the place that I needed to be to make my next connection, I felt. Kal had lent me some of his crystals (another intuitive decision) and I held them but didn’t feel as though they served any purpose. See Kal’s post for more details on this aspect.

During this process I saw a double helix of energy flowing from my sacral chakra on either side and up through my solar plexus, through my heart, my throat, and ending at my temples. As I experienced this double-helix flowing through me I asked for direction to the next site and a thread emerged from my abdomen and swirled off towards the Tor, curling around to land at Chalice Well. Again, I knew where the place was because I could “see” it, like someone showing me a photograph. The destination was clear, even though I had never visited the place before.

Before we left the hill we also found a ley line linking The Thorn to a small church at the bottom end of Glastonbury town. We decided to visit this church next, as it was lunch time and we wanted to get to the Blue Note Cafe for a decent vegetarian meal before they closed.

St Benedict’s Church

From Wearyall Hill we walked down to Glastonbury town passing by a small grove of oaks and sycamores near to the supermarket. We were in search of the small church that we had dowsed to be in the path of a ley line that emanated (or passed through – we didn’t determine which) the Holy Thorn. We found the small church of St.Benedict’s at the confluence of two roads where stood a pub called “The King Arthur”. Well, I suppose that’s highly likely for a town like Glastonbury – steeped in Celtic and Arthurian mythology. As we dowsed to find the exact crossing point we found that the line passed through a large pre-fabricated structure called “The Goddess Temple” before going into the church:

On the other side of the church the ley line didn’t seem to go on through row of houses or appear out the back of them. We wondered whether it terminated inside the church? Hard for us to find out because of course this Christian place of worship was closed. Aren’t they all these days? Afraid of their ‘treasures’ being stolen, I suppose.

According to the church website:

“The church was originally dedicated to St. Benignus or St. Bennings and retained this until the middle of the 17th century. Bishop Benignus was a great friend and disciple of St. Patrick and became his successor.“

According to some histories St.Patrick and his two disciples gave the order to clear the trees from Glastonbury Tor and re-built the small shrine on the top for Christian purposes. Whenever it actually happened, such a conversion did eventually occur, and today the Tor is clear of “obstruction” to the pilgrim’s path.

Stages 3 and 4: Chalice Well – Root and Heart Chakras

There’s something inherently cleansing and calming about Chalice Well Gardens. It could be the “no mobile phones” notice (which is, sadly, flagrantly flouted by people desperate to communicate about highly urgent and important issues), or it could be the occasional sound of trickling water, or the collection of well spaced and beautifully appointed trees and flowers. Whatever their magical combination it is the perfect place for contemplation, and so we sat in a small courtyard and dowsed quietly for a while before going off to meditate at The Well and the gardens above it.

This felt like a cleansing and connecting phase. When I stood in a small shrine near to the main well I felt my heart chakra open up and soothing emotions flowed in and through and out of me. I also felt the water pulling any non-balanced energy out of me and flushing it away in the water. Two chakras were being worked on at once here, and soon I was cleansed, grounded and balanced in a most delightful way. The double-helix energies were flowing into the ground and being drawn back in afresh through my open heart chakra. None of this have I experience before. It was truly amazing.

We meditated again under some trees at the top of the Chalice gardens and felt very balanced and connected to the land.

Kal then went to sit under the Holy Thorn tree, although he had no idea that this was a famous tree, or even what variety it was. Whilst he did that I measured his aura – it was expanding continually and ended up being thirty feet wide!

I understood that all the meditations performed this day had involved twin energies. I felt this was connected to me progressing to the second stage of druidic development: the Yew stage. Up to this point I had ignored yew trees, being quite wary of their supposedly awesome and frightening power, and the fact that they were connected to death. Now I no longer felt that trepidation, and actively went to sit between two large yew trees. I meditated between two yew trees – deciding that it was time to overcome my fears if I was really at another level of development. I felt comfortable, and was told by the trees that their purpose was to teach me, and that I should not be scared.

They told me that I had indeed moved on to the next stage of development, and that this would entail an understanding of death, rebirth, transformation, and overcoming fear – that this would involve great personal inner strength to be found, and would take several years to achieve.

Satisfied with this I asked for the next connection point on my pilgrim trail and out of my heart chakra a line moved around the base of the Tor (now clearly visible only hundred of feet away) where it seemed to stop on the southern side near to the bottom of the path. In my mind’s eye I saw the path split both ways around the Tor whilst the main path continued up. This was the point I needed to go to next, although I didn’t know what I would find there that could be considered an energy point!

Stage 5: The Dragon’s Egg on Glastonbury Tor – Solar Plexus Chakra

As Kal vaulted up the Tor I knew that I was not to follow – yet. We had reached a point where the paths around the Tor became flat and defined and the main path snaked into the upper distance. I was following the rods to identify the exact place I needed to be at. They stopped at the second round stone up the main path: one of the so-called Dragon’s Egg or Omphalos stones!

I sat astride the second stone along the path and watched people ascending and descending. A girl with a hula hoop walked past and I made a comment on how unusual that was. She smiled knowingly – now I know why (see Kals’ post).

In the gaps I did some dowsing of the energies, finding the power centre and its nemeton.
I found a rose petal pattern that wound around the stone in four concentric lines. Each spiral was increasingly shaped into the pattern of a trefoil – a three-leaf shape.
I asked for it to reveal the energy formation that was its genius loci, the spirit of this stone. I then dowsed the pattern to find it was a spider shape – three fat legs on each side of the stone, coming back close to the stone at its head and tail ends.

I meditated again, gazing at the Somerset Levels and felt a tug at my centre – my solar plexus. A spiralling coil of entwined male and female energies that flew out of my solar plexus and snaked far into the landscape, touching all the places I had visited on my pilgrimage so far. I knew that this chakra centre was the source of my energies. It was my connection point or interface with nature, and the place where I generated and collected energy. All this I just suddenly knew – no train of thought was necessary.

I followed the trail back towards me from the distant Burrow Mump and observed where it flowed after the Dragon’s Egg upon which I was now perched. It swept around the Tor’s southern edge and off into the eastern fields. I couldn’t work out where it terminated, but I knew it was a site somewhere over the eastern side, in the fields beyond the Tor. I would have to do some more reading about what might be on that side.

Stanton Drew stone circle

After checking into the fabulous Bear Inn at Street we were at a loose end. The sun was still shining and we hadn’t done much dowsing that day. So we decided to head for the nearest stone circle we could find: Stanton Drew. On the way we picked up a stranded biker called Steve and gave him a lift much further down the road. We chatted about stone circles and bikes for a bit, and he was very grateful to be closer to his eventual destination of Bristol.

I was excited at the prospect of visiting this circle as I had heard it mentioned many times in books as an example of a double circle. When we arrived in the fading light the stone circle looked disorganised – stones seemingly at random. There were cows and cow pats everywhere, and also quite a few people milling around considering it was 9 o’clock at night!

Here’s a backgrounder from English Heritage:

“There are three stone circles at Stanton Drew: the Great Circle being one of the largest in the country. The other two, to the south-west and north-east respectively are smaller. Both the great Circle and the north-east circle were approached from the north-east by short `avenues’ of standing stones. Most of the stones have fallen, although a few still remain upright. In the garden of the village pub is a group of three large stones called The Cove, and to the north, across the river Chew, is the site of a standing stone called Hautville’s Quoit.

Their proximity to each other, and alignments between some of them, indicate that these sites are related as a single complex, and it is a fair assumption that Stanton Drew was once a place of primary significance during the later Stone Age.” (English Heritage)

Stanton Drew

Kal didn’t do much dowsing and didn’t like it much. He went around the outside of the larger circle and counted 27 stones (most missing). Notice in the diagram above that English Heritage suggest 26 original stones. Personally, I’d trust the dowsing!

We strode to the far end where a smaller and more complete circle existed. Kal climbed a male King Stone that had been re-sited inside the circle. He had found another one earlier and climbed and jumped off that too. He didn’t like the rest of the circle or any of the other circles either. I, on the other hand, was quite content to be there. It felt good – I was getting good vibes from the site. When I dowsed the gender of the stones themselves they almost invariably (King Stones being the exception) returned a female response. This was a giant female energy site – no wonder Kal felt uncomfortable – he’s male-aligned.

We got talking with a chap and the girl he was with and they quizzed us about dowsing, then had a go themselves with great success. Later they would be seen running naked around the smaller circle while we ignored them and continued dowsing.

Or did we take a video. I can’t remember

I asked for the genius loci of Stanton Drew to reveal its shape, dowsed for a good position for this, and then dowsed a beautiful paisley pattern teardrop shape containing seven female spirals that wrapped around a female power centre. I got the idea this site was female!! In the diagram below the black spot is the power centre (a particularly energetic place, sometimes a crossing point for a geological fault and water – often called a ‘blind spring’ or ‘aquastat’). You can see a number of spirals curling first one way then the other to join up again forming a continuous circuit of female earth energy.

Kal had been walking around counting stones, doing his own investigations, so I called him over to help me put pegs in so that I could draw out the shape I had just dowsed. Kal was disturbed – he had got obsessed with one particular stone that was heavily cup-marked and seemed to have a lichen face that was discernible if you unfocused your eyes, like a Rorschach Test for the visually impaired (see post ‘Rorschach Mind’). He thought it was draining energy and kept trying to convince me that it was a bad idea to be standing anywhere inside its influence, which he had determined was the whole site. I dowsed for my state of health and as to whether this stone was draining me, because we had found stones like that at places like Nine Ladies and Arbor Low in Derbyshire.

I didn’t get negative or malign responses though. Yes it was draining me, but when I willed it – I was draining it too. Together the stone and I were cycling energies between us in a circular arc shape.

This fun over, we departed. Kal had become quite argumentative in the presence of this stone, and insistent that I was in peril from it. Later that evening we argued forcibly about our findings at Stanton Drew. The next day Kal apologised for being so “off” and was certain it was due to the stone’s influence. It was certainly out of character.

That same evening at the hotel he had an incredible experience with a dream and an encounter with an apple tree, but that’s for him to tell you about in his own good time. Let’s just say that he’s entered into the world of tree learning proper, now! And that was the end of Saturday.

Sunday was Solstice, and I was keen to see the two final sights that would complete the spiritual journey that I was beginning to map out for myself. Now I had a mission! But where next? What was on the eastern side of the Tor? I recalled an image I had seen whilst researching Glastonbury of a stylised map of the area (which I now can’t find) and the Gog and Magog ancient oak trees were on that side somewhere. Surely that was the next destination? A quick dowse verified this. Good – now we had a destination for the next bit of chakra work.

Glastonbury Abbey

First thing Sunday morning we visited The Abbey - almost the first there as they opened - and had the run of the place for a short while. We dowsed the Michael/Mary Line and The Great Dragon Line that connects to it. I found its crossing point to be not at the High Altar as I have read in some books, but at King Edgar’s Chapel just beyond the altar.

In the abbey the Male/Sun energy was dominant – an ’11′ on the dowsing scale that only goes to ’10′. A cheeky Spinal Tap reference that I immediately understood, and which made me laugh heartily, attracting unwelcome attention. It was at it’s zenith today, and at this time close to noon. It couldn’t be any stronger. The strong male line had pushed the female line to one side of the abbey’s ruins where it zig-zagged its way, a form I haven’t seen before. I suspect it was being constrained and trapped by the power of the male energy and was thus a little more “excited” than usual.

I found a female power centre in King Edgar’s which made me relax. I dowsed for a suitable place to meditate and was directed to the base of a big yew tree in the corner of the abbey’s grounds not far from where I was. A yew tree again, huh? No escaping it on this trip!

I didn’t hesitate after my Chalice Well experience and soon I was meditating peacefully and deeply until I heard a counselling voice saying “Don’t neglect the Father. Though he may be far from you, you should embrace him.”
I knew exactly what this meant on many levels, and was stunned by its shocking truth – my father in Australia had been absent from my thoughts of late, but also I knew this to refer to the energies too because I had been neglecting male/sun energy in favour of exclusively female/moon energy recently.

Today of all days – the Summer Solstice – when the sun is at its peak this was a gentle reminder that there are three streams of energy: male, female and neutral. I should not neglect the power of any of these and should cultivate a use for all three, with the idea of achieving harmony through balancing their flows – my biorhythms essentially. Ha ha, I know – another flaky pseudo-science! Any tool that helps you understand yourself is useful providing it doesn’t enslave you, wouldn’t you say?

I vowed to change that imbalance straight away, so I sent an e-mail from my phone to my dad with a picture of me beneath the yew tree saying “Happy Father’s Day” (for it was conveniently that very day). Then I walked the full length of the abbey’s male stream revelling in the way it made my spine tingle with delight at it enervating force.
As I walked to the Abbey entrance a white dove landed a few feet in front of me on the path. I stopped and watched it, knowing it to be a sign that I was on the right path. Perhaps also a sign that my next encounter would involve “white”? I swear the next encounter was not planned!

The White Spring

As we travelled up the Tor that Sunday afternoon for our final encounters we came across the White Spring – a place where a natural spring has been channelled into flowing paths through a dark building, lit only by candles and natural light. The name of the spring did not escape my notice : white was indeed the next point on my ‘pilgrim’ trail.

Inside the building there was a wicker-work lattice in a teardrop dome shape, within which had been placed scented candles and flowers at one end, forming a kind of shrine or meditation place.

It was incredibly relaxing and all the heat was truly removed from any heated debate from the previous evening. We both emerged refreshed and ready for the day after only minutes near those waters.

Stage 6: The Gog and Magog Trees – Crown Chakra

Asked a Tor Bus guide where these famous old oak trees were. We were directed down a land that descended down the other side of the Tor that we had come up from! Oh no! A steep climb down after a steep climb up and on a baking hot day too. We followed the driver’s vague instructions until we thought we’d gone too far. It was past midday and we wondered whether we should be up the Tor by now. We asked the rods where the oak tress known as Gog and Magog might be and both got directed into a field. Luckily Kal found a stile at the bottom of the field labelled “Gypsy Lane” and we saw two trees in the field – one very large oak and a slightly smaller one – surely Gog and Magog?

Kal went to the smaller ‘Magog’ tree and I stayed with the larger ‘Gog’. Gog was supposed to be the male, and Magog the female. We had swapped alignments, which was probably a good thing after the Abbey revelation.
I communed with the tree and saw my body’s energies emerging from a hole in the top of my head – the crown chakra. This energy spread upwards like a circular fountain until it wrapped itself around me. Next it pulsed out a second time and wrapped itself over and under the surrounding land until it returned to me through my spine.
The third time it went right through the centre of my spine like an electric shiver until the fountain from the top of my head encompassed the whole world and then returned up through my spine again, this time almost blowing my mind with its powerful force. I felt that another chakra had opened.

I was therefore quite startled to find out that we had got the wrong trees! We were walking back up the hill towards the Tor again when a guy farther down the lane called to us. He introduced himself as Steve (another Steve!) and seemed like a really nice guy. He was looking for some people camped near to a farm, but we hadn’t a clue where he meant. After some to-ing and fro-ing involving other people directing us we found Steve’s camp site – right next to the supposedly REAL Gog and Magog oak trees.

The Real Gog and Magog Trees

Kal didn’t want to hop over the fence to see the trees up close. He seemed to be wandering off in mind and body at that time. I wanted to get close to these very old trees, however. I sat on Gog’s knee first (‘don’t neglect the father’) and felt his wisdom even in his declining years. Earlier I had found a red ribbon and so now seemed like an appropriate time to tie it to his trunk. Then I found a gap in Magog’s bark big enough to place my head in, which I did. In merely seconds I had an image of her wrapping her arms around me and cradling me in her bosom. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to stay there – possibly forever!

Meanwhile Kal is having an out-of-body experience that lasts until we get down from the Tor much later. In this experience he hears a woman who is sitting on the nearby hillside say to him “Come and sit here.”. I know nothing of this and started dowsing for the best path up the hill. I follow the male line which zig-zags like the female energy at the abbey in long strokes up the hillside towards the Tor.

Part way up I stopped for some reason. Kal then stops and sits whilst I do some dowsing about nothing! I stop dowsing and feel the urge to collect flowers! Yes, you read that right – some flowers, wild flowers. As a sort of gift. My thinking was that I had had such a fantastic experience that I should offer some form of gift, no matter how meagre, as long as my intention was good. My intention was to thank Nature for such an interesting year, and a particularly enlightening weekend – all natural highs and revelations. It seemed in keeping with the festival mood of the town that was preparing itself for Glastonbury Festival the next weekend.

Kal lets me collect a posy of wild flowers and then tells me that the place I stopped was exactly the place the woman had been sitting at when he “heard” her call him up the hill. At the time I had my face in a tree surrounded by a high hawthorn hedge, so I didn’t even see this woman, but I had seen some people begin to climb up, so I knew he wasn’t hallucinating. Frankly, by now, little green Martians could have been dancing all around us and I would have been quite accepting of it – my mind was slipping into a beautiful space where I was getting increasingly “blissed out” and random!

Stage 7: Glastonbury Tor – Third-Eye Chakra

Our final ascent goes awry. I’m too busy making a posy to navigate and we have to clamber over a high gate to reach the entrance to the Tor. We begin our ascent vowing to go wherever the feeling takes us – deviceless dowsing up the hillside without using the rods. A gamble, a challenge, and yet it felt right. We arrive within minutes of each other. I have been lead all around the North and East sides of the slope. The eastern slop is bathed in midday sunlight and very strong. The path is difficult but strangely beautiful. Not exhausting, just enough of an effort to feel worthy. The sun is beaming and so are we. The ascent up the Tor’s terraced sides has opened the final chakra – the third-eye chakra. Everything feels like I’m seeing it in a dream.

We were walking the Glastonbury Labyrinth, only doing the parts of the enlightenment path that we needed to complete our pilgrimage – even though we were completely unaware of where such a path might be – all we went on was “go with the energy flow”. I walked a circle around the Tor clockwise and then laid my collected flower bunch where the rods indicated I should. I stood up and was eye to eye with a word carved into the St Michael’s Church stonework: “Druids”.

At that moment something happened. I walked in a daze to the church entrance where Kal and I listened to some lads doing throat-singing and playing a balalaika and bhodran. That set me off a vibration in me that triggered my third-eye chakra to slowly unfurl its petals like some kind of lotus flower.
For the next few hours as we wandered around the town I felt like I was in a state of bliss with a paper-thin hat’s brim extending from my lower forehead.

Conclusion

I believe that this trip has shown me the veracity and capacity of the chakras within the human body. I had witnessed each of the seven open in turn as I attuned to several sites around Glastonbury in that special Solstice period, guided only by intuition and nature herself revealing thoughts, pictures, visions and lines in the landscape for me to follow. I had been energised, corrected, cleansed, purified, instructed, balanced and opened-up – not necessarily in that order, but the overall effect has been to make me convinced of the existence and usefulness of chakras to the process of attunement with Nature. There is something quite wonderful and special about the Isle of Avalon and its landscape of energies. This much is inescapable.

Gwas.

Opening up one by one.