Posts Tagged ‘tower’

A Yorkshire Imbolc – Part 2: Druid’s Altar twice and Barden Tower

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 linkBing 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 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.

A druid’s altar – now cracked

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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Brittany 6: Carnac alignments – Kermario

Kermario, Carnac – 8th May 2009

In this sixth installment of the Brittany series, the second part of the Carnac visit, I found possibly the most interesting aspects of the whole Carnac visit (not to put you off the next post, but this is the ‘main feature’, if you like).

kermario-plan

Entrance stones

As we walked across the road to the next section, called Kermario, we walked into a larger section of woodland than was around Ménec.On either side of the road winding through this woodland were two large boulders.

kermario-carnac

I stopped as I reached the point between them. I could feel a barrier of energy! There was a definite flow of energy between them that made my midriff feel a tug, just like when I walk the energy paths down a hill, or stand next to a large menhir. What was the purpose of putting these two stones here? I glanced around. I had missed two other similarly sized boulders that were fifty feet or so away. They were sites in an enclosed field nearby. Two pairs of boulders? The previous pair looked like they might designate the end of the Ménec field, whilst the pair I was standing between might demarcate the beginning of the Kermario field, I wondered? I dowsed between them – a strong male line going back and forth between them. I asked for permission to enter and the energy stopped tugging at my stomach, so I passed through. Hmmm….entrance stones for the energetically-aware?

Nemeton size: more guerrila dowsing

I was glad we were walking instead of driving now. I was seeing much more than if we had just whizzed by on a whirlwind tour from the car as most people seemed to be doing. This fast-paced tick-in-the-box tourism was beginning to become anathema to me. We stopped alongside the Kermario field of stones.

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It was an even more impressive sight than Ménec, because you could see down the slope through several fields, and the alignments just kept going on and on into the middle distance. We had found a nice spot amongst some outlying rocks that were not fenced off, but were close to a point that looked convenient for hopping over the fence unseen to most eyes. Whilst I waited for the occasional couple of tourists to wander by I did some dowsing at the edge of the field of stones.

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I wondered if all those stones were producing any kind of nemeton field collectively? I walked back into the woods some fifty feet, then asked if I was in the nemeton field and got a “NO” response. I walked towards the fence surrounding the stones until I got the familiar barrier response indicating the extent of the nemeton. It was about 20 feet from the nearest row. I tested for its qualities – FEMALE and NEUTRAL EARTH energies were found. I have begun to differentiate between male, female and neutral earth energies and the corresponding genders of human energies. Kal and I have found that when the earth produces a “white stream” of positive, beneficial energy it is a combination of male and female. Since discovering this I have begun to qualify the energy types by stating whether they are earth energies, radiant energies, or human energies. This nemeton field was earth energy.

The Energy Engine

As we progressed down the path alongside the fields of stones, admiring the amazing lines that flowed in parallel across the undulating landscape we spotted a tower in the distance that looked like a great vantage point from which to view the whole scene.

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Before we got there I wanted to ask the rods some more questions about how the purpose of this place. A convenient stopping point was where the path crossed between two fields of stones near to a ‘creperie’, actually a farmhouse built right in the midst of the aligned rows of stones. At this point the rows seemed artificially disconnected by the path and farmhouse, so I took the chance to check my findings so far, and verified them all. Now that I knew the way the energies flowed I was less inclined to continue asking the same questions all over the site. How about finding something out about what this was all for?

I knew that archeo-astrologers and other researchers have picked up on solar, lunar, maybe even stellar alignments, and like most sites I knew that this was a comp0onent of their construction, but not their entire purpose, I felt. Only part of the story. I suspected that the astrological alignments simply told the druids and other people who understood these sites WHEN they would be at their maximum and minimum in terms of their energetic potential. The question now was what would they be doing with this energy, and why was this particular site built like this? I asked the following questions whilst standing in the energy flow between the disconnected rows of two fields of stones:-

  • Was the purpose of this site to gather energy by transforming radiant energies and drawing up earth energy like some kind of massive energy generator? YES, came the response.
  • Was the whole series of stones all one big engine? Er…NO, not really. OK, let’s be more specific.
  • Is this Kermario section all one engine? YES. So, was each named area an engine unto itself? YES.

Wow, this must be some huge engine! Where was the energy going?

  • Was the energy produced in each section of the Carnac site going to a specific place? YES.
  • In the Kermario field, where I now stood, was there a single nexus point for the energy? YES. Would I be able to locate it? YES.
  • Was it on a path accessible to most people (I asked hopefully)? NO.
  • Was it within a mile of where I was? YES.

Armed with that much I set off intent on finding this single point where all the energies of this huge field of stones was focused. I asked to rods to take me to this focal point, and I followed them as they led me down the path alongside the field of stones towards the tower in the near distance. As I approached the tower, wondering to myself whether this was the place, the rods swivelled left and I turned with them to see where they were now pointing – at two small green mounds ten feet in at the end of this section of stone alignments! I hadn’t even seen them as I approached, but now they stood out like…well, like a pair of green breasts on a nun!!!

The Mounds and The Tower

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Again I hopped the fence. Luckily the mounds were only a few feet away from the path that intersected the fields of stone rows. I asked the rods to take me to the exact place where the energy from the alignments went to. It was the mounds. The rows of stones petered out before the mounds. I couldn’t tell exactly where the energy from the rows came in, but the flow was certainly directed into the mounds. I checked for a nemeton around the mounds and found it circling the two small mounds in a sort of kidney shape, indented more on one side than the other, but flowing around the two of them. It registered for male and female energy combined – a white stream nemeton of earth energies, flowing anti-clockwise. Possibly the male energy went clockwise, I don’t know. I didn’t want to linger too long in this forbidden territory!

I now asked several miscellaneous questions in an attempt to get some idea of its strength. If this was the focal point for all these stones then it might be quite strong. Asked for its relative strength on a scale of 1-10 and got a response at 9. Was it ever a 10, I asked? YES. When? January? YES. February? Less so. March and April? A decreasing response until at April the rods parted. May? The rods began to cross again slightly. June? A more positive response. July? YES. Full cross. August? Less of a response. OK – January and July it was. Two months? I thought about other sites I knew of that were powerful, and asked how this site measured against Arbor Low, for example. Please tell me how many times stronger these energies were. Same strength? NO. 1.5x stronger? NO. I kept going up until I got to 8. Then the rods crossed. Eight times stronger than Arbor Low! Kal would love it here.

kermario-carnac-27

When I got back home I checked my “In Tune With The Moon” book which tells me exactly what phase of the moon occurs when in the year. In 2009 the full moon in July coincides exactly with the apogee – one of the two times in the year when the moon is exerting its strongest influence. In January the full moon was at its perigee – i.e. at its nearest, pulling most upon this side of the planet. In July it would be pulling the other side of the planet strongest. I asked the rods if the sun energies would be strongest at the Summer Soltice in June to which the answer was, YES. I was beginning to see how these calendar times meant the times of the greatest energetic potential of the sun and moon radiant energies in relation to the stones at Carnac.

I wondered if the energy came out of the mounds and went anywhere else, so I asked to follow any energy line coming out of the mounds. I was taken back over the fence and down the path back towards the road. It led me through the woods on the far side of the road, along a barely-visible trail, then back along the road, back up the path and around the tower. Beyond the tower it went into the woods on the other side of the field and emerged again to re-join the mounds (more fence-hopping). The shape was somewhat like a three-fingered hand, or a shamrock, an elongated trefoil shape.

As I was back at the mounds I asked if the field was male, female or neutral. I got a response for a mixture of male and female. So, the area defined was all white stream positive energy. I asked too whether there were any burials within the mounds, as they were suspiciously human sized – NO. Looking down the rows I thought about their placement. Were these rows placed because of the geology of the rock beneath them, I asked? YES. Well, I could investigate this at some future point when I had access to more information. As it turned out, I checked a geological map of the area and found that the alignments were all placed on a shelf of granite that began at Carnac. Interesting. We have found this at every ancient complex of sites – they all make use of solid crystalline volcanic rocks. The crystalline nature of the rock seems important to their function as energy generators or harnessers. This was something I was about to put to the test in my own small way.

A sense of purpose

Now I turned my attention to establishing the purpose of these incredible alignments of stones. What were they here for? I had a series of things I wanted to test for using the dowsing rods. I stood in the field emanating from the mounds and began to ask some serious questions:-

  • Was this site an engine to generate energy? YES
  • Could it be used for healing? YES.
  • Could it be harnessed for transformation of human consciousness? YES.
  • Could it be used to create a protective field? YES.
  • Could it be used for any ‘magickal’ purpose? YES.

This was amazing. It seemed as though this energy could be utilised in any way that seemed appropriate to the requirements of those who built and used it. This amazing energy generator would create energies that could be employed for any kind of energy work that was needed. As Kal mentioned to me later - is this akin to the legendary Philosopher’s Stone?

Healing with crystals

People were starting to wander up to the tower from the road again, so I hopped back over the right side of the fence. M was sat atop the tower but now she joined me again, complaining about her joint pains, as she frequently does. I wondered if I could harness the positive energies that surrounded us at this moment? I asked if I could use some crystals to do some healing work and the rods happily crossed. I set up my five crystal Venus set according to where the rods said I should put them. It was almost in the usual formation, but two of the crystals were interchanged. I dowsed for where M should stand, and where I could stand to help direct the energies. I asked M to imagine drawing up the energy from the floor whilst I gave the intention to heal her joints. Several minutes later I cleared the crystals away and asked M how she felt. No pain now, she said, but that could have been a placebo effect, however she didn’t complain about her aching joints for the rest of the week, so I guess that tells you something. Believe me – she had been mentioning it several times a day before this incident!
It’s amazing stuff this crystal work. A year ago I would have laughed myself out of the country for doing such a thing (Kal: Don’t worry - I still laugh at you :-) ).

The Alignment Stones

kermario-carnac-291

Now I hadn’t completely dismissed the idea that there were parts of the complex at Carnac that were used calendrically. As we walked back to Ménec alongside the Kermario field we spotted two standing stones that were a hundred feet off to one side. It looked like a make-shift car park that very few people used, but at the end were two standing stones of an odd shape. We have seen shaped stones like this before at sites. I can think of Callenish in particular where the notched shapes of the stones were almost universally believed to provide sightings for alignments of the sun, moon and with particular stars like Aldebaran. These two stones looked just like those shaped stones. I decided they warranted some investigation.

The taller pointed stone only has one “disfigurement” – a slight chunk taken out of its western edge. The smaller stone which stood only six feet away from it had a profound notch hewn from it that meant that its top half was only half the width of its base. I dowsed for energy coming out of the stones and found that a male line emerged from the hewn edge of the smaller rock and led to the flat hewn edge of the pointer larger stone. Interesting. Again, this correlates with so many other stones that have been similarly worked.

kermario-carnac-32

Next, I concentrated on finding out which types of energies these stones might be pulling down from radiant sources or drawing up from the earth. The taller stone was drawing male sun energy and also pulling female energy from earth, as was the smaller stone too. Presumably they were also pulling down moon energy, but I forgot to ask! Silly me. It’s easy to be “completist” about these things after the fact. The two stones were involved with both drawing energy from the Kermario field of stones as well as sending it back to them in a sort of circuit.

kermario-carnac-33

I asked the rods whether the notches on the smaller stone aligned to specific celestial objects and got a positive response for sun, moon and star alignments. That confirmed their purpose for me. These stones were here to allow users of the energies to determine specific times of the year when the energies were best suited to their purpose, I theorised.

With that we walked back to the car in order to head out to the furthest field – Kerlescan. Here there was another field of stones, but I wanted to concentrate on the side shows – The Giant’s Stone and The Quadrangle, said to once have been a large tumulus.

Gwas Myrddyn

Following an intuition

Isle of Lewis: Dun Carloway Broch and The Truiseil Stone

We had left Callanish II in a slightly confused state of mind. Callanish III had been lovely, Callanish II the complete opposite. We picked ourselves up and headed for the recommended Carloway Broch – a partially reconstructed shelter that we expected would be like a small stone shelter big enough to possibly fit us both in. Our sense of scale was about to be flabbergasted.

Dun Carloway Broch looked like a small pillar-box hat on a bald man’s head as we approached it from the landward side. The winds had decided to have a contest to see which of the Four Winds could rip our faces off, but still we approached the round stone tower.  As we neared the small entrance portal we were literally stopped in our tracks by the screams of the winds. I crouched and entered. Complete silence! I was startled, my mind thinking that perhaps I had made the wind up or something. I bobbed my head back out for a second only to get an ear-lashing blast that made my hat shift nervously and made my eyes squint. Back in again – pure silence. Amazing!

brock-2

Both inside now we marvelled at the architecture – half exposed circular staircases that spiralled upwards between two layers of stone. Cavity walls! Around the base were three small square openings. This looked like dowsing territory, so I whipped them out (sounds like a Frankie Howard gag).

I started with one of the square openings. A female line came out and spiralled four or five times into the very centre of the broch. Good start.  Female lines came out of and went into each of the holes, one of them leading out of the entrance door. I dowsed for a male line in the doorway. Yes, there was one which spiralled loosely into the broch and then joined to a mound of irregular stone on the floor inside the broch. This stone had not been cleared or chipped away to make the floor even like the other parts – and it had two parallel lines etched into it. The male line came into the stone and then followed the line and width of these scores in the rock.

brock-3Lines on stone in broch show male energy line location and direction.

I went back to the entrance again. A male and a female line here on either side of the entry. Wat about the middle? I dowsed across to find a neutral line there and followed in straight to the back wall – completely straight. I turned around to see where this line through the doorway pointed…

duncarloway_align

At a nipple, by the look of it! I got out my compass and checked the alignment. I was facing due North. It struck me that this all fitted into some kind of design principle and aligned with something that I couldn’t determine at this scale. I would check to see if it was connected directly with something further south or north one day soon. I went to sit on the unusual rock, which had a white stream power centre on it. We both did. We smiled.

As we sat there, me stratching my head at the fact that the energies seemed to map themselves along the lines scored in the rock, who should make an appearance? The lone mad cyclist. He looked wild-eyed and inquisitive and we chatted briefly about the splendour of the construction, and his foolhardy choice of a day to be cycling. We retreated to the car to let him absorb the same atmosphere of stillness that we had just enjoyed, sheltering from the elements.

Having heard, however, that Sunday was not a day to be without provisions on an island this far from a corner shop we had sandwiches, and were now seeking out a good place to eat them before continuing our site visits. Dalmore beach (Dail mor) looked promising, so we determined to head for that. We parked up to watch the white horses on the waves tumbling backwards in the high winds then crashing in orchestral union across the expanse of the bay. The birds had grounded themselves and hung around on the beach looking pensive and shifty, out of their element.

M and I spent some time drawing spirals, shapes and names into the pristine expanse of sand, then headed back to the car with a buzzing feeling in our heads and hearts.

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We stopped briefly at Na Gearrannan Village – a vision of how people once lived. It was a restored and rebuilt village of thatched longhouses called blackhouses. We spent far too long in the toilets examining the way these buildings were constructed, but luckily we were the only visitors for the duration. Not a tourist day today!

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Our last stop that day was the Truiseil Stone – a huge menhir, twenty or so feet high. I dowsed it eagerly finding that the stone was strongly male (not a great surprise). I wondered if it had a wide-ranging energy field, as it was so high. I retreated down the small aimless path to a good distance and began dowsing for its edge. About thirty feet away I got a barrier response and looked down to spot a stone embedded in the path at that point. It extended to the same length on both sides.

There were male lines sinewing fairly directly into the stone along the centre line of the path. Female lines wavering around to touch each edge of the path (skirting along edge of a dip in the path on one side). There was a feeling of immense power when walking into the nemeton field. I asked the rods to find the strongest and most beneficial place for me to stand. I walked around the stone’s base until I stopped at the flat side (facing camera in picture below). Here I felt warm, bubbling with subtle gentle rising energy which felt like an internal bubble bath. I hung around for a while enjoying the experience. Where was the wind? I could see its effects in the grass of the fields around me but couldn’t really hear much of it, and could barely feel it blowing, yet I knew it was still very strong all around me. Strange.

truiseil-stone-3Showing extent of nemeton, from pillar to outlier – 30+ feet.

We had enjoyed a full weekend of interesting, amazing sites and sights. The highland lochs, the pass of Glen Coe, the Argyll & Bute forests, the mountains of Skye and Harris, the Coullins in perfect white shroud, Callanish stone circles aplenty, lone standing stones, ancient stone towers of superb construction, a huge menhir, eagles and deer, bays and beaches. It really had been a treat for the senses and the soul.

Gwas.

Following the northern lights and sights.

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