The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘trickster’

The Broceliande Forest is a legendary place, like Avalon, whose exact whereabouts are uncertain. These days it is considered by some to be situated in the Paimpont Forest in Ile-et-Vilaine in Brittany. Having visited this forest in 2009 to see Merlin’s Tomb, I decided that we ought to look at another of the parts of the forest this time. So, having visited the town of Paimpont for inspiration we decided to head for the Val Sans Retour (The Valley of No Return), which seemed to contain some interestingly-named attractions – not least of which was the Golden Tree, and a couple of megalithic sites.

Introduction to the Valley of No Return

Our starting point for a walk in the summer sun was the village of Trehorenteuc. We knew that we were probably in for an interesting time when we found that many of the houses and local shops were decorated with murals with a woodland and fairy theme, or were named after characters from the Arthurian mythology – especially Merlin. This bade well. We parked and picnicked at the tourist information office (which is alongside a church reputed to be a resting place for the Holy Grail, no less) and then headed out of the village on foot to the start of the forest paths.

A welcome sign for druids

Once inside the woodland we were shielded from the intense heat, but you could see that the forest was usually flowing with streams, but that the lack of rainfall over the last few months had dried up all the shallower beds so that it was now possible to walk along their course from the village right up into the hills above. You could tell that in Autumn or Winter some river-hopping would be required at some points in order to make your way deep into the forest.

As we entered the forest we felt like we had crossed some kind of magical threshold, and that from now on things would get a little stranger. That’s exactly what happened.

Read the rest of this entry »

Gwas and I have often discussed and experimented with what kind of questions that it is feasible to ask of the dowsing rods.

Toss of a coin

Of course one can ask any kind of question and indeed if memory serves I even read of someone dowsing to ask who the next president of the United States was going to be – I think they got it right.

Gwas and I have discovered there is no rule to this – nothing “literally” slaps you if you ask an inappropriate question. and you do get yes and no answers too. For example the lottery numbers where dowsed and 6 numbers where got and a ticket duly bought. Thus we are writing these blog posts from our yacht, Not!

So if we are obviously getting “wrong” results from certain questions, what is going on?And, not to let ourselves of the hook, how do we know that the “other questions” have right answers?

Let me illustrate…Finding the lottery numbers gave an incorrect result. Finding a power center? How do we know that that was a right result?

There are a couple of ways in which we can persue this rabbit. The first is to look at it from the perspective of “who” is answering the questions and what knowledge can we attribute to “the answerer”. The second way is to look at the question and ask whether such a question is indeed answerable. For instance the “lottery” question assumes that the future is readable.

Exploring this rather convoluted topic leads to, what is essentially, a matter of belief. With that in mind I can give you “my beliefs” on it. Gwas may add his at a later date.

In the specific case of dowsing (and not communingAn interaction with an invisible and natural sentient force that is independently identifiable, even if it cannot be named or classified. The interaction takes place at the level of a subtle amalgamation of the mind of the perceiver such that a dialogue or transference of feelings may occur between the two sentient parties. The interaction that is ‘communing’ is purposefully initiated by the perceiver for the express purpose of learning or simply to transfer feelings in a sympathetic manner.) I feel that I am getting an answer from a deeper (higher, whatever) part of me. My understanding is that the consciousness that is me is just the tip of the iceberg and (taking this analogy further) below the water there is a tremendous amount of “stuff”. For me dowsing provides a conduit through which I have access to a deeper me.

Lotto

For sure, that “deeper” me isn’t omniscient or indeed prescient. Thus it can only provide from what it has in store. But here is the strangeness of it. I feel that there is a rule, and that rule simply states that “all questions must be answered.”

However the “bind” with this rule is that the questions do not have to be “truthfully” answered. Thus, asking if some one is in love with you, or the lottery, or the winning horse will be answered – as per the rule. But they may not be the correct answer since the “deeper” part of you may not know it.

Both Gwas and I have used dowsing for finding our path when lost, when looking for things and when seeking energies. I (we) have enough experience in such matters to trust that what we are shown is the truth of it. We have also had enough “slaps” (credit is often given to The Trickster for these – but with a tongue in cheek acknowledgement that we ourselves may very well be the Trickster!) to acknowledge that our deeper self has no knowledge of certain matters.

trickster

Of course all of this is only true for me (and again I stress this applies to dowsing only NOT communingAn interaction with an invisible and natural sentient force that is independently identifiable, even if it cannot be named or classified. The interaction takes place at the level of a subtle amalgamation of the mind of the perceiver such that a dialogue or transference of feelings may occur between the two sentient parties. The interaction that is ‘communing’ is purposefully initiated by the perceiver for the express purpose of learning or simply to transfer feelings in a sympathetic manner.) – Gwas’s notion may differ.

Ok, fair dues! But why the ‘eck are you writing about this? Well, quite recently I started up a sister site to do with wand making. However this was causing me to wonder how many blogs can I post on!! So I was considering consolidating that blog and putting it on here as a ever-growing page. And in fact I did start doing that. But then I decided to dowse to see what the rods (my deeper self, remember) would think on the matter.

In the real world there are advantages and disadvantages to either way, I may as well toss a coin and decide right? And this is where the nub of the matter comes in.

One of the most beneficial features of dowsing is that it “creates meaning” where before there were only cold hard “advantages and disadvantages”. At one time, it was evenly balanced as to what to do, leave it as a blog or not. A toss of a coin would have added more “meaninglessness” to the decision. However with the rods I added more “meaning” to the choice.

The only thing that remains, is to ask ourselves whether the response came because “all questions must be answered” or because “my deeper self knew something”? This, my dear friends, is where wisdom is born.

Fin,

Kal

Ps – please note the lack of a Wand Making page – courtesy of my deeper self

Continuing on from my recent (yesterday) visit to the Ancient Yew tree in North Wales.

Ancient Yew

It was night time and the stars were out. The day had been cold but in the evening it had mellowed to a comfortable warmth. I had been sitting (looking at the picture above) about the center of the picture and slightly to the left of the trunk for some time happily communingAn interaction with an invisible and natural sentient force that is independently identifiable, even if it cannot be named or classified. The interaction takes place at the level of a subtle amalgamation of the mind of the perceiver such that a dialogue or transference of feelings may occur between the two sentient parties. The interaction that is ‘communing’ is purposefully initiated by the perceiver for the express purpose of learning or simply to transfer feelings in a sympathetic manner. with this marker of times passage. 4000 years! That still impresses me so much.

Many topics filtered in and out of my consciousness as I sat and mused the time away. A few times I wished Gwas was there. It seems natural for me to be out with him rather than on my own. Strange…

Here I was though, wanting to visit with this marvelous tree rather than needing to or being called to – it was a unique experience as on almost all other occasions of me going out on my lonesome it has been in response to some kind of “calling”.

Odd it is

“Odd it is” as Yoda would say, that we need to find some higher purpose and meaning when walking a more spiritual path. In “normal” cases we look for approval from some Guru or from some spiritual text. In less normal cases we look for approval from “the universe”. We wait for a sign or for “when the time is right” In the parlance of a personal development coach (which is what my day job is) this is referred to quite simply as an avoidance tactic (or to put it less mildly an excuse not to do anything).

As my commune continues with the ancient yew, I asked for any guidance as to where I was going and what I should do and when I should do it? You have already seen that the Trickster was at work – see previous post – where I was admonished for deriving meaning from the meaningless. I would like to elaborate on that as there was much more wisdom to go with it.

You are very strange, you do not know what you have inside of you. You walk around asking for help and understanding from rock, branch and water when they can only give to you what you give to them.

This telling of had stopped me in my musing and made me pay attention…What are you saying? That I should be leaving more gifts? Offerings?

Tch, I am a mirror, a reflection, why do you think it is that all who come to me see a different persona, a different feeling, a different experience? Co-creation!

Yes, I know that already. This is a path of co-creation as determined by both off us.

No, it isn’t!

Okaaaayyyyy…???

The path is of “your” creation, I am the world in which you walk it.

Ah…Er…What?

Paths

It’s quite simple. Are you dense?

Hmmm Trickster? Yes, I am dense (as per usual) explain.

You come to me looking for meaning and purpose. I am a reflection…I will reflect back that very question “What is your purpose and meaning?” I cannot give your life meaning, just as much as you cannot give me meaning.

You have meaning inside of you, you cannot ever have no meaning and purpose, should you sit here and do nothing ever again, every breath you take will be as meaningful as if you went out and explored the world, indeed…(smile) if you saved the entire world.

Wow, that is deep to be sure I am going to have to muse on that for – a life time.

Let me ask you…What is the meaning of your life?

The commune went totally strange now because, before I could get an answer in, the question was repeated again and again, kind-of hauntingly until it wasn’t even a question or words any more but a deep sound, like a drum beat that, with every beat, dug deeper inside of me. Now that I think back to it, it was like the Earth Song I had heard in Alderley Edge forest. See this post.

I think it was trying to get deep inside of me so that I could feel the “meaning” inside of me, but I fluffed it I fancy because intellectually I understood it – but didn’t get a “feeling” from it.

The beat had also knocked me out of commune and I settled back against a gravestone (ooops) and took in the smell of incense – did I mention I had lit some?

One of the most fantastic things about this old (I assume its old) churchyard is the wonderful backdrop to it. Again if you look at the picture above…Behind the Tree it goes into a slope (which incidentally has  power center on it) and then into a graveyard that is sectioned off by a couple of paths.

Walking along this path is a wonderful way in which to garner further insights into any meditation. The use of the dowsing rods with this musing provides mental (questioning) paths to follow. Quite remarkable.

One day Gwas and I will go there during the day and with Gwas’s new camera take some more revealing pictures.

Anyways stay tuned for the final part of this “Yew” post which is tantalisingly entitled – “Spirit Walk” – oooh!

Fin,

Kal

It was friday last and I was looking forward to a packed – like sardines – weekend, when I got an email of Gwas, fancy visiting a stone circle on Sunday? With a flurry of calls and an email, I repacked my whole weekend to include this extra activity – I mention this because it was truly a tremendous feat to do so!

Dowsers what do not dowse

I was round at Gwas’s for 10 am on a frosty – but unusually clear sunday morning and after – secretly – checking out the energies in Gwas’s house (ooops). We were off to Cerrig-y-Drudion. En-route we made the essential, and quite normal I might add, step for us of buying food for the trip.

Forty minutes or so later – we stepped out of the old reliable and wandered off down a path into what seemed quite an unenergetic wood. Although we did find a couple of photogenic moments with the sun streaming in -hopefully pic here- the Wood/forest was quite dreary – which is the natural state of woods when humans come along and indiscriminately chop bits of it down!!!

We meandered down paths following a OS map which told us we had parked some 2k from the stone circle. Eventually we reached our destination and lo! No stone circle? We were by the side of Alwen (Translation Angel {GWAS: “Llanfihangel” translates as archangel, but ‘Alwen’ means ‘Noble friend’ apparently) reservoir knee-deep in undergrowth which was frost covered and wet, scratching our heads – playing my side-kick part to the max – I came up with the appropriate ‘here’s another fine mess you got me into’ reference.

It was at this point that Gwas’s dowsed and returned the result that “Here there be no stone circles”. We trampled through some more of the forest feeling a bit miffed and disappointed – but as the order of the day had already been set in a discussion in the car – If you don’t find anything interesting, you make something yourself, how appropriate is/was that!

We decided to head off to Rhuddlan Castle – a place we had dowsed in the past. It was close and we figured we could do some manifestations there.

Oooops, Actually we decided to go to Saint Bueno’s cave, which we had walked passed once and – quite remarkably for us – didn’t bother visiting. The reason I mention it is that as we walked to the car we were discussing and deciding to go to the caves and then strangely ended up heading towards the castle???

Distant Manifestation

As chief navigator (or the only one) I managed to avoid the sunday driver root to the castle. On the way we decided to try our hand at some distant manifestations. So far we have done plenty at sites but never tried a manifestation from a distance. Although we had it on our list of things to try.

Gwas, who was driving said he would have a go too. So for a few minutes in the car we were both attempting to visualise and manifest a symbol(s). At one point Gwas complained that his visualisation kept transforming. Whether this was because of his dual focus on driving and visualising is a question to ask?

For my part, I wanted to visualise something different, so I ended up with a circle with two spirals attached to opposite sides of it. I pluncked it on the far side of the castle (opposite the entrance).

An important note: on the way to Cerrig-y-Drudion Gwas told me that he had attempted a manifestation the night before and wondered whether I would be able to dowse it…having failed to find the site I asked Gwas what he had visualised, he said that it had been a triangle with a circle in it – but (as seems to be the case for him at the moment) the visualisation didn’t seem to stabilise.

Finding the triangle – with a spiral

We arrived at the castle, only to find the entrance closed. Undeterred we hopped over the small wall and continued on – with if I recall the sound of police sirens in the distance -

Gwas asked to see if I could find the energies that he had manifested from the car. I had a go asking “Show me the boundary of Gwas’s manifestation” – I walked some paces on the dew covered grass and found a boundary. I then followed it around and to my surprise it formed a triangle with a spiral in it.

The pattern was clearly visible in the wet grass and I turned to Gwas to ask whether this was what he had manifested? No, he said. I was a bit disappointed and watched as Gwas dowsed another section of the field before the Castle and laid out a pattern which he said was what he had manifested. We both swapped places and I dowsed and followed his outline exactly whilst he retraced my steps exactly.

At the time we both for some reason ignored the triangle and spiral – hmmm why did we do that – But now that I am writing this post I wonder if this could have been Gwas’s nightly manifestation?

Dowsing a manifestation only after the creator has walked it

Walking around to the back of the castle I took Gwas to the location I had manifested my energy pattern and asked him to try his luck. Alas I thought he had it when he got the first cicle but then wandered off on some other energetic pursuit.

I tried to dowse my own and got it first time including the two spiral offshoots. This had us both wondering…why couldn’t we dowse each others manifestations? If you read through the posts herein you will see that we have dowsed each others manifestations before.

It was then that I had a kind of eureka moment, what if we could only dowse them after the creator had dowsed them?…what if the other dowser walked in the energy wake of the manifester? This seems like a feasible answer for the moment – of course more investigation will blow or tether it.

More things to consider:

• are we just dowsing what we believe to be there?
• are our manifestations too weak for the other to dowse?
• maybe we could pin them down somehow (crystals come to mind)
• we could try local (non distant) manifestations and see how we go

What kind of energy are we manifesting?

Here are some of the questions we asked:

• Is it Reiki energy? Yes
• Is it Chi energy? Yes (Gwas asked this – my assumption would be that reiki/chi are the same)
• Is it related to any of the chakras? No
• Is it neutral Chi then? (this was a daft question and got a Trickster response)
• Er…exactly – see how hard it is to form questions!!!

Chakra manifestation

Taking a more pragmatic stance I wanted to see what useful energies I could manifest and this is the first time I(we) did this so – please bare with the rawness of the experiment.

What I wanted to do was combine known knowledge with unknown or perhaps subconscious knowledge. Thus I decided to create a manifestation that would be of energetic benefit to me…“An energy manifestation that would align/frequency/vibrational to a chakra that was beneficial to me”

I visualised a energy spiral – why not – it seems the most prevalent form, embuing it – dont ask how – its a doing thing – with a chakra energy that would be healing for me. Now I didn’t consider which chakra energy would be healing to me – this is where the subconscious or whatever you want to call it comes in.

After a few minutes visualisation I dowsed for the spiral and found it straight away – a triple spin one – short and sweet. I then checked to see which chakra it was vibrationally aligned with and got an immediate response from Earth – the first one? I thought – with a thoughtful air I dowsed for any other frequency matches… Earth, Sacral and Throat were indicated. I reflected on this result for some moments – If I would have wondered at what I thought I would need I wouldn’t have come up with these…or would I? Hmmm.

Gwas came over from his own experiments and asked what I was up to and after a quick recap he had manifested a what? which indicated the following colours yellow and indigo. i.e. Solar plexus and Brow chakras.

We both stood in our power centers and let the energies do there work after which – Gwas dragged me away from the site – I still had a pocket full of questions – and he pulled me away whilst my rods were still spinning!

Reflections on the chakras manifestation

On our return trip as always – ruminations, puzzles and wonder were abound. I expounded a little on the nature and reflection of each chakra and Gwas determined why he got yellow and indigo. I also explained that I could understand the Earth and Sacral energy alignments – but am still puzzled over the throat chakra.

I was exploring this very reason when I got a Trickster response of the rods. left rod staying fixed forward right one twirling inwards…what does that mean?

What answers and the many (as per) questions that go with it

As is always and endlessly the case – each exploration lends to many questions:

1. for me an important exploration is what I am going to call the Trickster response – how can I explore it tho?
2. why cant we dowse each others manifestations – until they have been dowsed?
3. we tested to see how long the manifestation would last and got 30mins – how to make them longer? Gwas determined that we could make them permanent – but how?
4. there is so much more chakra oriented manifestations we can do – for healing ourselves and others. this is going to be a big area for me.
5. dowsing each others chakras to detect imbalances and seeing if these match a healing manifestation

Everytime I think we have scratched the surface – the Trickster reminds me that I haven’t.

Kal

PS – If you’re wondering about the Trickster, a post or two on this matter will be materialising soon.