The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘tumuli’

Friday 28th May – Newgrange, County Meath

On our second day on the Ireland megalithic tour we were going around the main Boyne Valley sights. It would be rude not to, seeing as we were in the vicinity. It would be interesting to contrast how the Irish valued their sites compared to the English, Welsh and Scottish. That said, I don’t think were were prepared for the…organisation levels that we were about to encounter.

To get to Newgrange from Knowth you have to…er…go past Newgrange, back to the bus terminal near the Visitor Centre and catch the bus back to Newgrange. Of course you do! On arrival we had to wait for the guide to, er…open the small two feet high unlocked gate and to tell us to walk up to the standing stones in front of Newgrange’s famous entrance. The arrangements are all a bit of a faff, but it began to dawn on us that this was necessary to control the number of people at the site and make the experience rewarding for everyone. In the end we capitulated, although Kal still went off and did his own thing whilst I endured the guided tour to get some background on the site first. Later we walked back rather than hurry for the scheduled bus. We wanted time to dowse, of course.

I’m going to recount things out of chronological order now, because I want to relate the interesting stuff together, so bear with me! We found that the constant influx of tourists into the mound was causing a build-up of negative energies. It was only slight, and took a while to accumulate, but was there.

The accretion effect I suspect may be due to the fact that tourists in no way “prepare” themselves for entering such sites. Why would they? Of course they wouldn’t, and yet in my experience this can often be a necessary part of approaching these sacred places – to cleanse oneself of the subtle energies from the places we have visited (or live in) that is like wearing a smelly coat!

We walked around it the ‘correct’ way – clockwise, sunwise. This ancient (and now partly modern) construction  was a chamber whose energies we left were in synchrony with the Sun’s movements primarily. We wondered as to why the main path invited tourists to walk around it in a contrary, widdershins, direction. This was something that we found to be the case at Stonehenge too, Tourists were ‘invited’ to walk around the structure in a way that would neutralise positive energy flows and keep the place feeling…drained. It would take quite a strength of will for a tourist to walk around in the opposite direction to the flow of everyone else. Of course, we did just that! Swim against the stream, young salmon!

One thing we did wonder about was this: if the flow of energies during Spring was clockwise, would it change direction at other times of the year? Perhaps someone who lives closer might be able to tell us that?

As we stood outside the entrance being given the known history of the site both Kal and I were separately thinking about the hidden history of the place. Kal had gone off exploring, and my mind was split between taking in the historical information and feeling for the energy coming from the nearby standing stones. As my eye wandered absently along the line of the stones I saw that there was an alignment with nearby tumuli (or mounds) closer to the Boyne River down in the valley floor. Interesting that all these sites are aligned to the path of the Sun, and that they all were built within the bounds of this wide bow bend in the river.

Now it was time for the guided tour of the inside of the Newgrange chamber. We all filed into the chamber, careful not the scratch the artwork, and emerged in the central corbelled chamber. Then Kal appeared again and I could see that he was holding his dowsing rods. He wouldn’t, would he?

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Section 7. Summary of the Year

In order to organise our thoughts Kal and I came up with some questions the answers to which we hoped might summarise the way that year has gone for us – what were the bits we expected, what exceeded our expectations, and which things arose to meet us on this path that we didn’t anticipate? Here are my answers to this year’s questions.

What did I think I was going to learn?

1. Whether specific periods of the year are more energetic than others, and whether those periods align to the calendrical eight-fold year.
2. How stone circles work in terms of their energy
3. Whether specific geology affects the energetic responses from sites

By the summer of 2009 I had already established to my satisfaction that there was a difference in the strengths of energies at the Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. I was sure that there was more powerful sun energy (i.e. stronger male energy) at the Summer Solstice. The Spring and Autumn Equinoxes were very similar in strength, and were a balance of male and female earth energies. At the Winter Solstice the male energies were very weak, as was the Sun. The female energies fluctuated only in relation to the strength of the Moon and the input from nearby trees, again weaker in Winter.

Determining any objective means of measurement was difficult, as our own energy levels seemed to be a factor in how well we could dowse or do energy work at a site, however a scale of measurement (strength from 1-10) seemed to work for the purposes of obtaining some data that could be compared between sites. The solstice and equinox dates depended upon the quality of the Sun to determine the amount of additional energy was at the site compared to our visits to them on other dates.

The Celtic Festival dates (Lammas, Beltane, Samhain and Imbolc) in between those times were much harder to figure out. These dates seems to depend upon the position of the Moon for their effects upon ancient sites., rather than the Sun’s effect. I will be posting much more on this soon, complete with a table of the relative energy levels at various sites dowsed this year.

Further theories have emerged concerning the operation of energies at stone circles and other sites too. See the Earth Energies and Ancient Sites Summary posts for details on those.

We have kept a weather-eye on the geology of sites whilst dowsing this year. It started for me in Carnac when I discovered that the stone rows were placed along a shelf of rock quite different from the surrounding geology of the rest of the nearby coastline. We have concurred with the popular dowsing theory that geological faulting is important to the situation of ancient sites, as is often the presence of water, but we do not wholly agree with the necessity of water (or a ‘blind spring’ formation) being present at all ancient neolithic sites. Some major sites such as Stonehenge and The Rollright Stones do have this water formation, however, and we think these popular sites may have led to the popularity of the idea amongst the dowsing fraternity that such a formation is necessary to a strong energy site. We do not find this to be true.

'CARNAC: Des Pierres Pour Les Vivants' by Pierre Mereaux

What’s been the surprise?

1. Crop circles being designed by some intelligence beyond the confines of this planet – expected them to be of human design and manufacture.
2. The energetic and healing potential of running water – Pistyll Rhaeadr and Viktor Schauberger convinced me of this at different ends of the year. At Pistyll Rhaeadr waterfall my wife’s twisted ankle was healed in minutes. Later I read Schauberger’s theories on the properties of water and I understood how this could have come about.
3. A spiritual pilgrimage being worthwhile doing, and not some soulless religious historical trail as I had imagined it to be.

1. Astrology - There is a correlation, a link, between the relative positions of the stars and a human being. My natal chart is stunningly accurate in assessing my personality traits. Kal and I have also discovered that we are energetically linked to particular planets – Kal to Mercury and myself to Venus. We are more energetically ‘loaded’ or ‘charged’, and more energy work is possible, when our respective planets are visible. I have tracked this since the beginning of the year and have each dowsing response confirms this.
2. Elemental beings and cloud sylphs – I see some this year on four separate occasions and each time I was stunned by the effect – this was no mere simulacrum. Seeing faces in the clouds must be the third and conclusive qualifying factor in any signs of madness developing – that much I do appreciate, but nevertheless, they have been present at quite specific times of high energy.

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Section 2. Dowsing and Earth Energies

A lot of work was done by Kal in particular this year relating to the modification of energy centres within houses. Some people call this “house dowsing” or “healing sick houses”. It relates to a concept called “geopathic stress”, but we have found that this “stress” has more causes than simply a water course running under the house. There was a fantastic checklist produced by a British Society of Dowsers member in the December issue of the group’s quarterly magazine ‘Dowsing Today’, which lists these causes, and I will post more on that soon, because I think the information bears repeating and distributing.

I was lucky enough to spend a day at Carnac in France this summer. It was a most glorious day and highly productive, but I absolutely must go back to spend longer there. I feel there is more to be learned still from this massive and impressive site. Other interesting sites this year include: Druid’s Circle above Penmaenmawr; also Nine Stones Close and Nine Ladies stone circles in Derbyshire. I will publish a full list of sites as one of the summary posts in this series.

Here are some of things we learned about dowsing and earth energies this year:-

2-1. House dowsing:

• We can dowse houses accurately, either locally or remotely
• We can either send and receive energy to specific points in the house, providing the house has not been “sealed off” and permission is given
• We can modify the energy formations on site
• Crystals can be used to repair this energetic state, and to change unhelpful or misaligned energies into helpful and aligned ones
• Plants can be asked to contribute to this
• The beneficial effects take some time – depending on how far the energy has to convert from harmful to beneficial, this can take from hours to weeks to achieve. Also dependent upon the amount of new positive input into the formation(s).
• The Moon or Sun can also contribute to the energetic change, acting as a catalyst for the change, and also providing either male or female energetic input.

2-2. Flat recumbent stones attract female energy (moon), whilst pointed stones attract male energy (sun). We don’t yet know which elements of a site attract star or planetary energies, but we know they are present at sites, especially stone circles.

2-3. Kal found that certain geologically faulted locations with water running through them can pin energy to a place.

2-4. Ironwork and iconography (in the case of stones in Brittany I found that it was Christian crosses) can restrain the energy of a standing stone, reducing its aura (field of effect).

2-5. Earth energy spirals are created from sacred geometrical principles and number. Even manifestations created by us have the same properties. Of particular significance has been the discovery that stone circles are based upon sacred geometry in their design. For exmaple, Moel-Ty-Uchaf stone circle in North Wales is based upon a pentacle,or five-sided shape. I have found that this is linked to specific “deities”, but more importantly, that these deities are actually one of the planets. The pentacle therefore is associated with Venus, which itself describes a five-sided geometrical figure around the earth in its annual travel.

2-6. Power centres are the central point of two cones of energy- one going up into the air, the other going down into the ground. Also confirmed by Viktor Schauberger’s research.

2-7. Avenues or rows of standing stones have male and female energies intertwining, and travelling the length of the line of a stone rows of standing stones.

2-8. Tumuli can provide a terminus pointfor energy to sink back into the earth. As an example, I found this double mound pictured below was a terminus point for the energy running through the Kermario avenues of standing stones at Carnac in France.

2-9. Cup-marked stones often provide a rising point, a focal point or source of earth energies entering into sacred sites. Some standing stones that are cup-marked are a map of the energy power centres nearby.

2-10. “Hand spread” patterns of energy fields can be dowsed on the side of circles where energy is being dispersed out of the area. They indicate areas of high fertility energy.

2-11. Many neutral alignment leys travel the length and breadth of lands, and have accumulated sacred sites and churches along them. I suggest this is similar to the geometirc patterns that many dowsers and researchers have discovered overlaying the British Isles, and some say, the whole of Earth (cf. John Michell)

2-12. “Martin”, “Margaret” and “Anne” are other synonyms for the male and female energy lines surrounding national leylines, as well as the better-known “Michael” and “Mary” energies. This year I traced what I call The St.Martin Line running from South-West England through France and into Italy.

These findings should be viewed in the context of the complementary section coming soon on our findings at Ancient Sites. I hope next year to concentrate on water dowsing, or rather, dowsing the energetic properties of water, sap and blood. Next in the series – Part 3 – I will be summarising our findings relating to tree energies, elemental spirits and death energy.

Gwas.

The phrase, “You shoudn’t judge a book by its cover” has never been more starkly brought into focus for me as when I received a copy of Philip Heselton’s “Secret Places of the Goddess: Contacting the earth spirit (1995)“. Bless Capall Bann publishing, their repertoire is excellent, but the covering artwork and styling of the book leaves a lot to be desired and made me feel quite nauseous!

Capall Bann have a range of fantastic books that I have already picked several titiles from and will continue to do so, for they seem to support pagan ideas and have a largely sensible and useful catelogue. A worthy pursuit, but please, ditch the toffee brown washed artwork!

At various points in the book Heselton refers to the possibilities of dowsing as a viable method of discovery of earth energies and of validating the presence of unseen forces in general. It wa only when I came to research Mr Heselton that I dscovered this excerpt on the Controvescial web site:

“In 1962, together with Jimmy Goddard and other UFO enthusiasts, Philip founded The Ley Hunters Club, a revival of The Straight Track Club (1927-1948) first founded by the earlier pioneer of leys … Alfred Watkins.  In 1965 to support growing interest in the club’s activities and findings, they also founded:  The Ley Hunter magazine.  Philip edited the first few issues of magazine from 1965-66, before handing it over to other members so he could concentrate on his University studies.”

Source: Controverscial web site

In “Secret Places” Philip Heselton takes the reader through a structured introduction to the fundamental naturalistic elements that form the basis of pagan understanding of the world around them. I won’t spoil the book, but instead I will urge you to read it. Whether a dowser or a druid the book has lots to offer in terms of explaining the power of place, the spirit of nature, and the ways in which anyone can begin to acknowledge, then work with those energies. Depending on how far you wish to take it there is something here for anyone interested in rediscovering the landscape around them, wherever that may be.

To give you a flavour of what you can expect I have reproduced the chapter headings, but thy do little justice to the uality of the material within them, and the very easy-to-read style that Heselton has adopted for his work. The chapter headings are:-

1. The Magic of Place
2. The Earth Spirit
3. The Wild Wood
4. The Body of the Earth Goddess
5. The Waters of Life
6. Spirit Paths and Holy Hills
7. Finding Our Place
8. Entering The Presence
9. Inbreath – Experiencing the Sacred Space
10. Outbreath – Responding to the Spirit
11. Embracing the Site

I hope that has whetted your appetite. If you regularly read this blog then I am confident that you will find that this book is an indespensible guide to your interests. It is also a good waymarker for where my own studies are heading, and accurately matches my own thoughts at every turn of the page. In many ways, this is the book I always wanted to write!

Gwas.

Guided by masters.