The Hedge Druid

Posts Tagged ‘uranus’

What an unwieldy title! But it covers all of the weird things that happened to me this evening. I had engineered some time on the way home from work (a favourite time for me to work, early evening) and I arrived at some local caves just as the sun was about to set. The position of the caves didn’t allow me to watch the sunset properly, but that’s not why I was there. I was there for another reason – I was in search of the sound that would activate my root chakra.

No-one else was in the caves so I asked permission of the earth spirit, the genius lociGenius Loci means 'spirit of the place' and refers to the geological/gaian spirit of place. It is transfixed to a place – being an embodiment of the collective intelligence of the place. of the cave, to allow me entry undisturbed. It was granted, so I stood for a moment on a power centreA place where a person of a particular alignmentAlignment relates to the concept that humans have their own energy fields that are oriented or formed in a specific way such that the person is either suited better to one energy source of another. Some people have their energy fields empowered by the direct subtle energy force of The Sun, whilst others are empowered by the indirect subtle energy of The Moon. Due to the historical associations and symbolisation of The Sun with masculinity and The Moon with femininity we designate these alignments as either being ‘male’ or ‘female’ alignments accordingly. We interchangeable refer to people as being ‘sun-aligned’ or ‘male-aligned’ and similarly with the female alignment. (see ‘AlignmentAlignment relates to the concept that humans have their own energy fields that are oriented or formed in a specific way such that the person is either suited better to one energy source of another. Some people have their energy fields empowered by the direct subtle energy force of The Sun, whilst others are empowered by the indirect subtle energy of The Moon. Due to the historical associations and symbolisation of The Sun with masculinity and The Moon with femininity we designate these alignments as either being ‘male’ or ‘female’ alignments accordingly. We interchangeable refer to people as being ‘sun-aligned’ or ‘male-aligned’ and similarly with the female alignment.’) feels particularly comfortable and empowered. The place is an energetic centre where a particularly beneficial combination and formation of energies is formed into a pattern that is harmonic with the person for whom it can be called a power centre. that I had identified previously to offer love and gratitude in thanks for this ingression. I moved gingerly deep into the caves because I knew the ground was usually littered with cow dung. I picked my way past it all, carrying three incense sticks with me to clear a way, spiritually. A meagre small torch allowed me not to bump my head as I went deeper and darker in.

Suddenly a hare ran at me from out of the darkness and I jolted upright narrowly missing a rocky outcrop. I laughed a little. That made me perk up! I began to follow a dowsing rods, asking it to lead me to the perfect place for this sonic experiment. It led me to a place that I had already identified on a previous visit as the best place acoustically in the whole set of caves. Well, that proved nothing! Still, I made myself comfortable in amidst the broken glass bottles and crunched cans left by revelling raucous rebels of recent times past by sitting on a sharp-topped sandstone nodule that invited my seat. I faced the back of the chamber, some fifty feet into the cave system and only a foot away from the end wall I now faced.

Humming isn’t just for bees

I began trying to find a low sound that I could make comfortably and which felt as though it did something. I tried out several different types of sound, from whistles to singing but eventually, for the root chakra, I found a deep low hum that made my head and everything around me vibrate. This was it! Unfortunately, due to a condition I have developed in recent years the amount of phlegm in my throat prevented me from sustaining that note for very long. In fact, I noticed that this was a particular problem on this day – bad timing on my part, I guess.

I managed to get about 20 seconds of low continuous hum going. As I did so I began to feel my voice reverberating off the walls around me. Then the vibration went through me, from the rock upon which I was sitting, through my body and back into my head. A flow, a vibrational flow, was emerging from the base of my spine! It was like an experience I had had at the chamber of Fourknocks in Ireland where I had sat inside a similar enclosed space that had these acoustic properties of reflecting back my own sound. There too I had managed to achieve the same result and make my root chakra vibrate. It felt wonderful. Then my voice croaked and the whole experience disappeared as quickly as it had arrived. I could see that I had to get just the right note, and sustain it for a time, and then this would happen. I was happy with that.

I began experimenting with higher levels of sound to see if I could find any of the other vibrational points for other chakras. I was just thinking that I had found one when my “spider senses started tingling” and I got a rush of adrenalin that meant that I should be wary. All my usual senses went onto high alert – was someone in the cave? Was something happening outside? Was there “something” in the cave with me already? My rational brain was somersaulting but another part of me was calm and I packed away my things and left quickly. There was no-one in the cave, so it wasn’t that.

Goodbye Venus – Hello Jupiter and Uranus

Jupiter and Uranus playing pool

Outside the cave things were all “wrong”. In the darkening clear star-littered sky I could still make out the ground as the sun had only just set leaving enough light to see. Birds were twittering…nervously. A rabbit on the hilltop ran for its life, but not away from me, away from something else. There was a noise like a person walking down the hillside next to the cave, but as I watched for their arrival out of the bushes they never emerged. Strange. All very strange.

I ambled quietly along the side of the hill, leaving by a different path to the one I had come in on (which was quite muddy). As I arrived at the crest of a slope the Moon was framed perfectly for me to stare at, so I did. Beside it I saw a symbol created by some heavenly body that looked familiar -it was the Venus Symbol that I had seen a few years ago at Bryn Celli Ddu at about this time of year! I was stunned. However, now I had the means to identify what the objects were that made this symbol. Was it Venus? No – it was the near conjunction of two planets - Jupiter and Uranus. Well, that clears that up – but nevertheless the symbol did look exactly as I had drawn it those few years ago.

The Jupiter-Uranus Conjunctions

Here’s a hint at what the forces of Jupiter and Uranus could mean when together:

“The themes of freedom and independence are especially prominent during Jupiter-Uranus conjunctions.  These conjunctions portend discovery, invention, and innovation (Uranus) combined with expansion, experimentation, and exploration (Jupiter).  The force of change (Uranus) is very strong (Jupiter) when these planets congress, which can lead to protests and political change.” (source: Gary Brand Astrology)

“The conjunction in Aries is asking us to expand our awareness towards what we need to do for our selves as unique and independent individuals. Aries is the warrior; the individual who faces their fear and is willing to forge ahead into uncharted territories. When Jupiter is in Aries the expansion of fearlessness can take on a reckless quality. However reckless in whose mind? The resistance will be in part against conservative concepts that promote the previous paths that are slow, steady and safe. When Uranus is in Aries it demands rebellion against the established conservative and control based thinking. The two together forge a union that can break through fear and grid lock in life to push the limits of what others say is impossible or can not be done.” (source: Donna Page)

At the second that I had identified this planetary image my car alarm went off! The car was a few fields walk away still. This was the third time it has done this when I have visited the caves so I was not too disturbed by it, but still I hurried along. Even though no-one lived nearby I didn’t want to attract too much attention (ha! too late!). As I approached my parking place I found a policeman sitting in a squad car making notes alongside my car. I tapped his window and asked if everything was OK? Yes, just checking because there had been an undisclosed incident nearby and policemen are naturally suspicious about unattended vehicles. With my best magickal work I gave off an air of “Nothing to see here“. He scanned me and only asked if I had been “walking”. I told him I was at the caves, and he wished me a good evening. The hint was taken.

I left, thinking about the “nudge” I had got, and when I would next get to try my other chakra sounds in such a helpful environment.

Gwas.

Saturday 29th May - Four Knocks, County Meath

On the morning of Saturday 29th May I roped Kal into one of my crazy ideas. We would spend the next two days on a modern pilgrimage, just like we had done at Glastonbury the year before. We would find a starting point and then let the dowsing rods direct us from site to site. For me, I would set my intention for this pilgrimage to be to work on each of the seven chakras and to see what came out of trying to do that. For Kal, he would just do what he does – see what happened at each place and go with it. So, with the help of the iMegalith iPhone application and my SatNav system we trekked off to the starting point, which I had determined would be a henge and mound close to Four Knocks.

We didn’t get very far trying to find the henge and mound. The mound was visible in a farmer’s field, but the supposed henge had been… well, let’s assume it was removed and ploughed out of existence! Not a good start. Was there anywhere else we could pick up the quest? Our dowsing showed that nearby Four Knocks would be suitable. As soon as we got the rods crossing we kind of knew that this had actually been the right place all along, but something had been preventing us from dowsing that from afar. We sort of had to be in the area to zoom in on it. Perhaps we had prevented ourselves from ‘finding’ Four Knocks prior to actually being there because we knew you had to obtain a key in order to get in? Who knows. We obtained the said key (by the way – the directions are not very clear – but we found the house eventually and got the key by leaving a small deposit with a nice lady) and went to discover this famous mound’s secrets and begin a quest.

Entrance to Four Knocks

We opened the iron door up (iron – aaargh!!) and began to settle in. I needed some stuff from the car that I had forgotten, and by the time I got back to the mound it was swarming with a minibus-load of tourists from various parts of the world – America, Japan, Australia….all over. Their guide had clearly gone off to get the key without realising that we already had it. Ten minutes later he was in the mound beginning his guided tour of the place, which I earwigged into, of course. Hey – it was free for me to listen!! And jolly interesting it was too, although I could see Kal twitch every now and again, and I was biting my tongue at some of the speculative leaps the guide was making to fill the gaps in the archaeology with fantasy and pure imagination. He was very careful to preface everything with “My guess would be...”, or “Perhaps they might have…”, and even in the dim light I occasionally caught Kal swinging his dowsing rods behind the guide, shaking his head as though to say, “Nope!” It’s funny how dowsing can sometimes make you feel quite confident about being able to find out hidden knowledge, and yet later in the day that confidence would be completely reversed, but we’ll come to that in a later tale.

I don’t know if this is the traditional position but at Four Knocks we have the female on top and the male underneath. Yes, on top of the rounded mound there was female energy all over it. All around the outside of the mound was a male energy lineThe direction energy takes when moving. It may be straight or curved, in several dimensions and be composed of one or more different types of energies, i.e. negative, positive or neutral. Energy lines can be found at standing stones and ancient sites but are a general feature in all energy fields., waving and running around in a sunwise direction. Kal was spending quite a time outside, pacing around and around, working something out, but I decided to get myself inside to take some pictures of the rock carvings and to try to work out what I might have to do to work on my Root Chakra – the first part of my modern pilgrimage. That was the intention, but instead Four Knocks had its own agenda for working my chakras!! I will explain in a moment.

Inside there was more than the usual amount of decoration. Many of the swirling circular shapes were familiar to us, but there was an abundance of zig-zag lines and lozenge shapes carved into the lintels of the recesses in the mound that seemed to be quite unique to this particular chamber, or at least rarely seen in such quantity elsewhere.

Zig-zag lintel decoration at Four Knocks

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