Without wishing to pre-empt or spoil what Kal will hopefully be writing about his findings at Nine Ladies circle, I want to step aside from event reporting and site stories for a moment. I want to gather together all of the information we have so far on energy lines, condense it markedly, and come to some form of arrangement of that knowledge we have built up so far.
I will do this in the simplest form possible – with lists.
Gender responses
- Male
- Female
- Neutral
Male and female lines
Our most frequent finding. If we ask for these types of lines we almost always get at least two of these types of energies, from just about everywhere. They’re like the string that holds the puppet together. They emerge from trees, ‘charged’ megaliths and dolmens, the pillars of cromlechs. Many more.
They usually end in spirals, but can often just wander off into the distance, linking to other sites and paths. They often follow paths – ones we use now and ones we have lost to the undergrowth. You can usually still see these energy paths as animal tracks, inexplicable gaps in hedges, a path between two close trees, a small trail that leaves the main path to loop around and re-join it further on.
Male and female lines are sometimes next to each other – so close you can’t really discern any separation, and dowsing for either will get a response. Oddly, dowsing male or female lines in a contrary direction will reveal opposite results! There’s a physics theory lurking in there somewhere, if we were clever enough to spot it!
Neutral lines
Neutral lines deserve a section on their own. We find that neutral energies are usually in straight lines. These are sometimes the old ‘alignment leys’ such as have been described by Alfred Watkins and others. Modern dowsers seem to like this type as they form the basis of many theories concerning astral alignments, and so feed into Giza pyramid curiosities, and Zecharia Sitchin’s astro-theological theories of the origin and purpose of mankind as a species. Oh, heavy stuff indeed!
It is often difficult to discern at what level neutral leys align, however. At what scale should you look – at local stone formations, hill alignments, or the coincidence of names and site locations? Certainly, if you spend a little time you can draw alignments between meaningful sacred places on a map. When tested there are neutral lines which follow that pencil mark through real fields and over real hills. It’s then down to another scale to trace an exact course.
They often don’t correlate in any obviously meaningful way with the other energies of the site, except in the case of ‘radials’. Neutral lines might pass through a site, or close to it, and when this happens along a cardinal point (N,NW,W,SW,S,SE,E,NE) you can’t help but be impressed by how that has been achieved, either by man or nature.
Sometimes neutral lines will be surrounding a site, as if to protect it. Radial lines do the opposite. They extend in multiple directions, usually through stone or the site of former stones, in a kind of cartwheel spoke formation. These ‘spokes’ can remain within a stone circle, but may also extend well beyond it, like at Arbor Low in Derbyshire.
Combination
Are we missing any types in this category? Might there be at least one other type that is a combination of male and female? An ‘haemaphroditic’ or combination of types, perhaps? We will test for this soon. The gender responses are good for defining the nature of a line, or wave, of energy. Gender lines help us to define the direction, the ‘hot spots’ or for linking energy with geographical features by a connection point or terminus.
I seem particularly attuned to finding this type of energy and can often find very complex patterns drawn by the lines. Its patterns are dear to me, and I get very animated whenever I make or find one. Imagine tracing out the unmistakable shape of a goat’s head on the ground, when there wasn’t one there before? If you’re like me, you’d freak, and be oddly curious at the same time.
Original responses
- Earth
- Sun
- Moon
By the term ‘original’, I mean that these are the sources, or origins, the creators of this type of energy. It is the energetic influence, chemistry or physics of these origins that is the source of the types of energy that respond to the names ‘earth’, ‘moon’ and ‘sun’.
The original responses seem best suited to determining areas or pools of collected energy. Kal, in particular, is good at defining such areas.
Unproductive responses
- Yin
- Yang
Whilst energies did respond to these names we were unable to capture as much information as we wanted because we couldn’t express the ‘tao’, the unity, or the ‘other’ that was not Yin or Yang, yet such an energy could be discovered if we dowsed for ‘neutral’ lines or ‘radials’. We no longer use these terms.
Geometric responses
- Wave
- Straight line (‘alignment’ or ‘radial’ ley)
- Spiral
- Pattern (especially ‘flower petal’ manifestations)
This refers more to the formation of the responses listed earlier, than to the ‘nature’ of the energies, although there is probably a link to be discovered there. These formations define to types of shapes that we can dowse currently.
Of course, some energies are combinations of these elements – a straight line may start to wobble as it reaches some ancient site or cliff edge. A wavy line often ends in a spiral. A pattern is usually manifested by the investment of an energetic interaction by us.
Other responses
- A nemeton (a sphere of energy surrounding a feature such as a tree, animal, stone or site)
- A power centre (a particularly energetic place)
- Faerie rings
Nemetons
I define a nemeton after Emma Restall-Orr’s description – an aura that is sensible enough to feel if attuned to it, and which extends from a source such as a tree or stone, but as Marc Pazniak has described it, it is like a three-dimensional energetic covering, extending from the source in a geometric form far beyond the structure of the source itself. Like an energetic sphere around things. A living, thinking, feeling aura.
We are only just beginning to imagine how to detect and interact with this element of an energy system.
Power Centres
When energies congregate, or cross, dowsing books will tell of a ‘centre’. Some describe it as a sink-hole into the earth, or a ‘welling up’ point for energies. We usually find such features by asking the rods to point to, or lead us to, a ‘suitable’, ‘beneficial’, ‘healthy’ or ‘strong’ place, depending on which qualities we need to use at a site. Some sites have one, some have none, others have many. It’s in the nature of the site, and is worth uncovering.
Strange qualities can be felt when standing on power centres! Slowly you might begin to warm up, or not feel the cold of the winds around you. If I or someone I’m travelling with is unwell or injured then I look for a specific power centre with healing properties. Some power centres lend themselves to cleansing you, dissipating energies, draining them from you, filtering energy through you, or charging you up with life force until you laugh out loud or jump around like a mad thing. Some sites do this without any conscious attunement – perhaps some people are naturally attuned to some sites by their mood, development, or attitude? Other sites or stones will require a gentle attunement process before the energies will flow.
Faerie Rings
It’s a mystery to us why castles and hill forts in particular are the site of so many faerie rings. Faerie rings are those small circular rings of grass (or a bare circular patch of earth) that many lawns, fields and hills have dotted all over them. They don’t look like much, but they one of the most common and visible indicators of energy spirals – predominantly male and/or female energies.
We have found that they range in size from about a foot wide to covering a small hilltop. Some faerie rings cluster into interconnected patterns over a hillside. I often wonder if they form some kind of dot-to-dot pattern in the landscape that only a dedicated Google Earth enthusiast could discern!
Elemental responses
- Fire
- Air
- Water
- Earth
We have not done much in the way of dowsing for these particular aspects, although what has been tried has often yielded results – but results which we did not understand the significance of, and which got lost in the overlays of male, female and neutral dowsing, and was usually subsumed into that.
Fire Energy
Where these aspects do emerge unequivocally and distinctly is at specific features of a site. At fire sites – literally the sites of where fires have been lit – we find congregations of energy spirals, for example. Places where a patch of sunlight may shine, a gap between stones at a stone circle or chamber, light filtered into a gorge, or a place where an unusual warmth can be felt. These things we attribute to the emergence of ‘fire’ energies.
Water Energy
At holy wells we feel the strong resonance of water, of course. Energy lines often mirror the courses of tributaries, troughs made by the action of rainwater, streams, and rivers. They may congregate at standing water such as puddles, pools or lakes. At waterfalls we have felt the push of water energies as the white spray is torn and reformed into droplets. A raging river has a spell-binding quality that makes you want to leap into it as a response to a pull of energy. We are often drawn to such sites for what we believe to be the ‘spectacle’ of them. Perhaps for the energy too?
From our reading of other dowsers’ work we learn that ‘blind springs’ are usually found where water lines are dowsed. Indeed, most dowsing is presumed to be for this one small element of the canon we call ‘dowsing’, such that it is often referred to as ‘water divining’. We feel this is one very small factor in a much larger inter-weaving pattern, and that the pattern is elemental in nature.
Earth Energy
For earth energies we look to features such as earth and rock mounds, dolmens, and cromlechs. We find that cliffs, ridges, gullies, caverns, caves and stone circles are awash with areas that respond to the concept of an earth origin.
Caves are often the congregation points of several energy lines which originate from far outside the cave. Within the cave they hug the walls, then curl into spirals. Wavy lines stick closely to the edges of cliffs and ravines. The more jagged, fresh or sharp the rock is, the more energetic and condensed are the waves of energy that follow the contours of the feature. If the earth feature has been shaped or smoothed by time or man, then the energy is slower, wider, and has more of a gentleness about its movement.
Air Energy
The sites of air energies are trickier to recognise. I believe that barrows, mounds like Silbury Hill, cliffs, gorges and hilltops – any place where the power of air is channelled or can be obviously felt – these kinds of sites may be the places to find air energies. As yet we have no means of picking such energies up, if they do exist in that way.
Whether it can be dowsed or not, standing in the force of a strong wind on a hilltop or cliff edge is enough to energise you to levels which only non-prescription drugs can hope to achieve! So, whilst it might be an elusive energy, it is a powerful one when felt with enough force. Even the subtle and gentle breeze often indicates directions of energy forces acting at sites. Some may have even been designed that way.
Spirit Energy
The most ephemeral, and yet integral, surely? The origin of origins, as far as we humans are concerned. The energy within that we harbour, can generate, and can give, if we choose to. Spirit energy is our connection to the other origins of sun, moon, and earth. In this scenario, Earth provides us with more immediate connections to energy sources. We feel it in the landscape, and we connect easily with animals and plants if we can still thoughts from drowning out the eternal discourse that nature is emitting from all directions.
Spirit energy can also be felt as ‘that feeling’, a hunch, an unreasoned decision that feels right. It’s the recognition of coincidence, not its dismissal. It’s can be felt emotionally, or with good will or intention, or all together. If it is dealt with respectfully, the spirit energy within ourselves and within nature often responds well, revealing courses of direction, action and filled with potential. We know such things to be right, however we might argue from the very front of our mind. Feeling the throb of the pineal gland is usually a pretty good ‘convincer’ of a true path to the involvement of spirit in any enterprise.
Armed with this information, why not try some questions at sites yourself? You can now Register (see Admin section on right) and post a comment on how you got on!
Gwas.
Follow your true path.
Indeed I do agree with that assessment, Kal. There have been several concepts we have had to abandon at the sites we’ve tried them. I can think of YIN/YANG, now ELEMENTAL concepts.
The first of these is, of course, a Chinese concept in origin. Whilst we in the West have largely adopted and adapted those concepts, their ‘alien-ness’ from our inner conceptual core, which is formed I suspect by cultural conditioning, means that this does not connect for either of us. Such a concept, I suspect, WOULD bear fruit for someone who had been immersed in a Chinese culture, and for whom such concepts had been inculcated.
The Elements span all cultures, naturally (sorry for the pun). However, even though the elements form part of the druidic heritage, especially in ritualistic practises, their relationship with man-directed energy sites would seem to have little provenance. Certainly the Elements are alchemically significant, druidically integral, and widespread – yet, we got nothing at Arbor Low. No response at all. Which usually indicates ‘drawing a blank’.
With that, I think we should draw a line through those concepts for now until any potential relevance they do have returns to us at a time when we can appreciate it, and hopefully we may progress using them.
For now I suggest we ‘park’ them, and move towards our 3D modelling of sites in conjunction with more detailed and refined questioning of the purpose and practical use of the energies marshalled at these places.
With my recent post – see Arbow Low and Energetic Conundrums – I feel that a note is needed here.
I was reading through this from the middle and had to go back to the top of the article and confirm to myself that Gwas was speculating on the nature and ‘potential’ feel of these types of energies rather than in ‘note’ in some case actually recounting from multiple experiences.
In particular – as regards to Elemental Energies – as yet we have not had any serious connection with these – other than Earth energies – which both Gwas and I agree on are more related to Earth in a Nature sense than a elemental sense…would you not agree Gwas?