There are many ways to hide a secret, but one old adage that keeps re-appearing in my research into life’s mysteries is this: If you want to hide a secret, put it where everyone can see it.
Such is the way with the knowledge passed down through nursery rhymes.
We all know about the bubonic plague symptoms hidden within the words of the “Ring-a-ring of roses”, but there’s a rhyme that is particular to earth energies, and that is “Mary, Mary, quite contrary“.
Mary, Mary, quite contrary.
The rhyme goes:-
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary.
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells,
and pretty maids all in a row.”
The traditional interpretation is that the references are to types of plants, but when you ask which plants these are then you simply get told that they are bluebells and…er….foxgloves maybe, or…..well, the pretty maids are pansies, right? Actually, we don’t know. But we can make it fit by just assigning random flowers whose shapes may suggest the silver bells or cockle shells. Well, I can make it fit another way too.
I think this is revealing some clues about the nature of earth energies.
‘Mary’ has long been associated with the female energy lines. The obvious example is Miller & Broadbent’s Michael and Mary Line from Norfolk to Land’s End. There are many elements of her meandering across the landscape that is contrary:
- she wanders back and forth in snake-like sinewy paths
- she is powered by the moon, rather than the sun (which powers the plants and male energies)
- she runs contrary to the male energy in a double helix of alternately opposing and attracting waves.
Mary is quite contrary in so many ways.
But what of the relationship with the garden? At a recent BSD conference I met a few people whose interest was in the cultivation and fertility of their land through the employment and understanding of the relationship between earth energies and the soils and seeds that it flows through, not to mention to morphogenetic fields of the plants themselves.
One book in particular was recommended to me: Burke & Halberg’s “Seed of Knowledge – Stone of Plenty”.
This book hypothesises that ancient sites were built to generate fertility energy for the land, to “harden” seeds to yield double the normal amount of crops. When tested in the labs they claim this resulted in reliable increases in the yield of seeds subjected to the kind of electromagnetic fields found at ancient sites.
The Asian continent has long maintained this idea in the practise and theory of Feng Shui. Feng Shui, or the layout and patterning, the direction of flow of chi within the garden, is a strong part of the Chinese and Japanese cultures, wherein these energies are encouraged, directed, deflected or nullified to appropriate effect on the prosperity of the landscape and the people, animals and plants within it.
The ancient information being passed on to us is contained in the final lines too, where a recipe list of contributing factors if revealed. How does your garden grow? With silver bells, cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row.
Silver bells or cockle shells?
Silver bells are associated with the calling of the devas, faerie spirits and tree spirits that inhabit the world between our world. These spirits are supposed to heed the call of silver bells, and can be called upon to bestow their energies upon the plants they tend to encourage them to grow stronger, quicker and healthier – to be more abundant in their flowering and fruiting.
Many fertility rituals were and still are enacted at appropriate times of the year involving some form of ringing musical tones to encourage the spirits of the land to grant their fertile energies to the plants for a good harvest.
We are being told that this is a method to gain their help – to call them with silver bells.
The reference to cockle shells is rather more difficult to interpret. Some books on sea magic propose cockle shells as ornaments to an altar, but another suggests they were used in bunches much like shakers. I prefer this interpretation. A bunch of cockle shells might be the poor man’s version of the silver bells! Can’t afford silver bells? Well, nature provides – use a bunch of cockle shells instead. Makes sense to me.
I suppose the modern equivalent is the fascination with Wind Chimes. My wife has put several of them up in our back garden, but ask her why and she can’t tell you. Is it an intuitive feeling that it will attract Nature Spirits into the garden to promote the growth and safeguard the health of the plants?
Sea shell wind chimes
The pretty maids all in a row sounds like a row of aligned stones to me, or a stone circle. In our dowsing experiences the energies are generated at stone circles, the dispersed out into the landscape, often through rows of stones aligned like paths or pointers along the ground. They are always “in a row”. The female energies necessary to fertilise the landscape bounce between the rows of stones, directed like pipelines sending the energies out across the land to other sites, or into a valley, or through a large country estate.
So, I believe this little innocent cute nursery rhyme which originated who knows when actually contains several key facts about earth energies and how they can be used to make your garden grow:-
- the female “Mary” energy runs in sinewy paths contrary to male energies
- attract beneficial nature spirits to your garden by tinkling silver bells or bunches of cockle shells
- aligned rows of stones can be used to direct the natural earth energies into your garden
All that in a little ditty that everyone learns!
Gwas
Following the garden path.
