This is the second post describing our Beltane excursion to Derbyshire’s finest megalithic sights. In the first post I introduced my reasons for being on this purposeful quest on this particular day, and now we were heading back to some more of our favourite sites but this time with a more relaxed approach, seeking only to learn whatever it would be our pleasure to acquire on this occasion. Little did I know that I was in for a bit of a revelation, and some fine titbits of dowsed information along the way. In this post we head back West from the heart of Derbyshire, picking out sites along the route.
5. Nine Ladies
We entered Nine Ladies from the longer and more fulfilling route from Stanton Moor. On the way we amused ourselves following energy lines without dowsing rods, spotting energetically-alive places and watching out for the signs of birds. All good tricks for a would-be druid to learn – we don’t always have dowsing rods handy to guide us, and developing a sense for energy is a useful skill that is bringing greater rewards the more we train ourselves to recognise its feeling and forms.
One thing struck me as we approached the gentle rise that marked the slightly higher ground of the stone circle’s siting – and that was that there were far fewer trees around this year, since our last visit last in 2009. The area felt…stripped back, opened out, as though it had had a severe hair cut, and perhaps against its will. A shudder went through me and I blocked the through out for fear of being overwhelmed. I had a tendency to get upset at things like this these days.
Here are some things we found out at Nine Ladies:-
- The oak “Wishing Tree” still feeds the power centre, as previously identified.
- Water flows under the site, and there is indeed a blind spring – much to our amusement (because we so rarely find this feature that is supposedly common to ALL sites according to some dowsers who don’t seem to get out much).
- A pan type of spirit is present at Nine Ladies. Pan is a TYPE of spirit, not a particular singular spirit.
- The transformer stone was active during the sunlight/moonlight duality and it transforms male and female radiant energy and mixes it with neutral earth energy, splitting it out into male and female earth energy that circulates the site.
- There were four female energy rings surrounding the circle, of increasing amplitude – and one male ring that stayed close to the stones.
- A stone that I had identified as female during evening visits was identified by Kal as male this afternoon! It would seems that during the day some of the stones have different energy polarities. I verified this by dowsing the flat stone that I had always identified as being female and it too was male.
That last point is a bit of a bugger then. It means that all the diagrams I have posted on the Sacred Sites section need to come with a time stamp! I will have to introduce the caveat that the polarities are described as they were recorded and that they male be reversed depending upon the time of day/year/wind direction!!
We met a very nice couple from Shropshire (pictured perambulating in blue and black) with whom we had a discussion about the stone circles we had all visited. They were very forthcoming and knowledgeable about the site on Dartmoor and later even gave us a pencilled list as an aide-memoire of the long list of names they had discussed, for which I was very thankful. Kal and I are heading down there in August, and intend to visit these recommendations then.
6. The Bullstones
The sun was moving in on the horizon like a teenage boy edging towards the girl in glasses in the last few minutes of a school disco, and like the dance floor the sky had cleared completely. All around the blue-ness blazed at us as we headed back West towards the setting sun. There was another site I had in mind – The Bullstones.
I had recently met Michael Clowes – a highly sympathetic and complimentary dowser also local to the Cheshire area. He had held a one-day course at Gawsworth Hall which I had taken my wife M along to in order for her to, as she put it, “see what this stuff is that you’re into“. The day was very interesting and intimate, and the tuition unhurried and nurturing for all levels of skill. If you are free around the end of September I would highly recommend coming along – from beginner to expert, Michael has something to teach. And the jam-filled scones are not to be missed.
Michael was a revelation – here at last was someone who totally got where I was with my dowsing, and his relaxed but effusive style made me re-invigorated and re-assured as to my developing skills. Almost as an aside Michael had told the tale of his “coming into his powers” when he touched The Bullstone, and he described its location sufficiently well that I was able to find it later on a map. Guess what? We were going to see what happened when we touched it too!
The circle was a disappointment. We edged nervously towards it, dowsing as to the appropriate approach point. Neither of us got any kind of “shock” of energy from the central stone. I felt a bubbling of energy up through the stone, but there was nothing else of interest surrounding it. We looked at each other, suspicion growing in our eyes – was this an actual stone circle? We were cautious. If it was it was practically the closest to us, and one we could visit regularly….but….something wasn’t right.
I went off to check the outlier I had seen in the adjacent field. After some barbed-wire hopping I found it’s smooth edge pointing back to the stone circle, but the direction of its alignment puzzled me – it wasn’t pointing at the circle exactly, but slight to one side of it….usually the circle-builder were SO precise about these things….suspicion was bubbling up again.
Like the Hollywood denouement of an episode of Scooby-Doo, by the time I had hopped back over the fence Kal had solved the mystery. He found that the circle had been reconstructed, and moved about twenty feet away from the original siting, which was on top of the hill, rather than the side where it is now. In the picture below you can just about see my copper L-rods marking the exact size and location of the original stone circle’s centre.
The original siting on the top of the hill had many alignments with surrounding hilltops, and we dowsed where the original five stones were, and the hills that they aligned to. I spun around on the spot, looking down at the ground, pinpointing the location of the five invisible spots where the original stones had been. Every time I said, “There!” Kal said – “…And that spot aligns to that distant hill!”. Each time I looked up and saw that he was right. Perhaps this site had once been another “hub” for ley lines like Arbor Low?
And with that revelation the circle ceased to be of any use to us, and there was nothing to learn from or experience with it. It had been reconstructed. Even though the stone had been placed on another point from which earth energies were emanating, nevertheless there was no energetic value in the formations as they remained. We headed back to the car somewhat quietened by the experience. Another destroyed site, and why? What purpose did it serve to destroy it, or to move it?
7. The Bridestones
As we swung from side to side propelled by the centrifugal forces of the tight Derbyshire bends heading back towards Cheshire I felt like there was still more to be wrung out of the day. The sun was warm enough to be outdoors in comfort, I had no time pressures, and the day did not feel finished. I fished around for sites nearby, and we made a faint attempt to find a nearby standing stone, but missed the turn-off by a mile. Then it struck me with some force – I had forgotten that I had planned to visit The Bridestones near Congleton. And to top it all, where were we close to now? We were ten miles from Congleton. Decision made. And I knew how to get there (roughly). Best of all, Kal had never been before.
I had forgotten about the protocol of respect required when entering new sites. Or rather, I paid my respects to the genius loci, the spirit that watched over The Bridestones, but Kal flounced in and began stomping around like any old disrespectful visitor. I could see what was going to happen, but it wasn’t my place to say anything. Sometimes it’s more amusing not to.
For several minutes after clambering over the stones like a climbing frame Kal sported a puzzled look as he dowsed around. “I’m getting confusing results!” he complained. I gave him a disapproving look, “Well, you know why, don’t you?” He didn’t want to acknowledge that, and so ignored my unspoken advice and shrugged. Seems like he was not going to let it bother him, and he was certainly not going to apologise to the GL or defer to it. That’s his way, but this is one of the consequences – the spirit of the place was sending his rods haywire – he would get no sensible results from this site! He insisted the issue was due to him playing around with his aura – trying to make the crowd of young bulls move away. Could be, but I had other ideas. he was just being stubborn.
My dowsing results were good and consistent. Here’s what we found out during dowsing:-
- The genius loci spirit was localised to this site – it had never been anywhere else
- I found two centres – a combined male & female centre at the back of the burial chamber, and a neutral centre near to the entrance.
I asked the rods if this was a suitable site to obtain some information about the chakra colours and energies that I had been directed to research for the next few months. The result was that this site would be a good place to do that. I lit three incense sticks and placed them at strategic points around the site, and then prepared myself to go deep into a meditation. Here’s what I did:-
- I was shown how to extract my own chakra energy when sitting on a combined male/female centre
- I chose a root chakra/red colour energy, which was easy to extract on its own due to being sat within a male/female white energy stream
- I pulled the energy out of my navel and shaped it into a ball
- To prevent it disseminating I had to collect neutral energy out of my lower energy centre (dan tien) in order to coat it in neutral energy and keep it in a ball shape.
- I had to expend some collected sun energy from my upper energy centre to harden the coating and ensure the neutral energy didn’t dissipate
My second lesson was how to do the opposite, and for this lesson I went to sit on the neutral energy centre. Here’s what I did:-
- I used the moon to draw up neutral energy from the ground where I was sat
- Using my own male and female energy forms I created two streams of energy that flowed to the point where my body met the ground
- At this point the male and female energy acted as a filter so that I could draw the neutral energy up as only red light, or root chakra energy
- I refilled my root chakra with this red energy, then disconnected
This was a very difficult meditation, and one which I will have to practise in order to master it. Now I had learned how to extract only the specific energy frequency I needed, and how to replenish any energy that was used from the source “neutral white” light energy. I only had to learn to what purpose the seven different frequencies of light energy could be used, and I would have fulfilled the tasks I had been set for this time frame before my visit to Glastonbury at Summer Solstice.
Gwas.
