Sunday 12th September, 2010 – Froggatt village, Derbyshire.
The afternoon was ours and the day was glorious. It was the kind of day at the end of the summer that you know if you don’t make the most of it you will sorely regret it because there won’t be many more like this for many a month now as Autumn and Winter take turns to ravish the landscape, denuding the shrubbery and instilling a greyness to the sky. This day’s sky was a painting in a light blue palette. It was with this backdrop that I cajoled Kal to come out on a dowsing mission. As it turned out, it would only be later that I realised the full and startling importance of this casual visit. It would be a moment that resonated with me in the most profound way, evoking a deep memory from over thirty years ago, and confirming that my path was true to me.
iI had cloaked the intended destination in an air of secrecy, so it wasn’t until we had reached Stockport (damn that SatNav for insisting it was the fastest route) that Kal ventured to suggest we were going somewhere in Derbyshire. Indeed we were. I had found a stone circle with impeccable credentials – near a known path, not too far to walk to, fairly intact – and to us it was completely new and exciting. It was called Froggatt Edge stone circle just beyond the town of Bakewell.
Froggatt Edge stone circle
We parked at the Chequers Inn (top pun, top pub) which was on a small road going out of the village. Two hundred yards back down the hill a path crossed the road going both down and up the Edge. We headed upwards, through the delightfully deciduous canopy of old trees, up a well-trodden path mottled with mosses and tree roots. After passing a gate in a wall the path got rockier, and soon we could see people above us. As we emerged out of the woods we realised that we were at the base of the Edge’s cliff face. As far as the eye could see in either direction were clutches of climbers, spandexed and sporting fluorescent ropes, all either looking upwards, or fiddling with clasps and bags. I have never seen so many climbers in one place. We asked for directions from a friendly-looking bunch, then made our way right, following the path up to the top of the cliffs. The climb was easy, unlike the band of brave souls who were challenging themselves to get up the hard way.
When we emerged at the top it was time to catch our breath, and admire the views.
The Stone Throne
If I were a king, then this is where I would have my throne, atop Froggatt Edge. The views are fantastic when the weather’s good. As we wandered along the edge, stopping to look at the unusual rock formations, wind-blasted and weather-worn, we came across a very unusual set of rocks. Kal immediately pounced upon them and seated himself comfortably on the top – it was a perfect seat, he claimed, so I too went up to try it. He wasn’t wrong. The views were even better from that vantage point, and the seat was genuinely comfortable. Both of us could have stayed there all day. Clearly a strong power centre with good energies.
The sun was going ‘under the yardarm’ as the sailing fraternity say, and so I pushed us onwards to our destination – the stone circle. Within moments of walking past the Throne we saw the circle itself, its one prominent stone enticing us into its bracken lair. Now the fun could begin.
Froggatt Edge stone circle is one of the most easily accessed circles that we have visited. Its setting is beautiful, nestled within a blanket of ferns, and with the occasional birch tree dotted around to add a touch of silver beauty to the scene. We approached the circle by the first path we came to, and I felt drawn to walk around its perimeter in a female way – widdershins – anti-clockwise. This gave me the chance to assess how many stones were still there, and how much of the circle seemed to have been altered or destroyed. Despite looking quite incomplete, when I tested the circle’s strength it registered as a 9 on a scale of 10. Very much alive then!
The site was predominantly female in terms of the energies (Kal complained that it wouldn’t have been that way if he’d got to the circle first, but instead I did, which is an unusual statement – clearly he thinks that one’s presence can alter the ‘temperament’ or alignment of the energies at sacred sites).
The ley cross and the quarries
One of the first things we did was to find out if any ley lines passed through the circle. We found two, both in cardinal directions – a North-South line and an East-West line. Well, that covers all the carinal points, really! We found a power centre in the centr eof the circle formed by the conjunction of the two ley lines. This is the classic ‘vortex’ of spiralling energies that many dowsers report from other circles. For us, it has little interest. Kal was more interested in finding his particular power centre, and I went on to find mine. The dowsing rods led me round the circle to spin around at the stone upon which I had first laid my backpack. Funny that – we are both now quite accomplished at feeling instinctively where these ‘good’ places are.
Our next set of questions concerned the status of the circle. Was it in good health? It was, but there was a problem with the ley lines. There were some bad energies coming into the circle from the western ley line. Further questioning determined that in this heavily quarried area the source was most definitely a quarry. This is not in the least bit unusual for Derbyshire. Generally the county has a lovely welcoming feel, but many of its powerful and beautiful places have been adversely affected by quarrying work. Of course the quarries have been hugely successful economically, so few people are in a position to argue that it is a ‘bad thing’ to have half the landscape excavated. Nevertheless, the occurrence of problems (also found at Nine Ladies) is so frequent that we didn’t have to go far down a list of suspects before we reached this one. Actually, it was top of the list, but of course we did check other things too, including sorcery. But it turned out to be just quarrying. But hey – who cares about bad energies – you can’t even see them, right, so who cares? Me.
Healing the Earth Grid
Kal was only too pleased to find out that he was unable to participate in the healing process. In fact, not only should he not participate, he needed to back right away until he was outside the circle itself, for his own safety! At the time, we thought this was very strange. Usually one or the other of us can participate in some way, often to add energies in, or helpw ith energy flows, or put up protection. Today, this all had to be my work. Now I understand why, but at the time it was just ‘one of those things’.
I sat on my power centre and lit some incense. Two sticks, one either side (becoming a familiar pattern). I tuned into the circle and tuned everything else out. I did my usual routine to connect to the elements, to the sun, the moon and the earth. Once connected I asked any spirit entities present to assist me with my work in healing the circle, and I felt something rush to join me. I had protection and a circle already defined so I didn’t feel threatened by this additional spirit, and I didn’t enquire as to what it was. If it wanted to be there then so be it.
As I concentrated on the western ley line I began to move my hands to describe a circle. I realised I was conjuring a circle of energy, and I drew more from my own energy centres to fill the circle. Soon I had a thick ‘plate’ of energy which was blocking the bad energy that was trying to come in along the western ley line. I made the ‘plate’ of energy porous to good and beneficial energies, but a filter for any bad energy frequencies that were upsetting the natural balance of the site. Then I engaged the nearby birch tree in the process too, asking it to take on the role of maintaining the energy plate until such time as it was no longer required. Reluctantly (or perhaps just slowly – it’s a tree, who can tell?) the birch tree began to link its own energies into the process.
I dis-engaged myself and then dowsed the circle’s energies to see what had happened. The influx of bad energies had been completely blocked. More than that, the birch tree had a figure-of-eight infinity symbol that was circling around between two stones on the north-western edge of the circle. I noted the infinity symbol form and hoped that correlated to the tree keeping the filtration process going. I gave thanks to the tree, and thanked Kal too for doing whatever he had did as he stood beneath the tree. I had felt a helping hand as my senses swept across the tree area, and Kal confirmed that was his input.
Now for the weird bit….
EYAM QUARRIES FLASH-BACK
As a child of about eight or nine I visited Eyam on one of the most memorable school trips. We had a great time filming a video where people dressed up as witches and we got to write our own short story and produce the video ourselves. I remember two things from that trip – I had wanted to be the witch, but of course the popular kids got the plum jobs. I also distinctly remember a very strange incident where we were walking back from a long country walk. As I walked past a quarry entrance I had a strange feeling – I felt that the quarry was bad, and that it was harming the countryside. I also felt that one day, I would be back here to help heal this effect. At the time, that all felt like the oddest thing possible and was immediately dismissed because it didn’t make sense.
When researching this post all I knew was that a quarry somewhere west of the circle was the source of the bad energies.When I traced the line on a map I was interested to find that the Eyam quarries were there, lots of them, and then suddenly this memory came flooding back very very strongly!
As a schoolboy we learned all about Eyam’s history, and in particular about its Black Death plague history and witch connections.
Miscellaneous data
There were many other things we learned about the circle while we were there. We found that there was a Genius Loci there – a passing spirit that had decided to stay there for a while. Like many others that Kal has dowsed he found that it was disappeared around 1100 years ago, then then re-appeared 400 years later. He has a theory about that, but information keeps adding to this theory all the while, so I’ll let him describe his theory when he’s ready. he also thought the spirit took the form of a dragon.
There were no colour lines to dowse in the circle, which was a shame. Some people had put some money into the hollow of the tall standing stone that we dowsed as being a male stone. Those were not the only offerings, but they made Kal do his whole “pretend to steal them” routine, which made me smile.
At many other sites I have come across things tied to trees. This seems to be coming back into fashion at all these sites (if it ever went out). Unusually, there were bits of string tied to the birch tree at this circle. I must admit I haven’t seen that particular offering before. I wondered if they were intended to hang leprechauns, but they’d escaped. Only I was amused at that thought.
Finally, we checked the astrological alignments. The circle was aligned to many forces, including Saturn, Venus, both the Sun and the Moon, and importantly, to Sirius – the Dog Star that has begun to play such an important role in the dedications of these circles and other sites. Why, we don’t yet know, yet here was another site that we found aligned to that particular star.
I mention, in conclusion, that we found similar energetic disturbances at Nine Ladies stone circle too. I’m not sure whether we ever documented that because it seemed to be less relevant than other findings. Now it begins to take on an importance as we find out how to heal and balance sacred sites when the need arises.
After we made our way back down from the Edge, through the beautiful wooded slope, we stopped at an oak tree that kept catching my attention. Kal went to stand in a shaft of sunlight that illuminated a particularly beautiful mossy spot, and I went to stand next to the great old oak itself. We spent a few quiet moments there, absorbing the delightful energies of sun and tree, then got back onto the road. Our mood now had changed from excited to elated. We stopped off at the Chequers Inn for a drink, then headed off to Barbrook where the promise of more circles awaited us.
Gwas.
