Nine Ladies stone circle, Stanton Moor, Derbyshire – October 13th 2010
Firstly, apologies for the poor quality of the pictures used in this post. I forgot to bring my camera and had to rely on the camera on my phone to get some contextual images. At least they illustrate the point, even if they wouldn’t make a decent backdrop.
Let’s start the post with a giggle. Raise your hands all of you who expected that Kal would have learned his lesson about approaching the grumpy old oak tree that sits alongside the Nine Ladies stone circle! How many raised their hands? All of you? Well, you’d all be right. We arrived, stood for a moment contemplating the beauty of the circle from fifty feet away, and then Kal bounded over to the oak tree almost demanding that it communicate positively with him. I laughed at the sheer inevitability of what was to come. A poke in the eye from a low-hanging branch for Kal, yet again!
I approached the tree sedately, feeling its aura close to its canopy of still-green leaves. I skirted the edge, rounding the tree once widdershins, occasionally letting its lower outer branches stroke my face. Then, at the correct entrance point I stopped to ask if I might enter. I felt a slight tug at what I am now calling, in Castenada’s terms, the Assemblage Point, and I knew I was alright to enter. We got on, this tree and I. I knew it demanded a careful respect, and I was amenable to that. After all – I was invading its space, not the other way around. Kal grumbled about its grumpiness and I chuckled, reminding him of what he needed to do in order to pass into the tree’s favour. He grumbled again. He hates deference. I don’t call it deference, I call it mutual respect, and that makes the whole thing work automatically, like automatically saying ‘sorry’ if you bump into someone, no matter who bumped into whom.
The Cleaning Job
As Kal paid his penance at the foot of the oak tree I headed to the circle of small stones that formed the dainty monument that is Nine Ladies. Something felt funny, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was exactly. I decided I needed the help of my dowsing rods. I cleaned them down (a matter of stroking the rods from stem to tip and shaking your hand afterwards – a mere ritual, but it seems to keep the rods free of energetic interference). After cleaning I readied the rods in my usual shoot-from-the-hip stance, elbows in at my side and rods perfectly balanced and level, free to swivel as the energies may direct them.
I asked the rods a question, “Did this circle need re-balancing of the energies?” – in other words, was there too much of one particular type of energy? NO. OK, now for the follow up, “Did this circle need cleansing?” – i.e. was there an influx of unusual energy not native to the circle that could be causing disruption to its function? YES.
Distinguishing these two types of energy work is important, I feel. Re-balancing and cleansing are two very different activities requiring different approaches. For re-balancing I seek to either draw up and create more energy for anything that is required to create a balance between the energy types, or else I dampen down the effect of an over-lively energy form in order to bring it back to the levels of the other energies at the site. Cleansing requires me to eliminate some ‘alien’ energy form (usually human-sourced) and to leave the site with only its natural energies (unless the alien energy is actually benefiting the site).
Which brings me to my final question before I begin the work, “Is the additional energy beneficial to the site?”. NO. Right, then it did need to be dealt with. Could I use incense for this work? YES. How many sticks would be required to cleanse the energy? SIX. Six!” Seriously?? That was more than I had ever needed to use before for such work. Usually it’s two, three, maybe four. Six was something that took this work to new heights for me.
I lit the incense sticks, placed them where the rods dictated I should, and then dowsed for how long they would take to clear the problem energy – six minutes. Ha, today was all sixes! Strange. Next I noticed another strange coincidence.
Five of the incense sticks needed to be placed on one side of the stone circle – the eastern side, with one on the northern side too. The East is associated in my personal elemental schema with Fire. So it was an interesting coincidence for me when I dowsed to locate the source of the problem and was taken to off the north-eastern side of the circle towards a group of rocks that I knew were linked to the circle energetically, and had lovely and obscure carvings on them. The rods crossed over a black patch of charcoaled material right next to the rocks – someone had lit a fire here, and it seemed to be the source of the energy affecting the stone circle.
There was also a problem with the energy at this source, and two incense sticks were needed to clear that problem too. Three lads had made the fire and put bad energy into the place, whether knowingly or not. This took several questions to elicit from the dowsing rods, but the questions almost suggested themselves and the rods merely confirmed the situation. Some of the information came to me as feelings and visions – this is becoming a regular feature of working at sacred sites now. The more I dowse and work with energy the more…psychic I become. There’s no other way to put that!
I followed the energy that emerged form the rocks and it went past the circle and up through a patch of bracken and finally arrived at the King Stone -a lone stone that is energetically crucial to the source and flow of energies at this stone circle. Kal had earlier pointed out to me that the King Stone was “funny” today when he had wandered up there. Now I knew why it felt wrong. Luckily, the combination of the incense and my intention broke the link and the King Stone was free to work as it should – a source for new male and female energies, and a focal point for the incoming ley line.
The Arc of Arcturus
When the incense had done its work I went back to the circle. I was curious and eager to learn from bring here so I asked whether there was any energy form here I hadn’t encountered before. There was. I was taken to a stone on the eastern side of the circle and I followed an arcing neutral energy which led across the circle towards the West, and then out past the stones. But, where was it heading? I looked around in the darkening evening light and suddenly, in the deepening blue sky a star appeared. I got out my star-identification app Starwalk and pointed it at the star – Arcturus (The Bear Guardian).
Of course I couldn’t leave it at that. Was the arcing energy really connected to the star? YES, said the dowsing rods. Thus began a series of questions aimed at identifying the link between the two. After an exhausting ten minutes I had some answers that satisfied my curiosity. The position of stars affects the stone circle’s energy characteristics. Just like humans, the energy patterns inherent in the stone circle are set at its “birth” (or as Kal pointed out, possibly at its energetic consecration ceremony) and these energetic field strengths, and the radiance levels from stars and other astral bodies, shape the character of the circle that is formed. This sounded to me just like a human’s natal astrological chart.
As I went to re-join Kal, who had been meditating beneath the nearby oak tree, he revealed something quite disturbing. When I had been working to cleanse the site I had been watched by eight energy forms who kept themselves out of sight in the woods to the northern edge of the circle. He claimed that he didn’t feel they were malevolent, just curious. Spooky, though!
Gwas