It was late in the afternoon when I got an e-mail with the usual request from Kal offering an evening out in the wilds of Britian. Well, perhaps ‘wilds’ is too strong – we were in the over-civilised side of Cheshire actually, and decided to go to Alderley Edge. Still, a forest of that size at dusk is not everyone’s cup of tea.
We arrived as the light was dulling, and I showed Kal the trail I had taken on previous occasions that would get us to the place where I knew I had a power centre, and which Kal had said was his power centre too. Seemed like a good starting point because I knew the way. When we arrived in the small gulley we both took turns at standing on our power centre, feeling its bubbling energies. We started dowsing immediately. We identified that I was here to help Kal, but that I would need to do some energy work too. Kal, however, would be the main focus because he needed to do something to make some money by promoting his book. This would be a better career move than trying to get a job he hated in order to pay his way. At least, that’s what the rods finally elicited from the situation, so that’s what we went with.
Branching off
Before we started dowsing “for real” I wanted to show Kal how I had learned to dowse with twigs recently at Gawsworth Hall under the helpful guidance of Mr. Clowes (see previous post). I found a suitable twig and promptly snapped it! We tried again and this time it held. I showed Kal the strange grip required, and then sent him off with the twig to see if he could find anything. Within a few seconds he was exclaiming loudly and I saw the twig push up in a twitchy way. For me it went down, which is interesting. Kal is sun-aligned and I’m moon-aligned – I wonder if that’s the difference?
We both played about with the twig and I used it to find some energy close to a tree root at the side of the gully in which we stood. Kal tried and found the same pull (or push) at that point. Now we were intrigued and so switched to our much more useful L-rods to find out what shape this formation was and what its source was. It was the tree itself that was forming a spiral of energy. We put that aside and carried on with our other work – to find a place to meditate on Kal’s book promotion.
Kal was enjoying playing with the branch too, and when he asked where he needed to do some work and it turned out to be at the root of the same tall pine tree I had just twig dowsed. He re-confirmed it using his L-rods, in which we have much more trust and experience. The rods curled around in a spiral on top of a particular pine tree root, so Kal perched himself there. I now asked my rods to lead me to the best place for me to assist this work, and soon I was climbing up above Kal onto a rock promontory and felt quite at home sat up there in the darkening night, owls hooting and badgers scurrying.
Gathering gloom, gathering energies
As Kal stood on the tree root. I gathered energy from all around, pushing my sphere out to encompass nearby trees. They joined in my energy work and we began to feed into Kal, making a circle around the base of his sphere. As the energy increased I saw roots climbing around Kal in both male and female directions, balancing his energies, and protecting him while he worked. Even in the few minutes when we were working the light was rapidly fading away as night approached. At the exact moment that I felt the work was done and came back to normal waking consciousness, Kal moved and walked off the tree root.
Kal did some more dowsing to qualify his meditation – he has until Samhain to make this book promotion and sales happen or else the opportunity would be gone.
Scrying and cleansing
Next we started walking towards the large beech tree – The Father of the Forest. We didn’t really know why, but when I saw a puddle reflecting the moonlight and sky. I felt it was a scrying pool and so I stopped and asked the water what we needed to do next. It told me we should anoint ourselves with water from one of the wells in the forest. Kal reluctantly agreed to this daft idea. Good lad.
We walked in the direction I imagined one of the wells to be in, marching through the forest but soon we were officially “lost”. It didn’t take long, I can tell you. With no notable bearings and little light it only took a few minutes to disappear in the forest with no idea of a sensible direction to take. Kal took the lead, following his rods to get us out of the middle of nowhere and soon we had found a recognisable path. At that point we were actually in the right place to visit the Wizard’s Well. It was like we were being led that way, rather than the way I imagined I needed to go. We heard the sounds of people walking and soon we encountered three other people skulking around the forest too. We passed each other with murmured forced greetings. It was rather amusing, but I could tell they didn’t feel that way too.
After momentary doubts from Kal (he still doubts my navigation skills?) we walked in the darkness through the forest, literally along the edge of The Edge until we reached the Wizard’s Well. At the well we baulked at washing ourselves in its full dirty depths and instead wiped a few drips from the rocks onto our faces. This was sufficient, we felt (rods confirmed).
Shades and shadows
Despite feeling that we had tramped a long way for very little purpose, I do think that there was something oddly necessary about this bathing procedure. I feel that it prepared us for what was to come next. In the depths of the darkness we carefully wound our way back up the incline to the promontory where a wooden seat provides a wonderful view across to Manchester.
We sat there, watching those four shifty skulkers going by again – more heads-down hellos – and then Kal said he could feel a shade here. I scanned around, putting my eyes out of focus and trying to use my peripheral vision. Then I could see it. I’ve never been able to see something like that before – the energetic imprint of a dead person – but to my utter amazement I could now! It was like..a very faint luminous outline of a person– as though they were made of a very weak yellow jelly that faintly glowed. I told Kal that I could see it and motioned towards a particular place. Then we could both “see” it, and pinpointed its position. Kal was looking askance at exactly the same place I was now. I confirmed this with my rods and then decided that I should make the effort to approach.
I set up some protection around myself, knowing from experience that shades have a tendency to want to drain your energy. Kal had hinted that she would speak to me, but I was only interested in such an encounter providing I could get some information about my quest, or about Merlin. I stood on the spot where I could see her form (vaguely) and tuned into her frequency, announcing my presence to her and introducing myself.
I shivered as I stood in her position and felt her notice me. I put up even more protection so that she knew I was suspicious of her, and to hint that I knew what I was doing in my dealings with her. She acknowledged my presence and began to talk:-
- She called me “Son of Merlin” (blatant flattery)
- Merlin Emrys was born in Caernarvon and so was she
- She knew he spent time all along that western coast of Wales and knew that his special places were there
- She confirmed that I should meet Merlin at Dinas Emrys
- I could do my underworld journey at Dinas Emrys.
There were some things I felt about the encounter. Her answers were quite…scathing…as though because she knew so should I and why was I bothering to ask her? Honestly, you’d think this energetic presence encountered people every day wanting to question it! Cheek. Anyway, I thanked her and offered her a limited amount of energy. Suddenly, as expected, she found more things to want to talk about…funny that. More cheek! I made sure that I had totally disconnected from any energetic entanglement with this entity, and Kal and I left the forest.
Both Kal and I got something amazing out of that visit. Even Kal’s feet stayed dry. Let’s see now whether something happens with his book on the basis of the work he did, and whether Dinas Emrys turns out to be the best place for me to work on my goal to meet with the Spirit of Merlin.
Gwas.
