Llanddeiniolen village, Gwynedd, North Wales – Saturday 23rd October 2010
Many months ago Kal and I had decided that we would choose the nearest full moon to Samhain as the time to go out and celebrate this important festival. For us, Samhain meant an opening between worlds, a chance to interact with the world of other intelligences, the Spirit World for want of a more specific phrase. Going out in the full glare of the moon gave us the best opportunity to utilise both female and male energies to get out work done.
So,w hat was this “work” that needed to be done at Samhain? My work had been given to me at the Autumn Equinox this year. I was told by the yew tree at Llangernyw (subsequently embellished and reinforced by the energetic form of Bran The Blessed at Dinas Bran in Llangollen) that I should awaken the Spirit of Merlin. I was given a riddle that contained what I initially thought were the actual words that I should use to awaken Merlin, but subsequently realised that they were actual instructions or directions for me to use to guide me on the day itself. The riddle was:-
Strong Red,
Lower Merlin’s rowan,
Second Landdeiniol/stone church.
Riddle-Me-Ree
One thing I knew about the agenda for the day: we would be visiting Dinas Emrys near to Snowdon. Kal added that we should also visit the Llangernyw Yew tree, and I realised that this would be the perfect place to obtain guidance on the next task for the final part of the year. Good, we had two places so far.
In preparation for our day out I had dowsed for some answers to these riddling lines. What was the “red” part? The answer I found eventually as that this was my root chakra. Quite how it needed to be strong I didn’t know yet but I would soon find out.
I thought I understood the line “Lower Merlin’s rowan“. That sounded like I needed to perform some sort of ritual with a wand of rowan wood. I cut a branch of a local rowan tree some weeks before in preparation for this work and left it to dry. The day before we were to go out I remembered it thanks to a podcast I was listening to which happened, by pure chance, to mention the preparation of wands! That evening I stripped, sanded and carved an appropriate symbol onto the wand and it was ready for us after a brief consecration to the spirit of Merlin.
Finally, I needed a starting point for the day. I had found a church in the village of Llanddeiniol, which is close to Pembrokeshire, used to be an old Welsh word for “stone”, and had a stone church re-built – a second stone church therefore. Could this be the “second stone church” in the riddle? The dowsing rods suggested that would be a good place to start, but it was geographically a long way away from where we needed to be….Was there another village called the same or similar that would suit out purposes? It turned out there was – the village of Llanddeiniolen near to…Caernarvon, only minutes away from Dinas Emrys. This seemed like more than coincidence, but I didn’t have time to do any more research, we would just have to chance it and see what happened.
Llanddeiniolen’s second stone church
The day began in dramatic fashion as we drove through downpour after downpour while we traversed the welsh seaboard. As is usual I ribbed Kal about him not having any appropriate clothing for the weather, and he laughed, offering his usual rebuttal “I have faith that everything will be fine.” I admired his strength of will, but faced with the evidence by the bucket-load being thrown at the car I couldn’t see this one working out for him. As we drove through the village of Llanberis the sun broke through the cloud layers and the sky began to clear. Impossible!!! But true. Yet again, Kal had cheated the gods of weather This was a positive sign for the day.
We almost missed the village of Llanddeiniolen because it’s neither large nor well signposted. By some fluke I decided to turn into a road to park up and check directions when Kal pointed to the sign nearby indicating the village church and cemetery. Well, that was lucky! Moments later we passed a new-looking church made of brick and stone with cars parked outside of it. Didn’t look like what we were looking for. Then, on the right hand side appeared a graveyard and in the midst of some huge yew trees we could make out a small stone church with an iron entrance gate. This was more like it! We smiled – the second stone church! There were two churches right next to each other. What are the chances of that in such a small village?
We heard someone cutting grass on the far side of the church so we walked quietly so as not to attract attention. Spending time in a churchyard when not on “church business” or visiting a grave was likely to incur some questions at a minimum. Nevertheless something felt good about this and we split up, Kal wandering off to the back of the churchyard, whilst I got the rods out in order to get to work immediately. “Is this a suitable place to do some energy work?” I asked. YES. “Is it alright for me to do some work today?”. Again, YES. “Take me to the best place to do energy work!” I asked and began to walk.
I was led by the rods off to the right in a large circle, around and then up to one of the old yew trees in the grounds. At first I stopped the rods taking me further because they seemed to want me to go through some young saplings and I couldn’t be bothered with that – besides I didn’t want to damage them. I stood for a moment and felt a tug towards the tree like it was pulling me in. I edged closer. Another tug. Alright! I said. I got the rods out again, “Show me the EXACT point where I need to be!” The rods continued through the saplings and undergrowth, and I brushed them aside gently as I passed. I was not almost inside the yew tree’s hollow and split trunk when the rods crossed. I looked down to see a stone embedded at the base of the tree – looking just like a dry and comfortable seat. How fabulous! I sat where I had been told to sit, and immediately could feel the tree’s energy throbbing through the stone. Wow!
I stood under the soothing branches of the old yew tree, the sun glinting in my face through its branches, and the stone beneath me pulsing and throbbing with an unseen energy. “Strong red” was the directive. Now that I felt the forces below me I knew that my assumption about the chakras was correct – surely, I was meant to increase my root chakra energy here? I connected to the tree – “May I work with you, mighty yew?” I asked. A bird tweeted sweetly but suddenly in the lower branches of the yew and slightly startled me, making me chuckle. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’, then!” I understood the difference between being sung to and being squawked at, and birds are excellent messengers.
I began a meditation, connecting deeply to the tree’s roots and spreading my energy along them, far and wide underground. Each breath sent my energy to its furthest tips and back into me again. As the movement and flow became as routine as breathing for myself I switched my attention to the tingling beneath me. I imagined connecting to the farthest reaches of the earth’s core. Usually this is visualised as a double stream of energy spiralling downwards, but today it was different. Today the energy flowed as three streams braiding themselves in a complex inter-weaving pattern that my mind could barely follow. As the three streams of light reached the depths of the Earth they wove themselves around the core and a surge of tingling power rose along the column I had made, up through the ground and into my body. The feeling was…immense. Immense power. Something solid, steadfast, strongly stabilising and rooted. It had all these qualities, yet it tingled like being tickled at the core of your bone marrow.
After minutes of wallowing in this feeling I decided I had better store this energy for later use. I imagined the ‘red’ root energy being placed into my lower energy store (dan-tien) and I sealed it off there. I was reluctant to stop the flow, so erotic and enticing was its effects, but I knew that I had plenty of other work to do, and to play with this energy now would be a waste of an opportunity. So, I sealed it off and broke the connection, thanking the yew tree by placing my head on its lowest branch and wishing it love and gratitude in abundance. That was what I could spare.
I began to walk away from the tree with a smile on my face, but I couldn’t quite see th path properly. My eyesight was all hazy – it was like I was in a deep trance and my eyes couldn’t focus, as though I had just woken up from a deep long sleep. I noticed I felt empowered, powerful, strong, like I could do anything – physically or mentally. The same feeling you get from several pints of strong beer. Wow – I should do this more often!
As I emerged once more one the main path through the churchyard I realised I could hear the sound of the strimmer again. I had totally forgotten about that, yet I was sure it had probably been going the whole time I was meditating. Kal was now standing inside the yew tree on the other side of the path. He invited me to try this spot too, mentioning that it was a definite power centre. I stepped inside the tree – even more so than the one I had been standing in recently. Inside I felt good, but I knew I wasn’t here to indulge in any more (or different) energy forms, and not wanting to spoil my work I stepped out again soon after. Yes, it was good, but not what I needed right now.
We both dowsed as to whether we had finished our work here. Kal got yes, I got no. No? What else could there be to do? I asked to be taken to a place in the church where I could find out what I had to do to complete the work. The dowsing rods led me off the path towards a few recumbent gravestones lying near the front of the churchyard. Now I had to find out what the issue was!
a) Was it something to do with the spot where this grave is? NO.
b) Is it something to do with the person buried there? NO.
c) Is there something else on this spot that I need to work with? YES.
Not the person buried there, not the spot itself….
d) Is this connected to the yew tree I was working at? YES.
e) Is it something to do with grounding energy? YES.
Well , we know yew trees quieten down human death energies….
e) Is there an un-grounded energy here that is disturbing the graveyard? YES! Aha…
f) Should I use my new energy to ground the unquiet energy? YES!!
The responses got stronger and faster as I homed in on the correct answers. I did some more dowsing to find out what was needed – two crystals, both quartz, and they needed to be placed at either corner of the gravestone along a particular axis. Then, in my meditative state I threw some of my strong red grounding energy at the grave. In my mind’s eye I saw something FLASH quickly along the axis of the crystals and disappear into the aether of the bright morning sky.
Some songbirds began to tweet in the branches of the yews, and the strimmer stopped for a moment leaving a strange quietude across the graveyard. The rods helped us to decide that we were done, but we knew that anyway. As we got back into the car and drove away we chatted about our respective experiences, and made our way to our true destination for the day – Dinas Emrys. On the way out of the village I almost did an emergency stop! There was a huge stone sat at the entrance to some quarry or other, or some such business. I stopped and we photographed it and touched it. It felt nice and I felt sure The Megalithic Portal would identify it. Not on their lists! Yet it’s right by the roadside on a fairly major road! Odd.
Still – the day was warming up in so many ways – time to go to Dinas Emrys.
Gwas.
Sorry to disappoint you. I wrote and published a history map of Llanddeiniolen a couple of years agop and hail from there myself. I came across your site when researching for another history project. I don’t usually bother to write things when I came across sites like yours (which crop up from time to time) but your dowsing didn’t really get to the bottom of the history and significance of those yew trees I see, and as for the stone on the side of the road? The entrance is to a farm, not a quarry. The farmer did some field clearances lately and dug up this stone, and moved it to the entrance because it looks good there.
Hello Gareth,
I think it is difficult for a visitor to come to a place and absorb the full extent of the area’s history and significance in one visit. Please excuse the lack of detail, but dowsing is a blunt tool for accurate fact-finding unless significant time is invested and research can be cross-checked with known records, and our visits are often superficial and fleeting. It may therefore be expected that our one-hour visit did not accomplish much depth regarding the history of the area.
As for the stone, I appreciate the information about the true nature of its siting. We only stopped because it looked interesting, but I stand by the finding that there was an unhealthy link of a subtle energy line which led in the direction of the place from which the stone had been uncovered/removed. That much was our finding on the day that the dowsing was done. You may find differently at some later date – circumstances change and energy lines reflect their surroundings.
As for the “significance” of the yew trees – I like to think that I have as good a knowledge as many other druids concerning their significance. What is the significant context that you are supposing I missed in my account (always considering that my account set out to reveal any particular significance)?
Any information welcomed,
Gwas.