Warlock Fitzalan’s Lessons – Water Magick

For several weeks I had been passing by Old Oswestry Hillfort in Shropshire on my travels to Wales and to some of the closer megalithic sites in North Shropshire. Every time I passed it my eye was caught by its level top and the sheer size of it. I loved the sight of its steep front, and wanted to see whether it had any energetic remainders or interesting energy forms in it. One evening I couldn’t contain myself any longer, and I got on my motorbike and rode down to Oswestry on the pretext of giving the bike a bit of a run to charge up the battery. Any excuse!

At the back of my mind I had another agenda too. I had wanted to find out whether I could really make use of The Fitzalan Shade that I had picked up from Clun Castle the week before (see previous post: Clun Castle and the Shade of the Warlock) – the spirit of a warlock with whom I had negotiated a bargain for knowledge sharing. Now was the time to test this out. Would the arrangement be up to anything at all, or was I wasting my time?

Guinevere’s Touch

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of this story, let me take you on an interesting diversion. As often happens in my unusual life when walking The Shining Path (I give this questing life many names) I go to places that have intuitively called to me. Afterwards when I do my research on the sites I find that they have some link to my spiritual progression that I had not expected. Such was the case with Old Oswestry. To me, it was that hill fort that I kept seeing and which called to me this year (even though I have been passing it for many years now). This year has seen a change in my Arthurian archetype. Last year I was completely bound up in quests for Merlin, culminating with his spirit merging with my own at Dinas Emrys.

This year I have been inextricably woven into the fabric of Arthur’s life – first at Tintagel, then at places such as Arthur’s Cave at Symond’s Yat, then Arthur’s Grave in Pembrokeshire. The sites have been never-ending, each linked to King Arthur and me seemingly destined to visit when my tasks and destinations have been dowsed and plotted on maps. Such has been the course of this year. How intriguing then that when I researched Oswestry Hill Fort I find that it too is strongly linked with the Arthurian myth. More weft for the rich tapestry.

Oswestry: The Welsh name means City of Gogyrfan. According to legend, Gogyrfan was father to Queen Guinevere and therefore father in law to King Arthur. This fort was said to be Guinevere’s birthplace. (source: Oswestry Town Talk)

Now I will tell you all about my first usage of the Fitzalan Stone and whether it truly does have magickal properties.

Finding a suitable seat

The hill fort is accessed by a small road leading to a small car park. Luckily, out of season as I was, parking was no issue. Having said that, I wouldn’t want to be leaving anything on show around there, and you’d be wise to make sure you’re not spending too long away from your vehicle if you value it in any way. My motorbike seemed to attract the attention of a group of bored teenagers while I was away and they were in no mood to disperse just because I came back just as they were swarming towards it!

As I walked up the main entrance path I got my dowsing rods out to determine the best route to take. I was taken up onto one of the several rings of banked earthworks that provided the many layers of protection, like a lady’s petticoats. Several other people were also visiting the site, which I hadn’t expected. As I reached the top I got my first view of the size and scale of the fort – wow – it was absolutely massive! It’s on a par with some of the largest in Wiltshire. The view I had seen from the dual carriageway nearby was only one small part of the whole perimeter of the fort. Now I could see the whole expanse I realised that it would take about half an hour just to walk around it. So I started walking, using the rods to guide my way and with the instruction that they should swirl around once I had reached a place suitable for working with the Fitzalan Stone.

I found an entry point into the fort’s inner sanctum at its eastern edge where the fence had been fitted with two kissing gates on either side of a path that came up from the base of the hill. The rods turned around at a spot off to one side of the massive interior field with its occasional cows. The space I sat in appeared to have what I call a faint “faerie ring” of grass. You begin to spot these once you have dowsed power centres on such grass formations for the hundredth or so time.

Fitzalan’s Water Magick

I decided that what I wanted to test Mr Fitzalan’s knowledge on was the subject of “water magick”, or how to use water in magickal practise. It was a topic that just came to me. I am an air sign, astrologically speaking, and I find it very easy to perform natural magick in the element of air. Water is much neglected by me, however, so here was an opportunity for me to learn something that I might be able to put into practise soon. I closed off my rational mind and began to let myself loose into the water vapour that surrounded me, forming a connection with the stone in my hand and with the water vapours that was all around me. “Please tell me about water magick!” I asked of the Fitzalan Stone.

In my mind the following concepts began to form as phrases, thoughts, fleeting images or whispered words:-

• Learnt that emotion is the key to water magick
• Your body must be well hydrated to make such magick happen effectively
• Once hydrated you can mentally summon the emotion that you wish to utilise
• Once the emotion fills you, then you can exude it from your pores like sweat and the pheromones will fly off you filling the surrounding space with the emotion

So it seems that Water Magick is related to emotions and to the modification of the environment, the atmosphere, or mood. I felt like I already knew part of this – some of this was information i had read in other places about the properties of water, but the Fitzalan Stone had managed to pull all that information together and present it all in a neat summary, and had given me some new information too, such as the method of exuding or releasing the emotional energy into the atmosphere in order to effect change. This was very interesting indeed, and I was excited about the way the information had arrived. I promised in return, that some interesting magickal work would be done at some very special sites I intended to visit in the near future. Our strange relationship was beginning to bear fruit! I can think of uses for this in my own work such as changing bad behaviour, altering the weather, and repairing the feel of a damaged environment. The potential filled me with hope and a desire to begin putting this knowledge into practise soon.

A Cow-Shaped Reminder

I thanked the spirit of Richard for his valuable lesson, and then disengaged, retracting the energetic threads I had used to connect to his shade via the stone. What reminded me to do this was an inquisitive cow that was coming to enquire about what I was doing, which made me quickly pull my aura back in and disconnect from anything I was connected to, almost like a shock reaction.

When I left the cow went to smell the place I had been lying on, and then began to eat grass at that spot. This reminded me that I should remove my traces from places! You never know who or what is going to come along after you’ve left and feed on the energy fields that you have created. Best to clean up after yourself and disperse any remnant energy that you don’t want to leave behind.

Gwas.