Samhain 2011 – Clulow Cross

In a way you judge someone by the quality of the places that they take you to. Recently I was taken to a place the day before Samhain this year. I had once so nearly visited but somehow circumstances had conspired to make me miss it by only a short distance. Now I had a tour guide with local knowledge. When Mike spoke of the place it was in reverential tones, and the hint was always that it was a magickal place. The kind of place where you may come away with the course of your life taking a slightly tangential turn. He had spoken of the place’s power for change in the way that people who have genuinely experienced life-changing moments do – hushed tones, distant eyes – as though recalling some kind or form of force that the Anglo-Saxon pillar was imbued with.

You are then left with a decision – do I believe the power of this place, or do I have to go test it our for myself? I have to test it, of course! Progress must take its course during the year’s treadmill. Places of power should be visited. The dilemma – who by? Yet the Land can have lessons for everyone, surely. Good or bad. Clever or stupid. If I tell of the place, then I advertise its wonder, and more people probably come. There are some wells near where I live that birthed and died through the advertisement of their miraculous energies, effects and efficacies. However, I will mention the place’s name. What people do with it will reap its own rewards.

In a previous post about the nearby Bullstones I had supposed that this had been the magickal stone that Mike’s tales had been centred upon. I was wrong. The description of the surroundings had matched my previous finding exactly, so when Mike and friends had allowed us to follow them up into the Derbyshire moorland and hills I thought I knew exactly where we were going. As we parked and got out of our respective cars the other group appeared to be heading in the wrong direction, until I realised that it was me who had made the mistake. Clulow Cross was down in the field on the Congleton side of Hammerton Knowl, not standing on the other side of the Knowl’s ridge between Wincle and Wilboarclough. This was the pillar remainder of an actual stone cross, not just a place name to locate a hidden monolithic treasure. And hidden it is. Nestled in a clump of middle-aged beech trees, the cross itself is hard to spot until you are within striking distance with an acorn.

An Aside About Access

I have probably pussy-footed and tap-danced around this subject for many years on this blog. Let me state this right out now as an opinion, and then I will attempt to back it up.

I have a right to walk the land. My right. My land. I will walk it. I will be respectful, courteous, kind and gentle as I do so. But I will walk it. It is my, our, everyone’s land.

Anyone who believes they own land needs to consider this perspective – the land has been there before humans as a species were even invented. Once we were invented we were given intellect to allow the development of the concept of custodianship. We are all of us guardians of our own lands, the lands with which we identify in our hearts.

Yes, others may choose to abuse their rights, and those that choose to be discourteous and un-cooperative with the custodians will always exist, but they are a manageable minority who will cause ill-will in whatever environment they find themselves. They are a test of everybody’s patience, and are not exclusive preserve of the irate farmer, or the country estate employee, or the quarry worker, or the member of this and that Trust.

Those who consider themselves to be “land owners” will have to live with their own arrogance on a daily basis. You ought only to encounter it occasionally as you walk these lands. We have a right to roam. We always have. We always will.

So, now that you understand my position and haven’t yet stopped reading in outrage and humph-pah, well, you should read on to find out what magick awaits the pagan who claims the right to roam.

I’m not issuing a challenge here. I pick my times to cross definite boundaries, and I do so with care. When I trespass I do so with a certain delicacy. I aim to pass without disturbance, to leave everything a little more balanced in my gentle wake. As we hopped over the dry-stone wall that formed the constant barrier around the field to Clulow Cross‘s odd mound of beech trees I was entering into the unknown again with a right motley crew of psychics, mediums, sensitive and intuitive people. A heady blend of energy bodies fizzed and crackled around our light-hearted shenanigans trying to negotiate the wall, the muck and the grass. They never show this bit in films – unless they had been made by Lee Evans [who?].

Safely heading towards the small hill on the downward leg of the journey we got to within twenty feet or so of the perimeter of the change in gradient when I pulled up quickly, standing bolt upright as though I had bumped into an invisible door. I rocked slowly forwards so that my head moved into the field of energy to test how it felt. Warm, tingly, effervescent, and…happy, excited? I heard one friend yelp in unexpected excitement at encountering the same “wall of wonder” – like walking into a shower curtain of laughter. We looked across at each other and smiled and laughed, standing with our arms outstretched as though bathing in the sun-warmed Mediterranean waters that it felt like.

We shared adjectives trying to capture the shared feeling that bubbled up past us like an upward shower. In contrast to the clear and crisp end-of-October breeze this was an obviously noticeable difference. Yet we could still feel the cold wind blowing against us – it was just that it didn’t feel cold any more, and we shivered in a warm way if that makes sense? How odd! Our wide eyes shared the experiences between all of us who hadn’t been here before. Three of us swam in the hill’s aura for several moments, hardly wanting to push on up the hill in case the feeling stopped. The two who had been before stopped to acknowledge the moment, like remembering your first downhill bike ride. We all sobered up and moved on towards the summit of the small beech carpeted mound. Leaves danced around us, squadrons of fairy forms spinning and falling, dancing with the same joy we felt.

The Garner Connection

I have often talked of Alderley Edge – that great forest in Cheshire with its precarious sandstone cliffs and a reputation for being the haunt of magickal practitioners. Of course, it has an Arthurian myth attached to it as well, as all good Druidical places need some air of timelessness in human form. That, however, was not the first story associated with Alderley Edge in my mind. For me, the first story I had heard of this enchanted forest was in the book “The Weirdstone of Brisingamen“, a young person’s book of magical fantasy and witchcraft. Only now do I realise that Clulow Cross was also featured in the book. I didn’t remember that bit. Now I was here at the second of the three of Cheshire’s mystical landmarks that Garner uses as his backdrop to the book.

Clulow Cross [megalithic] is also called Cleulow Cross. Appears as the final destination in Garner’s book:

“Although renamed Clulow the cross is the scene of the climax of the excellent children’s book  “The Weirdstone of Brisingamen” written by Cheshire author Alan Garner, you need to read the book to understand the importance of the locality.” (source: Cleulow.com)

Truly, standing on the hill, I understood why this was the climax of any story. The drama of the place, the feeling, the bubbling energies, the wind-swept choir of branches rustling, the sun speckling through the canopies of rusted leaves, the sweep down the slope of the valley side of the hill. Standing on the summit next to the pillar that once help a quartered cross I felt in touch with something quite powerful, something ancient yet close, and most of all, something welcoming.

Another web site has a more prosaic but accurate description of the cross’ heritage:

” An Anglo-Saxon high cross on a mound raised from a spur overlooking the valley of the Shell Brook. A large base and shaft with the remains of a small wheelhead cross on the top. The cross is of late Anglo-Saxon, Mercian round shaft, type and is one of a group of round shafts in this region, markers defining the early medieval estate and parish of Prestbury.” (source: Pastscape)

I have the liberty of this blog in which to describe it as The Velveteen Green Post of Pagan Promise . Just because I can.

The Bridge Between Land and Sky

As I reached the top I looked at Mike.. This was the scene of his earth energy conversion. The moment he had realised that he would be working with earth energies thereafter. It was the scene of a dramatic conversion –   a taking on of powers and responsibilities. He was back.

At first the pillar had been hard to see amongst the beech trunks of equal size and colour. It was only differentiated from distance by its unnatural straightness and its stand. It looked like a stunted tree until quite close up. I began to dowse:-

1. What is the strongest place on this hill? The rods began to move from my position some ten feet away from the pillar and walked me around from tree to tree in s spiral around the hill, slowly moving up to the top. At the top the path went from the last tree to the pillar itself. The pillar was on the strongest energy centre.

2. Where was my best place to be? Right next to the pillar, slightly facing the long downhill slope.

3. Was there a ritual path to take a person up to the power centre in the most energetic way? Yes, it began just out of the line of sight of the lower slopes, just behind the peak of the hill, and then moved in a slow S-shape up to the pillar.

I was standing on the base of the pillar, holding on to it. I could feel its bubbling energy field as clear as if it were a red-hot poker, but without the unpleasant barbecuing effects on the hands. Still my hands were hot as though it was the height of Summer instead of being in the depths of Autumn. I began to get some psychic impressions of the pillar itself.

It was a symbol of a bridge between Land and Sky. The Rainbow Bridge. The energy was passing both ways. I could feel the double-helix of the effervescent subtle energy flowing in inverse spirals through and around each other in a double vortex of exchanging forces. I was in the centre of those effects and I was surrendering my energy body to its effects with abandon. Others were doing the same. I felt presences all around, and they weren’t just the people I was visiting with. There was a gathering on the lower slopes, and someone was standing alone at the pillar, looking down upon the assembly, and dispensing words that would bring those folk to a communal understanding of their world. This was no lecture, rather he was informing, dispensing, giving.

The sun fleckled through the trees and the disguised headless cross pillar became a cold stone presence to my touch again. The almost invisible overlay dissolved to re-focus on the present movement of the branches and bring the real people back into coloured sharp focus. I was back. Others around me were going through the same process so we compared notes and came up with a startling consensus of images: a robed leader, a gathering, a congregation, a druid, a preacher, the long slope down, hands aloft, the faery folk gathering to listen to the Horned Stag speak in the full of the sun. The images were all drawn from overlapping mythologies, but they were all the same features. A commanding lone figure and a gathering of folk below.

I had known from the moment I had crossed the threshold, stepped into the aura of this site, that this was a Druid Grove. I just knew. Something deep inside me knew what this was. What it had been. What its significance for the future was – to be an active grove again. I would have to come back. I knew this now. Have to. Reluctantly we decided to head back to the road above. I could feel the gaze of a thousand attentive tiny spirits that watched us leave that day. Oh, what a place! I was in awe.

Mike and the others smiled at me. They knew it had touched me in a deep and lasting way. Not a thunderbolt of energy perhaps, but a stirring of an ancient heartfelt connection, certainly.

Gwas.