Knights Pilgrimage 3 of 5 – Phoenix and the Dragon

This is part of my knights pilgrimage. for all the other posts related to this please click this (Knights Pilgrimage)  link and follow in order. Or just dive in and have fun!

Cars

In the previous post I had just left a couple on their way to their car and I was walking down a path which I hoped would lead to mine as the night was closing in. Fortunately it did and I was amazingly relieved. Hang on though, I thought as looking for my keys. Where am I supposed to go next? And had I done what was needed at the Forest of Dean? I asked the latter question first.

• Was I done with the forest? Yes. Considering all I had done was show a lost couple out of the forest. Was this what I was supposed to have done? Yes. That’s it? No. Was there a lesson in it for me? Yes.

I am not one for lessons, I have to say. And as I considered this, I heard some people walking towards me and stopped my dowsing to let them pass. I was shocked when they came into the light of passing cars. It was Beverly and Darren. The couple I had just left in the forest. They were as surprised to see me as I was them.

Lost

“Are you still lost?” I asked. They responded no, and pointed to the only other car parked near mine. “That’s our car.” I was stunned. What! I pointed to the other car and said to them. That’s mine. I was expecting surprise and shock. What I got was suspicion. “Well, thank you for your help.” They sidled passed me got into their car and drove off in haste. Gosh! People!

A little tip for you. When we’re out in the midst of sacred sites looking for direction and guidance. One of the ways we try to find the relevant event or incident is simply by breaking up the events into parts and asking, “was that relevant?” for each part. Simple, stupid, but often effective.

So, I began asking about each part of the day to find the missing link so to speak.

• Was it the crows that led me to the forest? No
• Was it my adventurous spirit to go? No
• Was it bumping into the couple? Kind-of (Ok, this is where one rod swings in but the other doesn’t. Come on you know this already, right?)
• Was it helping them find their way out? Kind-of.
• Was it that their car and mine where in the same place? No. I was expecting a yes here.
• Was it that they were lost? Yes.

Lost? Why was their being lost the message or guidance for me. Added to this was helping them find their way out. Definitely something to muse over on my pilgrimage.

Pilgrim notes

As an exercise, I thought that I would compile a notebook for the specific messages that I got on this diary so here it is so far:

1. Following and trusting my totem (crow)
2. Finding a couple who are lost
3. Helping them (reluctantly) find their car.

The Longest Drive

Was my pilgrimage complete? No. Come on, I had to ask. Okay where to next? Which direction? Thank god for my iPhone compass. I dowsed in a circle and ended up pointing south, according to my compass.

I thought of some places to the south, bare in my mind that my geography is appalling.

• Glastonbury? It was an obvious choice and the No wasn’t surprising.
• Avebury (was that south of here?) no matter, the answer was no.
• Stonehenge? No
• Tintagel? Okay, I know it’s South-West from the forest now, but at that time I didn’t. Anyway the answer was No.

  

Alright, it was time to try a different tack. Was it further than Glastonbury? Yes. Further than Stonehenge? Yes. Was it a (known to me) Sacred Site? Yes. Had I been there? Yes. Was it further than Tintagel? I was really hoping for a no to this one, but got a yes. O Crap! I cast my mind back to my stay in Devon and the sites I had visited.

• Hurlers? No
• Pipers Stones? No
• Any of the number of churches? No
• The Fogou, the name escaped me. No.
• Merry Maidens? Yes.

What! Seriously? The merry maidens? Why? Did I have to go there now? Yes. What? Why? I plugged the destination into my sat nav. 240 miles! Just under 5 hours! It was 7pm now! Am I insane? Don’t answer that.

The Dancing Coven

I drove and drove. Luckily or not, I’m used to these loooong haul drives having done them for a year or so. Even so. I had better get something useful out of this. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, written by J.K. Rowling and read by the amazing reader, Stephen Fry was my companion on this long journey. Amazingly I was only up to the point when they (Harry, Hermione and Ron) go down the trapdoor when I turned onto the lane that is adjacent to the Merry Maidens. I parked up the car and looked across into the field. There was a small fire burning in it. I got out of the car and for some reason, quietly closed my door so the sound wouldn’t carry. After waiting a few moments I walked up to the edge of the surrounding bushes and peered into the field. There were several people in the field. I wondered if they had spotted my car. It wasn’t visible over the bushes but the light must have been. Hang on though I thought, I had as much right to be here as anyone else. So why was I hesitating?

Okay maybe it was the fact that four or five of them were stark naked. Occasionally, one or two would get up from the group and dance around the stones. I confess that the title of this blog, “Hedge” is apt for this occasion. I certainly didn’t feel like getting involved in this group. I quickly dowsed to ask whether it was in my best interest to introduce myself to this group. A definite no. What then? Did I have to visit the Merry Maidens tonight or rather this morning, since it was gone midnight. Yes.

I recalled that there were a couple of large standing stones, in a field a mile or so away. So I decided to visit them. Getting back in my car I drove off. A few minutes later I was trudging, yes it was wet, field toward a huge, must be 11 feet tall stone. As I got closer, I swear it loomed up like a knight out of the ground. Of course this could have been my imagination and the fact that I was on a knights pilgrimage. As I am writing this I was trying to find an image of the stone and found one on the megalithic portal. If you visit that site you will see that the guy described it as a knight of the templar.

• On lightening this darker photo I was amazed to see what looks like a Knights Templar knight. I can see his face, a cover over his head, a cape and his cross on his chest. It looks just like he has stopped to take a rest.

Coincidence, right? I felt the grass by the stone. It was dry and I sat down. The night was unusually warm for this time of the year. nevertheless I snuggled up against stone at dowsed position and actually fell asleep.

The Phoenix and the Dragon

Dreams are often strange things. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred they are a pile of jumbled up sub-conscious flotsam and jetsam that rises to the surface. Other times they can be visionary. The challenge is determining one from the other. I awoke from my slumber about an hour later (by my reckoning) I was cold, tired and filled with a vision. The vision was of a Dragon fighting a Phoenix. I’m good with dreams, in that my recall of them is quite good. I think it stemmed from the attempt to follow Carlos Castaneda’s Art of Dreaming exercise a few years ago. That left me with two skills.

1. Being able to remember my dreams pretty well
2. Being able to change the direction of my dreams whilst in them

Can you guys do that? I’ve yet to meet someone who can do the second. Anyway. In this dream, there were two constellations in the sky. One of the Dragon and the other of the Phoenix and they had been fighting with each other. I had no idea what this meant. But the dowsing told me that it was significant. I walked back to the car and iPhoned myself a Travelodge (15 miles away) and headed off. Who cares about the Merry Maidens. It could wait! Or could they?

The road took me past them (the merry maidens) and slowed down and looked out across the field. No fire. I sighed and decided to go for it. In for a penny, in for a knut (google it). Clambering over the fence I made my dowsing way to the stones. The rods brought me to a place just off centre and I sat down. A moment later I lay down. I was tired. I looked up at the clear star filled night sky, thinking about dragons, knights and phoenixes, when a thought occurred to me. All of this was familiar. Then it all came back. I had completely forgotten. My last visit to the merry maidens, Dragon and Phoenix had been prominent then too. O my gosh!

What a turn of the spiral! I jumped up and asked the rods, where these two events connected? Yes. That last time, I had been instructed to create a knights crest. Frankly I ooops’d on that one. Was this about the same thing? Yes. Had I to create one? No. It was too late. Was I being shown what I missed. Yes. Ah…something lost…

As Gwas and I so often exclaim, you can’t make this stuff up. I knew I was done at the Merry Maidens. I walked slowly back to the car. The advantage of a spiral path is that you keep changing, the disadvantage is that you cannot go back to the same spot, similar yes, but not the same. I honestly felt sad.

Here is another funny coincidence. Look at the date on the Dragons and Phoenix post, it is the 7th of March, almost a year ago. Just a coincidence?

See you for tomorrows adventure on the Knights Pilgrimage

Kal Malik