In the final part of my Spring Equinox posts for this year I have a small tale to tell that demonstrates how following your path leads to results even in the face of adversity and seeming inactivity. It’s a tale for those to whom perserverence is a watchword. The story follows directly from our encounters in Dove Dale. You may remember that I had met The Lady of the Dove at Lover’s Leap rock, high above the River Dove in the late evening sun. I had requested her help to know the next part of my journey and she had offered her help, but had told me that such knowledge would not (indeed could not) be given at Dove Dale. I already knew this, as I had dowsed that I would need to visit Parwich Hill in order to find such an answer.
Prangs for the memory!
We drove the few miles down the A515 then down a small country road to the village centre. From there we would have to find our own way to the hill depending on how things looked when we arrived. On arrival the village was surprisingly busy. There were narrow streets, parked cars, people milling about, and most surprisingly a coach was trying to reverse down the road that I thought we might need to go up to get to the hill. I looked across to Kal and reminded him of Imbolc when such blockages had been a sign not to visit a particular place with bad energies. Was this another bad omen? As I thought that I reversed to make space for the coach to come out into the main road and managed to back my car into a low wall. A sickening crunch and scrape noise was heard from the back of the car. Although startled, I reckoned it didn’t sound too bad and resolved to look at it later. For now we needed to find a place to park before the sun went down completely. We still had the hill to climb and we had done a lot of climbing and walking already this day. The closer I could get to the hill the better.
We parked and I looked at the scratch. It was bad. A paint job definitely – this wouldn’t wax out! Never mind. I just hoped it wouldn’t sour the visit. We found a footpath up the hill and began our final climb of the day. Ten minutes of burning calves later we were on the top of the hill looking out over the village and the surrounding countryside. I appreciated all the work I had done in the last year on getting fit! In the late evening sun the view was beautiful. We headed for a clump of trees on the summit and wandered around inside looking for the best place to meditate.
We knew where we wanted to sit, and when I found the best spot – sunlit and between two mature trees – then we settled there in order to absorb the day’s last rays. Kal sat against one and I was against the other, and each of us did our own work in the fading golden light. We had again timed it just right because the place where we sat was only now in sunlight, and when we arose it was in shadow again. We had picked the perfect time to be in the most obvious meditation place. We confirmed our intuition with the dowsing rods, but this was a formality. We already knew this was the bets place to be.
Now began to meditation to discover the purpose of my journey for the next several weeks until Beltane.
From Spring to Beltane
I sat in meditation for what felt like hours. I suspect it was only ten minutes or so, but it felt longer. Nothing was connecting. I called upon the Lady of the Dove to come and offer her assistance to the process, as she had promised she would earlier. Nothing seemed to happen. I asked for my spirit guides to be present and help the process along (usually a sure-fire way of receiving assistance). Nothing seemed to happen. I asked for any spirit of the wood on Parwich Hill to come and speak to me. Nothing seemed to be there. Was it me? Was I in the wrong mood? Was I trying too hard? I relaxed a little more and forgot about the purpose – instead just relaxing in the sun’s light hitting my closed eyes.
An unknown time later I felt I should open my eyes again, and slowly they lifted. As they did so I got an incredibly strong “after-image” – a shape burned in glowing white onto the negative darkness of my vision. It was the shape of my staff. I knew this for sure – there was no mistaking the shape I was seeing and it wasn’t going away – it was burned into my vision whichever way I looked, no matter how often I blinked my eyes. As it slowly faded in intensity I heard a voice from deep within say the following words:
“Learn the powers of your staff.”
After believing that I had made no contact with any of Nature’s emissaries suddenly, in my moment of disappointment, here was my guidance. A quick series of questions with the dowsing rods confirmed things: the Lady of the Dove had had a hand in delivering the message, but it needed me to be here at this moment with the sun at this position for the image to be delivered. Of course, such a message could have been given in so many ways as it had been in the past, but then I considered my over-riding directive for the whole first part of the year – “work with the light“. Here I was working with the last light of the Equinox sun, and the message had been given in a way that I had never received it before. It made me think, that’s for sure!
I disconnected, removed my protection and gave thanks to the spirits who had co-operated to deliver this information to me. Some sticks of incense helped me to clear away my presence and leave an olfactory offering.
I had no idea how far this directive would take me, or where to begin investigating the powers of my staff, but I knew that my staff and I were now going to deepen our relationship over the course of the next few weeks and that was an exciting prospect, no matter how difficult it might be.
Gwas.
