Kenmare – County Kerry, Ireland – 21st June 2014
We roll into town with clear instructions – the stone circle is just on the edge of the town, down Market Street. That’s true but for some reason we decide that the street designated as “market” must be the one with all the shops on it. Well, that was foolish! A long walk out and back means that we start the day off grumbling about how to put a sign up to name your streets in small Irish towns. We haven’t wasted much time, and soon we find the pristine, manicured stone circle at the end of a well-kept hedge-lined path. It feels like we’re walking on to a bowling green!
Bowlers on the Green
The circle is composed of beautiful stones – not too tall, but equally spaced, regularly sited, and overall the circle is impressive. The stone monument is enclosed on all sides by shrubbery, and on one side by tall trees. Other singular trees make themselves known too – a blackthorn and a hawthorn stand in solitary silence on the left-hand side, as though waiting to be noticed by the interested observer. I notice them. I’m interested.
There are a few others who have ventured out to the circle this special Summer Solstice morning – a young lady sitting at the far side, and an older lady who is wandering around watching what everyone else is up to. Tourist? Interested party? We find out later that she’s interested in all things “heritage” and is from the United States. Well, the odds were in favour of that, really!
Having dowsed to see if there is anything to do here – luckily getting a positive response – I ask to be taken to the starting point. I am taken on a huge inwardly-winding deosil spiral that takes me from weaving betweent eh outer stones to a point on top of the plat stone in the centre. I guess I have to sit here? I sit facing the solstice sun and just allow me aura to be cleansed of the modern world’s detritus. As this is Ireland and we’re in a small town it only takes a few seconds to be cleared and ready for the next stage of the adventure.
An entrancing entrance
The dowsing rods take me out round the back of the hawthorn tree and round the blackthorn tree until I am standing between the two having circled them both. Blackthorn is a tree of hope and practicality. I decide to honour this obvious entrance formed by the trees. The blackthorn, undecorated and unnoticed, forms half of the entrance portal for accessing the spirit of place at this stone circle, and so I honoured it and recognised it as such – touching its leaves, talking to it, imparting loving energy. Crazy druid!
I ask if I can contact the spirit of this place and get a positive response. I ask to be allowed to enter the site with the permisssion of the spirit, and feel that permission is granted once I use my druid name. Using the dowsing rods I ask if there is anything I can do to help this place – does it need anything from me? No, but there is something it can do form me. I am shown a path which I follow using the dowsing rods, and which leads me back into the centre stone again.
Any body for energy?
As I sit on the stone I connect to the spirit of place and feel a kindly, warm energy (no, it wasn’t the rising sun!). This kindly energy invites me to sit still while it explains something to me, and it asks me whether I feel “whole“. Whole? Well, yes, of course I do! Why would I be asked this? “Is your energy body whole?”. Now, that’s a more difficult question…. I have no idea! I am encouraged to think that it isn’t, and that I should call upon my energy double to unite with me, much as Kal has done on many occasions before. It’s not something I have ever felt the need to do, but as I am being invited to try it, I decide to have a go. Within a split second I feel a jolt of energy hit me! I can only describe it as being like putting on an electrified overcoat in one second! Then it subsides as it merges with my energy field.
What is the purpose of doing this, I ask the kindly spirit of Kenmare? “This will allow you to re-kindle a dead stone circle with a vortex of fire energy” I am told. I see. I already have a simiilar ability via th work I did with my staff once. This, however, feels like it might be of a higher level than that – it feels more powerful. Intriguing! I thank the spirit of place, and then disconnect.
There is more work to be done. I am taken via a wavy path to a stone that is not part of the ring of stones which form the circle. Instead, this stone seems embedded to one side of the circle, and close to the blackthorn tree.
As I sit on this spot and connect I get a vision. I see a mirror at the bottom of a stream. I can see my face peering into the stream and reflected in the mirror as it sits on the bed of the stream. Then I reach into the stream and lift the mirror up to the surface. Now there is a double mirror! There is the reflection of my face on the stream’s surface, and there is the image in the mirror. The two are one! Is this symbolic of my energy body merging with my physical body, I wonder? Some form of integration of two separate selves?
As I think this more information appears in my mind. The double mirror is a tool. It gives me access to the other side of myself. The Shadow self, as it were.
I take time to reflect (ha!) on this as I thanks the spirits of this circle for their information and assistance with my work. I know that the blackthorn tree is associated with the shadow self, as described in the accompanying text for the Tree Angel Oracle tarot that I used at the start of the year, and which has defined the stages of my progression throughout this year. Interesting, then, that Blackthorn is the very card that culminates in the Summer Solstice for me this year, and the Hawthorn is the tree that I have to work with from Summer to Lammas. Interesting indeed!
