Thornborough and Arthur – Solstice 1

This is the first in a short series of tales about my journey into the darkest depths of Yorkshire for the Winter Solstice this year. It was only one day’s outing, yet it managed to encompass a number of new sacred sites and to throw up a number of amazing synchronicities between the work that I did and what Kal was experiencing at the same time. I’ll tell my side of the story, and then you can compare these to Kal’s tales. I think you’ll be amazed too!

A Lesson In Patience

The journey was unspectacular except for one incident. I had arranged to meet Kal at 8:30am and despite the fact that he wouldn’t mind if I was one or two minutes late I was rushing to get there on time. Some people were driving very slowly that morning, possibly having nowhere in particular to get to for any specific time. This was rather frustrating me, and so I was getting increasingly flustered. Then, just as I was about to overtake someone ahead of me I looked up at a tall telegraph pole, and atop it was a hawk – just sitting still, and being patient. I saw the message straight away and my foot moved off the accelerator. I would get there when I got there. Phew – and relax….

Then I realised that only two minutes earlier I had been wondering whether I would see a hawk today as a sign, because I so often see them whenever I am journeying on a sacred calendar day. Well, there he was!

Thornborough By The Thorny Route

Finding Thornborough Henge should have been easy. I mean – you can hardly miss a henge in such a flat landscape! Yet it took Kal and I several attempts before we were on the correct small country road, and we had gone off track and gone through a lovely village called Kirklington before we spotted the structure in a field just beyond the village of Thornborough itself, heading towards West Tanfield. There was enough space to park outside a utility building, and soon we were walking through the impressive Thornborough Cursus – a long wide embanked structure which ended in a dog-leg right turn. What on earth was this structure for, we wondered? Soon we would find at least one purpose! I’ll come back to Kirklington later because the church in the village seemed to call to us.

For a short while we were the only ones inside the henge. The diameter of the embankment is quite impressive. It has an Avebury scale feel about it – far larger than Arbor Low, which is what we are more used to. Despite the cold dull day I felt warm and excited – something special was about to happen!

We both dowsed for an energetic path into the henge structure and got the exact same route ending at the same spot exactly as the entrance. Unusually for us it seemed to coincide with the entrance point that most people would use if they had come from the cursus structure like we did. Then we split up to continue our work individually. Kal wandered off into the middle of the structure whilst I was taken off to the left along a path which included stopping at a dead rabbit’s leg! OK – so my work today would involve death energy – I got the message. Winter Solstice – The Death of the Sun. It was a fitting message!

I was taken through a cleansing spot, then to an energising spot, and finally to a place where I could interact with the Spirit of Place. That please was dead centre of the henge, half way along a path which split the henge in twain and marked two gaps in the embankment structure.

Next Quest

Once I was connected and in a light trance I began to ask about whether I had completed my current healing quest. The response was that I had completed it, in theory, but I still had to complete the practical healing of the lady I had been working with for several weeks. No problem – I wanted to do that anyway.

Now it was the exciting bit – could I learn about a new quest that would take me from Solstice to Imbolc? The response was a clear “Yes”. Fantastic! What would my quest be that would progress my spiritual path?

The information I got was this:

“Follow the progress of The Great Bear this year. Be like Arthur – a leader, brave and inspirational.”

I took this to mean that I should once again find and visit sacred sites which have an Arthur association this coming year. I remember some fondly, and I hope I will be able to find some new ones too. As for following the progress of the bear – I will have to ponder the meaning of this.

I was feeling an astrological ‘tug’. Something was telling me to align myself with the sky when inside this structure. I asked the dowsing rods which direction I should face in order to feel the right energies associated with my quest. Here is a screenshot I took with the Star Walk mobile application when I faced in the direction that the dowsing rods pointed to from my position at the centre of the henge. Interesting that it pointed directly to The Great Bear constellation! Coincidence? Of course not!

As I looked at this alignment in amazement – that it was here, now, in this time and space along with this information, I also noticed that I was standing in the middle of a straight line. Now, for me, straight lines in an energetic space only mean one things – energy leys! The line certainly seemed to follow a strict North-South alignment, so when I got home I checked for any interesting things on that alignment. Following the line South here are some of the towns and villages ending in LEY that the lines passed through:-

• North Stanley, Studley, Ripley, Alwoodley, Headingley
• Tingley, Warthley, Loxley, Totley, Darley Dale, Lea Bridge
• Kirk Langley, Church Gresley, Baddesley Ensor
• Ansley, Arley, Follingley, Corley, Allesley
• The Rollright Stones stone circle and standing stones!!
• Lanley, then Uffington White Horse and Dragon Hill!!!
• Lockerley, and finally ending at Hurst Castle on the south coast

I think that’s a pretty convincing ley line right there!

Oddly, as I stood there marking these alignments and taking measurements and photographs Kal came to join me. He had dowsed himself to this place too, also in search of the Spirit of Place although we had not told each other anything about how we found this spot until we compared stories afterwards. Amazing!

Workings of the Cursus revealed

As we exited back through the cursus heading back to the car I felt like I should stand at the end of the cursus structure, right in the middle. I was feeling like I would need to release something here – some kind of energy.

As I stood at the end of the cursus I felt a dark deep energy rising up from within me. It was all of the energy that I had absorbed from my healing work with a very ill lady. As a Death Eater (see previous post) I had absorbed this energy and was carrying it with me! Here, in the cursus, I could release all of that energy, I felt. So that was why I had been taken to the dead animal’s corpse earlier – I was being given a message.

I coughed up the dark energy, retching it from deep within me, and when it spewed out of my mouth I felt it being shot along the straight channel of the cursus. I wondered if the energy would simply “bounce back” at me, but when it reached the dog leg turn, this caused the energy to turn and get trapped in the turn – like a sink’s plumbing mechanism traps dirt and objects whilst letting the water pass through. Wow!

Would the dark energy remain, I wondered? I asked the dowsing rods for an answer and found that the energy would dissipate naturally over time. The structure was so positioned that no-one would go into the dog leg turn as they walked to the henge. What a genius form of manufacture this complex was! They certainly knew how to make energetic structures in the ancient past. How much we have forgotten!