Chris

Thornborough and Arthur – Solstice 1

December 29, 2014December 28, 2014 Chris 1 Comment

Hedge Druidry

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!

The Healing Power of Wells

December 24, 2014December 23, 2014 Chris No Comments

Ancient Sites, Crossing The Hedge, Healing, Hedge Druidry, Spirit of Place, Sylphs, Visions

Before we come to the Winter Solstice posts there are a few things to get out of the way. Firstly, there was my visit to two healing wells in December, and I will be relating that tale here. Then, following this post, we will finish Kal’s Egyptian tales in quick succession. Then we’ve got our Winter Solstice posts, and finally – some time in January – we’ll have our summaries of the year. Phew! Enough to keep you (and us) busy until Imbolc!

On a dull and damp day I dragged my friend Psychic Mike out on a mission related to my healing quest. the current quest from Samain to Solstice is to practise energy healing, and to gather the necessary energies to do this. So it was that I decided to visit two healing wells in the locality – Ffynnon Ddyfnog and Ffynnon Sarah. One new one and one I’ve visited before. I got my inspiration for the new one from Phil Cope‘s book “Holy Wells: Wales – a photographic journey”

Lovely Llanrhaeadr

The first well that we visited was associated with the nearby church and by extension also associated with Saint Ddyfnog. The church stands like a glorious gateway for the well and a stunning centrepiece to the small village of Llanrhaeadr, a village a few miles south-east of the town of Denbigh in Flintshire.

The church was beautiful, surprisingly large for the size of the village, and had a lovely communal feel. As we entered the church we passed a gentleman who was working in the porch. He soon followed us inside offering many insightful and amusing stories about the church’s history. The most stunning feature was the impressive stained glass window…

We enquired casually about the sacred well, and were directed through the graveyard, past a lovely row of almshouses and found a muddy path which ran alongside a clear stream. The path covered in leaves which made the going slippy, but it was worth it. The journey was lined with stunning yew trees and ferns alongside the stream.

Soon we were crossing a little bridge over the stream, in search of something magical. Everything changed from that moment onwards!

The Whetstones and The Hoarstones

December 17, 2014December 17, 2014 Chris 1 Comment

Ancient Sites, Dowsing, Healing, Hedge Druidry, Staff

In this second part of our Winter expedition to Shropshire we re-visit two circles that we have only been to once before – the so-called Whetstones and Hoarstones circles. Having had such a wonderful experience at Mitchell’s Fold there was little or no expectations attached to our visits to these much smaller circles. As this tale of healing shows, you can’t always judge the power of a circle by its size!

The first of the circles was The Whetstones, a semi-destroyed circle in the lee of Corndon Hill, less than a mile away from Mitchell’s Fold.

Sharpness at The Whetstones

We parked on the small road which passes the base of Corndon Hill, and looked for an entry point into the field. We could see that there was a cluster of stones in the second field away, but we couldn’t remember how we had got there previously. Over a rotting wooden stile, slippery with moss, and then into an empty field. We walked along the barbed wire fence until we found bunches and branches of prickly holly, ripe with berries, but slashed from the bushes, and now lying forlorn in the field. We both carefully gathered a small sample – only taking the fallen bounty.

We found a slack part of the barbed wire where others had obviously gained entry to the stones as well, and we hopped over into another field empty except for some distant sheep and a cluster of recumbent stones only feet away on a low rise. The circle was energetically defunct – that much we could tell from its feel and when we dowsed this only confirmed what we already ‘knew’. We’re getting good at identifying subtle energy forces now, and the rods only act as confirmation most of the time.

We checked whether it was suitable and proper to try to re-energise the circle. There was no spirit of place to connect to – one did not exist for this site, and so we only had our intuition and the dowsing response to work with. This informed us that it was okay to try, and we both got the same reply. Independently, and in our own ways, we both laid down offerings at different parts of the circle. I had with me the recently acquired holly, a stone that I had picked up when walking to the circle, and some old bones that I had obtained from Five Wells Barrow in Derbyshire. Now was the time to use these objects to set a new intention – to re-energise this site.

Whetstones - Dec 14 (5) (Medium) — Bones used to energise a sacred site

After setting our intention we did a bit of dowsing to see whether our work had attracted a new spirit of place or not. We both learned that the new spirit would be an animal spirit, and that it will come to the circle some time in the near future, although we couldn’t tell when. Kal dowsed that it would be a rabbit!

With that done, we felt ready to move on to our next objective – another small stone circle in the marshlands about a mile or two further on close to the village of Hemford.

Swapping Spirits at Mitchells Fold

December 12, 2014December 10, 2014 Chris No Comments

Ancient Sites, Faery, Hedge Druidry, Modern Druidry, Spirit Guides, Spirits

This year has seen a slight change in approach to sacred sites. For the last few years I have been steadfastly holding the opinion that I should visit places with a specific purpose or set of questions. This year that has been less of a rule and I have often gone to places without any set agenda, often having a fantastic experience. However, for this visit I had a strange feeling that I wanted to investigate. Something was nagging me about my current spirit guide, Ash. Something was rotten in the state of Denmark, as Shakespeare put it, and I wanted to know more. Therefore when Kal suggested Mitchell’s Fold stone circle I knew what questions to ask my guide:

Am I still on track in terms of my spiritual path?
Are we still on track, as a partnership?
Do I need to concentrate on anything?
Is he staying around, or is there someone else waiting to meet me?

The Unfolding at The Fold

Midday Winter sun at Mitchells Fold stone circle — Midday Winter sun over Corndon Hill, Shropshire

On arrival Kal strode off to the stone circle, whilst I was guided off through the dying brown bracken to join a path that led to the King Stone outlier. From this stone you get a good overview of the stone circle which lies some hundred yards away. I could see Kal wandering around with his dowsing rods, finding a perfect place to cleanse, attune and then work. This, we have learned, is the process to use:

find a cleansing place to prepare your energies
find a place where your energies can attune to the site
find a place where you can work with the energies of the site

My cleansing place was the King Stone, After a few moments I was ready to be taken to the preparation place – the place where my energies would change vibration to match the site. The dowsing rods showed me the direction – it was a small animal track through the bracken which would have been almost invisible in the Summer months, but which was visible now to those who looked.

The rods swung left to point at the edge of the stone circle, rather than taking me into the structure yet. The attunement space was a spot outside circle which I had not been to before. I like new things! The portent was that something new was going to happen. When I felt ready I asked for a place where I could “work”, i.e. where I could ask my questions about my spirit guide. The rods took me to the tallest standing stone in the structure, and there I bumped into Kal as he too vied for the same spot!

Time for some answers!

Five bones and Five Wells

December 4, 2014 Chris No Comments

Ancient Sites, Hedge Druidry, Natural Magick, Staff

Five Wells barrow near Chelmorton, Derbyshire [link].

Every once in a while I have an experience which is completely unexpected and yet immensely powerful. Yes, I am on a sacred path, and much of this is marked out for me, but when you’re not expecting something it can be much more powerful. Such was the nature of my vision at Five Wells Barrow near Chelmorton village in Derbyshire.

Kal and I ventured out because it had been a while since we had just gone out for “fun” with no agenda or notion of what might happen. We wanted a site we could get to relatively easily, but which we hadn’t been to in a while. Five Wells fitted that bill. Yes, it’s close to Arbor Low, but frankly that site is rather harsh at this time of year (or any time of year really). There was a biting cold wind so the idea of being snug inside a barrow seemed more inviting that being blasted in Arbor Low’s open space.

Five Wells barrow - Oct 14 (3) (Medium) — The fantastic Five Wells Barrow above Chelmorton, Derbyshire

Kal and I seemed to have similar ideas. We both began to dowse and were soon standing just feet apart from each other as we moved from a cleansing power centre to one which would allow us to get to the right vibration to energetically connect to the site. It was amusing that we seemed to choose adjacent or even the same power centres.

Soon we were moving off to do our own work. Kal had some questions about his current quests and the journeys they would involve, whereas I had no particular purpose in mind except that I had brought my yew staff and wondered whether I was to work with that in some way. Standing on a suitable power centre I connected in to the site and to its Spirit of Place. Soon I was seeing through glazed eyes.I asked a simple question:

“Why is this site called Five Wells?”

My attention was being moved for me now – my eyes being systematically moved from one point in the distance to another. My head was being turned too, and when the point in the distance was achieved then my vision was momentarily re-focused so that I could see what I was supposed to look at. I have had this kind of “being moved” thing happen before, and so I wasn’t afraid of it. I just let it happen, and as my eyes were focused on one spot I asked “What is there?” Each time the answer was “sacred water”. I counted the number of points I was drawn to. Five!

What was I being told?

Read More “Five bones and Five Wells” »

Fun and a Funnel at The Bridestones

December 1, 2014 Chris No Comments

Ancient Sites, Energy cleansing, Energy work, God or Goddess, Hedge Druidry, Protection, Spirit of Place

I have a strange mix of friends. Some people I would never consider introducing to others – they’re friends with widely differing tastes and interests. Every now and again I think two sets of friends would integrate well and I take a chance on introducing them to each other. So it was that Debra Delglyn had invited me to visit The Bridestones, and I saw the opportunity of introducing her to my friends Mike and Janet.

It took the pairing scarcely two minutes to become fully conversant and soon they were riffing off each other, laughing and sharing stories. Lovely! It worked. And so we ventured out together to the stones with me having not one worry about how they would operate at the site. It would be something special, and so it turned out to be.

A Gentle Introduction to Yew

The first feature of the site that I wanted to show Debra was the yew trees which stand at the entrance like a portal or doorway. Guardians of the experience within, they needed to be approached and respected with care. For those who bother to do this their experiences inside the Bridestones space is always more rewarding. Today was no exception.

Inside the space we settled and ‘browsed’ for the feel of the site. It felt good, but there was something amiss which needed addressing. Debra moved inside the chamber whilst the Mike and Janet set about working at the far end of the chamber on the outside. When they checked back with me I confirmed that this had been a point where there is often some kind of “seepage” of less wholesome energies, and so it was no surprise that they found a spot that they felt needed to be worked on to restore balance.

I was ensuring that I was connecting to the Spirit of Place and getting in tune with the site before I began to do any work. This took time as I moved slowly between points of cleansing, re-energising and then harmonizing. Finally I was ready to work myself.

Direction from the River Dee

November 27, 2014November 25, 2014 Chris 4 Comments

Dowsing, Quests, Spirit of Place, Wheel of the Year

Needs must when you realise that you’ve forgotten something important and you’re not in the ‘right place’. Through a series of unfortunate events I had come to realise that I was not on “the path” – I wasn’t following my correct course of action in accordance with my spiritual direction. I knew this because I had succumbed to a cold that my wife had been sporting for a few weeks. As she got better I caught the offending cold. Now usually I simply breeze past such things with nary a glance, but this one had my full attention. It was all so unnecessary and I didn’t even feel like I had a proper illness – it was merely a ‘reminder’ that I was off course.

Several other happenings substantiated this condition of malaise, of dis-jointedness. They all culminated in my being offered an interview for a job. I have recently gone independent, as you know (see Reconstellation.com). I wasn’t really wanting to be put straight back where I had just escaped from, but this job was a shoe-in – a complete match for what I had been doing, and with the added attraction of working for a small company in the local area. Dammit – when temptation comes it comes in the form you most admire! I needed help to make a decision – back to where I was or continue on my new course?

In addition I had forgotten to ask for what my quest was for the time between Samhain and Winter Solstice! How could that have happened? Well, because I was seriously “off course”, that’s why! I needed to get back on, and quickly! Hence, with the restrictions I had on time and distance I opted for the nearest large water course – the River Dee. For some reason I felt I needed water. Water would help me decide.

The Cold Harsh Reality

River Dee - Nov 14 (1) (Medium) — The River Dee on a cold day

With some to-ing and fro-ing in Kal’s car we made it to the bank of the River Dee. At this point the river has been cultivated to run straight. The area is called Deeside, and soon the river runs out into the estuary to mingle with The Irish Sea. It felt industrial and unwelcoming, yet there was a certain power emitted from the expanse of water which made me sure it could help me. I considered my questions and prepared for my encounter with the spirit of the River Dee.

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