Tag: sherwood forest

Spring 2015-P5 – Oak Staff of Sherwood

Posted on By Chris No Comments on Spring 2015-P5 – Oak Staff of Sherwood
Staff, Trees

For a while I’ve felt that I needed a staff that is more practical than my too-obvious antlered yew staff. The yew staff was right at the time, and is good for ceremonial occasions, but is impractical, too decorative, and was fashioned by someone else. I felt I needed something more subtle that I can carve and work myself. Something that I more “me” and “now”. An oak staff, perhaps?

As we travelled homeward from Dale Hermitage we discussed potential source forests. The New Forest? No trees, mainly gorse bushes and not many oaks. The Forest of Dean? Lovely place, but it had the wrong vibe for me personally. The conversation paused for a moment while we assessed where we were.

We just happened to be around Nottingham heading towards Mansfield. Did we have time to search in Sherwood Forest? Wouldn’t that be a perfect place to get a new oak staff? We set the navigation and within the hour we were parking and preparing for our new outing.

8 - Sherwood Forest (1)

How To Find A Staff

Dowsing is a great method of finding your way on a spiritual path. It can lead you efficiently towards your goal. When dowsing leads you back to the same place but by a different route then you know that you are being taken to a special place. Such was the case as we made our way through Sherwood Forest, visiting the Major Oak first, then moving off the paths following the dowsing rods in meandering trajectory into the woodland.

8 - Sherwood Forest (16)

We passed many fallen branches on our journey. Each time we assessed their suitability, but the rods carried on regardless. They were all clearly “wrong” in some way. Mainly because they weren’t oak, I suspect. After fifteen minutes walk the rods swung together and crossed at a point in the forest where the trees were taller. I stopped to assess the area.

Read More “Spring 2015-P5 – Oak Staff of Sherwood” »

2012 – Summary of the Year by Gwas

Posted on By Gwas No Comments on 2012 – Summary of the Year by Gwas
Ancient Sites

My summary of the year could easily take up several posts, but I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to highlight the many important distinct elements that have taken place this year, and then provide links to the posts that illustrate these elements. On the whole it has been an amazingly packed, dense, active year. … Read More “2012 – Summary of the Year by Gwas” »

The Soul of A Car

Posted on By Gwas 8 Comments on The Soul of A Car
Ancient Sites

Does a car have a soul? How can a piece of metal and plastic have anything as ephemeral and mystical as a ‘soul’? What do I mean by this? Let me address some of these definitions before I start my story.

What I am talking about here is the thought-form that is created by a human when they have spent time with an object. The thoughts, the fears, the highs and the lows – the emotional content and its resultant energy – can become imbued into an object, I believe. I believe we leave energetic traces of ourselves all over the place. We leave energy in the objects we interact with (through touch or through proximity or even through applying our attention to something). This energy imprint is renewed and re-energised every time we release emotion inside the car. In this way we build an energetic imprint.

If we choose to give that energetic imprint “form”, say for example by giving the car a name, or even just by considering that the car has a “soul” then we often talk about a car’s “personality”. This is what I am talking about when I mention a car’s soul – its collection of residual human energy frequencies, and these frequencies can coalesced into a single subtle energy form through an act of will.

Right, so now you know what I am talking about hopefully when I tell you the tale of how my old car said goodbye to me recently. Here’s the story.

Full Spiral With A Car

I have been from one end of the country to the other with my last car. It was a Subaru Legacy estate which was great for all the off-road driving that I did down bumpy dirt tracks in all weathers. When the car began to politely inform me that it was approaching the end of its useful life and wanted to be retired from such arduous work (via warning lights on the dashboard, not by any psychic means) then I knew it was time for us to part.

Subaru Legacy – a reliable 4-wheel drive car

As I drove out to Sherwood Forest the GPS took me down the roads through Buxton and Chesterfield to get to the destination. It seemed the most direct route, and in terms of time it was estimated at 1h 40 from my starting point. On the way back from the forest I again set the SatNav to take me home, as I have only been to this area once before and wasn’t convinced I would be able to navigate my way out. Straight away I noticed that the directions were not the reverse of the way I had come in. The route was different, but still timed at 1h 40 so I assumed it would be the same route back, but perhaps via a slightly different road initially.

As we got further into the journey I realised we were going a totally different way. I was being taken back via Sheffield and down the Snake Pass past Ladybower Reservoir. As we made our winding way down the pass I noticed a solitary white sign on a post pointing up to the hills – “Holmfirth“. My mind jolted. Where did I know that town name from? Then it struck me – that was a town close to the dealership in Honley where I had bought the car, and I had driven through Holmfirth when I first took the car home. This very road was the route I had taken to drive it back! What an amazing coincidence!

I mentioned the coincidence to Kal, and he said, “It’s the car saying goodbye.” M said the same thing later when I relayed the tale. This made me sit and think about the car. Had something at a subliminal level or via some other means brought me back to the starting point with this car? After all – there are only two times that I have driven that route in this car – once when I picked it up, and this last outing to a sacred site in it. Literally the next day I was due to drive the car down to the dealership where I would trade it in for a newer one.

I needed to find out more about this, so I began to think about what the incident might be telling me about energy and ‘inanimate’ materials.

Read More “The Soul of A Car” »

The Heartbeat of Sherwood

Posted on By Gwas No Comments on The Heartbeat of Sherwood
Ancient Sites

Often I need to squeeze an evening out of nowhere in order to get my spiritual path moving a little. I had been stagnating for a while, burdened by “life” getting in the way of what I wanted to do. It happens sometimes. So, I made some time and invited Kal to come with me on a ridiculous quest to Sherwood Forest in the early evening. This evening I would feel the heartbeat of the forest, discover a hidden sacred site, and have a vision that would leave me wondering what I had got involved in! Here’s the first half of that tale.

Unlike my previous visit to the forest I had a particular reason for being here tonight. Last time I had met the Spirit of Place which we all know as the legendary Robin, a title later to be assumed or subsumed into a figure who some believe may have real historical roots – it’s a long debate for another time. On this occasion I was in search of the place known as Thynghowe, an ancient artificial mound that I consider to me my spiritual centre in the land on this side of the Irish Sea. Of course, as I explained in my previous post about finding the centre – it’s not a case of finding the physical exact centre based upon geography. It’s a spiritual place, and I was here to find out what that meant for me.

You may remember that my reason for locating this centre was a vision I had that I called “the dragon at the solstice centre”? Well, I was late for the solstice part of that, but I was in the right place regarding the dragon element. “Thing” places are the mounds of ancient law-giving, renowned as meeting places and moot hills, and central to the lands in which they are situated. They also usually have a tale of dragons fighting associated with them. I understood that to mean a site where male and female energies interacted in an interesting way – sometimes in conflict, sometimes in harmony.

Information board about Sherwood Forest

As we arrived I could already see that it was more resplendent in Summer than it had been in Winter. Obvious, really, but would it feel good too? It was  a wet day everywhere, especially through Derbyshire, and the sky was grey and the air filled with drizzle. We got kitted out for the occasion. It was New Moon, and only days before Ramadan. New Moon generally means a time of difficult energy working for me, given that I am a moon-oriented energy person. So it would turn out to be.

Read More “The Heartbeat of Sherwood” »

Finding my spiritual centre in England

Posted on By Gwas 1 Comment on Finding my spiritual centre in England
Dowsing, Quests

There are many ways that people have devised to find the centre of lands. From the beginnings of recorded history and probably much before then humans have established centres of land masses in order to establish a “pole” – a symbolic tree whose roots are planted in the core of the planet and whose branches … Read More “Finding my spiritual centre in England” »

The Green Man and The Major Oak

Posted on By Gwas 30 Comments on The Green Man and The Major Oak
Ancient Sites, Dowsing, Healing, Hedge Druidry, Natural Magick, Other Entities, Trees

A note about this post

This was a difficult post to write, and not just because it is one of the longest I have ever written. It has also taken the longest time to publish! It is the final post in my Nottinghamshire tales [see also: The Hobgoblin of Creswell Crags and The Beech of Clumber Park] , and was the most unexpected of all of the encounters. I say “unexpected”. Perhaps “unbelievable” is more the word. You will see why soon. Some people I have spoken to about it said that I shouldn’t post this information – that it was “just for me” perhaps. I understand why they said this, and I think it was out of concern for me. I appreciate their concern. Rest assured that within this forum I have nothing to protect any longer – those barriers have been down for a while now!

Nevertheless, when good people offer you warnings it is sensible to pay attention. Therefore I have been pondering how to write this post for more than a week and have decided to relate it just as it happened because my subsequent dowsing corroborated the events of the day. That’s good enough for me. If I am being deceived then everything I do must be a lie. I will leave the decision to your good selves on this one. Undoubtedly there is a psychological explanation that might explain things more fully, but that is for someone else to contribute. Here is the story, in its fullness, and without any euphemistic terminology. It’s long. Prepare yourself!

The Wasted Land

As I made my way from Nottingham towards Sherwood Forest I began to see signs that I was entering the land of lore and legend. The number of references to Robin Hood was startling. Every other pub seemed to be called “The Robin Hood”. Every other sign was pointing to something relating to him. “Robin Hood Concrete”, “The Robin Hood Stables”, “Robin Hood’s Knackers Yard”. I slightly exaggerate, but not by much. The commercial potential of the figure is ‘well utilised” shall we say?

Yet, the landscape did not match my expectations. On either side of the straight roads around Sherwood are just clumps of woodland punctuating gently inclining fields of agricultural land that are devoid of hedges or other living boundaries. It was all a bit….open, and…dull! Where were the vast forests that once covered the whole of this county and beyond it? Were these tiny clumps of scattered trees the only remaining bits? Surely not? The farther I drove the more I realised that they were the only remaining survivors of a once mighty landscape. Now the landscape was denuded, dulled and deadened.

The Robin Hood Inn - the heartland of Sherwood Forest

As I got closer to the legendary forest I felt an increasing sense of unease coupled with a sense of collective guilt. The sadness coming from the land mingled with the sense of loss I felt while driving through these claimed spaces was heart-breaking. I vowed to apologise for the greed and stupidity of my species first thing once I met some spirit of the trees. I knew instinctively that it would not be enough to make any kind of a difference, but it felt like a necessary first step to redemption.

Now I pulled into the car park at the forest. It felt exciting! A boyhood dream was about to be realised…

Read More “The Green Man and The Major Oak” »