stone circle – Page 7 – The Hedge Druid

Spring Equinox 2013 – Day of the Crow Part 2

March 29, 2013March 29, 2013 Gwas No Comments

Ancient Sites, Celestial, Dowsing, Hedge Druidry, Wheel of the Year

In this second part of the Spring Equinox tale I begin with a bit of a soap-box moment, but quickly move on to talk about my favourite stone circle, and finally introduce a new sacred site. Let the wordage begin!

I begin this post with a bellyache. I’m going to get riled, spill bile, make a pile of fuss. Possibly about nothing, but let’s get it out of the way first. I’ve been stewing on it for years, and I think it’s about time I got it “out” into the open.

It pains me the way modern farmers slash hedgerows!

To me this is akin to punching small children in the face. “Look,” you could say, “They’re bleeding now, but in a few weeks they’re back to normal.” Hardly the point, is it? Just because something heals doesn’t mean we should make them go through the initial trauma of being battered. Ask any victim of domestic violence. “Ah, but you’re alright now, yeah?”

Moel Ty Uchaf - Spring Equinox 2013 (1) (Medium)

I’m not saying that I’m an advocate of the Backster experiments on plant feelings. Instead, this is a respect issue. I was under the impression that part of the duty of care that farmers were supposed to adopt as custodians of the land could be employed in their treatment of the trimming of plant life. This “hack and slay” policy, done for expediency and efficiency, is not only damaging to the main trunk and branches of the plant, but it’s also a display of contempt for the hedgerow, and damned ugly to look at!

Phew – I’m done. It’s in print. but I’ll still die a little when I see such a close haircut. I urge anyone with influence over these things to try to find a better way. I keep putting my thinking cap on to come up with something. One day.

</ END RANT>

Moel Ty Uchaf Un-Spring-Like

As I climbed slowly up the steep road to the circle at the top of the hill there were several things that caught my eye. Firstly, there were the lambs bouncing around in the lower fields as though Spring had arrived. There was certainly spring in their legs, so perhaps they were just keeping themselves warm. Such a bad year to be born into a cold snap, I thought. A week later there would be reports of many sheep and lambs dying due to the snowfall in placed like Derbyshire and North Wales. Joy and sorrow are close companions.

Imbolc 2013 Part 3 – New Circle and New Guide

February 12, 2013February 12, 2013 Gwas No Comments

Ancient Sites, Wheel of the Year

In the clear blue sky day of Imbolc this year the sight of Skiddaw mountain was a breathtaking, awe-inspiring experience. The mountain formed the scenic backdrop for your next sacred site – a stone circle that we had never visited before. The circle is called Elva Plain stone circle near the village of Embleton just north and west of Bassenthwaite Lake in Cumbria.

You can’t see the circle from the road,nor can you spot it when walking up the muddy track to the farm that manages the fields around the circle. Some advice tells you to try to reach the stone circle via the farmyard. Maybe in Summer that would be feasible. In Winter after much rain I don’t recommend that. Kal and I struggled up the sides of the track trying to avoid the worst of the mud whilst wondering how a couple who had set off just before us had managed to get so far so quickly. It was heavy going! Only for the dedicated, this one.

Once we reached the top of the track – not much of a climb compared to many circles we visit – then you get a fine view of Skiddaw and the surroundings. The circle can be seen in a field behind the farm below. The easiest approach is from the hill behind the circle where you could get a good view of the approach, and decide for yourself whether you wanted to wade through the mud patches.

The Watcher at Nine Ladies

November 28, 2012 Gwas No Comments

Other Entities

Nine Ladies stone circle in Derbyshire has many interesting features, some of which are obvious, many of them are hidden. I have visited the circle on many occasions. It seems like every year I get drawn back to this circle at least twice, and this year has been no exception. This year I was at the circle for Samhain, and enjoyed the mysterious atmosphere of the conjunction of time and space that this moment represented. However, I was not alone.

Of course I went to the circle with Kal, and yes there were other people at the circle that night too. But that’s not what I mean. There was a strong hidden presence at the circle at Samhain, and it is one that I have identified before, but never spoken about. Now is the time for me to discuss it, because now it has been independently identified by three people, and in my mind that’s too much to be coincidence – especially as two of us have called the presence by the exact same name!

The stone circle has a Watcher.

Nine Ladies - Winter Solstice 2011 (6) — Birch trees sheltering Nine Ladies stone circle

When I first ever visited Nine Ladies I did some dowsing that revealed the presence of an entity that was off to one side of the circle, located in a gap between some birch trees. I didn’t mention this to Kal at the time because he wasn’t really interested in things like that way back then. I didn’t do any further dowsing at that point. On another visit years later the dowsing rods directed me towards the same point when I asked about strong energies in the area. For some reason (which I now understand) I wasn’t inclined to follow the rods and locate the exact spot.

Then one day I visited the stone circle with my friend Mike and felt the presence strongly again. I wanted to know more. I tuned into the presence and tried to feel more about it. It was a ‘special day’ in the calendar, so I hoped the extra available energies might help me in this psychic questing. I got two things – a dark figure appeared to me as long as I didn’t directly look at it, and I got the feeling that the figure was simply watching the site. It wasn’t moving, or interacting, just… standing there…. observing. I called it The Watcher.

dark_figure_by_guitargodd97 — ‘Dark Figure’ by GuitarGodd97

I wondered if anyone else would notice it. I challenged psychic Mike to see if he noticed any presence at the site too. He scanned the area and pointed to the exact spot I had identified previously. He said, “There’s a dark tall figure there, and I get the word ‘Watcher’ or ‘Watchman’.” Well, that pretty much blew me away. I was getting confirmation of my own findings by seeing the entity on several separate occasions, and now Mike was confirming the information I was getting. But was he reading my thoughts ir actually seeing something himself? I couldn’t be sure. Mike came out with some additional stuff too – “It doesn’t want to be bothered. It doesn’t want anyone to interact with it.” he qualified. OK – some extra stuff, but again he might be picking something up from me.

Then at Samhain this year I went to the circle with Kal. We hadn’t discussed what we’d be doing there, and indeed we both went off an did our own thing anyway. I can’t remember exactly how the discussion went, but at one point we reconvened and Kal started talking about a presence he’d noticed in the birch tree off to one side of the circle. Oh really, I cautiously encouraged. Do tell me more! “I feel like it’s watching what goes on in the circle, and I think it might be actually called a Watcher.” I’m para-phrasing, but that’s what he revealed. When I asked him for more he spoke of it being a tall dark figure. He said we shouldn’t do anything with it, like try to communicate with it, because it wanted to be left alone unseen.

Well, that was three sets of information all pointing out the same things: The Watcher, a tall dark figure, an observer, wanting to be left alone. All three of us saw this figure in the exact same spot. So, what the heck is it?

Samhain 2012 – The Hawk and The Dove

November 25, 2012December 16, 2012 Gwas No Comments

Ancient Sites, Hedge Druidry, Natural Magick, Quests, Ritual, Trees, Wheel of the Year

Finally I have got around to writing up my Samhain experiences. It’s only the back end of November, and this occurred at the beginning of October! One aspect of this year’s work has been the incredible amount of material we have had to deal with. Only a fraction of it appears on this blog. This year we will end up with 200 draft posts that didn’t get finished. But now – back to the tale at hand.

Yew Know What To Do

We start, as usual, at the Llangernyw Yew tree. 4000 years of dendrochronology pulsing through its dark boughs. On the way to the village of Llangernyw (yew) I was heading towards a rainbow which coincidentally seemed to land on the village as I approached. Coincidence, of course, because this light phenomenon is linked to one’s position relative to the light refraction.

The churchyard was quiet. This gave me the space to follow my intuition. I walked down to the graveyard and sat on the wooden bench where I had once met a shade. There was nothing there now, but I felt I needed to be here first before moving back up to the tree. Perhaps I needed to be grounded before approaching the tree, or energetically harmonised? Soon I was back at the top of the churchyard standing on the edges of the yew tree’s canopy. I asked for entry…waited…and it was granted.

Llangernyw Yew Tree - Samhain 2012 (3) (Small) — Llangernyw Church with its magnificent yew tree

For some reason I had brought some new crystals with me. I felt I should place them along one of the yew’s branches. In the early morning sunlight they glowed with their respective colours and I left them to do whatever it was they were doing. Sometimes such acts have no intention on my part. This is where trust comes into the equation. I felt around for the best place to sit and found that it was not in my usual place. As I settled in I noticed that I was sitting in the place where I got a particularly sparkly view of the sunlight through the branches. That was lucky, eh? I began to drift off…therefore before I went completely I asked the yew tree to help me discover my quest for the next part of the year… and then my mind went blank as the sunlight danced in my eyes and the spark of wonder that drives my spiritual path began to surface.

A Song for Merlin – Part 2

September 13, 2012September 14, 2012 Gwas No Comments

Ancient Sites, Dowsing, Hedge Druidry, Natural Magick

Here is the second part of the Merlin Song story – and it gets to the interesting part of the experience – the appearance of Merlin. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about these Arthurian archetypes recently and the excellent words of Ross Nichols – former OBOD chief – have been very revealing to me about the possible ancient and current uses of such figures from a historical, magical and psychological perspective. I recommend reading his work “The Book of Druidry“. It’s fascinating, and I’ll come back to that at a later date when I talk about the Arthurian archetypes in another post.

In the meantime, we left our protagonists struggling to avoid certain wet feet as they mooched across the marshy moorland in search of a new stone circle, reputed to be of extensive size and infrequently visited. Only one of those qualities turned out to be true!

The Cockpit – fight of flight?

At the Cockpit stone circle the Merlin Quest details were explained to me. I would need to protect myself when working in the Sanctuary. I didn’t understand why yet. Then I would have to draw down the energy from the star Arcturus. I knew this star was part of the Bootes constellation, and that the name was linked with Merlin, being known as the protector of The Great Bear (King Arthur). That was the additional information I got, but I already knew that I needed to recite the Welsh phrases that I had extracted from the various power places around the country.

“The name of the star derives from Ancient Greek Αρκτοῦρος (Arktouros) and means “Guardian of the Bear”, ultimately from ἄρκτος (arktos), “bear” + οὖρος (ouros), “watcher, guardian”. It has been known by this name since at least the time of Hesiod. This is a reference to it being the brightest star in the constellation Boötes (of which it forms the left foot), which is next to the Greater and Lesser Bears, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.” (source: Wikipedia)

With thoughts of Arthur and the Polar constellations spinning through my head I turned my attention to Merlin. Why was I being drawn to a Cumbrian stone circle? What was the purpose?

Cockpit circle – no spirit of place here

I needed a little reassurance. I knew that this was the second time around the spiral for my work with Merlin, but I didn’t understand why I had to do a similar quest as last time (August 2010). I used the energy of the circle to call upon my spirit guide and ask about the purpose of the meeting with Merlin. What was the outcome all about? I was a bit of a cheeky question, bit I felt I needed to ask. The answer was interesting: I was not going around the spiral a second time, I was going up the spiral. It was different this time. Last time I was waking Merlin by visiting him in the underworld. This time he was trapped in the Otherworld, and I was freeing him.

A Song for Merlin – Part 1

September 10, 2012 Gwas 2 Comments

Ancient Sites, Dowsing, Spirits

A song for Merlin is nothing like A Song For Europe (you may be pleased to hear). I was tasked with discovering the various lines of the song or poem, and then learning to recite it at a northern stone circle whose location i had been given in a vision. One snag – the poem was in Old Welsh – I don’t speak Welsh (although I’m trying to learn occasional modern phrases). Also, I had to gather the lines using remote viewing, and then correctly interpret them so that they had meaning and I could recite them with the correct intent. Oh – no problem then! This post gives some background on that part of the task. In this post I will be describing how I came to deliver the poem at the right place at the right time in order to unlock the Merlin energy from its trap and release it for my own uses.

Let me explain briefly what I felt I was dealing with here. I consider, at this stage in my development, that Merlin is a psychological archetype. I feel that I am able to use the mythology, the legend, and thus the thought-form that Merlin has become in order to access parts of my subconscious capabilities (knowledge, observation, power). To me, Merlin therefore represents a characters who is the embodiment of particular possibilities for spiritual growth. All I know about that potential is that it can be realised by following “quests” (or a set of tasks) that require me to go to some effort to improve myself, or to mine for arcane knowledge, and sometimes to learn a new skill or magickal process that I can use to unlock this potential. Beyond that is madness.

The origins of that vision were a month ago, but now I have had the chance to conclude the quest. Here’s the story.

Imagine a sunny day in Cumbria. I couldn’t. I certainly couldn’t remember one, so when the day started grey and drizzling I wasn’t hopeful. An hour’s drive north later Kal and I were driving into a clear blue sky and the day looked promising. I had various sites printed out and highlighted on OS maps, but there was no strict agenda. All of the sites were, amazingly, in close proximity to each other. We would only need to travel for an hour to see all of the sites that I had previously picked. This seemed like a good idea considering Kal’s situation (he’ll tell you about this).

The Goggleby Stone

We approached Shap and initially tried to find a stone circle marked on the OS Map. Not there. We couldn’t find it. It was supposed to be right next to the A6 road just off Junction 39 of the M5 motorway. Couldn’t find it. It’s amazing how many stone circles disappeared in this area when the motorway came through. Almost as if…. no I won’t say it. We headed for a standing stone instead. We found the Goggleby Stone easily. It is situated next to a marked path which makes it easy to get to, and it was quite obvious sat on its little hill amongst the turnips. We approached through the turnips with the daintiest of footsteps so as not to disturb any of the crop. Considering we’re bungling idiots we did very well not to trample anything.

The stone was lovely. It had a nice feel. You could see that the farmer had kindly fertilised the stone to make it grow better, as there were remnants of sticky straw welded to the sides. Cattle seemed to have rubbed the underside of the protrusion as it was worn smooth. The setting was glorious on this sunny day – stone-walled fields of patchwork greens all round and a bank of trees to shield the motorway from view. Delightful. I set to work.

A Chance to Praise

September 5, 2012September 5, 2012 Gwas 1 Comment

Other reports

The evening was warm and dry, the chance to go out was tugging at me like a young puppy. I decided to go out after work to “somewhere in the North of Manchester” – that was as far as my plan went. Using the Megalithic Portal on my phone I found a list of sites … Read More “A Chance to Praise” »

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