Tag: well

Imbolc 2016 P2 The Flame of Brigid

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Imbolc 2016 P2 The Flame of Brigid
Ancient Sites, Elements earth-water-fire-air, Faery, Holy Wells and Sacred Springs, Quests, Saints, Undines, Wheel of the Year

We were at Gawton’s Well. I say “we”, as I was with shamanic friend Julia. I was sitting beneath one of the guardian yew trees which congregate around the well head like static souls. Perched parrot-like I was rocking myself gently into a trance, intoning various snippets of near-silent whispers of wisdom. I was imparting my … Read More “Imbolc 2016 P2 The Flame of Brigid” »

Homage to the Hungarian Witch Hill

Posted on By Gwas No Comments on Homage to the Hungarian Witch Hill
Ancient Sites, Hedge Druidry, Natural Magick, Other Entities, Ritual, Spirits, Wheel of the Year

Our holiday to Hungary was supposed to be a whole week off, and particularly for me a whole week of spiritual interests. In large part it was, but somehow the forces of the wild managed to break through into my full-on Tourist Mode in the middle of the week. It happened to be a full moon – Milk Moon – so I guess that was a contributory factor too. Budapest is a splendid laid-back city and after a couple of days touring around on a bus we knew where the interesting places were.

Budapest - Day 1 - April 2013 2013-04-22 056 (Large)
View over Budapest from Gellert Hill

On a typically sunny April day we were finding our way around the base of Gellert Hill. This hill was renowned for being the haunt of witches, which is always bound to interest someone like me. I like a bit of witchiness in life. We had just come out of the underground quaintness of the restored Gellert Hill Cave – a site still peddling its special aura on the basis of a later Christianisation.

Entrance o Gellert Hill Cave Church
Entrance to Gellert Hill Cave Church

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2013 Imbolc 1 St Anna

Posted on By kal No Comments on 2013 Imbolc 1 St Anna
Energy cleansing

I could feel the energies of Imbolc on Friday 1st of Feb but still believed that the best day to be out was on the 2nd. Gwas and I had agreed to a 7:30am start. Phew! Fortunately, I had been getting up early throughout the week anyway so this was not an inconvenience. We had met … Read More “2013 Imbolc 1 St Anna” »

Ionian Equinox 3 – The Abbey of Iona

Posted on By Gwas 3 Comments on Ionian Equinox 3 – The Abbey of Iona
Ancient Sites, Dowsing, Wheel of the Year

Considering that we’d only landed on the island a matter of an hour prior to this point a lot had gone on already. This was fixing up to be a worthwhile visit already. Whatever next? As though in a form of light relief I switched my attention away from the ancient mound of the giant towards the 12th Century buildings that were the focal point for the rest of the day’s tourists. They almost seemed like light relief at this point.

With the whiff of lit incense still fleetingly scented in the environs I went into the abbey grounds to trace the other end of the ‘corpse road’ that led up to St Ronan’s Chapel. I went in search of any energetic hotspots in the abbey. Dowsing rods at the ready, and now completely uninhibited about doing dowsing in public, I made my way to the ticket booth – paid my way (five pounds sterling or so) – and entered the well-coiffured lawns of the abbey.

Hotspots in the Abbey Grounds

I find it fascinating that most of the major energetic sacred sites that have had churches built upon them (i.e. Christianized pagan sites) have a story that tells how the church had to be rebuilt several times either because it fell down or was de-constructed by spirits. The Abbey of Iona has the same tale. Unaware of this at the time the focus of my investigations was wherever the rods decided was the most energetic point. They dutifully swayed in a sinewing path towards the round stone-walled well that stood before the main entrance to the larger part of the abbey building. A well, I mused? No – the rods were playing a little game as they sometimes do. They swung towards the well’s wall, skirting it closely, and then deviated away from there to point towards a small opening alongside the main building. I peered into the opening – a small archway of stone without a door. Inside the room seemed very small – big enough perhaps to hold my tall frame and not much more.

Outside the entrance was a small stone block about a foot square. On it someone had placed a few stones. In my pocket I had a couple of stones that I had picked up from Ronan’s Church. One was red and the other indigo coloured. Seemed kind of fitting at the time, so I deposited them on the stone here, almost like I was “paying” to enter the shrine, or that they were something that I couldn’t take in. One of the two. No-one else was inside so I ventured inside with my staff. This was St Columba’s Shrine.

Inside St Columba’s Shrine, Iona Abbey

The small room was light enough to make out the scant decorations – Christian crosses with rather Celtic looking ‘holy’ symbols on them. A book of prayer. A wooden kneeling stool. An altar with a candle flanked by simple ornaments. The wooden kneeling stool invited me to prostrate myself in devotion. Pah! Not likely! I asked the rods to define exactly which point inside the shrine was the most energetic. Right in front of the altar they crossed. Above the kneeling stool. I turned around and sat on the stool instead, preferring to face the light and greenery of the outside space than to lose myself to the dead space of the wall and to mimic the many people who had been in that shrine before me. I would do this my way.

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Gawton Alignment Portal

Posted on By Gwas 1 Comment on Gawton Alignment Portal
Ancient Sites, Modern Druidry

In this second part of the story of my visit to Knypersley Pool (or Knypersley Reservoir) I will be telling you about the female equivalent of the Gawton Stone that was discovered in the first part. If we consider the stone to be the male aspect then the following feature could be said to be the female equivalent.

As Mike and I walked back along the path on which we had arrived at the stone my gaze was drawn to the rocky hillside above. There, through the trees, I saw a diamond-shaped hole that was almost the same size as the diamond-shaped stone that we had just been standing next to. I joked that perhaps the stone had been born from the hillside and this hole was the evidence of that. Whatever the real circumstances, the hole was an incredible sight nonetheless. Straight away we both wanted to go through it – it was such a strong impulse.

We approached the base of the climb and then reason began to suggest a number of difficulties that might prevent us going through:-

  1. It was steep
  2. It was obviously slippery in the damp conditions
  3. We were running out of time to find the well
  4. Mike had the wrong kind of shoes for climbing
  5. I would have to climb up there with my staff in hand too
  6. It was steep and slippery
That final point kept repeating. Or did Mike keep repeating that final point? I can’t remember. But I overrode that. We were going. Come on! It would be a risky adventure! A quick dowse with the rods showed us that there was a benefit to going for both of us, and that the description of this being a portal was an accurate one. Mike isn’t the adventurous outdoor type. I had just about encouraged him to come out in the rain, but now that I was suggesting a perilous climb up steep and slippery rocks….I set off, urging Mike to follow. To his credit, he did.

The Alignment Portal

As we climbed we took our minds off the tricky ascent. Was this some kind of portal? Would anything interesting happen if we went through it? What was on the other side? Was there actually a path up here? We both felt that something would happen. We used the word portal repeatedly.

Gawton alignment portal – gate between energies

As we climbed the sense of anticipation grew stronger. I could feel the mounting energy levels as we approached the passageway into some other place. It was like the energy was being concentrated to fit into the hole, and that male energy on one side was battling to balance itself with an opposing force on the other side. The word ‘alignment’ came into my head. This was an alignment portal – a portal between two energy fields – one male and the other female. I hadn’t even properly formed the concept when I found myself at the very centre of the hole after pulling Mike up with my staff as he slipped and slid his way up the last few feet to join me.

We halted at the top to get our breath back and go through together.

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The Gnome of Gawtons Stone

Posted on By Gwas 3 Comments on The Gnome of Gawtons Stone
Ancient Sites, Dowsing, Other Entities, Spirits

In England one has to get used to working in the rain – especially in Summer, it would seem. June 2012 has been one of the wettest months I can remember. However, despite this, I have somehow managed to be out and about quite a lot.  I think it’s down to sheer bloody-mindedness, which could be seen as both a positive or negative trait.

One June evening I was chatting with my friend Mike and he mentioned that a friend of a mutual friend had mentioned that a recent visit to a sacred well had been unexpectedly unpleasant. The report that came back was that the well felt disturbed and oppressive.  We discussed whether there might be something that we could do about it. The name of the place was “Gawton’s Well“. The name rang a bell with me – then I remembered that I had seen it on the Megalithic Portal, but its location looked difficult to identify, and I remember thinking, “I will mention this to Mike ad see if he knows where it is”. A year later, here was Mike mentioning it to me. Maybe I was being a bit too eager, but I asked if we might go and try to find it. Apparently Mike didn’t know the location of the well either, but he knew the area. Good enough. Surely we should be able to locate it? Despite the dark clouds and drizzle I managed to persuade Mike to leave the house and we set off for the reservoirs beyond Biddulph.

Locating with Dowsing Rods

When I heard that the well was situated near to a place called “Knypers-ley” the name drew some raised eyebrows and knowing looks. Could there indeed be a ley line running through the area? If I had had more time and the weather had been nicer I might have added it to the list of things to look for, but this evening I only had time for one objective – to find the location of this mysterious well, mentioned as one of the most spiritual places in Staffordshire, and now possibly energetically damaged.

We had only three points of reference to find the well. We knew that it was “north” of the reservoir, and that it was on a path that wasn’t the main path. From a photo we had seen there was a wall with a gap in it too. That was it. How difficult could it be? Well, we drastically underestimated the size of the reservoir for one thing! After twenty minutes of walking approximately northwards on the path round the reservoir we hadn’t seen a wall, and we hadn’t seen any sign pointing to a well (not that we were expecting one).

We stopped to ask the dowsing rods for some help. Could they direct us to where we could find the well, I asked?

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The Well of Saint Lassair

Posted on By Gwas 1 Comment on The Well of Saint Lassair
Ancient Sites

Kal and I are still just outside the village of Ballyfarnon on the shores of Lough Melagh. It is our first day in Ireland on my ancestor energies quest. We have just looked around Kilronan Abbey and found some interesting and significant graves. Now we’ve crossed the road to St Lassair’s Well.

Saint Lassair is an interesting lady. There is very little historical information online about this woman, except that the well dedicated to her is associated with Brigit. Now, isn’t that significant considering that there is a small megalithic site right next to the well too? Seems like this may have been a site originally dedicated to Brigit and later appropriated in the name of Lassair? One account says that Lassair was Ronan‘s daughter – Ronan being the founder of the ‘modern’ abbey. Maybe. Here’s another consideration of her origins:

It is with Sanas Cormaic that we find the first explicit link made between this goddess and the element of fire, in the word ‘bri’. McCone has convincingly shown that the three arts it claims Brigit supervised— healing, smithcraft, and poetry—were in early Ireland all associated with fire. The authors of the saints’ Lives of Brigit seem to have been aware of the same-named goddess, though they never say so explicitly: all of her Lives give Brigit a druid father figure, so she is made into a member of the druid class, the same class as poets and judges….

…McCone has pointed out that another saint, the virgin Lassair, also has a fire name, from lassar, flame. In his view Brigit, like Lassair, was a goddess who became a saint in Christian times; both succeeded in the new religions because their attributes could be harmonized with those of the Christian God, for the Bible is filled with light and fire imagery.”

(source: p.64 – ‘Women in a Celtic Church‘ by Christina Harrington)

Hot Spots in a Cool Place

Of course, our first task is always to find out whether a place has any energy worth investigating. It almost went without saying, yet still we both dowsed for it in our own separate ways. We both asked the same initial questions and ended up standing next to each other underneath a tall but closely-cropped yew tree growing nearby to the well. We laughed and confirmed that we had both asked for the most energetic and beneficial places for ourselves and we had ended up at the same location.

From our evergreen vantage point we scanned the site. It is a curious mixture of modern Christian tacky monumental-ism, of rehashed re-interpretations of vestal virgin figures and sad-looking never-be brides combined with a plaque commemorating the visitation of the Polish octogenarian Pope John Paul II. Lurking politely to one side like a faithful pet is a small table of stone – an ancient monument of diminutive proportions whose first sight evokes a small smile and even so far as a smirk. What the heck is THAT? And what is it doing here?

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