I am waiting
For that four leaf clover
I am waiting
For that rabbit foot charm
I am waiting
To come across a lucky fountain
And a golden coin to ‘protect me from harm’
I am waiting
For that bell to keep on tolling
I am waiting
To hear you calling my name
I am waiting
For that door within the mountain
To open on up and let me live again
I am waiting
For your Hell to freeze over
I am waiting
For your Satan to rise
I am waiting
For your hosts of heavenly angels
To rain down justice from the skies
I am waiting
For the Earth to keep on burning
I am waiting
For those oceans to rise
I am waiting
For the World to keep on turning
After Humans have succeeded in their own demise
Working with Grandfather on cleansing and healing the energy lines or vibrations of the earth (the serpent Ngulla-Gulla) led me to wonder about the nature of our relationship. It seemed to be a little one sided in that I found my path to be linked to earth energy healing, I worked in the way of my ancestors and with my spirit allies, and I found it very satisfying. But what of Grandfather?
I asked him after a working whether there was anything I could do to help him and the next time we worked, he led me to a vision spot where I knew I had healing work to do. I began to feel into the land to see what was needed and found myself pulling together fragments of something that had been shattered. I pulled them together and found that they were oval rocks with squiggly lines on them and faces made up of dots and lines. There were five, including one large one in the middle and four at the quarters. When I had finished I noticed that Grandfather was crying. He said that the place had been broken by ancestors of my blood, and that they needed to be healed by those who broke them. Now he could sing them back to power.
The next time Grandfather led me to another spot that looked like an overgrown clearing in a heavily wooded place near water. I felt and began my working as per last time, but this time a skeleton emerged. As I worked flesh began to fill out the bones and then there was an angry faced man looking at me with such hate it scared me. But I could feel that my work was not done. I pulled and two more skeletons began to appear; a woman and a child. I reached out to Grandfather and asked him to help me as I was draining and they were not fully formed. He took my hand and together we helped Borong’s wife and child to emerge. The following week when I visited, Borong (who seems to be a bird man) threw a spear at me. My spirit allies protected me, including Grandfather who knocked it away with a shield of bark and gave me the spear-head.
My most recent working was very harrowing and only partly finished. Grandfather led me to a place that was partially enclosed by rock. It had designs painted on it, including handprints and something I couldn’t quite make out made up of swirling lines. Part of it was obscured so I never saw the design fully. There were two groups of people there; Europeans and Aboriginals. The Europeans were all male but the Aboriginals were a mixed group. I saw terrible things happen that I won’t go into here. I just thank my spirit allies for protecting me from the worst bits. It is a tainted place because of it. I pulled the colours that symbolised the harm – yellow for the urine; red for the blood; white for the semen and black for the death. I pulled it up like the dirt from Ngulla-Gulla and with my spirit twin’s help did a cleansing very similar to the one I do for the serpent. The colours mixed, then were filled with light and then healing energy and the healing energy was returned to the land. But it still felt tainted and I know I will need to go and do more work. It was terrible and draining but necessary.
It is my karmic debt in some ways for living and working here. Although I have no idea how much my actual ancestors were responsible for the terrible things that happened to the Aboriginal people and this land, people of my blood were and continue to be responsible. I feel like I have to do something to help the healing; to waken the sleepers and restore that which was broken where possible. Work I’m only just beginning to understand. I don’t know where it will lead and I began with work with a loving heart but this last working has made me realise how dark the work could become. I only hope that I keep my heart loving and compassionate.
Every week I visit a piece of land and work with its energies to purify and, where possible, heal it. My work is very ancestral for me in that I work with a stone circle, with spirits of place, and with energy lines. Visiting and working with earth energies in the UK in 2010 and my studies since then regarding shamanic practice and witchcraft have helped me to realise that everything I do in this landscape my ancestors either did or were capable of doing back in the UK and other areas of Europe. I work with a modern built stone circle, but the land beneath it is old and carries the memories of those who have walked it over the centuries. I work with ancestral spirits, both mine and those linked to the land itself. It is a blending of workings.
Upon arriving at the circle, I cast by visiting and honouring each of the five stones before honouring centre, Grandfather (the Guardian spirit of the place, who is an Australian Aboriginal Elder) and the other guardians of a more feathered variety (magpies and willy-wag-tails). I asked Grandfather what he would like me to bring as an offering and he said bread and water, so I bring seeded bread and fresh water and place it in the centre. Before offering it, I eat some, offer some to Grandfather, and he transforms it into something else which I eat. Sometimes it is a square of meat from an animal, or it might be a worm or bug, sometimes it is leaves, berries, earth, bark. It changes from week to week. Then I drink some of the water, offer it to Grandfather who drinks and transforms it into something else that I drink. Sometimes I can see that the water is from a wonderful waterfall, or from a clear stream, sometimes it is polluted water or has something in it. That changes to. The remaining water I offer to the centre.
My working involves sinking into the landscape to check on the state of the energy serpent that lies beneath it. Sometimes the serpent is yellow, or orange, or red, and I know that healing work is needed. If the serpent is green I know that all is well. Sometimes the serpent is mostly green except for a specific spot, and I will focus my attention on that spot.
With the help of my spirit allies, I search along the serpent energy line, pull out anything that is ‘dirt’ by which I mean is in need of cleansing or healing, and pool it infront of me. We spin the ball of ‘dirt’ until it compacts and becomes hardened and blast it with bright light. It begins to sparkle and shine like a diamond. We then send healing energy into it until the ball glows green. And then we gentle return it to the serpent. Grandfather will often sing while this work is going on. I don’t know what he sings much of the time, but it is a song of power. Just as I do my part in the healing, Grandfather does his. Our workings blend together.
For several years I spent my time honing my practices and learning new skills; mostly associated with shamanic witchcraft from my teachers, Bob and Gede. I began to understand my strengths and weaknesses, which aspects I preferred to work with and where I fitted in the scheme of things.
Most of my practice is devotional in that I foster relationships and work with various deity spirits. But I also found myself becoming involved with spirits of other varieties. I would delve down into the earthen chambers of passage tombs and climb up into new realms (in my trance work), and when out on the land, found myself continually drawn to communing with stone. Natural stone mostly, which to me often appears as a vision of an opening eye, in skin much like that of a reptile. The spirit of stone that I would speak to may be sleepy, may show me images that it was witness to or sensations it experienced or just blink and ignore me. I would see shapes and colours associated with the stone, which I came to learn was a representation of the stone’s vibration. And I saw serpents in the land.
Bob would give me the task of feeling into the landscape I was in and finding energy lines. Seeking them out, knowing where they were, and describing to him how they looked or felt to me. The lines would often appear as serpents of specific colours; green, being healthy, orange and red, being in need of purification or healing, were the main colours I would see. Sometimes blue, which would be much less dangerous and not need purification or healing.
One time at work, I wasn’t feeling very well and was open when I should have been closed. I felt a probe from below (the land on which my work place is situated is poisoned due to the former occupation the space was used for). I answered, felt my energy draining very quickly, and saw a spherical sinkhole open up around me absorbing my energy. I almost passed out. At the time, I didn’t realise what was happening or why, but it was a very good lesson for me and I learned to shield myself more effectively. I later came to understand that what happened was linked to what I do: my path. The energy was sick, and my energy was used to help to heal it. Of course, it needed more than I was able to give, but the understanding was the beginning for me of finding my path.
Sometime later, at a workshop during trance work, I found myself called by Mother, the spirit of an Aboriginal woman that I met some years previously. The trance experience held me for the duration of the work, and I found myself unable to let go until I was finished. Mother took me through a landscape I didn’t recognise to a cave near water. In the cave were oval shaped rocks. My task was to paint them with wavy lines, eyes, and a mouth, and set them in a circle. Around me in the workshop, energy was being raised. I found myself tapping into and pulling down that energy, using it to charge the painted stones, and to heal or purify the nearby land serpent and send the pulse of healing energy into the land.
It was only after this experience, which left me drained for several days, that I understood Mother was a land spirit and that I was being called to perform some healing work needed by the land itself. Discussing it with Bob I also began to understand that land energy healing work is something witches have always done; that it is in my blood and I have ancestral connections to working with land in this way.
The thing was – Mother is Australian Aborigine land spirit and my ancestry is from England, Scotland and Ireland. To my mind, initially at least, there were issues with the work as a result of this that I needed to resolve. It was more than the possibility that my ancestors were quite probably involved in activities that harmed Aboriginal people and this land. It was also the logistics of how to go about doing the work; how to apply it in a way that would be acceptable.
Upon my initiation from the Shamanic Apprenticeship I had undergone, I found my answer.
Detail from the Uffington White Horse, England 2010. Horse or Dragon?
Shortly after my return home, I ventured to the first ever Reclaiming Witchcamp held in Australia. I knew nothing of Reclaiming and wasn’t sure what to expect. My return had confused me on a number of levels as the way that I had connected to land was different somehow. Harder to connect with and foreign. I hoped to find something that I could use to help with connection and understanding.
In Boscastle, Cornwall, Bob and I walked in the early morning beside the stream, through paths strewn with holly and oak and along the cliff paths. As I walked I felt my roots go deep into the soil; it was sometimes hard to move my feet. It felt like home, despite being my first ever visit and to my knowledge I had no Cornish ancestors.
Back in Australia, even though I was born here (as were my parents and their parents) and lived here, it felt alien to me. I had no roots in the soil when I walked; just an emptiness of being far from home. I couldn’t explain it and found it hard to understand.
The path I chose to explore at camp was called Earth Song and it showed me several things: connecting with land can result in emotional turmoil due to environmental damages caused in recent times that needed to be addressed (or at least considered); that I was not alone in my connections to land and the vibrational energies that I had encountered in England and Ireland; and that different people worked with these energies in very different ways, yet there were also similarities.
Wandering around at camp on my own, I found myself reflecting on what was missing and realised that it was in many ways spiritual connection. But this caused considerable conflict within me as the spiritual connection with the land on which I lived I saw as being linked with the Aboriginal peoples who were here long before my people arrived. And with that guilt at what part my own ancestors may have played in the terrible crimes that were inflicted upon them as the land was cleared by my people for farming and towns. How could I connect with a land and spirits that my people most probably helped to harm? I sat at the side of a track and poured out my conflict to the land and was answered by a spirit of an Aboriginal woman (she appeared as a disembodied head at first). She said that she had heard me and could feel my anguish. And that she would be willing to act as a ‘go-between’ for me in connecting with land. She said to call her Mother, and called me by a new name. Her totem was the blue wren, which I have in the heart of my home now in her honour.
I didn’t realise at the time that Mother was a land spirit, or how important she was to become in my learning how to connect and work with earth energies in Australia. But that is for another post.
Please note that the Featured Image photo is from a later Camp, held in a different area from the first one as I don’t have any photos from the first camp.
My travels in 2010 in the landscape of my ancestors, experiencing the connection between blood and place, and the shifts within myself of how I interacted and worked with such energies led me to further studies. I had began with books; my literary studies had commenced several years before my travels and had in some ways inspired them. But my journey also fed the direction that my studies would take after my return. One of the main reasons for this was a fellow traveler, Gede Parma.
He was the spiritual adviser on a tour of the Pagan sites of West County England and Ireland held by Dragon Eye Tours in 2010, and the author of the book ‘Spirited: Taking paganism beyond the circle’ which I had read shortly before signing up for the tour. My first group pagan ceremonies were held on this tour, many led by Gede, and after my return we kept in touch. A short time later I commenced a two year apprenticeship in Shamanic Practice, led by Gede, which helped me to learn a series of techniques and practices to expand my awareness of the possibilities and how I interconnected and worked with them. My focus was on expanding my understanding of connections and embracing my nature using the cauldron of land, sky and sea. Through this I learned grounding and foundation practices, divination and spirit working practices, and practices related to the underworld and ancestors. Whilst not a tradition in and of itself, the Shamanic Apprenticeship is fed by various traditions and we were encouraged as students to adjust the teachings to our own ways of working.
The Shamanic Apprenticeship provided me with the groundwork I needed to understand my earlier experiences and encouraged me to explore connections with the landscape in which I live, which is not that of my ancestors. I will explore this in more detail in future posts.
For those who are interested, much of the techniques and practices from the Shamanic Apprenticeship are captured in two other books by Gede Parma: ‘By Land, By Sky, By Sea: Three Realms of Shamanic Witchcraft’ and Ecstatic Witchcraft: Magick, Philosophy and Trance in the Shamanic Craft’. All three books are published by Llewellyn Worldwide Publications http://www.llewellyn.com/
When I found ‘Working with Earth Energies: How to tap into the healing powers of the natural world’ by David Furlong, I had been searching for something that kind of related to communing with stone but wasn’t sure what I was looking for. This book helped me to begin to understand the work I was becoming involved in from an energy working perspective. Most of what I’d found after being introduced to communing with stone tended to focus on ley lines and dowsing, and because I wasn’t sure still what I was actually doing finding books that were relevant was quite tricky. Yes, David covers dowsing and ley lines, but he also covers a lot of other things.
One thing from the book that really resonated with me was the small story about St Nectern’s Glen and how it had been transformed from a place where the energy was driving people away into one people were drawn to. This vignette would have greater resonance later on for me, but as I’d recently been to St Nectern’s Glen and had experienced the energy of the place first hand (it’s one of my all time favorite places so far), I found myself really drawn into the story. What I like about David’s work is that he talks about how he experiences a place; what he looks at and does in order to adjust the energy; and the results of the work.
The book is also full of different energy associations that could be worked with from land chakras to the plants and animals that are on it; to Feng Shui; to Luciferic energy and more. David discusses energy exchange that occurs all the time between everything and how this influences health (both physical health of people and of the land itself). The concept of healing the land through energy work really attracted me and felt like it fitted quite strongly with what I had been doing when communing with stone.
My introduction to the vibrations and energies of the land was by being embedded in some very sacred ancestral places and allowing myself to open so that I experienced what the place had to offer me. By doing this I saw images and shapes that in an Irish museum exhibit on paleolithic art were described as energy representations. My experiences had extended to feeling these vibrations by dowsing with two rods as well as through using other senses like the mind’s eye. My eyes were opening to this new (well, for me) and fascinating path of working with earth energies. Where to now?
On my travels I also had some wonderful shopping experiences (especially in Glastonbury) and collected a range of books. My next step was to begin reading them so I could have some background on how other people had experienced earth energies – including the serpent lines / dragon lines / ley lines.
Published in 1989 originally, “The Sun and the Serpent” by Paul Bradhurst and Hamish Miller provided an insight into another’s journey through a landscape etched in stone. I learned that they too had experienced interesting energy shapes when dowsing the Hurlers Stone Circle on Bodmin Moor. In fact a large chunk of the places I had traveled to in the Western part of England had been on or very near to the ley lines that were followed in the book. From a personal experience of specific stones, I was beginning to see just how much experiences of the land vibrations or energies have influenced and continue to influence us and our relationship with the land.
Being close to a sacred place at a time of year that is also considered sacred (the Autumn Equinox) was too wonderful an opportunity to pass up. So we made our way to Loughcrew, in County Meath, Ireland intending to be there to see the sun rise. The passage tomb was aligned in such a way that the rising sun at (and around) the Autumn Equinox would enter the tomb.
Being at Loughcrew in daytime is pretty special but being there in the dark and (as it turned out) fog was something else. The eeriness of pre-dawn fog and anticipation for the sun to rise combined with a place that pulsed from centuries of sacred connection transformed Loughcrew into a gateway from this realm to somewhere else.
We didn’t get to see the sun rise as the fog failed to lift, despite our pleas to the elements. But we were able to do something else pretty special, and that was to spend some time inside the tomb with flashlights. Inside, in the darkness, with the thick smell of earth and constant presence of stone cramping our movements, there was a stillness. A reminder that this was a tomb; a sacred place where ancestors traveled to the realm of the dead and a doorway for those remaining here to visit, remember, and reconnect with them.
Wandering through the landscape of the tombs and temples of my ancestors I was often struck by the geometric designs carved into the stones. Designs like spirals, wavy lines, circles and zig-zags. What did they mean?
Being new to energetic lines, it didn’t occur to me until I saw an Irish museum poster that the geometric shapes were representations of the vibrations and energies I had been seeing in shapes and colours when communing with stone. Then it just seemed so obvious and I felt very stupid for not noticing earlier.
I began to wonder why we stopped drawing them, or if we had changed and were drawing them in a different way (and if so why). Was it that we had moved into a different direction and we were dealing with energetic lines and vibrations in a new way, or had the knowledge become secret? Perhaps what had changed was simply our awareness of them.
Whatever it was, now that I did know I had become hooked and eager to know more.
Green and Grey 
You must be logged in to post a comment.