Ley lines – Green and Grey

A Blending of Workings

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.

Finding my path

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?

Working with Earth Energies

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.

Time for expansion

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.

Seeing Energy: an Encounter with Ley Lines

Stones for me had always been alive – but I had yet to feel the connecting energy that linked them. It was while learning to dowse at Avebury Henge that I first began to ‘see’ energy. And became acquainted with ley lines.

The rods in my hands moved as I ran them slowly up the face of a stone, far enough away from it that the rods didn’t connect. And they moved at very specific points, which we were told were vibrational energy points the stone was giving off, and that these points could also be read by other more sophisticated machinery.

Avebury Henge also happens to be on a ley line – energetic lines of energy that criss cross the Earth. In the United Kingdom, the ley lines are referred to as Michael and Mary lines. We walked in a line across one and felt the edges of the energy line; demonstrated quite clearly by the moving rods. I closed my eyes and saw orange lines of energy – some bits closer to being white – like blurred neon signs in a timelapsed photograph. And opened them to see where I’d been looking was part of the ley line.

Later that week, we returned to Avebury and walked to the top of Windmill Hill through some fields. I closed my eyes, and saw the orange-white energy lines – two of them – one curving away from me through the mounds. I was surprised that I could see it and it awoke something within me. I felt connected somehow to these lines of energy – like they were part of my blood, part of my heritage.