sacred places – Green and Grey

Labyrinth Chant/Song

As I walk and ponder here
I can feel my answer near

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.

Sacred place sacred time

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.

Geometric Revelations

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.

Ode to Bob

Polished horn shining in sunlight
Glinting from beneath curls.
Evening draws near
And the sun sinks auburn on the horizon.
Smiling, a hand is raised,
Tracing swirls on skin,
Touch soft; anticipated; as yet unknown;
Tingling. The heart lifts,
Shining out brighter than the new dawn,
Brighter than noon.
Love trickles over all,
Covering everything;
Flooding every crack and crag.
You who have many names yet no name;
Ever resplendent;
You dazzle; enticing, enigmatic, mysterious.
You call, knowing I will always answer
Yet there is a fear that this once I will not.
I feel you cradle me in your arms;
Nurturing, protective; you embrace all.
I dance in your light;
A tree in your great forest
Content to sway my branches
In your gentle breath of life.

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.

Sacred Places of Stone

Stone and sacred spaces just seem to go together for me. Whether it be stone circles, tombs or natural stone formations, there is something about being surrounded by stone that just raises my consciousness. When I am touching stone, I feel grounded and at peace and my worries flow away. I feel at home and connected to this place we call Earth.

Being at St Nectan’s Glen was an amazing experience because the evidence that this wonderful place was special to so many other people surrounded you. And at the same time in front of you and all around you was this wondrous cathedral of natural stone. In the middle of this place was a beautiful waterfall that flowed through a naturally formed circle.

The stone walls were of slate, forming natural shelves that were covered in small candles and other offerings; on the larger shelves, especially in the middle of the stream; were stones in tall pillars, one on top of the other. The trees were covered in colourful ribbons and other offerings, with one having coins pressed into its bark.

I found myself raising up, echoing off the stones that surrounded me as I stood on stepping stones to see the full glory of the waterfall; buoyed up by the love and peace that the others had placed in trust within the stone.