Land of the Fae: August 2010

Sunday, 29 August 2010

Cup & Ring Marked Stone

While up in Dumfries and Galloway I visited one of the local cup & ring marked stones.

As I sat by the stone I had a vision of Neolithic people grinding these grooves by hand using a rounded rock, and as they did so they were putting energy into the land at a point in the distance. Once they had carved the central cup then they amplified its power by carving the ring marks around it. New cup marks had to be created each time they performed this ceremony, which explained why there were so many of them covering so many rocks.

I later discovered that many dowsers hold the same belief, that cup-marked rocks somehow transfer energy from points of power to where it is needed. Dowsers have been able to follow these energy lines and find features on the landscape that correspond to the cup marks.

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Saturday, 28 August 2010

St. Ninnian's Cave

I heard about St. Ninnian's cave from Damh the Bard at the Artemis Gathering. "It is said you can hear the voice of God in there," he told us, "and it's true!" Intrigued I decided to pay a visit, so on my next trip to Scotland I took a detour to Dumfries and Galloway.

Unfortunately I arrived there at the worst possible time. Once a year the local bishop holds a service in the cave and as I arrived they were just setting up the marquee and stage! I wandered inside the shallow sea cave anyway and had a look at some of the old rock carvings and christian offerings that had been left there, and after a while the people setting up the stage wandered off, so I had the place to myself at last.

As I lay down in the back of the cave the hooded form of a monk entered. It was St. Ninnian! He had come here to explain to me the true meaning of 'Christ consciousness'. He said that attaining Christ consciousness is the realisation that we are all spiritual beings and that matter as we perceive it is not real. The Christian cross is the symbol of this, it represents the death of the physical body and awaking to the realisation of Christ consciousness. The crucifixion of Christ was simply an allegory showing that Christ rejected his physical body and embraced totally the spiritual. The early Celtic church were aware of this, and did not take the bible literally as people did later on.

It was quite a revelation and made me look at Christianity in a whole new light. People have a terrible habit of taking allegorical tales literally and this has caused so much strife and confusion over the centuries. Once we understand that everything is spiritual, and that the material world of our five senses is just an illusion, then we will realise that no religious texts should be taken literally, we should always be looking for the deeper, spiritual meanings behind them.

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Thursday, 19 August 2010

Combe Hollow, Badgers and Wasps

I went for a walk one evening down Combe Hollow, in the woods near Compton Dundon, Somerset. There I found some badger sets covered in old vines, with many trackways used by the badgers radiating out in all directions.

I walked around the woods until dusk and then was drawn to an old tree stump down a steep slope in the bottom of the hollow. I scrambled down to inspect it and then sat on top of it meditating. What had drawn me here I wondered? I walked around the tree stump several times until I noticed a hole at the base of it, I peered inside the hole and deep inside, at about arm's length was wedged a plastic bottle! How did that get in there? I reached inside and tried to pull the bottle out but it was firmly wedged in, I wriggled it around and pulled harder and finally it came out. It was clear that it had been there for a long time.

So what was the point of that? I sat there looking at the tree stump and wondered... and as I sat looking small wood wasps started to fly from the hole which I had just made. First one or two, and then dozens of them! I panicked at first until I realised that they meant me no harm! It's strange but there were definately no wasps here when I had first inspected the tree stump. Had I released them? I certainly sensed that they felt happy to be freed. It reminded me of the fairies I had released while up in Scotland. What strange compulsion had led to me this remote tree stump to free these wasps, and what significance did it have?

As I walked back in the near darkness, pondering these thoughts, I heard some snuffling in the undergrowth. I stood stock still and after a while a badger appeared on the bank right opposite me. We stood staring at each other for while and exchanged greetings. He didn't have much else to say so we moved on...

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Sunday, 8 August 2010

Glourourem Wood, Faery Wizards

During this visit to Scotland Fee took me to visit her local faery woods. We drove to Biggar Common, parked near Glourourem Wood and then walked over to where two trees formed a magic gateway. We left an offering there of chocolate, (but apparently they would have prefered cheese!) and were then given permission to step through...

Some kind of gatekeeper escorted us through the liminal zone. It was important that we remembered which way we came through this part as didn't want to get lost in faeryland! Fee said that we were being taken to a part of the wood that she hadn't been to before. We came to another gateway and after waiting to get permission we stepped through.
I was letting Fee lead the way and wasn't really tuned in at this point, so most of what I'm relating is what Fee was describing to me.

We were met inside by three faery wizards. These are the tall, human-sized fairies known as the Sidhe or Seelie Court Faeries.They asked us for our help and said they wanted us to work for them. After we agreed we both had a wand implanted in our hearts. They told us that we would now become more sensitive to the pollution in the environment, and chemicals in our food etc. (As presumably they were too?) They told us that the time was coming when their power would return, and that we were to aid them in this.

We then carefully made our way back out of the woods, ensuring that we took exactly the same route that we had entered by.

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Saturday, 7 August 2010

Lindsaylands Hill, Fairy Releasement

Taking my friend's dog out for walk in the hills of the Scottish borders I found the ruins of some old stone-built houses beneath a hill that was capped with a few sparse trees and rocky outcrops. I climbed up to the summit and beneath the roots of one of the trees I found a large rabbit hole. The hole looked quite magical and inviting so I decided to journey into it using the shamanic techniques I had learnt. The result was nothing like I expected though...

I had trouble entering the hole as it seemed to be blocking me somehow. So I mentally removed the blockage and instantly out of the hole shot hundreds fairies, glowing with a bright white light! They shot up into the sky in a seemingly endless stream, as if being blown aloft on huge column of rushing air. Finally the gushing stream of glowing fairies came to an end and they all drifted high up in the sky like seeds blown from a dandelion clock, spreading as far as the eye could see in all directions. Slowly they drifted back down to Earth settling like snow, or cherry blossoms, or all over the land, reinvigorating it and bringing it back to life.

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Tuesday, 3 August 2010

Findhorn and the ancient Caledonian pine forests

Driving up to Findhorn to attend a course to learn more about the elementals I took a detour through the ancient Abernethy pine forest.

These ancient woodlands are remarkable, the trees are huge and gnarly, and have plenty of open space between them to wander around in. They are nothing like the impenetrable mono-culture plantations that we are all depressingly familiar with. But unfortunately these forests are dying; overgrazing from sheep and deer mean that almost no new trees are growing. Eventually the existing pines will die of old age and there will be no more ancient pine forest remaining. Only drastic culling of the wild deer or the reintroduction of natural predators such as wolves can sort out this problem.

I drove all the way through the forest in my 4x4 and came out the other side high up on the wild Ryvoan Pass overlooking Glen More.

Ancient pine trees still clung to the hillsides up in this wild, remote place. I chose one particularily huge specimen, sitting there like a sentinel overlooking the pass, and tuned in to its energy.

The pine trees were retreating but they were not dead yet. Some healing and some energy will facilitate regrowth and resurgence, and the recolonisation of the land by wild nature.
Arriving in Findhorn for my courses I learned more about connecting with nature spirits and elementals. On saturday we tuned in to the nature spirits in the gardens there and got messages from Pan, and then on sunday we went to the beach to meet the mermaids, spirits of the ocean. Amazingly some seals were already there waiting for us, heads bobbing out of the water as they inspected us. To me this was greeting enough from the ocean spirits! I waded out into the deep icy-cold water to greet them back.

On the way back from Findhorn I decided to visit another ancient pint forest, this time in Glen Affric.

I camped alone high up in the valley and was awoken in the dead of night by a strange whorling sound like nothing I had ever heard, and it was coming from right outside my tent!

"WhooWhooWHOOwoowoowoowoowoowoo!"
"WhooWhooWHOOwoowoowoowoowoowoo!"

A eerie noise like that made by a bullroarer or sound hose.

I poked my head out of the tent but could see nothing. The sound seemed to be coming from near and far at the same time. I climbed out and followed the sound into the trees where I was sure it was coming from, but I didn't seem to be getting any closer. I ended up following the sound in all directions for a couple of hundred yards but found nothing. Sometimes it sounded like something was flying right around my head! Freaky!

The next day I explored more of the valley and then went to Plodda falls. They have built a platform there so you can stand right over the gushing water!

I climbed to the bottom of the falls and stared up into the cascading stream of water.

I felt myself enter the top of the waterfall and dancing with all the tiny water sprites that drew their energy from rushing and cascading water. Behind the waterfall there seemed to be a passage leading into the realm of Faerie. I started to enter but at this stage didn't feel confident enough to go far. What if I couldn't find my way back?

I would leave that experience for another day...

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