There now follows a period where I seem to lose my way somewhat, my spiritual friends are drifting away from me and I'm sometimes losing faith in what I'm doing.
I keep seeing and hearing owls. They're trying to guide me but for some reason I don't tune in and follow their guidance.
I sit and meditate by the river Rye to try to find out what's going on, and there I am given more guidance about my path and my fears, and how to release them. I'm also guided again to place crystals in springs, I'm even told which spring I should visit next, but somehow I get side-tracked and don't immediately follow the guidance.
I return to Mulgrave woods and visit the castle there where I have a flash back from a past age.
As I walk back through the woods I hear a tawny owl hooting, and then I get a text message from a friend. It's an old message, about owls! My phone is playing up and keeps sending me this old message. Strange indeed!
I visit Thor's Cave in Derbyshire,
and then the Neolithic burial chambers of Minninglow where I climb into an ancient grave and am visited by a malevolent goblin who seems to work on my body before draining all my energy and leaving me feeling gray and lifeless. Again I get flashbacks of past lives and then a vision of the dragon from Lake Gormire ( see Lake Gormire - Awakening the Dragon ). "Look at what you have unleashed!" says the goblin. Was he warning me or trying to scare me?
Next week I visit Glaisdale head, which has a story about a witch-hare.
I can sense the Fae here but before I leave an offering and meet with them I do some dowsing and discover that they are not friendly. They are dark elves and I was about to make a big mistake by meeting them! So if I can make a mistake here then where else have I made mistakes? "Look at what you have unleashed!" comes into my head again. Now I'm really starting to doubt myself!
I continue to explore this remote dale-head, climbing over ancient rockfalls and through twisted forests that cling to the hillside until I came to a glade where a pair of huge gnarly oak trees grew. I sat and meditated by the trees and was carried up through their branches into the heavens until I arrived at a bright place of pink fluffy clouds where I was shown a baby. "He's yours of you want him" a voice said. I was then told to release my fears which I was carrying from past lives.
I thanked the oak trees and left an offering and then decided that this was a good place to tune in and find out more. I was told again to focus on my mission of placing crystals in springs. I had to put my intention into these crystals so they would cleanse and purify the entire river system. I must also help the elves in Leadhills and also help to connect fairy hills by creating portals between them. These missions were being given to me by Merlin but no specific guidance was given. Which fairy hills? How do I create a portal? The Fae are no longer able to travel to our lands, the 'straight road' that once connected our two worlds no longer exists I am told.
I leave the glade and wander off into some birches. The birch spirits greet me and remind me that if I need them I need only to call upon them. Then suddenly I spot an adder!
He hisses at me as I approach. Rarely has a human trodden in this remote spot! He puffs his body up and lunges at me when I get too close, so I decide to leave him in peace.
I climb up through the crags and eventually make it to the edge of the high moor where I find a crow trapped in a cage. He looks terrified but I open the cage door and stand back while the he flies away to freedom, escaping for now the farmer's revenge. I feel such a sense of joy to watch him fly away over the dale and I continue to watch as he shrinks into a black speck in the distance to begin his new lease of life.
A few days later I decided to head back up to Scotland, but I still felt strange and disconnected. Somehow I was being guided in the wrong direction and focusing on the wrong things. I visited the elf woods and the elves at Leadhills but nothing really seemed to work out as it should. So on the way back I drove to Traquair and took a walk up onto Minch Moor to visit a fairy spring called the Cheese Well.
I cleared up some mess there and left an offering in a scallop shell. The fairies appreciated this and I could sense them flying all around me. I purified my wand in the spring and was told that my wand had an unwelcome guest. A hobman was hitching a ride in there and should be removed! I then planted my wand in the earth and drew in energy to help heal the fairies, before energising a crystal and pacing it in the spring. I waited for the crystal to energise the water before taking a cupful to drink. Strangely the water tasted cheesy!
I then sat down by the well as a fine drizzle started and a rainbow filled the air and very soon I fell into a trance...
Small elfin creatures appeared with skinny limbs, large heads and pointy hats. The whites of their eyes flashed as they danced around joyfully, energised by the healing I had given them. They took me by the hand and got me to join their dance, and then they started to spin threads around me and wrapped me in a silken cocoon. They rolled me down the hill and took me to see the old owl, the tawny owl. Was he the one who had been trying to contact me all this time?
"You have gone too far down the wrong path," he told me, "you must go back, and find the right path!"
He then grabbed me with his claws and took me high into the air, flying over the landscape!
"Too Woo Too Woo!
You know what to do!
Follow me high over hill and dell.
Too Woo Too Woo!
You know what to do!
Follow this road it will treat you well.
High in the sky,
And deep underground.
Howling wind,
And never a sound!
Down trickling stream,
And deep dark well.
Country lane
And sound of bell."
Speaking in riddles I was getting used to by now, so I didn't try to analyse his words too much, I just accepted the gist of his message. I must find out where I went wrong, and then pick up from there again. The elfin creatures were happy now:
"Yippee! Yippee! We've come to take back the world!" they cried.
I felt as if they'd been oppressed for a long time but were finally taking back their freedom.
I opened my eyes from my deep trance and was immediately presented with a reward! A bird I'd always wanted to see but had never had the luck to spot before, a beautiful red crossbill! He lingered on the tree opposite for quite some time while I admired him.
As I got up to leave I noticed more 'trash' in the well which I hadn't noticed before. A small white piece of something. "Odd" I thought, so I picked it up and it was soft and squidgy, like cheese! It made me reconsider why this well might be named The Cheese Well!
I set off back down the hill but before I reached the bottom I remembered I had a little ritual to perform. I went off into the woods and thrust my wand deep into the earth and cast out the unwelcome hobman. He can roam the woods now far from people and hopefully not cause too much trouble!
Later that day I spoke with a psychic called Helen Fatir. I didn't give her any clues about the kind of things I was into but she had many insights into my past lives, fears and purpose, but most interestingly she told me that I was not originally incarnate as a human and came from another world! I was a highly evolved soul who had travelled here with six guides for a specific purpose.
My next journey was to Somerset where I visited Horner Woods near Exmoor.
There I encountered a flock of jays which I followed until I lost them and heard the bark of deer in the woods. Near the head of the dale I found a magical spot where two streams joined.
I knew there was something I had to do there but I couldn't work out what it was, it something relating to one of the springs. I scouted around and eventually found the problem. A spring had been blocked up and diverted by a local landowner so that it no longer flowed into the valley. This despite it being in a national park and national nature reserve. I took a note of the location and told the environmental protection agency about it later. Walking back through the woods I enjoying the nature and encountering wild ponies.
I then returned to my favourite haunt in Somerset, Dundon Beacon (see Dundon Beacon, Tree Spirit ) with its magical spring and woodland clearing that was like a temple. I cleaned up the spring there and spoke with the spirit of the spring. She told me that by placing quartz crystals in the springs I was amplifying whatever vibration they carried (a bit like homoeopathy!) I must find the springs that are carrying the correct vibration in their waters, and then amplify them. So I placed a crystal here, in my favourite spring, amplified its energy, and then took a drink of its waters, taking its amplified vibration into my own body!
The next day I went over to Nyland Hill, a similar mound rising from the Somerset levels. I climbed the hill and strolled through the ramsons which were in full bloom on this tranquil wooded hilltop.
I could sense elves in the woods here so I sat under an old oak tree and meditated. The elves appeared and eyed me warily, wondering what I was doing in their woodland. They were lithe and sinewy, with smooth oily skin which was a dark olive green. Their eyes were large black and slanted. I took out my glowing wand and revealed my true form as Aurvandil, a shining white lord of the Fae! They opened up to me then, and told me that their woodland was now isolated and needed to be connected to other elf woods.
So I called for guidance and was directed to another woodland nearby called Stoke woods. Once there I found a suitable tree and placed green crystals all around it. I then sat in the tree with my wand and consciously opened a portal between this woodland and Nyland Hill. As I did so I saw a great arc of white light ascend into the sky and drop back down onto Nyland Hill, like a glowing white rainbow. It felt like the elves could now use this arc of energy like a highway to travel from wood to wood.
As I bent down to pick up my crystals again I noticed a small antler poking out of the ramsons. I picked it up and found a complete roe deer skull, perfectly white and picked clean. Another gift from the Fae!
I was then told that I had travelled to this world from the Otherworld and was here to do their bidding.
The next day I spoke to a friend of mine and she'd had a vision of me with small antlers on my head, just like on the skull I'd just found! I was carrying a wooden sceptre in this vision with a knobbly end. But what did it mean? She also told me that linking the forest energy had something to do with breathing. Could the elves not breathe outside the forests?
The day after that found me in Blean Wood in Kent. Spring was in full bloom and I was enjoying all the beautiful spring flowers.
What had guided me there I do not know but I was told that I must find a pond so I took out my dowsing rods and within minutes was directed to a small pond in an isolated corner of the forest (dowsing never ceases to amaze me!) The water looked dirty and polluted so I tossed a crystal in there and called upon it to cleanse and purify the water and to heal the spirit of the pond. The water didn't seem to be flowing so I realised it would take time for the crystal to take effect.
I then headed for Canterbury where a fairy festival was taking place.
While there I went on a powerful shamanic journey to past lives. I travelled to a cave that looked like Thor's Cave where I saw brutal cavemen boiling human body parts in a cauldron. This was the 'Cave of Violence' that mt friend had told me about. Suddenly I was in the midst of a Viking battle, lashing out with my sword in all directions, fighting for my life! I was consumed with fear and anger, a red rage that took hold of me as I parried blow after blow. I then saw myself charging into the cave and slaying all the cavemen, my heart filled with revulsion and anger. My guides told me that I needed to release all this fear and anger, and my whole body shook as I did so.
I then felt a sense of incredible calm and tranquillity, and was transported to happier past lives. I walked hand in hand on a Scandinavian hillside with a beautiful happy woman who seemed to be dressed in a traditional folk costume. Then I was a child in a wooden longhouse, safe in my mother's arms and the glow of a warming fire.
Despite all these experiences, or perhaps because of them, I was still feeling rather spaced out. I headed back home to Yorkshire and finally decided to visit the spring I was told about all those weeks ago while sitting by the river Rye!
I travelled to a remote little valley on the North York Moors called Parci Gill. I climbed down into the gill and then followed it upstream where I found a dead rotting sheep lying right in the middle of the flow! I stank to high heaven but I knew I had to remove it as it was polluting all the water, so I grabbed it by the horns and yanked it out, placing it over a tree trunk nearby to dry out.
I then headed further upstream and finally found a little spring bubbling from the ground near a small twisted oak tree.
I tuned in there and got the message through that I am a changeling! A Fae placed in a human body to carry out a task here on Earth. I am not here to help the humans, I am here to help the Fae! I am placing crystals in these springs in order to transform the earth into a place more suitable for them to inhabit.
So I take another crystal, place it in this remote spring, and then activate it. The energy then travels:
"From the rivulet to the gill
From the gill to the stream
From the stream to the river.
Energising the land.
Purifying it."
Now path is set for me. Now I am following my guidance again. Now I am back on track at last!