bronze age

Flowerdown Barrow

/ Ann Murphy / Leave a comment

A few weeks ago, I had a sudden impulse to take a different route to my father’s house, (every time I write My Father’s house, I think ironically of the biblical heaven, which it clearly isn’t) and went through Littleton, in Hampshire, passing Flowerdown Barrow as I did. Passing the site, I felt a connection to the barrow, which then anchored itself in my lower hara centre, behind my navel. This is my energetic connection to Mother Earth the human energy field. The connection looks, to my inner sight, like a gold cord, vibrant and alive.

I wondered what I was supposed to do with it. Two weeks later…

5th September.

This morning was one of those mornings when I had no desire to do anything. Usually, my mornings are filled with a routine: reading for an hour, somatic exercises, then breakfast, followed by a shower, and then writing for a bit, or getting some shopping for Dad. On mornings when my time feels empty of purpose, I have learned that that is when I need to go out and walk – there is energy-work to do – somewhere.

I drove in the direction of Barton Stacey, still unsure of my destination, until the idea to visit Flowerdown popped loudly into my head! I had wanted to visit the stone beside the barrow there since I had a dream about menhirs a month ago. The dream showed how outlying menhirs were anchors of fertility, like electricity pylons, creating an anchor for the energies of the larger sites that control fertility, such as stone circles and disc barrows. They are erected on a line of energy from the main site and then that energy is transmitted into the surrounding landscape, adding energy to the land.

This is very much the same as having acupuncture to keep your body’s meridians flowing. The energy flows, unhindered, through your chakras. These chakras, or ‘wheels’, distribute the energy throughout your body, filling it with vitality. When the tissues are infused with higher vibrational energy, the body is healthy and can do what it was designed to do.

Stone circles ‘contain’ the energy of the land, which is brought into it from the solar energies at specific times of the year. It is channelled into the energy point below it, or into underground waterways, which then feeds the surrounding countryside, like a chakra point. But a circle only has a certain radius. The way to get around this is to place outliers, menhirs, which can hold an energy line from the circle and radiate it into its locality. One circle, either stone or henge, can have many outliers at a certain distance from it, and I imagine, the tall individual standing stones would have stood within a certain area and also be used as territorial marker stones, or signposts. They might have had multiple uses, but their primary purpose would have been as an energy transmitter.

Thinking about that, it makes me wonder if the menhirs also signposted the proximity of a sacred site? The people back then would have known and understood the function of the Menhirs, and would have also known how to use them to find their way to sites or settlements.

The stones, stone circles, and barrows do the same for the landscape as acupuncture needles do for the body. If the energy is flowing well, the fertility of the soil means better crops and healthier livestock. The sarsen in Littleton, which had been found in 1906 in Dean Down Drove, would have been connected to the Flowerdown Barrow, the largest barrow in Hampshire and, according to ‘Upstairs’, one of the most important sacred sites in the prehistoric area of modern-day Hampshire.

The stone itself is beautiful. It is a golden sandy colour and might have stood at least a meter higher if the top had not been broken off. I also found some interesting markings on it which maybe someone can explain to me. There are many scratches on one surface, which makes me think they could have happened during the move to Chilcomb Museum. But there is a definite lozenge carved into the surface. Again, it could be accidental, but equally, it might have been intentional. You can see these lines in one of the photos below. The lozenge seems to be part of a bigger pattern but the stone is quite damaged here too.

The stone is obviously not in its original position, it was moved originally from Dean Down Drove, which leads off from the barrrows, but I can find no evidence of the stone on old OS maps so it might have been buried under years of mud and vegetation. But there is also a hole which has been bored low down on one side, which I initially thought was a core sampling hole, however, it is too shallow and too wide. Could it have been used as a gate post, perhaps at some more recent date? That is what it reminded me of, yet there is no record of a stone anywhere near either of the Dean farms, where, I imagine, the drove-way lead to – or from… The hole might also have been caused by rain but I would have thought there would have been more, in that case…

On this particular visit, my job was to connect the stone to the disc barrow, as I imagined it was originally connected before it was moved or had fallen over. But first, I had to walk anti-clockwise around the first barrow, something I had not done on all my previous visits. Halfway around the barrow, I became aware of a woman in handwoven, woollen clothes standing on top of it. She watched me, as I went around, and I got the impression that she was waiting to see if I knew what I was doing. She continued to watch, while I finished the round.

I was then told to create a lemniscate, the infinity symbol, by walking anti-clockwise around the disc barrow, joining the two barrows. I’m always curious why things happen at certain times. I have been coming to this barrow site for nearly twenty years and only now are these two barrows being connected. As I came close, to where I started walking around the larger barrow, I felt energy rising which to me feels like excited anticipation. Sometimes it makes me want to exhale forcibly, but not this time. I have to say, feeling energy that way is one of the things that makes this work so enjoyable. It is as though I am doing what I am supposed to do, working with the landscape the way our ancestors did. In that moment of rising energy, I am the ancestors.

As I completed the round of the disc barrow, I stopped to take some photos and then heard ‘Complete the circuit’. I realised that I had not gone back to the beginning. There was still about two meters to go. I completed the circuit, as instructed, then walked into the centre of the barrow. I was immediately aware of the emerald energy but it was coming in with a blue ray, like sapphire. I have worked with Sapphire before but I’m still not sure where it fits. I asked what this ray was and was shown a blue dragon descending through it. Aha! The blue dragon is water, rain. My immediate thought was, ‘Haven’t we had enough of that?!’ (As it turned out, the land in parts of Littleton floods when the winter bourne rises).

The emerald energy above the sapphite tube represents the energy of vegetation so in that context, it made sense that the blue dragon would descend down a column of sapphire. You can’t have vegatation without water.

Once this energy had been fully anchored, I moved off the barrow. As I approached the other, smaller burial mound, I heard: ‘A message for you.’ The woman in her reddish-brown, shin-length dress was there again. She wore a blueish tartan-like top, all handwoven, and was old, her hair yellow-white. She would have been fair-haired when she was younger.

As she looked down at me from the top of the mound, she held out a package wrapped in soft brown leather, tied with a leather thong. ‘Take this,’ she said, ‘And guard it well.’ She placed a yellow flower on top of the package, which looked like a dandelion, or cat’s ear, then added, ‘For the chosen one.’ I took the package, knowing I had to pass it on to someone else. Then she said, ‘For you.’ And she gave me a bottle, the lower rounded half wrapped in a leather casing, like a bottle of sweet wine, or Sherry, from Spain.

She then went on to tell me that she was a Mother in the local community, which now lies beneath Littleton … somewhere. As I was walking away, she stood and waved, but now she had her granddaughter with her, reminding me that her daughter was a spiritual leader within the community and that she herself was teaching her granddaughter, just as the Neolithic ancestors had done. It also made me wonder if both hers, and her granddaughter’s, ashes were in the smaller barrow. It also made me think there was a subtle message there too about teaching my own granddaughters…

Later, I wondered if the single yellow flower represented the energy of this ancient Down (a Hampshire word meaning a chalkland hill) which had been called Flower Down. It has been called Flower Down for centuries, possibly because of the profusion of wildflowers that grow on chalkland, and it has been called that since before 1750. It was originally used as common land to graze animals, and therefore never ploughed. This is why the barrows were left alone and undamaged. It must have been beautiful if they called it after the flowers that grew there, the land fertilised by all the animals. After the Enclosures Act, a patch of land, with the barrows on it, was allowed for the villagers; the rest was owned by a landowner. Thankfully, he left them that part, or we might not still have them and all that information would be lost!

Continueing my journey to Dad’s, I passed hte Running Horse Inn and had the thought that I should have breakfast there one day, that therre was something beneath it that needing accessing. So, next Sunday, we are going to check it out. I’ll let you know what happens.

If you are ever in Winchester, pay Flowerdown Disc Barrow a visit, and tune in. It is a wonderful place, as many Wintonians can vouch for. I know some of you already know this stone, and these barrows, very well indeed.

https://www.cityofwinchester.co.uk/history/html/sarsens.html

The Enclosure Acts

https://www.alresfordhistandlit.co.uk/72%20An%20Introduction%20to%20Hampshire%20Drove%20Roads.pdf

Click to access Flowerdown-Sir-John-Moore-Barracks-A-Planning-Overview.pdf

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St. Peter’s Church, Stockbridge.

/ Ann Murphy / Leave a comment

On June the 8th, with some time to spare, I paid a short visit to St Peter’s Church, or what is left of it. It sits in a lovely, green graveyard beside a pub, alongside the old main route to London, through Romsey. The original church is recorded in the Domesday book, so in its beginning it was probably a typical Saxon church constructed of wood before being rebuilt with stone. Some of the masonry from that older Saxon church was incorporated into the later church of St Peter, which was built in the 12th Century. You can read the history here.

That’s the back story.

(I’ve done work in this little church before, once with a healing group I was running back in the 2000’s, so I knew it well enough. Although I hadn’t visited it since then).

Today, everything was verdant and pretty, and the graveyard beautifully tended. Seats, placed in mown grassy areas, created a little oasis of peace. Perhaps the sense of peace was because this was where the original nave once stood and people for centuries have worshipped and prayed here. I could have quite happily spent hours sitting here, as it felt like a little oasis, but I satisfied myself by wandering about and taking photos instead.

But as I approached the main door, I was ‘instructed’ to walk around the church anti-clockwise. When I had done that, I was told to do it again, and then a third time. Each time I repeated the circuit, I felt myself going deeper into the layers of energy, each circuit opening into a deeper level.

Once inside, I went, as usual, to stand at the altar but I was instructed to stand facing the entrance door (I forgot when doing this that the tiny church was originally part of a bigger one). I remember doing this in Crawley too. Thinking I was supposed to stand facing the altar, but instead, I was instructed to go to a point in the nave. There are distinct energy points down the centre of most churches/cathedrals, as if the structure represents a human body, with either its chakra points or the three Tan Tien. It all depends on which system you use. For me, it is usually the three Tan Tien (even though they are also within the seven chakra system).

As I tuned in, I found the Ruby ray being anchored there, but it was connecting to the Diamond level of the Earth’s Energy field. Next, I turned and faced the Altar and there the emerald ray descended, but it was connected to the Amethyst layer.

With my back to the altar again, I felt the urge to turn to the north and found myself anchoring a line horizontally, to another site. It felt like it was connecting to a church, which I discovered later, was St Mary’s Church at Longstock. Once that was anchored, I turned to face the opposite direction, to what again felt, was another church. This tim, St. Peter’s and St Pauls at King’s Sombourne.

Again, I had to turn. This time to the west. This line seemed to go quite far and I wasn’t picking up a churchy feeling. Only later, when I went on google earth, did I make the line connection to Figsbury Ring, where we had anchored a white flame many years ago.

My last turn was towards the east, and this time the line was shorter, and led to Woolbury hillfort; another place where we had done year’s worth of energy activations. Both the sites on this line were pre-Christian, but the other two were Christian. Yet, joined together, they created the shape of a cross. Connecting two ancient belief systems.

In all levels of this energy-work, there is a cross-over of times and energies: Pagan and Christian. This seems to be happening so much lately that it really must be time for old beliefs in the Mother to be married to the current male beliefs of Father. (This has nothing to do with gender identity. This simply means the belief in the feminine and masculine aspects of creation which any one person, male or female, or any other identification, can embody).

The Diamond and Ruby, both part of the second sphere, are male and female respectively. The emerald of the first sphere; landscape and vegetation was now anchored to the higher, amethyst level of spiritual thoughtforms. Perhaps this is because we need to understand nature from a higher perspective so we can do what the land needs, not what we think it needs.

But it may mean something completely different.

Figsbury Ring has been used, since the Neolithic period, as a sacred site related to the fertility of the land, and using sacred ceremony in a gathering place for the ancestors of these isles. Woolbury Hillfort (or camp) is Iron Age but was also used during the Bronze Age. It was a place of sanctuary during raids, and also a place where wheat could be stored and distributed during less productive years (these are my experiences, not necessarily archaeological theory. I have worked with both these sacred sites, so already have their energy in my memory banks).

Both the prehistoric sites involved the sanctity of grain and used fertility rites to ensure a good harvest. The two churches were also gathering places, but they have their focus on Father, whereas the prehistoric sites had the focus on Mother/Earth and Father/Sun.

The interplay of the different levels within differing time periods is interesting, and also the cross-over of crystalline energies. It feels like levels, and energies are being wedded together in the present, but with the intention of influencing the future.

Hopefully, in a future life, I can see how this has all worked out.

I haven’t visited the other two churches yet, but did go to Woolbury and activated the line to the Old St. Peter’s. Most of that visit was personal, and I received the necessary energies for work in southern Spain next year.

I will see what happens when I go to Figsbury … which may take some time …

Lost Rivers of Stonehenge.

/ Ann Murphy / Leave a comment

An email popped into my inbox which I was so happy to receive (something I cannot say about some of them!). It was from LiDAR, the digital terrain mapping people. Not only was it exciting to have something that we have long known confirmed, but it also gave us additional information about why certain energies were placed where they were.

Many years ago, in 2006, Chris and I spent time exploring Salisbury Plain, doing energy-work with the barrows (burial Mounds), and the Cursus. During this exploration, I was given a glimpse of the Bronze Age people who served the temple, and the Mother Goddess. (It would be useful to read this for context).

At the time we received the information, which came in the form of inner-vision and telepathic understanding, I had no way of verifying the existence of the spring we had seen on the previous occasion, or why the Initiatic gateway was along the cursus and not in the circle of Stones (Stonehenge). But, having received the email from LiDAR, I was excited to see that my intuitive vision was correct, at least as far as the Spring is concerned.

This is how the LiDAR people put it (and rather beautifully, I thought):

“The LiDAR image unfurls a captivating tapestry, revealing the profound significance of Stonehenge’s position. No longer a mere coincidence, its placement appears divinely orchestrated, guided by an ancient wisdom that intertwined the monument with the very essence of the land. Observe the enigmatic “avenue,” a mysterious earthwork extending from the henge itself. It stretches forward, seemingly guided by an otherworldly force, tracing an invisible path toward the fateful convergence of these long-lost waterways. What hidden meaning lies within this alignment? What cosmic forces were at play when this extraordinary design was conceived?

“The Stonehenge, the cursus, and the ancient river channels intertwine in a symphony of celestial geometry and earthly harmony. The landscape becomes a living tapestry, where the past whispers its secrets, waiting to be deciphered by those who dare to seek the truth.

“What does this profound relationship signify? Could it be a celestial map etched upon the Earth’s canvas, guiding ancient minds to comprehend the mysteries of the cosmos? Or does it hold the key to forgotten rituals and sacred ceremonies, enacted by our ancestors in harmony with the celestial and terrestrial realms?

“The LiDAR images, combined with historical mapping, grant us an extraordinary glimpse into the past, igniting our curiosity and fueling our imagination. It invites us to explore the profound interplay between humanity and the landscape, where Stonehenge emerges as a portal to a realm of ancient knowledge and cosmic connection.

“So, let us embark on a journey of discovery, armed with the LiDAR’s revelations and the courage to unravel the enigmatic relationship between Stonehenge, the coursing rivers of old, and the mystical cursus. With each step, we inch closer to unearthing the profound truths that lie dormant within these sacred grounds.

“The mysteries await your arrival, dear seeker of knowledge. Unlock the secrets of Stonehenge and immerse yourself in the mesmerizing dance between monument, landscape, and the enigmatic forces that shaped our ancient past.”

I mean, could they have put it any better?

According to what I saw in that ‘memory’, the rivers were no longer there. On the surface, at least. But the bournes (or springs) still rose, giving them water; but perhaps only at certain times of the year when the, now, underground channels filled up after a long rainy season. (These rivers were obviously much wider than the river Avon, where Durrington Walls was built close to).

By the time Stonehenge was built, there may have been only winter rivers, but this would still have been seen as a gift of fertility from the Mother to humankind.

Many years ago, when I worked in post-excavation in Winchester, before the new council chairman got rid of the Winchester Archaeology team, a skull and longbones of a Neolithic woman came in to be cleaned up. Her bones had lain in a long barrow, near Barton Stacey, and rescued before the barrow had been completely ploughed out. I was given permission to explore them, so, using psychometry I tuned into the skull of this ancient woman.

From the images that came into my head, I gathered that she was the head priestess of a group of people who lived there six thousand years ago, and part of her role was to care for the spring close to their settlement. She placed flowers there, at particular times of the year, and made sure it was clear, clean and energetically active. She had a daughter, which her own mother, the girl’s grandmother, took care of. The woman herself had responsibility for the welfare, both spiritual and physical, of the tribal unit and was too busy to teach her daughter. Instead, the role fell to her mother who trained the child in all the ways of the priestess so she could take her mother’s role when the time came for her to do so. This seemed to be the way they did things. Grandmother taught the granddaughter, freeing up the mother.

Barton Stacey Bourne.

This was fascinating because it gave me a wonderful insight into how the matrilineal knowledge was passed down. It also highlighted the importance placed on the sacred springs. However, at the time, I was not aware of any springs around Barton Stacey. I mentioned it to my then brother-in-law, who told me there was a winter-bourne in the field (Belonging to Cocum Farm) across from where the long barrow once stood. In very wet winters, this bourne still rises in the field and runs down to the River Dever where it joins it.

The old stories tell of the Maidens of the Wells, spirit women who guard the sacred springs. I imagine the stories are part of our collective memory, reminding us of a time when we honoured the waters that fertilised our lands and gave us food to eat. It is interesting too, to see that the rituals of the Neolithic remained in the Bronze Age, and still remain today, albeit in a different form.

Apart from this lovely confirmation of previous intuitions, I was also struck by the fact that at Stonehenge, the large energetic gateway was immediately on top of where the rivers originally divided.

If you are sensitive enough you will feel the energy of water as you pass over it, or get close to it. It has a very recognisable feel. The gate’s placement over where the river divided, might have been planned, or they may have simply felt the water energy below. We now need dowsers to find this water, but I know that it can be psychically experienced too, although dowsing is a great way to learn sensitivity.

The energetic gateway we perceived might have been an energy, built up over years of working with the place, in a sacred way. The gateway itself seems to be at one junction and the stone circle avenue at the other. (The gate is the pink triangle, and the blue circle is the site of the spring). The gateway might also have energised the flow of water as it passed close to the circles, on its way to the sea, like the River Avon close by.

Tom Graves‘ books tell us that many stone circle sites were built on underground water channels – as were Cathedrals and old churches. Tom was a dowser and did amazing work at many sacred sites, mapping out the energies of the stones, and their placement over water channels deep in the earth. His work opened the doors of understanding around how our ancestors ensured the survival of their community while honouring the earth. His books are well worth the read.

In doing these explorations into the past, we are relearning the ways our ancestors placed their sites and how they worked with them. In many ways, we are intuitively doing the same when we dress the wells and hang ribbons on ancient trees. The knowledge is in the landscape, and all of it is accessible. All we have to do is become sensitive enough to feel it and then act on what we perceive. Even if it seems like we are making it up. Because, when another technology finds the same information, it is so wonderfully affirming.

Try it out for yourself, if you ever have the chance to go to Salisbury Plain. I might have to go back myself … if ever I have the time…

The Practice of Circumambulating.

/ Ann Murphy / 4 Comments

When I first began doing earthwork, I started working with Bronze Age burial mounds, also known as round barrows. I did not know then that it was the beginning of a remembering of ancient energy traditions that would take the rest of my life to learn. Every experience taught me something – it still does – but at that time it was new to me.

One of the things I found myself regularly doing, was circumambulation. That is: walking in a circle with sacred intention. My first experience was in the woods by the side of the road at Farley mount. Just inside the tree boundary is a large barrow with a couple of lovely Beech trees growing on top of it. I already had an interest in prehistory because I had been doing a degree in Practical Archaeology and loved reading the landscape, discovering ancient sites, and learning to see the world as the ancestors saw it.

Standing beside the barrow, I felt a strong impulse to walk around it three times anticlockwise, so I followed the impulse. Then, I stood on the Barrow and saw, with my inner sight, or higher sense perception, that it was built on top of a cross-over of two energy lines, except that it was no longer aligned properly. Over time, the earth’s magnetic field had shifted and so the lines were no longer in sync with that field. My job was to adjust them so they could do what they were designed to do – whatever that was. Through the power of my intention, and following instructions from ‘upstairs’, I mentally allowed the lines to vibrationally upgrade. I have no idea how that happened, it just did. Often I didn’t know why things happened but I learned to simply watch what my internal self was doing. (Round barrows are often built on energy lines and the people buried or cremated there act as energy guardians, as though part of their energy remained after death to take care of the place. You will find, if you are tuned in, that they will communicate with you so that you can carry out the work together, although this doesn’t always happen).

I remember the first time I got an inkling about some of the need for this anticlockwise walking. I had gone to two Bronze Age burial mounds that were beside each other, on Cheesefoot head, in Hampshire. At that time, twenty years ago, they were at the edge of a ploughed field and close to an ancient trackway that ran over the downs and into Winchester.

Standing at the barrows, I felt the impulse to walk around the first one three times anti-clockwise. But as I finished the final circuit, I was told to continue walking around the other one but in the opposite direction, sunwise, and this time to walk four times not three. There was a meaning to this. 3 +4 felt like feminine and masculine energies and they were joined in a figure of eight; the lemniscate, an energy I now associate with life-force, or dragon, energy.

As I walked around the twin mounds, I imagined the farmer and how annoyed he’d be that I was on his land. In my imaginary conversation with him, as he strode purposefully towards me, intent on telling me off, I joyfully informed him that I might be trespassing but at least his land would now be more fertile.

Ah, that was what I was doing! Although, I didn’t exactly know how. (At a recent visit to those barrows the field is now grassland and the barrows over-grown with vegetation and young trees. They are surrounded by a fence which gives them protection. No chance of them being ploughed out now).

After that, nearly every time I worked at a site, I had to walk around it first. I was usually told how many times to walk around, which at a large site took some time! Most times it is either one, or three times, depending on what work needs to be done. If it is simply to access the site, it is once, but if more energetic work is to be carried out, it is three times. The deeper into the energy layers you need to be in the more times you walk around. It is not often that I am instructed to walk four times around a site. In fact, I think that barrow at Cheesefoot was the only time I had to do it.

I never really thought of this as anything other than an earthwork practice until I started to recognise it in other places. It was a common practice in Ireland, for instance, which I didn’t discover until I returned there for a year in 2006. Although I had grown up in Ireland, I hadn’t taken much notice of old traditions, except for the yearly Pattern in St. Mullins. A pattern (from the french Patron) is a holy day dedicated to the saint who established a settlement, or church, there. In St. Mullin’s there is a holy well where people would go to pray and collect the holy water, which was reputed to have healing powers. The tradition was to walk around the entire settlement sunwise, but this gradually changed so only the well was walked around, usually following the Stations of the Cross (not a great energy to be anchoring!). Sunwise follows the sun.

When you walk clockwise around a site, it opens the Solar energies, the energy of male power, but anti-clockwise, or widdershins, opens the feminine energies of a site. Moving in an anti-clockwise direction was believed to have been the wrong way, the way of witches. No surprise there, especially when you think how the church lost the connection to the Divine Feminine early on, and therefore any reminders of the power of women, or Goddess, were to be suppressed at all costs. She could only be a saint because saints devoted themselves to a male god, but she should never get too big for her boots. It was especially important NOT to walk anticlockwise around a church. God forbid (excuse the pun) that the Divine Feminine should have a part to play in people’s spiritual beliefs unless she was in a lesser position. Such was the fear of Divine female power.

Video by Turlough O’Brien

But it wasn’t always that way. In early Celtic Christianity, the feminine was acknowledged and venerated, but over the centuries the recognition of feminine spiritual power was slowly transformed and energies from the earth were seen as dangerous. Hell was down there, after all, where Satan lived, and women who worked with the earth were in league with him. We all know how that went. To the church, everything good came from God, in heaven. The female power of the earth, and its mysteries, was suppressed, and the rituals associated with her, demonised.

In 2006, we lived for a few months in a converted methodist church, around the corner from St. Fiacre’s church, near Borris. There was a spring out in the field by the church, which is now in ruins. Every year, the people from the local town of Graiguenamanagh, where I grew up, went to the well to take care of it, just as they did in St. Mullins. Part of the tradition was to walk clockwise around the well, seven times. (They still make the annual pilgrimage, which incidentally is close to Imbolc). This walking seven times around reminds me of Mecca. But there, the devoted walk around the Kaaba seven times in an anti-clockwise direction, thereby unwittingly keeping the Feminine energy of the site alive and well. (Unfortunately, it is still controlled by patriarchy, much like the RC Church). There is a spring in Mecca, the ZamZam well which, according to the story, Allah opened for the rejected slave girl, Hajar, so she could keep her baby son, Ishmael, alive. Ismael was the son of Abraham. In reality, just as the ancient springs in the British isles were associated with female guardians, the Well Maidens, in the pre-Islamic world Mecca was originally dedicated to three goddesses, Al-llat (the Goddess), consort of Al-Lah (the God); Al-Uzzah (the powerful; and Manat (Destiny). (Virgin, Mother and Crone?).

Walking anticlockwise is the way of the Goddess, the way of the Divine Feminine, and when you walk around a site anticlockwise you are opening to the wisdom of the land. But often, this opening is also an anchoring. When I was doing archaeology at a site in Wiltshire on an Iron Age Banjo enclosure, I discovered that the circular site, with its bank and ditch avenue, was fed with red energy that came from a larger site a few miles away. I walked in the circular ditch, through the tangle of trees, and as I did, I laid the red energy from Fosbury Hillfort, encircling the enclosure with life-giving red serpent energy. I did the same thing a couple of days ago, when I returned to the round barrow in Farley mount, the one I had begun with all those years ago, and I was ‘told’ to walk around the site three times. I did the rounds twice but before beginning the third circuit I stopped. The sun had come out and I felt an impulse to raise my energy to its light. As I did, I was instructed to continue the walk but as I did the solar energy was coming with me, as if the barrow had a ditch (many of them do) and I was filling it with liquid solar light. The circuit was complete when I reached the point I had started from. In this instance, the masculine energy of the sun was anchored around the site. Why? I don’t know, but it was like an activation, of sorts. A feeding.

Once the rounds were complete, I stood on the barrow. My crown centre opened and information, in the form of light, flooded into my head. It lasted for a minute or so and then all was finished. I did not know what this light was about until the following day, when my daughter came around for some healing, which turned into an initiation. The energies she needed were given to me on the barrow. Because she was being initiated into a deeper connection with the earth, the energy had to be given by the earth. Another new experience for me. And for her.

So, when you are at a sacred site, and you feel the impulse to walk around, follow it. You are opening the energy of the place and therefore will be able to access its wisdom, and gifts. Your service to the planet is to utilise these gifts and to reawaken the Divine Feminine. The trick is to trust yourself. Trust the impulse, because it arises from a deeper part of you that knows what it is doing.

If you find yourself at a site but you do not feel the impulse, don’t do anything. The sites are not always accessible or don’t need you to do anything. When they are active, you will know it. When they are not, you will know that too. Don’t do it because you ‘think’ you ought to. That is the mind interfering with your higher sense perception. Tune into the site, if you feel you need to, and ask. You will soon learn what a positive or negative answer feels like.

There is so much work to be done to bring back the Goddess consciousness, but it is always important to remember that it is to bring the balance of life back into consciousness. Not for one to overpower the other, which has happened far too many times. It is time for Love to balance Will.

The link below was written by my great Grand Uncle, John O’Leary, from Graiguenamanagh, where I grew up. If he was around now he would have been a great blogger. Here is also a link to a book my uncle Philip wrote about the O’Leary’s who were artists, writers and antiquarians.

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/isbn/0954654382/

Click to access OKR1948-20-John-OLeary-Ullard.pdf

Some more information on ‘doing the rounds’ in Ireland.

Video: Doing the rounds at a number of sacred wells.

For more on pre-Islamic religions.

A very interesting site on sunwise walking lore.

https://rootedseedsproject.wordpress.com/2013/07/04/a-sunwise-journey-turas-dieseal/

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