Magdalene Down

On our previous visit to Magdalene Down, we felt we needed to make an essence but had not brought a bottle of water – making another visit a necessity. The following week, we headed back up to the barrows, this time with a small bottle.

Before we entered the area we needed to ask permission to enter that space, which is not something we have had to do before. There was a male entity wearing a crown of hawthorn leaves and a woman who reminded me of Galadriel. He was like the Green Man energy and she was more like an elemental/ancestral guardian of the round barrows. Although they worked on different levels, they were aware of each other and the role each played at the site.

When we reached the hawthorn tree, Chris was told he had to give his crystal too, just as I had done on our last visit. His was a Lemurian crystal too and we had bought them at the same time. It’s all about letting go. But then he was given a hazelnut (Etheric) This had to be taken to Danebury Hill and other places. It was about planting the seed somewhere, especially places connected to water. Bath, Swallowhead Spring, etc. Like the Bishop used to travel to each of his churches, we had to do the same. But then he was shown an oak tree with a crown in it, the Royal Oak (this became significant later and also shows how easy it is to think we know what these gifts are for). As it turned out, a few weeks later, I gifted a (physical) hazelnut to an oak tree in return for an essence, placing in at the roots as a thank you. The oak showed us the crown in its branches). The tree was simply showing us what work we would do later with an oak tree. Work we did not know we would do.

I placed the bottle for the essence in the crook of the tree when prompted and surrounded it with blossoms of hawthorn. Then, we had to infuse the essence, through our breath, and through the hawthorn tree, as though the breath (masc and fem) moved through the hawthorn energy and into the essence as it sat between the branches. The Elemental feminine energy of the Hawthorn showed us the stained glass windows of Winchester cathedral, and then she placed some of the energy of the tree, as drops, three of them, into the essence … along with a thermometer. It was to keep the body in balance with nature and to help with metabolism and hot flushes, which people also experience when energy is moving through them.

Next, she placed three red drops in the bottle. These represented the haws and felt more physical. A gold band then went in too, and this was to hold the frequency in the water, holding the different energies represented by the white drops and the red drops. They would regulate the body, replenishing it, both energetically and physically, bringing it into harmony with nature.

And that was that for the essence … we thought.

A few minutes later, we were told to go to the other tree, just as we had been told the last time. It seemed there was some balancing needed to be done with the essence. This time, we had to walk four times around the tree, anti-clockwise. This happens when we are joining a feminine and masculine energy together. It does not happen very often. But there is something about the three and the four, (making seven) that seems to be significant. But I have not yet worked out what it is. The other me knows, of course!

I was told to drop some of the essence at the roots of this tree to make the connection between the two trees, on a physical level. But this time too, the energy for the essence was not from the tree trunk but had to be held towards it branches. It had to be held up to the sun. This connected to Solar time and the sun as it moved through the branches and flowers of this more masculine-energy Hawthorn. It creates a balance with the energy of the other tree, creating harmony.

Then, tiny little hawthorn fairies, small like the flowers, moved into the water of the essence. This was such a surprise! The other tree tree elemental mentioned making a tincture and then adding the essence to that tincture too, so it works on all levels. (I had already started one after last week’s visit here).

I expected these little hawthorn elementals to come back out, but they stayed there, playing in the water of the essence. This tree was in an overgrown patch and its branches had to reach for the sun to get its solar energy and this was the energy that moved into the essence. A striving for the sun. The other Hawthorn energy was more present in the tree itself, and accessible. This one was quieter, however. If he had been human, we would have called him shy. But that is quite the usual way for these elemental energies. They stay in the quiet, hidden, until they choose to open to you.

Walking past the feminine hawthorn tree as we left, she added that the essence was like a rescue remedy, acting to balance the physical body with the energy body so neither is depleted after doing energywork. It can be taken after doing a lot of work so the internal body battery does not get run down. Which is pretty good, as lately I have been experiencing exactly that. My guides come and say ‘You are running on empty’, just to warn me to replenish. Now, I turn to the essence and I can manage more.

We will return to Magdalene Down to collect some of the berries for another tincture. We’ll see what happens then. I will plant a couple of them too, in my garden, so we have the babies of that tree, inviting them in, as they said.

We had the idea to go to Magdalene Down Nature reserve for Mayday this year. A few years previously, we had done some work there, which indicated that we needed to be at St Catherine’s Hill for Mayday of the same year. There we learned from the Spirits of the people who had been buried in the round barrows, what celebrations they carried out at the time.

This time, we had a very different experience. We were not really sure if anything had to be done because we could not feel anything. But, we thought we’d just enjoy the nice day and the sunshine. However, that did not last for long. We walked along the path to the barrows and my attention was drawn to a lovely old hawthorn tree. The air was warm and the scent of the hawthorn blossoms carried on the wind, like a gentle balm, nurturing and gorgeous.

I stood close to the tree and felt the impulse to walk around it, anti-clockwise. I did it once and then was told ‘three times.’ This often happens. You feel ONE, and then are told how many more you have to do. After the first round, I became aware of a beautiful feminine energy connected to the tree. It felt like, what in Ireland we would call, a fairy woman. She was part of the tree and yet separate, completely herself. She appeared wispy, not as solid as other fairy beings we have seen with trees, and I could feel her more than see her. Chris stayed outside her energy-field, which was like a bubble around the tree. He said he felt like an ‘outlier stone’.

The fairy woman told me to take a small part of her tree, so I chose a sprig with some flowers on it. She then told me to make tea with it. She also suggested I bring it into the house, to bring the fairies back in. This goes back to an Irish belief that you should never take hawthorn into the house because the hawthorn is a fairy tree. When I was a teenager in the seventies, I brought some flowering hawthorn into my mother’s flat and she immediately ordered me to take it out again. It was bad luck and brought the fairies in. This was the influence of the Catholic church and their demonisation of the Old Ways. Now, this fairy woman was telling me that they wanted me to bring them in. Absolutely yes! I would like nothing better.

That seemed to be the end of the connection so I went outside her energy field and both Chris and I stood, feeling roots growing out of our feet and into the earth. We stayed for a while and then I suggested we move, but it was like we were Ents, pulling our roots up and moving through the forest. We did not get very far because now Chris had to walk around the tree threes times, anticlockwise.

As I stood there, I had the message that in return for the gift of the flowers I was given, I should give something in return. The only thing I had was my Lemurian crystal necklace. So off it came and I hung it on a branch, with gratitude. When the fairies give you a gift there is always something to be given in return. This is not a payment, in the way we humans think of it, but a sharing of something we hold precious. A gift for a gift. Her blossoms, and leaves, and the gift of health it brings , as well as the gift of the communication between us, is precious to them.

We made our way to the burial mounds but I was not feeling that I needed to stand on any of them. Chris, on the other hand, did. So up he went. His task was to bring down the sun, just as he had done when on the barrow near Stonehenge a few years ago. I felt I needed to be at the edge of the barrow. As he brought the sun down I saw it move into the earth and from there I guided it into its womb-like space beneath the barrow. Chris’s job was to bring the solar energy down from the sky and mine was to guide it to the Mother’s womb. Chris saw the energy flow out from its space in the earth and flow in lines out into the landscape. One of those lines went to St. Cross Hospital which we could see in the distance, rising above the trees. Chris was told that I had to bring a rose quartz crystal to St Cross Hospital. So that will be on our list too.

We thought we were finished here, so we followed the path and continued the walk. I remembered the last time I had been here and had made an essence on the barrows, and in a little hawthorn grove, so I wanted to find it again. I didn’t have a plan, I was simply enjoying the sun, but when we entered the grove there was a large hawthorn right in the middle. There was a masculine energy here with this tree, and like the first one, I had to walk three times around it anti-clockwise. This deepens the connection with the elemental, and the tree, and opens the communication. It’s a feeling you get, not something you think you should do. If you are supposed to do it, it will come into your mind, and you will know.

Having done the opening circuits, I was given the thought to connect the two trees, a masculine and feminine balance. I had to place another crystal in this tree to make the connection. This is where I feel glad that I am a stone-picker-upper! One of the quartz stones I had picked up along the walk here had to be placed in its branches. This put it on the same crystalline level as the first tree and a line of gold light connected them. It was like connecting a telephone line between them. (They are at either end of the line of Barrows). This was the knot-tying Chris had done earlier. It was showing him what had to be done.

The crystal energy was important because it connected them to the crystalline layers of the planet. Whoever passes through their energy fields, if they are open to receiving them, would feel the gifts the trees had to offer. These gifts felt like information, ideas, etc.

The connection with these fairy beings was very different to other connections we have made. Maybe it was because they were hawthorn Beings, I don’t know. But their communication was very subtle. So subtle that we were following their pull without even realising it. This is very different to other tree connections we have made, which seemed nearly physical by comparison. This hawthorn communication was as gentle as the air. We had to really focus to receive it and to perceive the Beings connected to them. They were, in the old tradition, hidden from sight.

On the walk back Chris spotted a kestrel sitting in a tree above the site and, when I got to my father’s house, I made some tea with the leaves and the blossoms. Very pleasant. I’ll have to pick some more to keep for the rest of the year then mix it with the berries when they come out. Apparently, after harvesting, it is a good idea to freeze them in a brown paper bag for a couple of weeks, to remove the insects. Well, although I washed the leaves and blossoms, I imagine a few insects went into the tea with them. I’ll freeze them next time.