After our walk through the haunted woods, Larissa and I piled back into our rental and set out in search of dinner at the Castle Inn. The road there proved to be a little more challenging than planned. The trusted navigation got the better of us and we ended up driving through fields of vegetation where no car should be allowed to venture, praying audibly along the twisted, smaller-than-one-lane-endless-road that we would not meet another vehicle heading in the opposite direction until we were dumped into a slightly wider road and then finally found the tavern we were searching for.
Where we dined
Exhausted from limited sleep and a long day of driving, and more than a tad bit hungry, I pulled into a full parking lot and started cursing my fortune as an amused pedestrian ambled in front of me. After one unsuccessful trip around the parking lot, I decided to pull over to the side behind a parked car in a spot that wasn’t really a spot. Crooked. “Um, do you want to straighten the car out a bit?” Larissa offered, wondering, like me, if we were illegally parked. “Nope,” I declared. “I’m done.”
Luck, it seemed, was actually on our side and we found our car as we left it after our meal. A meal that was surprisingly tasty and filling, and was served to us in record time. After finishing the last remaining morsel of curry, I turned to Larissa with renewed faith in the world and suggested we venture over to the castle beside the pub. “I’m pretty sure it’s going to be closed,” she declared.
Self-service castle
Although it was inching well past dusk, the gates were open, and, feeling a bit like rebellious teenagers, we went inside to explore Lydford Castle. It’s just not a complete trip to the UK if you don’t stop and see at least one castle, in my opinion. So I got my castle, by what felt like pure happenstance.
Larissa posing inside the gutted castle
Since we were the only visitors, Larissa and I explored the dank remnants at our leisure. It didn’t take long. The castle, as many that are still standing (in-part), has outer walls but no floors or interior room divisions. An imagination is necessary to fill in what it once may have looked like. It didn’t take us long to explore what remained, and the slippery footing and ever-darkening light, I could tell, was making my companion a little nervous.
Churchyard outside the castle walls
The castle sits nearby an old church, and the grounds beneath are mounded by the remains of ancient forts, which makes one wonder what predated the battlegrounds. Whatever it once was, Larissa and I did not linger to investigate. We were tired and wanted to make sure we found our way back to Lee Byre before dark descended upon the landscape. In the morning we would begin our adventures at Brentor with Sue and Stuart…
After the formal portion of the June 2018 workshop with the Silent Eye School of Consciousness had concluded, my traveling companion and I hopped into our rental car and headed toward Tavistock to continue our adventures with Sue and Stuart. Whereas they had opted to take the winding, more adventurous route through Dartmoor, we wimped out braved the major roads.
If I could have done it over again, though, I would have taken the long way in the hope of getting a little lost, but more about that in the next post. If you visit the link to Sue and Stuart above, you will get an idea as to why.
Instead, Larissa and I had a rather uneventful drive into Tavistock. Thankfully, Larissa’s phone navigation landed us perfectly at our very remote, but incredibly charming B&B, Lee Byre, which sits on the outskirts of Dartmoor and has a perfect view of Brentor , where we would be meeting up with Sue and Stuart the following morning.
Larissa posing for a picture inside our cosy accommodation at Lee Byre
We arrived at Lee Byre through a narrow gateway of rocks (I wish I had taken a photo), whose chins jutted within inches of our compact car, and down an even more narrow hedgerow at least double the height of our vehicle. Here we were greeted with another gateway, this one fashioned out of wood, which opened to a carpark near our lodging. Here we were greeting by the resident hens.
The resident hens were quite intent on hitching a ride with us.
I could not have envisioned a more perfect place to stay, and as I told Larissa more than once, “I could easily live there.” Even if the forest behind our cottage was haunted. The stone buildings that housed our hosts and their rental accomodations sit amidst exquisite gardens and offer, on a clear day, a wonderful glimpses into the land of Dartmoor. Breakfast is served each morning freshly prepared using local ingredients that include perfectly poached eggs from the resident hens, freshly baked bread, honey made from the bees that pollinate the lovely gardens, and homemade yogurt, jam and granola served on top of a table painted by the proprietor. Have I mentioned before I was in heaven?
Our hobo lunches were prepared for us before we set off toward Dartmoor the following day
Dinner requires a 24-hr notice, and since Larissa and I were not sure of how the day would unfold, we opted to find our own end-of-day meal. Although I like to eat on the early side, I agreed to wait awhile before venturing out again in the car, and the two of us decided we would take a wander into the forest behind our lodging.
This forest reminded us both of the Pacific Northwest, but felt like it held thousands of years of secrets
I don’t think I’ve felt a more haunted woods. The haunting effect was only heightened by the fact that it was dusk and a trail of feathers preceded our footsteps like deliberately placed breadcrumbs. The crows, it seems, were guiding our entire journey through the landscape of Albion. Although we were the only hikers in the woods that evening, I felt eyes all around me. It was difficult to tell if we were simply being observed or tested. Perhaps it was both. In these haunted landscapes, which seem to occur in abundance in England, I often feel as though I must earn my welcome.
Crow feathers followed our paths throughout our adventures in England and I should not have been surprised to find them here.
Larissa appeared less troubled than I, or perhaps she was just hiding her unease. We both remarked how we felt like Robin Hood and his Merry Men could appear at any moment around the corner. It was that kind of forest. While she delighted in the moss that “looked like tiny ferns,” I kept seeing faces in the trees and rocks.
The fern-like moss in all its emerald beauty
The only history we learned about this area we were walking in was from our hosts at Lee Byre, who told us, as they handed us a trail map, that there was an old quarry mine near the top of the hill. A not uncommon site in these parts of England.
An old mining road, perhaps
After some venturing off the trails (mostly by my urginings) to look for intriguing views and anything else that might choose to appear, we eventually landed at the abandoned quarry.
An abandoned shack at the old quarry.
The unsettled feeling continued to permeate my wanderings as we explored the long-abandoned site. Thorny bushes hugged the cement walls of the quarry remains and it was clear by looking at the old shed on the outskirts that Nature had reclaimed the site as Her own once again.
Faces in the trees
The presence of elemental beings was undeniable, and as I walked the hilltop I wondered if the hands of man had left their mark in a way that made our presence somewhat unwelcome. Were we friend or foe in this forest that felt like it could both swallow us whole or embrace us wholly?
Larissa standing in a place where one could not help but feel small.
Larissa and I were walking as Nature’s children, but also as children of man. Here in this reclaimed wild landscape it is both easy, and difficult, to forget that we are made of Earth but have spent thousands of years trying to prove we are not. I was unsettled, but rightfully so. A guilty child looking to earn back a mother’s trust.
On this day, one month ago, I suddenly declared to the friend I was soon to visit in London, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we found a crop circle?” It was one of those things that just popped into my head. I hadn’t been thinking about crop circles, which is a bit surprising, as I’ll confess I’ve always wanted to see one, but suddenly I felt an almost desperate urge to find one on this particular trip that I was to leave for within a matter of hours…
Sue’s account of the circle can be found here. And I had promised her to write about my visit, and other happenings during the trip soon as well. I’ve only managed to get one post out though. I have kept myself very busy, so even though it’s now my bedtime and I have an early morning yoga class to teach, I find there is no better time than the present.
Maybe I should start by telling you I drew the Mercury card for our Giant and the Sun Workshop weekend. The card for magic…
I didn’t know the circle was sitting in a faraway field in Cerne Abbas until I got there, and I didn’t know the full breadth of its significance (I probably still don’t) until I sat inside of it on the last full day of my visit, days after the events of the workshop had passed.
My traveling companion, Larissa, and I were rather desperate to find it once we knew of its existence. It felt like an opportunity of a lifetime. You know, one of those things you really can’t pass up because they may not offer themselves up again. But it was not so easy to locate…
Contrary to some popular beliefs, crop circles are not always easy to find or access. And, as I discovered, seem to be rather deliberately placed not for our amusement, but for our edification. They are, I believe, both a test and a gift. The real ones anyway.
When one of our companions, Helen, discovered this particular crop circle we were searching for was aligned with the Giant aligned with Orion and encased in a hexagon, I knew I had to find it. As Sue noted in her post, it was easier said than done. Rather like my search for the Nine Ladies two years prior, the land seemed to be testing me/us. Time played with us and stopped our first attempt. We found the general location from the road with the help of some rather kind, albeit skeptical locals, but didn’t realize the trek was a good thirty-minute walk at a brisk pace.
Close to, but not the entrance we were looking for
So we waited nearly a week, and with some urging by Sue and Stuart, we promised to give it another go on our return to Dorchester. Time, we found, was our friend that day. We had, it seemed, just enough.
This time we found the unmarked place to pull over easily, following Sue and Stuart’s directions, it was just feet down the road from where we had initially stopped.
We were the only ones there. The site was unmarked from the road, and as we would later discover, unmarked completely. All good signs in my opinion. This was not meant to be a tourist attraction. So we walked, and walked, me probably a little faster than Larissa would have liked, as the flies swirled around us.
I found I was more nervous than excited. I had that feeling of being tested, but not quite in the same way as I did at the Nine Ladies Stone Circle.
The cell tower was bothering me. It was both a marker of sorts, but also a mar on the landscape. Too easy to locate, but not the sort of power center I tend to prefer. We passed some farmers chatting by their equipment. I’m pretty sure they saw us through the trees but didn’t say anything. They were laughing over their meal, or perhaps at us…
No one stopped us though, so we kept walking until we got to the stone…
A rather conveniently located stone nearby the field we were looking for (the arrow is not pointing toward the circle)
I would have liked to have spent more time with the stone, which seemed to be a guardian. I sensed it had many stories to share if I was willing to stop and listen. Instead, we passed by, paying our brief respects as we did.
The circle, when we found it, was nearly unrecognizable. Three and a half weeks had passed since it had been put down and the wheat had grown back quite a lot in most areas. The center, though, felt a bit barren and abused. By the time we reached it I was starting to feel more than a little uncomfortable about the impact of our presence, and those who had come before us.
The earth was parched and exposed in the center and there were many fragments of rocks that looked like lava stones exposed
It was clear that others had found this site, even though the farmer was not advertising it and had allowed the crops to grow in. It was on the Crop Circle Connector website, though, so I was not surprised, but still alarmed…
These circles are not meant to be walked…
I kept hearing this phrase inside of my head, but still, I walked myself, with a feeling of guilt and a bit of self-disgust.
The energy is already deadened…
I also heard these words. And it was true. It felt, almost, like any other place. Any other farmers field of wheat, but not quite…
Grass bent precisely at the nodes, never broken in the circle
“Take your pendulum,” Stuart had urged me. “And ask these questions…”
I wore it around my neck. I even took it off and sat in the center. Something wasn’t right. So I moved off to one of the circles in the rays. It was nearly grown in but felt less tampered. I put the pendulum back around my neck, sat down and closed my eyes.
The words came through me almost immediately. Questions that were posed during the weekend were answered, and speculations confirmed. I saw the giant in the field without a head and a pattern in the stars called Orion. I felt a presence that felt both powerful and like Love. The words rose up through the ground and down through the crown of my head and for the first time I felt it was okay for me to be there. Just this once. To listen and receive.
I vowed never to return again. Not to this circle, or to another. For once you step into the patterns, a disruption occurs. A disruption of an energy, I have come to believe through what I received during my meditation, is not for us to walk through, but to honor as a part of the dance of energy that is Life, but not life as we are accustomed to living it.
I have read that you can tell authentic crop circles by the way the blades of the crops are bent. As I walked the over-grown lines I looked closely at the wheat and noted the perfection of the patterns that had been laid down weeks before. Thousands of strands of wheat were bent at perfect angles and never broken. The tractor tracks, in contrast, were filled with double lanes of trampled and broken wheat.
As Sue revealed in her post, this particular circle is in alignment with the sacred geometry and ley lines in the land. It appeared just weeks before our arrival, and after the workshop was planned, but before it took place. This, I believe, is not a coincidence. The words that flooded my consciousness while I sat in the wheat spoke of a purpose much greater than our individual footsteps, our individual beliefs, and our individual existence. They spoke of the sacred dance of a Universe sophisticated and intelligent. A dance of energy that used to be infused in the land I now sat upon, and in all land on Earth. I could feel it as a trickle of magic below me, spreading down into the land and through its veins. The artificial tower loomed in the distance as an interruption, and I felt both sorrow and hope.
This is not an accident, the words spoke inside of me, It was placed here for a purpose.
Questions found answers inside of me as I opened myself up to the land’s secrets, and a depth of clarity arose within me. I did not record what I learned, nor do I feel it is my place to share it all here. It is likely some will, and would not believe my words, and that is okay. I used to live in that state of doubt as well. I do not claim to have the definitive answers for the existence of crop circles, but there now exists inside of me a core of hope and awe for the power of their creation and intention. A confirmation, if you will, that Life is so much greater than what we see with our eyes. And that within us and around us there is a dance of energy that is Life itself. All-knowing and intelligent. Searching, always, for our presence.
I am co-hosting my first wellness fair tomorrow with the lovely and talented, Karen Kubicko. Our intention is to provide a variety of wellness offerings that help people live a life in alignment with their inner truth. We have a wonderful group of vendors providing readings, healings and holistic-living goods for people. We’re looking forward to a fun day offering free workshops for people of all ages.
Our Free Workshops Running Throughout the Day
10am – 10:30am: “Overcoming Obstacles”– Map your path to your heart’s desire with Carol Williams, Women’s Business Empowerment Coach
10:45am – 11:15am: “Working with Crystals & Stones”– Kelly Slack of Stone Sisters will show you how to heal and receive guidance through crystals & stones
11:30am – 12:15pm: “The Power of Words”– Learn the power of setting intentions and mindful thoughts & words with Kristy Jones of Dragonfly Magick
12:30pm – 1pm: “Instilling Your Dreams Through Guided Hypnosis”– Peg Losee of Thru Wings & Hands will help you bring your heart’s desire into reality
1:15pm – 1:45pm: “The Healing Power of Plants”– Wendy Berry of Lasting Legacy Farm will show you how to use plant medicine to heal your mind/body/spirit
2:00pm-2:30pm:“How to use a Pendulum and Ground Yourself”– Learn how to use a pendulum for guidance and tools for grounding yourself with Darlene Doughty, healer & artisan
2:45pm – 3:15pm: “Healing Through Past-Lives” – Discover how to remember and heal through your past-life experiences with Karen Kubicko, Author, past-life regressionist and psychic intuitive
We had decided to visit six churches with our companions. That is a lot of churches to visit in one afternoon… and we were conscious that they are not everyone’s cup of tea. These ones, though, are all old and interesting, and each one of them marks a point of the hexagram in the landscape with which we would work. We had assigned each of the churches to a place on the fire or water triangle, which carried with it a planetary attribution and colour, and each companion had chosen ‘their’ church by drawing lots.
We hoped it would be an interesting exercise and give a taste of the ‘thrill of the chase’ that we get when we are on the trail of mysteries, although you can neither predict how others will feel, nor assume they will feel as you do…or as you hope they will. We would have to…
Wednesday was a weird day and a busy one. The internet decided to go on strike for some reason, every time I tried to do anything. The pond pump needed cleaning at my son’s home, and so did the fountain pump and gunged-up pond filter.That took us half the day… but then Nick came back to mine and played with Ani while I cleaned the aquarium’s filters and did a water change… then we tackled the really rough job of the day. We bathed the dog. Attempting the impossible seemed apt for Nick’s re-birthday…
It took two of us. (It also took me a couple of hours solid cleaning to set the bathroom to rights, clear up the splashes, hair and wet tail splats…) And, if that wasn’t enough, we wrestled her into position (several times over), so I could trim her claws.
As the group walk through the arched entranceway to the interior of the castle, a new feeling emerges: one of ‘being in it, together’. The transition from outer to inner space of the newly considered ‘organism’ of the castle brings with it other changes of perspective. One of these is that a process – that of the weekend, itself, has begun.
One of the weekend’s companions, new to what the Silent Eye does, asks a question:
“Is this – she points to the entire interior of the walled space – to be looked at as a representation of life, and the possibilities of spiritual work within that life?”
The answer is unhesitating. “For the purposes of this weekend, we are using several of the Northumberland Castles to be exactly that.” He pauses, “So, this, as the beginning, is the place where the elements of that search…
The Light Behind the Story 