I have recently received an email from a friend I met years ago at a metaphysical class. We were both searching and seeking a deeper understanding of life, like all who are drawn to unravel the mysteries. Now, she has turned to religion, following the urgings of a man she loves. I am not surprised, but there is a sadness to her desperation to be loved and accepted into a secure form of life.
In her email, my friend urged me, and the rest of the group of friends to which she sent the email, to follow her path as a born-again Christian so that our souls, like hers, could be saved. She has labeled us as “New Age,” a label I have never tried to own.
I don’t care for labels, and this one I find offensive and incorrect. Although I cannot speak for the others in the group, I consider myself a spiritual being who seeks, in each moment, to heed the inner voice of truth that aligns with the core Truths of being. I do not follow one guru, or worship within the confines of one sect. I simply try my best to live a life in alignment with love.
If that makes me a sinner in some eyes, so be it. Yet, it troubles me that is should be so. Perhaps, in some ways, I am fortunate to have not been raised in what feels like the confines of a particular set of beliefs. As the child of agnostic parents who leaned toward atheism, I had to find my own spirituality in my search for inner peace and wellbeing.
I can recall many sleepless nights lying in bed wondering if my last breath would lead to my oblivion. I would wonder if my life was meaningless as a mere conglomeration of cells adhered into a body with an intelligent brain that allowed me to think both rational and irrational thoughts.
It was only when I started to think beyond the confines of my brain, and stepped into the realm of the heart, that I found a home that stretched beyond walls into the vast expanse of being. My path has lead me to explore many teachings, which all possess the same core of truths. The yoga sutras, which predate all religions, echo the words of the oldest Egyptian texts. The furthest back you go, the more threads of common truths you find. This, to me, feels like home.
Yet, it is not my place to judge another’s beliefs, nor to where they feel most at home. We are, in essence, all searching for belonging. But, do we have a right to label others as incorrect and ask them to follow the way we have chosen? This troubles me. It reminds me that we are still fighting wars and killing each other because of our spiritual beliefs, the color of our skin, and the sexual physiology and orientation of our bodies. This is not okay.
The need to destroy and convert are premised upon fear, not love. At the core of all religions and spiritual teachings, from what I have found, is Love. That is all. Love. It is a calling to find home in the knowing that we are all born from and a part of Love, which unites all life. When I breath into the stillness of being that is what I find. It fills me with a connection not only to myself, but to all life. It reminds me that I am not above or below anyone else, I am simply a part of all life. That, to me, is enough. It is a coming home.
Image Credit: Pixabay. The frog that became a sticker.
I spent the bulk of the past five days in a worried funk. Pretty much all I could think about was yoga with kids. Although I only wrote about experiences with the younger preschool and kindergarten classes in my last post, the next day brought two new classes. One filled with middle schoolers. Let me first say the high school class that followed it was simply lovely. I had three polite and eager young ladies who were attentive and respectful. It was a huge and welcome breath of fresh air.
The middle school class, on the other hand, proved to be just as challenging as my classes with the younger kids. It consisted of a large group of girls who all knew each other, and a trio of boys who didn’t know the girls, but knew one another. The girls gathered in a crowded group in the back of the classroom, while the boys queued up in front of me. The giggling intermixed with bold commentary began from the group in the back of the room as soon as I introduced the “Cat & Cow” warm up poses. “Downward Dog” proved to be even worse.
“I’m not doing that.” “I don’t want anyone to see my butt.”
The wall-to-wall mirror behind me became an unavoidable source of distraction, and our hour together felt much longer than it should have.
Seasoned yoga teachers will know that teaching yoga to kids is nothing like teaching yoga to adults. It’s an entirely different game. Actually it’s a series of entirely different games. Each age group has its separate rules and obstacles.
I’m still learning the games.
By the end of the week I was more than doubtful that I would grow to love teaching yoga to kids, and whether I would discover a magical formula to do so well.
The next class I had ahead of me was another preschool class. A fresh opportunity with ten new and eager faces who had never met me.
I just needed to convince myself that I could have a different experience than I had with my first two classes.
I did some more research and started to listen to that inner voice that rarely leads us astray.
I asked for help, and got some really good advice. Especially the tip about using sitting circles or mats, which serve as a magical anchor to keep restless bodies in place.
I ordered the mats knowing they would not arrive in time. I worried, but I need not have. The inner voice spoke louder, offering me alternatives my logical brain refused to find.
One day, I went to the library and found myself drawn to books about frogs and toads, even though I was there to find any and all books on yoga with kids they had available. I took both sets of books home.
Another evening, I found myself walking the dogs at dusk, so enthralled by the chorus of frogs at our favorite pond, I impulsively took my phone out to record nature’s symphony.
A theme was developing for me.
Another day, still in my fog of stress, I went to the dollar store and mulled over the arrays of cheap toys. I thought maybe I should get some stickers, so I bought a sheet of colored stars and a blow-up globe.
After I took my purchases home, I began obsessing about how I would use them. I thought about giving stars for good behavior, but it didn’t feel yoga-ish. The globe, well, I thought maybe I could use it in some sort-of game, but visions of kids throwing the nearly weightless ball at each other caused me to leave it on the kitchen counter as I readied my bag.
Instead, I begin to realize I have all I might need. I have my frog, well actually toad, book in verse, and I’ve found that the first page has a wonderful poem about them singing in spring. I’ve got my live recording of an amphibian chorus from the pond ready to go on my phone. Instead of obsessing about my lack of sitting circles, I realize I can might be able to make lily pads to go along with my theme. In fact, I know I have at least a few pieces of study green paper. Ten minutes later, I have ten lily pads bearing the names of my new students. I also have ten new stickers. Not the stars, but frogs, which I’ve made myself thanks to Pixabay and a stack of printable labels in the same drawer that held the green paper. Frogs on lily pads. Perfect.
I pack all of these up, along with my chime, portable speaker, water, roster, animal yoga pose cards, and my pink rose quartz frog that sits near the water fountain in my home yoga studio.
Still, I think I may need more props. I don’t want to be under-prepared. I eye the bin of Beanie Babies. Nope. Not going there again. Instead, I open it and pull out one dog to use as a mascot, just in case. I eye the globe one more time and put my magic chakra ball in the bag instead. It slings easily on my shoulder. Light and manageable.
I arrive early. There’s amble time to set up. I’m greeted by the director, a friend of mine, who shows me around and allows me to select a space that feels right. I tell her about the sitting circles I’ve ordered but have not arrived, and she shows me a stack of quilted mats. Perfect.
I select five and arrange them around the square rug. The lily pads are placed atop, alternating as best as I can guess, boy, then girl, around the rug. Next, I take the yoga pose cards out I’ve prearranged, and set them in back of the sit mats. Finally, I sit at the front of the rug with my phone, roster, quartz frog and homemade stickers set beside me.
Small voices begin to mingle from the front of the room, and I know my students have returned from their outdoor recess. I am lucky today the rain has held off and these young bodies have had a chance to run outside and play.
“Can you find your name on the mats?” I ask them as they line up before me. They are all so darn cute, but I know better than to let down my guard. Instead, I smile and welcome them with the warmth of a teacher. Hey, I think, maybe, just maybe I can do this.
And, I do. Ten little bottoms find their lily pads and look at me with anticipation. No one gets up until I ask them to, and barely a voice talks out of turn. We have fun together. We learn and we play. When one child unexpectedly cries during our game of musical mats, she finds her way to my side, nestles in for a hug, and clutches the magical pink frog I place into her hands until all is well. Soon she is smiling again. We all are.
Even though it’s not a perfect class, to me it’s a near-glorious half-hour, which is over too soon. Stickers are left for the end ,and find their way on faces, lily pads, and clothes. Tiny frogs thank me as they dance out the door. I can hardly wait for the week to pass.
I thought I would be writing another post about my recent travels to Italy, but instead my mind is filled with yoga. In particular, yoga with kids. Two Februarys ago, I felt a calling to move from my long comfortable role as a yoga student, to that of a teacher. Although I could sometimes see myself standing in front of a classroom of students teaching yoga, I had never really given teaching serious thought. That is until the relentless inner voice called without ceasing…
And so here I am, more than two years later. A certified yoga teacher, who, as of last week, has taught (or has attempted to teach) yoga to students from the ages of 3 to 80+. Just when teaching yoga was beginning to feel as comforting and familiar as preparing and drinking a warm cup of tea each morning, I have now leapt, once again, off the cliff of The Fool into the rocky terrain of the unfamiliar.
And, it’s okay. It’s what I signed up for. But, oh how much I have to learn as I stumble my way along. My week of full immersion into the spectrum of younger ages has left me feeling tired, hoarse, and a bit bewildered. What do I do know? I keep asking myself.
Let me see if I can attempt to explain why.
I’ll begin with my first non-adult class of the week.
It’s Thursday. Another rainy day in a long string of rainy days. The school day is just finishing at the Montessori nearby where I live, and I am lugging my bucket filled with Beanie Babies, animal yoga cards, a Bluetooth speaker, roster sheets and a chime that would prove to be woefully useless. Eleven preschoolers await me.
They’re adorable, as all children are at that age. Almost irresistibly cute. A near equal mix of boys and girls with glowing faces perched atop restless bodies. Wholly mine for 30 minutes. Thirty minutes that I have tasked myself to teach them yoga, in some form. My mind swirls with ideas. Over the past few months I have watched videos and read books. I have dug out my notes from teacher training and know games and props are essentials for this age group. What I can’t recall learning, as I spin through the whirlwind thirty minutes, is that a loud, assertive voice is also important, or that the power to choose should not be an option…Or maybe I just forgot, because it’s not in my nature to place restrictions and to shout.
Nor is it in my nature to sing in tune, which is also a great gift to have for kids’ yoga, but I thought playing the voice of the lovely Kira Willey would be an adequate compensation.
I soon discover no one really cares about the music coming from my speaker. They care more about the props I have brought.
I’m pretty sure I read to only bring one…
We begin in a circle that defies all definition of a circle, but it’s good enough. All eyes are turned to me as I introduce myself, then roll my magical color ball to the child next to me and ask him his name and if he’d like to tell me one thing that makes him happy. We move smoothly along, at first, passing the ball down the line until our circle is 2/3 complete. A girl with vast blue eyes stares at me and tells me her name and then goes silent. She cannot come up with something that makes her happy, even though I can tell by her outer appearance that she is likely well-loved and cared for. Instead, she appears to be caught off-guard and stumped. Rendered mute in a way that makes us both feel uncomfortable and searching for reprieve.
I give her space to think. Distracting chatter begins to erupt within the circle, and the blue eyes continue to stare back at me. “Would you like to think about it some more? It’s okay if you don’t want to answer.”
I can tell she is torn. That she wants to find an answer for me, but somehow she can’t retrieve it. Perhaps it’s contagious, because the next child is also unable to come up with one thing that makes her happy.
And so I begin to question my choice of a mindfulness introduction. I thought perhaps some children would struggle a bit, but with gentle suggestions and listening to the words of their peers, they might easily slip into that space of joy.
And, I realize how desperately, perhaps, that I want to bring them all to that state of joy. To make them realize how fun yoga can be in its myriad forms. That it can be both individual and shared. But not something that takes striving and competition…
So we begin to play our games. Soon tiny bodies are hoping about and vying for my attention in their efforts to show me how much yoga they already know. When the illustrated pose cards come out, there is a scramble to have just the right one.
There is even some arguing.
“I don’t want this one.”
“That’s not how you do flower. That’s butterfly.”
Oh my, I have much to learn.
Follow the leader with the chime goes smoothly until someone decides to skip the line.
Then the chime is rendered useless. The noise of voices too high. My own is already growing hoarse and unheard, and I am at least grateful I have brought along my water. I have another class waiting for me after. And, it’s 45 minutes long…
When I open the tub filled with stuffed animals, five million hands reach inside. Suddenly I’m feeling the weight of my 45 years of life and I count the minutes left.
Do not leave room for choice. Of any kind. I file the lesson inside my tired brain.
I think perhaps I should have brought along a gong. You know, one of those enormous ones that you can’t hold and need a mallet to bang?
And a miracle.
I’m not Kira Willey. Not even close. Nor am I the beloved and talented Jamie of Cosmic Kids who knows how to keep the overstimulated minds of young kids engaged while practicing yoga through her wonderful videos.
I am also not a drill sergeant. Nor do I want to be.
I’m simply Alethea, searching for her own magic cards to bring to the circle of young eager faces.
And I think, perhaps, I need to stop looking in the bags of others, and dig inside my own…
“There are so many hills,” my husband remarked as he drove our jet-legged bodies down the highway from Rome towards Sorrento. There was the face turned outward, as though in warning. Harshly cut with chiseled lines furrowing brows guarding a pyramidal peak. The impulse to leap through the veil tangibly irresistible. We all saw them, even my mother-in-law, which surprised me a bit. Perhaps it should not have. We are not so crazy as we may seem, even to ourselves. We have just forgotten.
A view from the car. This mountain face looks tranquil lifted to the sky.
Everywhere I looked the earth rose in sometimes sharp, and sometimes gentle undulations, leading a pathway to the magnificent turquoise sea.
The roads of man wrap the body of the rocky Amalfi coast, but the breath-taking beauty belongs to the land and the sea.
In my sleep-deprived state, I found myself slipping beyond the familiar and into the hazy space of that magical realm too rarely ventured my our modern day minds. The hills called to me, and I followed their faces as our vehicle wizzed along. History records itself in these beings of slow time. And, more than anything else I read power. I was, after all, in the land of the Romans.
The magnificent remains of the Colosseum standing for nearly 2,000 years.
The mountains, though, hold a power that belongs not to man, but to Earth. We have been here long before you and will be long after…
The volcanic mountain, Vesuvius, watches over the crowded city of Naples which is built over cities buried by its fiery blood.
In the year 79 AD, more than 1,000 people, and countless animals, died from the eruption of Vesuvius, yet it is believe that the serpentine mountain whose mouth spouts forth deadly fire a few times each century, was greatly revered by those that fell to its mighty flames. A god of protection, perhaps, not so much of the people, but of the land. Now, below its summit, which last erupted in 1944, 2 million people live in its shadow as though they have forgotten the thousands of lives that it has taken during its reign of power.
The ghosts of Pompeii haunt the remains of their lost city. “We tried to hide here among the already dead” they whispered to me. The futility of their hold pulled my limbs through their layered graveyards.
I was surprised later in our trip, when we climbed its sides by car, then walked out to take in its vast energy, by how tranquil I felt. Almost as though I was being held in the arms of a lover.
Birds hover in the foreground of Vesuvius. Below, spring’s growth waves with the wind.
Yet eyes watched my trespassing footsteps, and those of the hundreds who joined us that day on the body of the mountain. Eyes belonging to inhuman forms beyond the grasp of our naive minds. Reminding me that I walked the body of a god, or perhaps more aptly put, goddess…
Baby serpents, spawn from Vesuvius’s last eruption, watch its many visitors.
I’ve been thinking about writing this post for awhile. To attempt to explain why we are sometimes drawn, mind, body, and soul to physical places as though we have no choice but to go there. The heart, leading the body back home.
I think many people I know are confused as to why I feel such a need to travel to England, over and over again. What may be viewed as a flight of fancy becomes, perhaps, seen as an excuse to get away in their minds. From the mundane. The roles we choose to play out in life that can feel old and weary.
It’s true. These roles can age us when we allow them to do so. The soul, mind, and body seeks replenishment from that which wears us down. But being drawn to a place on such a holistic level is a soul’s calling the body and mind to home. We live many lifetimes. Sometimes in one place. The location becomes an integral part of our being, woven into the memory of cells so deeply that it is brought with us through our lifetimes. We become, in essence, of that land.
We are all of the larger “land” that is Earth. Its elements have given us our body of life, but what I speak of is memory. Sometimes the call to a certain place feels as vital as breathing. It sustains us and enlivens us. It reseeds the sacred within.
I have tried to find this here, in New Hampshire and in its wider landscape of New England. I have had moments when I have felt the coming home, but this is not so much about place, but about surrendering to the union that connects all life. When I am in the ancient lands of England the sacred enfolds me and strips me bare. It opens the magic hidden within and I begin to remember fully and completely, through every cell of my being, the essence of Life.
There are certain places that hold memories for us to retrieve when we choose to open to them. Portals. Vortexes. The convergence of ley lines. Sacred temples. Stones placed upon the energy that feeds the body of Earth and in alignment to the stars…Long ago, all life lived in this union, but over time the ego took hold and dismantled union in a search for separation. We are still living the false ideal of separation, to our own imminent demise.
I believe there is that essence inside of all of us that searches for that Light of union. To feel, once again, a part of the sacred whether we are consciously aware of it or not. We go to churches and temples to find it, and sometimes we go to the land. I am drawn to the land. It is here where the memories of home sweep through me in perfect union when I find that quiet space to surrender to it. Each time I travel to England another part of me is brought to life. Another piece of my soul retrieved and reunited. The land speaks to me in a language I can understand. I am revived and filled with hope when I hear it whisper through my cells.
When I look at life through the eyes of the mundane I see a broken world. I see the ever-present quest for more. To be better. To divide and conquer. I see wars fought over this. I see violence because we are broken. Despair because we have forgotten. We rape and pillage ourselves and the land because we have become disconnected. We have forgotten that when we destroy another, we in essence, destroy ourselves.
Perhaps it is a fool’s quest, but I also travel to England not only so that I can remember, but so that I can somehow, through my words and experiences, stir the memories inside those we have lost and forgotten this sacred union. We are born remembering, but through modern ways of living we easily forget. Ceremony has been lost to the click of an icon to numb the searching brain. The temples of the past turned into playgrounds to capture selfies.
I don’t think it’s an accident that incredible work and care went into building these temples of stone so that they might stand thousands of years later. They are the physical keepers of our ancestral memories. Libraries set in Earth. And, it is quite likely when they were built they were built with this intention in mind. Knowing that one day we would enter, of our own free will, a long age of forgetting. And that we would, one day, also seek to remember as though our very lives depend upon it, because they do.
To place a hand on one of these stones and feel the flooding return of these memories is a testament to their sacred purpose. When I open to the ancient sites of England, the “I” and all its false needs and wants disappear. There is no I. There is only union. Union with the great stone. With Mother Earth. With the vast heavens above. And with all Life. Long ago, this is what our ancestors knew as Truth.
We are living, collectively, through the false ideals of the ego, lives of self-destruction. If we continue on this course, each individual “I” will perish collectively. In what is the utmost of irony in our striving to be better, different, and special from each other, we are making our “I” become extinct. Soon enough we will have depleted all the resources our planet has to offer and there will be no room for life to carry our “special” DNA onto future generations. There will be no living Earth to sustain progeny to live out or legacy, because our legacy will be extinct. Money cannot buy what we need for our survival. A bigger house will not spare us from disaster, no matter how much we fortify it with outer strength. Eventually the “I” dies. Each “I” has the same destiny of death. Yet if we really cared about each individual “I” we’d collectively realize it takes the “we” to preserve it. To ensure life continues on, sustaining and enriching each other. We are now at that pivotal moment in time. That tipping point where we can choose to continue on towards imminent demise, or trade in the self(ish) for the betterment of the “we.”
Living immersed, as so many of us do, in cultures that strive for individual greatness, we become numb to the sacred within and without. We look at a tree and see a resource, not a fellow being whose breath feeds our own. We look at a body of water and see it as a fun medium for racing our boats, not seeing that our boats pollute the liquid that is meant to sustain us and the life it holds inside of it. We look at our neighbors and think, you have something I want…a bigger house, a nicer car, smarter kids…without realizing that our neighbor is an aspect of ourselves.
When we come into the world, newly born, we still remember. When an infant gazes around you and past you, smiling as though into thin air, they are seeing what you can probably no longer see. Essence that dances around you as a sacred part of the light woven with all life. Sing the infant that cries to the overwhelm of this chaotic and foreign life we have brought it into, the sound of “Om,” and you will return to her the feeling of home. Of union. Stillness opens the eyes back to memory and the sacred returns in the moment of union.
We all have the doorways within us. We just need to find the keys that open them. England, in many ways, is my key. If you don’t know where your key(s) is hidden, its worth the search to find it. The life that sustains you depends upon it.
After a very full morning with Sue, Larissa and I headed back on the train to London. We still had daylight ahead of it, and we were committed to making the most of the glorious spring afternoon we were given. We had made a date with Cleopatra. Her needle, that is, which graces the banks of the River Thames on a site called the Victoria Embankment.
Victorian Embankment with Cleopatra’s needle guarded by two more modern day sphinxes and the London Eye in the background
When I first discovered, a few years ago, that there was an ancient Egyptian obelisk in London I was determined to see it during one of my trips. Although she had likely passed it several times during her travels, Larissa had also yet to visit Cleopatra’s Needle.
The obelisk was not made for Cleopatra, but for the sun. Its current name, instead, comes from the boat that brought it over.
The history of the obelisk that now pierces the London skyline at a height of 20.88 meters and weighs 187 tons, begins in the 15th century BC in Heliopolis. The pharaoh Tuthmosis III had ordered the building of the Temple of the Sun, as well as a pair of obelisks to record its dedication. In the 10th century BC, the obelisk was moved to Alexandria to decorate the temple of Julius Caesar. An earthquake in 1303 toppled the obelisk, and it was not erected again until it was brought to London 1877 on board the ship Cleopatra, as a gift from Egypt to commemorate the Battle of Aboukir. After its erection in London, two bronze sphinxes were made to flank its sides.
The sphinxes were the marks of German bombs from WWI
It seemed a fitting end to our adventures, gazing upon this ancient memorial to the sun with the London Eye shining golden with the day’s end across the water. A very full and glorious day, of time well-spent touched with magic.
It was yet another place I didn’t want to leave. Whereas I had felt the exhilaration of life at Castle Hill, the more I immersed myself into the energy of Wayland’s Smithy, the more I felt at peace. As the sun wove its golden light through the guardian trees, I walked over the long barrow and around it. Time slipped away and the veil thinned. The air was gently electrified, and I could feel the elemental kingdom and all the guardians of this sacred site watching, but also welcoming us. Below my feet, amid the last year’s fallen leaves, white feathers appeared on the path.
More white feathers. Gifts of spirit. If you look closely you may see faces in the leaves.
I was, without a doubt, walking holy ground in a landscape of the dead that was very much alive, revered and protected by forces more felt than seen.
The flowers beneath the guardian trees
“Look at the trees,” Larissa remarked. “Each one has a patch of white flowers.” Not planted, but growing as though in nature’s reverence. It felt like magic, in the purest sense. Each piece a deliberate part of the whole. And, as I walked, I could hear the whisper of the ancient stones.
Each stone has a personality filled with the history of its purpose. Even the smaller stones show the faces of the past.
Pairs appeared in stasis, like long married couples set in their ways, yet determined to protect the love they hold.
This pair of guardian stones look as though they are reaching for a kiss as Sue peers from the beyond.
It’s quite something to think of the work and care that went into the construction of this long barrow. A tomb to house the dead whose bodies were prepared with care that rivals that bestowed upon the pharaohs of Egypt. A tomb supported with carefully selected and placed stones. Huge sarsens, like that of Long Meg, mark the entrance to the inner chamber of the long barrow. All this work, including the massive stones, once covered entirely in earth. A house built for the dead, 196 feet in length and 50 feet at its widest point.
Standing at the end of the long barrow, you get a sense of the immensity of its size and the undertaking it took to build it.
“You need to leave a piece of silver for Wayland,” Sue revealed as we gathered before the entrance. “To shod your horse.” I didn’t question her words. I had silver in my pocket and I crawled inside the chamber to find a place for it.
Ani stands guard over the entrance to the chamber
“Can you find Wayland, the spirit stone, the totem stone?” Sue continued as we peered at the massive rocks before us. The faces on their surfaces morphing and changing with each angle. All for the dead…
Ani runs before the sarsens
Then Sue began to tell us the story of a visitor before us who had asked a question of one of the sarsens. Within moments his answer had appeared in physical form and still holds true to this day. While she spoke, I watched a bee circle around me. A February bee, but I had already seen two butterflies during my visit to England, so perhaps it was not too unusual…It made me think of the buzzing I had heard, low, but constant, as we were walking the path from the car to Wayland’s.
My chosen stone, guarded by a great bear
I chose my stone, as the bee continued to circle my neck, and pressed my forehead upon its surface. I didn’t have a question. Instead, I wanted only to receive whatever might be revealed to me.
The mound appeared before me in the full splendor of summer. Upon its green back, a white horse emerged, strong and sure. It stopped in wait as a figure cloaked in white descended and began to walk toward me. The landscape opened to beyond the barrow, to where people long passed gathered inside a great womb. I saw the path weaving in union between the land of land of the living and the land of the death. It became a processional of people coming towards the barrow. In the middle of the trail I saw a small circle of stones.
The visitors gathered around the mound of Earth, upon which the white horse stood with the figure cloaked in white. I could not see her face, but I knew her energy to be both feminine and strong.
The vision turned inward, and I felt as though I had entered an inner chamber. A shadowed form of a great bear appeared beside me, then morphed into a great serpent whose head rose behind mine. In front of me, a hawk of the sun passed before my vision, circling until all disappeared and I felt my body again. Each cell buzzing with renewed life, as though in those few moments of connection I had been washed with light.
The capstone of the chamber resembles a serpent.
It was soon time to leave, but before we left we placed more offerings for the spirits of the stones. It has been a true gift of a day. Full and complete in and of itself, even though it was just an hour passed noon.
It’s hard to deny the magic of Wayland’s Smithy
As we collected ourselves back into the car, even Ani appeared withdrawn into her own thoughts, refusing the small bits of sandwich we offered her. Each one of us quietly processing our return in our own way as we paused before our descent back into town.
To read the rest of the posts in this series, please click the links below:
I’m not sure what path is usually taken to visit the White Horse of Uffington, but I felt I must crest the hilltop and stand upon the Castle before I made my way to the chalk “horse” below it. The chalk figure is not small by any means. From one end to the other it measures 360 feet, yet the “white horse” is nestled just so within the hillside making it difficult to view unless one is high above it. Since we were diverted by construction, and the mist of morning obscuring the hillside, my best option to get a photo of the chalk figure was from the mound of earth called “Dragon Hill.”
You can just make out the chalk outlines below the crest of the hill, above the road.
The White Horse has been on this hillside for more than 3,000 years, and some say it’s not a horse, but a saber toothed cat, or even a dragon…which is rather hard to argue when you consider that just below it is the mound of earth known as Dragon Hill. The site where St. George is rumored to have slain the dragon. And, perhaps more compelling is the the curious shape of the Earth, which Sue pointed out, is also best noticed from high above…
In the middle of the right hand side of the photo, you will see Dragon Hill, a rise of earth covered in chalk (under the grass) where St. George slew his dragon.
Legend has it that the large white splotch of ground on the top of the hill will never grow grass because the blood of the dragon spilled upon it.
The mark of the dragon’s blood
One does get the feel of battles fought and rituals held atop Dragon Hill, which looks over the land while being protected by the “Castle” behind it. It’s not hard to see the grandeur and feel the power of the place, as well as imagine the awe it must have encompassed over its many years of existence. Years that seem to be layered by different civilizations with different purposes. The mighty sword, taking over the peace of the land, but not anymore…
I stand above the “head” of the “horse with the wing of the dragon to the left and Dragon Hill to the right.
It is from the body of the chalk figure, though, were you can get a sense of the greater body that resides below you. The sheer awe is nothing short of exhilarating as you peer out over the vast wing rippling the earth. A dragon who may be sleeping, but whose energy is not dormant.
The “head”
It took feeling into my inner sight to find the dragon beneath me as I descended Uffington Castle. To trust the knowing of where I needed to end up. Which was the place considered the head, but also looks curiously like an eye. Some say the lines hanging down from the “head” are teeth, some say they are the fangs of the dragon, but if you take the head for an eye, it resembles the Eye of Horus, which was all I could see. Another eye, drawing me inward… Whereas Long Meg had pulsed in the red energy of Earth, as I stood looking into the head of the dragon, I felt the pull of the sun.
It took all I could not to step inside…
This portal of the sun has a way of drawing you in.
I believe these sites are sacred. There are rules here that should be honored and respected. Reverence is required to walk the ground if you wish to learn what it has to teach you. If not, you should not be there. I felt that I had ventured close enough for that day, walking the edge, careful not to tread upon the chalk, while Sue and Larissa watched from above.
Larissa, Sue and Ani (who seems to have gotten special permission to walk the eye)
Two eyes had opened, and I felt wholly alive. It was time to cross over to the land of the dead…
To be continued…
To read the previous posts in this series about my recent visit to England, please follow the links below:
During my first trip to England — you know the one where I went in search of the white horse in the wrong Uffington — I climbed Glastonbury Tor with my family. I can still recall the wild exhilaration that consumed me the higher I climbed the mound of earth, until I reach the top and felt as though I was queen of the world. Or my world anyway. Anything felt possible in that limitless space where Earth touched heaven in a path to the heart.
Atop Glastonbury Tor
A similar energy stirred my cells to life as I climbed the hill leading to Uffington Castle. A hill that does not hold an actual castle as one might imagine it be, with stones and mortar, but the open-air castle of Earth kissing the heavens.
Uffington Castle had a similar feel to Glastonbury Tor. Not quite as wild, and more protected, it still gave me the feeling of union between Earth and Sky and a marriage of the divine masculine and feminine energies.
Although battles, perhaps many, were likely waged upon this hill and its surroundings, it has a powerfully feminine look and feel. At the top, anyway. It is like a womb, forever birthing and open to receive the energy that runs below it and above it. You see, it sits on the back of a dragon, whose fire energy courses through its body. The ley lines do not feel broken here. But alive.
Ani, Larissa & Sue stand nestled in the wing of the dragon.
Uffington Castle is an ancient “hillfort,” and it looks like a large grassy arena protected by raised banks of earth that slope into hollows in two places. Although the first hollow greeted me as I crested the hill, once again I felt the impulse to walk counter-clockwise, to the second depression. Stopping, for a moment, to absorb its full splendor, before I entered the body of the earthen womb.
Where I entered the “castle”-womb
It’s nothing sort of glorious to stand in the middle of Uffington Castle and feel the wrap of the womb open to the heavens. To gaze at the vast blue above and feel as though you are a part of it all. A tiny seed birthed into being from forces that are limitlessly powerful, yet filled with love. For a few moments I allowed myself to feel the wrap of the beloved in the center of the castle. Just me and the hawks of the sun circling in kite form above. It was nothing short of glorious. I felt wholly and completely alive.
Climbing the castle hill with Ani
Although there was the familiar impulse to linger much longer, it was enough stand in stillness for a few moments and allow the full sense of being to sink into my cells. Below the mound of Uffington, a dragon horse awaited me, its eye calling to be seen…
To be continued…
To read the previous posts in this series about my recent visit to England, please follow the links below:
This would be my second attempt to visit the White Horse of Uffington. The first attempt occurred during my first trip to England, in April of 2016. I had taken my family with me, and we were traveling by car from Derbyshire toward Uffington, or what we thought was Uffington. To be fair, it was Uffington, just not the right Uffington. Turns out there’s at least two Uffingtons in England, and I had punched the wrong one into the navigation system, adding a 3hr detour to our trip and a great deal of frustration and disappointment. Instead of seeing the White Horse, we ended up at an old abbey, which happened to be closed that day. Determined to get something out of the mishap, I peered over the tall gate and took a few photos of what we couldn’t see.
The remains of an old abby in “Uffington”
Since there are actually several horses covered in white chalk in England, we did end up seeing one, albeit thousands of years younger than the horse we had intended to visit. Not to mention it’s rather ordinary looking in comparison…
The white horse we found
And so it was that I had set out on another adventure to see the famous White Horse of Uffington. This time I was being driven by Sue, who knows the roads of England like the back of her hand.
It was one of those rare gifts of the day. Although Sue had only the morning and a wee bit of the afternoon to offer us, she had promised to pack a full day into the hours we had together. Larissa and I started our day before sunrise, planning to catch a 7am train to Aylesbury. We caught the 6:33am one instead, leaving us ample time to find some caffeine at our destination and spot Sue’s car before it could park near the train.
The famous Ani at Wayland’s Smithy
“I’ve given her a bath and a run,” Sue announced as I happily piled into the backseat to join the small dog I had read so much about. Turns out Ani was even more excited about our adventure than I was, and that’s saying something.
The house that guards the Blowing Stone
Since we were traveling at the peak of rush hour, we encountered a fair bit of traffic. Once we got through the bulk of the mess, and neared our destination, we had another hurdle to face. The road to the White Horse was blocked for construction. I wasn’t too worried, though. Time was precious that day, but I had faith in our driver and sure enough, Sue found another route. A route that just happened to lead us to another white horse, being lead by a rider on the roadside near the Blowing Stone. I took it as a good omen of things to come.
The Blowing Stone. Legend says that if you blow it right it can be heard at Uffington Castle, above the White Horse
“Give it a go,” Sue urged as we stood there staring at the ancient stone on the roadside. What the heck, I thought. I’ve traveled all the way here, I may as well give it a try. It took Sue having to point out the correct hole, of the many, to blow into, but three attempts later, the ancient stone sounded like a bugle. I was, admittedly, rather pleased with myself. Perhaps there was luck to be had this day. In the distance, nestled into the hillside was the white horse I had been waiting for. Just a short drive away. Above our heads the kites had started to gather in their dance with the sun.
To be continued…
To read the previous posts in this series about my recent visit to England, please follow the links below:
The Light Behind the Story 