#Inspiration #3.2.1 Me Challenge

On August 27, 2018August 27, 2018 By Alethea KehasIn Reflections21 Comments

Sue Vincent of The Daily Echo kindly nominated me for the 3.2.1 Me Challenge, giving me the word “Inspiration” for my topic. Thank you, Sue. Do check out her response to the challenge, “Time.”

The seemingly inert forms of rocks inspire me, even those found in New England. In this photo, taken at Acadia National Park in Maine, I can see dozens of faces, each with a different story to tell.

Did you know “inspiration” not only means “that which spurs creativity and action,” but also the “intake of breath?” I rather like the link between these two definitions. What inspires you to breathe life in? Fully and completely, capturing its essence as you do so? Connecting your life to its life…Your form to another’s…

I think, perhaps, the key is a connection. Finding that which sparks the synapses to fire across the bridge of singularity. That moment when we inspire the breath and say to ourselves, “ah ha, there is a certain something here I need to explore,” and in that exploration don’t we inevitably discover something about ourselves? A deep-seated longing, perhaps, that we now cannot ignore?

While looking up quotes on inspiration, I came across these words attributed to Bob Dylan,”Inspiration is hard to come by. You have to take it where you find it.” I find this rather sad and tend to disagree with it. Are we really that disconnected from life, and, one could extrapolate, the source of the air we breathe?

Mr. Dylan seems to be implying that inspiration is an elusive object, which is hard to obtain. I tend to think of it as just the opposite. Inspiration, I find, is everywhere, waiting for us to take notice. To take in the deep inhale of its life into our cells and allow them to spark fresh awareness. It’s a sad thought to think most of us spend our time breathing stale, shallow breaths without any sense of wonderment, but maybe Bob is onto something here…

While searching for actual quotes on inspiration (rather than “inspiration quotes,” which seem to occur in abundance), I came across this an interview with Ray Bradbury that appeared on Fresh Air, where he stated, “It’s lack that gives us inspiration,” he said. “It’s not fullness. Not ever having driven, I can write better about automobiles than the people who drive them. I have a distance here. … Space travel is another good example. I’m never going to go to Mars but I’ve helped inspire, thank goodness, the people who built the rockets and sent our photographic equipment off to Mars. So it’s always a lack that causes you to write that type of story.”

Again, I find myself in partial agreement. Lack of oxygen quite literally causes us to inspire, adding more air to our lungs. Bradbury, though, seems to be talking about what spurs creative inspiration. The lack of knowledge, causing us to seek. I suppose if we were full of all life, of all the answers to each and every question out there, there may, in fact, be nothing to inspire us. Why draw the breath in if the lungs are already full?

A full brain has nothing else to learn, but really, is that ever really possible? I may think I know the mechanics of driving, having driven for nearly 3 decades, multiple vehicles, with automatic and standard transmissions, yet I was still inspired to drive recently in England and found there was much to be discovered in this adventure of driving on the ~~wrong~~ left side of unfamiliar roads.

The ordinary became extraordinary, as I pushed past fears to find wonderment. Yet one need not, I believe, try driving on the opposite side of the road in a foreign land to find inspiration, one need only look with a little more depth at familiar surroundings, or breath in a little more air.

I often say I travel to England to find magic. In this ancient landscape, there is much that inspires me. It’s virtually effortless to find inspiration there, for me. Yet, here in New England, I find it is easy to fall victim to the mundane, or the Bob Dylan syndrome if you will. Yet, I realize, that is my fault, and not that of the landscape. There is magic in each blade of grass if you are willing to look at it more closely and marvel at the intricacy of its creation. Even the rocks here have much to offer, even those not aligned to the stars.

The key lies in the word itself. Allowing myself to inspire life, and breath deep its essence, even if that life is seemingly inert, there is always something new to take in and discover. Endless layers…endless molecules of air. The lungs always seeking more breath after exhaling that which has not been absorbed by the body.

While writing this post, a male cardinal appeared outside in my Rose of Sharon bush. It created quite a scene, as it flew in and out of the blooms and around the nearby foliage, as though it was trying to get my attention. Later, I thought about the cardinal feather I found years ago and had studied closely in a meditative state as part of a lesson with the Silent Eye School, discovering the feather was not merely red-orange, but filled with all the colors of the rainbow. “Now that’s something to write about,” Sue replied to my discovery.

One might say it was a joy to discover the rainbow in the red feather, and so I’ll leave the post with this word, “joy,” as the next challenge for three nominated bloggers if they choose to accept: Andrea Stephenson of Harvesting Hecate , Julianne Victoria of Through the Peacock’s Eyes, and Colleen Briggs of Fragments of Light. Please write a post about “Joy,” including two quotes on the subject and nominate three other bloggers to blog about a word of your choosing.

Thank you again, Sue, for the “inspiration!”

We receive the gift of a bat while watching Victoria & Abdul

On August 10, 2018December 15, 2020 By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Dreams, Gaia & Elementals, Reflections, yoga22 Comments

Sleeping girl in forest with bats — Night visitor. Photo Credit Pixabay

It was approximately 9:30pm, my husband and I seated on the sofa downstairs watching Victoria and Abdul, a bowl of popped buttered corn between us. Our son upstairs behind shut doors, our daughter and her friend taking a night dip in the pool after their evening run. The door dividing the screened porch open to the elements but screened from the bugs. Or so we thought.

“How did it get in here,” my daughter later asked.

“Maybe it was following a moth. They eat moths, don’t they?” someone offered in reply.

We can’t say for sure what drew it in. It had never entered our house before, nor had any of its kind. It seemed to be in a hurry though, its beautiful, silent body flying soundlessly through the opened doors of the porch, past the mesh screen to dance a circle around our heads in pursuit of an unidentified prey.

“There’s a bat in our house.” I don’t know who said it first. More husband or I. We were both equally startled. We’ve had uninvited visitors before, mostly courtesy of the cats, but no cat had invited the bat in. Nor had the dogs, which remained, somehow, blissfully unaware of our visitor for the 30-45 minutes it was with us.

And so began the pursuit of our graceful guest. How does one catch a bat? I am not sure. I got a net from the pool box used for retrieving frogs and the unfortunate rodents who have ventured over the edge. My husband, a pair of leather gloves from the basement. Thinking that the net might not be enough, I grabbed a thick cotton blanket from the closet and began to search the rooms with my husband.

Here’s the thing about bats. They are not only silent and swift, most of them, like this nocturnal flyer, rely upon echolocation for their sight. They are much better at navigating space than we are. It was a comical chase, to be sure, but we really didn’t think so at the time, well not all of us. Bats have a way of opening our fears, as well as our sense of wonder. I realized in those 45 minutes what our unexpected visitors was triggering in each of us.

My daughter and her friend found amusement, laughing when they discovered what we were dealing with. They were also safely outside. My son seemed satisfied enough to stay behind the closed doors to keep the bat out of the room. Those of us tasked with the challenge of leading the bat back out to where it came from, were not as stable with our emotions. I was fine until it flew by, my husband less so. “I’ve been bitten by animals before,” he reminded me when I told him that our panicking would likely only increase the bat’s panicking.

When we stop to observe and watch ourselves in these moments when our fears are triggered, we can learn a lot about ourselves. Having had more practice in this than my husband, because of my studies with the Silent Eye School of Consciousness, and yoga, I was able to step into that role of observer.

What if you get bit? I asked myself. I thought of rabies and decided I didn’t like that option, but I also thought about the bat as a teacher and as a guest who was there for a purpose that might not be entirely obvious at first. Here before me was this magnificent animal, a mammal like me, but with the ability to fly at will. We were, I realized, both night-flyers. While I released the weight of gravity while I dreamt, this night-flyer was showing me the beautiful blind dance of trust in my waking state. And, I realized, when I took the time to be still and let go my fear of being bit, that before me was a gift.

How remarkably beautiful you are I thought as the bat flew a millimeter in front of me in search of an exit. There were moments, many of them, when I had no idea where our visitor was until it soared past on its silent wings. There was even one moment when I was hunched in the hallway as it flew around me when I thought it had landed on me. It wasn’t, I discovered, an unwelcome thought. I had this ~~crazy~~ notion that if I remained calm and still, it would land on me if it chose to, and we would both be okay.

Or was it so crazy? When we choose to dance beyond our fears into that state of stillness and peace, the world has a way of responding in kind. Those zen-like moments you read or hear about, and maybe even have experienced for yourself, are just that. The letting go of what binds us to our bodies and minds and allowing our cells to dance in unity with all that is around us. It is, in essence, like flying without effort. This bat, I realized while it was with us, had been a welcome visitor after all. I was almost sorry when my husband declared after our second attempt at releasing it (we had at one point thought it had exited an open door only to discover after we had settled back onto the couch and our movie that it had not), that he had, in fact, watched it exit the same porch door from which it came from. It’s job here, it seems, was done.

A Briefly Guided Visit to The Spinster’s Rock

On July 28, 2018July 31, 2018 By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Memoir6 Comments

After our visit to The Hurlers, Sue and Stuart drove us to our car parked beside Brentor. “Give our regards to the Spinsters,” Sue said with a mysterious smile before we received hugs and watched our guides return to their car for their long road ahead to Penzance.

As we loaded into our rental, Larissa remarked with astonishment at the generosity of Sue and Stuart for driving us to The Hurlers and back, adding hours to their day which would end at the tip of the Michael Ley line before it enters the sea. One of the many aspects that make the founders (Steve included) of the School so remarkable is their unconditional generosity and genuine desire to share their love and wisdom with others.

The Spinsters is a rather strangely situated dolmen, at least in the modern landscape. One can’t help but wonder what surrounded it thousands of years ago. Now it stands oddly in the middle of farmland, and seemingly out in the middle of no-where. There is no obvious signpost marking its spot, and we nearly passed it by driving the narrow and twisty roads of Devon.

Considering its remote location, and lack of a parking lot — we pulled over into the hedges and hoped for the best — it’s not suprising we were the only visitors there. Or so we thought…

The stones often have stories to tell, and its worth stopping to “listen”

Years ago, before digital photography, I visited the Poulnabrone dolmen. Arguably the most famous and visited dolmen in Ireland, the Poulnabrone dolmen is awesome to behold. The Spinsters appears lonely in contrast, with its small herd of cattle guarding it. Yet, there is mystery here too, and a bit of magic left in the site. The stones still feel alive and they seem to observe their surroundings with an eye of discernment. The capstone has a particular anthropomorphic quality to it, with its face looking outward as though placing judgement upon those who might wish to pass into its portal. I thought it had both a serpent and whale-like quality to its form, and I had a strange urge to crawl onto its back. It was a little difficult to resist. Perhaps others had also, as the stone has fallen at least once from its perch and had to be replaced.

Larissa and I spent no more than fifteen minutes at the site among the stones while the disinterested cattle grazed at a distance. As I mentioned above, aside from the cows, we thought we were alone, but as we turned and began walking the short distance back toward the way we came, Larissa and I stopped simultaneously in our tracks.

The feather, we were both certain, had not been there when we entered the field to visit the dolmen. Yet, there it was, black as night, placed like a flag marking our path as we exited. Another corvid feather from an unseen guide. Too obvious to miss.

Turning Back Time: I visit the Hurlers

On July 23, 2018July 24, 2018 By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Reflections10 Comments

I am climbing the walls of an old church. There is only the outer fortification of stone, smoothed into mortared slabs. Each slab is chiseled with symbols, hieroglyphics of an ancient language my cells remember, but my mind has forgotten how to read. My hands grasp the hollowed frames of windows, climbing through the inside through levels until I know I have reached the 3rd floor. Here my hands let go of their grasp and I find I am hovering weightlessly. My body prone, I look down to the depths below. And then I begin to turn, like a clock. My body the hands of the hours going backward.

I had this dream about a week ago, and it has lingered with me since then. It has been more than a month since my return from England. My third trip there in as many years. I go to this land to turn back time.

After we descended from Brentor, and I paid my respects to the guardian stone, Sue graciously offered to take us along in her car to the next site, and Larissa and I accepted without negotiation. I was more than happy to take a break from driving on the ~~wrong~~ left side of the road down the winding narrow lanes of rural England, and I knew Larissa shared my fear that there was a good chance we would get lost following Sue who drives with the skill and ease of a professional racecar driver.

I drove down this lane and many like it.

So to The Hurlers we went, with Stuart navigating using a traditional paper map as Sue manipulated the stickshift gears on her ~~race~~ compact car. Larissa and I were impressed, to say the least, and kept breathing large sighs of relief that we were not in the front seats and could enjoy the views that ~~flew~~ passed by. And, we never got lost. Well, that is until we got there and I started to wander…

To be honest, I rather wanted to get lost, but at that critical moment the brain won over the longings of the heart, and I turned around. But, I am getting ahead of myself…

It’s difficult to describe just how vast and complex the landscape of Dartmoor is, which covers 368 square miles of moorland filled with the evidence of ancient civilizations. Pure heaven for someone like me.

The Hurlers is the remains of three large stone circles in the wild moorland landscape of Dartmoor, which just happens to be aligned with the star cluster Orion and sits on the Michael ley line. To say it is a place of magic is an understatement. I knew I was home before I stepped out of the car.

The Hurlers are larger than they appear, and are perfectly aligned with the stars…

As tends to happen in these ancient lands, my feet began to move as though driven by some deep cellular memory, responding to the forces of the land. Find the seer’s stone, the command kept entering my conscious mind as it whirled with the energies of the land.

The seer’s stone sits in the center of the Hurlers

The land was damp from rain, and a puddle had formed within the well around the central stone. I could not comfortably sit here, as I had at Bratha’s stone in the Peak last April, so my visit within the circle was brief. After paying my respects, I walked the perimeter stones in two of the circle, while my eye caught upon the portal stones, briefly. I will return after, I promised myself.

I could not ignore the intense pull to the land beyond. The hill with the balanced stones of giants felt like a magnet drawing me ever-closer to its energy. The land, as I have learned, beyond stone circles is filled with secrets of the past. Stones litter these ancient landscapes and each has a story to tell. There were too many to linger beside here, and my feet did not want to go slowly.

One can imagine a gathering place here, where the stones do the talking.

The vegetation of the landscape of these sites is always worth noting. How it grows along the ancient tracts…when it is interrupted, swirled or corse…

An uneven landscape that seems to have been modeled by deliberate hands.

There are many ditches around the Hurlers, as well as deep circular depressions. As Sue noted, it could be from mining the lands for ore, or for some other, perhaps ritualistic reason. There is the sensation of falling inward to another realm near some of them, and the grass often swirls in imposing tufts which speak of disruption.

IMG_3744 2.jpg — Several depressions threaten to tumble the unsteady.

My feet, though, kept racing toward the hill beyond, where the Cheesewring sits like a giant stone bird. Was I following the Michael line to some sort of apex of energy? It felt like a force beyond logical reason. Yet, I stopped at the edge of the stone settlement, just where the land starts to dip before it climbs. I looked at the imposing hill just beyond with longing, before I turned around. I was far, quite far, from the other three I had come with and logic told me it would not be fair to follow my heart into the mist. And so the climb would have to wait for some other day, perhaps in the future.

I got tantalizingly close before I turned away.

Something told me, though, that if I had stood long enough between those to standing stones, I would have gotten there sooner.

Following the Broken Lines of Earth to Brentor #leylines #albion #middlegradefantasy

On July 22, 2018January 11, 2022 By Alethea KehasIn Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Reflections, the labyrinth, Travel Adventures, Warriors of Light9 Comments

“The ley lines, lad. The ley lines. The lines of light in Earth. Some call them dragon lines. They haven’t been right for quite a long time now. Clogged by darkness. Broken by greed. I’m a mess. But then again, that’s nothing unusual these days. The entire planet is filled with broken lines and clogged pores, you might say. But you’re here to help fix that. So much work to be done. You best get started.” — Albion speaking to Ari, Book 2: Warriors of Light

“When we saw the cover of your book, we knew you had to be here,” Sue confided after I arrived for the June 2018 Silent Eye School of Consciousness workshop. The hexagram started appearing to me before I enrolled with the school and even before I met Sue through the wonderful world of blogging. Sue, though, has been my primary human guide as I navigate this sacred symbol and others.

Labyrinth_MainImage_Small — From the cover of my new book, *The Labyrinth*. Book 1 of the *Warriors of Light* series

The mystical hexagram seems to defy time and language, appearing throughout history and prehistory on Earth, as well as in the alignment of heavenly bodies. As above, so below. It unites the male and female aspects of ourselves and the “world” at large. Six years ago, I realized this symbol was asking to take form upon the pages of the book I had begun to write. Appearing in a grove of oaks, it looked like a maze of broken light. As I wrote, allowing myself to be led by the unseen force of the higher consciousness, I came to realize that lines of energy exist in the Earth and within us as the life force energy that is the “Light of Life” itself.

Ancient symbols predating religion appeared throughout the churches we visited during the June workshop.

And so it was no surprise that I was drawn to the workshop before I even knew why. The hexagram, leading the way. There was the hexagon around the Cerne Abbas giant, which aligned with the stars above. Orion mapping the inner and outer-landscape at each site we visited. Seven churches forming a star with an inner point of light. And, dragon lines running through it all, guiding present and long forgotten footeps.

“In the middle of the hexagon is the source of the golden light, but there are a million paths to get there. I don’t know how to explain it exactly. It’s like a spider’s web. There are smaller lines of light, like veins on a leaf, which fill the large star we share, all leading to the center.” — Sula, The Labyrinth, Book 1: Warriors of Light

I’m not sure I’ll ever be wholly or holy comfortable in a church. Although I admire their outer beauty, there is a rigidness to their structures that constricts my cells. An old church sits atop Brentor in England. Dedicated to St. Michael, it resides along his ley line. Inside the church, which still feels very solid and powerful in form, there is a stained glass window of the saint who is often seen in other churches slaying a dragon. Not so here.

Instead, the dragon lies dormant below him. The mound of earth itself, having erupted with its fire energy thousands of years before. It is no wonder I was not comfortable within these fortified walls. Although the saint here looks a bit wild and paganish with his feathered attire, his visage is fierce as he looks down upon the land with his sword poised for striking. His skirt wears the eyes of the peacock. Is there a bold defiance in this image inside a church that has laid claim to the land?

Stuart and Sue explore the top of Brentor. Sue blends into the fortification, while Stuart gazes into the landscape.

The gargoyles here do not appear on the roof of the stone building, but in the guardian stone itself, which sits, placed by Nature one presumes, at the base of the hill.

There is not just one face in this Guardian Stone filled with protective gargoyles.

I like this stone, as I do most stones that feel like there is a living presence within them. They often feel like friends, and when approached with trust and an open heart, they have much to share. Eyes are often drawn to them without always knowing why.

The jagged rock of the guardian stone mirrors the tor it guards. Born of fire and earth, it is a hybrid of forces that feel unbalanced. I cannot help but think of Glastonbury Tor, so different from Brentor with its elegant conical shape, which to me feels very feminine, yet powerfully in control and aligned with the sacred heart. I do not recall seeing a guardian stone when I was there two years ago. Just ewes with their spring lambs dotting the landscape with the energy of rebirth and the promise of a resurrected heart filled with Christ-consciousness for those who wish to ascend its summits.

My daughter poised for flight atop Glastonbury Tor, filled with exhilaration.

Brentor, in contrast, seems to represent a struggle of forces. As though the the battle between Earth and Man has yet to be won. Its church is largely intact, and dominates its summit, unlike the solitary tower that remains rather elegantly atop Glastonbury. Beautiful and non-threatening. Yet, is there really a victory to be won here?

Despite the masculine feel of Brentor, it is guarded by Hathor’s animal.

The giant that lies under St. Michael’s church at Brentor may be latent at present, but history has taught us that we cannot conquer forces that are greater than ourselves, because these forces also reside within us, unbalanced. When we disrupt the energies in Earth, as we are doing now, She responds to our unease. When will we learn?

A sacred stream runs through the body of the land below Brentor.

Water, like fire, runs through the veins of Earth. Nearby the base of Brentor, there is a small stone enclosure that appears to mark a sacred stream. Unlike Glastonbury, this one is mostly hidden, and there is no urging of tourists to gather. Yet, there it is filled with hope, carrying the blood of life through the land.

A Castle and Dinner

On July 21, 2018July 21, 2018 By Alethea KehasIn Memoir, Reflections9 Comments

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.

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.

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.

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.

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…

A Reclaimed Forest At the Edge of Dartmoor #dartmoor #ancientengland

On July 19, 2018December 12, 2021 By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Gaia & Elementals, Reflections, Travel Adventures11 Comments

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.

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.

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.

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.

Not an Ordinary Field of Wheat

On July 13, 2018July 13, 2018 By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Gaia & Elementals15 Comments

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.

A Visit to the Land of Camelot #camelot #ancientengland #Cadburycastle

On June 22, 2018December 22, 2021 By Alethea KehasIn Animal Messengers, Gaia & Elementals, Travel Adventures30 Comments

Reflections from The Silent Eye’s June 2018 workshop.

The land pulls the blood from my body prematurely, just as it did two years ago when the white goddess appeared at the foot of my bed as I took the role of Guinevere. Three in the morning is an uncommon time to wake, but there is significance to this number. We are working with lines that join into triangles.

Sometimes I think I have strained limits, but my mind tells me I have not returned to the feel of the womb again to sleep. Birth is inevitable. My skin protests darkness and shuns the heavy wrap causing the release of sweat when I try to sleep. There is an alchemy of fire and water going on within and without.

Maumbury Rings in Dorchester, England have a distinctly feminine shape. Inside its womb-like enclosure, you can feel the dull ache of its violent past.

I walk the Maumbury Rings after descending Maiden Castle where I felt the stabs of its violent past covering a land that once held magic. Yet, there is still heat to be found if you sit in silence in the place of the ancient temple. It radiates gold and feels like a powerful peace.

The size of 50 football (soccer) fields, Maiden Castle holds a turbulent past as an Iron-age fortress. Yet, the land holds the memory of magic that can be felt in areas such as the site of an old Roman Temple (seen in this image), perhaps built over an ancient sacred site.

In the distance, the land mounds into peaks that draw the eye to patterns formed thousands of years ago. Miles from this structure, in a small town in Somerset, there is another hill named for a castle that no longer exists in solid form.

I walk the perimeter of Cadbury Castle, pulled toward the path to Glastonbury. The Tor, 21 miles away, can be seen from here.

Cadbury Castle feels like a test. This is where we gather for the start of the workshop, and before we ascend the hill, we visit a church that feels like a shadow below. My companion tells me she smells blood inside its walls and I find it difficult to breathe its heavy air. Outside and inside its walls I feel the haunting of a past that seeks to be reconciled by light.

Crows abound here and leave their feathers under the ancient yew tree as though purposely placed. I will find their feathers throughout my week’s journey in the ancient landscape of Albion.

An ancient yew holds the secrets of time here beneath Cadbury Castle. The ground surrounding it was littered with crow’s feathers, and the birds called me toward the fairy woods at the base of the hill.

There are cow guardians on the hill of Camelot. They own the rights to the land now, but the forest you must pass through holds its secrets. I have grown familiar with haunted woods, yet each one holds a different story I feel I must decipher. The woodland spirits seem to recognize my link to Guinevere and draw me into the press of trees. In these places one can easily become lost to time.

It is always with reluctance that I pull away and return to the mind’s calling. This hill feels troubled to me. Below the grass, I sense the rocks seeking to be revealed once again. Feathers mark where they have become partially exposed, and I can read a piece of their sacred past, which continues to pull me twenty-one miles away to where the Tor rises over the sacred heart.

Glastonbury Tor rises above the landscape 21 miles away.

As I walk the land, I see in my mind’s eye two triangles converging to form a star, which covers the expanse of the hilltop. The exposed rocks along the perimeter mark its points, and I imagine lines of energy flowing to places like Glastonbury Tor. I find it difficult to resist the desire to remove the dirt that seems to hide this sacred form.

I walk the right perimeter of Cadbury Castle following the jut of stones and feathers that seem deliberately placed by an unseen hand.

There is a meditation read by Sue Vincent, and my mind starts to wander to another time. I lose track of her words as images form of their own accord. There is a crownless king with long hair. His head removed from his body. A serpentine energy rises instantly to wrap the land in protection. It ripples to the left, away from the Tor and when I open my eyes I can see its pattern in the waves of grass where the cows graze.

The left side of Cadbury Castle wears a wave-like formation of earth, which is where I saw the serpentine energy wrap the land.

Once again, I am drawn to the heart. To the center, even though I can feel the lines broken by the hands of a false power. I will feel this each time we visit the points on the star spread wide across the land at sites once holy without mortared towers. I want to pull down these false alignments of power and watch as the stones return to the body of Gaia. There is still too much force of will here. Phallic forms created by the hands of man boldly rise at the entrances to the carefully constructed vesica pisces where people have prayed for thousands of years in obedience. I want to birth them new again. Holy unto themselves, aligned with the stars and Her body below.

An imposing tower guards the entrance to a church placed on a ley line of energy. Inside, the “womb” of these churches resemble vesica pisces with their curved ceilings.

There is an erect giant on a hill in Cerne Abbas. He overlooks the village in a landscape that is aligned with a belt of stars in the heavens. Each time I look at him, I see his too small head removed from his body, exposing the unobstructed pathway to the heart. I also see power, and it feels conflicted because of time. He seems to be impregnating the mound he stands upon, but with what now?

From the bottom of the hill, below the giant, only his bottom half is exposed.

Circles in the Earth appeared three weeks before our arrival, perfectly aligned with the giant and with the symbols we are working with. One year before, another pattern in the earth showed the goddess inside a vesica pisces as though impregnated by the energy of a giant aligned with Orion in the heavens.

I remember how I felt the goddess rising strongly against my back on the top of Maiden castle as I sat inside what felt like a holy site. There was the peace of balance. The sun energy radiated around me and up through the Earth. A sacred joining with the goddess. I, the child glowing inside the impregnated womb.

The wheat begins to grow back to its original form in the May 2018 Cerne Abbas crop circle. Aerial images can be found online. I felt like a trespasser even though the energy had dissipated (with the aid of other trespassers before me). My opinion is that these circles are not meant for human intrusion.

I think of the world I was born into, and my own children. These are, without a doubt, turbulent times. Yet there is hope. My mind clings to its vision of a riderless horse galloping effortlessly up the hill of Cadbury. Pure white, like the stars still aligned with our Earth. I feel their energy running back through Her veins. I think of the circles and lines in the crops barely visible during my visit to them. Rays on the wheel of time draw in the sun over crescent moons. I think of Horus and Hathor. A union of energies within and without merging back to the center where I sit for a moment and wonder what we will birth into the future.

Beautiful wildflowers that wear the colors of the crown chakra crow on the hillside where the Cerne Abbas Giant resides.

Winter Returns to Pull the Cells Inward

On April 15, 2018April 15, 2018 By Alethea KehasIn Gaia & Elementals, Memoir, Reflections12 Comments

Two years ago the weather was the same. The New Hampshire climate is not so different from the Peak District of England. April can be sunny and warm, or it can return, in a moment, to the icy hands of winter. Today in New England it is raining sleet, which is collecting upon the ground in growing layers of white. I imagine the still unopened buds on the daffodils and crocuses are pulling inward.

My own mind travels to the Nine Ladies Stone Circle in Derbyshire. Recalling the same pounding sleet that challenged our four seeking forms on the second day my family and I ventured out to find the circle. Or should I say evening? We chose the impending arrival of the night both times we sought the vaguely marked landmark. I, much more urgently seeking than my husband and children, who seemed more to indulge me than feel the need. The body, though, remembers the past, even the past that extends beyond its lifetime. There is an imprint that is made deep within the cellular matrix that connects to the soul’s lifetimes and it behooves one to take note of the triggers that bring the memories back to life.

I knew the land was testing me. Asking me what I was willing to remember. Asking me if I was ready to return to a time that pressed me beyond the brink of conscious memory. The forces that reside in these sacred sites of the moors are strong and very much alive, yet they are mostly unseen, serving as the haunting imprints of a past that was filled with a magic that we have mostly chosen to forget. Walking with the intention of awareness, though, one cannot help but feel it.

Or hear it. On the first night, there was the cry. Like a woman calling for a lost child. My daughter heard it too, so I knew I wasn’t going insane. Put the pull inward was fierce, and I could see an emotion that approaches fear on the faces around me. We left as the darkness began to descend to reveal the shadows of the far distant past more acutely. There are legends about people being lost in the moors and never returning. The elemental forces hold a rein here that is strong and often unrelenting. It serves to test your notion of survival as well as your willingness to remember what many have chosen to forget.

Winter is the season of dreaming. Of a hibernation that turns life inward toward the soul’s truths if we are willing to sleep with awareness. It seemed fitting, in many ways, that the sky chose to release winter’s return on our second venturing out to find the stone circle we never found on the first night. This time I was determined not to allow my body to be pulled to other landmarks, no doubt equally, if not more, significant for the journey. Yet, there was a reluctance, a fear, to venture into these shadowed lands that felt threatening. I was, simply, not ready to understand and to feel fully what it had to reveal. There is an initiation or re-initiation, that must occur, and I was not ready. I also had my family with me. A family that was there because of my urgings. The fierce need to protect over-rode everything else.

The Gaudy Tree Draped in Artificial Finery

Despite the unrelenting skies, we found the circle. It seemed so small, and in many ways insignificant, or rather forgotten. The tree that hovered beside it was draped in gaudy finery, which I found repulsive. A desecration of the sacred. I resisted the impulse to pull down ribbons and naked plastic bodies of miniaturized women. Who does this? I wondered. This was not the worship of the past my cells knew. A place visited often enough, perhaps, but forgotten.

But still, the whispers of the past were there, haunting the sacred ground. They called through my body in a language I was trying hard to resist, but also to remember. It would take me another year to be ready. To willingly return to the moors (in a different area) and visit the sacred land with a memory fierce and very much alive. Thankfully, a year later, I walked back through time under the watchful eyes of those who are familiar with the forces of the land, lest I go too far astray.

The Light Behind the Story

Tag: The Silent Eye School of Consciousness

#Inspiration #3.2.1 Me Challenge

We receive the gift of a bat while watching Victoria & Abdul

A Briefly Guided Visit to The Spinster’s Rock

Turning Back Time: I visit the Hurlers

Following the Broken Lines of Earth to Brentor #leylines #albion #middlegradefantasy

A Castle and Dinner

A Reclaimed Forest At the Edge of Dartmoor #dartmoor #ancientengland

Not an Ordinary Field of Wheat

A Visit to the Land of Camelot #camelot #ancientengland #Cadburycastle

Winter Returns to Pull the Cells Inward

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: