Starting out in earth energy dowsing is rather like entering a tropical rainforest. It is a strange world full of wonders and marvels, eerie sounds and exotic beasts. A world where each intrepid explorer beats their own path, but a place where it is very easy to get lost, searching for a high point in an effort to see a landmark that may guide us to civilisation. It is for that reason that many stick to the tourist paths, careful not to stray off, but to be guided from sacred site to sacred site. Taking these well-trod routes does not mean we do not learn, indeed we gain a wealth of information from the experienced explorers as to how sites function in terms of energies, astrological alignments, the effect on underground water, our health and that of the environment. But how often do we marvel at all that we have learnt but then return to our nice homes with a vague idea that we would like to build a temple to the small gods in our backyard but without really a clue where to start?
Below is an article that first appeared in Dowsing Today, the membership magazine of the British Society of Dowsers (BSD). At the time I was one of their Tutors. This and other experimentation with earth energy led to me being awarded the BSD Award for Services to Dowsing and to the BSD
Earth energy dowsing has always been my passion and whenever possible I will eagerly foist it on unsuspecting members of the public! It also forms part of my courses at offers, specific earth energy courses, or through working with the energy in the homes, and even on the energy of their business. And what these have shown me is that the lack of human interaction with earth energies and the spirit of place is an issue that must be addressed. The people who participate find it a hugely positive, if eye-opening experience, and the spirit of place of areas that we work on normally respond like weary travellers lost in the desert stumbling across not just an oasis, but a fully equipped five-star hotel complete with helipad. Societally we are not in a place where this lack of interaction can be tackled en mass. I doubt that any government will put forward a programme for stone circle erection in the current economic climate. So what we, as dowsers, can do is work with those who are willing to let us have a go, whether that be a 1000-acre farm, a garden, or an allotment or within your own home and business.
It is also important when starting any earth energy dowsing experiments not to feel under too much pressure. I started small and did lots of experiments with the type and size of structures, and materials, but initially, I wanted a practice run in creating a construction to remove detrimental energy and enhance beneficial energy.
So I began small scale and decided to build a chambered cairn in miniature. The site I chose to be the test site was in fact my mother's allotment. The reasoning behind this had several strands, none founded on nepotism. Firstly, we have a strong connection to the site. My great-grandfather was instrumental in securing the allotments site from Lord Leigh and the Stoneleigh Abbey estate and our family has worked that land ever since. It has fed us through the generations and I felt we are a part of it as much as it is a part of us. Secondly, the growth rates and cropping should provide an indication of success or failure, and finally, if it all went wrong my own house and farm would be free from harm!
In the interests of simplicity, I decided to dowse for the watercourse and earth energies, and see what alignments occurred as a result. With hindsight, I would look at alignments before I actually began construction! But the point of the article is to show that we all have to start somewhere and we all make errors. I'm sure ancient man did not construct his first structure and announce 'That's done the trick!”
To begin we had to locate two basic features, an underground water course and a terminating triple spiral of earth energy over the top. A terminating triple spiral is when an energy ley of three strand grounds itself into the earth and is no longer dowsable past that point. These lines on a small scale are incredibly common and you will have a number of these in our own garden. I knew the water course was there from previous dowsing as it had needed some geopathic stress release work as the legumes didn't like being planted there the previous year. Two terminating triple spirals were in fact located. Dowsing revealed that the smaller of the two would be perfectly adequate for our purpose as the larger one would take up too much growing space, whilst constructing a chambered cairn over the smaller of the terminating set of spirals would mean that the final construction more or less coincided with the width of the water course. When we asked the spirit of place if this was the correct course of action for the site we received a 'yes' response.
We then used materials to hand to mark out the serpent line and the three termination points and the result was a cruciform shape. The materials consisted of some stones and some broken bricks! We did locate a few roofing tiles from a nearby building area and placed these on the roof. The brick above the entrance passage had a hole through it and in this we placed a piece of quartz to form the light box. We also placed a small stone at the back of the chamber for the light to hit. In the chambers themselves we placed pottery shards (from a broken tea cup!) a bundle of chicken thigh bones (from an extremely tasty casserole) and some flint (which we had conveniently stumbled across the day before...) and we dowsed to locate the appropriate chamber for each item and their orientation.
This set up we initially thought of as a temporary build until we could find better stones, however as the allotment had been de-stoned for many years there was a distinct shortage suitable for our cairn. So we dowsed again to see if the current combination of materials would suffice and again much to our surprise we got a 'yes' response. It seemed that the levels of consciousness of the allotment were so keen to work with us they were willing to go with the more modern materials. We covered this construction with soil which included other pieces of pottery, charcoal (left over from a bonfire), various small pebbles and some soaked newspaper to form our 'organic' layer. We damped this down as the soil was so dry it was like a desert. All through the process we kept dowsing to see if what we were doing was OK, and I have to say I was extremely surprised to get the go ahead to some less orthodox building materials.
All was going well at this stage and we left the cairn to 'settle' for a day or two. When we returned for the final stage of construction we were completely unable to locate sufficient stones to create a retaining wall to hold the whole thing in place. It was a hot day, and for help I had my ten year old son keen to get going, my 18 month old daughter getting past her best, and my Mum, with bad feet. Desperate to find a solution we wondered if a pile of new and unused bricks at the previously raided nearby building site would suffice. I addressed the spirit of place through dowsing to ascertain whether they had any objection to us using these. We are in a brick making area, so they were only baked earth I reasoned. Also, as any woman will know, when you are trying to mind two children on a baking hot day, necessity is the mother of invention. I addressed the spirit of place through dowsing. With all due respect I said, in order to get it finished it would have to be done with whatever came to hand. Once again the response was 'yes, go ahead'! Several furtive trips later (hiding behind a wheel barrow and tree in true cartoon fashion) we had liberated enough bricks to finish the construction, and had provided a few bricks with the chance to do something with their lives, to make a difference in this world. Several of them I am sure were quite emotional...
The completed chamber cairn did not have the appearance that I had initially envisaged, it looked more like a cross between New Grange and a temple from the Valley of the Kings! I dowsed again to make sure that everything we had done met with approval. I also dowsed for changes to the energies and found that detrimental energies were no longer present on the allotment but had also been removed for 250 yards all round. Not only had the detrimental energy been removed, energies had been considerably enhanced and dowsing revealed this would have a positive influence on the coming growing season. With no other cairns, standing stones or stone circles in the area for my cairn to link up with the area of influence could not be increased at that particular time, but I do still view the project as a work in progress.
However, when I finally checked for alignments I was somewhat shocked to realise that the cairn did not have the traditional east/west orientation. This is important due to the effect of light entering the passage and its resulting effects on the energies of the cairn. My cairn was in fact orientated true north, just a couple of degrees off magnetic north at the chamber chambers, with the entrance and light box facing south. Perhaps for some reason on this site, or due to the size of the cairn or building materials this alignment was what was needed? I did not wish to either start doubting my dowsing or assuming that I'm always right, so I decided to see what the results would be over the coming weeks and months. I needn't have worried....
Part 2 to follow next week.
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