Spirits of Place

 

 "I experienced contact with something or someone sentient and much greater than my individual self. I had experienced contact, even momentary communion, with the "essence" of what could be called a transpersonal presence. Afterwards I was told by the local shaman or caretaker that I had met with the guardian spirit of the place.....Pilgrim Martin Gray described a (similar) unification experience he had while attending a Shinto religious festival."

Debra D. Carroll "From Huacas to Mesas"
DIALOGUES WITH THE LIVING EARTH, James and Roberta Swan (1989)

I have been thinking, as I often do, about the "numinous", the intelligence of the life around us, whether we walk in a forest, the desert, or simply, as I do, talk to my plants each morning, asking them what they are doing and admiring them. They don't exactly answer in English, but they do let me know what's going on.

How do we "talk to the Earth"?  Ever since I learned to dowse I've wondered about that.

Following this thought stream, I felt like sharing a story, and the  writings of Martin Gray, who spent some twenty years of his life visiting sacred places around the world as a pilgrim.  His life, in truth, has been one of pilgrimage.   I take the liberty of sharing below an article from his amazing book, SACRED EARTH.**

I myself have experienced things "paranormal" at places of power, including heightened energy, dowsing rods that go crazy, orbs, strange photographs, dreams, and other phenomena.  When I climbed the Tor  in Glastonbury, all my photos were infused with violet light.....which is the color associated with the Lady of Avalon.  My camera hasn't taken "purple photos" before or since. For days after visiting Avebury I was "blissed out", and had the most wonderful dreams.

I remember when I was living with with my former husband in upstate New York in the 90's. Where we lived was a rural area rapidly being built up with industry. One of the mysterious places in the area, to me, was a field I used to visit. To get to that field, which bordered our property, one had to go through a kind of obstacle course - you crossed an old stone wall, immediately ran into a rusted barbed wire fence, and then tramped through a barrier of poison ivy, grape vines and small trees.

Braving all of this, a beautiful field appeared.  Bordered on all sides by trees, you could stand there in the tall grass, or the snow, and see nothing of the warehouses or homes nearby. It felt, oddly, as if it was somehow protected, as if you entered a special, quiet, mysterious place. The land had obviously once been worked, but it had been left fallow for many years, and in the center  of the field, if you looked, was a  "fairy circle". Small trees, bushes, even tall grasses formed a surprisingly visible circle. With my divining rods, I found there was a ley crossing in that exact spot - the rod "helicoptered" and whirled.

My Ex and I were actively involved in Earth based spiritual practices, and he facilitated a  men's group. One night when the moon was full the group, energized by drumming, decided to visit the field. There was snow on the ground, and as the young men strode to the stone wall, something pushed two of them into the snow! Being young, they got up and  thundered forward - and something  pushed both of them backwards, again. They fell on their behinds in the snow! This (I was told) was enough strangeness for everyone, and the group  turned around and went home. The next day, he and I  I took offerings to the edge of the field. 

I remember placing crystals and flowers on a stone, and as I did, I felt such an overwhelming sense of sorrow that tears ran down my face. I believe I was feeling the sorrow of the guardian spirit of that place. I don't really know what it meant, but the memory is still vivid.   It was a very intense feeling, and sadly, a  year later there was an oil spill in a nearby truck depot, and the wetlands that bordered "the Field" suffered ecological damage, and a big tree we associated with our "Green Man" died.

Sensitivity follows intention, and perhaps, had I not been practicing an Earth based religion, I would not have had that experience.  The voices of the land are subtle, and we must prepare ourselves to listen.  The tragedy is that the Earth is speaking to us all the time, and the forces of modernity, moving faster and faster and faster, make us ever more deaf to the subtle Voices of the land.

I have taken the liberty here of sharing an article by Martin Gray, who is so much more eloquent than I in discussing this.

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Non-corporeal Beings:  The mysterious influences of spirits, devas and angelic beings associated with sacred sites

by Martin Gray
 
Sages and seers from antiquity have repeatedly remarked that the dimension we see with our physical eyes is not the only dimension of existence. Many other realms exist and within them a variety of beings, spirits, energies and entities. Traditional peoples the world over have spoken of the existence of these presences, calling them such names as elves, gnomes, leprechauns, devas, fairies, genies and ghosts.

Since time immemorial humans have sought contact with these unseen forces. Shamanic practitioners communicate with the spirits of animals, ancestors and the plant world. Psychics, clairvoyants and mediums conduct séances to speak with entities from nonvisible realms. Religious mystics affirm the presence of angels, deities and other heavenly beings. Whatever we choose to call these entities, and however we attempt to explain them, it is certain that something mysterious is happening in dimensions other than those perceptible by our normal senses of sight, hearing, touch and smell.

These mysterious presences seem to be especially concentrated at the power places and sacred sites. In some holy places, particularly those of remote forest and desert tribes, these unseen presences are the sole focus of ritual activities. No Christian church or Buddhist temple will be found there, only a small shrine indicating the abode of some nature spirit. In the world's more celebrated pilgrimage shrines, these presences receive less acknowledgment than the primary religious deities. While the presence of the unseen forces usually long precedes the arrival of the historical religion that now maintains the pilgrimage shrine, those forces are frequently denied, dismissed, demonized or given only marginal importance. In the temples of Burma where we find great monuments to the Buddhist faith surrounded by small shrines dedicated to a host of pre-Buddhist spirits called Nats. In the Christian churches of Europe, Britain and Ireland flow springs long ago dedicated to pagan earth goddesses. And in the courtyards of enormous south Indian temples stand numerous small shrines housing various spirits called yakshas, nagas and asuras.

These unseen forces may affect pilgrims without their having any knowledge of the forces, or they may purposely be summoned to appear by the performance of ritual actions and invocations. Traditional rituals practiced at many shrines are potent, time-honored methods for invoking various spirit forces. Such methods are not the only way to summon the mysterious powers. Focused mental intention is an effective method of invocation, and prayer and meditation are the tools of spirit communication.

It is beneficial to first learn something about the nature or character of the spirit entities that inhabit a sacred site. Reading guidebooks concerning the mythology and archaeology of the site or questioning shrine administrators and priests are good approaches. The unseen forces will be described in terms such as spirits, devas or angels. These terms are simply metaphors for the actual character or personality of the forces. These terms also serve as metaphorical representations indicating how the forces will psychologically and physiologically affect human beings. Next, carefully consider the character of the unseen forces dwelling at a sacred site - this important point should not be lightly dismissed. Those forces may have either beneficial or disturbing effects on different people. Invocation of unseen forces at sacred sites is a powerful practice. It is important to exercise caution lest unwanted forces be admitted into an individual's personal energy field.

Martin Gray

"There is an earth-based energy available to human beings, concentrated at specific places all across the planet, which catalyzes and increases this eco-spiritual consciousness. These specific places are the sacred sites discussed and illustrated on this web site. Before their prehistoric human use, before their usurpation by different religions, these sites were simply places of power. They continue to radiate their powers, which anyone may access by visiting the sacred sites. No rituals are necessary, no practice of a particular religion, no belief in a certain philosophy; all that is needed is for an individual human to visit a power site and simply be present. As the flavor of herbal tea will steep into warm water, so also will the essence of these power places enter into one’s heart and mind and soul. As each of us awakens to a fuller knowing of the universality of life, we in turn further empower the global field of eco-spiritual consciousness. That is the deeper meaning and purpose of these magical holy places: they are source points of the power of spiritual illumination."

Martin Gray

 

** Sacred Earth is written and photographed by Martin Gray and is the culmination of twenty-five years of travel to hundreds of sacred sites in more than one hundred countries.  Gray’s stunning photographs and fascinating text provide unique insight into why these powerful holy places are the most venerated and visited sites on the entire planet. Maps adapted from the National Geographic Society show the locations of all the sites presented, and a thorough appendix includes a comprehensive list of over 500 of the world’s sacred sites.  The book can be purchased from the author on his website:  www.sacredsites.com

Sig Lonegren on Sacred Sites and Consciousness

"My understanding was that the driving factor in the construction of purpose-built sacred spaces in prehistoric times was the loss of the ability of more and more of humanity to connect on a conscious level with the world of spirit.  I felt, and still do, that the archaeoastronomy, sacred geometry and Earth Energies all enhanced the ability of this connection as we became more and more left-brain/rational."

Over the years I've included in this Blog articles by Sig Lonegren,  who I consider an important teacher for me.  Recently I found a 2012 UTube Interview with him, and felt like sharing it here.  For those interested in Earth Mysteries, follow the links to Sig Lonegren, his writings and interviews or videos..........and you will travel down a fascinating path that challenges paradigms.

Sig is a dowser and a geomancer, and he has spent many years exploring  sacred places, in England, Europe, and in the U.S.  As a dowser myself, I've experienced shifts in energy - which means also shifts in  consciousness and perception -many times when visiting areas that are geomantically potent, be it the henge of Avebury,  or the labyrinth at Unity Church in Tucson. Sig demonstrated that Sites are able to change consciousness (raise energy) because they are intrinsically geomantically potent, and/or  they also become potent because of human interaction with the innate intelligence of place, what the Greeks called "genus loci".  Geomantic reciprocity - as human beings bring intentionality, reverence and focus to a particular place, building sacred architecture, or engaging in ritual.  Sacred places have both an innate and a developed capacity to transform consciousness. 

Why would the ancient people who built Stonehenge spend generations hauling monstrous (and apparently specific) stones hundreds of miles to pose them in  circles, laid  in various alignments with the skies, seasons, and land? According to Sig, who references psychologist Julian Jayne's controversial 1970's book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, possibly because, as human culture and language became increasingly complex,  we began to lose mediumistic consciousness,  a daily, conversant Gnosis.  With the gradual ascendancy of left-brained reasoning he suggests the ancients developed a concern with how to continue contact with the gods, the ancestors, the numina of the land. 

 Stonehenge was a temple on a sacred landscape - according to Sig, it may also represent a "last ditch effort" to keep in touch with the spirit world as communal experience.   As the rift between personal gnosis and spiritual contact deepened,  gradually  Gnosis was replaced by complex religious institutions that removed individuals from the earlier tribal mind, and rendered spiritual authority to priests who were often viewed as  the sole representatives of  the  Gods or God.  

 As Sig has commented:

"I have been arguing for decades that these (sacred) spaces were special places that enhance the possibility of connection to the other side - to the One.  Please judge what follows in that context. You may well find that it challenges some of your paradigms you hold about the past.  It combines two separate lines of investigation that support the perception that these spaces really “did what’s on the box.”  The gods came to earth.  And us humans in great numbers communicated directly with them.  

Since the mid-seventies when I began work on my Masters’ degree on Sacred Space, one of the major themes I have chewed on has been the shift from the dominance of that more intuitive right brain in prehistory to the analytical left brain brought to us by (IMHO) the increase of influence of the Patriarchy.  The book that really turned me on initially was The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes, first published in 1976. 

I don’t agree with some of what he has to say, for example, his choice of a particular word to describe how our prehistoric ancestors received their right brain information - "hallucinations."  I don't think that's what they were.  But on the whole, I found his thesis most useful in forming my perception of this global shift in consciousness.   It began with the Neolithic Revolution - the increasing use of agriculture rather than hunter gathering.  It facilitated a shift in consciousness.  My understanding was that the driving factor in the construction of purpose-built sacred spaces in prehistoric times was the loss of the ability of more and more of humanity to connect on a conscious level with the world of spirit.  I felt, and still do, that the archaeoastronomy, sacred geometry and Earth Energies all enhanced the ability of this connection as we became more and more left-brain/rational.  I wrote about this at great length in my first book, Spiritual Dowsing, initially published in 1986."

Sig Lonegren (2012)

www.geomancy.org

https://youtu.be/9sMGxeONXrA

References:

Jaynes, Julian. 1976. The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company. (Available from Amazon Books.)

Lonegren, Sig. 2007. Spiritual Dowsing. Glastonbury, England: Gothic Image. History of the earth energies, healing and other uses of dowsing today. A book for the spiritual pilgrim. Initially published 1986. ISBN 978-0-906362-70-9.  (Available from Amazon books).

The Black Madonna and Pilgrimage to the Source

"Our Lady of the Shards" Lauren Raine 2012

 

¨Visual images of the Goddesses stand in stark contrast to the image of God as an old white man, jarring us to question our culture's view that all legitimate power is male and that female power is dangerous and evil. The image of the naked Eve brazenly taking the apple from the serpent, then cowering in shame before a wrathful male God, tells us not only that female will is the source of all the evil in the universe, but also that the naked female body is part of the problem. This image communicates to the deep mind the message that female will and female nakedness must be controlled and punished by male authority. In contrast, the Goddesses show us that the female can be symbolic of all that is creative and powerful in the universe. The simplest and most profound meaning of the image of the Goddess is the legitimacy and goodness of female power, the female body, and female will.¨

 -Carol P. Christ, Rebirth of the Goddess

 Black Madonna of Einsiedeln

The mysterious, ancient, and ubiquitous   "Black Madonnas",  both paintings and effigies,  are found in shrines, churches and cathedrals all over Europe - France alone has over 300. They are also found in other parts of the world as well, notably Mexico and South America.  For a map of Black Madonnas throughout the world  visit:

 http://interfaithmary.net/locations  

These icons have been the focus of pilgrimages since the early days of the church, and most certainly are found in  sites that were earlier pre-Christian  pilgrimage sites, such as sacred springs or caves,  as well as often  being  sites of former Roman temples.  

"Black Madonna"
Lauren Raine(2005)

Why were these effigies so beloved that pilgrims travelled many miles to seek healing, offer their devotions,  and perhaps hope for oracular  guidance? Why, in Medievil times when European peasants were unlikely to ever  see a dark skinned person,  was the Madonna black? Some of the statues are made of materials that are true ebony black.   And why are there so many myths that connect the Madonnnas  with springs, or caves, or special wells?

In 2005, during a residency on the 150 acres of I Park Artists Enclave, the land spoke to me, and I had time and space to speak back, to engage in a creative artistic  conversation.  One of my first "Black Madonna" sculptures  arose from that numinous time - eventually She found a home in a tree, and if she has since disintegrated into that tree through the passage of the seasons, well, that is appropriate.

Many scholars believe that the origins of the archetypal  Madonna with Child in Europe began with earlier pagan  images of Isis with her child Horus (the reborn Sun God). Isis was a significant religious figure in the later days of Rome, and continued to be worshipped in the early days of Christianity.  Imported from Egypt, Isis had shrines throughout the Roman Empire.  Rome was home to many deities, the cosmopolitan city of its time, and worshippers of  Isis, as well as the Christ of early Christianity, co-existed.   When Isis arrived in Rome she was sometimes  adapted to Rome with  Roman dress and complexion, and she was also occasionally merged with other Roman deities, such as Venus.  Images of Isis survived the fall of Rome,  were ubiquitous throughout the Roman Empire,  and temples devoted to Isis continued well into the third century AD. "Paris" probably derives from the name of Isis (par Isis)......."city of Isis"

fresco from the Temple of Isis at Pompeii

The Camino

Nevertheless, the origins of Isis  are Egypt, where she was represented as a dark skinned deity, as were the people of that land, and no doubt many of  her images transplanted to Rome and beyond retained the  coloring  of the peoples of Egypt.  But many believe (as do I) that  there are other associations that account for the archetype of the  Black Madonna and Her enduring devotion.  She represents the  Earth Mother,  and Her black color is the color of the rich, dark, fertile soil whose Mysteries sustain the cycles of life.

An image that especially interests me, for example, is one of two (!) Black Madonnas found at the shrine of Le Puy, France, which is one of the beginning points for the great Camino Pilgrimage.* In the Le Puy  Madonna  the Christ child emerges from the area of the figure's womb, rather

than being held in her arms.  Pilgrims  gather in the church  and pray to the Black Madonna at the start of their journey to the great Cathedral of Compestela.  Christians of the Middle Ages approached the Camino de Santiago de Compostela  as an act of transformation, an opportunity to make a long contemplative journey toward a divinely inspired life.  The Pilgrimage routes themselves have very  ancient,  pre-Christian origins associated with them,  which like Pilgrimages (called Mysteries) in ancient Greece  concerned  healing and rebirth, and like the Elusinian  Mysteries, were in some way associated with the Great Mother-Triple Goddess. 

Camino pilgrimage routes 

Pilgrimages to the Black Madonna still occur throughout Europe following long traditions -a  prolific annual pilgrimage, for example,  to the Black Madonna of Czestohowa in Poland engages thousands of worshippers, and there have been many claims of miracles that were granted by the pilgrimage.   

Procession before Mass. Photo: PAP/Marcin Kmieciński.

As previously noted, there are quite a few  Black Madonna shrines  associated with the great pilgrim route of Camino de Santiago de Compostela, called "the Camino".  When Constantine established Christianity as the official religion of Rome, he also gave the Imperial blessing to the Roman "Camino"  which he re-established as a Christian pilgrimage.  Santiago Means "Saint James".  According to legend,  St. James brought Christianity to Spain, where, in his travels, the Virgin appeared to him in a vision.  When he later returned to Palestine he was martyred, but  his disciples returned his body to Spain and interred it in what became the  great Cathedral and the  final destination of the pilgrimage.  But whether Saint James is actually buried at Compostela or not,  long before the Virgin was called the Virgin people were making pilgrimages on that route to the Mother Goddess - perhaps bearing offerings, at Roman shrines, to Isis.

Black Madonna of Czestochowskad (Poland)

Isis and her husband Osiris were the deities of agriculture,  and Isis was responsible for bringing the dead Osiris back to life, resulting in the birth of Horus, God of the Sun ( and associted with the Solstices).  As a fertility as well as mother Goddess, she was thus a Goddess of both the living and the dead, containing within Her the cycles of earthly existence - life, death, and rebirth.   Egyptian statues of Isis nursing the infant Horus are important as the probable origins of the Madonna and Child images, embodying the Great Mother Goddess archetype with prehistoric origins  ghosting all the way back to the Neolithic.   

Since some of the shrines dedicated to the Black Madonna occur in caves or at special springs  of geomagnetic potency she was associated with healing, and the dark earth that the common people depended upon and lived with  intimately.  Within the dark dormancy of winter, fertile seeds wait underground  in the black soil to germinate, bringing the renewal  of life.  In this sense, blackness and darkness  represent fertility, as well as the endarkened  underground realms of rebirth.  

In very ancient times, I personally  believe,  the magnificent Cave paintings, such as those in the Chauvet Cave which was made into a 2010 Documentary, "Cave of Forgotten Dreams" by Werner Herzog,  were created in the darkness of caves as symbolic offerings within the great "womb" of the Mother Goddess.  One of the older drawings, far in the back of the cave, is that of a woman's vulva, the only representation of a human form within the cave, and indeed, it may be the earliest known drawing of a human.  It is generally called a "Venus" by archeologists, but I doubt it is there as a figure of male eroticism.  A more likely explanation is that it represents the source of birth - the Great Mother.  In that light the paintings of animals are acts of prayer,  honoring their  rebirth  within the "womb" of the cave.

Vulva form from Chauvet cave, ca. 30,000 bc. 
The bull and lion forms were apparently added at a later date.

Mother Earth 

Whether originally derived from Isis or not,  Black Madonna  images are connected in place and myth to healing springs, power sites, and holy caves.    The Black Madonna is thus a manifestation of the primal Earth Mother, transformed once more, this time  into the form of Catholic Mary.  But  She is not entirely disguised, because She is black like the rich Earth is black - fertile like the Earth is fertile, and dark because she is embodied and immanent, as nature is embodied and immanent. 

There are many sacred sites housing Black Madonna effigies, and quite a few of them are associated with "The Camino", of which the  Cathedral of Santiago at Compostella is the endpoint.   Scholar and film maker Jay Weidner has suggested that the earliest pilgrimages on the Camino were made to the Black Madonna of Compostella.  He points out that Compostella comes from the same root word as "compost", which is the fertile soil derived from the decomposition (and re-creation) of rotting organic matter, the "Dark Matter"  from which new life emerges.  Composting could be viewed as the alchemical soup to which everything returns, continually resurrected by nature into new life, new form.  "Mater" is Latin for Mother.

"From this compost -- life and light will emerge. When the pilgrims came to the Cathedral at Compostella they were being 'composted' in a sense. After emergence from the dark confines of the cathedral and the spirit -- they were ready to flower, they were ready to return home with their spirits lightened."  ~~ Jay Weidner

There are many miraculous legends associated with Black Madonna icons and sacred sites. The power of sacred sites and sacred images has multiple layers of potency.  What inner significance does the image have to the devout who come before it?  What does the icon, as well as the "spirit of place" emanate?  Can an ancient statue or painting have healing powers, or is the site itself a "place of power", it's energies renewed by millenia of geomantic reciprocity,  of millenia of devotion and pilgrimage? What is the power of place, pilgrimage and symbol combined to change consciousness and to effect the miraculous?  The extent to which pilgrimages to such sites are made is quite amazing - the Black Madonna of Montserrat in Spain receives as many as a million pilgrims a year who make pilgrimage to the the "miracle working Madonna" called La Moreneta, the little dark one.    

Here's a commentary by Martin Gray, who documented his 20 year worldwide pilgrimage to sacred sites in his magnificent book, illustrated throughout with his photography,  Sacred Earth: Places of Peace and Power. He is writing about the Black Madonna of Guadalupe, Spain, the object of a thousand years of  pilgrimages.

"It is important to consider the legendary description of the icon as having miraculous healing powers. How are these powers to be explained?

 The current author theorizes that the healing powers of certain icons, statues and images derive in part from their capacity to somehow function as both receptacles and conduits for some manner of spiritual or healing energy..........Perhaps, in some currently unexplained manner, sacred sites and sacred objects are able to gather, store, concentrate and radiate energy in a similar way."

And, to turn to an entirely different part of the world, yet perhaps not unrelated, I would like to mention briefly the great Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca and the Black Stone of Mecca  which is enclosed in a silver enclosure that very distinctly resembles a Yoni.  No one really knows what significance this stone, or site (which was a pilgrimage site in pre-Islamic times as well, and had a simple open air shrine in the shape of a cube, hence, the "Kaaba", or Cube, structure of the present day shrine) had to the ancient peoples who made pilgrimage there, except that there were ancient  traditions of honoring special stones there.  Allat  (Al-lat)  was  an ancient mother and fertility goddess of the pre-Islamic people people of  Mecca, although I also read that she was considered an underground goddess, which would perhaps identify her with the Earth Womb/Yoni and the significance of Blackness.

Her name (Al-lat) means literally "the Goddess".  Allah means "God, or Creator". This deity of  great antiquity is one of a trinity of desert goddesses, the "daughters of Allah" that are named in the Koran. The Moon was associated with her,  hence perhaps the stones enclosure in a yoni shape made of silver.   These female  deities would have  been prominent  in Mecca during Mohammed's lifetime.   It is interesting  to consider the Black Stone's  current housing, and also fascinating,  from a symbolic point of view, that millions of people annually circle a 4-sided building that houses an ancient black stone, which was probably originally identified with a Goddess, that is made of silver like the moon, and is shaped like a Yoni.  And which only men may now view.

Black stone of Mecca By Amerrycan Muslim

I have been touched and fascinated by the Black Madonna for many years, even though I am not Catholic. As I came to study the significance of these mysterious Icons, I came to understand the enduring meaning of pilgrimages from the dawn of human culture as the ancient "Journey to the Great Mother".  With the ascent of patriarchy (and the descent of the Goddess) the Great Mother became hidden, buried under folk traditions, origins lost or hidden or co-opted by an all male deity.  That primal pilgrimage to the Source may have been represented by the great prehistoric monument of Silbury Hill, or called Isis nursing the Sun God Horus, or Demeter/Persephone/Hecate at the Eleusinian Mysteries, or She may have become  Mary with Jesus.......but it never really ended.  It just transformed again.  

Resources:

Begg, Ean, The Cult of the Black Virgin (1985) 

Benko, Stephen, The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology (1993) 

Christ, Carol P.,  Rebirth of the Goddess: Finding Meaning in Feminist Spirituality (1997)

Cruz, Joan Caroll , Miraculous Images of Our Lady (1993) 

Gray, Martin, Sacred Earth - Places of Peace and Power (2005)   Sacred Sites (www.sacredsites.com)

The World Map of Black Madonnas http://interfaithmary.net/locations

Weidner, Jay  (www.jayweidner.com) 

* (in 2014 my friend Zoe made the Pilgrimage, with marvelous photographs, and here is the Blog I created for it:  https://zoescamino.blogspot.com/2014/11/camino-thirty-three-final-farewell.html)

Avebury: "How Do We Speak With the Earth"?

"Speak to the Earth and it shall teach thee"

.....Job 12:8

I didn't realize it before I set out, but I knew that I was going on a pilgrimage when I set foot in the airport for this trip, which  I booked without any real  planning, but a lot of intuitive and spontaneous desire, in summer.  The Metaphor here is the Circle, and the  Circle has no end.

I was googling around last summer when I learned of the Gatekeepers    Conference "Dreaming the Land" in Pewsey, U.K., in the cold month of November.  For  fun, I checked to see if there were any discount tickets to London during that off season time of the year, and indeed there were.  I'm not sure what possessed me, but the next thing I noticed was that I had my credit card out, and I was going to Great Britain again, after some 7 years. (The Isles of Bride, Bridget, Bree, the Roman Britannia...I wonder how many people know that Britan is linked to the name of the most ancient Celtic Goddess? ) 

I decided to  go to those special places I went to before,  and listen to the land, to any conversations that might occur, and any  synchronicities or insights as well as I entered into the  liminal zone of being a traveller .  I didn't realize until I found myself uncomfortably standing in a long customs line at Heathrow (you can do a lot of thinking, in a long customs line) that I was completing a few personal Circles as well as well as seeking them on ancient sites.  I was last here  for the Goddess Conference in 2011, and when I returned to the U.S.  I became caretaker and for my mother and my brother,  until they passed on in 2015.  Now I find that my life calls for a new direction, but I don't know what that really might be.  

But it came to me, as I waited at the gate for entry  to both the UK and my personal journey of  pilgrimage that I had arrived with a  Question I hoped would inform my future work:   "How do we speak with the Earth?  And how does the Earth speak to us?" What does such a question mean? How is it important for us as beings inhabiting Gaia?

"We are living IN the Earth.  Not ON the Earth, but IN the Earth.

  And what we do to the Earth we are doing to ourselves."

...... Rachel Rosenthal

From Customs at last I made my way  to Paddington Station in London, then to to Swindon by train, then to Avebury by bus, and wholly  exhausted I stepped from the bus to see,  perfectly aligned  across from the bus stop in the mist,  the great prehistoric structure of Silbury Hill.  Before  me rose the great  Belly of the Goddess, the Omphalos of an ancient world.  

And  ever since, I believe  answers began to come to my question, as well as loops within my many "Circles".


At my AIRBNB  my host, Liam, had a deep relationship with  Avebury, and he told me about the placement and  names of stones and sites,  as well as introducing me to his library, including a book called THE SILBURY TREASURE  by Michael  Dames.  Situated just south of Avebury, Silbury Hill is Europe's tallest prehistoric structure.  Dames argues that Silbury, like other "neolithic Harvest Hills" represents the pregnant belly of the Great Mother in one phase of Her universal life.  Dames' brilliant exploration of an ancient theology in which the land itself, all of it's rivers, waters, stones and invisible currents was the very  Deity Herself............gives a whole new meaning to the "Return of the Goddess" concept.  Gaia, the Great Mother, long before she became Demeter, or Mary, or..........more on this in another post.

When I walked out to the Avebury complex through the little village of Avebury  I found the high and sparkling energies I remembered so well, an intensification of a deep life force vitality I have come to recognize when i am in sacred places, places of numinosity and  telleric force.  There is no doubt in my mind (or body mind) that these prehistoric sites marked places of power, as well as serving to intensify or channel the  animating, life giving  Earth energies  present  through placement of the stones.  I believe that these prehistoric sacred landscapes also augmented the healing and consciousness changing properties through the  interaction  of the people themselves with the "spirit of the land".  John Steele called this "geomantic reciprocity" . 

I stood before a  megalith that is part of two stones called "the Cove", one wide, one tall and narrow.  I think these impressive stones mark  one of the "entrances" to the inner circle, marking one of the avenues or processional paths.  Originally there were three stones in alignment with each other at that point, but one of the three was pulled down and broken by villagers.  Many of the original stones of Avebury became building material for the village of Avebury.

"Many people believe that every sacred place has its spiritual as well as physical guardians, and a physical guardian can manifest in many ways, including people who don't even know that that is what they are."....Gary Biltcliffe

I met a man who was dowsing the area, and we struck up a conversation. So immediate and friendly was recognition between the two of us  that although we must have talked and walked around for over an hour, I never did get his name.  


He told me  he had many times dowsed at Avebury, and that there were  "male and female" polarities or lines connected to the site and even particular stones.  He spoke about the St. Micheal Line and the St. Mary line, ley lines that extend for many miles across the lands of Britain.  They intersect at certain points at  Avebury.  He also spoke about "dragon lines" that were different although often complimentary to the ley lines,  serpentine lines or currents  of (force?  energy?) that interact with different points within the empowered landscape.      I need to inquire more about this, but I think, again, about a life long (and cultural) fascination with the serpent, the dragon, and the continual weaving of this motif through mythology and art.  

And there I was, among the winding Dragons under my very feet, the great Stones before me.

A journey ahead, an adventure, and I was just at the beginning!

"Numina", and the Intelligences of the Living Earth

NUMINA:  Spirit of Place, Myth and Pilgrimage

By Lauren Raine MFA

"To the native Irish, the literal representation of the country was less important than its poetic dimension.  In traditional Bardic culture, the terrain was studied, discussed, and referenced:  every place had its legend and its own identity....what endured was the mythic landscape."

    R.F. Foster 1

The Romans believed that special places were inhabited by intelligences they called Numina, the "genius loci" of a particular place.   I personally believe many mythologies may be rooted in the actual experience of “spirit of place", the numinous, mysterious, felt presence within a sacred landscape. 

To early and indigenous peoples, nature includes a “mythic conversation”, a conversation within which human beings may participate in various ways.  Myth is, and always has been, a way for human beings to become intimate and conversant with what is vast, deep, and ultimately mysterious. “Mything place” provides a language wherein the “conversation” can be symbolically spoken and interpreted, as well as personified.    Our experience, and our relationship with Place changes when Place becomes "you" or "Thou" instead of "it". 

  In the past, "Nature" was not just a "backdrop" or a "resource"; the natural world was a vast relationship within which human cultures were profoundly embedded and interactive.   The gods and goddesses arose from the powers of place, from the powers of wind, earth, fire and water, as well as the human mysteries of birth and death. 

In India, virtually all rivers bear the name of a Goddess.  In southwestern U.S., the “mountain gods” dwell at the tops of mountains like, near Tucson, Arizona where I live, Baboquivari, sacred mountain to the Tohono O’odam, who still make pilgrimages there.  This has been a universal human quest, whether we speak of the Celtic peoples with their legends of the Fey, ubiquitous mythologies of the Americas, or the agrarian roots of Rome:  the landscape was once populated with intelligences that became personified through the evolution of local mythologies.   

"The Desert Spring", mask from 2013 performance with Ann Waters

 The Romans called these forces “Numina”.  Every valley, orchard, healing spring or womb-like cave had its unique quality and force - its Numen.   Cooperation and respect for the Numina, the animating intelligences of place, was essential for well-being.  And some places were regarded as imbued with special power, they were special places of pilgrimage.

With the evolution of patriarchal monotheism and religions that increasingly removed divinity from Nature and from the body, and, in the past century, the rapid rise of industrialization, we have increasingly looked at the world from a "users" point of view instead of a participatory one.  This overview tends to view the natural world as an object to be used or exploited, forgetting indeed that virtually all pre-industrial human cultures have rich traditions that teach that  the world is alive and responsive.   From Katchinas to the Orisha, naiads to dryads, the Australian Dream Time to Alchemy's Anima Mundi, every local myth reflects what the Romans knew as the resident “spirit of place”, the Genius Loci.

In those reverent traditions, sacred places may be locations where the potential for revelation, healing, or transpersonal experience is especially potent, and many contemporary places of pilgrimage carry on this mythos. It’s well known that early Christians built churches on existing pagan sacred sites.   An example would be the numerous sacred wells that are dedicated to a Black Madonna in Europe, or a Saint in England, in much the same way the Oracle of Delphi was dedicated to Gaia, the primal Earth Mother of Greek mythology, and later to the God Apollo.

"Gaia", 2013 performance with Ann Waters

Contemporary Gaia Theory 2 proposes that the Earth is a living, self-regulating organism, utterly interdependent and always evolving.  A system of relationships.  If one is sympathetic to Gaia Theory, it follows that everything has the potential to be “conversant” in some way, whether visible or invisible.    Ancient Greeks built their Oracle at Delphi because it was felt that it was especially auspicious for communion with the Goddess Gaia, and undoubtedly it was a site that was sacred to prehistoric peoples prior to the evolution of Greece.  

There is a geo-magnetic energy felt at special places on our planet that change consciousness, and can catalyze insight, healing, or visionary experience, perhaps even, as the Oracle of Delphi believed, prophecy.  Before they became contained and mythologized by religions or designated by prehistoric monuments, these sites were intrinsically places of numinous power and presence in their own right.  

They touch all who visit, and ultimately, no particular belief system is needed for them to have a transformative effect, although human architecture and the accumulation of human psychic energy and visitation may amplify this effect.  

Roman philosopher Plinius Caecilius commented that:

"If you have come upon a grove that is thick with ancient trees which rise far above their usual height and block the view of the sky with their cover of intertwining branches, then the loftiness of the forest and the seclusion of the place and the wonder of the unbroken shade in the midst of open space will create in you a feeling of a divine presence, a Numina."3

Many years ago I lived in Vermont, and one fall morning I stumbled down to the local Inn for a cup of coffee to discover a group of people about to visit one of Vermont's mysterious stone cairns on Putney Mountain.  Among them was Sig Lonegren 4, a well-known dowser and researcher of earth mysteries who now lives in Glastonbury, England.  Through his generosity, I found myself on a bus that took us to a chamber constructed of huge stones, hidden among brilliant foliage, with an entrance way perfectly framing the Summer Solstice.  

No one knows who built these structures, which occur by the hundreds up and down the Connecticut River, but approaching the site I felt such a rush of vitality it took my breath away.  I was stunned when Sig placed divining rods in my hands, and I watched them open as if I had antennas, quivering as we traced the “ley lines” that ran into this site.    Standing on the top of the somewhat submerged chamber, my divining rod "helicoptered", letting me know that this was the “crossing of leys”; a potent place geomantically.  

Months later friends gathered in the dark to sit in that chamber and watch the Solstice sun rise through its entrance way.  We all felt the power of the deep, vibrant energy there,  and awe as the sun rose illuminating the chamber.   None of us knew what to do, so we held hands and chanted.  We were all as “high as a kite” when we left.  

Earth mysteries researcher John Steele 5 wrote in  the 1989 book EARTHMIND  (in collaboration with Paul Deveraux and David Kubin) that we suffer from "geomantic amnesia".  We have forgotten how to “listen to the Earth”, to engage in what he called "geomantic reciprocity"; instinctively, mythically, and practically, to our great loss.   We disregard for short term economic gain places of power, and conversely, build homes, even hospitals, on places that are geomagnetically toxic instead of intrinsically auspicious.   Remembering, re-inventing, and re-claiming  what inspired early peoples  may be important not only to contemporary  pilgrims, but to creating future human societies that can be sustainable.

The act of making a pilgrimage to a sacred place is among the oldest of human endeavors. The Eleusinian Mysteries combined spirit of place and mythic enactment to transform pilgrims for over two millennia.  One of the most famous contemporary pilgrimages is the "Camino" throughout Spain, which concludes at the Cathedral of Santiago at Compostella.  Compostella comes from the same root word as "compost",  the fertile soil created from rotting organic matter -  the "dark matter"  to which everything living returns, and is continually resurrected by the processes of nature into new life, new form.  As researcher and mythologist Jay Weidner has pointed out, pilgrims finally arriving in Compostella after their long journey are being 'composted' in a sense.  Emerging from the dark cathedral, and the mythos of their journey, they were ready to return home with their spirits reborn.

In 2011 I visited the ancient sacred springs of Glastonbury, the Chalice Well and the White Spring as well as participating in the international Goddess Conference there.   Making this intentional Pilgrimage left me with a profound, personal sense of the "Spirit of Place", what some call the "Lady of Avalon".  Pilgrimage opens one to blessing and vision, and can take us out of the ruts of our daily lives into transpersonal communion.

Sacred Sites are able to raise energy because they are intrinsically geomantically potent, and they also become potent because of human interaction with the innate intelligence of place, the Numina.  “Mythic mind” further facilitates the communion.   Sig Lonegren, who is a dowser, has spent many years exploring sacred places, and has commented that possibly, as human culture and language became increasingly complex, verbal, and abstract, we began to lose mediumistic consciousness, a daily Gnosis with the "subtle realms" that was further facilitated by symbolism, mythology, and ritual. 

With the gradual ascendancy of left-brained reasoning, and with the development of patriarchal religions, he suggests that tribal and individual Gnosis was gradually replaced by complex institutions that rendered spiritual authority to priests who were viewed as the sole representatives of God.  The “conversation” stopped, and the language to continue became obscure or lost. 

Perhaps this empathic, symbolic, mediumistic capacity is returning to us now as a new evolutionary balance, facilitated by re-inventing and re-discovering the mythic pathways to the Numina.

References:

1 Foster, R.F., The Irish Story: Telling Tales and Making It Up in Ireland (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press 2001)

2 The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a self-regulating, complex system that contributes to maintaining the conditions for life on the planet. The hypothesis, which is named after the Greek goddess Gaia, was formulated by the scientist James Lovelock and co-developed by the microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s.

3 C. Plinius Caecilius Secundus minor, Epistula 41.3, from Nova Roma, www.novaroma.org/nr/Numen

4 Lonegren, Sig, Mid Atlantic Geomancy, website and blog (http://www.geomancy.org/)

5 Steele, John, Earthmind: Communicating with the Living World of Gaia, with Paul Devereaux and David Kubrin (Harper and Row, 1989)