The Power of Sacred Places

The Celts saw sanctity in every rock, tree and blade of grass and the presence of deities or nature spirits dwelling therein. So any and every place in Druidic tradition can become one of worship, not just particular groves or stone circles. This may seem hard to believe, given the mess humankind has made of many natural places. But often a tree blossoming in a litter-strewn concrete square or the first spring flowers adorning a graffiti-ridden railway embankment are a reminder that we can, if we look hard enough, find our sacred spots in the most unlikely places. And as Druidesses and Druids, we have to work to reclaim more areas of potential beauty wherever we have influence.

Offerings were made to the spirits of the place in Celtic times before felling a tree or moving a large stone, a practice that has continued in Iceland until the present day. Even invading armies knew that they ignored the spirits of the land at their peril. Although the names of many of the local deities have been lost and their wild places built over, we can feel even now their presence in urban as well as rural locations in the stillness of early morning, late at night or when snow blankets the city pavements.

Some sites seem to have attracted worship and have been sacred to many religions from the time when humans first gathered together to pray and make offerings. This may be because of the powerful Earth energies that converged at the spot, making Otherworldly connections easier. Over the millennia, the more significant of these sites have continued to attract pilgrims, though there may now be a Christian edifice or focus to the site. So, too, did sacred wells form a centre of healing and ritual, dedicated to the deities or saints of the religion of the dominant culture, but still the waters from the Mother’s womb.

Finding Druidic sites of sanctity

There are many places, where Druidic influence remains strong. There is Stonehenge in Wiltshire; the magnificent passage grave of Newgrange, not far from Dublin; Glastonbury in Somerset or the downs near Cerne Abbas in Dorset where Taranis was etched in the chalk (at the foot of these downs lies a magical well). So too of special sanctity is Chartres near Paris, merlin's Tomb in the forest of Broceliande near Rennes and the mystical 'Isle of Avalon' on the Somerset levels with its magical hill the Tor, its sacred red and white springs and the Holy Thorn Trees.

These, and many of the other sites of antiquity that you can read about in books I have suggested or find links of the Internet, can form a focus for your personal pilgrimage. Perhaps you might walk the last mile or so on foot. Arrive at nightfall and spend the following day exploring the sacred site, teasing out beneath the present edifices or visitors' centres, the ancient boundaries.

Scour local museums or libraries for artefacts and legends that may shed light on the buried history. Sit at these old places beneath the stones, under trees or near the sacred well. Touch the stones and the water and let the hidden guardians speak of the lost priestesses and priests, the missing links the official tour ignores. Bless your crystals by placing them on the stones in the sunlight or dipping them into dark waters. Leave offerings that will not pollute or disfigure the site for those who follow, but indicate that you like other pilgrims have added your prayers for the land and the people.

The continuing tradition of reverence for places of natural power has allowed new sacred sites to evolve in the modern world, created by those who want the visions of the past to speak to the future. Though such modern shrines may have no ancient known Celtic connections, nevertheless you can connect with the living spirit of Druidry and prepare them for future generations.

In this chapter I concentrate on unusual and perhaps less well known places of Celtic spirituality and then describe how you can use stone and water to create your own sacred Druid places wherever you live.

Compton Watts, the Otherworld Garden of Surrey

One of the most significant latter day pilgrimage sites visited by modern Druidesses and Druids from all over the world is only just over a hundred years old, yet contains all the elements of an archetypal Druidic sanctuary. It is Compton Watts Memorial Chapel that stands hidden back from the village of Compton in commuter-belt Surrey through which the traffic roars on its way to the main routes between London, Guildford and the South Coast. Yet once within its peaceful grounds, you feel only a step away from the Otherworld.

You can find pictures of the Chapel and its Celtic wonders on the Internet. But if you can, do visit this marvellous place, which is open during daylight hours.

The memorial chapel was built about 1896 to commemorate George Frederick Watts, the Victorian artist and sculptor, by his wife Mary, with assistance from local artisans.

The Chapel is designed in a Celtic cross formation, with a Celtic Cross guarding the door and fabulous paintings of nature round the inner walls incorporating the Celtic Tree of Life; with its golden apples; here you can follow the painted honeysuckle trails, where the lapwing brought from the Otherworld by the magician god Gwidion, hides her eggs in a nest, flying upwards to distract us.

On the altar an angel/shining being holds a labyrinth – an ancient religious symbol dating back to the Bronze Age.. Four other angels hold labyrinths high on the outer walls to protect all who enter.

There are no pews, no barriers, only a seat all round the circular chapel, so you can touch the magical tree branches, explore the pathways of the small altar labyrinth, look for the nest or sit in reverie in the semi darkness and explore through the profusion of images your own pathways into the Otherworld.

Outside are the gardens, much beloved by modern Druidesses and Druids where the sacred trees of the Celts grow in profusion, including the yew, tree of immortality. The fragrance of wild herbs fills the air. There is also an Otherworldly well. It is a place where birds sing and there is an overwhelming sense of peace and sanctity, your very own Otherworld within thirty miles of London.

Finding your own ceremonial sacred places

Just as you have your personal grove and your special animals and birds as your helpers, so you also need your special ceremonial sacred places that can amplify your personal energies with the powers of the collective energies built up over centuries or millennia.

Holidays and weekends can provide scope for you to explore Celtic sacred places, Neolithic burial sites, megaliths, magical forests to which there are many legends attached like the Black Forest in Germany and Broceliande in Brittany. But equally important and just as potent for modern Druidesses and Druids are the sacred places of other ancient peoples, ruined temples, pyramids, holy mountains, shrines of Hindu deities, and the revered caves and rocks of indigenous peoples. Indeed the Druidy practised in for example Australia draws strength from the rich unbroken reverence for the living earth of the indigenous Aboriginal tradition.

You may have to visit a number of sites to find the one that calls to you personally and then, if it is not too far away, you can make regular pilgrimages. All land is sacred, said the Druidesses and Druids, so whether you site is five, a hundred or five thousand years old, the land is old and you cannot fail to be energised and sanctified.

Your site may be a special place in the wilderness where you park your trailer, a wildlife garden in a city park; a tiny relatively uninhabited island that you can visit by boat. It could be snow-covered and wind-tossed in Nova Scotia, a National heritage refuge for seabirds and seals off Wales or Northumberland, an abbey where monks still pray and work and whose stones have echoed sacred chants for thousands of years. You may find temporary refuge on one of the neatly-mown islet sanctuaries on the canal system, less than a mile from industrialised Amiens in Picardy. You may rent a summer home on a lakeside in New Hampshire, camp in a walkers' hut on one of the New Zealand backpacker trails, in a Scandinavian log cabin or even one of the gleaming modern forest holiday camps throughout Europe where nature comes with luxury.

The most amazing twenty first century sacred site I have come across is Willens Park, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire.

Milton Keynes is one of the new towns created in England during the 1960s, and is famed principally for its vast shopping mall. Willens Park about half a mile from the centre, is a universe away. It contains the largest labyrinth in Europe, seventeen coils, cut in the turf and almost two miles to the centre. In the park too stands a golden and white Peace pagoda created by Buddhist monks and nuns as a lasting prayer against nuclear war and a stone medicine wheel. It is a fairy tale world of shady paths and rolling green hillside leading down to a lake where wildlife flourishes, indifferent to the distant continuous roar of the traffic. Until recently an oak that I hope will be replaced stood in the centre of the labyrinth. The park is open during daylight hours and any Druidess or Druid can make connection with a spiritual power that is greater than a single culture or faith.

You sacred ceremonial spot may be less elaborate, a beautiful old tree, perhaps near a river or a pool overhung by rocks, not far from your home, that you can visit regularly, perhaps adding a stone to a sacred cairn, rock pile each time you go; sometimes you will need to rebuild the stones as the curious or careless or just nature has dismantled it, but more likely, especially if you add a ribbon to a nearby tree or lodge a crystal in a rock, next time you visit, others have been added and over years you can create a place of sanctity and healing.

The power of the Stones

I found my archetypal Druidic stone circle, not with its own ticket booth and cuddly Druid bear souvenir stall, but like so many in Europe wild and unspoilt. The Tregeseal stone circle near Penzance, called the Nine Maidens is one of many similarly named groups of stone in that part of Cornwall. Nine Maidens or Merry Maidens is an obvious reference to a college of nine Druidesses, who in legend, were turned to stone for not becoming Christians.

It was far longer walk than I could have imagined to the Tregeseal circle. We tramped up a muddy, misty moorland track to find ourselves stranded among the gorse and not a sign of a stone circle in sight. Then suddenly, when we were about to turn back, it appeared in a break in the mist appeared in the most unexpected place. There, among the heather and gorse, was a small but still working circle with a hearth in the centre, recalling the sacred fire of the Irish Here, one could get lost. It was becoming dark and I realised it was necessary to surrender to this loneliness and wildness as the Celts and the peoples before them who trekked through wind and rain by the light of only a lantern.

You can find wonderful stone circles in Scandinavia, the Mediterranean and sacred rock formations and structures in Australia, the Americas and Canada, South Africa and New Zealand that will lend themselves to Druidic ritual.

Particularly mystical, though it is spiritually rather than historically Druidic, is Ales Stenar, 59 large stones, in Skåne, in Southern Sweden. It is set on a headland, suddenly visible as you reach the top of the winding stone steps from the beach, truly the place where Sky, Earth and Sea meet. Each stone has different energies if you touch it. Most significantly for me is that though it is a valued historical monument, there is totally free access, as there are to all such sites in Sweden You can walk in among the stones, pray, make offerings and even camp there – and there is not a single piece of litter or graffiti.

Equally wondrous as the sea retreats in parts of England and Brittany, stones and even wooden groves and circles that were once foci of sea/earth and sky ceremonies by the Celts are again emerging from the waves. Most notable is Sea Henge in Norfolk. Recently discovered on the beach on the Norfolk coast, this henge dates back to the spring of 2015 and is made of oak. It has been reclaimed as an ancient Druid grove by Rollo Maughfling, Archdruid of Britain of the Council of British Druid Orders. He believes that it should once more be a focal point for ritual and states: ‘Sea Henge, an oak grove, is possibly the only surviving intact specimen of a Druidic place of worship not destroyed by the Romans. As even the waters have not destroyed it up until now, it is therefore a living temple of our native Druidic tradition, and not a museum piece for the benefit of English Heritage.’

Finding your guardian stone

You can recreate in your personal grove the sanctity of the great stone circles by using a special stone in the centre of your grove. I am certainly not advocating plundering a recognised sacred site, but perhaps close to your special sacred place, on moorland or on the old processional route to a long barrow you will quite unexpectedly see or find – discarded or ignored ‑ just the right stone to be your central grove pillar, linking Earth and Sky.

If you work with an indoor grove, your stone can be quite small, snug enough to sit in the hearth or to hold a plant pot when not in use.

Some formal Druid ceremonies, whether or not held at a stone circle, are centred round a large existing stone, near which a Druidess/Druid appointed as the guardian of the stones may sit and accept offerings.

• Always ask permission of any visible owners of a site, although if you are on a mountainside, a shore, a moorland or in a forest, there are usually boulders aplenty. Ask also the all-important guardians of the land and if a stone feels unusually heavy or cold leave it and choose another.

• If possible, avoid the environs of more commercialised sites.

• Alternatively, explore craft outlets in an area famed for its local stone and amidst all the carved stone animals and Merlins, you may discover a small, unadorned pillar. A garden centre close by to a sacred site may have stones used for garden boundaries that come from the same source of local unhewn rock that formed the boundaries of the holy enclosure..

• Once you set your stone in your grove, you will need to make regular blessings offerings to the guardian within the stone, so that he or she will extend protection to the place in which you carry out your rituals.

• When you set the stone in place, scatter a few fresh herbs on it for cleansing, while asking for the protection of the Earth Guardians in your work. Repeat this process before any rituals. Keep a small pot of growing flowers on or near the stone.

Creating your stone pendulum

Throughout the book I have suggested ways of using a crystal pendulum. However, you may find that for guiding you along paths of powerful earth energy or tuning into the guardians of stones, wells, forests or hillsides, a pendulum made of stone will give you more direct access.

Our ancestors would not have worked with the highly polished crystals we have today but with stones, containing quartz or other crystal inclusions that radiated a subtle energy. Such stones accumulated power the more they were used.

• Find a cylinder shaped stone about the size of a conventional crystal pendulum with a ready-made hole. Many such stones can be found on seashores or river banks. If possible, select one with glints of quartz.

• You can drill one without a natural hole, using a masonry drill (ask advice at a friendly DIY store who may do it for you if drilling is not a skill of yours).

• Place your stone pendulum on a double cord about 20cms long and you have your pendulum.

• Sprinkle it with sun or moon water to consecrate it. Repeat this ritual whenever you use it.

• When you visit a sacred well, sprinkle your stone pendulum with the holy water. At an ancient stone circle, set your pendulum on top of a tall flat stone so that it can be filled with light. Leave it in rainstorms, thunder, lightning and beneath rainbows to absorb the powers of the elements. Expose it regularly to the noonday sun and the Full Moon and hold it high on a hilltop in the wind and you will create a tiny powerhouse of nature.

• Wear it as you dance in your seasonal celebrations to absorb the changing energies of the Wheel of the Year,

• Sleep with it beneath your pillow to calm you if you are anxious or afraid.

• Thus it will become a powerful and protective guide, leading with its rhythmic circular swing your feet as you hold it in your power hand, along ancient tracks buried beneath fields or city streets without the need for a map.

Using your stone treasury for divination

Crystal pendulums are a valuable tool for decision-making. However, a stone pendulum, especially one regularly charged by natural forces, will draw on the deep wisdom of the Earth to amplify your innate wisdom.

First you must get to know your pendulum. Hold its cord in your power hand and let it dangle without moving. Then concentrate on a happy event. Usually, without you making any conscious movement, the pendulum will start to swing in a clockwise direction. This is your positive response.

Then think of a sad event. Your pendulum again will probably start to revolve in an anti-clockwise fashion. However, these movements can differ. So practise until you recognise your own pendulum's personal responses.

Of all the psychic methods I have used over twelve years or more, pendulum decision-making has been by far the most instantly and consistently successful and can be used even by people who are new to divination. So as well as for personal work, it is excellent for one to one counselling, as the seeker can with your encouragement carry out the whole process and thus tap into their own psychic powers.

For example if you face a series of options and cannot decide which to choose, you can write them down on separate slips of paper. Lay them on a table, or on the floor of your sacred grove. Then hold your pendulum over them each in turn and see which evokes the positive response. You may find that the pendulum is pulling down as if a heavy weight has been added to it, towards the most favourable option.

The choice of the pendulum may run contrary to external evidence because it can tap into information only just passing over the horizon or which takes into account hidden factors that the conscious mind has missed.

To evoke even more Earth power to strengthen your psychic abilities, you can draw a square in earth or in a sand box using a stick from the wise hazel, the healing ash, the protective rowan, the intuitive willow or from your personal tree mothe's home.

• Divide your square into as many subsections as you or the person asking the question needs for the different options.

• Defining what is or not an option is part of the whole divinatory process and should not be hurried. Work out of doors if possible and you can add other sources of wisdom such as with wind in trees or water rushing over stones.

• You can identify each option on the grid with a letter drawn in each box..

• Sprinkle the stone pendulum with salt before beginning, asking the protection of the Earth and stating that your work is only for the greatest good.

• Move the pendulum slowly from left to right, bottom to top , a few centimetres above the grid, pausing over each option in turn. Or ask the seeker to do so, naming each option as the pendulum is above it.

• Next from top right to bottom left. row by row, hold the pendulum again a few centimetres above the earth or sand grid. Over one or more options you will feel the pendulum become heavy and drag downwards – you usually feel one option far more strongly than the others.

• If no option elicits a response, try again, this time moving slowly left to right up the grid rows.. Relax and let your mind become blank.

• If still there is no response, you nor the subject are doing anything wrong. It is likely that none of the options are right at present.

• You can try other methods or wait for another day. Even with the earlier yes/no response I described there may be no reaction from the pendulum, in which case you may need to rephrase the question.

Take time still holding the pendulum to consider or talk over the options and then plunge the pendulum under running water to cleanse it and leave it to dry naturally.

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