Sig Lonegren on Spirit Paths and Ley Lines

My introduction to Earth Spirituality and Earth Mysteries was Sig Lonegren, who I met, completely by accident, at the NEARA conference in Putney, Vermont in 1982.  Sig assumed I was with his class, and I assumed I was invited to join the friendly group I blundered into when I went to the Putney Inn for a cup of coffee......and the next thing I knew, I was at an ancient monolith site hidden on Putney Mountain, and learning to dowse for ley lines. I find his weekly articles fascinating, although I suppose this is pretty obscure for those who aren't familiar with dowsing and geomancy.  But I felt like copying his article here because  of my long interest in these ancient sites, and also because I can attest to having experienced, and located with many others, the energetic phenomenon of  leys and ley crossings - and I've also taught ley dowsing to people who found them without even "believing"  in them.

Tip o' the Week #86 - Doodwegen/Dead Straight Lines

by Sig Lonegren 

As I write this, I am in the Netherlands, east of Amsterdam in an area called "Het Gooi"  (pronounced: the 'G' in "Gooi" is pronounced like the 'ch" in the Scottish word 'loch', the 'oo' like the 'oa' on 'oat.').  It consists of a number of towns that are essentially suburbs of Amsterdam.  Among them are Bussum, Laren and Hilversum.  These three towns surround a large bit of moorland - the "Bussumerheide" and the "Westerheide" (in pink on the map below).

These moorlands have a number of perfectly straight prehistoric lines/paths that converge at St. Jan's Kerkhof (St. John's Cemetery).  Straight lines that converge like spokes on a wheel at a sacred site.  Humm… that sounds familiar.  Actually on the map below, I have hi-lighted six lines that converge on that cemetery that have energy leys ( six to eight foot straight beams of and energy that have a direction of flow) running along them.

These lines are called "doodwegen."  One line is a "doodweg" (pronounce the "o" in 'dood' as in 'oat', 'we' as in 'vet", and the 'g' as the 'ch' in 'loch.'  In English, "Doodweg" is "dead way or path," In the past, the dead were carried along these paths from their home towns to the cemetery at what is now St John's Church Cemetery.  There are many Bronze Age round barrows in that area.  (There is a similar dead way at the Rösaring northwest of Stockholm in Sweden where there is a dead straight path leading from a charnel house to a series of round barrows and a fifteen circuit labyrinth.)

Bussum Nieuwe Crailoseweg Hilversum

Laren

Six Prehistoric Doodwegen (hi-lighted in orange) converge on St. John's Churchyard/Cemetery 

Niewe Crailosweg (hi-lighted in green) runs diagonally, and is much younger

I walked the Bussumer Doodweg, and while there are slight deviations due to the thousands of years that they have been used not only for spiritual purposes, but now for walking, horse-riding and and bicycle paths, it is an essentially dead straight line from St. John's Cemetery to Bussum.

Three pictures of the Bussumer Doodweg.   In the bottom picture, you can see two horseback riding trails running parallel  with the foot/bicycle path.

While I was walking the Bussumer doodweg, I was reminded of Kubler-Ross' book on Death and Dying, and the straight path one takes from this life to the next.  When Terry Ross (no relation) taught me how to assist lost spirits to the other side, he described the same straight path, "Don't look to the left or the right; keep going straight ahead; do you see the light at the end of the tunnel?; go for it!"  These Doodwegen are portals, paths to the other side.

There is one very straight line running diagonally near the top of the map (in green) called the "Nieuwe Crailoseweg" that is a much more recent "weg," but its first bit, "Nieuwe" shows us that it is much more recent than the "Doodwegen."  While it doesn't go to the St. John's Church, it does seem to be carrying on the tradition of straightness.

Nieuwe Crailosweg

 

A painfully obvious connection between the Dod Man in England and "Doodwegen" in the Netherlands struck me that I had, for some unexplainable reason, never thought of before.  Back in the seventies, when Paul Devereaux was Editor of The Ley Hunter, there was a comic strip in most issues called "Dodman."  'Dod' is a local British vernacular word for a land snail, the "Helix pomatia".  The comic strip was the story of a snail that had long antennae, and ongoing adventures in sacred space.  This snail was a caricature based on the Dodman, best known as the chalk hill-figure known as the Long Man of Wilmington.    According to Wikipedia, "the 'inventor' of ley lines, Alfred Watkins, thought that in the words "dodman" and the builder's "hod" there was a survival of an ancient British term for a surveyor. Watkins felt that the name came about because the snail's two horns resembled a surveyor's two surveying rods."

IMHO, at a time when leys are under attack, these doodwegen are some of the best bits of evidence that these spirit paths are real!

Sig Lonegren
SunnyBank
9 Bove Town
Glastonbury
Somerset BA6 8JE
England
http://www.geomancy.org
http://www.sunnybankglastonbury.co.uk
+44 (0)1458 835 818

"Compost" and the Black Madonna

I've always loved the idea of "compost". When I became a gardener, I was delighted by the daily visit to the compost heap, the alchemical magic of watching it gradually become fertile soil, coveted by renegade watermelon seeds that sprouted at it's outskirts, and mice that nibbled at it's warm, smelly, decomposing wealth.

I ran across the idea of "energetic compost" today in a recent article by Sig Lonegren, a spiritualist minister and geomancer who lives in England. I myself have seen "fairy rings" that marked places of geomantic energy when I lived in the Northeast.........I love his description of how he turned to Mother Earth to help him with "psychic compost". Reading his thoughts about "compost", I had to pull out and re-read one of my own articles as well, about the "Black Madonna" - to me, these ideas are intimately intertwined.

Sig writes:

"I would like to suggest an approach that employs some geomantic magic (for dealing with fear and negativity). Crossings of underground veins of primary water are very yin. I see them like a psychic vacuum cleaner that sucks energy into the Earth. It helps things to fall apart, to decompose. Yes, there are some beneficial things that can happen by spending time over places like this. For example, it's a great place to put your compost pile. But mostly, it is deleterious to human health. It shrinks your aura when you spend time over such places, and helps you get a number of different degenerative dis-eases - like cancer, arthritis, auto-immune diseases and difficulty in sleeping.

But these yin centres are great places to get rid of stuff that is no longer useful to you. I learned this in the early eighties when another geomancer moved in to my area and began writing me rather provocative unpleasant letters. One day, I had had enough, so I took his letter to a place on my lawn where there was a crossing of veins of primary water, and Mother Nature had made it clear by leaving a small circle of English Daisies. As I lit the letter, I asked Her to take this negativity and use it as compost for the new. I just didn't want this negative energy in my life any more. (He never wrote again.) Six months later, someone asked me about this guy and what had been irritating me, and I couldn't remember! I still can't."

The Black Madonna

Black Madonna of Guadalupe, Spain

"Older yet, and Lovelier Far, this Mystery
and I will not forget."

Robin Williamson

"Black Madonnas" are found in shrines, churches and cathedrals all over Europe - France alone has over 300. These icons have been the focus of millions of pilgrimages since the early days of the church, and probably rest upon sites that were pilgrimage sites long before the advent of Christianity.

Why were these effigies so beloved that pilgrims travelled many miles to seek healing and guidance? Why, in a European medieval world where peasants or even aristocracy were unlikely to see a dark skinned person was the Madonna black? Some of the effigy statues are made of materials that are true, ebony black. And why are there so many myths that connect the effigies with trees, or caves, or special wells?

In 2005, during a residency on the 150 acres of IPark, the land spoke to me, and I had time and space to speak back, to engage in a conversation, and my own " Black Madonna" arose from that numinous time.

Many suggest that the Madonna with Child originated in 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. In general, when Isis arrived in Rome she adopted Roman dress and complexion, and was sometimes merged with other deities, such as Venus. The images of Isis that survived the fall of Rome were perhaps the origin of later "Virgin and Child" icons - temples devoted to Isis continued well into the third century. "Paris" derives from the name of Isis ("par Isis")

fresco from the Temple of Isis at Pompeii

Mother Earth

Whether originally derived from Isis or not, most of these images are connected in place and myth to healing springs, power sites, and holy caves. I believe The Black Madonna is also the ancient Earth Mother, metamorphosed in the form of Mary, and yet not entirely disguised. She is black like the Earth is black, fertile (often shown pregnant) like the Earth is fertile, dark because she is embodied and immanent, as nature is embodied and immanent.

I did not realize until recently that there are many pilgrimages in Europe to Black Madonnas. A significant pilgrimage route is the one that concludes at the Cathedral of Santiago at Compostella, the endpoint of "The Camino", the long traditional pilgrimage still made by thousands today across Spain.

Pilgrimage routes to Compostela

It's believed that the earliest pilgrimages were made to the "Black Madonna of Compostella", a very ancient effigy. Compostella comes from the same root word as "compost". Compost is the fertile soil created from rotting organic matter, the "Black Matter". The alchemical soup to which everything living returns, and is continually resurrected by the processes of nature into new life, new form. Matter. Mater. 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 legends and miracles associated with Black Madonna icons. The icon at Guadalupe, Spain, is said to have been carved by St. Luke in Jerusalem, although this is highly unlikely. It doesn't ultimately matter how old the icon actually is. The question is, what does it embody that strikes a deep chord, that speaks to those who come to contemplate the icon? And what does the icon emanate? Can it actually have healing powers, or is the site itself a "place of power", it's energies renewed by millenia of worship and pilgrimage? What resonance does it attune those who come there to? And how significant is the act of making the pilgrimage itself, the long effort to come to a sacred place, a sacred image?

In the Middle Ages when the majority of the Black Madonna statues were created there was still a strong undercurrent and mingling of the old ways. Black Madonnas were discovered hidden in trees in France as late as the seventeenth century, suggesting these were representations of pagan goddesses who were still worshipped in groves. Black Madonnas are also found close to caves (the womb/tomb of the Earth Mother). In churches the statues were sometimes kept in a subterranean part of a church, or near a sacred spring or well.

"Again and again a statue is found in a forest or a bush or discovered when ploughing animals refuse to pass a certain spot. The statue is taken to the parish church, only to return miraculously by night to her own place, where a chapel is then built in her honour. Almost invariably associated with natural phenomena, especially healing waters or striking geographical features" Ean Begg

Black Madonnas, not surprisingly, are also associated with the Grail legends. The Grail or Chalice may represent the mingling of Celtic mythology. Cerridwen's cauldron was an important myth about the womb of the Earth Mother, from which life is continually renewed, nourished, born, composted, and reborn.

The extent to which people make pilgrimages to these sites is amazing. For example, the Black Madonna of Montserrat, near Barcelona, receives up to a million pilgrims a year, travelling to visit the 'miracle-working' statue known as La Moreneta, the dark little one.

So why am I writing all of this? Well, because it's important to know that the ancient "Journey to the Earth Mother", which exists in all cultures and times, intimately connected to long ago "pagan" sacred sites, sacred sites that probably always had an intrinsic geomantic power.... never ended. It just transformed again. The pilgrimage is a human pilgrimage, an impulse that is made, ultimately, throughout many cultures and times.

Black Madonna of Czestochowskad (Poland)

Procession to the Black Madonna, Poland

Resources:

Sig Lonegren, SunnyBank 9 Bove Town Glastonbury, Somerset BA6 8JE England, www.geomancy.org

The Cult of the Black Virgin (1985) by Ean Begg;

Miraculous Images of Our Lady (1993) by Joan Carroll Cruz;

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

Martin Gray: Sacred Sites (www.sacredsites.com)

Jay Weidner, (www.jayweidner.com)

James Swan, Sacred Sites, (www.jamesswan.com)

Sig Lonegren

Since I can't seem to finish my latest entry in this journal, I felt like sharing one from Sig Lonegren, who I met many years ago when, quite without any intention on his part, he set me to wandering and wondering on my path. At the time, I was living in Vermont, and wandered down, rather hungover, to the Putney Inn for a cup of coffee. Unknown to me, the New England Archeological Research Association was having its conference there, and before I knew it, I was on a bus with Sig's group, and learning to dowse for ley lines at several of the mysterious cairns and sacred sites that are in the Putney area. A year later I sat with a group of people and watched the Sun rise through two huge entranceway stones aligned with the Summer Solstice.

Dear Friends,

I have been reading in "Northern Earth" and hearing from friends in the publishing business that the bottom seems to be dropping out in terms of Earth Mystery (EM) magazines and books. The number of magazines covering this subject are falling here in the UK, and in the publishing business, they are just not bringing out as many books in this area as they had been doing in previous decades. Of course, the recession is responsible for some of this, but also, it is my feeling that a saturation point has been reached as far as the archaeological evidence our prehistoric ancestors have left us, therefore, the speculation as to what they might have been up to. How many more articles like "Ley Lines Really Do Exist!" or "Is Alexander Thom's Work on Archaeoastronomy more than Fantasy?" do you really need to read?

Archaeoastronomy in Sacred Space

A New One : Athanor Stone Ring - Winter Solstice Set

How many more pictures of ancient (and new) sacred sites being oriented towards the Sun do we need to convince us that all over the planet, our ancestors gnew something we don't?

We live in changing times. The old paradigms that Western Man's civilisation has been living by don't seem to be working so well these days. Climate change appears to have some validity; the rape of our planet is growing ever more evident. Our economic system ain't doin' so good, and, today, regardless of what you think about 2012, its acceptance is predicated on an awareness by many people on our planet that change in one form or another needs to come. (The New Age movement of the eighties was a precursor of this same realisation.)

So now, there is perhaps a shift from "What were prehistoric people up to in their sacred sites?" to "I do not seek to walk in the footsteps of the ancient ones, I seek what they sought. (Read: how can I use all of this Earth Mystery information to experience the reality of the Spiritual World myself?)

Our prehistoric foremothers and fathers were certainly in to the stars and other heavenly bodies. Do you know where Saturn or Mars or Venus will be in the sky this evening just after sunset? I'd put money on the reality that your 17,500th Great Grandfather (5 generations a century x 3,500 years) knew just where these planets were.

Ecliptic-> Horizon->

<- Level Horizon <- Ecliptic

Sunset on Saturday 11 September 2010 in Cirencester, England

So, how did your 17,500th Great Grandma and Grandpa relate to the heavens whilst in their sacred sites? And, much more importantly for us now here at the end of the beginning of our EM journey, might we be able to do the same today?

Of course, there is not one correct way (I'm no Fundamentalist), but I have developed a process that that might help others to experience this directly. I call it, "ArchaeoAstrology: From Knowing to Gnowing," and I will be offering this in a three part workshop at the BSD Convention in Cirencester next weekend.

}:-)

Sig Lonegren
SunnyBank
9 Bove Town
Glastonbury, Somerset BA6 8JE
England
http://www.geomancy.org
http://www.sunnybankglastonbury.co.uk
http://www.sunnybankstore.co.uk
+44 (0)1458 835 818