What Is Afoot?

McDonalds, shopping centres, tourist attractions; things are not always what they seem. Young children, architects and town planners tapping into some reservoir of collective knowing or spiritual guidance without being consciously aware of it. The traffic roundabouts of Wiltshire have always struck me as an example of this, with their central painted disc surrounded by two concentric rings and looking to all the world like the crop formations of which that county regularly receives the most.

It appears that some unconscious pro­cess can operate that allows us to tap into both knowledge and wisdom. It is as if the real agenda of life is going on subconsciously and what we see physically, which we believe as a so­ciety is the only true ‘reality’, is actually like a confused dream in which we are half asleep and most of the time are ‘missing the point’. Another way of saying this is that spiritual guidance, ei­ther from our own ‘spirit nature’ or from external entities, is operating in our lives even if we don’t believe in such things.

Return To The Centre

Using a computer for greater accuracy we were led to believe that the very centre of the overlaid for­mation was not Avebury itself but East Field. This came as a shock but it seemed appropriate as East Field is the plot of land that has had more crop forma­tions than anywhere else on Earth, and often some of the most stunning each year. At Beltane we entered the edge of the field with the sun shining and the day feeling very calm. An occasional breeze caught the scattering of red poppies that so beautifully compli­mented the young green crop of wheat. We sat down on a bank at the edge of the field and waited, and waited. Ab­solutely nothing seemed to be happen­ing until I noticed that members of our group were, one or two at a time, dis­appearing. It transpired that there was nothing supernatural about this, rather that they were getting bored and were being drawn to a shaded arch of trees that marked the entrance to a half-hidden tree-lined footpath. None of us knew it at the time but this turned out to be the first stretch of the Ridgeway, the oldest trackway in Britain, at least 5,000 years old and once considered one of the four royal roads of England.

The Treble Springs

This led us to a little known copse of trees. There was one narrow entrance which led into an overgrown wilder­ness which contained quite a number of birch and willow trees, considered ‘female’ energy trees by many authorities. There was also a little stream, serpentine in its course. It was like somewhere from a special summer’s day in my halfforgotten childhood when everything was magical and I stepped into the adventure of the next moment with wonder and exhilaration. As we followed the stream we were amazed to find one area of water where the muddy brown bottom of the stream was replaced with an area of whitish ‘sand’ which was spiralling as water rose from the Earth at that point. It was a spring and there was an almost etheric pale greeny blue light radiating out from this upwelling of water. Periodically bubbles would be released from the ground too and these broke on the surface to become circular ripples. Continuing along the course of the stream we came across another similar spring and at the head of the stream was the third and largest spring. It was only then that we realised what we had been led to. We had been working for a year with a triangular pattern with a circular design at each of the three apexes. Now at the very centre of this pattern, which covers an area of two thousand square miles, there is a natu­ral upwelling of energy from the Earth in the form of a triangle of springs which are visible by circular patterns on the water’s surface!

We were filled with a sense of awe and wonder. If I had orchestrated this sto­ryline I would have chosen an impressive man made monument like Silbury Hill or Avebury stone circle as the centre point. But, of course, this was perfect! The full significance and meaning of the Treble Springs did not become apparent immediately. It emerged over a series of visits spread over two years. On that first day it was sufficient to know that once again we had been wonder­fully guided and that the power at the heart lay in nature.

Balance of Energies

It has emerged over time that we are being shown here a lesson about the balance of ‘female’/’male’ energies. By ‘female’ I mean intuitive, emotional, receptive, compassionate. heart-led. By ‘male’ I mean logical, rational, decisive, active, mind-led. All of us, men and women, have both as­pects in us to varying degrees. The Treble Springs felt very ‘female’ and looked very ‘female’. It has a feeling, when the leaves are on the trees and you pass through the one narrow opening, of being lost in a magical glade of birch, willow and rose. As you follow the curving, snaking path and stream, time and space and direction disappear, all reference points to the outside world taken away as you are held in a numinous embrace by the soul of nature herself.

It wasn’t until months later on another visit that a group of us were led by enigmatic little piles of sawdust to discover the ‘other half’ of the springs. We had gone there to visit the Treble Springs but our guidance had other plans for us. The piles of sawdust led past the entrance to the springs into another wooded area on the opposite side of the path. This felt very differ­ent. It felt very ‘male’. The path was straight. The stream was straight and partially dried up. There were no springs. There were no birch and just one old and knarled willow tree that people automatically referred to as ‘he’. There was also an exit at the far end and even a telephone cable running overhead. No otherworldliness here. Someone had even fenced off a small plot as a vegetable garden, the marks of man indeed! It wasn’t such an etheric place as the springs, rather far more down to earth and ‘ordinary’. It didn’t feel unpleasant, it was just very differ­ent.

It seems to me that we are being shown a lesson here regarding the way we act in the world. The natural ‘male’ and ‘female’ energies here are very differ­ent but in perfect harmony and balance. This balance changes with the seasons, the phases of the moon and I suspect day and night as the flow of water and energy ebbs and flows, but a new bal­ance is always created and maintained until the energies fluctuate again ac­cording to the cycles of nature. In fact it is always in a dynamic process of change. By contrast we are like the two churches that stand nearby.

The Churches

One of them, with a light ‘female’ feel, is redundant; its only spiritual purpose for existing having been relegated to the past as storekeeper of the bones of previous generations and a fence erected around them keeping the ‘female’ energies separate and dead. The church which is used had very unpleasant energy which was sufficient for me to have to drop my dowsing rod to avoid the ‘shock’ I felt shoot up my arm. This experience was re­peated in different forms on several subsequent visits. It too has a fence around it to keep it separate. The two churches are physically very close but not within sight of one another.

The latter church repre­sents our separation from source. It reflects purely logical ways of the one-sided patriarchal societies which are predominant in the world and which the church has been a key player in main­taining. Intuitive responses, emotional decisions or compassion are viewed as weaknesses and therefore dangerous except in very narrowly defined areas of life. We have been taught since we were little children to develop and value our ‘male’ side and to ignore our ‘female’. The choice of sawdust as a sign could not have been more apt when we realise that sawdust is a ‘waste’ product of nature worked on by man; it symbolically represents what we have created through our relationship with nature. Native peoples around the world, most of whom have fallen foul of western colonialism, have nearly always had a harmonious relationship with the Earth by maintaining a balance between their ‘male’ and ‘female’ aspects. As such they bequeathed us a healthy world. In contrast we only need to look at the natural world today or our cities to see that we have lost this harmony.

Outer disharmony is a reflection of inner disharmony. The up-side of this is that we can create harmony back in the world by addressing the imbalances within ourselves. Our conscious rational ‘male’ mind is great at working out how to implement what our intuitive ‘female’ knowing tells us we need to do.

All Change Again

Once again we saw positive changes to the site we had been working at. The nearby villages have had a new main drainpipe laid and this has gone straight through the ‘male’ side of the springs. I can’t help but see the analogy with our society which has badly needed the ‘toxins and waste products’ draining away. On a visit to the ‘female’ side last year I was perplexed to find there were 21 numbered marker sticks. Were some sort of major excava­tions planned for this fragile eco­system also? I tracked down the person who had placed them in their positions (on the findings of a dowser) and who is one of a group of guardians who plan as their mil­lenium project to plant yew sap­lings to convert the springs area back into a sacred yew grove which should come to maturity by the time of the next millenium! They are planting equal numbers of male and female trees with a Golden Irish Yew in the centre. Surely we are being shown here that the lessons we had perceived about ‘female/male’ balance are right and that performing cere­mony within the ‘spiritual area’ of our lives will result in the establish­ment of a healthy sacred grove in our hearts and in our world.

An interesting post-script to this story: In their zeal to 'clean up' the springs someone had sprayed with weedkiller to get rid of the nettles and started to remove some trees, presumably to 'man-age' nature better. At this point I became very concerned especially as the fairies and nature spirits had left the site. What had started out as noble and spiritual intentions had become a death-knell to a truly magical place in nature because they had not listened to their 'female' at each step of the project. I'm very happy to report that the planned yew grove idea has been transferred to another site and nature is reclaiming and healing the springs. The fairies have returned.

Knock-on Healing

Visiting places with an attitude of healing and bringing Light and Love to them has a knock-on effect through other peoples later actions. This simple statement has incredible ramifications. If true it means that either our prayers are heard and answered or that our thoughts and, more specifically, our intent are far more powerful than we generally acknowledge. This leads into the whole ‘creating your reality’ de­bate. My experience from working at sacred sites is that we are co-creators of the Universe and the time is now ready for us to take responsibility for who we really are and fully own our true divinity (in a non-ego way of course). I would not make this point if the experiences in Winchester and the Treble Springs were one-offs, but positive conse­quences have invariably followed hard on the heels of our ‘healing’ visits.

The Way Forward

I believe we are being shown very clearly how we must change in order to create a healthy future for all. We are being asked to put to one side the belief that we can control our lives and the world by the application of logic alone. By asking for guidance and putting our trust in the creative source, could we make a better job of it? Do we want to go back to the dark days of giving our power away to the church and hoping that God or religion will come to our rescue? Are we helpless victims? By fully acknowledging the spirit within us and switching back on our own listening apparatus we surely access our intuitive knowing to guide our conscious rational mind.

Copyright: © Glenn Broughton 1999. All rights reserved.

This is a condensed version of the story. The full article, complete with photographs, may be found on Glenn Broughton's web site www.sacredbritain.com