Powerful Places in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly

I realize that we haven’t posted the cover for our new book yet. Here it is. The interior is out for proofing now and we’ll get it all together before the end of the year.

Powerful Places in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly

Cheryl Straffon, Part I

In this first part of a three-part interview, Cheryl talks about her forty-year long involvement with the megalithic sites in Cornwall. This interview with Elyn Aviva was recorded in Cheryl’s home in West Penwith on August 7, 2014.

http://youtu.be/0xd0JbQ_v4U

 

Cheryl Straffon, Part I

Cheryl Straffon, Megalithic Cornwall, and the Goddess

Our latest video offering is a three-part series called “Cheryl Straffon, Megalithic Cornwall, and the Goddess,” in which Elyn interviews ancient-sites researcher and noted author Cheryl Straffon. Cheryl brings an unusual depth of interdisciplinary knowledge and experience to her work. She has written a number of books, including Pagan Cornwall – Land of the Goddess, Between the Realms – Cornish Myth and Magic, Megalithic Mysteries of Cornwall, Daughters of the Earth – Goddess Wisdom for a Modern Age, The Earth Goddess – Celtic and Pagan Legacy of the Landscape, to name a few. She edits two magazines, Meyn Mamvro—Ancient Stones and Sacred sites in Cornwall, and Goddess Alive! In addition, she and her partner, Lana Jarvis, lead sacred sites tours in Ireland, Cornwall, Malta, and Crete. They also create individualized tours upon request. For more information, go to http://www.meynmamvro.co.uk, http://www.goddess-tours-international.com, and http://www.goddessalive.co.uk

We will announce each podcast as it becomes available. You will find Cheryl to be a very articulate and thoughtful person and the podcasts will be well worth your time.

Cheryl Straffon, Megalithic Cornwall, and the Goddess

Alsia Well, Merry Maidens - June 22, 23

(by Elyn Aviva, not Gary White)

More stories.

Alsia Well

Alsia Well. Near Lower Alsia Farm. Maintained by the 82+-years-old Keeper of the Well, Trevor Rogers, who lives in a 17^th-century house where a wise woman/herbalist lived 400 years ago. He found it a wreck and has been rebuilding it, cutting the granite himself, doing the beautiful wooden cabinet work himself. And tending to the well. Attending to the well. The only well that wasn’t discovered by the Church and Christianized, according to the story. Trevor says the name, “Alsia,” pronounced AAyleeuh, comes from the Phoenicians who traded for tin in the area. And it refers to Eleusis and the Greek goddess Demeter.

The group walked from Carn les Boels to the well on Sunday, but I arrived with Ralph in his taxi. Trevor pointed out the way, and we found the well down a grassy path hidden in the trees, a gate before it, a tree festooned with clooties, large flat stones formed a surface to sit upon beside the well. The well itself: dark and low, overhanging with greenery. A pale frog kicked its way out from beneath a sheltering rock and across the water.

Clooties on tree

We went up the path to await for the group. They soon arrived, thrilled and exhausted after a rather challenging tromp through fields and brambles, appearing on the other side of a high fence gate where Ralph and I were waiting. Ralph helped them one by one climb over the fence. How perfect, our being there. A story could be told of synchronicity and faith, and I heard stories about “follow your path” and trust.

The group crowded into the tiny space before the well and settled in, attuning to the place, and then began to tone and sing. I stretched out on the path, in the sun, listening to the sounds emerging from behind the trees, wondering about the ancient goddess and the well, and how Trevor was called to be her caretaker. Many stories there, told and untold.

At Alsia Well

Back at Rosemerryn, one of our group went into the fogou by herself. While she was standing barefoot in the mud, in the near-dark passageway, a wreath twined from green leaves and stems fell at her feet. She picked it up and put it on her head. There’s quite a story there, but it’s not mine to tell.

The next day, Monday, June 23, everyone felt the need to rest, recuperate, and integrate. Plans changed as fast as a sailboat tacking in the wind, but then settled into a gentle flow.

I led Gary into the fogou and we communed in silence in the narrow creep passage. Later I walked into the woods around Rosemerryn, following a dancing, melodic stream, enjoying the solitude—if such it was, since I was surrounded by trees and flowers and birds and insects. I sat on a narrow stone bridge and watched a butterfly and two dragonflies dance, flitting off, returning to me, as if showing off their fine way of flying through the air. The year before, we had been taken to this bridge by a local guide, who fished for a nugget of tin in the water and gave it to us, and told us stories of the 1940s and 1970s and the wild goings-on in houses in the woods.

A late afternoon sounding session with Wendalyn. We sat on the ground in pairs, back to back, experiencing the other person’s energy; sensing into the breathing of the other; making sounds that welled up (that word again: well) from within, “sounding” an experience we’d had from yesterday; moving back and forth from our own sound to the other’s sound to the sound of others in the group; and then, into silence.

Merry Maidens Stone Circle

Then in early evening, a short walk together up the hill to the Merry Maidens stone circle, its 19 stones supposedly maidens petrified for dancing on the Sabbath. Now there’s a story. I felt a kind of static electricity as we approached the northern stones, as if the place were charged with energy—as well (that word again) it was, since people had celebrated the solstice here a few days before, leaving flower offerings on every stone.

I asked permission before entering. I circled around the outside 3x, and then the inside. I felt called to the center and I stood there honoring the directions and the center within. Each of us moved in our own way, creating our own relationship with the stones. Each of us told a story, lived a story, with a stone, our stone, the circle of stones, circling from now to then and back again. What would it be like, I wondered, to grow up with this stone circle as a neighbor? Or with the isolated standing stone we saw in a neighboring field, thrusting up against the sky?

Standing stone

The sun set. Gary and I walked back to Rosemerryn in silence.

Alsia Well, Merry Maidens - June 22, 23

A Westerner"s Adventures Traveling in India

Here is a podcast interview with Geode Crystaal about his recent travels in India with his wife, Stephanie. They traveled, not as Western tourists, but as the locals do. There were many adventures.

 

A Westerner"s Adventures Traveling in India

Life-changing Experiences in India

Here is a podcast interview with Stephanie Crystaal about her recent trip to India with her husband, Geode.

 

Life-changing Experiences in India

More blog hopping

I just saw a new blog hop showing up on Karin Schluter Lonegren’s site. Hop on over to her blog and look it over:

http://karinschluter.nl/may-introduce/uncategorized/

This blog hopping is catching on!

More blog hopping

Welcome to the blog hop

By Elyn Aviva

Hello! This is my first blog hop—and probably yours as well. You may be asking: What’s a blog hop? Is it related to a bellhop? Or a sock hop? Maybe a bunny hop? Not. A “blog hop” provides an opportunity for me to introduce you to several excellent bloggers and to share something about my writing process.

By the way, I usually post on one of two blogs: www.powerfulplaces.com/blog, which I share with Gary White and which also includes guest bloggers; and www.YourLifeIsATrip.com/home/author/elynaviva.

First, many thanks to my dear friend and writing inspiration, Judie Fein. She invited me to “blog hop” along with her. Here she is, looking glamorous—an amazing feat, given that she is always on the go, traveling to intriguing places and writing about them with her inimitable insight and humor. I suggest you “hop” over to her blogs and/or better yet, purchase one of her books.

Judith Fein is an award-winning international travel journalist who has contributed to 105 publications. She blogs about transformative travel for the Huffington Post and Psychology Today. An acclaimed keynote speaker and workshop leader, she recently gave a TEDx talk in Mexico on Deep Travel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GErjagMyrYk&feature=youtu.be

Judith is the executive editor and co-founder of the popular blog site that has more than 125 writers, YourLifeisaTrip.com. She lived in Europe for close to a decade and spent several years in Morocco and Tunisia. She is the author of two popular books: LIFE IS A TRIP: The Transformative Magic of Travel, and the newly released THE SPOON FROM MINKOWITZ: A Bittersweet Roots Journey to Ancestral Lands. For many years, she has been an emotional genealogist, tracking the family stories and behavioral traits that have been handed down to us (www.EmotionalGenealogy.org). Judith’s website is www.GlobalAdventure.us.

My Writing Process

1) What am I working on/writing? I have just finished a major book project: Where Heaven and Earth Unite – Powerful Places, Sacred Sites, and You. This is a richly illustrated series of conversations I had with Ferran Blasco, a master of geomancy (dowsing, earth energies) and a deep spiritual practitioner. I am in recovery mode from this project but slowly beginning to get glimmers of a new writing project. Although I usually write short essays about transformational travel, I have the faint whiff of an idea for another novel about sacred quest—this one having to do with the Grail. Or maybe I’ll write an interview with myself about why I can’t stop going to powerful places! (To see some of my other books, check out www.powerfulplaces.com and www.pilgrimsprocess.com.)

2) How does my work/writing differ from others of its genre? In general, I write about pilgrimage, quest, and transformational travel—not just visiting places but going to places in a way that offers the opportunity for meaningful experience. My academic training as a cultural anthropologist (Ph.D. dissertation on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage), my background in comparative religion (I have a Master of Divinity degree), and my exploration of different spiritual paths (Sufi, Western Esoteric, to name a few) give me a varied perspective and a grounded approach. I am habitually both a participant and an observer, experiencing a place as fully as possible, open to the unexpected, recording and analyzing what’s happening, and putting it in a larger context.

3) Why do I write what I do? I am drawn like a magnet to sacred sites and powerful places, to places where Heaven and Earth unite. I feel compelled to share with others the amazing multidimensional nature of our relationship to this planet, the cosmos, and ourselves. I want people to know that there is more to travel than just going somewhere and checking it off a list. The world is full of fascinating places to experience—including yourself, wherever you are right now.

4) How does my writing process work? I start with an experience—something that happened to me, somewhere I have been—something that I think is important to share with others. I develop a glimmer of an idea, almost as if I have turned a dimmer switch on low. I periodically revisit it, waiting until it “lights up” or “ripens” (pardon the mixed metaphors) into a visual image or an introductory sentence. Then I start writing. Usually at first I simply put down words, creating a rough draft. This will get rewritten many times as I work with images to make the story vivid and immediate, and as I listen to the words and what they convey. I spiral back and forth, exploring my own experience and gaining insight into it through writing about it. Often it is through this process that what really happened begins to reveal itself.

Introductions

(Drum roll.) It is with great pleasure that I introduce you to two blogs/three bloggers, whose work I admire.

First, gifted EnergySoma healer and blogger Karin Schlüter. She does really good work!

Karen writes: “I was born in The Netherlands in 1954. I moved to Glastonbury in 1997. I have five fabulous children, six grandchildren, and a beautiful husband. And a cat. I knit. I find inspiration in nature and I recharge myself by walking, yoga and meditation, and inner work.

“I give healing/coaching sessions. I offer on-line and “in real life” trainings in Deepening Consciousness, retreats for women, and workshops. Over 900 clients have found their way to these healing sessions and workshops on personal/spiritual growth. I teach spiritual healing in the UK, The Netherlands, and in the USA. I live in Glastonbury, UK, and in The Netherlands. It’s a curious exercise, living in two countries! This is my website, with a link to my blog: www.karinschluter.nl.”

Next, let me introduce Jake and Hannah Eagle, whose wisdom is truly life-changing. I know this because Gary and I have vastly improved our relationship because of their work.

BIO: Jake Eagle, psychotherapist and award-winning author, and Hannah Eagle, classical homeopath, are co-founders of Reology. They are paying forward by sharing a remarkable set of teachings passed along to them by their mentors, John and Joyce Weir. At the heart of their work you will find both the belief and the tools required to make relationships easy. They are sharing with people from all around the world a new way of being, thinking, and speaking. The purpose of which is to create a kinder and gentler world—starting with ourselves. Link to their blog: www.reology.org

Welcome to the blog hop

Our new book is now available on Kindle

We’ve just been notified that Where Heaven and Earth Unite: Powerful Places, Sacred Sites, and You is available as a Kindle book on Amazon.com. Here is the link:

http://amzn.to/1mv32cc

I have also created an ePub version for the iPad, but have chosen not to publish it quite yet. Ferran Blasco may make that version available on his website soon. Those of you who purchased the hard copy of the book from Amazon can add the Kindle version for a fraction of the cost  of the Kindle version by itself ($9.99 US dollars). I’m told that it will cost you less than $3.00.

The responses we are getting to this book are very heartening, making the long hours of work worth while. Thank you for those who have chosen to put up reviews on the Amazon site. All comments are welcome.

 

 

Our new book is now available on Kindle

Review of our new book.

We are very happy with a review of our book: Where Heaven and Earth Unite: Powerful Places, Sacred Sites, and You that just came up on the Megalithic Portal, a very interesting website and blog based in the UK. Here is a link to the article:

http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=2146414190

 

Review of our new book.

Where"s the sacred in sacred sites?

 

Interested in a journey to where Heaven and Earth unite? Elyn’s latest essay explores how her visits to sacred sites turned into a journey into sacredness. To read the post, go to the award-winning travel blog, http://www.yourlifeisatrip.com/home/my-journey-to-the-union-of-heaven-and-earth.html.

Where"s the sacred in sacred sites?

And now, the Mists of Avalon

This afternoon we made our way to Glastonbury, leaving the pleasant town of Wells behind and entering into the buzz and craziness of Glasto. We’ve blogged and even posted a podcast or two about this town, but we have never seen it as we’ve seen it tonight.

Leaving the peace and comfort of Magdalene Guest House, our refuge in this town, we  plunged into one of the deepest fogs we’ve experienced. Suddenly, Glasto disappeared. We were transported into a Kafkaesque landscape where strange shapes appeared and disappeared out of the mist. The human-like beings we met on the street seemed to have emerged out of an old Boris Karloff movie, hunched over, draped in strange dark clothes, coming together and drifting apart.

We hurried to one of our usual dining venues, the “Who’d a Thought It,” finding our way through wispy tendrils of fog. Would it still be there in this strange night, or would we have somehow been transported to another planet? We entered the restaurant, the familiar waitresses greeted us, and we were once again safe.

As Elyn and I ate our pork belly and winter roulade we wondered what it would be like to climb the Tor this evening. What would await us there? Elyn thought we might be taken into the “hollow” Tor described in legend and never return. I wasn’t feeling too grounded either. When we left the restaurant, we decided not to risk climbing the Tor, but we still wanted to experience more of this mysteriously altered world we found ourselves in.

As we walked up the High Street to the sound of the change ringers in the parish church of St. John the Baptist, the sound echoed eerily in the night, coming from one direction, then another. We made our way to the church yard. The gate was locked. Elyn took the photo above on her iPhone 5s, marveling at how the camera seemed to bring out details that we couldn’t see in the fog.

Returning to Magdalene House we realized that we had experienced the fabled “mists of Avalon.” Perhaps if we had walked up to the top of the Tor, we would indeed have entered into another realm…

And now, the Mists of Avalon

Of Cerne Abbas, Silver, St. Catherine, St. Augustine, and sacred waters

On our second day out with our friend Kate Gannon we visited a number of interesting and a few powerful sites in Dorset, England. Of all the sites, my favorite was the holy well known as St. Augustine’s Well in the official literature. The well was originally called the Silver Well, but the monks at nearby Cerne Abbey must of thought that wasn’t sexy enough to draw pilgrims, so they made up a story about how St. Augustine struck the ground with his staff and the well issued forth. That story, or one very much like it, is told of many holy wells in Europe.

Kate, Elyn, and I reached the well after passing through the local cemetery, which has an interesting “preaching stone.” The ruins of Cerne Abbey are next to the cemetery. The well is located in a hollow that is approached through a path lined with huge lime (linden) trees. As soon as we entered this avenue the atmosphere changed and a great sense of peace came over us. The well itself was overflowing with crystalline, pure, rapidly flowing water that gave me an immediate sense of how abundant the earth can be for us. My companions fell silent and we simply sat, stood, or meandered about the well in blissful contentment. I felt that we could stay there for the rest of the day and, in fact, we did spend considerable time there. I came away feeling healed and put back together again, and I sensed that the others felt similarly, although we were too peaceful to talk about it.

Perhaps the peaceful energy of the place accounts for numerous legends about the well. As with many holy wells, there are legends of the healing properties of the waters. Another legend states that if you stare into the waters on Easter morning you will know who will die in the village in the next year. On a more positive note, a different legend states that girls who perform a simple ritual at the well and pray to St. Catherine (whose chapel was once on a hill near the site) will be granted husbands in the near future. I wonder if that has anything to do with the famous Cerne Abbas Giant (a huge, naked, priapic figure brandishing a club, carved into the chalk hillside nearby). A more general version of that story states that any wish you make will be granted if you drink the water from a cup made from a leaf of one of the nearby trees.

St. Augustine and St. Catherine aside, our wishes for healing and rest from travel were granted and we went away feeling refreshed and renewed.

Of Cerne Abbas, Silver, St. Catherine, St. Augustine, and sacred waters

A fanfare in Sherborne, Dorset

By Elyn Aviva

Our friend Kate Gannon offered to show us some unusual sites in southern England (see the previous post), and she suggested we spend a day or two in Sherborne, Dorset (there is another Sherborne somewhere else). She said there was an interesting abbey, begun around 1180. We said, “Why not!” and booked a hotel.

We thought Sherborne Abbey would be in poor repair, perhaps a ruined shell, but then we learned it was still in use as an Anglican parish church. As we walked toward it from our hotel, we saw its golden spires and square tower rising above the Elizabethan houses that line the street. When we were about a block from the abbey, Gary and I began to feel slightly “spacey” and disoriented as the energy of the place became palpable. Apparently, when Kate said the abbey was “interesting,” she was engaging in calculated understatement. Water-pipe-spouting grotesque gargoyles snarled at us from the roofline, and jagged zig-zag stonework edged its way around the Norman (12th century) entrance.

We pushed through the temporary plywood doors and gasped. Exquisite fan vaulting created a delicate stone forest of soaring columns and interlaced arches that covered the distant ceiling, the intersections marked with sculptures of knot work, fantastic animals, grotesque faces, and geometrical designs. The abbey staff provided a large flat mirror on a trolley to make it easier to see the carved bosses suspended high above. Rolling it down the aisle, we spotted St Michael dressed in a feathered “onesy” tromping on a playful dragon; a mermaid with a comb and mirror, symbolizing vanity; a “Jack of the green” Greenman with leafy tendrils issuing from his mouth–to name a few. Many of the bosses had been gilded and repainted in garish colors during the extensive 19th-century Victorian renovation (and reinvention) of the abbey.

We quickly became visually overwhelmed by the fanning vault work and multi-colored designs painted on the abbey’s walls and ceilings. Staring in the mirror at the criss-crossing stone arches was mesmerizing, like looking at a kaleidoscope momentary petrified in time. We realized that the geometry of the abbey, including the complex fan vaulting, and the earth energies below the abbey interacted to intensify the buzzy energy we felt.

Seeking shelter from too much intensity, we made our way to the Lady Chapel at the northeastern end of the abbey. Here we found unexpected beauty of a quieter kind: a three-part glass reredo engraved by Laurence Whistler in 1960. In the center is an etched heart with delicate, thread-like veins; angelic wings mirror its shape on either side. Beneath the heart and wings is a crescent moon, pierced through by the pure transparent winged heart of the Virgin Mary. Two slim lines expand on either side and turn into cornucopias overflowing with grain and grapes. Above the heart is a delicate crown adorned with a looping string of pearls and, above that, the five-petaled roses and lilies that are symbols of the Virgin.

Scattered stars sparkle in the glass, and tongues of flame circle the frame, recalling the sun-rays of fire and the stars seen in images of Our Lady of Guadalupe–who perches delicately on a crescent moon. Unlike the exuberant colors and carvings in the rest of the abbey, which clamored for our outward attention, the simplicity of this etched glass drew us inwards into contemplation.

The abbey holds more, much more. To mention a few: medieval misericords (wooden seats that supported the monks who had to stand in the quire [choir] for lengthy services); regimental banners; a reconstructed timber roof; medieval stained glass; the stunning Great West Window installed in 1997, with references to Hale-Bopp comet and with the central image of the Virgin Mary and child sitting among tree branches that rise up and expand into an exuberant canopy of leaves.

We had expected to find a modest church but found instead a visual concert of painted walls and fan-vaulted ceilings, a “fanfare” of almost overwhelming intensity. But we also found stillness in the midst of it, the silence that is always present between sounds and images if you take time enough to notice.

A fanfare in Sherborne, Dorset

A painting in St Mary the Blessed Virgin, Templecoombe, Somerset

This afternoon we visited an ancient church in the village of Templecoombe in Somerset. The church is well known for a painting that adorns one of the walls. The history of this small town and the painting are fascinating. By the way, this not a small painting: it is approximately 6 feet wide, and the eyes seem to follow you as you walk from one side to the other.

In the first place, there is the connection of the town with the Knights Templar, thus the name Templecoombe, or the valley of the Templars. That the Knights Templar were here is not in doubt. Many properties in and around the town have identifiable Templar connections.

The painting was found in 1944 or 1945 quite by accident. One Mary Drew was in a shed on her property when the ceiling plaster fell down, revealing oak paneling with this face staring down at her. She called authorities from the local church to view this painting and they quickly took it into the church, where a well-meaning, but ignorant vicar tried to clean it with a cleaning compound, which removed the bright paint and left only a shadow of the head. The panel was displayed in the church, where it has been ever since, except for trips to be exhibited in various locations. Carbon dating of the oak panel reveals that it comes from the period from 1280 to 1440, which is, in part, the period of the Templars’ residence.

Much speculation has centered on the supposed worship of the Knights Templar of a special head of some sort, and parallels have been drawn with the image on the Shroud of Turin. You can judge for yourself what connections you can make. We are only reporting the existence of this remarkable work of art.

 

A painting in St Mary the Blessed Virgin, Templecoombe, Somerset

Wolves transform rivers

What an amazing, interconnected world we live in. If you ever doubted the ripples of response, here is proof.

 

Wolves transform rivers

Ancestors at Work

 

There is considerable evidence of our ancestors’ working the stones in the field next to The Lacket Cottage. These lines of depressions appear to have been made in the process of splitting the stones. Notice how similar they appear and that they are all in a line, which appears to follow the beginnings of a crack in the stone.

One wonders what use they were intending for the stones they liberated from these boulders.

The nearby outcropping of chert nodules (a stone similar to flint) would have made a ready source of stone tools and weapons. Perhaps these depressions were carved with such tools.

 

Ancestors at Work

The Lacket Cottage, 1709

Here is the entrance to The Lacket Cottage. It is certainly an atmospheric location to attend a workshop led by R. J. Stewart.

 

The Lacket Cottage, 1709

Traveling in England

We have come to England for 12 days to attend two events with R. J. Stewart and see some sacred sites we have not yet visited. This weekend we are in the Lacket cottage near Marlborough, Wiltshire. Here is a photo of Woden’s Deen (or Wodin, Wodan, or some other spelling) filled with Saracen stones and an outcropping of chert on the hillside.

Traveling in England

Subscribe to the blog

It appears that we will not be able to transfer subscribers from our previous server to the new one, so if you were a subscriber  before, please fill in the subscriber form on the new blog (in the right column) and join us for all our adventures. And, of course, if you were not a subscriber before do the same (it just requires your email address and a single click). We look forward to having many of you join our blog.

 

Subscribe to the blog

Our Website Updated

We have been heard at work on our website for Powerful Places guidebooks and we have taken the site live today. What used to be two sites: PowerfulPlaces.com, which was a site where you could read about our books and order copies, and PowerfulPlaces.info, which was our blog where you could read about our travels, read posts from our guest bloggers, find links to our podcasts, etc. Now these two sites have been combined into one and you can move easily from one to the other. So if you are on Powerful Places Blog page click on the Home button in the menu above and you can look over our new website. The blog is one of the options, which will take you back here. We hope you like what you see. Here is the new header for the web site:

Our Website Updated

Where Heaven and Earth Unite

We are so happy to announce the publication of Where Heaven and Earth Unite by Ferran Blasco and Elyn Aviva. This has been a year-long labor of love that began with interviews that were recorded on video and transcribed by Elyn. Gary used the video materials to create a number of podcasts that you can access from the book itself. This gives you a first-hand glimpse of the authors as they visit sacred sites as well as Ferran teaching practices that will enhance your own visits. Go to Amazon to order your copy:

Click Here

Where Heaven and Earth Unite