Gatekeeper Sussex

Virgo Moon Pilgrimage, Monday March 9th, 2020

We have restarted local pilgrimage, inspired by two of the talks at the annual conference which you can access on the Gatekeeper website. One is by Angharrad Wynne where she talks about caring for our own area through pilgrimage and finding a local tree or grove or well as a sacred place we choose to tend and visit regularly. The other talk is by Susan Raven where she showed us how to communicate with nature spirits who await our connection with them.

A number of people locally had been inspired by these talks and wanted to go out locally in pilgrimage and so our Sussex Gatekeeper Full Moon Pilgrimages have begun. We spent a considerable amount of time working out how we wanted to do this and have agreed this is a collaborative group, so each time a new person will step forward, or be called, to bring us to a place of their choosing. We already have the next two people and places to go, which emerged in our discussions.

Our first pilgrimage took us to a tree circle that is found in Chailey, where the Meridian Line crosses a Roman Road running East-West. Both are far more ancient than many realise. The Meridian Line is aligned with the Celestial Pole, the True North and all along the line you can find places of significance, drawing on the energy of this so-called Corridor of Power. This is the still point around which all turns and we did experience this when we gathered at the centre of the tree circle.

We took a book called The Axis of Heaven by Paul Broadhurst and Gabriele Trso as our guide. The Line expresses the energy of royalty and sovereignty so it was dismaying to find it so neglected - in a mess really. We felt the stillness but an absence of royalty - perhaps this is the time for each one of us to own our sovereignty and become empowered, so that individually and together we can to take up the tasks that are immediate to our own lives, to Be the Change. We did a simple exercise together that Susan Raven teaches.

We then tuned in to this corridor of power and filled it with light. One of the group remained outside the tree circle to hold the space and she could feel the shift in energy as we prayed and sang a circle song together.

It felt that we have now started something significant in our area and, by chance, I was reminded of an old song by Keane, our local East Sussex band who are back playing this week after a seven year rest - we can maybe adopt this as our song, at least for this Virgo Moon Pilgrimage. see link below!

Louise

‘Somewhere Only We Know’

From Jane:

"It was the first time that I had pilgrimaged with local folk and I am surprised and delighted at the difference it made to my experience. Also nourishing was the conversation at lunch, with 6 of us sharing a meal. We all came from different spiritual backgrounds and yet were able to share the universality of our indigenous Wisdom and Truth. Glorious.

And then we began! What an immediately magical blessing to be accompanied by a Kite who stayed overhead for several minutes as we made our way up The Resting Oak Hill. (See photo)

It felt right and important to encircle the wood before entering, having asked permission from two Gatekeepers and the Nature Beings, but what a sad place inside. No wonder we were there. Having found the right place to work, we lit the beautiful lantern brought by Louise, and asked how we might help.

Louise had already set the 'tone' of our group by encouraging each of us to share our thoughts whilst planning, and so we were all empowered to add our own intuitive responses to the place, and finished by sealing and protecting the circle of trees with a six pointed star with a rose at it's centre.

The next morning in my meditation I felt a strong sense of the 'still point' within me and the line through me from heaven to earth. Louise had shared with us this aspect of Paul Broadbent's work in his book about the Greenwich Meridian. And it was made even more significant when another of the group shared later that she too had experienced this in her meditation. What a gift. Thank you to Louise, all the group, and The Resting Oaks."

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