Light in the Landscape

Summaries from local atunements around the country from our Light in the Landscape event in October 2023 - scroll down for the reports from various locations around the UK and international.

You can also catch up on the video recordings from our Light in the Landscape Conference on this page: https://gatekeeper.org.uk/video-gallery-2023/

And details of the local atunement can be found here: https://gatekeeper.org.uk/events/local-atunement-light-in-the-landscape/

High Cross:

Three of us, Donna, Gay and myself, made the pilgrimage to High Cross, the centre of the British Zodiac, from our home in Cygnus the Swan, which lies along the Milky Way, straddling the zodiac signs of Capricorn and Aquarius. Before we set out, we placed candles on the map of the zodiac, honouring all the signs, the centre and the milky way. We asked the Gatekeeper of the land and the day permission and insights with the Beinsa Douno formula: ‘Kindly Luminous Beings, guardians of this place, please grant us your hospitality and may Love bless you.’ There was a sense of expectancy and welcome.

We travelled up the Fosse Way, acknowledging the guardian oak tree by Compton Verney, which we feel is an Alta Major area on the N-S Cygnus landscape temple. (Several of us visited Compton Verney on the Sunday after the Gatekeeper Day at the Rollright Stones. Charlotte led us in a wonderful poetry pilgrimage there.)

In the years that we have been pilgrimaging to High Cross, we have found it is expedient to stop at Brinklow, another guardian place. Brinklow seems to be the place of the triple goddess and as such has our respect and honour.

Brinklow outwardly is a Norman motte and bailey – interestingly with two baileys, or outer areas. As you approach Brinklow along the Fosse Way, the road heads directly towards the mound and then encircles it. The lane that brings you back around to the Fosse Way is Ell Lane – is this alluding to Ellen of the Pathways, or Hell, the great mother goddess? The sky was blue and the sun was out when we walked up the mound with the Gatekeeper Lantern and our singing bowl and rose petals. Brinklow felt very benign and didn’t want songs but more pure sound, which we offered to the four directions through the singing bowl. The sound seemed to encompass the whole zodiac. Donna felt that Brinklow acted as a cog which set the other wheels turning. Our meditative time was concluded by a mother and young son climbing the hill with lots of excitement and joy. There were lots of dog walkers walking around the base of the hill, and we too made a chora around the hill to conclude our time there having left rose petals on the top of the hill.

After Brinklow, it feels as if you are in the aura of the angel at High Cross and are moving through her ‘skirts’ or concentric circles of energy. The angel this day, seemed to have colours of silver and gold and purple within her aura. We usually stop at a layby on the Fosse Way, just before the crossing point with the A5, Watling Street, to pay our respects. I love that the cross is now placed on Bumble Bee lane, after it was moved from the intersection of the roads, having been struck by lightning. CORE (Centre of Roman England) are looking after the cross and the entrance to Fosse Way and have beautified the area with winter cyclamen (called falling stars, in America!) and other flowers. There is a bench and oak tree and 12 wonderfully huge and magnificent boulders from the quarry at Croft.

The granite stone is 450 million years old from the Ordivician period. It feels very symbolic that these 12 boulders are placed here at High Cross. Croft has a similarly shaped hill to Brinklow and, for me, also has the energy of a guardian hill. (Both hills may fall within the constellation of Draco who guards the treasure at the centre. Before we set off, Peter felt the gold within the centre of the zodiac and that we were all re-enforcing, adding to the golden light of the zodiac – the delight - with this special day of pilgrimage within the whole of the British zodiac.)

We took the lantern, singing bowl and rose petals to the base of the cross. This time when the bowl was sounded, the most prominent note/sound was very deep. It took me deep into the centre of the earth, where darkness gives birth to the light. There was an equivalent upward pull, which in my imagination turned into a Maypole, turning the two spirals of light up and down the central pole. This energy seemed to go throughout the whole of the British Zodiac, which then became part of the turning of the Irish and Scottish zodiacs. It felt very inclusive and vibrant and whole.

After sounding the bowl, we offered the first three gestures of the Paneurhythmy dance to the directions – these gestures embody the intent of unity, harmony-reconciliation and giving and receiving love. It felt very heart-based as if we were adding to the resonance of these intents and positive affirmations in the world. We finished with the formula from Beinsa Douno: ‘May the peace of love and the blessings of love, flow out upon the earth.’ Gay felt as if High Cross was a light house, shining her light around the zodiac. When we had closed and given thanks, she felt as if there was a large orb of light, deep into the earth and high into the heavens, very grounded and complete.

I think this is a wonderful way to join together in pilgrimage – individually but collectively too. Thankyou Louise and Fiona for orchestrating such a profound day.

We retired to Coombe Abbey for tea – Coombe Abbey is a fascinating place to visit.........

Sarah Dawkins with Gay Browning and Donna Duncombe

Edinburgh

I immediately felt a pull forward from my heart by "my heart strings" towards the heart energy of the grail line, through HIgh Cross and on to St. Paul's Cathedral, where the energy was funneling down into the church from the spire and dome, which was also energised. The energy point here was particularly strong.

Further in my meditation, I ascended higher in my view, and observed a white swan flying overhead south along the same line, and covering all of the UK, while observing below gold lights with connecting threads to each other, shining up from the landscape. The golden lights were the other hearts tuning in from locations all around.

I received the message: "love is the light".

I also tuned into Sarah at High Cross, and saw her standing with a strong and grounded energy, and represented a strong heart point herself. My vision was of her standing tall, facing south in front of a monument at High Cross, with beautiful roses everywhere at her feet and around the area.
ated by the spirit of land and the heavens.

I offered prayers at the beginning and end to the kindly luminous beings.

Songs sang in offering at end:
Aoum
Alleluia
O' Rafael
All The Earth is Sacred
Gia Mo Grasa

It was a lovely attunement, very healing and hopeful.
At the end of my vision, I saw a rainbow that symbolised the happy conclusion to the attunement. It felt like much was accomplished by the group and much appreciated.

'Dream', St Helen's, Lancashire

Sending blessings of Light to the Land from 'Dream' a white lingham statue erected by the local coal mining community to remember those lost to the coal with the blessing 'From the Earth comes Light'. It is placed, with wonderful inspiration, at the Taurus/Gemini cusp on the AA line of the Landscape Zodiac of the British Isles in the North West near St Helen's, Lancashire. We visit this place when we can, it is a place of joy and solace for many local people, loving the land and enlivening it in their own way.

Ashover Rock/ Fabrick, Derbyshire

Due to the floods experienced in Derbyshire a decision was made to go to a sacred space with a viewpoint overlooking 5 counties instead of trekking out to Arbor Low the centre of the Gypsey Switch.

The Fabrick looked omnipresent in the sun and once we had started with permission and speaking to the guardians we closed our eyes and experienced calm and peace and saw in our inner mindscape light revolving.

At one point out of the stillness came a gentle breeze which made the leaves in the trees above us tap and patter.

I felt I could see familiar faces some from Gatekeeper others from daily experiences in my innerscape. My friend found the whole feeling positive, powerful and healing not so much in the visual sense but in terms of bodily sensation.I did hear a male voice saying 'Like any task it's a struggle .. but then things get much, much better.'

Where that came from I don't know but during that time the voice came we both sensed a bee had been circling around us for a few minutes..

At the end of our ritual and with eyes open to our surroundings we started to create our mandala using natural things around us and with a few herbs,late flowers and seedheads which came from our respective gardens.A few moments later we took a stroll up to the rock ...and got a bumblebee bumbling about around us again ..Id like to think it was the same one..until it disappeared into the bracken banks...What a strange sight and noise to experience late in October...

I take from this collective experience we need to keep making ourselves available to work the light around our landscape and adapt to what feels needed when we can .We need to be thoughtful how we travel and how to make time for such actions as we buzz about in our day doing this and that to survive.. The sign of Cancer is about kith and kinship and this collaboration only serves to strengthen our bond to each other and Mother Earth and Father Sky.

If Not Now When Wood, Norfolk

We walked the labyrinth at the IfNotNowWhenWood - https://ifnotnowwhen.org/

We spoke a peace prayer
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.

Afterwards we joined with friends to walk the labyrinth and spend time in the woods. We walked, ran and jumped (age accordingly) the labyrinth, lit the candle and frolicked in the sun then enjoyed a birthday cake.

Sudbury, Suffolk

I joined in from a secluded semi-wild spot in the old cemetery, a tranquil atmospheric place with many wonderful trees, and home to all kinds of wildlife. After a while I started to sense the words "Bright, bright, bright - weaving a magic web of light" repeating like a mantra.

By the Thames in South West London

I was unable to join the group as intended at Henry's Mount in Richmond Park -
however I was pleased to work from home with spectacular weather and enjoy the outward) flow of the River Thames.

Farnham, Surrey

I did not know until the morning whether my daughter could join me. It seemed appropriate to have Gatekeeper recollections present, including the British landscape zodiac map and the Triple Goddess fragment saved previously from the fire, of which I am the current custodian. We had a lantern each, a singing bowl, a rose and a cross. In attendance also were fragments of art co-creations inspired by the Gatekeeper Trust and past pilgrimages. The stone bench in my garden sanctuary space served as altar and its guardian silver birch stood in for the natural world.

The ceremony felt more powerful and deeper having us both there - especially as my daughter played the sound bowl and sang. Sound vibrations combined with light waves resonated and radiated outwards sending love and light to the land, to the other light points being activated and onward around the planet.

Frimley Green, Surrey

The Sacred Beech Grove on the canal towpath was my Sunday venue for meditation.

Forest Row, East Sussex

I chose a locality close to my home, in an East Sussex village where the river Medway runs from its tiny Springs nearby, snakes through the village, streams away and broadens through Kent to its estuary where it joins the River Thames. I think all rivers are sacred and this one is loved and cared for among the villagers here, so it is a good conduit to send out the love and the light to Zodiacal Britain.

I spoke a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke to the river, called A WALK.

My eyes already touch the sunny hill
Going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp,
It has its inner light, even from a distance -

And changes us, even if we do not reach it,
Into something else, which, hardly sensing it, we already are.
A gesture waves us on, answering our own wave
But what we feel is the wind in our faces.

I created a little ceremony nearby to the bridge. I wanted the kingdom of nature represented including the pilgrim for we are all one, the Celtic cross and the fresh apple from today bridging time. The sun and the moon for our eternal quests for truth, especially here where we are in Sagittarius, we the travellers who walk the earth to to find meaning, to understand and to spread our love far and wide.
I rang a bell to sing out into the Forest and send echoes out and beyond.

I recited a prayer and blew out the candle to send the light out into the four directions.

Finally, saying goodbye to the river, standing on the bridge, I felt the wind in the leaves and it seemed to be a blessing to go forth. I first put an Arnica pillule into the water to protect from the bruising that may happen as it flows on, sometimes through unconscious areas. I reminisced about the booklet I have at home written by two older ladies who took a small boat journey many miles from the source to its ending in the Thames. When I myself looked at the river’s merging into the sea there, I saw it was going out to carry a container ship full of our rubbish to be processed in a small country in the south. Remembering this, made me cry and I let my tears fall into the river.

I blessed the flintstone and let it fall to the river to go on its own journey. I rang the bell, and left.

Whatever it’s destiny, this little spot of earth is under the love and protection of the goddess.

South Chailey, East Sussex

We walked through Chailey Woods, asking permission to enter at the gateway to these woods and walking with awareness that each step that we walked was a footstep of light. After much gentle meandering, we found our place to be, between two trees that were in dappled sunlight. We lit a lantern and three candles for Britain, Scotland and Ireland and entered into meditation and then contemplation.

We felt connections with High Cross and the zodiac map with all the other light bearers in meditation with us. We felt reinspired to walk locally in this way with others and to join the monthly full moon meditations by ourselves through the year.

As we got up to leave, a rose that we had brought but lost appeared by the tree root which we felt to be magic and a response from the Kindly Luminous beings to our visit and attunement.

Broadbridge Heath, West Sussex

I tuned in and lit a candle from a place near my home that I have recently discovered to be Bronze Age / Iron Age hunting grounds and a spiral roundhouse . I felt a palpable connection with the group and and I especially felt a sense of connection with High Cross which I have been to before - it felt as if I was there. I saw a Chalice Cup on a Circle Squared. I felt my heart opening and feelings of calm and healing.

Chichester, West Sussex

In this morning’s sunshine I went up to my ‘favourite place’ a few miles from where I live: The Trundle, ancient hill fort just north of Chichester; previously known as Saint Roche’s Hill. There is a sunken overgrown spot said to have been a hermitage, where a chapel once was built, hence the name of St. Roche. I stopped there just before noon and noticed a butterfly sunning itself in the brambles, only a moment after I had asked permission of the Guardians!

The chalk path around the summit, giving 360º view: Isle of Wight to the Seven Sisters

At entrance to the overgrown hermitage of St. Roche

Glastonbury, Somerset

I visited all the sacred sites in Glastonbury - the Abbey (2 points esp within it), the Magdalene chapel and gardens, the Red Spring, the path to the Tor, and the White Spring.
Taking on the energies of all, I returned to meditate at home with a lit candle and sunshine.

I appear to have important links to Glastonbury in three past lifetimes, and my recent work has been to look at all these and how they are beautifully and intricately laced together with our whole sacred and hidden Judeo-Christian heritage, spread out through both time and space,
and what speaks to real needs for the future, and what is speaking particularly concerning Glastonbury. Aquarius Within Aquarius.

North Molton Ridge, Exmoor, Devon

On the link-up day 22nd October, I went out to my local moorland and chose white quartz granite boulders as my focus. The local barrows were nearby, full of these quartz rocks, as well as some very powerful barrows which had been found to have an Egyptian bead necklace that was dated around 25,000 years bc.

This rare necklace was exactly similar to one found in Tara, the Irish royal centre: ‘the Mound of the Innocents’ where mythical queen Scota daughter of Egyptian pharaoh would have been crowned.

What an amazing link. I have been visualising the ‘curling’ of the dragon’s body’ between Britain and Ireland, spiralllng out across the Irish Sea from the zodiac moorlands of the South West. The story goes that Scota, daughter of an Egyptian pharaoh, landed in Ireland with a sacred stone. She is crowned, and then move to Dalriada (Scotland) to establish a royal line there. The Stone was said to have been Jacob’s pillow when he slept and dreamt of angels ascending into heaven.

We have found both Exmoor and Dartmoor have clues to their being landscape zodiacs, as well as Bodmin.

Hembury Castle in Devon

Nine Pilgrims gathered to meet at Hembury Castle on South Dartmoor. We walked in quietness to the Castle and did an attunement at the entrance, connecting to angels of the Gatekeeper Trust & Hembury Castle landscape, asking for guidance. We picked up acorns, some of which were just starting to sprout. They were brought into the circle & people were encouraged to plant them to help 'give back' to nature.

Just below the highest point of the castle, Liz read some of the material related to the British Landscape Zodiac, as described by Peter/Sarah Dawkins. It's a very interesting read so here is the link.

After a little conversation over this, we made a plan for the 12 noon ritual/meditation and proceeded to the castle summit where Klaas sounded the conch in the 4 directions and welcomed in the spirits.

Liz led a meditation where we connected with the national group in the centre of Britain and other groups, followed by what is called the 'Unity Breath'. Love is felt in the heart for the Earth and Sky and then sent to 'Mother Earth' and 'Father Sky', with receptivity to receive it back. There was a chance for people to input and a couple of people shared what they had 'seen' subtly in our circle and Klaas sang a song.

After lunch we had to find shelter under the oaks and amongst the bracken and shared there our experiences of the day and expressions about current events in the world and how it was important to bring these in, despite our feeling of helplessness on a practical level.

Somehow the day didn't feel complete without walking the bounds of the 'fort' by following the ditch around and sending blessings and thanks to each direction. 5 people remained for the closing circle, where we named those who had to leave early and thanked the angels.

Lands End, Cornwall

After linking with Sarah and friends at High Cross, and all gatekeepers, I made my Dedication to Light in the Land as I lit the candle.

As I left my motorhome, camped near Lands End, Cornwall, to start my walk, I saw this rainbow.
So blessed!

I walked down to the sea at Gwynver Bay, where I sang. It is a long favourite place for me...very special. And back up the hill to my van, where I relit my candle, bringing the light to High Cross.

Grianan of Aileach, County Donegal, Ireland

At Grianan of Aileach, the hilltop between Derry and Inch island, it was a stunning light bright day. Never been so still, it was as if lights had bern turned on everywhere. Beautiful.

Berlin, Germany

I was travelling in Europe and had time to fit in a brief trip to Berlin, from 22-24 October. So on 22 October at 12 noon UK time I was with old friends Jürgen and Gudrun, being driven around Berlin. I meditated while I was chauffeured around the many interesting sights. On 23 October I was able to ‘cement’ those impressions and reflections as we walked for 11/12 miles round the many key sites. I reflected on the wall and how it had split the city of Berlin. I happened to be in Germany staying with Jürgen when the wall came down. It was an amazing experience to be part of that history. Most of the wall has been taken down but it remains in a few places as a peace memorial.

We also went to the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church , the symbolic center of West Berlin The bombed remains of the old church were made safe and a modern church built next to it. The striking ruin rises into the sky as a memorial for peace between nations.

I feel privileged to have been part of the Gatekeeper Trust annual conference and atunement over the weekend of 21-22 October. Whatever we all did together, we connected in peace and for peace.

Ripton, Vermont, USA