FULL MOON MEDITATION – Aries

FULL MOON MEDITATION SUN IN ARIES, MOON IN LIBRA

At 12 noon 28th March, 2021
in your local landscape, or with a home mandala or candle

THEME: Aries the symbol of the Pioneer/Warrior within,
Libra the sign of the Mediator/Diplomat and magical relationships.

The still springtime waters of the lake beneath the Wrekin,
reflect the assertive peak above. I found strength in the stillness.
[photo - C J Yonge]

A collage capturing the resilience of the different features of the hill as it
directs the raindrops in rivulets along the path,
to collect in the lake below. This is a composite of impressions
of the guardian trees beside the long beaten path,
a wholeness captured revealing the strength within the sacred hill.
[Artwork - C J Yonge]

THEME FOR MEDITATION

A personal vision quest for purpose and drive towards pure love and truth.

Aries’ ruling planet Mars symbolizes mental focus and the offering up of physical energy needed to carry out a ‘passion of purpose’ – as a fertile, transformative culture – into the unknown ‘new age’. As spiritual warrior-pioneers, what can we learn from history and the way the landscape represents our cultural identity, sovereignty and commitment to our inherent transformational quest for truth and love?

At this time of global questing, humanity is sharpening spiritual 'knife edge' questing... landscape pilgrimage may give us a bit of respite and nurturing when we learn from the past, in order to sharpen our wits. Can we grow in our powers of co- creative relationship with our living planet, through the help of the ‘kindly luminous beings’ in the landscape around our homes? “Can I with your strength transform into a spiritual pioneer and warrior, with resilience and strength of purpose and creative magic?’

Crystalline crags of the Stipperstones.
[https://commons.wikimedia.org]

At Ludlow the meeting of the rivers Teme and Corve seem to form the point at which the stem of the landscape cup follows the river waters.

The cradle of the industrial revolution seemed to be held within the people’s identity with the land, and traditions of sacrifice and hard-working of intellectual crafting of iron bridges (Ironbridge and Bridgnorth) along with tools of war. Unraveling the stories of the human skull’s ‘alchemical crucible’ of the mind, we ask how we can understand the invisible eternal truths behind our ancestors’ art-forms.

The Green Man, St Lawrence’s Church, Ludlow.
[CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=667754]

The Green Man symbolizes fertility – or is this the sacrifice of the breath, blood and effort through creative endeavour?

Using ‘art of the sacred’, we generate with the spirit of Gaia a living dynamic energy that can bring a hidden strength and vision into our lives. As we pilgrimage, so we breathe in and offer out our magnetism and inspiration gifted from our living planet. Mysteries and revelations can be co-created in our lives, as others have told their stories of awe and wonder. Here are some stories born of pioneering courage that recall the gift of downright unbelievable magic that landscapes can offer.

THE HOLY BLOOD AND THE HOLY GRAIL OF MAGDALENE and JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA.

SPIRITUAL PIONEERS in WALES – how the Age of Warrior Kings converted to the Age of Saints and Prophets:

AT THE INAUGURATION OF THE PISCEAN AGE, legends were circulated of Joseph of Arimathaea baptising the last of the line of British Kings, who then became pioneering saints of a new age. The landscape holds memories of alchemical journeys of sovereigns and princes in Wales, and the mystery of the visit of the holy family. Joseph of Arimathaea and Mary Magdalene and perhaps the blood of Christ. The theme of ‘the passion of Christ’ and bloodlines of the kings of Britain remains a deep mystery, but Aries whose rule is Mars the god of war, signifies the transition of archetypal warrior energy into a focused ‘spiritual pioneer’ archetype significant for our modern times. We now distil the Piscean mystical spirit into an age where individual’s inner mystic guides a new creative individuation within a culture of collaborative group consciousness. The significance of the Aries and Pisces landscapes of the British Zodiac at the beginning of the Age of Pisces and the dawn of Christianity can be found in the archaeology and history left encoded in the landscape.

The battle of sovereignty in Wales leads us back to the connection with the mythical northern ‘islands of the Hesperides’, and the High Kings of these islands. But beneath the fluctuating historical stories lies an older myth of the holy family coming to Britain, and establishing Christianity. In Wales the landscape embodies the cusp between Aries (warrior/pioneer} and Pisces (the mystic).

SOUTH WALES: Arthurian legends seem to be supported by records in the Kings Chronicles about which a ‘real Arthurian story’ revolves. The archaeological discoveries of Welsh historians Alan Wilson and Baram Blackett are quoted by Adrian Gilbert in his book ‘The Holy Kingdom’ recording the discovery of the two kings’ tombstones.

Two Welsh King Arthurs played a significant role in the early days of the Piscean Age, and the real life ‘round tables’ of forts that Arthur II created to protect the ‘holy lands’ of the Black Mountains, the Vale of Glamorgan and Caer Melyn (which could be construed as the original Camelot). Both Kings Arthurs fought to protect the holy land of the ‘grail’ landscape of Wales, and physical evidence is found in the Kings Lists and Chronicles which give places and hereditary lists, battles fought. The historians even found tombstones for the burial places of both Arthurs.

So what more evidence is there that the landscape calls for magical engagement with human wisdom?

NORTH WALES LANDSCAPE ZODIAC OF LLANSANNAN BY LEWIS EDWARDS:

http://www.cantab.net/users/michael.behrend/repubs/j_geomancy/v4n1/pages/edwards_lost_zodiac.html

The link between Ireland and Britain: Through this landscape runs the A5 ‘gold route’ which linked Ireland with England, and along which legend tells us that King Bran’s head was carried to the Tower of London. Bran the Blessed was an honourable and well loved king, who was beheaded. His head – a symbol of the grail of sovereignty and kingship, the ‘green man’ of fertility – perhaps symbolises a time when the connections between the four nations of ‘British Isles’ in the ancient world (Ireland, Scotland, England and Wales’ lay yet to be disentangled.

Meantime, in recent times in North Wales, Lewis Edwards lays claims to discovering a zodiac in the landscape round Llansannan. Was there ever such a story of courageous leap of imagination and inspiration, generated by the love of the land? No-one has corroborated these symbols, but we can admire the commitment of one who dared believe in his ‘inner mystic’ triggered by a living, personal presence of love in the landscape. As an act of faith and pioneering gift offering, Lewis Edwards used this map for his talks, although nothing else survives of his draft papers, which were never published. These are seeds of thought for future spiritual pioneers.

KINGSHIP AND SOVEREIGNTY IN THE LAND:

Llangollen and the last Prince of Wales:

[Wikipedia: - Owain Glyndŵr c.1349/1359 – 1416 was descended from the princes of Powys and Cyfeiliog. In recent years a fine statue of him on his horse has been erected on the square in Corwen. He owned fortified manor houses in Llydiart y Parc, Glyndyfrdwy and in Sycarth, Llangedwyn.

Owain Glyndŵr and his followers were embroiled in a long running revolt against the English rule of Wales in the early years of the 15th century. He assembled a parliament at Machynlleth in 1404 and his battle with the English was successful until 1408 when his family was taken prisoner, and he and his followers were forced to become guerrilla fighters.]

The area around Llangollen and Corwen has often been referred to as ‘Glyndŵr Country’. and regarded as the last native Prince of Wales. But was he?

A Tudor Prince of Mystery? A story more recently originates from a real encounter of the founder members of the Francis Bacon Research Trust, showing that sovereignty is involved in the development of culture and landscape design, and that there is more to it than meets the eye. The legend of the Prince of Wales being born in Llangollen of the first Queen Elizabeth stems from a Tudor House in Lands End, Llangollen.

The researchers discovered on the eaves of the Tudor House was a date and Elizabeth I stayed at the house. There is a local legend that to be Prince of Wales, the child either had to be born at Llangollen or be brought there soon after birth. The researchers were asking in the local tourist information place about the house, and a man who was also in the tourist office at the same time, said he had been the restorer of the Tudor house and that they had found a stained glass window of a child with blond hair, of the Elizabethan age, hidden within a wall when they were renovating a door way. Locals do believe that Queen Elizabeth I did visit Llangollen with a child. Is this evidence of the true identity of Elizabeth’s human family and descendants?

Is this evidence of the true identity of Elizabeth’s human family and descendants?

Prince Charles our modern Prince of Wales is currently patron of the Llangollen Eistedford. The pageantry holds clues to the spiritual interpretation of spiritual sovereignty: three ostrich feathers in a coronet with the letter ‘ich dien’, or ‘I serve’ below them.

“The creation of the Prince of Wales role was a feudal dynastic ploy and indication of victory but what has always amazed me is how the ploy has been successful down through the centuries. We should never underestimate the extent to which royalty and the armed forces contributed to the rise of Welsh identity, first in the Tudor period and then in the Victorian and Edwardian era.”

These, Peter Dawkins suggests, represent the three-energy (kundalini) spiral within an individual which meet at the crown chakra, and which can be seen fanning out as three fountains of light. Here we are given a seed thought: what is human spiritual sovereignty, and can we identify with the ‘inner’ mysteries through the landscape of myth and tradition this way – human royalty as the outward drama of the inner spiritual drama of initiation of conscious enlightenment for us all?

Tradition unravels as a storehouse of mystery stories to guide us, with some basis of evidence. Mary Magdalene was said to have visited Cornwall, and now a story emerges that she brought the blood of Christ to Wales. The Aries theme of ‘blood spilt in passion’ anchors a wisdom tradition of how we evolve through transforming the ‘kundalini’ energy spoken about in the Vedic mysteries of Buddhism, into vision drive and passion of commitment. Our physical ‘vehicle’ of incarnation is often referred to as our chariot, or ‘horse’ and Epona the goddess of fertility and journeys has long reigned through Europe, manifesting as the ‘White Horse’ monuments of our green and pleasant lands.

The Myth of Riannon of Wales is closely associated with Epona, and is considered to be the person who choses the king. Does she ride again today and are we now the new sovereigns of Aquarius, taking on our own individual authenticity and creative uniqueness, and our own inner mystic in a direct relationship with a ‘living divinely ordained planet’ with its own soul and evolutionary purpose.

A real grail story? The author Graham Phillip’s story of his discovery of ‘The Magdalene Chalice’ draws us closer to the mystery of the ‘passion of Christ’ and the transition from mystic into warrior/pioneer in our transformational vision quest.

[see Graham Phillips’ book ‘The Chalice of Magdalene – In Search for the Cup that Held the Blood of Christ’ http://www.grahamphillips.net/chalice/chalice11.html ]

The Roman era fragrance flask –
The small alabaster cup found in the eagle statue at Hawkstone Park. Walter
Langham discovered the cup by accident in 1920. Could this have been the
container for the blood of Christ, collected by March (Magdalene) and brought to
Britain, found at Whitecliffe, Shropshire? [Graham Phillips]

‘The artefact turned out to be a small stone vessel made from green alabaster, about the size and shape of an eggcup. Although there is no way of knowing whether it was the original chalice found by the Empress Helena in Jerusalem in 323 BC, it seems almost certainly to be the one possessed by Fulk Fitz Warine and kept at the White Castle in Whittington during the Middle Ages and passed on down to Thomas Wright who hid it in the 1850s. It closely matches the only known depiction of it in Arthur Mede’s illustration, except that it now has no lid. It has been analysed by the British Museum who identified it as a Roman ointment or scent jar dating from the first century AD.’

What a lovely image of Magdalene and her calling to spiritual adventure in our land! Can we become as resilient and dedicated to revealing Truth at the bottom of the Well/Cave of Life?

"The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics." ~ Galileo Galilei

Graham Phillips - http://www.grahamphillips.net/chalice/chalice11.html ]

Red and white castles (alchemical symbolism of the duality with our kundalini energy within the Alchemical tradition) which lead Graham Phillips to caves and grottos opposite each other in the landscape. This author followed a trail involving numerology out of the bible and a miraculous set of synchronous discoveries, which lead him to explore the White Cliff, seen from the Red Castle in the Shrewsbury landscape. The ruined arch on top of the White Cliff led to the passages, caves and labyrinths cut into the sandstone cliff.

Recent mysteries of sovereignty: More recently, the bard of traditional Druidic wisdom becomes a new all singing and dancing Muse for our Times (the Sweet Swan of Avon, centred at the heart of the British Zodiac Landscape in Cygnus), through Shakespeare’s plays which are even now being created as CGI performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It has also been found that with Shakespeare’s collection of original folios lies a cypher story based on mathematical principles that can be ascertained. In addition, the King James Bible which some believe was created by a group of Rosicrucian initiates (of the Alchemical tradition) can also be deciphered mathematically: For more Alan W Green’s 16 year journey into Shakespearean cypher mystery, go to: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=bardcode.

A new discovery in Shrewsbury of a stone circle dating back to the Neolithic (https://www.shropshirestar.com/news/local-hubs/2017/05/18/dig-finds-oldest-sacred-site-in-the-uk/) together with a pit of human skulls, tells us of the symbol of the human skull, and how traditions of sacrifice were associated with the enhanced fertility of the conqueror survivors. This was perhaps part of primitive ‘art of sacred space’ and the mystery stories of sacrifice and the culturally transformative survival instinct of a people. In the landscape crossing the cusp of Aries and Pisces there seems to be a ‘chalice’ bounded by an iron bearing line of 480m quartz crags of the ‘Stipperstones – leading to The Wrekin - on the East side, and three stone circles on the rearing hills of the West of the cup. The two qualities of feminine and masculine

seem to have been deliberately balanced: war weapons crafted of iron on one side, the arts of the sacred land and stone rituals on the other.

Charlotte Yonge, 2021.