The ancient rocks of the Lizard ophiolite complex in Cornwall are amongst the rarest in the world, preserved when a small sliver of oceanic crust was thrust over more buoyant continental crust after the collision of two continents. Distorted and gnarled, in patchworks of pale green, hues of crimson and jet-black streaks, the rocks of the Lizard resemble the scaled hide of a reptile. Lenses of serpentine form perfect loops like the eye of a dragon, all seeing and all knowing, recording in every hue, every twist and turn, the ancient history of our planet.
At Kynance Cove the lizard-hide gleams wet and shiny from the constant pounding of frothy white Atlantic swell. Families come and jump the waves, then scramble across the huge ancient blocks of peridotite that were once deep inside the Earth. Further north at Mullion Cove a huge fault is visible in the harbour wall, a cosmic crack resulting from the strain and twisting of the tectonic plates. Comparable to the filling inside a sandwich, the fault lies squashed between metamorphosed serpentine and gabbro pressed and squeezed up like toothpaste from a tube. Out to sea, islands comprised from the pillow lavas that would have lain on top of the ophiolite sequence loom like dragons from the depths.
At Lizard point itself some of the most ancient rocks in Cornwall are to be found. The 500-million year-old Man of War gneiss, and a series of meta-sediments, mainly schists, have undergone extensive metamorphism and deformation here, bearing witness to the powerful Earth energies at work. On the beach underneath the lighthouse on the most southerly piece of land in the UK and accessible only at low tide is the yoni of the dragon, a large almost triangular slit in the rock, splashed crimson like blood. A pile of seaweed lying at the entrance defies all but the bravest to enter. Under the August sun the rubbery looking mass had started to move, seething with maggots hatching out in the warmth!
But it is Coverack that hides the Lizard’s brightest gem. This beautiful 200 m stretch of beach preserves a uniquely preserved sliver of the ophiolite – and an opportunity to touch the Moho, the transition zone between the Earth’s crust and its mantle. The lower part of the beach is made from dark magnesium and iron-rich gabbro that would once have laid on the ocean floor. The upper part is peridotite, an ultramafic rock that originates from the mantle, and between the two lies the transition zone, the Moho, usually at depths of around 25 km and therefore rarely seen, let alone touched. To walk this beach is like walking on the inside the Earth, coming into contact with something that is out-of-sight yet familiar, almost like touching your own inner organs.
The ancient serpentine rocks of the Lizard retain a pristine Energy that connect us deep into the soul of the Earth, opening up our lizard eye in the back of our heads and accessing our primal or reptilian brains, where all is recorded but not always known. Indeed according to local legend, the serpentine rock is an embodiement of the Old Dragon herself, the serpent of the rocks that manifests as an Earth energy known as ‘snake breath.’
This ‘snake breath’ is so strong as to be palpable and send currents of energy through the rocks. Indeed, many people have dowsed these currents and found extraordinary associations between the manifesting Earth energies and the man-made building above them, including ancient sites, churches and monuments. I was therefore intrigued but not surprised when I saw that Broadhurst and Miller, master dowsers of Earth energies, had found that what they call the Apollo and Athena currents snake across the Lizard before leaving the British mainland on an epic journey through continental Europe and ending up at Meggido in Israel.
As recorded in their amazing book ‘the Dance of the Dragon,’ after spiralling round that huge energy nexus point at St Michaels Mount, the Apollo current meanders through rock promontories at Prussia Cove and Trewas Head in the north of the Lizard, before emerging in the tower at Gunwalloe Church Cove, where it crosses over with the more ‘feminine’ Athena current and is amplified by it. This beautiful old church sits right on the beach and faces west across the sea, the perfect place to watch the sun go down and experience the kiss of the dragon at first hand.
Intriguingly the Apollo current also crosses Poldhu, a place made famous by the world changing experiments of Guglielmo Marconi, who successfully transmitted the first trans-Atlantic radio signal here. On the 12th December 1901, three dots of morse code were sent from the Poldhu radio mast and successfully picked up by a transmitter in Marconi’s ear, himself 2000 miles away in St John’s on Newfoundland at the time. Nobody would deny that his insights turned out to change the course of human history, but it is interesting to speculate, as Broadband and Miller[1] did, whether he owed his inspiration to the ‘snake breath’ of the Lizard where he spent so much of his time. It can be no coincidence that the letter transmitted across the Atlantic was, of course, ‘S.’ The hisssss of the snake, or the ‘snake breath,’ could now be heard as well as being felt – and indeed heard it was, right across the other side of the world.
[1] ‘The Dance of the Dragon: An Odyssey into Earth Energies and Ancient Religions’ by Paul Broadhurst and Hamish Miller with Vivienne Shanley and Ba Russell, MYTHOS, 2003
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