Not just backdrops, spectacular rocks! Examples of all the geological ages of Earth can be found in the British Isles. Usually seen at their most spectacular on the coast where weathering and water have both shaped and preserved vast sedimentary and tectonic processes, these images (mainly) from Southern England and Wales capture just a small flavour of the immense grandeur of our Planet. Each grain and fold tells a story that can be read like a book, and is alive on time scales that we find difficult to comprehend but is nevertheless dynamic and fully interactive with other life on Earth. This series of pictures moves through the entire Phanerozoic era (‘visible life’), starting around 542 million years ago.
(Pre) Cambrian rocks, St David’s, Wales
Cambrian/Ordovician shales, South Stack, Anglesey, Wales
A few years ago, we journeyed along the Michael/Mary line beginning in Ogbourne St George, Wiltshire, and headed west to Dartmoor. Sometime later, we returned to the Wessex Downs but this time coming in from the opposite direction (Caln, in the west). As soon as we entered the chalk scarp, we were struck by the huge telluric, geological currents surging through the porous rock, pushing up gentle hillocks and forming combes that looked like nodes in the land. Green fuzz now covers the chalk, which is therefore no longer visible – unless a white horse has been carved in it, that is.
Alton Barnes White Horse (credit Wikipedia)
White horses and hill forts abound in these vales demonstrating how important they once were to the people who loved and lived in them. The White Horse of Alton Barnes gracing the side of Milk Hill is visible from the A4, itself looking out towards the famous White Horse of Pewsey, where a new white horse replaces an older and now faded older version. A gentle walk along the top of the Wansdyke brings the relief of the land into clear focus, and places the white horses firmly in the context of the a broader landscape that undulates across to the Mendips and Cotswolds far into the distance. The Wansdyke itself is an intriguing feature and was probably built by the ancient Britons to keep the Saxon invaders out in a time of invasion and flux.
We continued north passed Windmill Hill and joined up with the Ridgeway. Part of a massive chalk escarpment some four hundred miles long and extending from Dorset to East Anglia, the section between the Sanctuary and the Ivinghoe Beacon in Berkshire is the most famous uninterrupted national walking trail in the country. It is along this pathway that the great dragon energies emerge from the chalk as telluric currents and intermingle with the more precise energies of the Michael/Mary line that we had been dowsing since Dartmoor. Iron Age hill forts, often built over more ancient Neolithic causewayed enclosures, become a stronger feature of the landscape, holding these powerful energies in a way that churches are unable to.
Barbary Castle (credit Wikipedia)
It was exciting and exhilarating to feel the energies swirling through Barbary castle with its three rings and ditch enclosures. Circling and dancing like a coiled snake, the earthworks contained and amplified the energies in an honouring and respectful way. This joyful dance continued along the Ridgeway to Liddington Camp, one of the earliest of the hill forts and dating back to the Late Bronze Age (around 700 BCE). These ‘forts’ were primarily used as places were clans met and feasted, traded goods and worshipped, though some defensive function is also not excluded. Therefore the term ‘fort’ does not do them justice, and neither does the medieval word ‘castle’ that implies a form of conquer and control that was not present in the minds of the people who created these structures.
In the centre of the Liddington earthworks, the energy was particularly intense and demanded some form of acknowledgement. Later, further research revealed the existence of a ritual shaft, used by the ancient Britons who occupied this site to ritually connect more deeply with the land, and harness the protective and abundant energies in a mutually honouring way.
Vale of the White Horse (credit author)
The Ridgeway continues northeast, and is cut across brutally by the M4 motorway, contrasting strongly with the respectful energies we had felt previously. Now we were in Oxfordshire but the underlying chalk knew no such boundaries and the great dragon currents surged towards the most famous vale of all – the Vale of the White Horse. According to Miller and Broadhurst, [1]the Mary current sweeps round the nexus point containing some of the most important sites in the country – The White Horse, Ufffington Castle, Dragon Hill and Wayland’s Smithy – and is anchored at the church of St Mary in Uffington. It is also just north of this area that the Belinus line crosses over the Michael/Mary line, forming a major omphalos (more on this to come). We went into this centre to explore the energies in more detail.
Wayland’s Smithy (credit author)
Just beneath Fox Hill, the Ridgeway now passes through one of the earliest Neolithic long barrows in Britain – Wayland’s Smithy. Set in a secluded grove ringed by trees, a stone burial chambers covered by a huge earth mound are surrounded by an enclosure of sarsen stones. Built during the Neolithic by the mysterious early agriculturalists in two stages, an earlier timber barrow could date back as early as 3590 BC.[2]
The Saxons were probably the first to link the Germanic smith-god Wayland with this site, a rather ambivalent mythological figure who emerges, often in an unfavourable light, in a range of contexts from the Icelandic Eddas to the exquisitely carved Frank’s Casket, where he is depicted holding a severed head with the aid of tongs in one hand and a goblet in the other. Though the myth has him slaying a king’s son and cutting off his head, plying the same king’s daughter with wine and raping her, he is also associated with making wings from birds feathers that enable him to fly. This could account for why he appears in a variety of places plying his trade of smith, possibly linking this site (mythically at the least) with an early phase of metallurgy in pre-history. In more favourable contexts, Wayland is associated with forging magical swords and also the mail shirt worn by Beowolf in the epic poem of the same name. [3]
White Horse of Uffington (credit Wikipedia)
The White Horse itself is situated on the upper slopes of White Horse Hill, a distinctive undulating steep-sided valley formed by the interplay of land with the repeated freeze-thaw cycles of the last Ice Age. It can only really be appreciated from above or at a distance to see its full extent, emphasising its role as a beacon or orientation point in a sacred landscape. The White Horse itself has been dated to the late Bronze Age (1380 – 550 BC) as has the (once again misnamed) Uffington castle on top of the hill, a huge square structure surrounded by earthworks. Not much of the original remains but to walk the parameters of the site gives some feel of its scope and scale. As the highest place for miles around, it would have had great ritual (and therefore economic) importance for the ancient Britons who inhabited the area.
The energies are still palpable in the earthworks but do not have the joyful innocent quality that we had felt previously. These ancient walkways were fed by pilgrims and travellers that kept the energy flowing between nodal points, often represented by barrows and mounds, through a mutual honouring between land and walker. When this is no present, the flow and therefore the energies recede into the background, or indeed stagnate, waiting patiently to be acknowledged and activated once again at some future time.
Dragon Hill (credit author)
The White Horse itself is no longer accessible and when standing in the physical landscape, it is hard to see the horse at all. Indeed, it is now Dragon Hill, a small chalk hill with artificially flattened top siting sitting just below the White Horse, that draws the visitor in both visually and energetically. A large chalk circle marks the eye, said to be the spot where St George killed the dragon, the blood preventing grass from growing on its summit. As ever the myth of dragon slaying going hand in hand with the presence of huge telluric landscape currents, which is one of the reasons that these energies are called dragon energies.
It is significant that both the dragon and horse are present in this landscape. There are many theories as to the meaning of the White Horse. Some see it as a solar horse, whose origins stretch back into the deep past of an Indo-European mythology that perceived the sun carried across the sky by a horse or chariot. [4] Archaeo-astronomical investigations have suggested a link between the horse and the midwinter sun, others discern a connection between the landscape and the constellation of Draco, all of which warrants further investigation.
‘Rhiannon’ by Alan Lee
There are other land based alternatives. To the Celtic and the ancient Britons, the white horse was the ultimate symbol of Sovereignty, who was both the goddess of the land and the land itself. She bestowed kingship in exchange for protection and when this was honoured, the land was fertile and all life forms were happy. The Brythonic Sovereignty goddesses Rhiannon is closely associated with the white horse, as are the Celtic goddesses Aine and Maeve.
White Horse (credit author)
At this place of great power, we can stand and reconnect with this aspect of the land, take back our own Sovereignty and empowerment and come back into harmony with the energies of the Earth herself, and therefore with the energies of the wider cosmos. That the horse still holds energetic sway here is reflected by the land in the numerous horse racing stables that cluster at the foot of Lambourne Down, serving as training grounds for hundreds of race horses that still gallop through the Vale to this day.
[1] Broadhurst and Miller, (1998) ‘The Sun and the Serpent’
The White Horse Stone is shrouded in legend. It is located in the Neolithic funerary complex that we today call the Medway Megaliths, and was once possibly part of a chambered long barrow of which no other traces remain. Until recently it was one of a pair of megaliths that stood close to the Pilgrims Way in North Kent, the chalk ridge that comprises the northern limb of the Wealden anticline, but the Lower White Horse Stone was destroyed in the nineteenth century, leaving the upper White Horse Stone alone and isolated. To add insult to injury, now it can only be reached via a slip road behind a petrol station, cut off by the racing traffic of the A229 dual carriageway that links the M20 with the M2, part of the extensive motorway network that divides Kent. And just below it the Eurostar train emerges from a tunnel cut into the chalk as it speeds down towards Folkestone and the Channel Tunnel.
White Horse Stone, author’s photo
Isolated and lonely it might be, yet dating back to around 4000 BC, it is an important piece of our heritage, placed at the very beginning of the arrival of the farmers from Europe who brought with them the knowledge of agriculture. These people were said to be semi-nomadic, yet near the stone was found the remains of an early Neolithic longhouse that was used 3780 – 3530 BC and was most likely a domestic residence. Another chambered long barrow was found nearby containing human remains and could have shed more light on these apparent contradictions, but sadly this has also been destroyed.
If the Neolithic ancestry of the stone has many unsolved elements, the legends become more complex when linked to a more recent invasion, this one involving the arrival of the Anglo-Saxon people, again from continental Europe. Around 409 AD, the last of the Romans withdrew from Britain, leaving a vacuum soon to be filled by tribes from Germany, including the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, some of whom had already begun to settle during Roman times. The takeover was gradual and not uniform throughout the country; it could have begun in Kent, certainly the legend describing the foundation event say it was.
White Horse Stone from side, author’s photo
There are different sources for the story, and each tell a slightly different version, but the gist is as follows. Vortigern, King of the Britons, needed assistance to fight the Scottish Picts who frequently launched raiding parties into his territory. He invited the Angles to come to his aid, and in due course (449 AD), the brothers Horsa and Hengist arrived at Ebbsfleet to serve as mercenaries. They were said to have arrived under the banner of a ‘rampant white horse.’ [1] In return for their services, they were given supplies and land on the Isle of Thanet, and in time they sent back home for more aid, causing more Angles, Saxons and Jutes to arrive in large numbers. According to Nennius in the ‘History of the Britons,’ Vortigern had bitten off more than he could chew and tried to get rid of them, but to no avail. At any rate, Hengist’s daughter Rowena came over and Vortigern fell in love with her and asked for her hand in marriage. In return, Hengist asked for Kent, which Vortigern granted even though it wasn’t strictly his to give. This made Vortigern unpopular, and he was forced into hiding by his own people. His son Vortimer turned against Hengist and Horsa, engaging them in battle and driving them back, back dying himself in the process.[2]
The Wooing of Rowena, by A. S. Forrest – Our Island Story, Public Domain
Eventually, Hengist and Horsa, now reasonably established, sent Vortigern a message of peace, and invited him to a feast where the Saxons and Britons could meet. Here a great act of treachery took place, deepening the drama of the story. Hengist’s men concealed knives ‘beneath their feet’ and murdered the unsuspecting Britons in what is known as the Treachery of the Long Knives, though they did spare Vortigern. [3]
According to the Anglo-Saxon chronicles, in 455 AD, Vortigern faced the brothers at Aylesford in Kent, where a decisive battle was fought. [4]The Saxons were victorious though Horsa was killed. Hengist went on to found the kingdom of Kent with his son, marking the beginning of Saxon rule. Horsa, according to legend, was buried by the White Horse Stone, over which was draped his banner.
In old English, Hengist and Horsa mean ‘stallion’ and ‘horse’ respectively, and Bede in his version of the story charts their geneology back to Woden, the great Norse god.[5] Both the Norse and Anglo-Saxon languages are Indo-European in origin, and have inherited aspects of Indo-European mythology, cleaving it to fit their own time and place. Two of the central tenants of this proto-mythology were founding brothers, or divine twins, and they were often associated with the horse, the most sacred animal in Indo-European cosmology. There are many examples of divine twins who founded nations, including Romulus and Remus in Rome, Aggi and Ebbi of the Danes, and Ibur and Aion of the Lombards .[6] And in all of the legends, one of the founding twins must die, as does Horsa in this case.
Folkestone White Horse
There is no evidence of course that he was actually buried beneath White Horse Stone, but the association stills lingers on. His emblem was adopted by the Jutish kingdom of Kent, the first of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and the rampant white horse is still today the emblem of Kent. In this way the story of Horsa, Hengist and Vortigern can be seen as an Anglo-Saxon foundation myth, similar to Romulus and Remus in the foundation of Rome. Not to be taken literally, but seen as a sacred and part of a greater cosmology. What Horsa and Hengist as German immigrants would have made of Brexit we do not know, but the constant presence of the Eurostar train beneath the stone is certainly a reminder of our deeply European connections, and one which they appear to stand guard over today.
[1] Richard Verstegan ‘Restitution of Decayed Antiquities.’
This was set to be a big year for the Planet, with several international meetings planned to discuss some of the most pressing issues of our time: world poverty and refugees, the state of our oceans, deforestation and catastrophic biodiversity loss. But with the world in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic, all of that has been shoved into the background considered as ‘insignificant’ compared to the crisis that we didn’t see coming. But the fact of the matter is that we have only limited time to take the health of the planet seriously – and hopefully the pause of lockdown might give us the breathing space to do just that.
As the pandemic panic starts to die down, if we have managed to keep our own lungs safe, we can now no longer keep out another sense of growing grief. That connected to the lungs of the planet, and all that we are losing each day as our most precious of resources burns. Our forests take in the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and magically transforming it into oxygen with a little help from the Sun. They are home to over half the world’s animal and plant species and around one billion people worldwide making them the most biodiverse and important ecosystems on the Planet. But according to the WWF’s ‘Below the Canopy’ report (2019), they have lost more than half their wildlife over the past fifty years and more than the same proportion of land.[1]
To be specific, the Amazon rainforest, the largest and most well-known in the world, is in deep trouble. Between August 2018 – 19, nearly one million hectares of land were deliberately set on fire, destroying irreplaceable trees, plants and countless numbers of animals. And worse, this figure is increasing in spite of growing awareness, more efforts on the part of environmental companies, and most importantly of all, despite a pledge by the Worldwide Consumer Goods Forum to achieve net zero-deforestation in the supply chain by 2020. Last year, Greenpeace surveyed 23 of the UK’s leading food brands and fast food chains and not one could guarantee the soy they used was it linked to deforestation.[2]
In Brazil again, another lesser known but equally important ecosystem, the Cerrado savanna, has lost half of its natural vegetation, destroyed to produce soy exported worldwide primarily to feed factory farmed livestock. In West Africa, rainforests are cleared to produce cocoa to satiate the world’s chocolate habit, and in South East Asia, large scale forest clearance in Malaysia and Indonesia is driven by demand for palm oil, used in up to 50 % of the packaged products produced in our supermarkets. In Borneo, the Indonesian government backed the protection of the rainforest and made deforestation a crime, which, together with a global fall in palm oil, put the brakes on wide scale destruction, but deforestation still continues in some areas, pushing the orangutan to the top of the list of the world’s most endangered species. Our food choices, illegal wildlife trade, and unsustainable hunting, are literally driving the forests, and the entire Planet, climate and all, to tipping point.[3]
We know this and desperately want to take action to stop this catastrophic situation, but we feel overwhelmed in the face of its enormity. Deep down we know that this is a problem that can’t be solved from our current dominant worldview. According the WWF, we have more than enough farmland to feed the worlds population of only it was managed in a more sustainable way, if only farmers had a stronger incentive to do this. Clearly the more emphasis there is on social justice for those farming the land, the better the land will be managed, which benefits the whole ecosystem, especially the animals that are currently factory farmed to give us food.
We are aware of the devastating pictures of industrial sized cattle farms over the Amazon where millions of cattle are kept in appealing conditions to satisfy the world’s beef hunger. But it’s not just the land that has been cleared for intensive beef farming that is the problem. Poultry consumption is also a huge contributor, not because of the birds themselves, but because of the production of the soy used to feed them. Up to 95% of chickens in the UK are intensively reared to meet a huge growing demand for their meat, and this soy largely comes from South America.[4]
Now as we scramble to get food from our supermarkets, standing in queues (2 metres apart) reading the contents of food labels is low on people’s list of priorities. Yet we need to do so now more than ever. According to the WWF, UK consumers each more than 3 million tonnes of soy farmed in cleared rainforests, most of which has been used to feed the animals and animal products we eat. And this soy is largely hidden because our food supply chain currently does not distinguish between sustainably produced soy and that which drives deforestation, and therefore farmers at source have little incentive to take the more costly steps involved in sustainable production. So our individual food choices have a direct impact on the health of the planet.
Indigenous people who try and protect the forests are also in danger. In 2019, eleven Brazilian indigenous leaders sought the help of European governments to stop forest lands being seized for agriculture and to end attacks against indigenous communities. While they were touring, indigenous forest guardian Paulo Paulino was shot dead by loggers in Brazil. In the words of Nara Bare, ‘what happened to Paulino is a clear example of what we have been through: our blood is being shed for soya beans and wood that comes to Europe. It’s time to say enough!’[5]
Even in the throes of this tragedy however, there are some positive moves afoot. In Brazil, more and more people are calling on NGOs to ensure that meat and soy from the Cerrado is sustainable, and 140 companies worldwide have supported the initiative to stop the forest loss associated with agricultural production. The more we actively consider not only what we eat but where it comes from and how it was produced, the harder it is for the real cost of the impact of food on the Planet to remain hidden. In the UK, there is also a campaign to demand that the UK government commits to a deadline for ending the sale of all goods that have caused deforestation (wwf.org.uk/deforestation-free).
This isn’t just about ‘climate change’ and greenhouse gas emissions, it goes way beyond that. Ultimately it’s about recognising once and for all that we live on a sentient, intelligent and conscious planet where all life matters, no matter how great or small. Once we see things in those terms we can no longer countenance the destruction of irreplaceable ecosystems, let alone eat the food so forcefully extracted and reared in conditions conducive to virus growth and spread. And even better, rather than leaving us feeling overwhelmed in the face of such huge change, this approach can empower us. For in the words of Charles Eisenstein (2019), in an interconnected view of the world, if it follows that service to any life is service to all life, then any act of care, ecological or social healing is part of the bigger whole of caring for the Earth. [6]And as a living, sentient being, Earth will reply to our letters of love.
Our Lady of the Gate of Dawn is one of the most beautiful and evocative of Europe’s Black Madonnas. She has presided over the city of Vilnius, capital of Lithuania, for nearly four hundred years and showers her gifts of compassion and mercy from her lofty position on top of the Gate of Dawn on all those who enter and leave. Her story is one of heartbreak and loss, prejudice and politics, love and hope, all intricately bonded with the remarkable history of the city and its’ people. She also sits at the heart of the European landmass, very near to geographical centre of Europe (latitude 54 54 and longitude 25 19), so she is in a sense an omphalos, a microcosm in the macrocosm of Europe’s more recent history.
Our Lady of the Gates of Dawn (author’s photo)
Her origins are shrouded in mystery. She probably emerged around 1630, her painting commissioned by the government of the time, though other legends say that she was brought from the Crimea as war booty. This story hints at Lithuania’s great past when her boundaries stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea under the days of the Grand Duchy, but by the seventeenth century these days were no more. In any event, after her first appearance she was placed in the Gates of Dawn, part of the city walls, built to protect from invaders. She began to bestow miracles with immediate effect, restoring to health a two-year-old boy who had fallen from a second floor window.
The Black Madonna of Vilnius (photo credit Diana Eder)
By now Lithuania had been swallowed in a union with Poland and Vilnius no longer exercised any real political power. The people would have visited Our Lady to tell her of their woes and reflect on a glorious past long since vanished. But worse was to come. In 1654 the Russians arrived and during the Battle of Vilnius, the city was looted and pillaged, many people taken prisoner and murdered. Carmelite monks were given the task of maintaining the city gates and inherited Our Lady as part of the job. They built her a small wooden chapel which became her home until it burnt down at the beginning of the eighteenth century when the current brick chapel was built. It was during this time that she was to gain her stunning coat of gilded silver, richly decorated with roses, tulips and carnations, and lending her a more Orthodox look.
For the next two centuries Vilnius was to remain under Russian rule, apart from a brief interlude in 1702 when the Swedish army captured the city as part of the Great Northern Wars. Our Lady once again came to the fore. Four Swedish soldiers, who had the impudence to mock and even shoot at her, were killed when the iron gates of the city fell on them. Then, the very next day, the Lithuanian army launched a counter attack against the Swedes, right next to the Gate, and were rewarded with victory.
Over time, Lithuania’s other neighbour – the Prussians – emerged as a military power and she found herself surrounded by aggressive and expansionist neighbours who mercilessly carved her up in the partition of Poland. Repression increased; the Russians clamped down on any rebellion and in 1840 in a bid to try and stamp out any remnants of national pride, the Russian language was made compulsory. The city walls were demolished as a in an act of dominance, but miraculously the Gates of Dawn survived and remains to this day the only surviving part of the defensive walls.
Woman of the Apocalypse
Throughout the trials and tribulations of occupation, war
and repression, the faithful continued to pray to Our Lady for her benevolent
intervention and brought her votive offerings of cured limbs, eyes, and many,
many hearts. It was during this time that she inherited her splendid silver
crescent moon, earning herself the title of Queen of Heaven. With her golden
crown and halo, the twelve stars around her head and the moon beneath her feet,
she became associated with the Woman of the Apocalypse in the book of
Revelation.
Jewish Quarter, Vilnius (author’s photo)
By the end of the nineteenth century, Vilnius had become a major Jewish centre. Forced to live within the Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, many Jews were attracted to Vilnius with its railway network and thriving business centre and by 1870 they comprised half of the population of the city. The Jewish quarter was a bustling place where furriers, opticians and goldsmiths plied their crafts, and moves were afoot to build a large synagogue to facilitate their worship. But anti-semitism also thrived and organised pogroms and acts of extreme violence against the Jews became more frequent on the streets around the Gates of Dawn. Many tried to emigrate, but those that remained were to face the then unimaginable horrors of the twentieth century.
After the outbreak of the First World War, Vilnius was
occupied by the Germans, then in 1918 with both the fall of the Tsarist Empire
and the collapse of the German Empire, the city finally and jubilantly declared
independence. Sadly, this was not to last. The city was annexed in 1920 by the
Poles, and for the next 19 years Vilnius became part of Poland, cut off from
the rest of Lithuania and ruled over once again by outsiders. The people turned
again to Our Lady in their hour of need and in 1927 she was crowned formally as
the Mother of Mercy.
The twentieth century was to wreck worldwide havoc with its
mass murder, unimaginable scale warfare, disease and genocide and Vilnius
played out its role as microcosm to the macrocosm of European/world politics. One
of Lithuania’s most famous daughters, the renowned archaeologist and thinker
Marija Gimbutas lived during these times. She was born in Vilnius in 1921 to
doctors, who had founded the first Lithuanian hospital and were themselves strongly
involved with the folk history and culture. The young Marija would have almost
certainly visited Our Lady, though there are no formal written records of this.
Under Polish rule, the family moved in 1931 to Kaunas but
Marija was to study in both Vilnius and Kaunas where she embarked on her
studies of the Ancient Balts and their Indo-European ancestry, a theory for
which she is now famed. Vilnius was not to return to Lithuanian control until
World War Two, when the Russians, this time in the guise of the Communist
Soviets, took control of the whole country including the former capital. But
fortune proved once again fickle, and with the Nazi invasion of the Soviet
Union in 1941, Lithuania now found herself ruled by an even more aggressive
master.
Paneriai Forest Memorial (author’s photo)
Almost immediately the next tragic stage in Vilnius’ history began – the mass murder of its vast Jewish population. Already segregated in ghettos near the Gates of Dawn, the Jews were systematically liquidated. The first stage was transport to the forest of Paneriai just outside Vilnius where around 100,000 people were shot and buried in mass pits over the course of the war. In 1941 over a three-month period, half of the Jews of Vilnius had been massacred at this site alone. The deportations must have occurred within sight of Our Lady, but sadly no intercession was forthcoming on this occasion.
Nuclear silo, Zemajitija National Park (author’s photo)
By the end of 1944, Europe was on her knees and the Reich that was to last a thousand years came crashing down. Out of the ashes of chaos, a new threat was emerging and in 1945 Vilnius came come back under Soviet control once again. Regarded as the worst of all foes by some, Gimbutas chose to flee the Soviets and sought haven in the ruins that was Germany with her manuscripts under one arm and her baby under another. The people of Vilnius now faced life under the Stalin and thousands of Lithuanians were murdered, imprisoned or deported under his rule of political terror. Many would have turned to Our Lady for comfort and mercy and to feel her boundless compassion during the spiritual sterility of the Cold War, when tension was always high between East and West. Unbeknown to anyone, four nuclear warheads pointing at European capitals were stationed in the forests of Lithuania after the stand-off of the Cuban missile crisis and remained perilously positioned there for over a decade.
Our Lady of the Gates of Dawn (author’s photo)
Finally, in 1989 the opportunity to shake off Soviet repression presented itself and the Lithuanians were in the vanguard. Under the Glasnost of Gorbachev, the Warsaw pact countries began to open their borders and align themselves to democracy. The people of the Baltic States, who actually comprised part of the Soviet Union at the time, formed a Chain of Freedom of over two million people from Tallinn to Vilnius. Seven months later, Lithuania was the first of the Soviet Republics to declare independence. In 1990, for the first time since the thirteenth century, Lithuania became an independent country and the smile of Our Lady of the Gates of Dawn seemed to become more serene. She can now be visited by anyone at most hours of the day and night, always available with her boundless compassion, fully at home in her role as Queen of Hearts and the Lady with the Moon at her feet and stars in her hair.
Prophecy is one of the most ancient of all the human art
forms, yet probably one of the most misunderstood. Today it is largely
relegated to astrology columns in newspapers, or maybe the occasional tarot
card reading, and certainly peripheral to most peoples’ daily lives. Throughout
the ancient world, however, it was mainstream, the grease that oiled the cogs
of state and gave succour to many a great statesman. Indeed, the oracles could
be considered as the ancient equivalent to Google, the place where everyone
went to find knowledge, to exchange ideas and to generally hook up with other
like-minded people. But what powered the sites themselves? What enabled one
site to be used as an oracle when another could not?
Tholos at Delphi (Wiki Commons)
Though oracular prophecy predates the ancient Greeks and Romans, it was their temples and myths that preserved the ancient oracular sites, and some of the mystery surrounding them. Apollo was the Greek god of prophecy and the most famous oracles were presided over by him. But this hadn’t always been the case. In archaic times, the oracles were dedicated to Earth goddesses, and presided over by priestesses who had access to the voice of the Earth, usually operating out of groves or simple sanctuaries. The myths tell us that before Apollo could take them over, he had to subdue the serpent Python, which he pursued to Mount Parnassus, then into the shrine at Delphi itself, ‘where he dispatched it beside the sacred chasm.’ As Graves suggests, this mythic takeover of Delphi probably records the historic invasion of the Northern Hellenes of pre-Hellenic cultures. As part of the takeover process, they killed the sacred oracular serpent that was kept in the sanctuary of the Earth goddess.[1]
‘Lilith’ by John Collier
Snakes are one of the most primal symbols of Earth energies. They live close to the ground, sense vibrations, and move in a sinuous wave akin to the way in which energy moves. Though the Earth energies are not visible, anyone looking at the waves on the sea could easy make the link between waves, and the way they embody form and movement, long before modern science mapped them. They can also survive beneath the ground for long periods, only to emerge in unpredictable and terrible ways, like the restless forces from within the Earth. Indeed though Apollo is said to have killed the Python, he retained the services of the oracular priestess who were themselves called ‘Pythia’ and it is highly likely that snakes were kept in the sacred tholos at Delphi well into Hellenistic times.
The Python that Apollo subdued was also known as a Dragon,
and it was this Dragon that was said to have chased Apollo’s mother Leto around
the Earth as she tried to give birth to him. This was clearly no ordinary
snake, but one of mythic proportions, and I couldn’t help wondering if this was
a metaphor for the seismic energies of the Earth itself, which Apollo must subdue
if he was to use them. This was an issue I had been pondering for a while, and the
opportunity to find out more presented itself on a recent trip to western
Turkey.
Travertine, Pamukkale (author’s photo)
Hierapolis is not a name that is familiar to most people, but everyone has heard of Pamukkale. Though remote, more than 140 km from Izmir, over two million people visit this site every year and enjoy the thrills of dipping in the blue mineral waters that cascade over the calcareous deposit known as travertine. But not many people are aware that there was also an ancient oracle at this site, known throughout the ancient world as the Gateway to Hell. As I was to discover, this is no coincidence, for the same geological features that gives rise to the amazing mineralogy and healing waters of Pamukkale also powered this mysterious and most primal of oracles.
Mineral waters of the Travertine (author’s photo)
Turkey has frequent earthquakes because the Anatolian plate on which it sits is squeezed between the mighty African and Eurasian plates that are moving in opposite directions. Pamukkale is not situated on a plate boundary, but near a meeting point of four Graben, areas of multiple faulting and rifting caused by these plate movements. At Pamukkale, the crust has thinned as a result of the tortuous stretching of the Anatolian plate so much that it has fractured, resulting in a network of faults and fissures. Hot water from the mantle percolates through the crust, bringing with it the minerals dissolved from the local limestones, and deposits these on the surface in the form of the milky white travertine that visitors come from far and wide to see. In addition, a cocktail of noxious gases are discharged as the hot mineral rich fluids reach the surface and today, close by to the translucent blue pools in which these visitors dip, taps are visible that vent discharging gases such as carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide, make the place safe to visit.
Remains of the Plutonium, Hierapolis (author’s photo)
In ancient times, this ancient chasm in the land, as well as its noxious gases and beautiful minerals, would have been sacred to our ancestors and a cult site was located since time immemorial dedicated to Cybele, the ancient Anatolian mother goddess and her priests, the castrated Galli, would have officiated. With the arrival of the Hellenes and then the Romans, this mysterious site where Earth processes could be seen and smelt became associated with an entrance to the Underworld, but still considered sacred as the name Hierapolis (or sacred city) implies. A temple dedicated to Pluto and his consort Kore, the equivalent of Persephone and Hades in Greek myth, was built over the sacred chasm and appropriately named the Plutonium. Guarding the entrance to the Underworld was Cerberus the three headed dog and a snake, still retaining its status as a prime Earth energy symbol. A nearby temple of Apollo took over the oracular function in the form of Apollo Lairbenus, whose mother Leto was equated with the ancient earth goddess Cybele.
Temple of Apollo (author’s photo)
Accounts from Strabo of how priests would go into an underground chamber with a deep cleft in the rock, through which flowed a fast running stream, and come out to utter prophecy suggest that they used the noxious gases as a sort of trance inducer. It is possible also that small animals were used to indicate levels of the gases, much as canaries were later used underground to warn miners. [2]
Priestess of Delphi, John Collier (1891)
The chasm at Hierapolis is reminiscent of the description of the sacred chasm at Delphi in the myth of Apollo and Python, and indeed Mount Parnassus is located in a seismically active part of Greece. Modern research has shown that the site was built over a volcano related fissure that discharged gases through the springs percolating through the rocks, either in the form of ethylene or methane. [3]The Pythia would have sat on a tripod over this chasm and uttered her prophecy in an altered state of consciousness, literally induced by the Earth energies. Interestingly this was exactly how John Collier depicted her in his iconic painting of 1891.
The connection between seismic activity and oracular sites was beginning to look far from coincidental. It was apparent that ancient people noticed the connection between springs, gases and earthquakes and deemed the chasms associated with them to be highly sacred, as well as mysterious. They placed sanctuaries and later temples on these gateways to the Underworld, where the voice of the Earth itself could be heard, and it was the dragon or serpent that came to symbolise this seismic activity.
I knew there were two more famous oracles on the Turkish Aegean coast, at Didyma and Claros, and it was there I journeyed next to further investigate the link between dragon energies and oracles.
[1] ‘The Greek Myths’ by Robert Graves, Penguin 1992
[2] ‘Blue Guide Aegean Turkey: from Troy to Bodrum,’ by Paola Pugsley, 2018
Autumn was just beginning to draw its golden curtain across Dartmoor and a few trees had already begun to shed their leaves. We spent a wonderful morning exploring the tiny back lanes of the Moor, finding wells and stone circles, the places where great rivers rose and merged, and watching as ponies were rounded up for their yearly count. Then we brought out attention back to the Mary and Michael currents, which cross across the northern part of Dartmoor quite close to our accommodation at Shilstone Farm.
Nine Maidens Stone Circle, Dartmoor (author’s photo)
First stop was the evocatively named Belstone, resonating with the fire god Bel, also known as Baal in the Middle East. It was this enigmatic god, mentioned in the bible as the arch-enemy of Yahweh, who became intimately connected with the fire ceremony of Beltane throughout the ancient world. After a brisk walk across the Moor we ended up at the Nine Maidens stone circle just beneath the Belstone Tor, with beautiful vistas over the river Teyn. Behind us was a tall pole, and upon consulting the map, we noticed that we were on the edge of an army shooting range. A so-called danger zone, a black area. We could sense the Michael current coming through the stone circle, but it felt slightly out of balance. We consulted our ‘bible,’ The Sun and the Serpent,’ to find out what was going on.
According to Miller and Broadhurst,[1] the Michael current enters Dartmoor at Brentnor, crossing through Lydford and the Yes Tor, before sweeping through the Tor at Belstone and then Nine Maidens stone circle. This we could clearly discern, but it was the Mary current that was more mysterious, for there seemed to be a break in the line. Intriguingly, Miller and Broadhurst had dowsed the Mary current to Mary Tavy to the west of Dartmoor, but the part of the Moor where we now found ourselves was apparently un-chartered territory. Rising to the challenge we stepped into the centre of the Nine Maidens stone circle and tuned into the energies.
Ladywell at Sticklepath (author’s photo)
Intuitively we felt that the Mary current also crossed over the stone circle so we drew it up from Mary Tavy, across the Moor, and allowed it to dance with the Michael current that was pulsing, albeit it weakly, through this area. The energies started to merge and form a nodal point in the middle of the circle, and we could sense the imprint of an energetic connection that had almost become lost. Miller and Broadhurst had discerned a dark energy at Lydford castle, where the Michael line passes through before coming here, which they called ‘depressingly black.’[2] Could this be linked to the use of the land as a shooting zone, resulting in a distortion of the energies? To our sense it was; energy is neutral but when there is lack of flow, it can become stagnant and stagnant energy resonates as negative energy, attracting yet more negativity. In any case, we could clearly perceive the distortion between the original use of the sites as a Beltane beacon to celebrate and purify the Earth and the present use as an army shooting ground. As walked away, ‘We could sense the processions of torch bearers lighting the way of certain ceremonial days, fire being the dominant energy. We also saw the female warrior, strong, protecting and wise.’[3]
St Mary’s, Sticklepath (author’s photo)
We followed the energies of the ‘newly flowing’ Mary current to the nearby village of Sticklepath, and blessed the energies as they pulsed through the lovely Ladywell at the entrance of the village. Walking along the road, we were delighted to find a church dedicated to Mary – and what a lovely jewel of a church it was! Beautiful stained-glass windows above the altar depicted Jesus and Mary the Mother with the quotes ‘behold thy mother’ and ‘behold they son.’ As it was my own son’s birthday that day, I found these words particularly moving. There was also a picture of the Magdalene at the foot of the cross, and our strong sense of this church resonating with the archetype of Mary the Mother and Mary the Lover (both being of course intimately linked) were confirmed on the back of the church sign, which clearly stated ‘Dedicated to my Mum!’
‘Dragon’ church, Throwleigh Church of the Virgin (author’s photo)
We continued to Throwleigh, the next village on the Mary current, and connected it in the Church of the Virgin, where Broadhurst and Miller had also sensed the flow of the Mary energy. This part of the Moor has a wild and isolated feeling, where the Earth energies feel untamed and free. In the church reached through an ancient stone porch, there was an ornately carved altar chair clearly depicting the tree of life and dragon energy. We drove on to Gidleigh where the remains of a church dedicated once again to the Virgin were said to be found but now the ruins have been incorporated into somebody’s house and are no longer accessible.
Spinster Stone, Shilstone (author’s photo)
Our final stop was the Spinster Stone, where the Mary current loops down to Prestonbury Castle before leaving the Moor. This ancient dolmen standing in the middle of a field resonates strongly with the Mary energies for the three stones which held it up were said to symbolise the aspects of the triple goddess. It also happened to be right opposite our bed and breakfast at Shilstone Farm! Embodying the energy of the Mother, Maiden and Crone (though we weren’t entirely sure which was which), we celebrated the flow of feminine energy through the dolmen that we had physically brought down from the Nine Maidens circle, connected with the Mother energy at Sticklepath and then the Maiden energy at Throwleigh. Now standing in this burial place we fully resonated with the Crone aspect of the triple goddess, and the distortions associated with the name ‘spinster,’ the women who were originally the (childless?) spinners and weavers of destiny. As we watched streaks of purple and violet emerge across the sky and the moon rising behinds us, we felt a wonderful sense of embodiment of all of these energies, with the land beneath us, and with the heavens above.
[1] ‘The Sun and the Serpent’ by Hamish Miller and Paul Broadhurst, Pendragon Press, 1989
Stretching some 350 km from the far west of Cornwall to the east coast of Norfolk, the Michael Mary Line is probably the most famous ley line in the world. Also known as the St Michael Alignment, some of Britain’s most sacred sites are situated on it, as well as numerous megaliths and churches dedicated to either St Michael/St George (the dragon slayers) and St Mary (the christianised Earth goddess). John Michell first brought the line into awareness when he noticed the landscape alignments between the Glastonbury Tor and Burrow Mump in Somerset, both of which have churches of St Michael on their summits, but it was Hamish Miller and Paul Broadhurst who made it famous with their fantastic book of 1989, ‘The Sun and the Serpent.’ During an epic adventure to dowse the St Michael Alignment, the authors found the more subtle presence of a meandering Mary line, and discerned the existence of a long lost science that harnessed the energies of the Earth and Sun at cross-quarter days to fertilise, nurture and purify the Earth. One October weekend we set off to experience the energy of this special line for ourselves.
St George’s Church, Ogbourne St George (author’s photo)
The nodes, or points where the Michael and Mary currents cross, were of particular interest to us so we decided to start our trip at the village of Ogbourne St George near Marlborough. We stayed at the Inn with the Well and after a hearty breakfast and close-up encounter with the energies of the well, we went to the church of St George to track the Michael line. A team of local ladies were busily decorating with flowers in preparation for the forthcoming harvest festival and the energies in the church were peaceful and nurturing. Outside, the presence of a sheela-na-gig style gargoyle hinted at a more pagan origin to the site.
sheela-na-gig at St George’s Church (author’s photo)
The church itself is near the Ridgeway, an ancient track that has been walked for millenia by pilgrims and travellers alike, and often intimately linked with the Michael Mary line as it was here. The Ridgeway runs along an ancient chalk ridge, and it is this chalk bedrock that gives the landscape its particular energies. Chalk is soft and would crack along the many ancient fault lines that lie hidden beneath the surface of the rolling hills, and it is also porous, allowing water to flow along these cracks. Where there is water, electromagnetic energy can flow, and this could affect the conductivity of piezo-electric rocks like quartz at the surface, or else attract a particular energy field to the area which can then be felt by animals and those sensitive to Earth energies.
Snail on blue marker stone at the Sanctuary. The swirls on the shell were similar to the energy currents we felt there.
From Ogbourne St George it is a short drive to the next major nodal point of the line, the Sanctuary near Malborough. This ancient circular sanctuary is situated on top of Overton Hill, and dates back to around 3000 B.C.E. We could pick out the West Kennett long barrow and Silbury Hill in the surrounding landscape, and realised that the Sanctuary is unique as not only the Ridgeway but both the Michael and Mary currents cut across it. Later the stones of West Kennett Avenue were constructed to link this site to Avebury henge itself, reinforcing its use as a major ceremonial site. We could clearly feel the energies swirling in from the Avenue and the long barrow, and crossing over in the middle of the circle to form the head of the serpent before spiraling out back to Ogbourne St George from where we had just come.
West Kennett long barrow, author’s photo
The nearby Swallowhead spring was dry and the Winterbourne stream that rises here and flows into the River Kennett was choked with weeds. This seemed to have an impact on the energy of Silbury Hill, the energetic battery of the landscape, which is driven in part by the flow of water from the underground streams. It is interesting to note that the name ‘swallow’ is a common term for rivers found in areas of intermittent streams, often in chalk, to explain how a stream disappears into the ground and erupts elsewhere [1] Thankfully the energy of the long barrow at West Kennett did not seem affected by this stagnation and the ancestral and dragon energies were clearly discernible in this ancient birth/death canal.
Cross over point of Michael and Mary currents at Avebury
We followed the path of the line up to Avebury and were amazed when our newly purchased dowsing rods showed us the exact spot where the Michael and Mary currents crossed and left the henge. It was such a pleasure and a privilege to walk freely round these stones dating back to nearly 3000 B.C.E and experience this serpent temple of great antiquity at close quarters, which is no longer the case at near-by Stonehenge. We could feel where the currents joined at the end of the avenue as they entered the enclosure, but they felt rather sluggish. Whether this was due to the lack of water in the Swallowhead springs area, or the fact that this serpent temple was no longer being used for its original purpose, we could not tell.
St Michael and the Dragon, Cadbury (author’s photo)
The Tor at Glastonbury has a similar exhausted feel, walked by many people but honored by few. The tower of the ancient church of St Michael still stands but feels haunted by the events of the Reformation when the last abbot of Glastonbury was hung, draw and quartered here by Henry VIIIs men. A reminder of the distorting energies of the Church, both Catholic and Protestant, mirrored by the image of Michael as the dragon slayer, depicted stamping on or killing the very energy of the line itself. The Michael Mary churches may have preserved the knowledge of the line, but the main intent of those who built them was to control and dominate.
According to Broadhurst and Miller,[2] the line with its azimuth of around 242 degrees is aligned to the rising Sun at Beltane, the ancient fire festival celebrated around the 8th May, and we were starting to realise just how powerful this insight was. All over the ancient world, bonfires would be lit to celebrate the power of the returning Sun as it fertilises and fructifies the Earth bringing forth a profusion of abundance and beauty. Furthermore, the fires were lit on top of the hills and mounds along the line, visible like beacons across the landscape, each one signalling the lighting of the next. In this way the power of the Sun (at the Beltane cross quarter point) would have been drawn down by the fires, then driven by the flow of water along the line, purifying and cleansing the Earth energies as it went. The people gathered in ceremony at the nodes along the line would themselves have been nurtured and nourished by the energies in a two-way flow that manifested in the bounty of nature around them. All would have been well in Heaven and Earth, bringing a sense of harmony and well-being that we no longer have in our disconnected modern world.
Michael Church, Burrow Bridge Mump
Away from Glastonbury we climbed the mump at Barrow Bridge and found our next nodal point. The church of St Michael on top is now partially ruined, but we could sense the Michael and Mary currents as they crossed over where the altar once stood. The energy was here clearer, less distorted, but still weak from lack of use. Gazing across the Somerset levels, we could see the Tor looming in the distance and visualised the energy flowing strong across the landscape towards it, so that the energy could flow back from Glastonbury like an alternating current generator. We had connected up the line from Ogbourne St George in Wiltshire right across Somerset and it was feeling good. As the day drew to a close, we headed off west in the direction of the setting Sun towards Dartmoor for the next part of our journey.
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.
Mullion Cove, author’s photo
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.
Yoni of the Dragon at Lizard Point, author’s photo
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!
The ophiolite on Coverack beach, author’s photo
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.
Standing on the Moho, author’s photo
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.’
Mullion island pillow lava, author’s photo
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.
Sunset at Gunwalloe, author’s photo
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.
Radio mast at Poldhu, author’s photo
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
The sanctuary of Baalbek was one of the most famed sites of the ancient world and the well-preserved ruins are still capable of inspiring awe and wonder to this day. Roman emperors would make pilgrimage to the largest of Rome’s temples, situated not in the Eternal City, but in a remote valley sandwiched between the Lebanon and ante-Lebanon mountain ranges. Though Baalbek is still a major attraction, for decades its proximity to the Syrian border and a nearby Hezbollah training camp have made it largely inaccessible to all but the hardiest of travellers. Now, as tourism returns to the Lebanon, its mysteries are again being slowly revealed.
The Propylaea, author’s photo
Nobody would deny that the Romans were master builders, the engineers par excellence of the ancient world. It took the Julio-Claudian emperors over 200 years to build the sanctuary that consists of temples dedicated to the Roman triad Jupiter, Bacchus and Venus, plus two massive courts, sacrificial altars and basins for ritual cleansing. The vast scale of the complex, the intricacy of the decoration and the sheer height of the six remaining Corinthian columns of the Temple of Jupiter, the largest in the Roman world, cannot fail to impress. Still, the enigma of Baalbek lies not so much in the wonder of the temples, but in the presence of three gigantic stones comprising part of the wall that surrounds them.
The Trilithon, photo public domain
Approximately 64 feet long, 14 feet high and 12 feet the three stones embedded in the north end of a U-shaped megalithic wall surrounding the Temple of Jupiter are collectively known as the Trilithon. They have been laid with such a precision that ‘even a needle would not fit in between them,’ yet each stone weighs in excess of 800 tonnes, weight that even modern cranes would struggle to move[1]. So, who put them there, how did they do it and what purpose did they serve?
The theories are many and varied. Though the Romans have left no written record of how the Trilithon was moved and why, the most standard line is that it was them who emplaced them, intending the U shaped wall to form part of a podium which presumably was never completed, which in turn incorporated the remains of an even earlier podium[2]. Another theory is that the Romans built the megalithic wall as a restraining wall to stop soil erosion and prevent movement on the vast temple complex [3]. Other researchers doubt that the Romans had the technology to move the massive blocks from the nearby quarry and attribute the building of the wall to an Elder culture who had highly developed building skills learnt before the Great Flood, and who could have also built another Cyclopean structures around the globe.[4] Other theories credit the construction and engineering of the Trilithon wall to giants, jinn or extra-terrestrials who used magnets and sound technology to move the stones.[5]
‘The Stone of the Pregnant Woman in the quarry near Baalbek, author’s photo
Many researchers more qualified than me have pondered deeply about the logistics of moving and emplacing such massive stones, but surely that the Romans possessed the know-how to move gigantic blocks and emplace them is not in doubt, as the massive columns in rest of the sanctuary testify. And they could also have simply built the megalithic wall as a retaining wall, practical as they were. But I am equally comfortable with the notion that an earlier culture could have built the wall too, and that massive structures in Egypt and South America show levels of engineering capabilities that equalled, even surpassed, that of the Romans. New and intriguing structures from prehistory are coming to light all the time (e.g. Gobekli Tepe in Turkey) and gradually we are able to flesh out in more detail the mysteries of our past. But for me, after the visiting the site, the enigma of Baalbek changed from how and by whom, to why and why here?
Temple of Bacchus, author’s photo
So, who was here before the Romans? Everyone would agree that Baalbek was considered sacred long before they arrived. Named Heliopolis by the conquering Alexander, the Greeks equated it with the Egyptian City of the Sun, a place of great antiquity by this time. The Canaanites had been present in the area for centuries and used the hill at Baalbek as the centre of one of their sanctuaries. And the Phoenicians, an off shoot of the Canaanites, also considered the site to be sacred and built temples to Baal, Astarte and Adon(is), here. Indeed, the altars of the Roman Great Court were built over the exact summit of the hill used as one of the Canaanite ‘high places’ and care taken to raise the platform so it was the same height. Archaeological evidence has shown almost continual occupation of the tell over the past 9,000 years and evidence of occupation during Paloelithic times has also been found.[6] But why here?
Spring at Baalbek, author’s photo
Next we need to look more carefully at Baalbek’s location in the Beqaa Valley and dig deeper into the local geology. Located in the centre of the cradle of civilisation, the NE Beqaa was a cross over point on trade routes from Tyre to Palmyra in the Syrian desert, or from Damascus to Beirut, bringing a constant flow of people and ideas to this area that was known for its fertile soil. It is located between two mountain ranges, and close to the source of two rivers, the Litani and the Orontes, was deemed highly auspicious by the ancients, and one of the possible locations for the abode of El in the Ugaritic Baal Cycle.[7] Finally, Baalbek is also near a well now called Ras al Ain (‘head of the source’), which in ancient times was associated with the dragon Typhon. [8]
Dragons are usually associated with very powerful Earth energies, and this is an apt description of the Beqaa Valley. Situated at the top of the Great Rift, the valley is in close proximity to (indeed was pushed up by) a long fault line that runs through the Lebanese mountain range bringing frequent earthquakes to the region as the converging African, Eurasion and Arabian microplates twist in opposite directions. The power of nature in this region is literally awesome and must have inspired wonder, and not a small measure of fear, in our ancestors. In addition, the natural springs fed by meltwater runoff from the ante Lebanon mountain range frequently overflow, bringing flooding as well as earthquakes to the Beqaa.
As a site of potent Earth and water energy, Baalbek was also
an oracular site of great antiquity. The Romans took over this cult wholesale
and used the Temple of Jupiter as an oracle, famously consulted by the Emperor
Trajan on two occasions, who asked if he would be victorious against the
Parthians. It was also a site of cosmic importance, for there are reports from
travellers that the Canaanites had a temple housing the sacred ‘betyl’ or
meteorite stones that ‘were endowed with life’ and probably used for oracular purposes.
[9]
Thus as a place of great dragon and water power, as a sacred link between
heaven and Earth, Baalbek was clearly a sacred site par excellence.
Entrance to the Temple of Bacchus, author’s photo
It is well attested that the natural calamities that befell the people of the Bronze Age resulted in a shift in human focus from living according to the principles of nature, to attempting to dominate. My sense is that the megalithic wall, and massive Trilithon stones, were emplaced for this reason, to try and control the vast and awesome forces at play in the Valley. Whether the Romans built the megalithic wall or not, they certainly built to impress and dominate, harnessing the power of the potent sun god (Jupiter) and the wild god of bacchanalia (Bacchus) to this end. To build such an imposing monument on this site of great Earth energy was clearly deliberate.
Over the past two thousand years, many more earthquakes and flood have ravished the land, and waves of conquerors have passed through, leaving their own mark. In more recent times, politics and agendas in neighbouring countries have become more intense and today the Beqaa Valley is one of the most poignant places in the Middle East. Though still a place of natural abundance and beauty, warlords use the land to grow cash crops of cannabis, marijuana and heroin, and Syrian refugees live in makes shift tents and farm the land in all weathers to earn money to send back to the ruin that is now Syria. Pictures of Nasrallah and the yellow flags of Hezbollah line the streets, and the Israelis nervously monitor the training camps that give the valley the name ‘barracks of Hezbollah.’ According to a recent article in the Jerusalem Post [10], Hezbollah are building a precision missile building site here, but I have no means of verifying this (itself a sign of our times).
Once one of the most sacred places in the Middle East, it now feels like one of the most distorted. This to me is the true enigma of Baalbek and the key to this lies not in understanding the technology used to shift large stones, but in the intentions used to emplace them.
[1] Graham Hancock, ‘Magicians of the Gods’ p. 239 – 291
[2] Graham Hancock, ‘Magicians of the Gods,’ p. 239 – 291
Earth Wisdom Earth Science 