Something Old – but Always Something New

With eight DDs and seven TDs, eight women and seven men – and most of us around a certain age – this was a nicely balanced group, with a very positive outlook.

As many readers will know, with its array of residual archaeology, earth energy features galore and ancient village of round houses – all spread over a platform of half a square mile – Merrivale is something of a dowser’s adventure playground.

Despite my many and frequent visits to the site over the decades, I always learn something new at my local dowsopolis – and this was no exception. For example, I happened to ask, for the first time, about Hartmann and Curry lines, which have recently come to the front of my attention, only to find that a Hartmann line runs straight down the main stone row – which is also a defined line of consciousness and a multi-braided carpet of interwoven earth energies. Additionally, the engraved waymarker at the eastern end of the site is right on a Curry line. Are these just random alignments – or am I finding them when the time is right for me? I am a few days older, not much wiser, and the plot has thickened yet again.

Not quite at right angles to the main stone rows is an enigmatic feature, known on OS maps as a Reeve (boundary work). As a defensive structure, it would have been quite useless (as you can walk around either end!), yet the work involved in its construction would have been considerable. It dowses as being at least a 1,000 years older than the rows themselves, and to have once been composed of much larger blocks – which was probably why quarrymen cut up and took away so many of them. Yet, the enigmatic broken monoliths that remain indicate that this was once the most energetic part of the whole complex – and the dowsable earth energies resemble the format of the more modest stone rows nearby.

While the more recent dowsing adherents had much to encounter, even those of us with more experience came across new approaches and new ideas. Peter Mullen, who dowses aurally, showed how the non-physical energy of a stone circle could be sensed – and changed – by placing one person at the energetic centre, whilst others are holding, and then releasing, each stone in the ring.

Some members clearly struggled with some of the numerous concepts under discussion, but then so did the tour guide – so, no change there. There was much to get one’s head around, much to try at home and much more to come back to work through again on a quieter occasion.

After a playful shower to set the proceedings off, the weather brightened progressively – and the group visibly melded in the growing appreciation of any entourage of temporary pilgrims with a common direction of travel. We ended as a circle of friends in the welcoming ambience of a 5,000-year-old round house, with father sun smiling on us benignly.

Nigel Twinn July 2015S