Arbor Low and How it changed my life

[crystall_child]

Have any of you had a profound experience at a sacred site that you can honestly say changed your life?

This is mine:

To get to the stone circle at Arbor Low, you have to walk up through a farmyard, and are usually greeted by a friendly border collie dog. Now I have been going to this site for at least 22 years, and so I know this can't be the same dog as when I first went, but nevertheless, there one always is, ready to greet the visitor.


The first time I visited this site was 22 years ago, and I won't say I was not a druid then, what I will say is that I had not realised I was a druid! I visited it with a friend, who later became my 2nd husband actually, but maybe I should have taken more note of what happened at Arbor Low, but no, if I had have done, I would not have had my beautiful daughter Emily J .


So, why exactly did Arbor Low change my life? Well, I asked this friend to take me there (on the back of his large Italian motorbike!) because I was interested in ley lines and had been reading up on them and had realised that in the Peak District in Derbyshire, Arbor Low was where all these lines seemed to converge, or perhaps issue from, and I wanted to see if they could be felt. I don't remember what time of year it was, but it was not cold, so must have been late spring or early summer I should think, but the thing was, we were the only people there. I stood in the centre of the circle, I walked round the edge, I explored every inch ............... and to me, the whole place was buzzing! The energy positively throbbed through the earth. I had never felt anything like it before!


All the stones seemed warm to the touch, and I was glowing. The thing that struck me as odd was that the person I was with felt none of this, I couldn't believe it ......... how could he not sense this enormous amount of energy coming up through his feet. I tried to tell him about it, but he looked at me as if I was mad! So I began to think that maybe I was ...... but there was no mistaking that this energy was real. Then, as I stood in the centre and looked out towards the distant hills, I could see faint lines running out along the ground, and as I turned, they were going out in every direction!


This, I feel, was the afternoon that changed my life, changed my direction, set my feet upon the druidic path. I began investigating more, in addition to the leylines stuff, I found books on herbal medicine, and it was a short step, it seemed, from there to witchcraft, which is where I started out on a pagan path. By this time though, I was living with the person I had been to Arbor Low with, and when he saw the books on witchcraft I had taken out of the library, he made me take them back and forbid me bring any more like it into the house! I should have made a stand, but I didn't ........... but as soon as we split up a few years later, I started to research again, and haven't looked back since J

So what's your story?

[Ade Sundog]

Hello Crystall_child

Thanx for your inspiring post.

Arbor Low is a special place indeed , when i visited there a few years ago i had an especially peaceful experience .

Nice one.

[shirley mclaren]

Hi Crystal Child

My life was changed by a visit to Stonehenge. I had never been there in my life, and merely passed by it in a car about 20 years ago and thought "what a miserable place". I had never been to a sacred site before, and really did not know what one was.

Suddenly, out of the blue, almost 5 years ago now, I said to my husband "I want to visit Stonehenge". He agreed, and so we set off on the bike on a summer's day. When we got there, we did the "touristy" thing, and walked around the stones, and then as it was quite a warm and pleasant afternoon, we decided to lay on the grass by the stones for a while.

As I lay there, close to the earth and the stones, with skylarks soaring above, and warm sun on my face, something in me stirred, that I believe was a call from the ancestors. Suddenly I knew I had been summoned to Stonehenge for a reason, and that moment I knew I had to study druidry. Like yourself, I believe that I have been on the Path before, as it feels so natural to me, and that "I came home" that day.

BB

Shirley

[crystall_child]

what a wonderful account shirley, thanks for sharing this

[blue pig]

Hi crystall_child...

I had some very different experiences at Arbor Low.

Being a Lincolnshire resident at the time I used to head over to Derbyshire on a regular basis.

I frequently visited the site alone, and the position and setting of the stones create a quite unique atmosphere.

The stone circles of the region were the first that I visited, and the feeling of focus at Arbor Low, the stones themselves and the associated burials (even the farmyard!) opened my 'eyes'
to explore what I would now describe as the most powerful aspect of druidry.

My clearest memory of being up on the henge itself was looking out over the moors below, away from the stones, and in the wind just having this feeling of being lifted, arms outstretched, bird-like... very powerful!

I was also doing some Tai Chi 'training' around this time and I'm sure this helped to get into, what was described to me, as an unpredictable and sometimes difficult site.

Best wishes to you...

[crystall_child]

It's certainly a very special place! Thanks for sharing your impressions of it blue /|\

[Badger Bob]

I have always felt at home there (I used to live a short walk away) but I possibly helped someone else feel the power of the place once. I was out looking for places to photograph for a competition when I wandered up to Arbor Low, intending to photograph the winter skyline. There was a large group of tourists at the stones and I noticed that one of them was kicking at one of the deeply scarred stones to try and get a souvenir piece. I stood directly in front of him and asked quietly and politely that he cease immediately or I would be calling the police. He rolled over backwards, terrified, and I helped him back to his feet. The poor man was nearly in tears and looking very queasy, he had to fight to catch his breath again. I had frightened the life out of him, despite the fact that he was in the middle of a crowd and I hadn't startled him in any way. I would like to think that the spirits of the place had decided to give the man a real "eye-opener" and that I provided an opportunity for them to act with some impact. Fortunately the only damage was a bit of lichen scuffed off the stone.

The stone circle where I have had the deepest experiences of my own is definitely The Nine Ladies, near Birchover. I have spent many a dream filled night bivvying within sight of this circle and I visit there at least four times a year. The experiences are quite personal though and remain in my Ovate Journal.

[crystall_child]

I'm so pleased you helped the spirits of Arbor Low to get their message across!
Nine Ladies is a place which has a very odd errect on me. Whenever I go there it makes me feel very sick and I find it very difficult to go into the circle itself ............... not really sure why, but I have been several times and it always feels the same to me.

[Teileag]

This is quite moving! I have spent a week in Britain and came over Arbor Low "by accident". We were on our way to Castleton and I saw the sign post, so we just stopped by. I knew nothing about the site so we just walked around it, sat on the stones, enjoyed the peace... I won't forget it...

[Teileag]

Just a few pics...

[MiriamSPia]

Nice to read these. Thanks to everyone for sharing. I think its really different to find the sacred spaces which are closest to home and then to find the ones which go with perhaps a religion or a nation or a tribe or something like that.

As a North American, visiting Stonehenge and Avebury Henge was quite different from how I imagine it would have been if I were really English. However, I do have hordes of British ancestors - my great-grandmother was English and there were a bunch of Scottish people from another branch of the family tree: that, and actually living in England helped me attune to it. I met a woman who is a 3rd generation druidess in North America; its just really her religion while an undergraduate. For her, being an American, Stonehenge is more like an imaginary place. In that respect it is more like whenever we do a meditation or go to an inner grove rather than the actual place. I find it worthwhile to observe how places are the same and different from how we might imagine them to be.

I like local sacred sites to. I suppose on some level, a sacred site is a transpersonal talisman.