by Philip Carr-Gomm
Now I knew I was on
the South Downs Way - for here at the top of the hill is a great wide way that
runs west and east along the crest of the Downs. Having spent the morning down
in the basin, sheltered from the wind and feeling warm despite it being February,
I was now acutely aware of the season. The wind was blowing and the sun began
to hide behind cloud. But the view was magnificent. To my right I could see
the sea for the first time - silver-grey and striking in its flatness - as it
lay contrasted behind the foreground of the Downs whose curves, like the great
buttocks and thighs of an earth-goddess, dipped down to the sea at Newhaven
far below to the South. And as if the land does indeed reveal the forms of the
goddess, the river Ouse winds its way through open thighs to Lewes in the distance.
And in the old times they knew that the land and the rivers were of the goddess
- here the Ouse derives from the great mother-goddess Isis - Camden's Brittania
tracing its origin as "Usa, or Ouse, in times past Isa".
I can still see the bright green tump - far away now, but seeming to shine with
light, and it is as though the sea-god Mannanan has swum the goddess' river
to lay his seed where the water meets land. And the result is this glowing hill
- pregnant with the god.
Up on the Downs and starting for the first landmark, Red Lion Pond, I can sense
the presence of a hawk close by, even though I can't see him. I remember the
piglet I began my journey with....he's gone now. He was my companion, my familiar
of the plain, but here it is the hawk who flies high and sees all and whose
spirit I can feel as I continue along the track.
This Downland landscape has such power. Now I understand why the occult writer
Dion Fortune said that the chalk Downs were the best place to evoke the old
gods, for they are the primeval landscape of southern England, and have been
admired and written about by countless Englishmen and foreigners. John Aubrey
(1626-1697) the father of the English Druid revival in the 17th century said
of this landscape: "They are the most spacious plains in Europe, and the
greatest remains that I can hear of the smooth primitive world when it lay all
under water. And, to speak from the very bottom of my heart, methinks he is
much more happy that at ease contemplates the universe as his own, and in it
the sun and stars, the pleasing meadows, shades, groves, green banks, stately
trees, flowing springs, and the wanton windings of a river, than he that with
fire and sword disturbs the world, and measures his possessions by the waste
that lies about him".
The chalk downlands were created from about 100 million to 65 million years
ago, during the time the dinosaurs became extinct - before mammals, birds and
flowering plants even existed. At this time the sea extended over most of what
is now Britain. This sea was warm and filled with sponges and plankton. As the
coccoliths - which are a part of the plankton - died and sank to the sea-bed,
they created what we now know as chalk - combining with the sponges, and fish,
sea-urchins, sea-lilies and ammonites - which we can now find fossilised in
the chalk. This bed of chalk was then raised up out of the sea, like a great
white whale of land comprising two thirds of England. And as though this event
occurred only yesterday, as opposed to 40 million years ago, we find ourselves
walking these 'broad backs against the sky', as Gilbert White called them, feeling
literally the 'lifting up' of the land as if it were still happening - raising
us closer to the gods by the minute.
And when we examine the geology of Logres we discover that the central node
of the chalk downs was, and still is, Salisbury Plain. From it, outcrops run
eastwards to the Hampshire Downs, and to the North and South Downs, westwards
to the z-shaped Dorset Downs, and north-eastwards to the Marlborough Downs.
So at the centre we find again the land of The Giants' Choir - Stonehenge.
And here - on the South Downs - I was on one of the long flailing spiral arms
of the Giant - or rather of the goddess - for what could be more feminine in
any landscape the world over than the soft sensuous curves of the Downs? But
why are they called Downs when they are really Ups? Because the modern English
word Down derives from the Old English and Celtic Dun - meaning a hill.
H.J.Massingham, making his home in the Downs, and feeling their likeness to
the human body and their connection with our heritage, called them 'star-gazing
shoulders...islanded in the past.'
And on this shoulder I was 500 feet up - not star-gazing but staring instead
at a black cloud crying hard over the sea by Newhaven. Although not superstitious
by nature, I sensed that I should not have looked at it - for it seemed to spot
me observing its sorrow and decided to rush headlong towards me. I found myself
walking faster, furious that I had forgotten to pack waterproofs. It seemed
only minutes before the black cloud had caught up with me.
How absurd it was for me to be walking so fast - as if somehow I could reach
a place of shelter on this open hilltop miles from any house or tree. The Druids
practised divination by clouds - calling this art neladoracht - but it didn't
take much art to divine the future from this cloud. Before I could determine
exactly what black demon was determined to soak me I was pelted with hail and
then with rain. I tried to pretend it was wonderful but it wasn't - I was drenched.
But then as quickly as it had come it went - to find some other soul to pelt.
And then the miracle occurred.
As the cloud and its rain moved North, the sun came out and a vast rainbow spread
across the landscape - stretching from Rodmell down by the Ouse where I had
just been, far across to Firle in the east. And straight ahead, directly beneath
and beyond the rainbow stood Lewes picked out in the sunlight.
I found myself shrieking and jumping up and down in my soaking trousers - what
a gift that demon had given!
Something happens when you walk in this way. The exposure to the elements, the
sense of height and openness, the increased oxygen intake and the effect of
physical exertion all combine to produce a powerful feeling of elation. Throw
in a rainbow and the effect is devastating!
If someone asks what Druid practice consists of, one way of answering is as
follows: it involves working with the chalice and the wand or sword. The chalice
is the magic circle, the circle of stones or the grove of trees. The sword or
wand is the Old Straight Track, the path, the journey. Our lives consist of
rest and motion alternately, of being and doing as alternate states. In the
Sacred Grove we find rest, we are calm, we are seated. We work our magic, we
open ourselves to the breath of Awen, of inspiration, we find support in letting
go of our obsession to do and to have. With the wand, the lance, the spear,
the dagger, the sword, we move into the realm of Doing - we act in the world-
we 'go forth', we journey. And in the Druid context we do this by literally
journeying in the physical world. We throw a pack on our shoulders, a map in
our pockets, and set forth on our own tradition of vision-questing - walking
the old tracks.
And what we find when we begin questing can sometimes be disturbing.
One of the reasons for following a spiritual path, for taking that strange journey
into the Self and into the world, is to discover the truth - the truth about
ourselves and about Life. This is, in essence, the quest for enlightenment -
for coming to an experience and a knowledge of 'What Is' as opposed to being
ensnared by 'What Is Not' - illusion, samsara, untruth.
After the initial elation of setting off on the journey and discovering the
wonders that are there for our exploration, we come to a point where we encounter
demons and dragons. The sun is hidden behind clouds, it rains and the wind blows.
The journey isn't that pleasant any more and we wonder why we began it.
From behind the clouds comes the dragon and we are faced with a choice. Do we
fight it, or flee from it? If we fight it, we may well preserve the status quo,
but at the cost of burying the power that the dragon represents. At an individual
level, this may mean that we repress and foolishly believe we have conquered
our sexuality, or our greed, or our lust for power. At a collective level we
may repress an awareness of the dragon force of the earth currents that run
through the land. If instead of supposedly fighting and mastering the dragon,
we flee from it, it will continue to haunt the woods and the hill-tops or the
sea - ready to harm us if we ever return there. A third approach - the approach
of both the ancient wisdom traditions and of psychoanalysis - involves befriending
the dragon.
One of the purposes of vision-questing is to do just this. In the Native American
tradition you stay alone in a secluded place outdoors for at least three days.
In the Tibetan tradition these quests occur for three day, three week, three
month or three year periods. In the Christian tradition isolated retreats have
also been part of spiritual practice. In Lewes we can still see the cell inhabited
by an anchorite hermit. In the Druid Tradition, some groups call this practice
'Hero-Questing' for we are seeking the Hero Within. Sometimes these quests would
have occurred in circumstances designed to create the effect of sensory deprivation
- to which end trainee Bards would seal themselves in pitch black rooms and
lie with a stone on their chest. The stone seems a strange prescription until
we realise that the Bards were making use of a technique well known to modern
psychology - that of creating one over-riding sensory input in order to block
out all others. Nowadays we use 'white noise' fed in through headphones to the
seeker in an isolation tank. Shamans use drumming partly for a similar purpose.
After a while the brain becomes habituated to this one monotonous repetitive
input and blocks even that out. A familiar example of habituation is that of
a ticking clock - even though it may be loud, after a while we don't perceive
the ticks any more: our brain 'hears them' but stops bothering to pass the message
up to our consciousness until it changes.
And once the over-riding input is blocked out we are floating free - free of
experience coming to us through our senses. What happens then is that experience
comes to us in different ways - rising out of our subconscious as strange waking
dreams, flooding in from our superconscious as powerful experiences of elation
and inspiration. We find we can slip free of our physical bodies to explore
a realm in which dragons can either be great sea-worms rising from the mud to
haunt us, or jewel-encrusted mountain dragons guarding caves which hold for
us those secrets which will change our lives forever.
But hero-questing or vision-questing can also be undertaken not in isolated
places of retreat - in caves or dark bothies - but whilst walking the old dragon-paths
- whilst journeying from place to place. The outer journey then becomes a metaphor
for the inner journey. The dragons that we find will then be either inner ones
or outer ones - tied either to our souls or to the soul of the landscape we
are exploring.
Lest we think, however, that we can befriend all dragons, we must beware - because
there are dragons that are truly dangerous and are best left alone. We should
not fall into the trap, so well laid by modern psychotherapy, that seduces us
with the idea that every repression can be lifted, every pain healed. It is
an over-simplification to see evil as pain turned outwards as hatred. All we
apparently need to do is fix the hurt and the evil will go away.....but 'fools
rush in where angels fear to tread' and the wise know that the stories of dragons
are there to teach us that the guardians of the treasures of the soul if approached
naively or at the wrong time will wound and damage us. The individual and collective
energies, complexes, call them what you will, that can be symbolised as dragons,
are extremely powerful and can only be faced at the right time - and not before.
And there are some dragons - demons perhaps rather than dragons - which are
the result of evil thoughts and deeds and which only the gods can face without
harm.
But what are and were dragons?
Up on this ridgeway I look north towards the Weald - a great expanse of lowland
that lies beneath the Dun and which continues until the North Downs again rise
up to provide another ridge of high ground. In the old days this was completely
forested and much is still woodland. Thirty miles deep from north to south,
from east to west it stretches across 120 miles of countryside: from Romney
Marsh in Kent to West Meon in Hampshire. At one time this massive forest was
called the Waste of Ondred, and at another time the Forest of Anderida. The
Venerable Bede described it in 731 as "thick and inaccessible....a retreat
for large herds of deer, wolves and wild boars." And here, a little to
the north-west just two miles from Horsham lived a dragon in the forest. In
1614 he was still alive - terrorising the neighbourhood. Described as being
nine foot long with black scales on his back and red scales on his belly, the
dragon "rides away as fast as a man can run. He is of countenance very
proud, and at the sight or hearing of men or cattle, will raise his neck upright
and seem to listen and look about with great arrogance. There are likewise upon
either side of him discovered, two great bunches so big as a large football,
and (as some think) will in time grow to wings; but God, I hope, will (to defend
the poor people in the neighbourhood) that he shall be destroyed before he grow
so fledge."
Some believe such creatures were exotic reptiles which had escaped from private
menageries or were fictions put about by smugglers who needed to keep ordinary
folk away from their hide-outs in the forest. The suggestion that dragon stories
relate to a race memory of early man encountering dinosaurs cannot be correct,
since 60 million years separate the final days of the dinosaurs from the appearance
of humans on earth. Velikovsky believed that dragons were comets passing close
to earth bringing disaster in their wake. Their bright heads and dark forked
tails became the fire-breathing monsters of folk tales.
But to truly understand dragons and their relevance to the ancient traditions
of this land, we need the help of Merlin.
Up here on the ridge overlooking the Waste of Ondred are two old dewponds -
Red Lion Pond and White Lion Pond. Dewponds were probably being made up on the
Downs as far back as Neolithic times, although some historians suggest they
are of far more recent invention. A hollow would be dug out and lined with puddled
clay and straw and then more clay - gradually building a waterproof lining to
the hollow which would gather rainwater and the dew each morning. These dewponds
have been maintained by local farmers to this day - although now, sadly, they
tend to be lined with concrete. Why should one be called Red and the other White?
We are reminded of the story of Merlin's boyhood when he and his mother were
brought before King Vortigern, the king having been advised to sacrifice Merlin
so that his blood could be smeared on the stones of a tower he was trying to
build. Geoffrey of Monnmouth in his Prophecies of Merlin, continues the story
in this way:
"Merlin...approached the king and said to him 'For what reason am I and
my mother introduced into your presence?' - 'My magicians,' answered Vortigern,
'advised me to seek out a man that had no father, with whose blood my building
is to be sprinkled, in order to make it stand.' - 'Order your magicians,' said
Merlin, 'to come before me, and I will convict them of a lie.' The king was
surprised at his words, and presently ordered the magicians to come, and sit
down before Merlin, who spoke to them after this manner: 'Because you are ignorant
of what it is that hinders the foundation of the tower, you have recommended
the shedding of my blood to cement it, as if that would presently make it stand.
But tell me now, what is there under the foundation? For something there is
that will not suffer it to stand.' The magicians at this began to be afraid,
and made him no answer. Then said Merlin, who was also called Ambrose, 'I entreat
your majesty would command your workmen to dig into the ground, and you will
find a pond which causes the foundation to sink.' This accordingly was done,
and presently they found a pond deep under ground, which had made it give way.
Merlin after this went again to the magicians, and said, 'Tell me ye false sycophants,
what is there under the pond.' But they were silent. Then said he again to the
king, 'Command the pond to be drained, and at the bottom you will see two hollow
stones, and in them two dragons asleep.' The king made no scruple of believing
him, since he had found true what he said of the pond, and therefore ordered
it to be drained: which done, he found as Merlin had said; and now was possessed
with the greatest admiration of him. Nor were the rest that were present less
amazed at his wisdom, thinking it to be no less than divine inspiration.
Accordingly, while Vortigern, King of the Britons was yet seated upon the bank
of the pool that had been drained, forth issued the two dragons, whereof the
one was white and the other red. And when the one had drawn anigh unto the other,
they grappled together in baleful combat and breathed forth fire as they panted.
But presently the white dragon did prevail, and drave the red dragon unto the
verge of the lake. But he, grieving to be thus driven forth, fell fiercely again
upon the white one, and forced him to draw back. And whilst that they were fighting
on this wise, the King bade Ambrosius Merlin declare what this battle of the
dragons did portend."
Merlin then proceeds to utter a series of prophecies which begin with the overcoming
of the red dragon (the British) by the white dragon (the Saxons) and continues
by prophesying how the Boar of Cornwall (Arthur) will trample the Saxons. In
an extraordinary sequence of powerful and often obscure images, Merlin predicts
the history of Britain till the end of days, when the constellations of the
Zodiac will cease to turn and the Goddess 'shall lie hidden within the closed
gateways of her sea-beaten headland'. We shall return again to consider this
prediction, but in the meanwhile why are the dragons white and red, and why
are the dewponds here named after white and red lions?
The sacred animals of the inner world, like language, meet and merge with each
other - producing fabulous beasts that portray features of the landscape both
human and terrestrial. The lions of heraldry and alchemy, that once in the flesh
roamed this land, are images of the zodiacal sign of Leo, of the sun and of
the element fire. Transformed into the winged lion, symbol of solar light and
the morning, we can see its closeness to that other winged beast symbolising
the element of fire - the dragon: as if the noble lion has united with the proto-dragon,
the Worm - a creature famous in Britain in such places as Lambton and Linton,
and recognised in the landscape at such places as Worm's Head in the Gower.
Another term for the dragon, common here in Sussex, is Wyvern. This term comes
from the old French, wivere meaning both the adder and life. And suddenly one
of the key themes of Druidry is illuminated for us. The Druid term for life-force
is Nwyvre - an old Welsh word meaning energy and vigour. In common with Eastern
symbology, the snake is seen in Druidry as the prime symbol of the life-force
that snakes both through the land and through us. If we want to understand this
life-force it is not enough simply to discover it within ourselves - we need
to discover it in the world around us too - for we are not separate from the
earth, but a part of it. Here we find a contrast between the inward-turning
methods of the east, and the outward-turning approach of the west - although
both ways lead to the same point. Wivere derives from the old Gaulish Wouivre,
meaning spirit, and this became Vouivre in certain parts of France, where the
dragon became depicted as half-woman, half winged snake - a fitting symbol of
the goddess' energy which snakes the land.
How beautiful it is that like Celtic knotwork both language and symbolic animals
interweave to show us the relationship between ourselves and the land - between
the dragon in our own body and the dragons of the earth. Inner and Outer, Self
and Other, dance together as do the words Nwyvre and Wyvern - the Druid kundalini
and the fire-breathing dragon - the kundalini of the earth goddess.
The purpose of both dragons, inner and outer, is the same. They convey the creative
fire, the fertilising breath that brings life and abundance - both to the individual
and to the land. For all sorts of reasons beyond our understanding, these dragons
have been allowed to sleep. But in the old days they were awake - and it was
the old sage, the Druid or Druidess, who knew how to direct and utilise this
inner and outer fire, to creative ends. The quest for personal fertility - of
ideas, of children, of song and music - and of earthly fertility in abundant
crops - were united in the ancients, and need to be united by us again as we
try to extricate ourselves from the wasteland we have created within and around
us.
And it is in the two colours of white and red that we find the clue to this
fertility we need to rediscover: for white and red symbolise male and female,
sperm and blood, moon and sun. Still to this day in somewhere as far away as
Bulgaria, an old territory of the Celts, everyone will be seen wearing small
pom-poms of white and red in March, in conscious recognition of the coming Spring,
and in unconscious recognition of the Spring Equinox on March 22nd and of the
need to unite the two principles to create an abundant life.