The Importance of Understanding The Dynamics Of The Land
by DARLENE, Sacred Artist and Steward of the Land
In 1997, I created this black and white photo montage and called it “Earth Mother.” I wanted to show our relationship with the planet and chose a human fetus growing from within a rock as a visual metaphor.
Geometrically, the human is the natural choice to be caretaker of the land because his geometry is sympathetic with that of the earth. The shape of man’s body is that of five, with head and four limbs. The earth grid geometry is that of an icosa-dodecahedron which also has a direct relationship to the pentagram. Based upon the phi ratio, pentagrams are the most sharable of geometries. Whereas four represents stability, five is a dynamic number. Fractally, it connects the earth with man.
But what happens when the nature’s best choice for the role of caretaker forgets, then denies his geometry? As modern man forgets he is a part of live’s rhythm, inexplicably tied to the health of the planet, he alientates himself. Feeling separate and separated, man feels free to mine and denude the earth of its natural resources. In the process of modern industrialization, the life-sustaining energy grid of the earth is disrupted to a point where maintaining balance is no longer possible. The earth’s self-sustainable regions become smaller and smaller pockets. Modern man has been paying a terrible price. The fractionation of the earth directly reflects the fragmentation of modern man.
Modern cultures seem to have the inability to understand that cutting roads and destroying power points and dome caps to “build” structures can completely choke the vibrancy of a bio-region. They don’t realize how building a power plant on a node point poisons the surrounding areas even hundreds of miles beyond the local level. The dead orgone energy which collects as a result of an unhealthy bioregion (a place where the grid is effectively off-line because its connections have been severed), fosters violence and violent behavior. To verify this, all one has to do is to dowse the areas where outbreaks of violence occur. The readings are chaotic and non-recursive. The land becomes a “no man’s land” when it is cut-off from the life blood of the grid.
In places where the earth’s grid has been destroyed, in cities and in rural areas, violence breaks out. The children grow up half-crazed because they are unable to sycopate the rhythm of their bodies to their environment. Living in the wastelands, with oil spills and garbage heaps of tires and other debris smoldering in the polluted haze, modern man is beginning to learn the lesson of King Arthur: the King and the Land are One. So modern man searchs for the key to lessen his misery. Some turn to prayer for solace and reassurance, some to science for answers, and some to self-indulgence because they believe there is no future. But what man is really searching for is The Holy Grail, which he believes can sustain him during his dark night of the soul.
But what is the quest for the Holy Grail but the search for the lost Feminine? When it comes to the Grail myths, the land reflects the suffering of the King who had lost his Queen. In other words, he lost the ability to place a kundalini charge into the land. Armed with their swords (air/intellect), King Arthur’s Round Table knights go out into the countryside to seek the Grail, symbolised by a cup/chalice (water/emotion), stone or dish (earth/physical). They fail to find what they were searching for. Everywhere they went, they found the land barren and the people suffering. They lost their sense of joy.
When the ecstatic process happens on particular spots on the earth grid, known as a sacred place, the benefits to the earth are manifold. For a community, a healthly crop always meant a large harvest, and survival during the winter months. To ensure a good crop, our ancestors made love in the fields after ecstatically dancing the May Pole (a metaphor for braiding DNA). The blue fire of ecstasy is a nourishing energy which can encourage growth. The celebrants would feed the land by releasing their lust and sexual passion in strategic areas. They would choose those node points which energetically controlled the broadest land base. The land being energetically and symbolically nourished in this fashion is a feminine way of “imparting spin.”
Today, the act of planting corn is no longer sacred. Modern farmers fertilize long linear rows of crops. There is no need for the farmer to walk upon the fields he is planting. The tractor machine takes the place of his lover. A day of planting will leave a man numbed as his body tries to adjust to the mechanical rhythm of the tractor. When compared with the loud vibrating engine, the subtle energies of the earth seem non-existent. So those who seem closest to the earth are not necessarily in sympathy with the earth’s cyclical rhythms. When it comes to appreciating the subtle feel of the earth’s slow pulsating motion, everyone is in need of re-education.
In his geomantic work, I sometimes accompany my husband, Vincent Bridges “out in the field.” Together, we walk the land which Vincent would have already map-dowsed. While Vincent checks his initial readings by physically dowsing the land to refine his understanding of the area’s energetics, I would sit down and commune with the local spirits. If the land is healthy and pristine, within minutes of a simple honoring ceremony, the area’s guardian animal would usually appear. Establishing a dialog with the intelligence is easy whenever my offerings of burning cedar, sage, tobacco and incense are accepted.
Few people realise that before a house can be built or a tree can be cut, permission must be asked and granted. I have heard stories of bull dozers mysteriously coming to a halt and workmen having terrible accidents when they neglected to establish communication or honor the controlling spirits of the land. If an unwanted structure somehow succeeds in getting built, there will be no end to the problems experienced by the owners. Always, the best course of action is to show respect for the nature spirits. Subtly speaking, they are one’s closest neighbors.
I have noticed that in the United States, non-animal guardian spirits usually take the form of native american elders–both male and female. I believe this is because they were the last people to really work consciously with the power spirits of the land. The intelligent interface between an area of land and the human realm seems to have taken on the appearance of the indigenous people who worked with them. But sometimes, I will admit, certain shamans would be buried within mounds for the express purpose of becoming a geomantic link, perhaps an interface required to keep a heavily populated area in balance. Vincent and I have encountered one in Ohio. The science and practice of geomancy is indeed, fascinating.
For the past ten years, Vincent and I have been trying to establish some type of organization which will foster the crucial understanding of geomancy. Unfortunately, we have encountered much resistance because people cannot seem to “grok” how geomancy relates to them. They seem to be stuck in fragmented ways of relating to each other and the earth, incapable of appreciating the larger pattern at work. We have done what we could to educate, re-educate, introduce the work of human/earth interaction. Luckily, some of those who have gone before us have succeeded. Twenty years ago, a native-american spiritual leader by the name of Sun Bear was directed by Spirit to direct community creations of medicine wheels. For several intense years, Sun Bear and his followers conducted many Medicine Wheel gatherings. For many, this helped to introduce the concept of creating templates upon the land.
Creating a labyrinth is another ancient and powerful way of communal earth/human interaction, especially if the center of the labyrinth is placed upon a dome cap. A dome cap is a dowser’s term for a central energy upwelling which has collected water. Walking the labyrinth is a psycho-spiritual method for embedding wave forms on the land and within one’s body. Walking the labyrinth can make people more sensitive and attuned, inside and out. The quickening becomes alive in their blood. A magnetic current (dragon) in the land and the heart becomes self actuating/ self aware / self embedded. They will begin to experience how the trees and the mountains can and will speak to those capable of listening.
Last May, Vincent and I (along with three others) directed a semi-public ritual designed to honor our connection with the land by declaring our intention to hold the land as sacred. On a particular piece of land, deep within the bosom of Tennessee, the land’s powerful guardians can best be described as “Dragon.” Using grail imagery, we directed those who wished to drink the mineral-rich water coming from the local well, the dragon’s blood of the land. They openly declared in sacred space that they would become “Pendragons,” responsible for the land and would henceforth act honorably towards the land as a steward. We returned in the Fall to participate in a follow-up ritual where we sealed our intention as land stewarts by walking upon a labyrinth of light, created by hundreds of luminaries. It was a magnificent moment.
We await the day when more people will begin to realise they can play a significant role in the health of the planet simply by recognizing the small piece of land they are familiar with, through pure intent, can be made sacred again.
©1999 DARLENE
earthmother by Darlene
Tags: geomancy, grid engineering