Portals to the Sacred and Other Threshold Experiences

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you,
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill,
Don't go back to sleep.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.
-Rumi


Threshold Places in Sacred Sites

What is it that has called thousands of people to pilgrimage to sacred sites all over the world? Although doors are the most obvious kind of division from one place to another, as we have seen, they are not the only kind of threshold or portal. The ancients recognized places on Earth as places where Earth mother as goddess and provider could be contacted directly. These "doorways" mark many sacred sites all over the Earth where liminal states are sought after by the people who come to them. Some of these time-honored sites call people to them to experience the threshold between seasons, another place and time when the veil between worlds is thin.

While in England one year, I was staying in a quaint thatched-roof bed-and-breakfast just outside of Bath. It was located almost equidistance from Glastonbury to the southwest, Stonehenge to the south, and Avebury to the east. I knew I wanted to visit all three places but didn't know which one to go to first. That morning as I was making my decision and plan for the day, I had the distinct impression to go to Avebury first.

Avebury is a town that hosts an ancient, large stone circle where you can still go up to the megalithic 'stone people' and touch them, unlike at Stonehenge, where it is now blocked off from going inside the circle. These stones, weighing in the tons, stand an estimated thirty-five feet apart and those that are missing have markers where the stones once stood. This giant medicine wheel most certainly must mark sacred ground. Standing stones mark the union of the descent of spirit into matter, or like the standing headstones at gravesites, mark the ascent of matter into spirit.
As I arrived at the stone circle in Avebury, I saw a group of people standing around one of these tall megalithic stones. The guide was an elderly gentleman who was holding a copper-dowsing rod and was showing the people in the group how it rotated while walking out from the standing stones. Thinking that this was like a tour you find all over Europe at different points of interest, I joined the group to hear what this man was saying. Immediately, my hair stood on end.

The week before coming to Avebury, I had visited Ireland. My first stop upon my arrival was Newgrange, where the largest mound on Earth can be seen, known as the Goddess mound, and is recognized for its uncanny lineup with the sun on the morning of the winter solstice. On this morning the sun comes up in such a way that it enters through a lintel stone above the entry and impregnates the entire womb-like cave inside the mound with an intense ray of light. I t is such a wondrous sight that there is a seven-year waiting list to see this spectacular five-minute event. All around the base of this giant mound are kerbstones weighing in the tons. Scientists are baffled s to how this and other kerbstones were brought to this site 5500 years ago. Outside the portal of the mother mound is a kerbstone that weighs more than 12 tons. This kerbstone in front of the entry of the Goddess mound is ornately engraved with triple spirals carved by the ancients. There are many speculations as to the meaning of these spirals including one being some sort of star map. I instinctively knew that this was incorrect, and at that moment began an earnest quest to find the meaning of spirals. Spirals can be found in many places around the world in prehistoric art, above caves and in ancient jewelry.

Nearly ten days later and in a completely different place on the map, this guide or leader at Avebury was talking about spirals, and how the spiraling underground energy could be 'dowsed' (a way of divining the energy in the Earth. Dowsing is often used to find water) and experienced at every sacred site on Earth. It turned out that this was a guided tour for which these people had paid several months in advance to learn the meaning of the spiraling energy beneath the huge standing stones.

The man leading the tour was Dennis Wheatley, author of several books on dowsing, and a famous geomancer (dowser) who has spent his life dowsing at sacred sites all over the world. He had been on the British airwaves several times and was well known in the world of geomancy. It was not an accident that I came exactly during the time he was there. I felt as if I had been led to this particular spot at that particular moment. It was if my deeply felt desire, ignited when I visited the sacred site at Newgrange, to understand spirals led me to this amazing meeting t this precise moment. Once again synchronicity and the divine had guided me. Had I gone to another site first I would have missed a piece of the puzzle regarding spirals. Dr. Wheatley was gracious enough to allow me to stay with the group after hearing my synchronistic story of finding him there and my quest for the meaning of the spiral. Dr. Wheatley showed us how each stone sits on top of a spiral of energy, or a vortex. When he said this, I had goose bumps again, because I knew the answer to the question I had about the meaning of spirals was about to be revealed.

Spirals: Bridges to the Inner World
Spirals are found in many sacred energy places, symbolizing portals into altered states and dimensions. As a basic form in nature, spiral markings all over the world are seen at sacred sites, as well as other entopic designs. Spirals are seen in etchings of stone carved into human form symbolizing the vortexes or chakras of the human body. Spirals are a vertical bridge, which links one dimension to another. Spirals represent the expansion and evolution of consciousness. The descending spiral is seen as the manifestation of spirit into matter. Because life as an evolution is the way of the spiral moving upward toward the divine, spirals can be still be found all over the world in art, on chalices, doorways, as well as in modern-day jewelry.
It has been claimed that the spiral motifs common to megalithic art throughout western Europe are those that arise today during altered states of consciousness whether drug-induced, naturally occurring or brought on by some activity like the frenetic dancing of the shaman.1 From this finding I believe that the goddess mounds and the stone circles found in Europe are actually sites where ritual was performed in honor of Earth mother and her cycles of life.

Stone circles are another mystery found throughout the Earth. One of the most famous stone circles is Stonehenge, England. Stonehenge is just one of 900 stone circles throughout the British Isles. It is 5,000 years old and its stones weigh between 4 and 37 tons each. Stonehenge is known as the most famous of sacred sites in Europe, if not the world, yet why it was built remains a mystery. It has been connected with the Druids, an ancient cult of priests who held the mysteries and worshipped at this site. At Stonehenge and Avebury in England, stone circles are thought have been placed in such a way as to correspond with the summer solstice.

The stones line up with the sun and moon and some believe it was built as some kind of calendar. Every year, 15,000 practicing Druids come to celebrate the sun's alignment with the stones at the summer solstice. Inside the circle are Blue stones, brought from Wales, 150 miles away. They are warmer to the touch and thought to be magical. Because there were no carts, or wheels, scientists are stumped as to how these stones were carried to this site. They remain mystified as to how these heavy lintel stones were lifted and placed in a perpendicular bridge across other megalithic stones. Dr. Wheatley has dowsed all the stones at Stonehenge and has shown how each one sits on a vortex or spiral, making it a huge energy site.
Other sacred places such as Sedona, Arizona, have been sought after because of the vortexes or spiraling energy that is said to take the pilgrim or visitor into altered states of consciousness.

In 1977, Paul Devereux and John Steel, authors of Earthmind, founded the Dragon Project to better understand the Earth and her emanations. Using Geiger counters, ultrasound and other instruments to measure the magnetic frequencies at different places on the Earth, specifically sacred sites, Devereux and Steel found that the instruments registered higher in frequencies at the sacred sites than at nearby sites. They have speculated that the granite around the areas is able to 'hold' the frequencies, which have been enhanced through ritual and prayer. Devereux and Steel also found that granite has the capacity to attract and emit radioactive fields. Perhaps this is why Stonehenge and Avebury circles are thought to hold frequencies that can be felt in the stones by those who have developed inner sensory perceptions.

Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D., has authored many books, including The Presence of the Past. Sheldrake is best known for his discovery of 'morphic resonance' which states that fields are embedded around every living thing, including the 'stone people'. These fields carry information that informs each cell, plant or rock. Fields of information can be imprinted in a place as well, especially those being used ritually over many years. Sheldrake further describes the nature of morphic fields by stating that a field brings about material effects while the system is in tune in to it. This entrainment sets up a 'stable attractor site', which has viable energy and can be tapped into through its reconstruction, creating a powerful energetic site. This would explain why, when you enter sacred places where ritual has been part of the sacred space, such as in churches and monasteries, there is an overwhelming sense of a field at that site. It vibrates at a very fine frequency. The ancients were able to tune into these energetic fields that naturally emanated from particular places on the Earth, thus becoming places of ritual and worship.

Perhaps the next time you are visiting a sacred site you could set aside time to sit in silence to tune in to the energy fields there created by many visitors over the centuries. These stable attractor sites are easily felt in many places.

Ley Lines: Energy Fields of the Mother
According to ancient wisdom found throughout many traditions, energy lines, sometimes called ley lines or dragon lines, weave throughout the Earth. These energy lines have been likened to the acupuncture meridians found on the human body. Geomancers have found that these ley lines emit a particularly strong impulse when dowsing. Many of the sacred sites sit directly along a line of ley lines, conspicuously pointing out that the ancient peoples of our Earth were sensitive to her energetic qualities.

One of the tools of geomancy is the pendulum. A pendulum is one of the oldest tools found in ancient burial and sacred sites all over the world. They were made out of bones, crystals and other stones. Pendulums were a fundamental tool of the priests and a very treasured possession that hung about his neck for safety. Along with their clairvoyance, the indigenous peoples used these tools to dowse for ley lines, building altars and shrines at these sacred sites. In China these underground rivers of energy are known as dragon lines and in the West they have been named ley lines. Although orthodox opinion finds the theory of ley lines highly controversial, most people interested in Earth's mysteries accept them as fact. Ley lines are known to cover the Earth in a fine web, not unlike the aura that surrounds the human body. They are seen as electromagnetic energy flows that have been discovered largely by geomancers or dowsers who have found that there are fields of energy that are stronger in certain spots on the Earth than at others.

The art of Feng Shui is based on these energy flows covering the Earth. The Chinese believe that one of the main lines of energy is a masculine energy line and the other feminine; one has a positive pull and the other negative. These two major arteries of energy weave over the planet and criss-cross at nodal points. In the West these lines are known as the St. Michael line and the Mary line.

Dr. Wheatley contends that at every major intersection in the ley-line grid surrounding the Earth there is a sacred site. The pyramids at Giza for example line up on one of these ley lines, as does Stonehenge, and Chartres Cathedral to name a few. Wheatley states that the nodal points, or vortexes on the Earth?s surface are the chakra centers of Earth's body, which correspond with the chakras which actually means vortex of the human body. Wheatley states that the first chakra is Mt. Shasta in California. The second is Lake Titticaca in Peru. The third chakra is at Ayers Rock in New Zealand. The fourth being the heart chakra is in Glastonbury, England. The fifth is the pyramids and Sphinx at Giza. The Sixth is not fixed anywhere on the planet. Can you guess the seventh? It is Tibet! Wheatley's map shows how all of these major energy centers intersect with each other via ley lines. Although there is no 'scientific' proof regarding ley lines and chakra centers on the Earth's body, it is still a fascinating speculation.

Dowsing for Earth Energy
The next time you are going to visit the great wilderness, or a sacred site, take a dowsing rod with you. They are easy to make. Simply purchase a thin rod of copper, and bend it approximately 3 inches down on the rod so that you have a 90-degree angle to the rod. Now you have a dowsing tool. The 3-inch bend is the handle. Hold the copper rod loosely so that the longest part extends out perpendicular to the ground. Next, stand near to a boulder or stone that you are particularly attracted to on the site. Begin walking slowly toward it or away from it and see if there is any movement of the dowsing rod. If there is, you are experiencing the vortex of energy under ground! Enjoy this wonderous experience.

Connie