Twinn
Pondering Amidst the Ponds
Beltane at Merrivale 2012
The omens really were ominous. The online overnight weather map resembled a blue lake, laced with concentrations of even deeper blue - and deep blue over Dartmoor usually means big trouble. Summer looked as if it would storm in like a lion. But, as every dowser knows, events full of positive intent have a happy knack of being held at the right time - or is it vice versa?
For those of you new to the ongoing saga, the Tavistock (Devon, UK) Music Festival includes a welcoming of the Beltane sunrise with singing, dowsing and dancing - and at 05.00 on a moorland morning, it is best to keep moving. My wife, Ros, joins in with music and movement, while I circumambulate the dancers in their stone circle arena, measuring the impact of the ceremony on the earth energies of the sacred site, using my dowsing rods. This event was originally brought into existence by local organiser, and former Mayor of Tavistock, Caroline Keane - and was given its dowsing dimension through the involvement of the late Hamish Miller in 2004.
The sound and appearance of the musicians, The Daughters of Elvin, emerging from the West Devon mist, is always eerily evocative - and their masked dancer, in her crinolined attire looked strangely reminiscent of the Cornish ‘Obby ’Oss - especially on this portentous ‘Obby ‘Oss day. The drizzle eased off and the wonderful, embalming ambience of the moor made light of the vast shallow lakes of surface water. Despite the dodgy auguries, this was set to be another classic, cheerful (albeit sunless) Beltane Sunrise.
However, as with everything in dowsing, it pays not to expect anything too specific. Just when you think you’ve got your head around an aspect of the subject, it has an annoying tendency of moving on. There was a time when I could measure the Merrivale circle at rest, radiating and attracting a leisurely
12-20 lines of earth energy. During the Beltane event, the intensity of the energy would be raised by up to 10-fold (as recorded by both Hamish and myself). However, every year has been subtly different - and this year it was very different.
When I arrived, the circle was already ticking over at 38 lines (which, I later discovered, could have be due to the residue of some preparatory work the previous evening). My arrival elicited a modest climb to 40 - a much lower reaction than at a typical visit. The involvement of the musicians and dancer pushed it up a little further - and the incantation of a ‘Twenty Count’ derived from the traditional North American culture gave it a further boost into the 50s. By the end of the activities, the radials had crept into the low 60s, but stubbornly stayed there.
The energy at my control sites (the nearby menhir and the earth energy ley joining the circle to the standing stone) hardly moved at all. What was going on - or, more accurately - what was not going on?
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I tried to get to grips with these unexpected findings. Considering the conditions, it was astonishing to get 27 quite ordinary people (and two dogs) out before dawn, wandering across the greyed-out, waterlogged wasteland of the Merrivale platform. There was no shortage of participants, nor of the desire of those participants to be there, and to be involved. There seemed no lack of lustre resulting from Caroline, our organiser, being distinctly unwell - and I could dowse no planetary or earth energy reasons for such a subdued response from Gaia. Like much of dowsing, it remains a journey of unfolding understanding.
As the band swirled archaically in to the first song, a group of about a dozen well-horned, shiny, black cattle materialised out of the gloom - and proceeded to walk purposefully towards us. Like a group of leather-jacketed youths, they mooched around the performers, seemingly looking for a chance to get in on the action.
But, like all such chancers, when consistently ignored they quickly tired of the game and slunk away into the murk as quickly and quietly as they had appeared.
Neither farmed nor domestic animals seemed to have much of a hand in the radial count results.
I do think that the physical presence of the sun (and the moon) can make a huge difference to earth energy activity. Yet, he has failed to make more than a token appearance at this event in any of the last eight years - and our dowsing at eclipses has demonstrated quite clearly that cloud cover is no barrier to solar (or lunar) interaction.
The enhanced number of radials present at the start of the proceedings certainly reduced the range of possible escalation, but the plateauing off at 60ish was still something of a surprise.
One of the aspects measured on all previous visits was the surge in interest by the site at, or even prior to, my arrival. I know it sounds crazy, but the site seems to acknowledge - even anticipate - my participation. Today, it was wide-awake before I arrived, and the response to my engagement was little more than a cursory nod. So, maybe, the dialogue between the observer and the observed is part of the explanation.
I mulled over this enigma as we made our way off the sodden moor. Not even the welcome cooked breakfast at the Fox Tor Café brought much enlightenment.
Gaia could merely be playing games with the dowsers. However, it is more likely that she is actually trying to convey a more complex message - information that will enhance our understanding of how the consciousness of the person interacts with the consciousness of the planet.
Many thanks, as ever, to Caroline for keeping the show on the road - or at least on the moor - and to Louisa for standing in as her MC at short notice.
Nigel Twinn
Tamar Dowsers
1st May 2012