May 2004

Contributors to the Journal are reminded that the copyright of material published in the Journal becomes the joint property of the contributor and the Society. This means that while the contributor retains their full rights to reproduce, in other publications or in other forms, the material they have submitted to the Journal, they at the same time allow the same right of use of their material to the Society. This has always been a condition of the Society and the Journal.

The Society and the Journal editors do not necessarily associate themselves with the views expressed by contributors and correspondents.

This and That

One will be run by Bea Menier and will be a follow on from the Feng Shui workshops she ran a couple of years ago. . This will be held at the Kennet Valley Hall on 6/7 November 2004. More details to follow.

Two will be run by Dr Patrick MacManaway, again at the Kennet Valley Hall on 16/17 April 2005. More details when we have them.

The cost for Bea’s workshop will be £20 per day for members of the Wyvern Dowsing Society, and £25 per day for non members.

Avebury training session. May 20^th.

This is an evening session primarily for new dowsers but all are welcome. It is a practical session to help beginners to learn the terms and techniques used when dowsing on ancient sites. Several helpers will be on hand to advise and sort out problems and the session will go ahead whatever the weather so bring suitable footwear and clothing. Regular attendees on the field trips to ancient/sacred sites often ask the sorts of questions which we hope to deal with here.

Meet in the Avenue at 7pm. If you can’t get there for the start of the session, don’t worry – it is fairly informal so just come and join in. S.C.

May Field Trip.

Apologies from Sib, who mistakenly put the details for this month’s trip into last month’s journal. Obviously the information given still holds good for this month, but if anyone does not still have their copy they can contact me or Shaun for details. S.C.

Brecon Long Weekend.

This year’s long weekend dowsing trip is to take place at Brecon National Park in Wales. The area we will be in is slightly further west of where we went for the long weekend last year, and is a very beautiful place; stunning scenery rich in standing stones, burial mounds, ruined castles and lots of other interesting ancient sites. The campsite is at Crickhowell – a very small, attractive old town which has several pubs, hotels and B&B’s, a number of traditional-looking shops, several eating places and a craft gallery. The wall of one property incorporates a couple of medieval drum towers which are thought to be part of the original castle walls. The motte and a few bits of ruined tower are all that remains of the actual castle, but those interested in architecture will find plenty to look at.

Shaun is preparing an info. sheet containing details of accommodation, campsite, how to get there and a rough itinerary, so please ask for one if you are planning on joining us. If you are a beginner at dowsing or a new member, don’t be put off from coming along, you will be very welcome. The Brecon area is not too far to travel if you can only come for one of the days – if you are planning to do this have a word with Shaun to arrange meeting points.

April Meeting.

The April meeting started with a brief A.G.M., which was well attended. The chairman thanked the members for their support, and gave brief details of forthcoming workshops and events, and also announced that the society was in a strong financial position. The committee stays the same but any offers of help are always appreciated.

After the A.G.M. Shaun gave a talk based on Earth energies and explained some of the methods that he uses when working on “house-clearing” and also while investigating sacred spaces and ancient sites.

During the talk he managed to cover many of the points and queries that people raise when dowsing on field trips, in a way that was easy to understand and take in.

What Tree Did You Fall From

Find your date of birth and read about your attributes. No guarantees of accuracy.

May 01 to May 14 - Poplar Tree (the Uncertainty) - looks very decorative, talented, not very self-confident, extremely courageous if necessary, needs goodwill and pleasant surroundings, very choosy, often lonely, great animosity, great artistic nature, good organizer, tends to lean toward philosophy, reliable in any situation, takes partnership seriously.

May 15 to May 24 - Chestnut Tree (the Honesty) - of unusual stature, impressive, well-developed sense of justice, fun to be around, a planner, born diplomat, can be irritated easily, sensitive of others feelings, hard worker, sometimes acts superior, feels not understood at times, fiercely family oriented, very loyal in love, physically fit.

May 25 to June 03 - Ash Tree (the Ambition) -- extremely attractive, vivacious, impulsive, demanding, does not care for criticism, ambitious, intelligent, talented, likes to play with fate, can be very egotistic, reliable, restless

Doug & Dave and Rowley & Henmania

Divorcing your husband because of a disagreement about the Doug and Dave hypothesis might seem a drastic step, to reasonable souls like you and me.

It allows the political to overcome the personal in a way that would seem to guarantee unhappiness.

Of course, there may have been other factors at play in the marriage of Henmania Hill and Dr Rowley Miles MA. As Kate Bush has noted in one of her songs, I forget which now, one can never look into a marriage from outside and expect it to make sense.

Doug and Dave were those two blokes - and I use the word "blokes" advisedly, I use it in a scientific sense, or at least sociologically, if one can accept that sociology is a science, and I think we may have to - those two blokes who emerged in 1991 at the height of the crop circle phenomenon (first wave).

In a very casual way they let it be understood that, if you wanted to, you could hold them and their fellow pranksters responsible for everything that was happening in the fields.

They had tramped out pretty much every formation of recent times, anywhere in the world, in any medium, at any time of day or night. And would be doing so again in the future.

Their claims were a little woolly round the edges, and seemed to run counter to numerous eye-witness accounts.

Latterly, the sheer size of the formations, and their increasing complexity, and the subtle adjustments that would be needed to make them appear to lie flat on undulating land, all seemed to weigh against the Doug & Dave hypothesis.

As did the formation at Oliver's Castle which was filmed as it happened, falling spontaneously after a fly-past by balls of light.

Then there were the formations which weren't there at 10 a.m. when a plane flew over, but were at Noon when the plane flew back. Doug & Dave?

It is an awkward fact that whenever pranksters are filmed making a crop circle, usually in broad daylight over many hours, if not days, the result looks like a drawing by a stagnant donkey.

But what was all right? And why? What exactly had Doug and Dave done for the world, and the world's media, and the world's sense of itself?

That's what Henmania Hill found herself wondering, back in 1992, Henmania, this rather heavy chick who was holding us up at the holy well, keeping us from our work.

The Spring water was overflowing endlessly, endlessly overflowing from the deep delicious plunge-pool; running down the hill past our feet in cold rivulets through the red forest soil, reminding us that vital minutes were trickling by. But you can't be rude. You have to listen.

Henmania said Doug and Dave were like Hollywood film stars. They guaranteed certain values that society seemed unable to do without.

They were male, and getting on a bit. They were good-natured and liked a pint. Although artists by trade, they were unpretentious. They were urban and probably bourgeois.

Before Doug and Dave, crop circles had begun to look like they were getting out of hand. Mother Nature rampant and out of control.

Away from cities and the centres of governance and art, she was playing in the fields in her profligate, geometrical way.

Perhaps she had tapped into human consciousness or the new burgeoning machine consciousness. Perhaps she was unveiling magical pictures from the Platonic realm. Perhaps she was bigger and cleverer than us, and enjoyed playing with our sense of what was normal and what was alien.

But no. Not really. It was just a couple of amusing blokes with planks on their feet and lengths of twine, working on after the pubs had shut to fool the world.

Doug and Dave provided closure. They were people we could feel comfortable about. Ordinary figures from the patriarchal realm were revealed, once again, to be the authors of almost everything that happened in the world.

The Doug and Dave hypothesis got a very good press, not least from Henmania's husband, the noted fringe academic Dr Rowley Miles. Henmania didn't mind at first. Normality has to be restored or mankind will suffer a collective nervous breakdown.

Rowley began producing articles for the thinking tabloids with titles like "Doug and Dave: In a Field of their Own".

"He had been scribbling away for years on New Age topics," said Henmania, "and was considered an expert by many. But I began to ask myself - how much wisdom or imagination does this man have?

"And I decided he had very little: he was just a curator of information. Suddenly I was married to a hired debunker, a provider of sound-bites.

"Of course most people were taken in because, as one of your number said earlier, the Government don't want us thinking for ourselves. Rowley was happy to feed the machine because he was peeved.

"He'd stumbled across the crop circle phenomenon in Spring 1990 and swore he'd have it solved by Christmas. Typical man.

"But it isn't to be solved, is it? Gaia puts a card down on the table. You try to match it, and she trumps you, because she is only revealing what you can cope with. Once you have risen to a certain level she lets you see a bit more of the game.

"He couldn't explain the light phenomena that go with crop circles. He couldn't explain the lay of the crop or the chemical changes in the soil or the shadow formations which appear in the following year's crop.

"He couldn't account for the fabulous geometry or the positioning in the ancient sacred landscape, or the suddenness, or the effect the circles have on people. He couldn't categorise the narratives that people construct around the phenomenon. Basically, he couldn't do the science and he couldn't handle the folk lore.

"So he bought the hoax theory. And I realised that the Goddess would never be venerated in our house because Rowley was, after all, just a big ego with a tidy mind.

"We'd had our quarrels before, of course, over Atlantis and breast-feeding and Sylvia Plath, the usual things, and I'd patched things up for the sake of the child, but by 19971 realised he was prepared to dismiss almost everything in life which I hold dear. So I dismissed myself too."

"And I went with her," said Morgan proudly, "though I was only small at the time."

"I'm hungry, Mama," said the child. "Can we go now, to Sitting Bull's steakhouse in Bath?"

"I'm not sure how widespread vegetarianism was, among the Native Americans tribes; it probably wasn't a life-style choice that was available to most of them. Nonetheless I do feel Sitting Bull's steakhouse overdoes the meat."

"Yes, darling, that's another thing. I'm all for world music but I think we must keep things in their proper place, out of some fundamental respect, and the didge comes from another Continent. Oh dear, now I sound like Dr Miles!"

This was just the kind of thing we used to argue about when I was at the Varsity, except that it wasn't, because it was a rough old world in the late 70s when I went up: loud Mandela bars full of smoke and undrinkable red wines. The New Age then was neither profitable nor popular.

April Field Trip.

The Uley area, in the Cotswolds was the venue of the April field trip, in spite of Sib putting in the wrong pre-trip info. We were blessed by great weather and not too many other tourists, which can be a problem in the Cotswolds when the weather is fine. First site to be visited was Uley Long-barrow, which has strongly dowsable underground streams. On the day we visited, there was a noticeable “pulling” sensation experienced when standing inside the barrow in the chamber farthest from the entrance. It felt as though an invisible force was pushing you over to the side. The barrow itself is interesting as it no longer has a roof, which enables the viewer to see the way the interior has been built.

A short distance along the road is a still roofed chambered barrow – Hetty Pegler’s Tump. This was next to be visited. A torch is desirable for this barrow as the entrance is very low and does not let in much daylight. On the day we went, there was fresh gravel at the entrance, making access fairly easy, but sometimes it is a muddy puddle often with standing water, so a kneeler, plastic bag or similar piece of equipment makes the access to the interior a lot easier.

After a pleasant lunch in a nearby pub garden several of the party went on to nearby Woodchester manor house which is now open to the public. S.C.

Update on the Rollrights.

At long last the work is well under way on the improvements to the area surrounding the King’s Men, The Whispering Knights and the King Stone.

Unfortunately the stones suffered a serious act of vandalism similar to that which took place at Avebury a few years ago.

During the night of 31^st. March, yellow paint was used in large quantities to deface the stones. As soon as the damage was discovered English Heritage called a site meeting which included members of the team which worked on the clean-up at Avebury. The damage was assessed, the paint analysed and hopefully work can soon begin on the removal of the paint. This in itself causes more problems, as the lichens adorning the stones will inevitably be damaged as the paint is removed, also possibly the surface of the stone itself.

The lichens are very old and historically valuable in their own right – possibly dating to the time of the Magna Carta, so it is important to minimise the damage as much as possible.

The good news is that the police have some leads to follow up so it is hoped that the perpetrators will soon be brought to justice.

The Pagan Federation have offered a reward for information leading to a successful conviction. [£1000]

Back to the improvements – the old iron railings have been removed, new fencing is much further back, allowing people to walk round the outside of the stones and you can now enter through the pair of stones that were the original entrance, if you wish. The enlarged perimeter allows a much better view of the stones.

The old stile to the King Stone has been replaced with a new wheelchair-friendly entrance and a curving path which is less steep than the old one.

The work on the path to, and the area around, the Whispering Knights has already begun and should be finished in about three or four months. This is also aimed at improving the access to, and view of, the Knights. S.C.