|
springtime the free web magazine of dowsing & geomancy/Earth harmony, in Australasia and beyond. Edited by Alanna Moore. Welcome to the springtime issue of Geomantica, September 2005. Thanks go to all the contributors, as well as my son Sky Moore, for help with this website. Hasnt 2005 been a whopper for worldwide catastrophic disasters! Partly natural, partly man made. I even had to cancel my north American tour - due to ridiculous visa requirements. But it was probably a blessing in disguise, as I was booked to give a talk in London on the night before the London bombings and had planned to go north by train the next day and would have been caught up in that horror. The extraordinarily hot water of the American gulf coast (30 Celsius at the sea surface!) is the reason for increased and more powerful hurricanes, Katrina being the result. And the Americans find global warming hard to swallow! The resulting mess has proved that politics often gets in the way of humanitarian aid, unfortunately. But I cant swallow the new age crap that says that Hurricane Katrina was an act of the 'grace of god' as a big purge for the planet. Yes, there is a new age mass email out at the moment suggesting this. I dont think the victims of neglect there would be very comforted by that. No wonder I instinctively steer clear of New Age dogma, much of it re-hashed worn-out christianity. If there is a god sending down disasters to purge or test us, it must be the cranky mountain god of the Hebrews. The loving one must be on holiday this year. We'll just have to use our own god-like loving abilities to help soothe the planet... As for all the talk about poverty and starvation, I know that climate change has devastated Africa's climate, but why does no-one point out the obvious: there are too many people! Like Cairo, with 20 million residents! The whole population of Australia in one city! And not enough jobs to go round, no wonder about that. Let's get real - zero population growth (and less!) is the only answer. I dont usually like to focus on the negatives of life, but sorry - I cant see much fiuture for this planet and all its beautiful nature unless humankind reduces greed and selfishness and takes more responsibility, and that starts at home! On a more positive note, having just done my spring cleaning, it's time to shake off the winter blues and get down and boogie in my garden! The excitement in seeing the first flowers of new cut flower crops just planted, the burst of blossoms in the orchard, the choughs unpicking my doormat for nesting material, the rabble of several horny echidnas rooting round in the tool shed.... Springtime - dont you love it? Until next quarter - Peace and bright blessings from the editor - Alanna Moore
Hi Alanna Your work is inspiring, thank you for teaching
this ancient art form I live at Tuntable Falls (near Nimbin, northern
NSW, ed), in full view of the Mt Nardi towers. It is interesting
that in this land of healing awareness and alternative I have been interested to learn dowsing since
reading your Stone Age Just one more question. I listened to the
tale end of a radio show Thanks for your time, Alanna. I look forward
to hearing from you, Sincerely
Re: The correspondence course, this can be taken over any amount of time. Units of study are sent by hard copy only, correspondence about them is by letter or email. Anyone got a clue about the lightning struck soil? (Not every ancient practice was sensible!) Editor.
Energy Connections, www.energyconnections.com.au. I look forward to keeping in touch. (Lyn is the author of that wonderful book Watts the Buzz?)
Alanna, I'm Ian Doig, the CSD editor of The Quester,
the joint journal of
Fortunately for Ian info about Power Towers is to be found in the Stone Age Faming book, which is available from the American Society of Dowsers bookstore in Vermont and also from Acres USA, who are publishing their own edition.
Rob Gourlay assesses a New Government Report Alanna, ERIC research concluded that increasing salinity was caused by soil degradation. This degradation takes on many forms including compaction or hardpans that degrade soil structure, loss of soil organic matter and carbon, loss of soil biology and native perennial grasses. This degradation reduces deep soil water percolation and increases lateral flows and the ponding of water, often in low-lying areas. Also, the loss of soil health and buffering mobilises salt in lateral flows that concentrates salt in natural pathways. This change in soil health and hydrology is at the root cause of salinity, not a rising groundwater model as promoted by public agencies. This is why public agency solutions are not adequately addressing the cause of salinity, only symptoms. ERIC has developed a soil salinity mapping technique using radiometric data and applied it successfully in many states of Australia. Information on this technology is at http://www.eric.com.au/html/product_assessment.html under the heading Dryland Salinity. However, the Commonwealth Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) has recently released a 2005 Spies and Woodgate Report on Salinity Mapping Methods that claims that salinity mapping using radiometric data can not be achieved based on their theoretically modelling. However, this attack on ERIC's technology only comes about because it works better than the public agency technologies and this threatens their commercial interests in service delivery and access to public funds. ERIC has posted at http://www.eric.com.au/html/news.html a 14 page evaluation of the DAFF Report. This Report did not assess the evidence presented by ERIC as Woodgate claimed that ERIC had not had its results independently assessed or published under peer review. ERIC sets out in this website paper the errors of scientific fact in this 2005 Report, including misrepresentations of vendor methods and the lack of duty of care by the reviewing authorities to properly assess the evidence produced by ERIC. The command and control of public monies for natural resource management by public agencies is largely behind the denigration of industry and community science initiatives to improve environmental health. The work that your organisation is undertaking is helping to expose deficiencies in public science processes and to give support to the independence, balance, objectivity and pragmatism in community and industry science. Rob Gourlay,
Moves are afoot to start a dowsing society in Perth. Interested parties are sought, as was discussed at a recent Natural Resonance Study Group meeting There's certainly plenty of dowsers out there... The great thing about a dowsing society, is that people can learn so much from each other, and get to mingle with people on a similar wavelength. There's potential for interest groups and group community dowsing work. Such as dowsing and harmonizing energies at accident sites, or checking out the energies of each other's homes for practice, etc etc. Not only can it be good fun, but it can provide encouragement for beginners to get dowsing and discover all the potential benefits of of it. For our society to survive we need to foster our intuitive and subtle energy faculties, as mainstream education is so stuck in the logical mode. Dowsing brings balance. And there's strength in numbers too. A society would help to raise the standing of the dowsers' art in mainstream society and could also help give credibility to the methods of the WISALT Society, whose use of dowsing to help degraded soils on WA farms has provided a point of derision for scientists and 'authorities' for the past 50 years. Come on WA dowsers!! And would-be dowsers! And anyone just curious. Give Tony Henshaw a ring to register your interest on 08 9388 6484.
From my research has ensued that the sense of megalithic buildings had been first the care of human health. I can experimentally prove that each mass has its energy, which can be transferred to other masses or it can be gained from it personally. In all cases holds that a mass with larger energetic potential spontaneously transfers the energy to the mass that has a smaller potential. The transit of energy is conditioned by the contact of energy components of the both masses. In the connection with menhirs it can be interpreted so, that from the energy components of watercourse and other sources the rock obtains natural energy, which subsequently can be received by people. Dolmens, cromlechs and other constructions had been built from various minerals that had been transported in many cases from considerable distances. Every sort of mineral has its energy code and the combination of rocks creates another code. So we can suppose that by transmission of the energy from rock to organisms this character of mass happens too. More cannot be speculated about, first it will be necessary to study the energy code of rocks. The motivation of megalithic constructions is only a small part of its mystery. Much more exacting will be to explain by which and what kind of method had given an impulse to initiate their construction. By the present version of history the people of megalithic culture could not be found abreast of the technical forwardness which I have mentioned. With technical level, which we have owed to them they could not but ensure the building of hundreds of thousands of megalithic constructions at four continents.
The name "Megalithic constructions" would be suitable to revise for "Energy constructions" because it does not concern only constructions built in antiquity. The energy character of minerals had been used during the history at all sorts of sanctuaries from zikkurats, complexes of pyramids, more than hundred thousands of earthen ramparts, mounds, temples, cathedrals, mosques, millions of stupas and chapels. 7000 towers on the island of Sardinia, for which we don't know any reasons, were the energy constructions, too. Resembling unexplained constructions are also situated at other places. The people of megalithic culture could not be more advanced. They only had used the natural force, which has remained to science a secret till this time. Thereon could have kept an interest the clerical leaders, who have used the strain and curative effect for their benefit. The course and details of my research I have mentioned at www.miroslavprovod.com
© MiroslavProvod, Czech Republic, September 2005 email: centrum11@volny.cz
The Spiritual Side of Organic Gardening (a publication of the Dunedin Theosophical Society) and was reproduced with kind permission. In this article I intend to introduce some topics of which you may already be aware. I will only deal with them briefly, but with the hope that some of you may wish to look further. With this in mind I have given a small list of books which deal with these matters in more depth. Traditional gardening techniques often use
poisons to control and kill unwanted pests and diseases. Soil
quality is also often degraded. Organic Gardens, Permaculture,
No-Dig, Spray free and other methods, can result in the soil
becoming more fertile with regular applications of compost. Pests
such as aphids are indicators of poor soil condition rather than
plant problems. They are also part of the food chain, and by
leaving them in our garden we can encourage a population of predators
which we would not see if we continued to remove their
food. I have observed aphids in my garden, and they have not
spread to There is another important aspect of gardening which we, as Theosophists should be aware. This is the unseen side of the world. We should know that everything is alive, and that everything is guided by these unseen forces. Plant Devas, Elementals, insect Souls and many other beings live in our gardens. Indeed they are in all areas of our lives. While I cannot, as yet, see these beings as some say they can, I can still work with them in the garden. Knowing they are there, I can converse with them, tuning into the hidden life in the garden. I can tell them they are loved and lovely. I can inform them that I intend to harvest some or all of them. Indeed one text (4) indicates we can increase the potency of edible and medicinal plants by up to 20x by using a special magickal technique before harvest. And it seems to me that small amounts of still living plant matter can be much better for us than store bought greens. Experiments have been done with plants and are well recorded in books such as The Secret Life of Plants and Supernature. I recommend Supernature very strongly. It seems that plants can pick up on our thoughts and respond to them (1,2). I did my own experiment. Two plants which were exactly the same in the same pots soil and conditions were put aside. One was Love and the other Hate, Writing the words on the pots would be enough to damage them, due to the power of words and thought. But I went further, hating the Hate plant and Loving the Love plant. After a week you could see the difference, the Loved plant looking much better. Pruning Trees Trees and animals are powerful sources of energy. Working hard to be the best they can, trees have a huge aura- an extended field of energy which surrounds them. We can tap in to that energy and use it. Find a large tree, which attracts you. Take an offering to it. Lean back, hug the tree, and consciously will the tree's energy to enter your system. You could also perform some form of breathing with visualisation to guide this energy into yourself. (It is interesting that cats are thought to attract negative energy and dogs to provide positive energy.) Biodynamics I was a bit sceptical until the day I helped out. The stirring is done in one direction and then another. This creates a vortex that reaches down almost to the bottom of the container. Direction is reversed again, and the stirring goes on for an hour. It is at the time of reversal as the liquid becomes chaotic that various energies are "trapped" in the solution, which may result in increased soil fertility once it has been applied to the land. There is a lot more information on the inner side of gardening in the various Steiner/Biodynamic publications. Cosmic influences Some herbs and plants are also ruled by certain star signs or elements, and so would be best harvested with this in mind. Careful attention to harvest Ritual can also increase the potency of plants. A good Ritual is in this book (4), and the full Ritual is quite large. I have found the larger Rituals do have more power, and that they are well worth doing. Maybe you should make sure no-one sees you doing it if in public view . Just do it in your mind. Still, I have found better results if the Ritual is performed aloud. Your own Intuitive Ritual may well give even better results . Dowsing When next you go into your garden, be aware that you see only a small amount of the work being done there. Your own thoughts will affect this work. So please, think good things, and encourage the unseen beings in their important work in our Land. References. and further reading
"Author Haydn Washington* is a conservationist who led the campaign for Wollemi National Park, a former Board member for Mutawintji National Park (the first national park in New South Wales handed back to Aborigines for joint management) and a student completing a PhD on 'the wilderness knot'. In this article, he explores the nexus between Wilderness, social justice and 'ownership'," writes National Parks Journal ** editor Rosemary Prior, in the February/March 2005 issue (Vol 49, no 1), where this article first appeared. It has been reproduced with kind permission.
Recently on a walk on the western edge of Wollemi National Park (NP) we came along the Great Divide and down a ridge towards the headwaters of the Cudgegong River. We came to this beautiful pass. I could feel that this place was 'sacred'. I kept looking for an art site, as I knew that one must be nearby. At the bottom of the pass I thought 'its to the left'. Around a corner I found a cave with twenty hand stencils and a wonderful gallery of 30 small charcoal Baiame figures. The 'sense of place' (Cameron 2003) associated with this site was overwhelming. It was so welcoming that the only way I can describe the feeling was one of 'kinship'. Since then I have spoken to a Wiradjuri elder, who agreed that I was 'guided' to the site. This site is not on the NPWS (National Parks and Wildlife Service) database, and I feel it would make a wondrous teaching site, both for young Wiradjuri and other Australians who feel a 'sense of wonder' (Washington 2002). As far as I know I am not of Wiradjuri descent, but this site affected me deeply, and is one for which I feel a deep custodial feeling (as I do for Wollemi in general). The teaching of this site for me is that custodianship is beyond the question of 'race'. There are many reasons for the confusion around the word wilderness, but here I seek to examine the tension between social and environmental justice. As someone who feels a deep commitment to both, I believe it is essential that we get it right, and that one does not override the other. The interaction of social and environmental justice is a complex issue that raises great passions. There are valid concerns in our society about past injustices done to Aboriginal people associated with the invasion of Australia by the British Empire in 1788. These are concerns I share. There are massacre sites near where I live on the edge of Wollemi NP, and the horror of what was done there breaks my heart. There are strong moves towards reconciliation between black and white Australians, whereby the injustices of the past are acknowledged. Without such reconciliation and acknowledgment of the past, I too believe we cannot build a more just future. Part of this movement is for land rights so that the dispossessed indigenous peoples of Australia (who are often in the poorest section of society) can gain legal title to some of the land on which they lived in 1788. This is motivated by social justice. However, 'social justice' has also been used to attack 'wilderness', with the strongest attack on wilderness along social justice lines coming from Langton (1996). Is such an attack valid? Langton (1996) argues that wilderness is similar to the doctrine of terra nullius. Most people think this means 'empty land', but as the Mabo case explains, terra nullius actually maintained that the native peoples of Australia did not own the land - by virtue of not growing crops and being 'backward peoples' (Lindley 1926). Langton has also said the term 'wilderness' was a 'mystification of genocide', implying that Europeans killed off the people who 'owned' the land, and then called this empty land 'wilderness'. This simplification ignores the reality that the successful invasion of Australia in fact gave sovereignty to the British Crown. They thus 'owned' the land legally in any case. In order to claim sovereignty for the Crown, there was no need either to kill off the indigenous peoples living there or to call the land 'wilderness'. Of course, such massacres did occur, as settlers sought to farm the land in the European fashion (Carrington 1860). But there is a confusion between such massacres, and the fact that there remain large natural areas of Australia which have escaped European clearing and fragmentation and which have been called 'wilderness'. Prineas (1983) writes some 13 years prior to Langton, and refers to terra nullius being equated with the idea that Australia was a 'wasteland'(Scott 1940), and this relates to the old (Biblical) meaning of wilderness as waste or unoccupied land (Oelschlaeger 1991). However, as Prineas points out 'Terra nullius is just one idea of wilderness that is relevant to Australia. There have been others'. In the last century this Biblical idea of wilderness being wasteland has been transformed into a positive idea that large natural areas have intrinsic value (Oelschlaeger 1991). As someone who has walked through the Colo (or now Wollemi) wilderness over three decades, I feel that the fact that large natural areas (wilderness) still remain is a tribute to the traditional land practices of Aboriginal Australians. Wilderness is in fact a celebration of the way these Aboriginal people (such as those who visited the wonderful cave I visited recently) treated the land they did not clear it, fragment it, dam it or poison it. Therefore, for me there is a terribly sad irony that wilderness (a tribute to past Aboriginal land practices) is associated by some with either terra nullius or genocide. Nevertheless, the idea that wilderness is somehow anti-Aboriginal seems to persist as an underlying concern to some Aboriginal Australians. There are also concerns by conservationists (after 215 years of destructive land management under European Australian control) that the remaining natural systems of Australia need to be managed to keep their remaining natural values irrespective of who legally 'owns' them. This is environmental justice. This issue is complicated by the idea of 'ownership' and the legal term 'Traditional Owners'. There is often no distinction between the 'philosophical' approach to the land and the 'legal fiction' we live with in terms of our homes and farms. I would argue that philosophically no human owns the land or has ever done so. The land owns itself, while all we can strive to do is be custodians or stewards (whether black or white). The land does not belong to us, but we can belong to the land. Prineas (1983) draws on the work of Elkin (1938, 1950) when he says that 'the traditional beliefs of the Aboriginals held them to be part of the land; indeed, Aboriginal people today express the view that if their relationship with the land can be expressed in terms of ownership at all, it is the land that owns them'. The unity of humans and nature is expressed by many native peoples around the world (Knudtson and Suzuki 1992). Deborah Bird Rose (1996) in her work Nourishing terrains has pointed out that within an Aboriginal concept of country 'country has its own life, its own imperatives, of which humans are only one aspect. It is not up to humans to take supreme control, or to define the ultimate values of country. Aboriginal relationships to land link people to ecosystems, 'rather than giving them dominion over' them'. Part of the problem is around the idea of 'ownership' or possession. There is a potential tension between the anthropocentric idea of human possession or ownership, and the ecocentric idea of custodianship. Dean Stewart (2004) (of the Wemba Wemba and
Wergaia tribes in Victoria) has said: This is an ecocentric approach to both issues, one which gives me hope that the concerns of social justice can be reconciled with those of environmental justice. I think it needs to be recognised that there is a danger in focusing exclusively on 'land rights' and ownership. This can lead to a modernist, anthropocentric, and resource-based view of the land, a view that any group of society can slip into white or black. Most of us live in cities, and are bombarded every day by television and newspapers with the 'given truth' of ownership, of possession, of the land belonging to humans. However, to conceive that any human owns the land in spiritual or philosophical terms is of course intensely human-centred. The landmass of Australia is 2 billion years old, while humans have been here for perhaps 60,000 years. This seems so long to us, but it is only 0.003% of the time that the land of Australia has existed. Interestingly, Rose (1996, p. 17) argues that American concepts of wilderness are 'egocentric' as they do not see traces of culture in the land. However for me the idea that landscapes are created by humans is anthropocentrism that verges on egocentrism. Of course any landscape in Australia has traces of past indigenous culture, but when standing on the gorges of Wollemi (with a geological history of hundreds of millions of years), one cannot in all humility argue that this was 'created by humans'. There is a continuum from natural to cultural in any landscape. In wilderness the natural is paramount, in the city the cultural is paramount. Having argued that humans do not 'own' the land, I also acknowledge that in our system of legal fiction of Torrens title and leasehold, there should indeed be restitution of land to indigenous peoples who were dispossessed of the lands in which they were living, and who had a custodial role towards that land (and who are largely in the poorest section of society). I am not arguing against land rights. There is a need for land to be transferred to indigenous ownership (land rights) due to a desire for social justice - but not at the expense of the natural values of that land. It is thus perfectly valid for conservation groups to express their own custodial or stewardship role in arguing that any such land needs to have all its natural values conserved. I personally feel this custodial role very deeply. Some scholars such as Langton (1996) have argued that conservationists have 'usurped' the custodial role of Aboriginal people toward the land. This appears to be based on a premise that only one racial grouping can either feel, listen to, or love the land. This is a premise that I cannot agree with, after 30 years of taking hundreds of people of different races walking in wilderness. All races can listen to and feel a sense of wonder at the land (Washington 2002). People from any race can belong in Australia, if they listen to the land, and show it respect. However, having accepted that any race can feel a sense of wonder, I would also equally argue that white Australians can learn a tremendous amount from the world views and philosophies of traditional indigenous culture. We all need to listen to the wisdom of the elders in terms of living sustainably in this country. Elders such as Miriam Rose Ungunmerr (1995) who speaks of 'dadirri' (contemplation or deep-seeing and deep-listening) being 'perhaps the greatest gift we can give to our fellow Australians, or 'Kakadu Man' Bill Neidjie (1985), in the wonderful book by that name. A dialogue by white Australians with such timeless wisdom can provide a bridge into a sustainable future. There is also a strong trend for governments today to only hand back public land such as national parks, not working farms or freehold land (as these are apparently too expensive). Thus for social justice reasons we as a society wish to give legal title to land so indigenous peoples can derive an income stream. Yet at the same time the only areas our society and government seems to wish to hand back are natural areas, such as national parks and wilderness. There seems to be a 'tragedy of the commons' (Hardin 1968) involved here, as public land such as national parks is seen as not being valuable and is therefore available for land rights. For this reason there is the potential for tension between social and environmental justice, as making money from national parks or wilderness areas can potentially compromise natural values (and often does). The argument from some advocates is that 'this is Aboriginal land, they can do what they like with it'. However, this is strongly anthropocentric, and ignores any conception that the land may 'belong to itself'. It also abrogates any stewardship role towards the land by white Australians, something which is I believe fundamental to solving our many and serious environmental problems. Conclusion So what are some of the problems with social justice today? We speak of land 'ownership' as a given truth, never questioning the absurdity that humans could truly possess the land. We speak of the land as a 'human artifact' (Flannery 2003), when in fact in evolutionary terms humans are a 'wilderness artifact', as we evolved out of wilderness. Many of us argue that wilderness is just a 'Western cultural construct', as if this in any way changes the reality of the large natural areas that still exist in Australia, and which have an intrinsic right to exist. We speak of the need for social justice and reconciliation - without acknowledging in the same breath the need for environmental justice and a reconciliation with the land by all Australians (black and white). We argue for land rights without arguing for the 'rights of the land'. It doesn't have to be this way. I do not believe that Langton's attack on wilderness is valid on social justice grounds certainly not for wilderness as defined as large, natural areas. As Mosley (2004) has pointed out, he does not know a single wilderness advocate over a forty-year period that advances the arguments that Langton criticises. Large natural areas (wilderness) are a key part of the 'country' we all need to care for. We can accept that the humility, sense of perspective and spiritual renewal that wilderness gives humans is an essential part of reaching ecological sustainability. We can accept that we need both social and environmental justice that we need both reconciliation between black and white, as well as between human and non-human. We can accept that we need a real two-way dialogue between conservationists and indigenous people, based on our joint custodial feelings. We can act in the knowledge that we are all custodians of the wild, and need to act to retain these areas into the future. We can celebrate that a white bushwalker such as I can feel a deep kinship with the past custodians of that cave in Wollemi. We can accept that we need to show the land respect, and that while we humans will need to make use of resources to survive, we need to live sustainably, and that part of this ecological sustainability is that areas such as wilderness are sacrosanct, and not a resource to be exploited. The first step is to reduce the confusion about the word 'wilderness'. Wilderness is defined as being a large, natural area. We need no new word for such areas. Such areas are not just a group of resources waiting for human use, they should be seen as special and sacred. The word 'wilderness' itself may have come from the West, but the areas themselves are real and are not just 'cultural constructs'. Wilderness is not a human artefact (even Sydney is not totally a human artefact!), though it has been influenced by humans over time. 'Wilderness' in fact celebrates the past land practices of traditional Aboriginal society. It is not anti-Aboriginal, nor does it ignore the Aboriginal history of these areas. The conservation movement in Australia has long accepted that wilderness was the home of traditional indigenous peoples (Robertson et al 1992). Equally, there has already also been a long debate in conservation organisations on how to acknowledge social justice - without ignoring environmental justice (e.g. TWS and its 'Wild Country' project, ACF and 'caring for country'). Wilderness is an encapsulation of the essence of ecocentrism, an argument that the 'otherness' and independence of other forms of life (and other geodiversity and landforms) have a right to exist for themselves. This is view that I believe the custodians of the wonderful cave I was guided to would have fully agreed with. It remains for me an ongoing tragedy that the confusion about 'wilderness' and social justice means that many people who deeply love the land (and see it as sacred) do not unite as mutual custodians to protect it. Haydn Washington is a long-time member of National Parks Association, has been secretary of the Colo Committee since 1974, served for four terms on Australian Conservation Foudation's council, is a past Director of the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, is author of the books Ecosolutions (1991) and A Sense of Wonder (2002). He is now completing a Ph.D. at the University of Western Sydney on 'The wilderness knot'.
References Cameron J (2003) Articulating Australian senses
of place. In Cameron J (Ed) Changing places: re-imagining
Australia. Longueville Books Notes: Editor's email editor@npansw.org.au
by Alanna Moore, Python Press Australia, 2nd edition September 2004. For the Feng Shui News, summer 2005 (Following a review of Liz Simpsons The Healing Energies of the Earth) "A heavy weight book on geomancy from Australia's leading geomancer, this is a better bet on the subject of Earth energies. Although much of the material is centred in Australasia, Alanna is a frequent visitor to the UK, which features largely in the book. Research has been thorough, the chapter on Earth Mysteries in the British Isles containing historical as well as modern references and there is an all too short, though fascinating, section on London geomancy..... The book is (also) strong on geopathic and electro-magnetic radiation This will make a riveting read in advance of Alanna's talk to the London group in July." (The talk is hopefully to be re-scheduled for 2006, ed.) For 'Vitality' magazine, Toronto, Canada, June 2005. "Geomancy is the study of Earth's subtle energies and spirit. In Divining Earth Spirit geomancer Alanna Moore presents the dynamic world of these energies as they relate to sacred sites, native spirits, feng shui, geopathic stress and more. While Moore's principal focus is Australasia, she does not limit her investigations to that part of the world. Considerable psi sensitivity comes into play at urban and rural sites, enabling her to interpret some remarkable landscapes The author's work is meticulously researched, moving through successive layers of material with ever-increasing perception. We become engrossed in Aboriginal social and cultural realities, wander through enchanted deva lands, follow Moore to important ceremonial centres, and encounter unexpected visions. Book reviews and short pieces by some of Moore's dowsing colleagues kindle a holistic sense of the environment, while insights from the likes of Caitlin Matthews, John Michel, Masaru Emoto and Rupert Sheldrake confirm the roving curiosity of a kindred spirit. Australian readers learn of Earth wonders to be found overseas and those of us unfamiliar with the land down under are introduced to some of that country's outstanding natural treasures. Moore is a professional. She has worked for years visiting and healing damaged sites and, by extension, the entities that call them home. Her dedication to the land is unmistakable. What she has to say about geobiology and electro-biology is of paramount importance to every single person on this planet. Far too many people have never heard of these subjects, let alone expressed concern about their effects on the health of the land and all living creatures. Divining Earth Spirit is a comprehensive, mind expanding resource. It is not a dowsing textbook, nor is it just about 'facts', prolific though these are. A strong current of maturity, spiritual awareness, and responsibility towards the Earth flows through its pages. It is also a commendably honest book. Moore reports that when sacred sites become the focus of diverging values and interests between Aborigines and Caucasians, tensions flare and result in actions tragically familiar to Canadians. It is always a privilege to touch base with the 'points of light' who are committed to the wellbeing of our planet. By whatever name Earth keepers are known, Divining Earth Spirit is about energy subtle, magnificent, cosmic energy. Its visible face is the environment. Its hidden dimension is our human relationship with Earth herself, seen and unseen entities who live there, and the universe to which all belong."
and companion DVD: Megalithomania "Have you ever wanted a sacred site in your own back yard? This book and DVD (packaged as a set) will help you to achieve that dream. Alanna Moore is an Australian writer and film maker who looks at ancient traditions, dowsing techniques, and places of power around the world. She's put together this book and film for those who are interested in stone circles, earth energies, and learning how to recognise and create spiritual places in our environment. The book is the first in a series of guidebooks, and it's called A Little Geomantic Guidebook to The Magic of Menhirs and Circles of Stone. It is only 35 pages in length (spiral bound), but it is a useful addition to the excellent reference book Divining Earth Spirit, published by the same author earlier in the year. Chapter one gives us a history lesson on the ancient uses of places such as Stonehenge. It also looks at the link between the stones and healing energies, and fairy traditions too. The concept of creating your own stone circles, and the making of medicine wheels using big stones or small pebbles, features further along in the book, but don't skip any chapters in your haste to renovate the back garden, it's all worth reading. Sites created by the methods in this book are said to generate new ley lines as soon as people "began to use these constructions meditatively." But Alanna points out that setting up stone circles can also attract unwanted energies, so be careful where you build them, as underground streams may be attracted, and their energies can be harmful if they pass under your home. A few pages are devoted to labyrinths (geometric patterns created from hedges, stones, mounded earth, etc.) and the transformational effect of walking a labyrinth is described in detail. These patterns are linked to the ancient practices of initiations and shamanic journeys, and provide the opportunity for a blissful inner journey. The book is well illustrated with photographs, and there are line drawings that clearly show how to draw or build your own labyrinth. The author's aim in publishing this series is to give "practical information on the spiritual and energetic aspects of environment", and this has been easily accomplished with this compact volume on geomancy. Megalithomania is the companion DVD to the book reviewed above, and is part three of the Geomancy Today film series. It looks at the stone circles in England, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are over 9,000 stone circles through the British Isles, and it's nice to see images of famous structures such as the Stone of Destiny at Tara in Ireland, and the stones that surround the village of Avebury. Significant, natural formations in New Zealand and the Nimbin Valley are shown, as well as sacred stones of Central Australia. Touchstones are explained (the place where you respectfully introduce yourself to the spirits of a sacred site) and Alanna also shows how to create modern stone circles that can enhance the energy of an area, and attract nature spirits. The DVD is fairly short (32 minutes) but it covers lots of interesting areas. The retail price for both items together is only $24, and this includes postage and handling. It's good value, and it will encourage you to create your very own labyrinth or stone circle in your backyard. I'd love to tell you more about this book and DVD set, but I have to go and collect some stones for my circle!
Review by Angela Krone From Pagan Times, winter 2005 edition. Angela is a Koori (indigenous) woman from the Worimi and Biripi people of the NSW mid coast area; she has lived and worked in many Aboriginal Communities around Australia and currently lives in Western Australia with her Yamatji husband and four children, Having two university degrees she uses her skills to represent and empower her people. This is an extract from her review: "This DVD looks at a very unique individual whose spiritual journeys have been entwined with the Ancestral dreamtime beings of this great land. In Pilgrimage to Central Australia the author has given the story teller Billy Arnold the freedom to express and show his spiritual encounters that he has had while living in Alice Springs. I found myself transfixed by the amount of passion that he displays around culturally significant sites and events. This video shows that Billy has taken time to get to know the local people and openly acknowledges Arrunta culture and lore. I enjoyed being able to see the sites that he talked about and to see how he interacts with the local people. His description of spirit comes from having a deep understanding of the land and traditions. The video includes Billy's spiritual experiences and stories which incorporate dreamtime facts, beautiful pictorials of Alice Springs and Aboriginal Sites. Watching this was a truly enjoyable experience, and a credit to Alanna Moore for putting this together.
The Story of Nature's Travellers through the Cycle of the Seasons' Macdonald and Janes, UK. Reviewed by Alanna Moore. Recently I was asked by a correspondence course student about where she could find more information about humankind's inherent sensitivity to magnetism. I explained that there was not much literature out there in the mainstream. All my information had been gleaned from sources sympathetic to dowsing. Most scientists are definitely not sympathetic to dowsing. Meanwhile technological industries exploit us and threaten our wellbeing with e-m-r, virtually unhindered. (In fact our government bends over backwards to accommodate their proliferation!) The 'authorities' ignore the fact of magnetic reception and the ensuing consequences of being bombarded by e-m-r. That got me off to the library to find one of the rare, mainstream books which speaks of magnetic sensors in animals, and our own inherent directional ability, that was written by scientists. An early, pioneering book. In fact chief editor Dr Robin Baker, a lecturer in Zoology at Manchester University, is "most notablyresponsible for the important discovery that humans have a magnetic sense of direction He is author of three important books on migration and navigation: The Evolutionary Ecology of Animal Migration (1978), which is a major reference work; Migration Paths Through Time and Space (1980); and Human Navigation and the Sixth Sense (1980). Baker was the researcher who put a bus load of blindfolded students in a van and drove them to an unknown destination. On arrival they got out and were asked to spin around, then point the direction home, while still blindfolded. Invariably, they were often correct. However the ability went haywire when magnets were strapped to peoples' heads (some had dummy magnets as controls). It's akin to when departing homing pigeons spiral upwards from their homes, spinning to help them get a fix on the right direction to take. In terms of animal migration, the magnetic sensitivity is just one of many senses in play, Baker explains in this book. "It has been shown that homing pigeons and European robins can detect the inclination in the Earth's magnetic field. Even more remarkable, since it is poorly developed in birds, is experimental evidence from Italy of pigeons being able to use their sense of smell as an aid in navigation. Evidently birds use many different cues in navigation and we do not fully understand the mechanisms by which their remarkable migrations are achieved." The sense of smell mentioned is not surprising in the light of more recent publication of information about Jacobsens organ, associated with the nose and sinuses, an area where iron is concentrated and which is, no doubt, implicated in magnetic reception. Snakes, for instance, pick up magnetic information, by flicking their tongue out and 'testing the air'. ('Jacobsen's Organ and the Remarkable Nature of Smell' Lyall Watson. WW Norton & Co. Chapter One is up on the internet.) The magnetic sense in fish, Baker tells us, 'rests in certain highly specialised organs, the Ampullae of Lorenzini, which appear as small pits in the fish's snout". Of the direction finding ability of amphibians we are told that "frogs and toads can orientate by the night sky and that frogs, toads, salamanders can orientate by the sun in the same way as birds. It has been found that amphibians do not even have to see the sun, but can detect it through the tops of their heads. They have a primitive eye-like organ in the pineal part of the brain, lying directly below a translucent part of the skull. In the Middle Ages it was thought that this was the 'philosopher's stone'. A substance that could change base metals into silver or gold." Back to the pigeons - "Pigeons have a sense organ, located between the brain and the skull, which contains magnetite, a chemical that aligns itself along the lines of the Earth's magnetic field. It is thought that this organ detects geomagnetic direction. Perhaps humans have the same organ? However pigeons have to learn how to use and improve their sense of direction relative to the magnetic field. If humans have such a sense, we should expect them also to have to learn how to use it effectively. Most people, because of the modern way of life and the many aids to navigation with which they are surrounded, have little cause to make use of a geomagnetic sense."
|