Van tales 4: Wandering Magi
I left ‘The Lady Eleanor’’s place in Wales and stopped off to visit my mentor Bell in Carmathen. She let me stay for a few days to get my van back in order as I had my trip to Cornwall coming up. What had called me there was the G7 summit. Through Extinction Rebellion, my activist organisation, I had an opportunity to play my gongs on the beach as part of a protest concert they were organising and I was inspired by the idea of transmitting intentional frequencies to an audience like that.
I also had a friend who had some very special land nearby and was hosting a summit of our own with all the people who were involved in the ‘Regenerative Cultures’ arm of XR. As per the Native American tradition they were holding a ceremonial five day ‘Children’s Fire’ to honour the lives of future generations and hold spiritual intentionality during the summit within a grove of sacred trees on the land. This was a mature and sensitive group of elders, politicians and senior activists who were very inspiring to be around. The idea of the Children’s Fire touched my heart somewhere very deep.
So somehow or other I managed to squeeze my truck through the narrow lanes of Cornwall to the beach and did my thing. It was really hot day, and I had to carry the heavy gongs along the beach to the location. The atmosphere there was not exactly condusive to what I was offering. I’m calm, chillout vibes. This crowd was rowdy, sassy, and wild. And it was big. My sweat was turning cold. Some bold voice was jeering on the crowd and they were responding enthusiastically in turn. Me going on stage now would be a total downer. Desperate, I said to my guides ‘please don’t make me have to be the follow up to this’. Fortunately, I didn’t have to. Just then a surreal-looking marching protest began weaving it’s way through the area and broke the entire flow of what was happening. By the time they’d passed, the crowd had dispersed, and I got to go on with a much more manageable set of people lazing around on the beach.
Done, I drove to my friend’s land, and settled in to the daily rhythm of tasks, events, and conversations. I learned so much from watching the fire-tenders over those days, and seeing how people with deep and diverse spiritual backgrounds held space. I sent my own prayers into that fire, held a warmly-received gong bath in the sacred grove, and felt deeply nourished by it all.
At one point, I’d walked over to a shrine on the land when a group of four exotic-feeling people came to join me. My friend the organiser had referred to them as ‘his wandering magi’ and they certainly carried an air of mysticism about them. I connected with them instantly and it turned out they were just about to go and do a land ceremony and needed a fifth person as who they normally work with couldn’t be there. To my delight, I was recruited into the group.
Over the following days we undertook a number of projects. There are three very special holy wells in that area, connected with the maiden, mother, and crone feminine energies. The task was to perform ceremonies at each well, and to then bring water from the well to a specific corresponding stone circle, and do another ceremony there. It was a real adventure clambering through the wilds to access some of these wells, and I felt also on some level how right it was that I was there. There was something about my energy that was part of this, and I think that was the first time I got a sense of the power of my presence in connection with the land – being in the right place at the right time.
The head ‘Magus’ had trained with many teachers, but one of them was Hamish Miller, the author of The Sun and the Serpent, who had lived close by in Cornwall and traced the important “Michael” and “Mary” ley lines. I was beginning to piece together why I was working with these ‘Wandering Magi’ before my trip to Scotland – where I knew I was being asked to trace the lines and to do similar work on my own at sacred sites across the land. I was being prepared.
The G7 ended and I thought I was done and had driven off but then I received a call from them once more. They were hosting a retreat in Devon the following week and wondered if I’d like to attend in exchange for offering a gong bath. I jumped at the chance. And so I got to see how they work in a retreat setting and also meet a herbalist who would seed another chapter later on on Arran.
With Devon complete, it was nearly time for Scotland. I stopped off at Glastonbury for a few days where assorted other synchronicities occurred, all also deeply preparative for what was to come. And then, finally, I headed up north. Scotland, Alba, my homeland, was calling me back.
