BRITTANY REVISITED 2024
1. Roscoff
Our home market town of Tavistock and the continental ferryport of Roscoff in Brittany have something in common. We may not have their wonderful islet-strewn seascape, nor they our magnificent moorland panorama, but on a dark wet autumn day there is very little going on in either. So it was that after many visits to this part of France, we finally ended up in the remarkable parish church of Notre Dame de Croaz-Batz.
With its ornate bell tower, built in 1575,
ND de C-B would have been a strident statement of a structure, erected right on the sea front of what would then have been a quite modest fishing port. Apparently, the local shipping community had the church built, despite opposition from the nearby Bishop of St Pol de Leon - and, just maybe, a little of that early friction lives on in the ether.
It dowsed as not being regarded as a sacred site before around the 5th Century, which is a bit unusual. However, looking at the residual granite flood barriers around the churchyard, maybe it wasn't regarded as a suitable location for regular religious ceremonies before that time.
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What is immediately striking, is that the building is an overwhelmingly female place - close on 80%, by my dowsing. It hosts crossing lunar grid lines and a raft of strongly feminine energy lines. The Catholic faith wins some plaudits from the alternative community for its celebration of the divine feminine - and icons and figurines of Mary abound here, with the infant Jesus appearing seemingly incidental to his mother. There are stained glass panels showing female saints and compassion is very much celebrated.However, the 'new religion' was always a male dominated organisation, and the underlying nature of ND de C-B has been overwritten - at least to some extent - to reflect that. The only major image of the divine masculine in the building is a massive wooden statue (circa 1967) of the crucifixion in all its agonising anguish. However, the fourteen stations of the cross are commemorated separately in graphic detail, and the largest side altar is that of the Chapel of the Dying.
We arrived on the one morning of the month when there is an early morning mass - for the défunt (the dead) and for good measure the compact graveyard includes, not one but two, charnel houses. It is not surprising, therefore, that this church has somewhat mixed energies - with the intuitive, uplifting female aspects confronting more masculine corporeal concerns.For all that, it is an interesting site and well worth an hour of any dowser's time - especially on a wet winter morning.Having had the place, quite literally, to ourselves for some time, as soon as we opened the door to leave, we were confronted by an animated coachload of even more elderly visitors keen to get in out of the drizzle. It wasn't the time or place to discuss the diviner's craft, so we had to make do with a lengthy series of 'bon jours'.
​ At the other end of the picturesque esplanade stands another religious site, The Chapel of St Barbe (Barbara). With its whitewashed walls and erect format, it has served as a day-marker for fishermen across the centuries. It sounds like a classic feminine location, but nothing could be further from the truth. The name apart, just about everything about this rocky seafront outcrop is thoroughly masculine.It dowses as having been a potential sacred site back into deepest antiquity, and it was well known long before the current structure was erected in 1619. With its powerful crossing solar grid lines and two mighty leys, which intersect inside the building - barely ten metres by five - this is a place of some focussed significance.
Conspiracy theorists could have a field day in unravelling why the tiny site never seems to be open to the public, although the actual reasons might be more prosaic - it's too small to hold a sensible meeting, and natural light is almost entirely absent. It would be interesting to see if the newcomers flattened the former natural geological formation, or incorporated it in some way. Again, this is a fascinating site which purports to be something sociologically which, energetically, is actually quite the reverse.
Nigel Twinn
Tamar Dowsers October 2024
2. Barnenez
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Little known on this side of Le Manche, the great cairn of Barnenez is one of Europe's great archaeological sites, and one of the largest neolithic structures still standing.
Astonishingly, a civil engineering company bought the site and started to
use it as a quarry - in 1954! However, campaigns by archaeologists prevented the complete destruction of the 'tumulus' and, ironically, the brutal partial excavation by the rapacious commercial organisation actually exposed the true magnificence of the mound in a manner that might have been impossible by more forensic means.
At 28 metres wide and 75 long, it is a truly massive construction, especially for such ancient times. It was constructed somewhere around 4,000 BCE, and in two phases separated - according to my dowsing - by around 350 years.
Although the second (western) phase reflects the architecture of the primary cairn, it has subtly different aspects, as we shall see.
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My dowsing indicates that before the tumulus was erected in its current form, there was a much smaller dolmen and standing stone on the hill. At the base of Barnenez are 11 passage graves and, unusually, this appears to have been an ancient site that was actually built as a mausoleum, rather than one that came to be used as a graveyard later in its evolution.
Looking at the primary cairn, there is a massive ley running virtually east-west at its heart, with many earth energy and grid lines assisting the design format.
The southernmost tip of this early cairn is described closely by crossing Venus grid lines. Earth energy flows align with each of the passage graves. It is a very precise construction, especially considering the vast bulk of stonework that has been incorporated. The centre of the central ley is picked out neatly in stone at the eastern end of the cairn, as if subtly bisecting the structure.
When we look at the secondary cairn, although the overall pattern of the physical layout is similar, the underlying energy base is quite different. The central ley is respected and, thanks to the ad hoc quarrying, we can see that it matches, arrow-straight, with the distant spire of the church of St Carantec (Crantock in Cornish) across the Rade de Morlaix estuary. However, there are few energy features built into the later construction.
There are a raft of lines of consciousness radiating from
the lower section of the tumulus, but it is apparent that
the builders were working to a different ground-plan.
350 years seems no time at all compared to the
6,000-year old site, but it still represents 30-40 generations - time enough for cultures to change and different ideas to come to the fore. Undertaking any major construction here in the reign of Charles III would be a very different kettle of fish to a similar one built 350 years ago - at the time of Charles II.
It seems likely that the builders of the secondary cairn
were of broadly the same heritage, and wanted to
carry forward the work of their esteemed ancestors - but they had lost the precise knowledge to effect the most beneficial energetic layout.
I have come across this same phenomenon at other sites, including Merrivale and Monteneuf, but usually secondary stages are classically complete revisions of the previous edifice (as at Stonehenge). Here the architectural footprint has been carefully followed, but seemingly without knowledge of the 'why' of the site plan.
It is also interesting that the primary cairn has five very similar passages, while the lower cairn has six grave-shafts of varying style and length. It is as if the latter workers were using what materials were available, or were possibly experimenting with other design styles, rather than simply replicating traditional techniques.
To the south of the tumulus is an oval mound, including some large stones, which is the remains of a more typical Bronze Age passage grave. It acknowledges the informational pattern in the ground, but has been allowed to decay, perhaps because it was built of less massive masonry or simply that the culture maintaining it had passed into history.
It was astonishing to find that by late afternoon, we were the only ones left on site.
The locals probably thought we were the crazy English - and they'd be right.
Nigel Twinn
Tamar Dowsers
October 2024
3. Plouscat
The universe/information field - or whatever one likes to call it - has a remarkable way of leading you to where you need to be, rather than where you think you want to be.
About 30km west of Roscoff is the small holiday town of Plouscat. Nearby, three dolmens are situated close to the road - or at least they are according to our admittedly rather out-of-date large scale Michelin map. We had visited at least one of them before, and we set out without reservations. By lunchtime, we had found none of them - not even the one we had been to previously. Instead, we were led to the Menhir at Cam Louis. This amazing stone, standing almost 7 metres high, dates back to at least the Bronze Age.
My dowsing indicated that it had only been dragged a few metres into its current position, but that it had been set up with great precision. As one might expect, it is on a classically male site, sitting right atop crossing solar grid lines and two leys.
However, it does also incorporate two crossing, largely female energy lines, which form a classic Hamish Miller manifestation, which looks not unlike
a rather inappropriate doilly.
The menhir also stands in a Benker
box, which has doubtless helped it to reach such longevity.
It is difficult, when seen from the
east, not to compare it to a Celticised version of an Easter Island Maui (anyone dowsed one of them?).
The 'eye', 'mouth' and 'ear' were original natural imperfections in the rock, but according to my dowsing, in the 15th Century Christians tried to use these weaknesses to knock it down, to reduce the reverence of the locals towards their previous ideas about the hereafter. However, perhaps because it has always been a useful and significant day-marker for seamen, this resilient granite pillar appears to have been spared a more ignominious fate.
We did carry on looking for the passage grave on the beach, but it clearly wasn't on the agenda of the collective consciousness for that day. Instead, my wife Ros noticed a sign to a church amongst sand dunes - and before long, we were at the chapel of
St Guévroc at Plage Kermemma.
There was an immediate significant resemblance to the similar oratory chapel of
St Enodoc at Daymer Bay in north Cornwall.
Both sites had been swamped by sand - and in the case of the Breton building apparently it disappeared altogether between 1661 and 1712.
St Guévroc's was originally a hermitage, dating back to the sixth century, but dowses as not being a sacred site before that (perhaps due to the uncertain and shifting nature of the land). However, it was rediscovered at the end of the 19th century, and this is the reconstruction that we see today.
Unusually for a site of this type, there are at least a dozen dowsable underground streams flowing into or under the church - and the information board states that (if my translation is anywhere near the mark) 'Inside you can lift a trap door to find 12 marches (usually tracks, but possibly streams here), which feed into a source of water that is douce (technically sweet, but probably potable or at least salt-free in this context)'.
So, we have a known source of good water, which has been used by local farmers since palaeolithic times, but also later by a hermit named Guévroc, which in turn
becomes a little building that is subsequently swamped
by the sand dunes, but is later dug out and converted
into a rural chapel.
Outside is a mediaeval cross pillar depicting five people. It dowses as having been on the site, and probably in the church. It has clearly been moved, and dowses as having been found in the sand nearby. However, someone, in quite recent times, has plonked it smack on the ley that also runs through the altar of the church. What!
I can heartily recommend Brittany for dowsing. It has the beauty of Cornwall, the informality of Ireland, the mysticism of the pan-Celtic diaspora - and surprisingly few British tourists.
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Nigel Twinn
Tamar Dowsers
October 2024