Tamar Dowsers Newsletter
Late February 2023
 

An Ever Rolling Stream

 

Our latest talk, by TD member Helen Fox, not only introduced a new subject to the burgeoning range of dowsing opportunities, but was very well attended.  Indeed, this was the first time we had been close to 50 participants at a live event since before the pandemic.   People clearly enjoyed being in the company of fellow dowsers and there were those attending that even I hadn’t seen for quite some while.

 

Despite a few IT hitches before lunch (!), the event eventually ran almost according to plan - and it clearly generated a lot of interest in the subject of the Divine Feminine.  I am sure we will be having a more in-depth look into this layer of sensing and energy dowsing in the months ahead.

 

Well done to Helen for overcoming stage-fright and for coping with a heavy cold to make her presentation.  (See summary below)

 

And up next . . .

 

On Sunday 12th March, we will be back on screen at 2.15, with Dorset-based dowsers and landscape historians, Gary Biltcliffe and Caroline Hoare, presenting a 5-group zoom update on their latest project, which studies the long-distance energy lines from Lindisfarne to Iona.   Following the passing of Hamish Miller in 2010, several of us were left with shards of a baton to carry forward - and Gary became the standard bearer of research into linear energy features.  His Ellen/Belinus line work became an epic saga of dowsing.  Now he and Caroline are much of the way along another energetic matrix, connecting the ancient sites of eastern Northumberland with those of western Scotland.  It may seem a long way from the Tamar, or indeed from Dorset, but the story they weave is hugely relevant to the whole of the UK - and way beyond.  (See flyer below)

 

We then have another indoor event, which will doubtless be of great interest to TD members and indeed to a far wider audience.  Cornwall’s Carolyn Kennett will be talking about astro-archaeology in Kernow - and will probably also be mentioning her latest book Sites of Prehistoric Bodmin Moor (See flyer below)

 

Interesting Internet Link

 

Finally, I am grateful to TD Member, Thierry Sutter, writing to us from Paris, who spotted this piece on Yahoo.  I tried to clear copyright for printing it up, but was denied because they, too, only had it syndicated - so you will have to follow the link yourselves!   Worth a read, though.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/dowsing-facts-sceptic-science-water-090049198.html

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Twenty (+ One) Years by the Tamar

 

Having missed out on the opportunity to have a proper 20th Anniversary amid the covid restrictions and the understandable reluctance to socialise in the wake of the pandemic, it did seem to be a nice idea to at least mark the passage of time, albeit in a more muted way, this February.

 

Following a series of workshops run by local tutor, Alan Neal, throughout the mid to late 1990s, an ad hoc number of his students decided to gather into an informal self-help group, to carry on the research and to explore the local countryside together.  In essence, we are still just that.  

 

Jacki Ellis-Martin, who already ran a number of other local organisations, including the Cornwall WRVS, had some knowledge of how to set up a website - and with a name and an online presence the Tamar Dowsers emerged into the light of day in the spring of 2002.

 

While the spark was certainly lit by Alan through his excellent teaching and ever-approachable style, it soon became obvious that there was a much wider interest in the subject, both locally and nationally.  We rapidly outgrew meetings in Jacki’s front room - and through members Pete and Jenny Bousfield, we took up a periodic residence at North Hill Village Hall, which is still our de facto base.

 

In December 2005, Launceston-born dowser and then Director of the British Society of Dowsers, John Moss, invited the fledgling group to affiliate to the BSD - and the rest, as they say, is history.  During the covid years, we joined with our friends and neighbours in forming a ‘zoom collective’ - a remarkably successful and unexpected initiative that has added an extra arrow to all of our quivers.

 

Depending on how you count them, there have been over 150 events, large and small, in the last couple of decades, most of which are listed on our website www.tamar-dowsers.org    Some of these have been just a few of us enjoying a quiet stroll with our friends and our dowsing tools, while others have been much grander affairs, indoors and outdoors, with larger attendances and joint ventures with other dowsing groups and like-minded societies.

 

At the last count, we had around 70 members, paid-up or honorary - and with the last indoor event getting a live attendance back into the mid-40s it is apparent that the interest in dowsing as a craft or a calling is as strong as ever.

 

We have tried to provide a wide range of subjects and workshops to suit interests across the dowsing spectrum - from the solidly scientific to the seriously spiritual - and as many combinations of both as it has been possible to foster.  We have accepted that not all subjects or speakers will engage with all members, but at the same time, we have tried to provide something for everybody - and to respond to requests and suggestions as best we can with the resources available to us.

 

Throughout it all, we have relied on a small core of volunteers and helpers to get the show on the road, and to keep it there.  I am sure I speak for everyone involved in the group in thanking them all for their dedication and involvement.

 

We remain a co-operative in the true sense of the word.  We have a website and a bank account, but no committee structure and only nominally-decided unpaid officers.  This has been both a blessing and a curse, in equal measure, but we have survived this far.  It has enabled us to keep costs (and membership fees) to a minimum, even if the administrative side of the events has occasionally creaked at the seams.

 

Like all groups of our type, the demographic means that many of our former members have drifted away over time  - and indeed, quite a few have passed over to presumably ply their craft in other realms.  

 

I would like to acknowledge everyone who has helped the group over the last twenty-one years.  It would be invidious to try to name everyone - and I am sure I would miss someone out, but you know who you are - and I am equally sure I speak for all members, past and present, in thanking you all.

 

We have more events planned (see attached flyers) and supportive collaborations established - so, here’s hoping that there will still be a fruitful future for our group in the years ahead.

Nigel Twinn

Tamar Dowsers 

February 2023

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The Goddess in the Landscape

A talk to the Tamar Dowsers

by Helen Fox

North Hill Village Hall, February 2023

 

Just how many layers of history and experience are embedded in the landscape of what we now call Bodmin Moor?   By the inference of this talk, probably more than anyone can shake a stick at.

 

In recent years, Helen Fox has been engaged in a major project to understand, and then to map out, the influence of the divine feminine as it can be sensed in the windswept massif of central Cornwall.  It has been an epic journey, and one that shows no signs of winding down.

 

In the previous talk, Paul Gerry took a step onto the virtual bridge between science and spirituality from the materialist bank.  This session was something of an etheric mirror image - portraying the esoteric experience of the Goddess in the land, but embedding it in the hard archaeology of stones, mounds, wells and hillforts - and even in the tors themselves.

 

HF has been following this personal quest for many years.  It has been a journey that has taken her to every nook and cranny of the far south west, and it has ushered her across the Mediterranean from Egypt to Greece, and from Spain to Turkey.  It has also led her to explore the often hidden depths of the divine feminine in her adopted homeland.   

 

Helen is keen to point out that this is not a new endeavour.  Images of The Goddess date back to the earliest artefacts of human kind.  Myths, legends, stories and histories from across the globe all point to the fundamental importance of the threefold manifestation - maiden, mother and crone.   However, for the past couple of millennia, mankind has trended towards the predominance of patriarchy - and it is only in recent times that the balance between the traits associated with each of the genders has started to morph towards a more benevolent accommodation.

 

Sensing the Goddess in the Landscape is no scientific endeavour.  It is more akin to clairvoyance or mediumship.  But in Helen’s portrayal, physically dowsing the ancient sites can reveal connections between the solidly sacred and the source.  In the case of Bodmin Moor, her dowsing has led her to an appreciation that the epicentre of the divine feminine in this area is Dozmary Pool.

 

Through a series of maps, Helen explained how the tors, crosses, tumuli, water sources and upland defences are all centred on Dozmary through energy flows.  In due course, we hope to have some forays into the field to explore this concept for ourselves.

 

These ancient geosocial features become even more intriguing, when we are asked to note that they are themselves layers within layers.  The focus may be on Dozmary, but the stone circles and menhirs, burial mounds and hillforts, holy wells and churches all relate to different, if overlapping, historical time periods.  The hidden Goddess makes her presence felt in subtle but pervasive ways through the generations.

 

Each layer of cultural change also incorporates a progression through the dominance of an element  - earth, fire, air and water.

 

Helen also indicated another facet of how the timeless influence of the divine feminine manifests herself - in the built structures of successive social groups.  Those from earlier epochs are rounded forms, such as stone circles and hut circles, which contrast starkly with later layouts, where the angular and the linear are more in evidence.

 

As part of the presentation, fellow questor and researcher, Stuart Dow, orated his personal revelation - and its importance (see attachment below - in its original draft script!), which generated an impromptu round of applause from an appreciative audience. 

 

Many thanks to Helen Fox for giving this talk, which had us all thinking about the sacred sites of Kernow - both the well-known and the more obscure - in a very different light.  We hope to be able to get out in the field over the summer to have another look at some of them for ourselves.

Nigel Twinn

Tamar Dowsers

February 2023

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The Holy Axis

Gary Biltcliffe and Caroline Hoare

A Modern Grail Pilgrimage of Earth Energies

across the Neck of Britain

 

A zoom at 14.15 on Sunday, March 12th 2023 

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Gary and Caroline will present a talk about their experiences in dowsing an east-west alignment of sites across Northumberland and Scotland, which links the Holy Islands of Lindisfarne and Iona with Rosslyn Chapel and the prehistoric valley of the dead at Kilmartin. 

 

This historic line, or Holy Axis, with its accompanying male and female dragon forces, also connects medieval royal citadels, stone circles, early trade and pilgrim routes - and many sacred sanctuaries of early warrior kings, Celtic Christian saints and the Knights Templars.

 

The book of the zoom of the pilgrimage will be published in the summer of this year.

 

Zoom link to follow

 

Prehistoric Bodmin Moor

Pathways Sky and Land

 

A talk by Carolyn Kennett

 

at North Hill Village Hall

Sunday 26th March, 2023

starting at 14.15

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Bodmin Moor in Cornwall is a rich prehistoric landscape.  During the talk, we will visit a number of distinct ritual landscapes found on the moor and delve into their connectivity with the skyscape.  These locations contain stone rows, circles, burial mounds and living spaces. 

 

Alongside the solar and lunar cycle the talk will explore connectivity to other astronomical features such as the Milky Way, focusing on the possibilities of long-distance astronomically linked pathways across the moor taking into account sightlines to significant hills and tors. 

 

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Potential Forthcoming Course

 

You will see below details of a proposed course to be run by TD member, Clare Roper-Paris.

 

Although this is not a TDs event, Clare is intending to offer TD members first options - and also to offer us a discount.  

 

Please reply directly to Clare.

The Goddess Wheel: 

A Sacred Journey of Illumination and 

Reclamation of the Sacred Feminine Within.

 

With Helen Fox’s talk so resonant with an upcoming workshop that I am teaching, I would like to offer this first to the Tamar Dowsers Membership. 

 

With this in mind, and wanting to be as flexible as possible, I would like to suggest the following:

 

• I will agree the dates of the weekend workshop with participants from the TDs first, as much as I can, before booking North Hill Village Hall (which generally seems free over a weekend), which would be the likely venue.

• I am happy to book the 2 days over one weekend, or over two successive weekends, depending on what the majority prefer.

• I will discount the price of the workshop from £150 down to £120 for TD members + 1 friend.

 

Those interested are more than welcome to contact me on: croperparis@gmail.com or via mobile: 07748388731

 

The link to further details about the workshop is here:  http://www.earthanimalcommunication.co.uk/sacred-feminine-workshops/

 

A link to my recent blog about this work is here:  http://www.earthanimalcommunication.co.uk/getting-into-the-flow-of-the-great-mother-archetypes/

 

 

 

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