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A Gong for the Larks – more May merriment at Merrivale
Those of you who have followed the exploits of the Dartmoor Dowsing Duo over the years will know that most years my wife, Ros, and I are keen enough (some will understandably say daft enough) to get to the stone circle at Merrivale, between Tavistock and Princetown in Devon for sunrise on 1st May (the Celtic Beltane). Despite having achieved this ridiculous feat on numerous occasions, Dartmoor dawns being what they are, we have never actually seen the sun rise!
At half past four in the morning (yes, there is such a time) it can be magical to be on the windswept slopes below Great Staple Tor. The outline of the last standing menhir of the Merrivale complex looms distantly - a dull grey upright against an even duller greyer backcloth. The larks are already up in numbers, singing into the darkness. In the southern distance the twinkling streetlamps of Plymouth are guiding home the last of the previous night’s revellers. Otherwise, all is still, quiet and hand-numbingly cold. Just the odd flash of lightning over the sea and the towering ultra-blackness of the storm clouds over the North Moor reminds us that most of mankind may be dozing and dreaming, but Gaia was very much alive and waiting to kick.
For those new to the scenario, in a nutshell we arrive on site before the advertised circle-dancing event to try to catch the energy of the understated stone circle at rest, to establish a baseline. This is easier said than done. When we first started this lark, the energy in the circle slumbered at around 14 lines of earth energy radiating from its centre. Nowadays, there are more people visiting the site, some with great sanctity, others just walking the dog or taking a few snaps to show the family back home in Norwich or Novorossiysk. All of them bring their own intent and their own energy - and the circle responds to them all.
Whilst trying not to stumble over the tussock grass in the first light of dawn, I was able to count 26 radial lines - 13 coming in and 13 going out. I then walked over, 20 paces or so, to the nearby menhir. It exhibited nine radials. Both circle and stone know me well and they now skip the getting-to-know-you stage.
At my second round of the modest megaliths, the count had risen to 41 - a silent hello - while the menhir stayed at a resolute nine. Gradually, people emerged from the gloom in little knots from different directions. Before the vanguard arrived, I managed a third circuit of the circle, now boasting 53 radials and rising like a dragon from its lair to see what else had turned up for breakfast.
People dance in swirls and spirals and sing ancient-sounding songs to the accompaniment of The Daughters of Elvin, bedecked in their green-man garments. Were it not for the dancers’ wellingtons and their beanie hats, this could be Merrie England - close your eyes and you’re almost there.
The dowser treads his well-worn path around the participants at a respectful distance. Apart from a few brief explanations as to why a retired town planner is wandering around with a couple of bits of angle iron in the moorland gloom, I am silent. The dancers sing their timeless songs, as do the larks. The radial count rises - edging up a little more slowly than in some previous years - but still reaching a peak of 77. The circle pauses. The dancers pause. The dowser pauses - only the larks carry on singing to the tableau of people way below them.
But Merrivale is a place of constant surprises. Every time I go there - and it must add up to many hundreds of times by now - I learn some thing new. Every time. Today was no different.
For the first time, local Sound Meditation Healer, Wendy Scott, had made the pre-dawn trip up from the town to join in - with her Tibetan gong. I have to lay down my cards at this stage - if I have any disquiet about this most enjoyable an uplifting start to summer, it’s that it can be a bit of a mélange of traditions - part native Celtic, part native American, part native new-age. But I have also been dowsing long enough to know that I must never pre-judge anything - and the addition of the native Tibetan to the spiritual soup had a most unexpected and quite remarkable impact on the energy of the venue.
Squeezed between the menhir and her gong, trying not to seize up completely in the biting easterly breeze, Wendy began to play - at first softly and with great resonance, then more vigorously, so that even the larks would feel the benefit. The nine-radial menhir had crept up to twelve while the main event was taking place and the energy line connecting the stone and the circle has eased gradually out from six paces to nine paces wide, but this was just a cursory nod to the dowser that something was happening. When the gong sounded out, the radial count from the stone shot up from 12 to 21 to 35 radials. In the decades that I have been coming to this site, I’ve never found anything like it. On the most energetic of summer days the radials never get much above about 15 from this stately, but rather solemn, stone. Today, it was like a thing possessed - almost jumping about with the dancers - in a static sort of way, you understand.
Part of me knows academically that sound can soothe and it can heal. Yet, I had never experienced a rise in energy from an allegedly inanimate object on quite such a scale. Wendy may have had a walk-on (well, more of a sit-in) part at the end of the event, but it was a fitting finale - and something of a dowser’s dream.
All the participants, except the larks, wended their way home or to breakfast at the welcoming Wharf Theatre. The dowser made one last circuit to sense the energy dying away again. The circle had already dropped gently to 65 radials in the gathering light. The menhir, however, was still in overdrive - still resonating with the perfect sound waves rippling out through the early morning ether.
Even as we took one last look over our shoulders, and headed towards the beckoning warmth of the car park, the energy at the standing stone was still humming hard - so brightly that you could almost see it. All energy can bring life and health - and the energy of sound clearly demands much more attention from dowsers like myself.
Nigel Twinn, Tamar Dowsers, May 1st 2011