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TREWEN - More tales of the unexpected
We had taken up the kind offer of TD members, and local course
and workshop organisers, David and Denise Lockwood, to visit their house in
Trewen - partly with a view to having a safe haven to retreat to from the January
weather.
We needn't have worried. The dowsing weather spirit was looking benevolently on our well-meaning wanderings and the whole afternoon was bathed in pale winter sunshine.
As so often transpires, the places about which you harbour few preconceptions turn out to be some of the most interesting.
To make the most of the light and warmth, David took us straight over to investigate
the nearby Trewen churchyard and holy well. Despite being easily overlooked
as a rather neglected puddle by the side of the road, the latter was indeed
a classic holy well, resplendent with textbook crossing water and earth energies.
A few yards further up the road, another small pond - described as a horse-trough
- also exhibited similar characteristics. Had this too been a holy well? Such
is the abundance of intersecting earth energies in the area, that just about
any water crossing point could be classified as 'holy' - in the well-dowsing
sense of the phrase!
The church itself is a quietly understated mystery. Situated in this village, well off the beaten track, and nestling in a typically mounded graveyard, it is about as unprepossessing as an ecclesiastical building can get. But, as we all know, what we see as the visible energy of light is just a tiny fraction of the sensible spectrum. When David had moved to the area a decade ago, he had found ten energy lines emanating from the church. This would be unusual in itself, were it not for the current presence of many more such lines. They appear to radiate in all directions and dowse as welling-up from within the building, rather than passing through it. And if that isn't strange enough, 'above' that level, the standard architectural church energy and water lines can also be felt quite clearly. Most unusual.
Indeed, there was so much interacting energy inside the church that some members felt uncomfortable and retreated to find relative peace among the tombstones. It was unclear how this energy had come to be displayed in this manner - or indeed if its generation was an ancient occurrence or a more recent event. Theories abounded concerning the unwelcome removal of an underlying barrow, burial mound or henge, the fracturing of natural geological energy by ill-conceived re-building works (about 500 years ago!) - or perhaps something even more esoteric.
Whatever the source, this site is an ideal model for those seeking to tease out one type of energy from another. The whole area, and the church building in particular, are awash with strong, clear and easily dowsable energies. If I were to take a group to test my hypothesis that 'our ability as humans to sense energies has dulled in response to being overwhelmed by myriads of types of emissions, overlaid on one another in time and space and across a vast spectrum', the energies around Trewen church would be an object lesson.
Some of the more experienced group members even had a dowsing experience of a different type, involving a couple of nearby entities, with, ultimately, a positive outcome for all concerned.
Tracing the alterations made to the building over the centuries was also of interest to many. The 'new' 15th century church appears to have been overlaid on a previous structure and then extended - in a surprisingly unsympathetic manner, from an energy perspective. The extension felt uncomfortable compared to the ambience of the smaller original - even though the two are conjoined in one undifferentiated space. A door in the north wall, which had been blocked up (a typical event in the Victorian era), may not have helped, but there seemed something more subtle and fundamental at work here.
Having absorbed about as much information and confusion as a dowser can in an hour or so, we retired to the welcoming calm of David & Denise's Innyside House Centre. As the sun set through the ancient granite quatrefoil window of their living room, we mulled over our findings and enjoyed that quintessential English feast - afternoon tea and cakes with like-minded fellow-travellers (social comment added for those reading this article this in far away places!).
Innyside House itself appears to have been a local sacred site, long before
the current village church was built a couple of hundred yards away. The energy
and water lines - and the architecture - indicate the former presence of a Celtic
Christian altar in the main room, while ley lines and the traces of a stone
row in the front garden imply a site of timeless significance.
Expect the unexpected - as they say on the X Files!
Many thanks indeed to David and Denise for making us welcome - and for providing
a (potential) shelter from the storm.
Details of the courses and workshops taking place at the Innyside House Centre, and a write-up on the history of Trewen church, will appear elsewhere on this website shortly.
Nigel Twinn
Tamar Dowsers
January 2005