Elijah and I have just returned from an AMAZING adventure to Avebury and onwards to Glastonbury, returning again to Stanton Drew and Stonehenge. I can’t get enough of these places, the land is alive and vibrant and there is always a lesson to learn.

We learned many lessons at Avebury, the largest stone circle in Britain, with about 100 stones and includes two smaller stone circles contained within the main one! The henge survives as a huge circular bank and ditch, encircling an area that actually includes part of Avebury village. It’s a very sacred landscape and includes a number of other notable sites including West Kennet Long Barrow (reminding me of Dehus in Guernsey), the Sanctuary (once trees planted in a particular way, now just posts representing where they were), Silbury Hill (this huge man-mad mound, quite mysterious) and the wonderful Swallowhead Spring.

We started out at Adam and Eve, a cove on the outskirts, and little did I realise that this would begin a process of sorts. I had been feeling unusually anxious all morning, we’d had to swap hire cars as the first one didn’t have SatNav and Elijah wanted SatNav, but even with the SatNav, I kept struggling to keep with the directions, so it took us longer than it should have done to arrive at Avebury, but I later realised that this was all part of the process.

It was at the cove, I realised that I had forgotten to bring my phone charger with me and the battery of my phone is currently dying. I am on a cusp with the phone, I don’t like what phones have done to our society and how they are such an incredible distraction from being here now. I also don’t like the impact they have on my energy and 4G and WIFI flying about. So I have been contemplating ditching the phone, but felt decidedly vulnerable being in the UK and potentially not having a phone simply because of not being able to charge it. I would later discover that this was all part of the process too.

It was bitterly cold as we set out to Silbury Hill, following the muddy path all away around this incredible mound, and while it is amazing, I found it difficult to truly tune in due to the noise of all the passing cars on the A4. Like phones, I have a disdain for cars too and all they have done to the land, covering so much of it in tarmac and ugliness. And while I appreciate that they are a necessary evil I just can’t get excited about them, and even less so because of the noise they create. This would all play into the process too.

We crossed the A4 and headed up to West Kennet Long Barrow, free from the dreaded car! This place reminds me of Dehus in Guernsey, it contains 4 smaller chambers and one larger one, each has a different frequency vibration and is aligned to musical notes. We had the place to ourselves initially, and so I was able to tune in more easily, were it not for Elijah’s hangry outburst! He gets very angry when he’s hungry and so we didn’t stay as long as I might have stayed on my own, but this is always the compromise visiting these places with children!

West Kennet long barrow - not so noise up here, but very cold!

We met some lovely people, and were directed to Marlborough for a phone charger, but prior to then I was keen to get to the Swallowhead Spring, which no one could direct me to, but we found it by intuition anyway. I LOVE springs. They are magical places of water sprites and other elemental water beings and wonderful for us pitta people, in calming our energy. We had a laugh here too, not least on the cute stepping stones but also with Elijah losing his crocs in the clay and having to scramble across a dodgy wooden gate to make it across a faster flowing stream.

Then the test came. Driving into Marlborough to find a phone charger, the car started showing amber warning lights and telling me that I basically needed to park up and seek assistance. To say I went into stress mode is an understatement, this was Saturday lunchtime and the market town of Marlborough was busy and it took a while to find parking, but as luck had it I found a space (thank you magic parking fairies) in just the right place, near a shop selling chargers and a cafe where I could charge my phone and call the various helpline numbers provided by the hire car company.

But alas here the lesson. Not one of the numbers allowed me to access a real human person. In fact the offices were closed, so any break down or emergency was basically going to have to wait until Monday! I couldn’t believe it! I called for help from Ewan and my Dad back in Guernsey, because I was struggling to access the internet to look at the hire car company website for any other number, but alas even those provided just didn’t work!

Ewan suggested I call the AA but unless the matter is of upmost emergency (i.e. you’re broken down by the side of a dangerous road) you have to register your issue online! Online! Out and about, I’m not able to get online with my phone. Furthermore, I was warned that there are high call volumes and a long wait. Dad suggested counting a local garage, but where to begin? I’m unfamiliar with the area, and again, I was struggling to get online to search for someone.

So I sat there collecting myself, in major stress response at that point, face flushed, and Elijah anxious, worrying about the car I questioned my stress and realised it was more so about being out of control. I felt totally out of control. I was also agitated because my plans were being thrown and I questioned our flow and whether this trip was divinely supported after all.

Then I realised that the only option was to give the situation Reiki and let go of my plans. If we didn’t make it to Glastonbury then so be it, maybe it simply wasn’t meant to be. If we had to stay in Avebury all weekend then maybe this was how it was meant to be. Basically I let go of trying to control the weekend, and sent out a prayer for help and more Reiki to the situation. I realised we had little choice but to return to the car and see what happened next.

Needless to say after the letting go, the car behaved itself. No more warnings, and we headed back to Avebury with a huge lesson learned. Not least to let go of trying to be in control, but of seeing through the illusion of the phone - that even though it might have given me a false notion of being in control, really it offered zero help and absolutely no support. It is indeed a false notion that it helps us so - other people help and we help ourselves. But really what really helps iis digging deeper into spirit and letting the divine take the lead.

I was also reminded that it’s a dog eat dog world, and to expect anything of this is ridiculous, it simply cannot help, it’s not designed to help, it’s designed to keep us stuck in fear, so that we spend more money and waste more energy trying to stay in control of things in our effort to keep ourselves safe. A phone does not make us safe. It just gives the idea that it might help us feel safe. Safety comes from a deeper aspect of self, and is one of trust and faith. Lesson learned, and I left the phone in the car for most of the rest of the weekend, bar taking photos…

Avebury is amazing. I found it initially disorientating as cars drive through the middle of it. But the place is still very alive and attracts a lot of people, who might not know the reason they are visiting, but undoubtably leave feeing better for it. This was actually the first neolithic place I visited back in 2007, quite by chance, as a pit stop on the way back to the boat from doing the Three Peaks challenge for the Lihou Trust all those years ago. Richard Curtis introduced it to me and little did I know that it would lead me to a deep love and passion of these ancient stones and their energy.

There is another cove here (other than Adam and Eve), in the middle of one of the smaller circles. I love coves. Its a term used to describe a tightly concentrated group of large standing stones and they have a certain energy to them. I have begun to notice commonalities amongst them. I feel they are gateways setting in motion a certain experience depending on the place and what is needed, spiritually, at that time. The one at Stanton Drew is especially lovely.

Out the White Spring, and collecting our iron and calcium water - the red and white springs!

Glastonbury was as wonderful as ever, and we totally flowed with it. I dipped twice in the White Spring, met a lovely Welsh man who makes the most incredible healing wands and staffs from both wood and metal, he even gifted Elijah a wooden wand to help inspire him on his whittling journey, this with a rune inscribed too. We enjoyed the crystals shops as always, and meandering around the town, familiar now with some of the locals, and up into the Goddess Temple, with Elijah’s interestingly-timed fart in the peace of the space as we made offerings to the Goddess!

Collecting iron water at the red spring from outside Chalice Wells

We spent time at the two play areas which Elijah loves and we timed our trip up the Tor for sunset, a first, we have never done that before. The town truly held us well. We even enjoyed some kirtan and hang drums outside the White Spring and Elijah dreamed of us getting a camper van and travelling around as some of the guys hanging around the White Spring are doing. We filled up on the red iron water and the white calcium water from the red and white springs, and we felt revived by the whole experience.

We drove up to Stanton Drew again one early morning. This was amazing. Last time it had been misty so I wasn’t able to see the surrounding landscape, but on this day it was bright and clear, albeit bitterly cold again. It was bitterly cold at Stonehenge the next day too and I realised the commonality, not least in the shape of the land, but in the way the bitter wind moves through it. But that aside, both are on stunning sites.

I felt sad at Stanton Drew last time but this time it just felt great, welcoming, happy and very alive. This is the third largest complex of prehistoric standing stones in England, with three circles and three-stone ‘cove’. The Great Circle, 113 metres in diameter, is one of the largest stone circles in the country and has 26 surviving upright stones and it is believed that is part of an elaborate and important ritual site.

We had the place to ourselves, which was especially lovely, so we lay out on the cold land staring at the clouds and wondering what the place looked like all those years before…hopefully we’ve brought some of its positive energy back to Guernsey.

Yesterday we made the obligatory trip to Stonehenge. I can’t resist it. It’s not cheap, £21.70 for an adult, which interested me. In Reiki we go through 21 days of cleansing, this after Dr Usui spent 21 days meditating and fasting to access the Reiki symbols and knowledge. Twenty one is the number of change, and I don’t believe you are ever the same after visiting Stonehenge. The seven too is interesting, we talk about this in Reiki, as Dr Usui went through seven years in the Beggar city learning many lessons, and then it was time to leave, lots happens in sevens - seven days of the week, seven colours of the rainbow, seven chakras, seven deadly sins, seven main metals, and on it goes, even the seven year itch!

Stonehenge is utterly magical. I can’t put it into words. You’ll have to go visit yourself. The place is very alive and very welcoming and stands majestically. Over a million people visit each year, it’s the most popular English Heritage site, and all those million taking some of its energy back home with them - it’s like a beacon that radiates outwards through each person who visits. You can stand close to it without actually paying to go in, but Elijah loves the bus and the exhibition is worth a look too.

The irony of the whole trip, was that as much as I was resistant to the car and phone, Elijah spent a lot of time photographing and filming the car and the dashboard and the other traffic passing by, because he is obsessed by cars and loves the phone! I’m back on the bike today and the phone is staying at home, we’ll se how long that lasts.

Thanks Lije for another wonderful trip!

Love Emma xxx

Another little Mummy and Elijah pilgrimage...

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