March 29, 2025 • 41 mins
We've forgotten the earth is alive, and it's killing us. That was one of the title prospects my podcast host served up for today's release. Another was 'reimagining our connection to land'. They're fair hints at part 2 of this special on-location recording with the 'land whisperer', Patrick MacManaway.
ICYMI, the full episode was played more than most in its early days, but given it was a little over two and a half hours in length, I also wanted to offer it in distinct parts, for those of you who prefer to listen to it that way. I'm glad to see that, over the last couple of days, many of you were.
So we resume here where part 1 left off, arriving at the public stone circle that Patrick was pivotal in creating, by Lake Champlain in Burlington, Vermont's most populous city. It's formally called the Burlington Earth Clock. Though you'll hear far beyond the formal presentation here.
We pick it up with Patrick's own ancestral and other connections to this part of the world, going on to clarify the legend of the sanctioning of his father's work by the Pope. Then we delve into the millennia-long story of stone circles, engage with this one together, and hear about some of the changes that have happened since it was created. And we close with the extraordinary experience that shifted Patrick's focus to agriculture, before heading to our next stop. That'll be part 3, out in a couple of days.
Title image by Anthony James. For more behind the scenes, and to help keep the show on the road, become a supporting listener below.
Find more:
To hear about the transformative insight gained at Stonehenge by Lynne Kelly, co-author of Songlines, and my guest on the third most played episode on this podcast, tune into ep.92.
Lynne's co-author and curator of the incredible Songlines exhibition, Aboriginal / Irish woman Margo Neale, was on next for ep.93.
Music:
The RegenNarration playlist (music chosen by my guests).
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We start by healing any hurts that are present in
the landscape, and then we getinto communications and then, as
required, we can optimize withsound or homeopathy, or
biodynamics or radionics, etcetera, stem circles such as the
(00:20):
one we're about to see, toreally fine-tune like a musical
instrument so that the harmonicsof the space are optimum for
its currently dedicated use andpurpose.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Mm.
Perfect segue, let's go to thestone circle.
Ok, what an incrediblywonderful day we have landed on.
(00:56):
I know it's almost too good tobe true.
Not a lick of wind, puresunshine, lovely temperature.
I guess it's probably 20degrees Celsius, so 70-odd
Fahrenheit, lovely.
You know what you were justsaying there, patrick,
fascinates me on so many levels.
(01:18):
But I think immediately even ofthe scientific base, speaking
of that cognitive linear mind,although it's grappling with how
not to be limited by that too,now, isn't it?
But I guess, through that,partly the science of
epigenetics and how it's lookingat what we carry in terms of
(01:39):
those human stories andtransmissions and wounds.
Certainly, and you know, evenwhen you mentioned light, air
and sound, like getting so muchmore across the effects of light
pollution, sound pollution,what we've come to tag like this
(01:59):
, because there's just such anexcess of these things in what
we've considered good societiesto build, just flooded with
light and sound and andobviously fair whack of air
pollution too.
So it's interesting to me thatthe western field of science and
medicine seems to be cottoningon.
(02:21):
Do you interpret it like thattoo?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Cottoning on to the influence of consciousness, I
think it depends which way youlook, aj, and possibly, possibly
, which payroll you're on.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Um we, which payroll you're on?
Yeah Um we.
We had the HeisenbergUncertainty Principle and the
Double Slit Experiment in the1950s already.
That was 70 years ago now.
And uh, the observer effect andthe inevitable impact of our
(03:03):
consciousness on circumstanceand environment has sort of
remained as a curiosity and aninconvenience to science rather
than, I think, being fullyembraced and reintegrated into
our traditional awareness of theliteral and real impact of
(03:25):
intentionality, of prayer, ofsimple communications.
Maybe it's too difficult tocontrol that process.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
In some ways I wonder if indeed we shouldn't worry
too much about that, like, in asense, leave the more controlled
experiment, double blind stuff,etc.
To science.
Just don't interpret it as theultimate or only form of
(04:02):
knowledge and Just say, ok,that's what that method's
finding and this is what thismethod's finding, and you can
sort of just cross notes butdon't seek necessarily to bend
one into the other.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I think that the world is not really divided into
different sets of truths.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I think our knowledge is more concentric, and any
truth needs to include all othertruths, and so if we have a
conflict between science andexperience, then what that tells
us is our science is not anymore science but has become
(04:47):
doctrinal.
But the true spirit of scienceis to open-mindedly advance
hypotheses to attempt to explainall observable phenomena, and
the so-called science we havenow is almost more reminiscent
(05:09):
of dare.
I say the worst of the CatholicInquisition periods, where
non-believers or non-conformistsare discredited, their
influence marginalized and theirwork and laboratories destroyed
(05:33):
.
So I'm very reluctant to givethe term science or scientist to
narrow technological doctrines,whereas really if a thing is
perceived and observed reliablyand consistently over thousands
(05:55):
of years, chances are there's apony in the middle of it.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Speaking of which First Nations here I mean I
noted before with the WhiteEagle Lodge.
So, going back in your ancestry, there is this connection to
here.
I mean I don't know if it'shere here, but this continent,
turtle Island, interesting thatyou should find yourself with a
second home of sorts.
I mean, if you call it nowanother home here on Turtle
(06:22):
Island, given that ancestry, isit a connection you felt since
you've been here or experiencedin any way?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
I felt at home in Vermont as soon as I arrived
here, and it's geographically,geologically very similar to
Scotland, yes, but I think thereis also some kind of trail of
something.
A character called ChogyamTrungpa was one of the first
(06:54):
lamas out of Tibet, indeed.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
We went to Naropa University in Colorado.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
You did Well his first effort was Sammy Ling in
Scotland, and before he did thatand while he was doing that he
was a frequent visitor at myfamily's home.
I was too little to rememberanything about that, but there's
stories of going for a walkwith Trumpa and it starting to
(07:20):
rain and sitting down and Trumpadoing his thing in a six-foot
dry zone around the sitterswhile the rain passed over for
half an hour and then, once therain had gone away, they stood
up and kept walking.
This is so interesting.
(07:41):
Well, so he did Scotland, andthen he came to Vermont and he
set up Karma Choling, and thenhe went to Boulder and set up
Naropa before, I think, finallygoing up to was it?
Newfoundland?
Yeah, I can't remember.
You're right, but I've doneScotland, vermont and Boulder in
his footsteps.
So I wonder if there isn't.
(08:04):
Yes, you do wonder Threads ofconnection and resonances
between sympathetic landscapes.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
You so do wonder.
And with First Nations here,whose land are we on?
Let's start with that.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
First Nations here.
Vermont not got a good historywith that.
The people here were the Stoolof O'Hagan, Abenaki, mahican,
right there, right In theAdirondacks, on the west side of
the lake Right and then down towhere we've come from in the
south of Vermont as well, Ibelieve.
Right.
But here we have Abenakiwoodland Indians and they were
(08:43):
never recognised and a treatywas never made with them.
They were acknowledged only, Ithink, 10 years ago, under
Governor Peter Shumland's periodin office, and recognised that
they existed which is sorry butwonderful, at least something
(09:06):
that wasn't there before.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yes, yeah.
And for you, any connections inyour 40 years here?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Very few.
They mostly quietly do theirown thing, keep to themselves
because they don't havedesignated lands.
A lot of them here took Frenchnames and disappeared into the
woods Is that right?
And just sort of becameinvisible.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I think they got quite heavily Christianized to
some degree and of course thehunting and gathering and
permacultural lifestyle thatthey enjoyed is not possible now
with land ownership as it iscurrently so it's a very
important, a very sad story,yeah, and just while I think of
(09:51):
it, speaking of the christianelement, somebody told me that
your dad ended up doing work forthe pope too is that right?
Speaker 1 (10:01):
yes, uh, uh, not working directly for the Pope.
So Dad was doing his healingand mediumship around the edges
and the army was very tolerantand found it quite useful.
But he ended up as a NATO superspecialist in amphibious
(10:22):
landings and taking beachheadsNATO super specialist in
amphibious landings and takingbeachheads.
So he would be loaned aroundthe NATO countries to help train
their commando and assaultforces.
And his favourite posting,which happened three times, was
to Italy because he was big-timewhiny and foodie and that was
(10:42):
where he loved to be.
But as a visiting dignitary, uh, but technically I guess,
episcopalian church of england,yes, um, the regimental padres
didn't want to tell him hecouldn't do this in a catholic
(11:03):
country because of thecircumstance, and so, rather
than saying no, they kept.
Each time he went they passedthe buck up, uh to somebody in
higher office and on threeoccasions he got um approval
from the papal office that itwas fine, he could do his, his
healing as a visiting militaryofficer and that that wouldn't
(11:25):
upset sanctioned by the pope hewas.
He was rather tickled uh, Ithink uh at that, but it
obviously was verycircumstantial.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yes, it's interesting though, when we think about you
know you drew the analogy tothe inquisition and and you know
my upbringing, my father'sbefore me, and what we're
learning in Australia nowthrough various royal
commissions about the sordidinstitutional behaviours.
Again, bless the people amongstus, my uncle, who went with my
(11:57):
father for a while before myfather left Christian
Brotherhood.
My uncle saw it through tillhis death and did it beautifully
and affected lives.
I still hear back from peoplein Perth wow, your uncle was a
legend, you know, shaped my life.
That sort of thing.
Beautiful stuff's there andit's why people still believe in
(12:18):
it.
But, my goodness, theinstitutional abuse to levels
that you don't even want to knowabout.
They're so harrowing just toeven imagine, let alone
experience.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Why and how we do what we do is one of our deep
questions.
Horrifying what happened inAustralia, and that was one
genocidal land grab.
Scotland we had like 12.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Really.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Because we had whoever the Neolithic farmers
were.
And then they get kicked out bythe Bronze Age guys, and then
they get kicked out by the IronAge guys, and then they get
kicked out by the Romans, andthen they get kicked out by the
Vikings, and then they getkicked out by the Anglo-Saxons,
(13:14):
and then, when there's nothingbetter to do, they fight amongst
themselves over distinctions ofreligion, whether it's
Protestant, catholic or the manysects of Protestantism, and
then, finally, they burn theirown people off the land for an
agricultural revolution and putthem on ships and substitute
people for sheep.
(13:35):
So Scotland, almost more thanany nation, has perfected the
art of, you know, genocidal landgrabs.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
But what it is in our , that part of us, hey, and then
that part I mean this relatesto us all carrying indigeneity,
let's say, for want of a, of aword and the wounds of these
experiences.
I mean this is whereaustralians came from in the
first instance of settlers rightwas the uk.
Um, mine irish and english andmany others scottish, so that
(14:19):
we're connected to this and Iguess, in that sense, we share
so much, don't we?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
for the best and worst of everything, we share so
much as humans if we do, itreally is a global family, but
that the separate way, theseparation away from animism.
Looking at sustainable versusnon-sustainable cultures I speak
of this first up every time Ilecture.
(14:48):
So this is totally.
But looking at the paradigmsbetween sustainable and
non-sustainable cultures, itseems to me there's just two
things that we've gone astraywith, um.
The first is our relationshipwith time and um.
(15:09):
Sustainable cultures runcircular time, and so this is
obvious for farmers it's alwaysgoing to be spring, it's always
going to be harvesting.
It's always going to be spring,it's always going to be spring.
It's always going to beharvesting.
It's always going to be spring,it's always going to be
harvesting.
And so you're always repeatinga now moment, and every time you
do it you get it better.
Maybe we put a little morefertilizer or a little more
(15:29):
moisture or a little morecompost, or we wait a little, or
plant the rows at differentspacing.
So we're always doing the samething better, but there's
nowhere to go, there's nowhereto run, there's nowhere to hide,
it's just it's going to be nowagain.
Next time it's now, and socircular time puts you into
present moment and brings yourawareness very much into what's
(15:54):
happening around you and how torelate to it in an optimum
fashion.
Linear time puts us into adeferment pattern where we
believe that what we really wantis never going to be here now,
but it's going to be there then.
And so we chase down the roadto try and get more money, more
(16:14):
power, more sex, more notoriety,more whatever it is that our
insecurities drive us to wantmore of.
But it takes us out of the hereand now and it projects us into
some anticipated future versionof ourselves.
It also, in a linear model,holds the fantasy of eternal
(16:39):
growth, and so, as we know, ourcountry's economies are the
health is supposed to bereflective of the rate of growth
.
So the economy is healthier thefaster it's growing.
But if we walk that out and ifwe put that into a medical
context, that is, by definition,cancer.
So something that eternallygrows without, you know, being
(17:06):
matched, mirrored, integratedinto its environment, is
cancerous.
So by being on linear time andlinear economy, we've created
cancerous relationship with ourlandscape, literally.
But there's lots of differentthings we could do about that,
but it's more a question of thethinking about that.
Um, lovely classic movie.
(17:28):
Uh, groundhog day, yeah, isexactly that that's why it's the
more he has to live the sameday over and over again.
he just he gets better at ituntil he's having the best day
ever and then time starts movingfor him again.
So that's the most classiccircular time sort of exposition
(17:49):
.
And then the second thing iswhether or not we have an
awareness of the animate natureof our environment.
Environment, because if I knowthat I can change the quality
and volume and standing heightof water in a well by attention
(18:10):
and prayer, if I know that a dryspring will come back to life,
if I know that I can haveinfluence on germination rates,
biological pest management, if Iknow that I can actually have
an influence with the weather,all the questions simply
(18:33):
disappear.
It's not a question of whetherwe can do these things.
It's a question of whether wedo do these things and whether
we use them to our naturaladvantage.
And it's not a question ofhunter and gathering versus
agriculture, because we had6,500 years of fully sustainable
(18:54):
agriculture in Europe with allof the animism deeply and richly
built into it.
So it's not a question of wecan be completely sustainable
agriculturally.
Agriculture isn't anon-sustainable practice.
We practice agriculture now inmostly non-sustainable ways, but
(19:15):
that's not an agriculturalissue.
That's an issue of practice.
But again, if you're aware thatyour land is animate and
listening and responsive to you,you simply make a different set
of decisions than if you thinkit's really just a sterile petri
dish that you've got to get thechemistry right to grow the
thing on the agar plate.
(19:38):
So whatever the practice is,whatever the details on the agar
plate, so whatever thepractices, whatever the details
on the ground are, I think if wecan re-embrace circular time
and animate awareness, thenreally we've got everything that
we need because we're so cleverwith our technology.
Well-used technology fantastic,good Lord.
(20:00):
The convenience with ourtechnology.
Well used technology Fantastic,good Lord.
The convenience.
What we're doing right now?
What we're doing right now, theelectronic medium, the ability
to move around the world andshare thoughts and ideas with
each other, but the more I look,the more I'm sure really the
circular time and animateawareness, those are the things
(20:23):
that really separate us fromsustainable versus
non-sustainable.
And I'm very concerned aboutthe sort of indigenous label,
because obviously indigenousdoesn't mean anything other than
that you were born there.
We tend to have a romance ofhunter-gatherer societies versus
(20:46):
our own, but that's associatingwith agriculture, with
disconnection and landscape,which is is not at all true very
interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
for a while now it's occurred to me as almost a bit
of a chuckle that we might haveleft animistic thought, because
then by definition we'll havechosen inanimistic, like not
alive dead.
So it sort of says it itself.
It says it itself.
If we paid attention to thelanguage, but let's turn to this
(21:18):
physical manifestation.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Let's look at this physical manifestation.
Look at this physicalmanifestation.
So, um, historically,agriculture in europe starts
about six and a half thousandyears ago a little bit earlier,
I think in brittany, maybepushing back to eight thousand,
but certainly it's going in theuk by 6,500 years ago.
(21:41):
And what happens initially isthey don't seem to quite get
their land management down.
The bones after a while don'tlook so good, the teeth don't
look so good on thearchaeological record.
And then they engage in thismegalithic project of putting
(22:01):
stone circles and henges andstanding stones across the
landscape.
And as soon as they've donethat, all of a sudden the teeth
look better and the bones lookbetter, and you're finding
traded goods from far off placeswhich would suggest an excess
of food as the basis of, um, areal economy, and so when was
(22:24):
this?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
when are we talking?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
uh, we're talking.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So these things start getting built around 3000 bc,
about 5000 years ago and it'sand you know, my son again
quipped earlier this morning oh,like stonehenge.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
So yes, to an extent I mean it's the sort of yes,
well, thousands of these getbuilt across europe and they're
clearly built by farmers inservice of landscape fertility.
And significantly, a study donein the 90s in south america
kajik and um, forgettinggentleman's name, uh, stone of
(23:01):
knowledge and Plenty was thebook they wrote.
They weren't mystics or dowsers, but they saw clearly that
these stone circles werepurposeful to an agricultural
community.
So they were measuringgeomagnetism and finding always
a stronger geomagneticbackground in pyramids and stone
circles and they extrapolatedwhy this would have effect
(23:25):
anyway, one of the experimentsthey did they took indigenous
south american corn, split itinto two samples.
One half the sample went into apyramid for 72 hours before
planting and the other sampledid not, and then they got an 80
to 85 germination rate on thepyramid corn, 25 to 30 percent
(23:49):
on the non-pyramid corn.
Even rate of growth,cross-pollination with the
pyramid corn, uneven, poorgrowth on the non-pyramid corn.
Net on net they got a 300%yield increase for
pre-germination energizing oftheir seed.
(24:10):
And University of Vermont.
Some years ago the AgriculturalExtension Program did a trial
in rice growing as a potentialcrop here in Vermont dryland
rice and they gave the samesamples to five farms, one of
which was a farm that I wasworking with and we built a mini
(24:34):
stone circle and were doing allthe germination starts in there
and the other four farms in thetrial got 25% germination rate
on their rice and in the stonecircle we got a 100% germination
rate.
So other stories like that andnow on farms, stone circles,
(24:55):
australia and elsewhere, we seehow we can start to take
advantage of the energies in thelandscape.
I think a stone circle is likea magnifying glass, I think it
acts as a geomagnetic lens, andtypically the stones that are
chosen to be used are high inparamagnetism high in
(25:22):
paramagnetism, so they're actingin a sort of focusing and
concentrating way to, I think,optimally charge seeds and such
interesting this one isobviously in public park, so
this does not have an immediateagricultural purpose, although
people do bring their seeds here, particularly in springtime,
before gardening.
(25:42):
What we do do here, amongstothers, it's an open space for
the public and people use it forweddings, they use it for yoga,
they use it for kirtan, theyuse it for picnics.
It's tremendously popular andyou helped bring it in.
Yes, popular.
And you helped bring it in.
Yes, this I.
I trained in the constructionand uses of sacred space in the
(26:05):
early 90s and then a an interestgroup of 30 of us had done 10
years of these things on privateland but we wanted to bring one
to the community and so thiswas a non-profit volunteer job.
I did the location and theorientation and the basic site
(26:29):
map and then my friend IvanMacbeth chose the stones from
the quarries and supervised theinstallation and we had
landscapers and all kinds ofhelp doing it and the city was
the city was up for it.
They lent us equipment.
We had an opening ceremony,cutting the ribbon, with the
mayor giving it to the cityofficially.
(26:51):
So this is cool.
I wouldn't have necessarilytaken that for granted we called
it an educational artsinstallation, and so we we use
neutral language about it.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
That didn't make anybody uh worried yeah, um, and
is there a particular way weshould engage with it now?
Speaker 1 (27:10):
so if we step into the middle here, we've called it
an earth clock.
So it works in two ways.
Firstly, this is what's calledan analemic sundial, which means
that you're the gnomon, andbecause the elevation of the sun
changes through the year, youneed to move where you stand.
(27:31):
So you can see it's marked outmonth by month.
So we're about September 1st.
So if I stand at September 1stI can see that this is saying
I'm just a little bit beforenoon solar time and we're on
eastern summertime.
So the time actually is, by ourclocks, 12.30 by our clocks.
(27:56):
There we go, so that's fun.
And then what's happening here,also marked out on the stone, is
that these five stones showwhere the sun sets on the
mountain ridge behind the lakeas the year goes on.
So it sets this one at wintersolstice and then this one is
(28:21):
1st of February, spring equinox,march 21st, beginning of May,
midsummer solstice, and it comesback.
So beginning of August,september 21st, beginning of
November and back to winter.
So this gives us the pendulumswing of the sun through the
year and it's supposed to work.
(28:43):
For a 5 foot 8 person, I thinkthat the the sun just sits like
a candle flame on top of theseon the horizon at those times.
So it's plugged into itsastronomical environment.
This stone is aligned to thedeepest point in the lake to
honor our lake monster champ,and then this one with a square
(29:08):
profile is aligned to anoriginal abenaki sacred site on
ilamot, further up the lake.
This is north and then this issouth.
Okay, and these ones are allthen at 30 degrees intervals,
which allows astronomicalobservation.
(29:28):
30 degrees is our way generallyof dividing up the time.
So the idea of this, we put itin as a peace park under a
banner of circles for peace, forpeace based on the
(29:50):
understanding that, by thesimple witness of the cycles and
rhythms, of nature.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Inner peace is restored in the observer.
So it's almost what you'resaying before time and animate
time thinking yeah, there youare we did have.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Every year we have a lake blessing at midsummer.
This is a very shallowlyshelving sandy beach.
You can walk a long way outbefore you get waist deep.
So with the Green Mountain,druid Order and various anybody
who wants to come midsummer, webring a great cauldron of water
(30:25):
and we put it here and thenthere's singing and dancing and
blessing and petals, and thenthe cauldron gets carried and
poured back into the lake.
And on one occasion, uh, manyyears ago now, uh, dr remoto was
with us and did before andafter photographs of that really
(30:46):
, and that all worked just theway.
It was with us and did beforeand after photographs of that,
and that all worked just the wayit was supposed to.
And also at the time we weregetting algal blooms on the lake
, I think primarily because ofnitrogen fertilizer runoff from
agricultural land.
But once we started blessingthe lake, the algae all went
away and we were really we wereallowed to go and swim again.
(31:09):
That's interesting.
They were also cutting back onthe fertilizers and the city was
managing water runoff and butglad to hear it.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
It was because an alternative response would be oh
, let's pump the nitrogen.
If you're going to clear it, noworries well it all works
together yeah, yeah, good,ideally, um, you know it was
visiting stonehenge that causedan australian researcher by the
name of ling kelly toinvestigate the song lines in
(31:43):
australia she's an austAustralian and then in other
parts of the world effectivelythe same sort of methodology and
she ended up writing a bookcalled the Something Code.
I remember her because shewrote a book called Songlines
with an Aboriginal woman and itwas amazing and it's become like
the second or third mostpopular podcast ever as well.
(32:05):
Just seeing the similaritiesand overlaps yes, again, over
the thousands of years that youwere describing.
Yeah, everywhere.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Now on the pilgrimage routes, the song lines of
Europe.
Henry VIII bans pilgrimage.
Is that right?
Earmarks people so that theycan be identified if they're
going out of county.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
It's interesting how power has occasionally done that
.
Yet we're talking about thearmies, that power when they
feel the utility, or even forthe same reasons, perhaps for
power.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I think that's the thing.
Yes, once you realise you'vegot some kind of power, do you
concentrate that and manipulateit, or do you share that for
community benefit?
Speaker 2 (32:59):
The age-old mythological story as well.
So for you, then, you've endedup so involved with agriculture.
I can imagine the link betweenwhat you were realizing before
to that, but how did it actuallyhappen?
How did you get so linked toagriculture?
Speaker 1 (33:18):
yes, I think it was probably always in my stars, aj.
Uh, probably literally, myparents had my astrological
chart done as soon as I was born.
Probably always in my stars, aj.
Probably literally, my parentshad my astrological chart done
as soon as I was born.
Those kinds of parents, and atthe end the astrologist's
comment is I can't tell whetherthis child will become a doctor
or a farmer.
(33:39):
So I kind of reckon I was bornto do something like this.
Yeah, I reckon I was born to dosomething like this A hybrid
yeah.
In circumstance.
What I realise now is mum wasreally really really good at
talking to plants and animalsand landscape in ways that I so
took for granted that I didn'treally see it happening and
(34:03):
negotiating with the birds whichtrees in the orchard they could
take and which they needed toleave, and no rabbits or moles
dared venture into our garden.
But for me I was more on ahuman health, environmental
trail.
But what happened was over thefirst 10, 15 years of my
(34:29):
practice I was getting all thisfeedback.
When I got somebody's homespace nicely clear and tuned up
and balanced, then they wouldtell me, and the cherry
blossomed for the first time andwe got fruit off the apple for
the first time, and all of asudden the chickens are laying
(34:50):
eggs like they've never laidbefore.
And so, even working withdomestic, I was getting more and
more feedback on the animal andplant impacts of the work.
And then here in Vermont, ofthe work, and then here in
Vermont, farmers who came ondowsing workshops started asking
me to work on their properties,and the first ones were dairy
(35:16):
farms.
I think the very first one wasa dairy farm and then as soon as
I worked on the farm, they wonBest Milk Award in Vermont and I
think they got it seven yearsin a row.
Wow, do you want to drop a name?
Probably for clientconfidentiality.
(35:38):
Okay, that'll need to remainanecdotal, but I saw the impact
on on dairy of working and thenrealized that that was one of
the most common things thatdowsers do in germany is to work
with dairy herds, because cowsare very sensitive to
environment, and if they'regetting mastitis or low
(36:01):
fertility or difficulty withcalving, that's one of the first
places that you would look tosee and check whether there was,
particularly if it's, uh,isolated to one part of the farm
.
More and more, uh, even here invermont, cattle are mostly
(36:22):
living indoors and the forage isbrought in to them as hay or
silage, so they don't reallyhave so much capacity to move
around, and if you put them inan atmosphere that isn't good
for them, then it'll showconsequential.
So I got working with dairy moreand more and then I had an
(36:44):
opportunity to work with a mixedarable farm in Scotland over a
number of years and did a lot ofexperimentation.
And then gradually word got outand I started publishing
results and that was what cameto RCS's attention.
There you go.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Should we walk back?
Yeah, so yeah, walking backalong the lake here now back
towards the car to go to ournext destination.
It just occurred to me you knowwhat you were saying before as
we look out on the lake and youcomment on how great it is for
kids because it's so shallow,and and then I thought, oh yeah,
and if it's getting cleaner,awesome.
And then I thought there'sanother story of something
(37:23):
getting better and there's somany stories of things getting
better.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Everywhere, everywhere.
So much positive energy, somuch positive intention.
I think people are hungry for alife of soul.
Frankly, I think that's perhapspart of what's happened.
We talked about circularconsciousness and animism, but
(37:50):
it applies also to ourselves.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
yes, so so much deep desire to live in ways that
satisfy and fulfill and allow usto be truly an integrated part
of the family of things yetthere's this other narrative
(38:15):
which sort of has its own aspiral that gets sort of more
worked up and more worked up,and I'm and I'm talking from
very genuine care and concern tomany people.
I know that see the climatecrisis and the biodiversity and
then Gaza, and they might arguehere, if they're with us, that
they are bigger forces than thespots we're observing where
(38:39):
stuff's getting better.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (38:57):
I think, historically , we've always had an element in
humanity that seeks to dominateand control and concentrate
power.
Whether it's Chinese emperorsor Genghis Khan or Alexander the
Great, or fill in thehistorical details we seem
always to have been perhapsmoved by a sense of scarcity and
(39:18):
moving towards what we conceiveof as a more secure future for
our family and tribe andcommunity.
So whether it's any differentor worse now than it ever was,
I'm not sure, or whether thenames have simply changed, but
I'm very encouraged.
And actually, in terms of thephysics of consciousness, when
(39:42):
we're in a grace state, whenwe're in an unconditional love
state, our electrocardiographicand electroencephalographic
spectrum analysis showsincreasingly rich golden ratio
proportion wavelengths within it, and the golden ratio is a
(40:07):
proportion where waves meet eachother without creating
disturbance or diffraction.
Any other proportion of waveinterface creates distortional
patterns when they come together, but golden ratio allows waves
to stand and sustain in thepresence of others.
The point of that is that it'sthe most efficient way of
(40:36):
propagating energy, and so love,in fact, is a more efficient
waveform than fear and hatred.
And so if you were to go poundsper square inch, pounds per
square inch, with equalintensity, love always wins over
(40:56):
fear and hate, because it'sactually a more efficient and
sustainable waveform, and so I'mreassured that the hobbits will
always ultimately win out overthe forces of Sauron, because
their simple, wholehearted loveis ultimately indomitable.
(41:18):
And I'd like to observe thatthe hobbits were the peaceful
farmers and they were justtrying to keep things nice in
the shower, and so all of thetrouble around them with the
great and mighty was like astorm that washed through, and
then they went back to growingvegetables and smoking their
(41:41):
tobacco brilliant.
On that note, let's head to ournext stop, ok, okay, so I'm
going to take you next to awoodland labyrinth.
We start by healing any hurts that are present in
the landscape, and then we getinto communications and then, as
required, we can optimize withsound or homeopathy, or
biodynamics or radionics, etcetera, stem circles such as the
(00:20):
one we're about to see, toreally fine-tune like a musical
instrument so that the harmonicsof the space are optimum for
its currently dedicated use andpurpose.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Mm.
Perfect segue, let's go to thestone circle.
Ok, what an incrediblywonderful day we have landed on.
(00:56):
I know it's almost too good tobe true.
Not a lick of wind, puresunshine, lovely temperature.
I guess it's probably 20degrees Celsius, so 70-odd
Fahrenheit, lovely.
You know what you were justsaying there, patrick,
fascinates me on so many levels.
(01:18):
But I think immediately even ofthe scientific base, speaking
of that cognitive linear mind,although it's grappling with how
not to be limited by that too,now, isn't it?
But I guess, through that,partly the science of
epigenetics and how it's lookingat what we carry in terms of
(01:39):
those human stories andtransmissions and wounds.
Certainly, and you know, evenwhen you mentioned light, air
and sound, like getting so muchmore across the effects of light
pollution, sound pollution,what we've come to tag like this
(01:59):
, because there's just such anexcess of these things in what
we've considered good societiesto build, just flooded with
light and sound and andobviously fair whack of air
pollution too.
So it's interesting to me thatthe western field of science and
medicine seems to be cottoningon.
(02:21):
Do you interpret it like thattoo?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Cottoning on to the influence of consciousness, I
think it depends which way youlook, aj, and possibly, possibly
, which payroll you're on.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Um we, which payroll you're on?
Yeah Um we.
We had the HeisenbergUncertainty Principle and the
Double Slit Experiment in the1950s already.
That was 70 years ago now.
And uh, the observer effect andthe inevitable impact of our
(03:03):
consciousness on circumstanceand environment has sort of
remained as a curiosity and aninconvenience to science rather
than, I think, being fullyembraced and reintegrated into
our traditional awareness of theliteral and real impact of
(03:25):
intentionality, of prayer, ofsimple communications.
Maybe it's too difficult tocontrol that process.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
In some ways I wonder if indeed we shouldn't worry
too much about that, like, in asense, leave the more controlled
experiment, double blind stuff,etc.
To science.
Just don't interpret it as theultimate or only form of
(04:02):
knowledge and Just say, ok,that's what that method's
finding and this is what thismethod's finding, and you can
sort of just cross notes butdon't seek necessarily to bend
one into the other.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I think that the world is not really divided into
different sets of truths.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
I think our knowledge is more concentric, and any
truth needs to include all othertruths, and so if we have a
conflict between science andexperience, then what that tells
us is our science is not anymore science but has become
(04:47):
doctrinal.
But the true spirit of scienceis to open-mindedly advance
hypotheses to attempt to explainall observable phenomena, and
the so-called science we havenow is almost more reminiscent
(05:09):
of dare.
I say the worst of the CatholicInquisition periods, where
non-believers or non-conformistsare discredited, their
influence marginalized and theirwork and laboratories destroyed
(05:33):
.
So I'm very reluctant to givethe term science or scientist to
narrow technological doctrines,whereas really if a thing is
perceived and observed reliablyand consistently over thousands
(05:55):
of years, chances are there's apony in the middle of it.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Speaking of which First Nations here I mean I
noted before with the WhiteEagle Lodge.
So, going back in your ancestry, there is this connection to
here.
I mean I don't know if it'shere here, but this continent,
turtle Island, interesting thatyou should find yourself with a
second home of sorts.
I mean, if you call it nowanother home here on Turtle
(06:22):
Island, given that ancestry, isit a connection you felt since
you've been here or experiencedin any way?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
I felt at home in Vermont as soon as I arrived
here, and it's geographically,geologically very similar to
Scotland, yes, but I think thereis also some kind of trail of
something.
A character called ChogyamTrungpa was one of the first
(06:54):
lamas out of Tibet, indeed.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
We went to Naropa University in Colorado.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
You did Well his first effort was Sammy Ling in
Scotland, and before he did thatand while he was doing that he
was a frequent visitor at myfamily's home.
I was too little to rememberanything about that, but there's
stories of going for a walkwith Trumpa and it starting to
(07:20):
rain and sitting down and Trumpadoing his thing in a six-foot
dry zone around the sitterswhile the rain passed over for
half an hour and then, once therain had gone away, they stood
up and kept walking.
This is so interesting.
(07:41):
Well, so he did Scotland, andthen he came to Vermont and he
set up Karma Choling, and thenhe went to Boulder and set up
Naropa before, I think, finallygoing up to was it?
Newfoundland?
Yeah, I can't remember.
You're right, but I've doneScotland, vermont and Boulder in
his footsteps.
So I wonder if there isn't.
(08:04):
Yes, you do wonder Threads ofconnection and resonances
between sympathetic landscapes.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
You so do wonder.
And with First Nations here,whose land are we on?
Let's start with that.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
First Nations here.
Vermont not got a good historywith that.
The people here were the Stoolof O'Hagan, Abenaki, mahican,
right there, right In theAdirondacks, on the west side of
the lake Right and then down towhere we've come from in the
south of Vermont as well, Ibelieve.
Right.
But here we have Abenakiwoodland Indians and they were
(08:43):
never recognised and a treatywas never made with them.
They were acknowledged only, Ithink, 10 years ago, under
Governor Peter Shumland's periodin office, and recognised that
they existed which is sorry butwonderful, at least something
(09:06):
that wasn't there before.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yes, yeah.
And for you, any connections inyour 40 years here?
Speaker 1 (09:13):
Very few.
They mostly quietly do theirown thing, keep to themselves
because they don't havedesignated lands.
A lot of them here took Frenchnames and disappeared into the
woods Is that right?
And just sort of becameinvisible.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
I think they got quite heavily Christianized to
some degree and of course thehunting and gathering and
permacultural lifestyle thatthey enjoyed is not possible now
with land ownership as it iscurrently so it's a very
important, a very sad story,yeah, and just while I think of
(09:51):
it, speaking of the christianelement, somebody told me that
your dad ended up doing work forthe pope too is that right?
Speaker 1 (10:01):
yes, uh, uh, not working directly for the Pope.
So Dad was doing his healingand mediumship around the edges
and the army was very tolerantand found it quite useful.
But he ended up as a NATO superspecialist in amphibious
(10:22):
landings and taking beachheadsNATO super specialist in
amphibious landings and takingbeachheads.
So he would be loaned aroundthe NATO countries to help train
their commando and assaultforces.
And his favourite posting,which happened three times, was
to Italy because he was big-timewhiny and foodie and that was
(10:42):
where he loved to be.
But as a visiting dignitary, uh, but technically I guess,
episcopalian church of england,yes, um, the regimental padres
didn't want to tell him hecouldn't do this in a catholic
(11:03):
country because of thecircumstance, and so, rather
than saying no, they kept.
Each time he went they passedthe buck up, uh to somebody in
higher office and on threeoccasions he got um approval
from the papal office that itwas fine, he could do his, his
healing as a visiting militaryofficer and that that wouldn't
(11:25):
upset sanctioned by the pope hewas.
He was rather tickled uh, Ithink uh at that, but it
obviously was verycircumstantial.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yes, it's interesting though, when we think about you
know you drew the analogy tothe inquisition and and you know
my upbringing, my father'sbefore me, and what we're
learning in Australia nowthrough various royal
commissions about the sordidinstitutional behaviours.
Again, bless the people amongstus, my uncle, who went with my
(11:57):
father for a while before myfather left Christian
Brotherhood.
My uncle saw it through tillhis death and did it beautifully
and affected lives.
I still hear back from peoplein Perth wow, your uncle was a
legend, you know, shaped my life.
That sort of thing.
Beautiful stuff's there andit's why people still believe in
(12:18):
it.
But, my goodness, theinstitutional abuse to levels
that you don't even want to knowabout.
They're so harrowing just toeven imagine, let alone
experience.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Why and how we do what we do is one of our deep
questions.
Horrifying what happened inAustralia, and that was one
genocidal land grab.
Scotland we had like 12.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Really.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Because we had whoever the Neolithic farmers
were.
And then they get kicked out bythe Bronze Age guys, and then
they get kicked out by the IronAge guys, and then they get
kicked out by the Romans, andthen they get kicked out by the
Vikings, and then they getkicked out by the Anglo-Saxons,
(13:14):
and then, when there's nothingbetter to do, they fight amongst
themselves over distinctions ofreligion, whether it's
Protestant, catholic or the manysects of Protestantism, and
then, finally, they burn theirown people off the land for an
agricultural revolution and putthem on ships and substitute
people for sheep.
(13:35):
So Scotland, almost more thanany nation, has perfected the
art of, you know, genocidal landgrabs.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
But what it is in our , that part of us, hey, and then
that part I mean this relatesto us all carrying indigeneity,
let's say, for want of a, of aword and the wounds of these
experiences.
I mean this is whereaustralians came from in the
first instance of settlers rightwas the uk.
Um, mine irish and english andmany others scottish, so that
(14:19):
we're connected to this and Iguess, in that sense, we share
so much, don't we?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
for the best and worst of everything, we share so
much as humans if we do, itreally is a global family, but
that the separate way, theseparation away from animism.
Looking at sustainable versusnon-sustainable cultures I speak
of this first up every time Ilecture.
(14:48):
So this is totally.
But looking at the paradigmsbetween sustainable and
non-sustainable cultures, itseems to me there's just two
things that we've gone astraywith, um.
The first is our relationshipwith time and um.
(15:09):
Sustainable cultures runcircular time, and so this is
obvious for farmers it's alwaysgoing to be spring, it's always
going to be harvesting.
It's always going to be spring,it's always going to be spring.
It's always going to beharvesting.
It's always going to be spring,it's always going to be
harvesting.
And so you're always repeatinga now moment, and every time you
do it you get it better.
Maybe we put a little morefertilizer or a little more
(15:29):
moisture or a little morecompost, or we wait a little, or
plant the rows at differentspacing.
So we're always doing the samething better, but there's
nowhere to go, there's nowhereto run, there's nowhere to hide,
it's just it's going to be nowagain.
Next time it's now, and socircular time puts you into
present moment and brings yourawareness very much into what's
(15:54):
happening around you and how torelate to it in an optimum
fashion.
Linear time puts us into adeferment pattern where we
believe that what we really wantis never going to be here now,
but it's going to be there then.
And so we chase down the roadto try and get more money, more
(16:14):
power, more sex, more notoriety,more whatever it is that our
insecurities drive us to wantmore of.
But it takes us out of the hereand now and it projects us into
some anticipated future versionof ourselves.
It also, in a linear model,holds the fantasy of eternal
(16:39):
growth, and so, as we know, ourcountry's economies are the
health is supposed to bereflective of the rate of growth
.
So the economy is healthier thefaster it's growing.
But if we walk that out and ifwe put that into a medical
context, that is, by definition,cancer.
So something that eternallygrows without, you know, being
(17:06):
matched, mirrored, integratedinto its environment, is
cancerous.
So by being on linear time andlinear economy, we've created
cancerous relationship with ourlandscape, literally.
But there's lots of differentthings we could do about that,
but it's more a question of thethinking about that.
Um, lovely classic movie.
(17:28):
Uh, groundhog day, yeah, isexactly that that's why it's the
more he has to live the sameday over and over again.
he just he gets better at ituntil he's having the best day
ever and then time starts movingfor him again.
So that's the most classiccircular time sort of exposition
(17:49):
.
And then the second thing iswhether or not we have an
awareness of the animate natureof our environment.
Environment, because if I knowthat I can change the quality
and volume and standing heightof water in a well by attention
(18:10):
and prayer, if I know that a dryspring will come back to life,
if I know that I can haveinfluence on germination rates,
biological pest management, if Iknow that I can actually have
an influence with the weather,all the questions simply
(18:33):
disappear.
It's not a question of whetherwe can do these things.
It's a question of whether wedo do these things and whether
we use them to our naturaladvantage.
And it's not a question ofhunter and gathering versus
agriculture, because we had6,500 years of fully sustainable
(18:54):
agriculture in Europe with allof the animism deeply and richly
built into it.
So it's not a question of wecan be completely sustainable
agriculturally.
Agriculture isn't anon-sustainable practice.
We practice agriculture now inmostly non-sustainable ways, but
(19:15):
that's not an agriculturalissue.
That's an issue of practice.
But again, if you're aware thatyour land is animate and
listening and responsive to you,you simply make a different set
of decisions than if you thinkit's really just a sterile petri
dish that you've got to get thechemistry right to grow the
thing on the agar plate.
(19:38):
So whatever the practice is,whatever the details on the agar
plate, so whatever thepractices, whatever the details
on the ground are, I think if wecan re-embrace circular time
and animate awareness, thenreally we've got everything that
we need because we're so cleverwith our technology.
Well-used technology fantastic,good Lord.
(20:00):
The convenience with ourtechnology.
Well used technology Fantastic,good Lord.
The convenience.
What we're doing right now?
What we're doing right now, theelectronic medium, the ability
to move around the world andshare thoughts and ideas with
each other, but the more I look,the more I'm sure really the
circular time and animateawareness, those are the things
(20:23):
that really separate us fromsustainable versus
non-sustainable.
And I'm very concerned aboutthe sort of indigenous label,
because obviously indigenousdoesn't mean anything other than
that you were born there.
We tend to have a romance ofhunter-gatherer societies versus
(20:46):
our own, but that's associatingwith agriculture, with
disconnection and landscape,which is is not at all true very
interesting.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
for a while now it's occurred to me as almost a bit
of a chuckle that we might haveleft animistic thought, because
then by definition we'll havechosen inanimistic, like not
alive dead.
So it sort of says it itself.
It says it itself.
If we paid attention to thelanguage, but let's turn to this
(21:18):
physical manifestation.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Let's look at this physical manifestation.
Look at this physicalmanifestation.
So, um, historically,agriculture in europe starts
about six and a half thousandyears ago a little bit earlier,
I think in brittany, maybepushing back to eight thousand,
but certainly it's going in theuk by 6,500 years ago.
(21:41):
And what happens initially isthey don't seem to quite get
their land management down.
The bones after a while don'tlook so good, the teeth don't
look so good on thearchaeological record.
And then they engage in thismegalithic project of putting
(22:01):
stone circles and henges andstanding stones across the
landscape.
And as soon as they've donethat, all of a sudden the teeth
look better and the bones lookbetter, and you're finding
traded goods from far off placeswhich would suggest an excess
of food as the basis of, um, areal economy, and so when was
(22:24):
this?
Speaker 2 (22:24):
when are we talking?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
uh, we're talking.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So these things start getting built around 3000 bc,
about 5000 years ago and it'sand you know, my son again
quipped earlier this morning oh,like stonehenge.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
So yes, to an extent I mean it's the sort of yes,
well, thousands of these getbuilt across europe and they're
clearly built by farmers inservice of landscape fertility.
And significantly, a study donein the 90s in south america
kajik and um, forgettinggentleman's name, uh, stone of
(23:01):
knowledge and Plenty was thebook they wrote.
They weren't mystics or dowsers, but they saw clearly that
these stone circles werepurposeful to an agricultural
community.
So they were measuringgeomagnetism and finding always
a stronger geomagneticbackground in pyramids and stone
circles and they extrapolatedwhy this would have effect
(23:25):
anyway, one of the experimentsthey did they took indigenous
south american corn, split itinto two samples.
One half the sample went into apyramid for 72 hours before
planting and the other sampledid not, and then they got an 80
to 85 germination rate on thepyramid corn, 25 to 30 percent
(23:49):
on the non-pyramid corn.
Even rate of growth,cross-pollination with the
pyramid corn, uneven, poorgrowth on the non-pyramid corn.
Net on net they got a 300%yield increase for
pre-germination energizing oftheir seed.
(24:10):
And University of Vermont.
Some years ago the AgriculturalExtension Program did a trial
in rice growing as a potentialcrop here in Vermont dryland
rice and they gave the samesamples to five farms, one of
which was a farm that I wasworking with and we built a mini
(24:34):
stone circle and were doing allthe germination starts in there
and the other four farms in thetrial got 25% germination rate
on their rice and in the stonecircle we got a 100% germination
rate.
So other stories like that andnow on farms, stone circles,
(24:55):
australia and elsewhere, we seehow we can start to take
advantage of the energies in thelandscape.
I think a stone circle is likea magnifying glass, I think it
acts as a geomagnetic lens, andtypically the stones that are
chosen to be used are high inparamagnetism high in
(25:22):
paramagnetism, so they're actingin a sort of focusing and
concentrating way to, I think,optimally charge seeds and such
interesting this one isobviously in public park, so
this does not have an immediateagricultural purpose, although
people do bring their seeds here, particularly in springtime,
before gardening.
(25:42):
What we do do here, amongstothers, it's an open space for
the public and people use it forweddings, they use it for yoga,
they use it for kirtan, theyuse it for picnics.
It's tremendously popular andyou helped bring it in.
Yes, popular.
And you helped bring it in.
Yes, this I.
I trained in the constructionand uses of sacred space in the
(26:05):
early 90s and then a an interestgroup of 30 of us had done 10
years of these things on privateland but we wanted to bring one
to the community and so thiswas a non-profit volunteer job.
I did the location and theorientation and the basic site
(26:29):
map and then my friend IvanMacbeth chose the stones from
the quarries and supervised theinstallation and we had
landscapers and all kinds ofhelp doing it and the city was
the city was up for it.
They lent us equipment.
We had an opening ceremony,cutting the ribbon, with the
mayor giving it to the cityofficially.
(26:51):
So this is cool.
I wouldn't have necessarilytaken that for granted we called
it an educational artsinstallation, and so we we use
neutral language about it.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
That didn't make anybody uh worried yeah, um, and
is there a particular way weshould engage with it now?
Speaker 1 (27:10):
so if we step into the middle here, we've called it
an earth clock.
So it works in two ways.
Firstly, this is what's calledan analemic sundial, which means
that you're the gnomon, andbecause the elevation of the sun
changes through the year, youneed to move where you stand.
(27:31):
So you can see it's marked outmonth by month.
So we're about September 1st.
So if I stand at September 1stI can see that this is saying
I'm just a little bit beforenoon solar time and we're on
eastern summertime.
So the time actually is, by ourclocks, 12.30 by our clocks.
(27:56):
There we go, so that's fun.
And then what's happening here,also marked out on the stone, is
that these five stones showwhere the sun sets on the
mountain ridge behind the lakeas the year goes on.
So it sets this one at wintersolstice and then this one is
(28:21):
1st of February, spring equinox,march 21st, beginning of May,
midsummer solstice, and it comesback.
So beginning of August,september 21st, beginning of
November and back to winter.
So this gives us the pendulumswing of the sun through the
year and it's supposed to work.
(28:43):
For a 5 foot 8 person, I thinkthat the the sun just sits like
a candle flame on top of theseon the horizon at those times.
So it's plugged into itsastronomical environment.
This stone is aligned to thedeepest point in the lake to
honor our lake monster champ,and then this one with a square
(29:08):
profile is aligned to anoriginal abenaki sacred site on
ilamot, further up the lake.
This is north and then this issouth.
Okay, and these ones are allthen at 30 degrees intervals,
which allows astronomicalobservation.
(29:28):
30 degrees is our way generallyof dividing up the time.
So the idea of this, we put itin as a peace park under a
banner of circles for peace, forpeace based on the
(29:50):
understanding that, by thesimple witness of the cycles and
rhythms, of nature.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
Inner peace is restored in the observer.
So it's almost what you'resaying before time and animate
time thinking yeah, there youare we did have.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Every year we have a lake blessing at midsummer.
This is a very shallowlyshelving sandy beach.
You can walk a long way outbefore you get waist deep.
So with the Green Mountain,druid Order and various anybody
who wants to come midsummer, webring a great cauldron of water
(30:25):
and we put it here and thenthere's singing and dancing and
blessing and petals, and thenthe cauldron gets carried and
poured back into the lake.
And on one occasion, uh, manyyears ago now, uh, dr remoto was
with us and did before andafter photographs of that really
(30:46):
, and that all worked just theway.
It was with us and did beforeand after photographs of that,
and that all worked just the wayit was supposed to.
And also at the time we weregetting algal blooms on the lake
, I think primarily because ofnitrogen fertilizer runoff from
agricultural land.
But once we started blessingthe lake, the algae all went
away and we were really we wereallowed to go and swim again.
(31:09):
That's interesting.
They were also cutting back onthe fertilizers and the city was
managing water runoff and butglad to hear it.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
It was because an alternative response would be oh
, let's pump the nitrogen.
If you're going to clear it, noworries well it all works
together yeah, yeah, good,ideally, um, you know it was
visiting stonehenge that causedan australian researcher by the
name of ling kelly toinvestigate the song lines in
(31:43):
australia she's an austAustralian and then in other
parts of the world effectivelythe same sort of methodology and
she ended up writing a bookcalled the Something Code.
I remember her because shewrote a book called Songlines
with an Aboriginal woman and itwas amazing and it's become like
the second or third mostpopular podcast ever as well.
(32:05):
Just seeing the similaritiesand overlaps yes, again, over
the thousands of years that youwere describing.
Yeah, everywhere.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Now on the pilgrimage routes, the song lines of
Europe.
Henry VIII bans pilgrimage.
Is that right?
Earmarks people so that theycan be identified if they're
going out of county.
Speaker 2 (32:29):
It's interesting how power has occasionally done that
.
Yet we're talking about thearmies, that power when they
feel the utility, or even forthe same reasons, perhaps for
power.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
I think that's the thing.
Yes, once you realise you'vegot some kind of power, do you
concentrate that and manipulateit, or do you share that for
community benefit?
Speaker 2 (32:59):
The age-old mythological story as well.
So for you, then, you've endedup so involved with agriculture.
I can imagine the link betweenwhat you were realizing before
to that, but how did it actuallyhappen?
How did you get so linked toagriculture?
Speaker 1 (33:18):
yes, I think it was probably always in my stars, aj.
Uh, probably literally, myparents had my astrological
chart done as soon as I was born.
Probably always in my stars, aj.
Probably literally, my parentshad my astrological chart done
as soon as I was born.
Those kinds of parents, and atthe end the astrologist's
comment is I can't tell whetherthis child will become a doctor
or a farmer.
(33:39):
So I kind of reckon I was bornto do something like this.
Yeah, I reckon I was born to dosomething like this A hybrid
yeah.
In circumstance.
What I realise now is mum wasreally really really good at
talking to plants and animalsand landscape in ways that I so
took for granted that I didn'treally see it happening and
(34:03):
negotiating with the birds whichtrees in the orchard they could
take and which they needed toleave, and no rabbits or moles
dared venture into our garden.
But for me I was more on ahuman health, environmental
trail.
But what happened was over thefirst 10, 15 years of my
(34:29):
practice I was getting all thisfeedback.
When I got somebody's homespace nicely clear and tuned up
and balanced, then they wouldtell me, and the cherry
blossomed for the first time andwe got fruit off the apple for
the first time, and all of asudden the chickens are laying
(34:50):
eggs like they've never laidbefore.
And so, even working withdomestic, I was getting more and
more feedback on the animal andplant impacts of the work.
And then here in Vermont, ofthe work, and then here in
Vermont, farmers who came ondowsing workshops started asking
me to work on their properties,and the first ones were dairy
(35:16):
farms.
I think the very first one wasa dairy farm and then as soon as
I worked on the farm, they wonBest Milk Award in Vermont and I
think they got it seven yearsin a row.
Wow, do you want to drop a name?
Probably for clientconfidentiality.
(35:38):
Okay, that'll need to remainanecdotal, but I saw the impact
on on dairy of working and thenrealized that that was one of
the most common things thatdowsers do in germany is to work
with dairy herds, because cowsare very sensitive to
environment, and if they'regetting mastitis or low
(36:01):
fertility or difficulty withcalving, that's one of the first
places that you would look tosee and check whether there was,
particularly if it's, uh,isolated to one part of the farm
.
More and more, uh, even here invermont, cattle are mostly
(36:22):
living indoors and the forage isbrought in to them as hay or
silage, so they don't reallyhave so much capacity to move
around, and if you put them inan atmosphere that isn't good
for them, then it'll showconsequential.
So I got working with dairy moreand more and then I had an
(36:44):
opportunity to work with a mixedarable farm in Scotland over a
number of years and did a lot ofexperimentation.
And then gradually word got outand I started publishing
results and that was what cameto RCS's attention.
There you go.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Should we walk back?
Yeah, so yeah, walking backalong the lake here now back
towards the car to go to ournext destination.
It just occurred to me you knowwhat you were saying before as
we look out on the lake and youcomment on how great it is for
kids because it's so shallow,and and then I thought, oh yeah,
and if it's getting cleaner,awesome.
And then I thought there'sanother story of something
(37:23):
getting better and there's somany stories of things getting
better.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Everywhere, everywhere.
So much positive energy, somuch positive intention.
I think people are hungry for alife of soul.
Frankly, I think that's perhapspart of what's happened.
We talked about circularconsciousness and animism, but
(37:50):
it applies also to ourselves.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
yes, so so much deep desire to live in ways that
satisfy and fulfill and allow usto be truly an integrated part
of the family of things yetthere's this other narrative
(38:15):
which sort of has its own aspiral that gets sort of more
worked up and more worked up,and I'm and I'm talking from
very genuine care and concern tomany people.
I know that see the climatecrisis and the biodiversity and
then Gaza, and they might arguehere, if they're with us, that
they are bigger forces than thespots we're observing where
(38:39):
stuff's getting better.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (38:57):
I think, historically , we've always had an element in
humanity that seeks to dominateand control and concentrate
power.
Whether it's Chinese emperorsor Genghis Khan or Alexander the
Great, or fill in thehistorical details we seem
always to have been perhapsmoved by a sense of scarcity and
(39:18):
moving towards what we conceiveof as a more secure future for
our family and tribe andcommunity.
So whether it's any differentor worse now than it ever was,
I'm not sure, or whether thenames have simply changed, but
I'm very encouraged.
And actually, in terms of thephysics of consciousness, when
(39:42):
we're in a grace state, whenwe're in an unconditional love
state, our electrocardiographicand electroencephalographic
spectrum analysis showsincreasingly rich golden ratio
proportion wavelengths within it, and the golden ratio is a
(40:07):
proportion where waves meet eachother without creating
disturbance or diffraction.
Any other proportion of waveinterface creates distortional
patterns when they come together, but golden ratio allows waves
to stand and sustain in thepresence of others.
The point of that is that it'sthe most efficient way of
(40:36):
propagating energy, and so love,in fact, is a more efficient
waveform than fear and hatred.
And so if you were to go poundsper square inch, pounds per
square inch, with equalintensity, love always wins over
(40:56):
fear and hate, because it'sactually a more efficient and
sustainable waveform, and so I'mreassured that the hobbits will
always ultimately win out overthe forces of Sauron, because
their simple, wholehearted loveis ultimately indomitable.
(41:18):
And I'd like to observe thatthe hobbits were the peaceful
farmers and they were justtrying to keep things nice in
the shower, and so all of thetrouble around them with the
great and mighty was like astorm that washed through, and
then they went back to growingvegetables and smoking their
(41:41):
tobacco brilliant.
On that note, let's head to ournext stop, ok, okay, so I'm
going to take you next to awoodland labyrinth.
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