Stones. When did you begin and when did I end? My memories of standing stones and leylines go back to my dad and my mum. We have got some class photos somewhere of me about 6 and my brother 3 clambering on Stonehenge. I remember the visit vividly. I also remember getting moved along by some men in a tank for eating our sandwiches in our car which was parked on the hill behind what my dad said must have been top-secret military place. Well not so secret anymore we giggled as kids! But anyway, stones. They have always been there to point out and wave to or to clamber across a field to and say hello.
I don't know how it all happened that this course came about. I have been following stone circles and ley lines since one of my shamanic graduations in 2008 when the dragons in the fire gave me the guidance to set up a travelling theatre, follow the ley lines and create events at the festival times. They said to call it Dragon Theatre. So I did. Then I moved to Wormit and the man in the co-op said to me 'Do you know Wormit means Place of the Dragon? 'Well he didn't know about my mythical theatre group. After that I climbed the hill behind my house and sat there with the dragon most days and from that came all kinds of visions and stories. I have still to share a lot of them.
It was when I was at film school a couple of years ago and making a film based on Arran that the stones connection with this course possibly started to open. We couldn't find an easy way to get to the caves where the Mood Singer film was being shot. Tsen my daughter said - 'I will phone the local farmer - someone will know a way to get us there -Every one is so helpful here!' So she found a farm on the map, phoned it, they put her onto the golf course and the golf course put us onto Drumadoon farm. Well, a quad bike trundled off with our equipment and we all got lost and eventually found our way to the cave and the equipment later. That started new friendships. So when I went to film the cave a year later, David at Drumadoon asked me if I wanted to meet up with the Archeology and Artist project the following day. I said yeah. A text came to meet up at the Machrie Moor Standing stones car park.
Well, most things I have never planned turn into significant twists in the road. Like coming to Scotland. We were so delayed on our flight out of Thailand that there wasn't a connecting flight from Roumania for 24 hours. Our flight operators sorted us out with Visas for a day in Bucharest and an overnight stay. I remember thinking I haven't planned this what is going to come out of this. Well, I met a Scottish man under a chandelier in a foyer in a dusty old communist hotel. He seemed to know what was going on so I attached myself to him. When we got back to London he asked if I would like to go to Orkney and of course I would like to go to Orkney so we went straight there on overnight buses. I was captivated. The power of Orkney glued me to these northern lands. I returned to Orkney 25 years later and an experience at the Ring of Brodgar took me through the realms into a place of utter peace and a remembering. I was going to go and live there but Tsen persuaded me that Glasgow might be better (and closer to family) so I went to study filmmaking instead.
Well, going back to the stones of Machrie Moor. I got out of my car and my car registration fell off and I thought hmm. I was taken by a lovely group of people on a time walk through the stones and it happened again the moving between planes. I don't know how I knew or how the thought came but I knew I would write the next Story course to work with the stones with others.
Eleven of us have been working with the stones online so far. We worked with the Ring of Brodgar first of all and that was immense. I visited the stones of Callanais whilst we were in that section and had an experience of giants as pillars of light that made me understand beyond all doubt that these myths are real and the stories of the stones and their placements tap us into all of that. We are currently in the lifeline section working with the recumbent stones of Aberdeenshire and I am seeing how so many people's lives are moving onto a new level. Including my own.
Stones. So much is written in them. I am realising the power of writing and creating with patterns and symbols. I am seeing the naturalness of the craft of the shaman/seer/artist as a communicator through alignment and precision. I am seeing how the stones are bringing through the missing extension of ourselves as humans that happened when the authorities obstructed the connection with the sound making, rhythms and ceremonies of a universe talking through times and dimensions.
'It is Written in the Stones' brings us back into the craft of being extraordinary communicators with time again. It restores the bard in the land and in the human soul.
I hope you can join us for the 6 month journey starting on 1 November with Ring of Brodgar, Aberdeenshire Recumbent Stones, Stones of Machrie Moor, Arran and Callanais on the Isle of Lewis. All online! Or in person if you wanna visit them as we go along.
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Final intake for the course commences 1 November. ALL OF MY ONLINE COURSES EXCEPT FOR SHAMANIC PRACTITIONER STOP MAY 2025 WHEN THE THEATRE COURSE CLOSES. It has been a gorgeous way of working but I know I need to stop or drop!
So if you would like to join us we can have one big story party online with the amazing standing stones.
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