A selection of articles for your interest

Click these links to go to each article:-
'Here be dragons'- Dragons, their history and power:  Shamanic Drums:  
Make a 'Gourd' Rattle from a Pomegranate:  Working with bone:  
'What are going on?' (part 1) 'What are going on? (part 2)-
Thoughts on UFO's, consciousness and earth-energies

ABUNDANCE
The universal flow of mutual enrichment

Among the deepest principles I work from in my life is that it is fully possible, and fully desirable; for all human beings on this planet to live abundantly without causing any harm or damage to any other single living being.

To live abundantly is to have all that you need, and so much more that you can share that with other beings without diminishing what you have.

In order to achieve that, abundance needs to flow in and through your life and not be blocked or hoarded.

Abundance is not necessarily money, and money is only tokens that ensure the flow of abundance in western societies. In earlier, primal societies the markers of abundance were such as beads, shells, jewellery perhaps, but they and money are only tokens/markers.

We westerners have incredible hang-ups concerning wealth, abundance- money, and all the issues around that, but wealth-money is only another form of energy. What is important in regard to this is whether it is flowing or is blocked- if it flows everyone shares the wealth, if it is blocked, we have a form of financial constipation, and as we all know, constipation leads to poisoning of the body and the mind, and all manner of problems.

Let's turn this around now and look at some of the models and metaphors that have been used in recent decades to formulate and express western thinking about money-wealth-abundance.

We have been hindered and hampered in this for a long time: Previous exploitive ways of thinking about wealth-abundance always pivoted around almost Victorian ways of interacting with and understanding the world. Many people still misquote Charles Darwin to justify very predatory ways of doing business, or creating abundance in their lives, and insist that in order for one person to gain that another should lose out in some way.

The 'standard' ways of looking at this involve metaphors such as Foxes and Rabbits- Foxes eat the Rabbits, the Foxes gain both as individuals and collectively- the Rabbits gain collectively because weak members of their species are culled from their gene-pool, but lose out totally as individuals- they get eaten!

This is a "win for some and lose for others" situation, which reflects the view that nature is aggressively competitive, is "red in tooth and claw", and leads to such silly ideas as that "selling snow to Eskimos" is what creating abundance is concerned with.

Not so: Nature is more often co-operative than competitive, and sure, Foxes do sometimes eat Rabbits, but more often than that many creatures form co-operative relationships in which all benefit.

An excellent example of this is that of Honey Bees and Flowers. Flowers produce nectar which Bees collect to make into Honey. While doing so they also pick up pollen which they deposit on the next flower that they visit. Honey Bees practise what is known as 'flower fidelity' in which they go from flower to flower of the same species all the time they have nectar to collect, rather than flitting from one species of flower to another. Which means that each visit they make takes the right pollen to the right kind of flower to fertilise it.

In this relationship all gain- the flowers are fertilised- 'good for the flowers as individuals and also collectively, and the Bees gain as individuals by gaining a meal, and collectively through collecting an abundance of nectar to share with the rest of their hive. This is nature "in the raw"- more often co-operative than competitive.

Abundance, its creation and movement-flow is all about relationships.

All human beings want to have their needs met, and within any relationship it is the mutual meeting of shared and individual needs that ensures a healthy, mutually beneficial and ongoing relationship.

Within an abundant relationship there is no need for sacrifice- if all involved are having their needs met; and there is a constant, abundant flow; everyone can have their needs met, then what need for sacrifice? Why should you go without what you need if all that you need is abundantly available?

The pivotal principle at work in this is much the same as that of Bees and Flowers- if abundance is flowing then all involved in any relationship will have their needs fully met. If the relationship is healthy and creative abundance will flow into and through it, and as long as that flow is not blocked abundance will also flow out and through all other relationships that come into contact and interaction with it.

In terms of human relationships with the natural world we can still apply the same principles: If human needs are being met, and there is no hoarding of resources by a few to the exclusion of the many; then it is simple and straightforward to create webs of relationship in which we co-operate with the natural world in order to benefit all- simple examples of this are expressed in such as compost making in a garden: The gardener feeds the worms and soil bacteria, which break down "waste" to make compost, which feed the plants, which feed the gardener, whom feeds the worms. No system ever exists in isolation and so input into this comes in from outside, but the 'outside' sources for this flowing relationship are Sun, rain and wind that also flow materials and resources through the smaller system as part of a larger system of global relationships.

Exactly the same principles apply in relation to wealth as money- the prime system for creating abundance in modern human societies of all kinds. If it flows, then all whom are part of the relationship are 'mutually enriched' (A term we are going to come back to).

If this flow is blocked by the abundance being hoarded- in banks, gold depositories, private collections, etc, then the system is constipated and eventually poisoned. If it flows then all whom are part of this are enriched, because it's not having money that makes you wealthy, but having the capacity to spend money that does so- if you have millions of units of your local currency in the bank but spend none of it, you will live like a pauper. If you have a reasonable amount of money and a capacity for more to keep flowing into your life, then you will potentially live well. If you spend your money- 'keep the abundance flowing; then other people can use that as it flows through the system and also live well. No system alone works without input from outside, but given that we live in a massive Universe, there is an awful lot of outside for that input to flow from, so the web of relationships in this system can all thrive.

I have mentioned 'flowing through' in this article a lot. Food flows through the human system, with each mini-system along the way taking what it needs and then passing the surplus along. Some of this surplus is of no use to any of the mini-systems within your body and so you pass it along to whom it is of use to. What is important in this is the flow itself- if at any point any mini-system within your body decides to 'bank' all that it receives rather than partaking in the flow…… you can imagine the result I'm sure.

The other side of the coin so to speak is where some mini-systems decide that they don't want be involved- imagine if your liver decided that it was too spiritual to be involved with 'filthy money/food', and therefore neither 'spent' nor 'received' any food/money. 'Sure, it wouldn't be "soiling its spiritual nature through commerce", but eventually it would die, and so would the body it was a part of.

Mutual enrichment: The Bees and Flowers I mentioned earlier are in a mutually enriching relationship. It's mutually enriching simply because both partners gain- there is no loss in this relationship at all. Exactly the same kind of principles work in human relationships of all kinds.

Let's make this directly personal: If I make and give you a Rattle; and you are pleased with what I make for you; and you give me a sum of money that I spend on cabbages to feed my family; and I am pleased with the amount of money and the cabbages I bought; then we have enjoyed a mutually enriching relationship.

It would work exactly the same if I gave you the Rattle and you gave me the Cabbages- the money is only tokens after all. What is of importance is that we are both mutually enriched according to our needs at that time- a totally win-win situation in which nobody loses at all.

Virtually all the problems in the world concerning money; and all the issues that western people have around money and what it can or cannot be exchanged for, and who should have it, or how it can be spent, grow out of long centuries of simply not recognising the simple principles that I have outlined here.

If wealth is abundance, and abundance is expressed through flow, then if wealth flows abundantly all are mutually enriched- simple isn't it? Take this thinking on board and all the old, silly ideas of exploitation, 'selling snow to Eskimos' the 'hard sell', not taking money for spiritual gifts, etc. can easily be seen to grow out of a very limited view of the world and the Universe in which we live.

Lastly let's explore this 'chestnut' of not taking money for spiritual gifts, as it's such an issue for so many people.

There is a false belief that primal peoples did not 'sell' spiritual gifts, and did not 'charge' for spiritual teachings or services. That's quite simply wrong. Shamans, Medicine Women, teachers, etc., etc., within all tribal peoples were part of the tribal system. Within those tribal systems the abundance of each individual depended very strongly on the mutual abundance and enrichment of all. If the Shaman who located the Buffalo herds for the tribe was not 'paid' by receiving a sufficient share of the bounty, they would starve and die. Which of course meant that the tribe might starve and die also. If the Medicine Man whom interpreted the experiences and visions of those whom had been vision questing were not 'paid', they would die also and not be able to fulfil their function. Or else they would be too busy food gathering to be around when the quester came back. In both cases the tribe loses.

If the Shaman was 'paid', all are mutually enriched. It doesn't matter whether she was paid in local currency tokens or Buffalo robes. What is important is the process of mutual enrichment. And I can guarantee that if you look properly into this subject without preconceptions you will find that in virtually all cases, in all tribal peoples around the world, that the Shaman/Medicine woman was 'paid'.

Most tribal peoples all around the world have recognised the principles I have outlined here, and recognised fully that life at its best is a flowing process of mutual respect and mutual enrichment. They recognised themselves as equally a part of life as Bees and Flowers, and recognised that co-operation within a flowing process of mutually enriching relationships is actually how life as a whole works. Bees don't say "That's spiritual nectar, therefore I'm not paying for that", and flowers don't say "I was gifted with this nectar therefore I won't ask that the Bee do some service for me in exchange for the effort I have made to create it". Only some human beings would be so foolish.

Click here to go back to the top

HERE BE DRAGONS..

Dragons are universal: Tales and legends concerning them are found in all parts of the world in one form or another, but it is the Northern European Dragon that I want to focus on at this time as this complex of tales and legends expresses some fascinating themes.

First and foremost we need to look at the forms that Dragons take- wings, fire breathing, speech and other properties all appear to have been added to Dragon physiology quite late in our human perception & descriptions of them, so we're going back into the past to see where this begins, and see if we can find anything which will enlighten us somewhat.

The term Dragon itself possibly comes to us from Greek, in which it was originally used to describe any kind of very large snake, but appears to have then shifted into a broad, general term used to describe serpentine or reptilian creatures that were larger than the vast majority of snakes and lizards that were around in early historical times. Here in the North of Europe the term most often used to describe this class of creatures was Wyrm/Wurm/Orm, which mutated in various European languages to simply Worm. This term also seems to have been used to describe a general class of creatures that included serpentine forms, very large reptiles, and possibly also variations on these that lived in the sea around the coasts of Europe and Scandinavia.

Worm is still used in a very general way to describe all manner of creatures other than earth worms- slow worm, silk worm, etc, so perhaps this points us towards something interesting, and which we will expand on shortly.

Above all else, a particularly interesting factor in most of the early descriptions of Dragons that we have from Northern Europe is that they have the ring of actual encounters between human beings and very large, often very fierce creatures. Elements that are often associated with Dragon lore such as wings, fire breathing, being slain by dashing young Knights, speaking in riddles and other factors, are all by and large missing from these early tales. In the majority of these early tales Wyrms are often very large lizard like creatures, huge Anaconda type snakes, or occasionally some kind of reptilian sounding creature that has echoes of dinosaur type features. We do hear from within this of creatures that have poisonous saliva, or which have breath that can kill, but all the romantic images are missing.

Other interesting factors that ring through these early tales are associations between Wyrms and water, or that they lair in marshy places, in out of the way caves and similar rocky areas, and that when push comes to shove through them eating the children and livestock of the local villages, it's often a posse of locals armed with pitchforks and scythes that sally forth to chase it off or kill it. Occasionally it might be the local lord who dispatches the beast, or even a wandering mercenary soldier who takes a fee from the villagers to do the job, but by and large the more mythic factors that we tend to associate with Dragons are missing from these folk tales.

What can we make of this? Quite possibly that in the warmer and more favourable climate of early Northern Europe that large serpentine and reptilian creatures did actually exist still, and that these form the basis for many of our Dragon tales.

What then of the other levels of meaning within the lore? From where comes the Dragon association with earth energies, sacred sites, and similar, and from whence comes the association between Dragons and Dragon slayers such as St. George?

The best way to explore this I feel is to use a particular Wyrm tale that has many layers of meaning within it, and from which we can discern a number of mythic themes.

THE LAMBTON WORM

The youngest son of Lord Lambton was something of a 'rake'- instead of going to church on Sunday mornings he preferred to fish in the local river Wear on the outskirts of modern day Newcastle. As his father was the local lord he was protected from the ire of the church, and could slide away to the river to while away his time.

One Sunday morning he fished out a loathly creature that from the accounts resembled a small, slimy salamander or newt. Which he quickly unhooked and threw into a nearby well which nestles in a copse away from the river, but connecting to it via an underground stream.

This creature grew and grew, until it was no longer safe for anyone to draw water from the well. In the meantime though young Lambton had been overcome with guilt over his earlier rakish ways and had gone dutifully away to fight in the Crusades against the heathen Saracens.

Eventually the worm grew so big that it began to venture out and prey on local cattle and sheep, until it was too big to live in the well, and wrapped itself around a conical hill situated nearby. From here it continued to prey on local livestock, so the poor peasants began to give it sheep and cattle to prevent it from preying on them.

Young Lambton came home from the crusades to find this situation, and after consulting a local wise woman had a suit of armour with blades attached to it made. He fought the beast by luring it into the river Wear, where it wrapped itself around him and was cut to pieces by the blades on his armour. However there was a price for this.

The wisdom of the wise woman was bought with a 'devils bargain'- that the first creature to set eyes on young Lambton after his victory would carry a curse that some of their offspring would die in each successive generation. Lambton arranged to have his favourite hound released to meet him, but his father was so overcome with joy and relief that he ran out himself. Oops….

If we look at this tale carefully we can see all manner of elements: First of all is guilt- young Lambton doesn't go to church, but is then visited with being the cause of the misery of his family and people. So though he escapes the retribution and judgement of the local church hierarchy, everyone else in the area suffers. Despite that he eventually becomes a good Christian knight and goes off to fight the heathens, his sins are still visited upon everyone within a five mile radius- quite a burden for going fishing on Sunday mornings rather than to church!

Next is the association between the Wyrm and elements of the local area: It comes out of the river, goes into a local well, then shifts to a hill nearby. Eventually it is killed by being cut to pieces in the river of its birth. In which I believe there are strong suggestions of both a physical creature, and also of a cyclic manifestation of some kind of current of earth energy through the landscape. This energy originates in the local river, grows in the well, and then shifts into full destructive capacity when coiled around a hill. Quite possibly there are deeper layers of the elder wisdom here also that express a myth of death and renewal, with young Lambton acting the part of a solar or similar hero who transmutes the dragon energy from something dark and destructive into a life giving form. There may also be elements of a deeper understanding of earth energies and how they shift through and transform the landscape, but which have become stagnant and chthonic in this tale through a lack of understanding of how to work with them.

And finally in this tale we have the old wise woman who advises young Lambton. The solution to the problem comes not from the church but from a representative of the elder wisdom, but there's a price- there often is, and here are echoes of a common theme in many Northern European tales. That it's human factors that are woven in here, and it is human weakness and misunderstanding that prevents these elder, darker forces from being properly understood and transmuted into something life giving and good.

So where do elements such as fire breathing, flight, speech of Dragons, etc come from? From outside the core of these Northern European tales generally, and by and large they don't appear in the lore of Dragons in Europe until the middle ages. One particular element does though have a fascinating correspondence with a modern creature. The saliva of the Kimodo dragon is so replete with bacteria, that if it gets into a cut it will cause the receiver of that to sicken and die very quickly. Kimodo dragons tend to lurk in marshy, watery places, from where they rush out to attack their prey. One bite that breaks the skin is sufficient that all the Kimodo needs is patience. Eventually its prey will weaken sufficiently that it can be dispatched. Quite possibly it is this that has expanded and shifted through the years into fiery breath, as many of the old tales recount the deadly nature of Dragon breath or saliva.

As for flight, well this may be an echo of some kind of pterodactyl type creature, or it may have come from elsewhere in the world. Dragon speech may be an expression of the deep intelligence of the energy of the earth, and of how the wise can understand that. The ferocity of dragons may represent the nature of the energies of the earth and how destructive these can be if not worked with from respect and understanding.

For this I feel is the most important aspect of Dragon lore: That it expresses a depth of wisdom relative to the earth and its complexities, and that Dragons may have had actual origins as large, fierce creatures, but that Dragon lore has carried the deeper, earth wisdom forward from those times to now. If you have the chance to visit any of the places where Wyrm tales live, such as Lambton itself; you will feel the energy of Dragons still echoing in their rocks, streams and wells, and can say also- "here be Dragons".

Click here to go back to the top

SHAMANIC DRUMS

Shamans, Witches, Sorcerers and all their kin have used drums for thousands of years in all areas of the world as an accompaniment to chanting, singing, dance, for healing, Journeying, ritual, and for entering into trance states so as to access realms of power and knowledge.

Let me share a quote with you from a deeply respected American Indian Elder, Grandfather Wallace Black Elk.

"Then the Spirit said, we’re going to show you another power. They showed me the power of the drum. When you pray with that drum, when the spirits hear that drum, it echoes. They hear this drum, and they hear your voice loud and clear. It’s like amplified. Like you get on the microphone, and it amplifies throughout the whole canyon. So the spirit could hear you. They could recognise your voice also. I recognise lots of voices. So that’s the way it is with the spirit, they recognise your voice. So when you are praying with that drum, your voice is amplified through the drumming, and the spirits can hear you."

The origins of the now well known Irish drum, the Bodhran, are a subject of much debate, but it seems quite likely that it evolved directly from a skin and stick combination used in winnowing grain- take a green and springy branch, bend it into a hoop, then stretch and fix a raw skin with the hair removed over it. You then have a useful tool for winnowing grain and a simple but effective basic frame drum. To winnow with this, it would have grain mixed with chaff placed on the ‘inside’ of the frame, and the mix would be tossed into the air on a breezy day so that the chaff would blow away.

I have seen drums made in this way by American Indians, and if we follow the logic of many historians, we should I suppose assume that they learned about these from Irish immigrants to America..... Earliest references to frame drum/winnowers of this kind known as Wight’s in use by country people in Britain and Ireland date from no earlier than the middle ages. However, perhaps that dating tells us more about the process of dating than it does about the object being dated. Conceivably this simply tells us when people of note began taking notes, and the Bodhran and its ancestors do date from earlier times, but went unremarked by scholars and gatherers of country lore. The concept of stretching a skin over a hoop made from a springy branch of say Ash or Hazel is so simple that I can imagine that country people figured it out very early in history.

Tambourine type hand drums were known to the Romans from contact with Greek culture, and given that the Romans outstayed their welcome in Britain for a considerable length of time, it’s not inconceivable that some at least of their entertainers and musicians brought hand drums of different kinds with them. If I were a native of these isles at the time of the Roman occupation and saw one of these small hand drums I’m sure that it wouldn’t take a lot of head scratching before I had one made. Even if I’d never seen one before it wouldn’t take most people very long to grasp the idea and see the possibilities. Which means that if we accept this as a possibility, that hand drums in Northern Europe date at least to the Roman occupation, and the same holds for Rattles also as Roman musicians use these and sistrums.

So there we have it. Both drums and rattles have a considerable lineage in Northern Europe, but above all else, the technique of sonic driving as a means of causing changes in ones consciousness is so effective that it is worth using whatever its origins. We are after all alive now, and if one seeks any kind of purism it would be possible to eliminate many things from Northern European traditions which have only been here for a short while- that being if anyone can decide at which point in the continuing weave of Europe it is possible to find a point from which to take a purist stance. A car for instance is a car, and to me it’s not so important where it comes from, but whether it works or not, how well it works, and how efficiently. Nativeness perhaps comes into this when we decide on which side of the road to drive our cars.

Click here to go back to the top

Make a 'Gourd' Rattle
from a Pomegranate

Around this time of year in the UK; and possibly elsewhere also; supermarkets and green grocers sell Pomegranates. If you hollow out and dry the Pomegranate it makes a tough 'Gourd' with which you can make an excellent small rattle.

The knack of this is to cut out the bit at the end of the Pom' where the flower had been- the fluffy, protuberant bit; with a very sharp knife, then to carefully scoop out all the seeds and fruit bits, and all the pith, with a piece of wire about 8 inches long cut from a coat hanger or similar, which has been bent over with pliers to form an 'eye' like the eye of a needle or fish hook. Round nose pliers are best for this. The hole you cut out should be as circular as you can make it.

Using this eye-ended tool you can carefully scrape all the fruit, seeds and pith from the Pom' without tearing the skin or making holes in it. At this stage the Pom' will be quite delicate, so you do need to be careful. If you mash up all the fruit to extract the juice, you can drink that also- 'goes well with Vodka!

Once your Pom' is fully cleaned out, stuff it very carefully with tissue paper, kitchen roll, or even screwed up newspaper to prevent it shrinking too much as it dries. Put it on top of a heater or on a mantel above a fire, leave till dry, put in some dried lentils, rice, or very small stones, then affix a handle- you have a 'Gourd' Rattle.

I have tried for years to dry real Gourds, and though I can grow them in every shape and size imaginable, the atmosphere of my home and environment is too humid for them to dry well, and they are always thin walled and too delicate to use, but once I had this figured I could produce excellent 'Gourds' every time.

The Handle: Make a handle from wood, and have it sufficient length that it will go inside the 'Gourd' from the hole you originally made, and right to the top. You might need to carefully shape the part of the handle that will go inside so that it fits the hole as snuggly as possible and reaches right to the top without gaps.

Very carefully make a small hole in the top of the 'Gourd' exactly opposite the first hole that you made for scooping the contents out. This hole should be just sufficiently large that you can push a nail, Tack or similar through it. You can use a small drill or an augur to make this, or even the end of a screwdriver of suitable size rotated in the appropriate place to burr out the hole.

Use a Tack or similar that has a head large enough that it won't slide through the small hole you've made- an upholstery tack as used to secure cushioning or seat covers onto old style wooden chairs would be perfect.

Insert the rice, small stones or whatever else you are using for sound generation, then slide in the handle. The Tack/Nail then goes through the hole in the top of the 'Gourd' and is very carefully hammered into the end of the handle. If you hold the Rattle vertically on a firm surface such as a carpeted floor while gently hammering in the tack, the force of the hammering will be only on the handle rather than on the 'Gourd', so it won't crack or split.

And there you have it. You can make the whole construction a lot stronger if you put a blob of glue on the end of the handle that butts up against the inside of your 'Gourd', and also around the bottom end where it meets the insertion hole. Some kind of epoxy resin type glue such as "Araldite" is best for this.

If there are gaps where the wood enters the 'Gourd' because of irregularities in the wood you use for the handle, smear a little glue around that area then bind around on that with leather thong to cover over the holes and prevent the contents falling out.

Obviously this will all work just as well with a real Gourd as equally as it does with a Pomegranate, so if you can obtain these you can simply use a real Gourd instead.

Another way of putting a Rattle like this together is to have two holes in the Gourd and have the handle pass right through it from bottom to top, and then be fixed at the top. if you'd also like to avoid using glue, or else want a Rattle that you can change the contents of; then this second method is excellent.

For this the handle is shaped so that it passes right through the Gourd, then a small length of it protrudes- about 1"X3cm. Through this protuding length you need to drill a hole. The hole needs to butt right on to the top of the gourd so that a peg pushed through the hole will hold the handle firmly in place.

"A picture is worth a thousand words", so I'll offer a picture to show this. Two illustrations follow. (1) is for the single hole method, and (2) is for the straight through method. I'm getting used to using a new scanner, so if there's a problem with the illustrations, or you can't follow them, just mail me and I'll help make it all clearer.

For anyone wanting to make Rattles or Drums, the single best book I've ever encountered is "How to make Drums, Tom-toms and Rattles" by Bernard Mason.

Illustration (1)

                        Illustration (2)

Click here to go back to the top

IN THE BONE

"The spirit of this ancient land is in our bones,

the bones of our ancestors are in the land,

their spirits walk with us."

Bone is an excellent material to work with for all forms of craft work, as it is forgiving, hard enough to take fine detail, and will take both a high polish and is easily stained.

By 'forgiving', I mean that it is easy to work with fine tools, and though it has a grain, it doesn't split along that, doesn't warp or dry like wood can through atmospheric conditions, and can be worked with hand electric tools such as a craft drill or burr set as well as with knives, chisels and files.

Bone has been used for making a vast range of items in virtually all cultures around the world since the most ancient of times in all lands. These items have ranged from the practical- such as arrow or harpoon heads, buttons and other fasteners, needles and awls, to decorative items such as pendants, rings, hair slides and tubes, beads and brooches. Here in stone age Northern Europe whistles were also made from bone- generally bird bones for these, as they were and still are used among native American peoples and various primal peoples whom still live in simple societies around the world.

Quite simply, if you want to make an item that needs to be tough enough to be hard wearing, and you also want to make that beautiful and decorative as well as utilitarian, bone is a far better material more often than not than wood. Wood does have its own excellent qualities, and peoples around the world have made items such as harpoon or arrow heads from very hard fine grained woods, and wood does have the advantage of generally being softer and easier carved than bone, but as a general principle bone is generally tougher than most woods.

Bone also tends to be longer lived- wood boring beetles won't suddenly emerge from your finely carved bone staff head as they might from the equivalent in wood, it isn't subject to atmospheric conditions as badly as wood, and it doesn't need to be seasoned before it hardens up ready for use.

Lastly: Bone is forgiving: As a craft worker, I work with all manner of materials virtually every day of my life now, and have done so since I was a boy- about ..... years worth! The worst problems I ever encounter in working with wood are that holding a small item such as a pendant in one hand while working on it with the other, means that one hand is generally the stop place for all manner of very sharp tools if wood splits, or if the tool hits a hard knot and jumps off it. Sure I can use a vice, wear a glove or use a leather palm such as sail makers use, but it restricts my ability to turn the piece to suit the tool, and often obscures part of the piece. Get the cut angle right and the grain of bone guides the tool much more easily- and for fine detail, it's difficult to cut yourself with a small file in the way I have the scars to prove you can with a very sharp knife!

SOURCES OF RAW MATERIAL

Bone comes from animals and birds, so that's obviously an issue to sort through if you object to using animal parts. If you find that acceptable, then your local butcher is the first resource for bone. If you eat meat you can rescue the bone from a joint of meat before it goes into the oven, or you can chat with your local butcher and see if they will supply you with bones they cut out of carcasses. In these days of BSE your local butcher might be wary and possibly unhelpful about this- lie: tell them it's for your dog, that you definitely won't tell anyone they gave/sold you a bag of Cow bones, and/or go in and ask when there's no one else in the shop. Chat up the assistants and talk meaningfully about "there being a drink in it for them" while you shuffle the coins in your pocket. Two or three pounds for a Cow leg bone about 18 inches long gets you a lot of bone to work with. Make it easy for them to help you- smile, rattle money, ask only when the shop's not full and everyone is running around busy- being 'crafty' can involve using your wits as often as using a chisel.

All kinds of bone can be used- Cow, Pig or Lamb bones rescued from a joint of meat will all yield pieces that you can use. If you can't get them before they've been in the oven, well roast bone can be a bit crumbly, but it still works well. leg bones from big turkey drumsticks make excellent whistles, and at a pinch you can still buy some Cow bones from pet shops. Mostly these have been roasted, but they are still usable. Generally it's just the big knuckle ends that are sold in this way for Dogs to chomp, but one of these at about 50p will still yield a good proportion of usable material for small items.

Lastly comes the bones of wild animals. Rabbit, Fox, Squirrel and other small mammal bones will only yield small pieces of material to work with, but for something special, that may be all you need. But gathering such from road kills is a messy business! The larger birds such as Swan, Goose and Heron will gift you with leg bones for whistles and small pieces for fine work. If you come across a road kill, that's fine, but please do not take what I've written in this article as incitement to slaughter your local wild life- if power moves it will bring you what you need from the wild: If you have to go out and kill to gain the bone of an animal to use, think deeply about your 'need'.

An alternative if you favour none of the possibilities outlined so far is to simply wander around a suburban area and keep an eye out for bones or pieces of bones left around by Dogs, Cats and Foxes that have scavenged them from peoples rubbish bags.

PREPARING BONE

I have to say that this is gungey.... If at all possible if you share your home with anyone else, do this all outside in the garden if you can.

(1) First of all, remove all extraneous bits from any bone you are going to use. With a hacksaw cut off all knobbly bits from the ends of the bone so as to leave marrow filled tubes. Use a sharp knife to scrape off any flesh still adhering.

(2) If you are preparing large Cow bones, you will find it easier to saw each piece along the length of the bone into slabs before proceeding, so that you can pry out as much marrow as possible from the inside of the original bone tube before further stages.

(3) Put the bone slabs and pieces into a pan big enough that when you fill this up with water the bone pieces will be fully covered. I have an old 'Baby Burco' boiler that I use for this- attached to an extension cable run out into the garden. Bring the pan of bones in water just to the boil, then turn down the heat to simmer, and avoid having the water boiling as that will fix some of the blood and gunge into the bone.

(4) Simmer your bones for long enough to drive out the blood, fat and grease, and to cook off any remaining bits of flesh. This will also loosen and help with removing the marrow from the bone. How long this will take will depend on the bone itself, but about 30 minutes will probably do for larger pieces, and about 20 for such as bird bones. Poke the bones around from time to time to ensure they are evenly cooked.

(5) Carefully lift out pieces of bone, scrape off any bits and pieces, and pry off any lumps of marrow that you can shift, and put them back in if they need a little longer.

(6) Pour away this water, and start again with clean water with a generous squirt of washing up liquid or liquid soap in it. This will help remove any remaining grease or blood. Another 20-30 minutes simmer should do this.

(7) Pick out your bone pieces and look them over. Remove any final gungy bits, scrape off any adhering flesh from what was the inside, and put all pieces to one side.

Bird and other bones that remain as tubes take more work- between stages (5) and (6) you will need to very carefully remove the marrow and gunge from the inside of the bones. A blunt screwdriver or piece of wire is good for this. You need to patiently remove all material from the inside of complete bones, as if you don't for example with a whistle, you will be putting a breeding home for a wild range of bacteria and other unpleasantness into your mouth..... In the meantime though, if you are using a fairly fresh bone from such as a Turkey drumstick that hasn't been sitting around for too long before you do this, then loosen up the contents as best you can with a handy tool, then have a vigorous blow through the bone- if all goes well, most of the gunge will fly across the garden in an extremely satisfying way- 'brings out the inner child in me on a regular basis!

(8) Next make up a weak solution of bleach in water- approximately a table spoon to a pint; of sufficient quantity to ensure all your bones can go into it and be full covered. For all of this- including all the boiling, I advise using pots, pans and containers that are never going to be used for food again. It's worth a visit to the local charity shops to pick up a couple of pots cheaply that you can keep just for bone work. Soak your bone for a while- all depending on how much bone is in the mix, whether they were roasted before preparation or were raw, types of bone, etc.: So it's trial and error with this, and keeping an eye on it. No more than an hour though, and about 30 minutes is generally about right.

(9) Finally, take out your bone, rinse it well and put it somewhere to dry.

That's it.. 'Sounds long winded, but isn't as much as it sounds, and if you plan to use a lot of bone over a period of time it's worth doing a big batch at once then storing much of it away for future use.

WORKING BONE

Bone can be worked with sharp knives, chisels and gouges, files, saws and small electrical tools such as a drill fitted with burrs of various kinds. I do much work on bone with knives and chisels, but small files such as needle and riffler files are excellent to use. And they have the merit of being easily controlled. As also do hand electrical tools such as craft drills- rather like the small, hand drills that Dentists use; and also hand sized, electrical engravers. For both of these two latter tools you can obtain a huge range of burrs, drills, cutting discs, etc. A scrounge comes in handy for these also if you have or plan to obtain such as a craft-electric drill to use burrs with. Dentists use very expensive diamond and carborundum tipped burrs for causing you pain, and they generally throw them away after one use. If your Dentist is as friendly as mine is (probably on account of guilt) s/he will let you have a selection of used burrs to use. If you don't have an electric drill to use these with, you could still mount them in a series of handles and use them as fine files and scrapers.

For sawing bone a hacksaw is fine for roughing out and cutting out starting pieces, but for finer work you will need a deep frame saw such as a coping or jewellers saw- you can work bone without these, but a better range of tools will generally enable you to produce a greater range of work more easily. Obviously primitive peoples manage without sophisticated tools, but it makes for a much longer job to do so, and intricate work with primitive tools requires a higher skill level. However, you don't need the best quality tools to work bone. Small files such as Rifflers and Needle files, craft and coping saws, can all be bought from market stalls. As can craft knives and handy sized chisels and gouges. They're not best quality, but they're generally good enough for most work, and they are cheap.

Be careful not to breathe in bone dust. Filing, burring and sawing bone will create very fine dust, which will settle everywhere if you work on bone indoors. Especially if you use such as a craft drill with burrs- I speak from experience of having to account for a layer of fine white dust all over our kitchen. Work outside if possible, but still wear a dust mask to avoid breathing dust in.

FINISHING & STAINING

Bone polishes up really well to a beautiful glossy smoothness. Sand paper in various degrees of coarseness does this well, just as with wood. Wire wool can also be used so as to avoid the scratches that sandpaper can make, and is good to use in among intricate designs.

Finished pieces of bone work will be plain white. In various shades from yellowish to chalky dependant on how long they were bleached, whether they had been roasted, and how much you handle each piece while working on it, as bone is very absorbent. Engraved bone work needs staining in some kind of way to help accentuate the engraving, and for this a variety of stains can be used. Wood stains work well, but tend to bleed into surrounding areas, so the stain I recommend most is tea- immersing a piece of bone work in a cup of warm, strong tea will stain it a golden brown colour. Once it has dried out a rub over with fine sand paper will remove most of the stain on flat surfaces but leave it in the engraving. A similar effect can be achieved with soot or charcoal, or with ochre and similar earth derived materials. Beeswax; especially old, dark beeswax; gives a lovely golden finish to bone also.

ALTERNATIVES

Other materials that work in very much the same way as bone are animal horns and antlers. Both of these can be bought from specialist suppliers, and some suppliers of woods for wood turning also stock these, but antler can also be obtained (bought or scrounged) from butchers or fishmongers whom have game licenses. Occasionally you might also encounter more exotic animal horns; often mounted on plaques; at charity shops or 'boot fairs'. There are obvious moral and ethical issues involved in the use of all of these kinds of materials because of their animal origin. It is for you and your conscience to work through these issues.

If you want to try working with antler or horn and cannot find a local source, have a look at the magazine selection in a larger newsagents in your town. Wood turning is an extremely popular hobby, and there are a number of dedicated magazines published every month for turners. All of these will have adverts' for suppliers; the larger ones of which produce well illustrated catalogues, and generally also stock horn and antler.

Following from that, bone, horn and antler also turn well. So if you have access to a small lathe this is a very good way of making bone, horn and antler beads in particular.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION & INSPIRATION

Bone is an organic material and though it is extremely long lived, the stone ages of Britain and Europe were sufficiently long ago that unfortunately little has survived in the way of archaeological finds to yield as much inspiration generally as those cultures that were stone age during historical times. However, a considerable amount of European stone age cave art and more durable artefacts various have survived to draw from, and this will provide a huge amount of inspiration. Of course your own designs gained from meditations, Journeying and spirit inspiration can all be worked into bone.

Other primal cultures to draw from for inspiration are:- Maori, Inuit (Eskimo) Polynesian, various Native American cultures, and a range of African traditions and cultures. Japan, China, Korea and other countries of that area also have continuing traditions of bone work, such as the Japanese Netsuke tradition of small carved items. Usually in ivory, but the same principles and techniques work with this as equally as with bone.

There are also the more recent European traditions of 'Treen' and 'Scrimshaw'. These were largely the province of either country peoples, or of sailors during whaling times, and the material used was largely whale tooth ivory, whale bone, Walrus ivory, and similar materials from marine mammals & creatures. French prisoners of war during the Napoleonic wars, and POW's in the Civil war of America also developed styles of bone work that yield good sources of ideas and inspiration, and books from your local library on all these traditions, cultures and sources, will also yield information on techniques and other resources.

Click here to go back to the top

WHAT ARE GOING ON?

Over the past few years of reading concerning UFO’s, abductions and similar experiences, it has often struck me that the authors of many books and articles on these subjects appear to favour just one model or theory at a time to the exclusion of all others- It’s very much a case of either-or it seems: Either one does believe in objective, physical spacecraft ‘manned’ by non-human beings, or one believes in lenticular plasma forms created by meteorological conditions. Or perhaps it’s solely either a case of visitations by alternative dimensional beings, or some kind of projection of the imagination.

My personal researches have taken me through investigation into all manner of possibilities ranging from correspondences between abduction experiences and Shamanic experiences, between those and accounts of ‘flights to the Sabbath experienced by medieval witches, excursions into the phylogenetic unconsciousness of perinatal experiences, the nuts and bolts possibilities of the possible crashes in the vicinity of Roswell in New Mexico in 1947, to the investigations into such as plasma forms by people investigating all of these things from their own individual stance.

But why the general insistence that there is only "One thing going on"? It seems to me that it might well be much more appropriate; and more likely to take us to a fuller understanding of the vastness of UFO and related experiences if we work from the principle that there are probably a lot of different, but possibly related things going on, and that though there are probably cross overs, resonance’s and correspondences between many of them, it might be more helpful to recognise that many of the phenomena being investigated might yield more information if we weren’t so determined to make them all fit into such narrow, either/or categorisation.

For example, an investigation into the seminal work of the pioneering hypnotherapist Milton Erickson yields some interesting insights into how suggestible many people are, and how often our minds construct the most baroque theories from the most unrelated material. The work of for example Michael Persinger and his investigation into the effects of magnetic fields on the temporal lobes of the human brain also suggests some interesting avenues of investigation in relation to UFO’s and abduction experiences.

My main point in this being that quite possibly a broad range of similar effects might occur in any human brain when it is stimulated in a variety of ways, and it may be that many of these ways may have both extraterrestrial and terrestrial origins at different times and in different circumstances. So for example, if the human mind is precipitated into a kind of psychedelic experience involving reinterpreted perinatal experiences by exposure to a geomagnetic field generated by seismic disturbance; and is also precipitated into a similar experience by exposure to the emissions of the propulsion system of a visiting UFO, to choose just one model to explain both experiences is to potentially miss a huge amount of valuable data.

A brief digression: If someone receives a blow to the head, they will say that they ‘saw stars’. What has occurred is that the stimulation their brain has received has caused it to react in such a way that the person translates this reaction as visually perceiving a display of bright lights. What if this person gets hit on the head with a hammer by a mugger on one occasion, and inadvertently walks into a cupboard door on another, if we choose to explain both occurrences by only one explanation, one of two things will occur. Either we will pursue the mugger twice for something he only did once, or we will consider both events to have been accidents, and we won’t pursue the mugger at all.

What we should do is recognise that ‘seeing stars’ isn’t on its own a very good indicator of what has been going on, and we definitely wouldn’t use just one model to explain all possible situations in which someone might have their head banged in some way.

Let me relate an experience of my own that occurred approximately 17 years ago which you might find illustrative.

I had been having a recurring dream for a few weeks. Sporadically at first, but with increasing frequency at time went on. In this dream I perceived distorted and broken images in which I was on a trolley-bed of some kind, a bright light was shining into my eyes, figures with no noses or mouths but large eyes were looking down at me, and I was unable to move and couldn’t breathe.

Each time I dreamed this I woke in a panic, and though this was all obviously upsetting, being a curious sort of person I put my mind to discovering what this was all about.

However, work and family demands kept me busy and unable to find time to look deeper into this, and so I shelved it for a few days to await ‘digging out’ when I could do so uninterrupted. However, this was not to be, as while at the dentist a couple of days later; and having someone wearing a surgical mask and large glasses peering down at me while I was prone and a bright light was shining into my eyes; I had a full blown flashback type experience, couldn’t breathe, and in panic leaped out of the dental chair, spilling tools and mouthwash across the floor as I went.

The long and the short of it was that I was able to perceive more of what lay buried in my mind during this flashback than had emerged in the dreams. Which was that, while having an operation on a torn cartilage in my knee a few months previously, I had partially awakened on the operating table. I couldn’t breathe, and was paralysed, probably the anaesthetic effects. While briefly awake, I saw the figures around me through a fuzzed brain, and from the distorted perspective of my prone position, and my mind stored the sight of faces in surgical masks as being featureless except for large eyes- behind protective goggles or similar I think. I must have moved or made a noise, for a nurse or the anaesthetist peered down into my face, and she was wearing large, round glasses.

Having recognised this while at the dentist, I determined to uncover what I felt to be more details and levels within an amalgam of memories that had emerged. Consequently I used a dose of an illegal psychoactive a few days later to force these memories to re-emerge. Which they duly did, and woven within them I also experienced a deeper level of possible abduction and similar encounter experiences.

So, which model or explanation would be most appropriate for this? I’m personally inclined to reserve judgement until I have more information, because to assume an either/or position in this would possibly exclude my discovering all the potential insight to be gained. And perhaps that would be a most appropriate position to take in relation to UFO’s and related subjects- "What are going on"? may be poor English, but is a question that is broader than "What is"?, and enables us to see that just one model or explanation is not generally sufficient until we do have sufficient information at any time.

Incidentally, when I say that I uncovered deeper levels of what I have termed abduction type experiences; a more accurate expression of this would be to say that I uncovered or caused to emerge, possible memories of interactions with what seemed to be non-human entities during my childhood years. However, another possible explanation would be that I uncovered memories that over the years had become distorted, and I was simply forcing them to conform to one particular model. Another possible model would be to postulate that that these were simply symbolic images of a playing out of mythic and Shamanic archetypes out of the collective levels of my unconscious mind. Choosing just one of these possibilities would exclude the others, and it’s better to remain open until more data is available.

Alan Tickhill. 1998.

Click here to go back to the top

What are going on? Part 2

In this article I would like to expand on the broad themes that were outlined in the previous article of this title, and examine some possible correlation’s between such phenomena as abduction experiences, Shamanic experiences, reported effects when people interact with UFO’s that have landed, light balls, plasma forms and similar phenomena possibly created by meteorological and geophysical conditions.

Let’s start with this:

Within the human skull is a section of brain known as the Temporal Lobes. (TL). It seems from current research that the TL area of the brain is peculiarly sensitive to electromagnetic fields. The TL is possibly concerned with our human sense of time and space, and appears to link in with various areas of the brain which hold information relating to human mythology, spiritual beliefs, dream and archetypal imagery, and other material which forms part of the human collective unconscious as described by Carl Jung.

When the TL are stimulated by powerful magnetic fields, subjects undergoing this report feelings of disassociation, out of body type experiences, sensory cross-over, disorientation, and emergence of mythic and archetypal experiences, possibly with their origin in the store of the mythic, collective unconscious. Sometimes this occurs in such a way that the subject feels that they have been precipitated into an encounter with non-human, other worldly beings of various kinds, and the whole experience is considered to be an objective external event rather than an internal, subjective process.

Some people have experiences of these kinds without being exposed to the effects of magnetic fields, and this has been observed in some cases at least to be accompanied by unusual Temporal Lobe activity. Unfortunately this has been named ‘Temporal Lobe epilepsy’ which gives this the unfortunate connotation of being something pathological and undesirable.

The title of this article is intended to express something of potential importance in relation to UFO’s and related phenomena: Namely that though a wide range of phenomena may be occurring; and though it can be difficult to differentiate between them; what may cause them all to have factors in common with each other is that all of them involve human beings, and all of them quite possibly may cause activity within the Temporal Lobes of the people involved. If this is so, then it is obviously going to be difficult to distinguish between for example the effects suffered by someone whom stands close to a possible Extra terrestrial craft which uses magnetic fields in its propulsion system, and the effects suffered by someone whom happens to stands close to a plasma form possibly generated through tectonic stress at a geological fault line. Both people will tend to report similar effects, both people perhaps will suffer a distortion in their sense of experiencing time, and quite possibly both will undergo a mythic/shamanic type encounter with beings whom represent archetypal motifs.

Now, I have simplified this to a very great degree, but it strikes me that there is something within this which is of extreme importance to those of us whom are at all involved investigating such things as UFO sightings and similar, because the whole area of our research is likely to be extremely muddied if the reports we receive are generated by a wide range of possible stimuli. For example, there are strong correlation’s between reports from historical times of people being abducted and taken into Fairyland, and contemporary reports of people being abducted by Aliens. Also, in one case at least, a person whom had reported a close encounter with a UFO and abduction experiences related to that, had a spontaneous abduction experience while sitting in the car of investigators from a local UFO study group whom were taking her home after she had been at one of their houses being interviewed. The investigators did not see anything other than the person slumped in their car, but she subsequently informed them that she had been bodily taken away by Aliens.

Also, as already mentioned, it’s quite possible that some encounters that are reported as encounters with UFOs- possibly true non-human technology; are in fact generated by Temporal Lobe activity generated by interaction with energy forms created by geological affects. It would be good to know the causes, nature and potential of these; and particle physicists would have a field day if they could ever get to grips with these particular energy forms; but if our attention is focused on UFO’s as being physical craft under the control of non-human, intelligent entities, then we simply need to recognise this one important point.

Which is that we need in all cases to ask this question:- ‘What are going on?’ So that we remain aware that there are potentially a number of phenomena involved at different times, and that we perhaps need to try and differentiate between them so that we can focus on our chosen area of enquiry.

Lastly, some speculation about the Temporal Lobes and their functions.

In evolutionary terms the TL are I believe quite a new addition to the human brain. We live in a deeply complex and multidimensional universe, of which we humans are poorly equipped to perceive only a very small part of all the information which is available. Our sensory range is severely limited, and we are currently limited as a general principle to perceiving only three spatial dimensions of a universe which leading edge physicists and mathematicians consider may be composed of at least twenty. This being so, there is probably always going to be much more going on around us than we are able to perceive- literally. As I write this, my office could very well be the higher dimensional version of St Pancras train station- thousands of multidimensional beings could be wandering about around and through me, and until and unless my dimensional awareness increases, I’ll be none the wiser.

However, it is quite possible that the TL are evolving to enable human beings to perceive and interact with a multidimensional universe, and quite possibly our visitors; if there is any truth in the principle that our planet is being visited; may well have evolved in this way already. That’s just a thought really, but worth involving in a tentative way at least in our general thinking concerning UFO’s, as once again, there may be links between this and some of the phenomena and effects involved in UFO encounters and sightings.

From this thinking we could also speculate that encounter and abduction type experiences take the form they do because they bring the participants into contact with beings whom exist in planes from which we are generally excluded, and therefore when we do shift into interaction with them, our minds draw from whatever source is available for ways with which to deal with something which is outside of current human experience. Just a thought worth thinking- if only to stimulate the mind into being open to possibilities!

Alan Tickhill. . 1998.

Click here to go back to the top

 Our lineage and connections:  Who we are:  Traditions:  Coven structure: Issues arising:  Newsletter:   
 Ritual & ceremony:  Initiation:  Wicca information: Witchcraft course: 
Teaching materials and articles:  Druidism & Paganism: The Pagan federation:  Links:   Contacts & Networking:  Resources:  Wicca-book:  Degrees:  Join the Galdraheim Circle:  Back to main page: