Heather – Ur
by Blayze

Sink your awareness down into the earth. Become aware of your breathing. Enter a trance state (using usual breathing techniques…)You find yourself standing at the foot of a large hill - all around you is darkness pierced only by the brilliant light of the stars… twinkling like jewels embroidered into the velvet cloak of the night sky above you.By the light of the stars you can see that a path winds in a spiral about the hill. You move to the left and begin to walk along the path - ever twisting and spiralling to the left. 

You begin to feel the ground slope beneath your feet as you slowly walk the spiral path. Your awareness shifts with each turn as you sink deeper and deeper into trance.You are aware moonlight growing brighter as you near the summit of the hill and you realise that the moon is rising to hang just above the hill itself. Bathed in the moonlight is a tall, ancient stone that stands in the centre of a flat plateau. 

The spiral path winds ever towards the stone in the centre, one half of which is in shadow, the other illuminated by the silver light of the moon.Gradually you find yourself walking in a ever tightening spiral as you move closer and closer to the stone… always and ever moving to the left. At last you come face to face to with the towering and ancient weathered rock. 

By the light of the moon you see that there is an image carved upon its surface… A straight line runs from an inverted V at the base to the top of the stone. Halfway up the line you see three horizontal lines biscecting the vertical line. This is the Ogham Ur - the Heather carved into the single upthrust spur of living rock.You feel the power awakening in the stone and sigil as the moon continues to rise. The Ogham stave glows and you run your hand along its length. You feel the energy tingle through you from the tips of your fingers to your feet upon the earth. 

Suddenly everything shifts and you find that you have passed through the stone into another realm. Mist envelopes you and you experience a moment of disorientation, but you can now feel the stone standing at your back.

Mist surrounds you. You begin to walk forward. The ground is damp beneath your feet and the rich scent of decaying leaves fills your mouth and nose. Yet there is also a clean scent in the air, the smell after rain. It is late morning and as you walk, the mist begins to shred away. You find that you are walking along a shallow stream bed in a gully, water trickles beneath your feet and on either side of you are thick clumps of fern with their fronds lying damp in the water. The ground is boggy and the leaves are hung with droplets. As you walk along the stream bed you see that it starts to curve around the base of a low hill whose top is still covered in mist. You begin to gather a handful of the fern fronds as you follow the stream.

As you round the base of the hill you notice that the water is getting deeper and has begun to pool. You move out of the stream bed where the ferns are not as thick and find you are standing on what appears to be a game trail leading around and up the hill. Still carrying your handful of ferns you begin to walk along the game trail. The ground becomes drier  underfoot and the Sun is almost at its zenith. 

You walk higher along the trail and notice that all about you are low bushes of heather, tiny leaves and tiny purple or blue flowers that give the impression of a rolling purple sea. The sweet, subtle scent of heather calms you as you walk and the ferns you carry begin to dry out in the noon sun.

You hear the buzzing of bees amongst the flowers as you walk. Still the top of the hill is covered in mist that resists the heat of the day. The wind begins to stir the heather and as you climb higher you see the bare bones of the earth, the rocks that have been scoured by the weather, the top soil blown away. The heather provides bright colour and contrast to the rocks. The landscape is both bleak and beautiful. It speaks to you of desolation but the flowers of the heather contribute to an undercurrent of potential carried by the sound of the bees.

Still you follow the path around the hill and as you round a bend in the trail you see a proud stag nibbling at the tips of the heather. His horns are many-tined and sharp. He sees you and starts, he turns to move into the mist at the top of the hill. The mist parts for him and then an eddy closes the gap, he disappears from view.

You move to the place where the stag was feeding. You can see that the heather has been torn here. You look amongst the low branches spread across the ground and glimpse an object that glints in the sunlight. You reach into the heather and untangle an object from its branches. It is a brass bladed sickle with a hilt of stag horn. You take up the sickle and examine it. You see that the image of a bee has been carefully worked into the blade, knots of heather leaves and flowers surrounding it. The blade gleams in the sunlight as you hold it up. The horn handle fits comfortably into your hand.

You look at the path taken by the stag and see that the ground is trampled. The path leads straight into the mist. At the spot where the stag vanished grows two bushes of heather that have different coloured flowers to the sea of purple and blue that surrounds you. One bush is red and the other white. They grow like sentinels on either side of a gateway.

You place the sickle and bunch of fern on the path and take off your clothes. You stand naked on the path to the gateway of mist. Place your belongings amongst the heather where you found the sickle. 

Take the sickle and cut from the surrounding purple heather, some of the long, rope-like branches. Twist them together to form a very long belt. Tie the belt about your waist with a long section hanging down almost to the ground.

Retrieve the fern fronds from the path and take the sickle in your hand once more. Go to the place where the red heather and the white heather grow. Kneel before them, facing the mist. Place the fern frond between the two heathers.

Look at the red heather, it is the passion which allows the destruction before creation. It is the red of blood, the responsibility of the magical acts that precede renewal. The sweet red flower that guards the place between violence and passion, love and lust. That which we destroy or set free to pass from this world to the Otherworld.

Study the red heather. Look at the branches and identify a branch with that part of you that is no longer needed, that you can destroy with passion so that renewal may occur.

Now take up the sickle and with a passionate sweep of the blade, cut the branch you have chosen.

Now hold the red branch of heather in your hand. Look to the white heather. This is the colour of death but also new life. It is the renewal of passion and the protection from passion also. It is luck and a gateway to the rebirth of the initiatory journey. 

Study the white heather. Find the branch that is your gateway, the luck that wells within you. The heady scent of summer.

With a gentle stroke, cut the branch of white heather. There is a stirring in the mist before you. Take the red heather and the white in your hands and then place them before you, laying them on top of the fern fronds.

Take the sickle and cut a length of the twisted heather rope from the long piece that hangs from your waist. Now bind the red and white heather together in a bundle at their base, leaving the fern fronds still upon the ground.

As you tie a final knot about the red and white heather, you see the colours merge into a dark pink that shades to purple.

Holding the heather bundle before and above you, in one passionate gesture, swing the bundle from head height to the ground. With an act of magical will you make a gateway in the mist. Your body resonates to the magic.

The mist parts for you and you stand before the gateway now open. You attach the sickle to your belt of heather rope, take up the fern fronds and tuck them into your belt also. Hold the bundle of heather before you and walk forward between the walls of mist.

You are on the flat top of a hill. In the very centre of the hill burns a fire of heather branches atop a flat stone. You feel calm and alive with creativity flowing through your veins.

You see that a veil of mist still surrounds the hill. Walking around the top of the hill and starting from one side of the gateway, use your heather bundle as a broom and sweep away the misty barrier, the mist of your old life. Eventually you arrive back where the gateway once stood. You stand on a hill with a vista of purple heather covered hills before and around you.

Now take your heather bundle and light the tips in the flame upon the stone. Carry this flaming heather torch around the top of the hill as you create a blessing of this new world. Your own place of transition. As you do this, you take responsibility for your acts of destruction and creation. You feel the understanding of this flow from within you, out through the flames of the torch.

Once you have blessed the whole border of the hill top, go to the fire at the centre once more. Take up your sickle and place it in the centre of the flames where it begins to glow from the heat. Destruction and creation, the twin heathers that form the gateways to self. Take the bundle of fern fronds from about your waist and cast them into the flames to cover the sickle. The edges of the fronds begin to curl with the heat. Now carefully lay your flaming heather torch atop the fern and sickle. The fire flares up in a pillar to the sky.

Clouds begin to gather above you and the first fat drops of a cleansing rain begin to fall upon the ground and upon your naked skin.

Begin to dance around the hill top. Dancing under the cleansing rain of your creation and renewal, celebrating your journey to the Otherworld. As you dance the fire upon the stone is dampened, the pillar of flame dies back and the heather branches begin to smoulder. The rain becomes heavier and heavier and the fire is put out completely. The remains of the heather ask are washed away by the rain. Slowly you dance towards the stone as the rain eases off.

You arrive at the stone as the rain stops and the sun comes out to shine upon a horn and brass chalice where once was sickle and flame. The chalice is full of the rain water summoned by you. You feel the sun upon your skin as your body begins to shed its droplets of water and dry once more.

You take up the chalice and take a small sip. You taste heather in the water, now a potent ale. You feel the knowledge of gateways within you and around you flow along your veins, passion awoken and channelled.

Holding the chalice carefully so as not to spill its contents, make your way to the place where the red and white heather grows.

Walk between the heathers then turn around and place the chalice between the plants. Gather your clothing and possessions from under the purple heather where your first found the sickle. Dress yourself. 

Take up the chalice once more and begin to walk the spiral game trail back down the hill. You come to the pooling place of the stream in the gully. Pour the liquid from the chalice into the pool and place the chalice amongst the ferns that grown along its banks. You see the Stag come to drink from the pool.

Walk back along the stream until you come to the standing stone. 

Finally you return to standing stone. But this time a spiral is carved into its surface. Move to the stone and begin to trace the spiral as it twists to the right. You become aware of mist forming around you once more and again a feeling of disorientation. As the mist begins to clear you find that you are once again standing upon the hillside under the fading light of the setting moon. By the light of the stars you begin to walk the spiral path out from the centre, ever moving to the right. You begin to feel the path sloping downwards as you tread the spiral path around the hill. As you walk you feel yourself becoming heavier and heavier, you begin to be aware of other sounds…. Slowly you reach the bottom of the hill and sit at its base. You become aware of the feel of your body, the shape of your skin and your breath. You feel the blood flowing through your veins . You become aware of the sounds around you… When you are back… open your eyes