“Show me…” an open question to the field of love
and a lesson in dowsing that is more than I expected
The Chalice Well Garden, Glastonbury, United Kingdom
It is a damp early morning and I sit on a bench in my layers of jackets, waiting for Dave.
It is peaceful this morning. A few people wander in…volunteers and employees. It is almost 8:30 am now.
The garden doesn’t open until 10 am.
Dave is going to teach me about dowsing, but really Dave is going to teach me about God. I just don’t know it yet.
He joins me soon after I arrive, and sits next to me on the bench. He hands me the dowsing rods.
“This is like first level Aikido,” he says. (“Aikido is a Japanese martial art developed by Morihei Ueshiba, emphasizing harmony and non-resistance to neutralize aggression.”—says Leo, the AI tool on my Brave browser.)
“Hold the rods like this, with the tips down a bit, and then extend your Chi forward, put your awareness in front of you through them, and ask a simple question.”
I jump in right away. Sometimes I can be a bit quick so it is good I choose the Grand Master type when I want to learn new things. I think when it comes to working with me, they are going to need some patience.
“Show me where Sweet Cicely is!” I said.
Dave had found this plant for me a few days before with the rods and I hadn’t been able to find it again.
The rods swung in the general direction of where I knew it was hiding. One kind of chugged a little hesitantly after the other. They seemed a bit uncertain still. Not at all like when I had seen Dave use them.
I look at him.
I try to ask some questions.
“Why aren’t they moving together?” I said, which included a lot more underneath.
The “more underneath” part has to do with this question: “What am I doing wrong?” which I hid as best I could behind my eyes. (There is a young part of me that tries so hard to get things right. She was already a tiny bit tearful and it was only her first try. I know. It is not helpful to be a perfectionist. Like I said, I try to hide it as judgement from myself or others doesn’t help.)
“It just takes practice,” he says. “The fewer words you use, the better. I often find that two or three words are enough.”
“How do you do this with only two or three words?” I wonder silently to myself.
(I was soon to find out).
I took a breath. I held back more questions as best I could. I learned early on that with Dave, if I want to learn, I need to listen and be open to what he says. I have to reign in my mind which acts a lot like the horses pulling the chariot on a Tarot card I have drawn at times.
Dave was still teaching and all of that happened inside of me in the time it took to blink my eyes a couple times, while I took a slower breath.
“You just need to point the tips down a bit and keep them a little more parallel. When you start, ask them to show you something you already know the answer to. That way you can practice.”
“Like this,” he says as he stands up briskly and holds the wooden handles of the metal rods about hips distance apart in front of him. The delicate rods are parallel and tipped down a tiny bit.
(Dave is confident and at this point, my sense is that I am with one of the premier artists in this country when it comes to Dowsing).
He hands them to me again and tells me what to ask:
“Show me the place where the water is closest.”
I repeat the words after him to the rods as I hold them, tips slightly down, about hips distance apart.
“Show me the place where the water is closest,” I say, after attempting to place my energy, somehow, in a forward position and send it through them (I feel both awkward and excited again).
The rods swing together in unison easily in my hands to the left. “Let’s go,” he says. Dave isn’t one to be slow or hesitate when it comes to working with these rods and the energy around us, which he has already informed me is his closest sense of God and infinite wisdom.
We follow them to a point a few feet away where the spring water is flowing along a curving channel in the grass. It is the point where the water is closest to where we had been standing when we asked the question.
Dave points this out to me again. He had shown me the same thing before he found the Sweet Cicely for me a few days prior to this.
“See where we are Terra. Look. They didn’t take us to any point. They took us to the exact point where the water is flowing closest to where we were standing when we asked.”
I look at him, rods now dangling in my hands, mission accomplished, and nod.
“But I am going to do something different with you now,” he continues briskly.
I don’t remember what else he says. I know the woman in the office, when I told her I was meeting Dave in the garden the next morning told me those kind of meetings had changed people. “People’s whole lives have shifted after one of those meetings with Dave,” she said. “Sometimes they cry. It is amazing what happens.”
“He’s going to teach me about dowsing,” I told her. But I was pretty sure it was likely going to be about something more and she had just confirmed my suspicions.
I had seen him walking through the garden with a woman early one morning a few days before. Silently. Using his dowsing rods. I watched them pause, as they touched their foreheads to trees, or stood in front of a statue. I didn’t know what they were doing, just that he glanced at me as they passed and smiled for a moment. I sat by the well, soaking in the essence of the sacred sanctuary that was open only for retreat guests, that early in the morning.
Now it is my turn.
Dave holds the rods in front of him again.
“Now I will show you something different,” he says.
“It is never the same when I do this with someone. I never know what to expect or what will happen. Something happens for the person and something happens for me.”
He doesn’t waste time with further talking. Dave has learned that fewer words are better.
He leaves for a moment and comes back holding tiny sticks of incense.
“This is more like 5th level Aikido,” he continues as he lights them.
He keeps a few in one hand and passes three to me. They leave delicate trails of smoke that dance in the gentle currents of air swirling around us.
He places the rods in the position he has demonstrated. Then he begins:
“Show me…” he says.
The rods swing a tiny bit and lead us forward. I know more is happening than I can see. I know Dave is listening to more than I can see or understand.
We arrive at a large Yew tree, one of two that form a gateway in the garden. Dave puts his forehead against it and closes his eyes. He steps away and gestures for me to do the same. I place my forehead where his has been. I breathe and do my best to feel the tree, its essence, its gifts and message. And this is all happening rather fast. I wasn’t sure what to make of it yet. I smell the scent of the musky bark, I feel its beauty, its strength, its ancient presence. But just for a few moments. Dave motions me to follow him.
He follows the rods to another place a few feet from us and places a stick of incense in the earth between it and the other yew. They stand like tall sentinels or guardians, just above the Vesica Piscis pool below. I learn later they are male yew trees, mirrored by two other female guardians that stand above the Chalice Well. Dave tells me the pollen floats gently through the air from these trees to the ones above. After they are pollinated, they drop some of their tiny needles. He tells me he thinks it is beautiful to see this. That he doesn’t want to sweep all those needles up that fall around the well. Dave, I notice over time, allows the garden to move. He tends it. He gives things space to float through the air. He allows slugs to live there and feed the birds. He protects the baby plants from them with copper rings. Maybe in a way, my wish to meet a gnome or an elf, is truly being granted as I walk and listen to this gardener, every chance I get.
This morning as we walk, he doesn’t speak. Not until the end. But I know inwardly he is asking, opening, to the Garden. Without words, “Show me…” he says silently again.
We stand near the other tree now, next to one another and the rods point left. I find myself spinning, with him, counter clockwise, three times, like a Sufi dancer. I feel like I am unwinding the energy of something, something beyond my conscious awareness.
Almost dizzy, I follow Dave again as he and the Garden weave a pattern…to show me…to show us…something…
We pause at the second tree and touch our foreheads to it. We take time and also often move rapidly. I place my forehead where his has been. My mind is slowing down and I am starting to drop in a bit.
The rods lead us on, now to an old stump. I had stopped and wondered about it before when I wandered through the garden on my own. It has been left here to decay. We pause to take it in.
No words are spoken. I notice a tiny plant growing out of it, patches of bright green moss, crumpling bark in the process of becoming Earth, and imagined the massive giant it must have once been, still in the process of transformation. Something in me wonders about life, and letting go? How despite getting rid of many things, I still find it hard to pull weeds in a garden.
The rods spin in another direction leaving no more time for my mind to busy itself with contemplation. The thoughts trail behind us with the smoke from the incense as Dave follows and I hurry after him.
We pass the pool where people walk barefoot, beneath the waterfall, to the stairs that lead to the Lions Head Fountain.
The rods cross in front of Dave, and he pauses again.
We stand on one of the upper steps below the entrance and I feel something in front of me I have not noticed prior to this. An energy that is not a boundary, but is an actual presence, pressing like a force field against me. The energy is coming from the Chalice Well, in the garden.
I don’t know why, but tears come to my eyes and energy rises up in my body. I shake for a moment as it moves through me.
The rods uncross themselves and swing forward directing us on and Dave follows them. They are listening to the garden as she responds to the two silent words, over and over again. “Show me…”
This time they take us to the Lion’s Head where water pours fourth. Dave directs me wordlessly to place a stick of incense there, into the ground above it.
He bends over and touches the water. Then with his wet fingers, he touches his third eye, his lips and his heart.
I copy him.
The rods move again.
This time they take us through a gate to the statue, that sits to the left of the well. It is a statue of a woman, holding a child.
He doesn’t hesitate as he faces the statue. He brushes off the flower petals, the offerings and some coins around it. He tosses them into the garden.
He has told me before that all things people leave remain in the garden.
He told me the day before that as he was planting something, a bright turquoise stone appeared in the earth he had just dug up and at the same time, a woman walked by wearing the exact same color shirt. He showed her as he held it up to her shirt and told her, it had to be a gift from the garden…for her.
Now I join him as we clean off the statue…moving the prayers and wishes in the form of objects people have left around it…tossing them back into the garden.
Dave takes some of the remaining flowers and hands me a few. He removes the petals and we sprinkle them back around the statue, with care, where it feels right to put them. He places a few stones shaped like hearts in a line in front of her feet. It feels right. I thought to put one in the same place, and was glad he did…
The rods swing again.
They lead us to two more yew trees, the ones that stand above the garden and above the well itself, the female guardians. We visit each. We press our foreheads against them. He gestures for me to place an incense stick next to one of his nearby. Mine has gone out while his is still lit. Somehow, that seems OK. Somehow, that is what the garden is showing me… through the decaying stump and new green plants, through the offerings that are given, and removed, and given again.
The rods move once more, and point towards the Chalice Well.
It is decorated with flowers. Some people have also left coins.
Dave doesn’t hesitate.
He starts to remove everything.
He brushes off the stones that form the edge of the circular opening to the well. It is an opening that used to be the roof of a well house, before years passed and the sediment flowed around it.
He begins to decorate the opening with flower petals.
I see more coins tucked, hidden away, behind the hinges.
I don’t hesitate, although my mind wants me to.
It feels important to clean everything off and to start over again.
I take them and toss them into the well.
Wishes and prayers. Maybe parts of myself I have kept hidden.
I hear them land with a “Plunk, plunk, plunk.” The sound breaks or enhances the wordlessness. One tiny crystal falls into the ferns inside and is hidden. I take this as a sign it has found its own place.
I take petals from Dave and join him in sprinkling them around the well. Then we sit for a moment and gaze at it. There is a sprig of plant he has left tucked in the metal decorating the cover, along with a grey feather.
Something about the feather feels incomplete. I check inside. Even though we are sitting, I get up again and remove it.
I drop it into the well. Unlike the coins, it lands silently and softly. I watch it fall in and then come back to sit next to him.
Tears come once again.
I don’t know why as my mind tries to comprehend messages that bypass it on their way straight into my soul.
My mind thinks they have to do with letting go, with trust, with the process of life, and with the field of love in which I exist…a field that is full of wisdom. Maybe my mind does grasp a little bit of it?
After a few silent moments together, Dave stands up again and walks down the path lined with colorful flowers in more hues and textures than I have ever seen, towards the bench where we began, but then he pauses, still silent. There is a butterfly on our right. It is the color of my jacket. We stand together and take it in. It flutters and I watch it drink nectar. I wonder…perhaps I am not just becoming a butterfly…perhaps I already am?
The butterfly flutters away.
Dave and I arrive back at the bench and sit.
He tells me it was lovely. He tells me the experience felt deep to him, and that it feels like he is in an altered state from it.
I tell him jokingly that I am a deep woman and agree that I feel I am in an altered state.
“Take your time,” he says. “It is good to stay and let things settle a bit. It is good to rest.”
I listen to him. I find a place to sit in the garden, tucked away, hidden from the visitors arriving now. White roses grow overhead, and leaves dance with light. I have to move them out of the way to get to the wooden seat that is overgrown in order to reach the castle Sleeping Beauty waits in.
Dave has told me that this well is not just a well. It is the heart chakra of the Earth. It is a special place, a sacred place, where the water comes from deep, deep inside the planet.
I notice tiny spiders watching me from inside the white roses that grow from vines above my head. Then an insect I have never seen before, with delicate wings and a curved tail lands nearby. It is so small, and so exquisite. It reminds me of a dragon.
I am in awe of this Earth, with so much magic, so much wisdom, and so much beauty… I sit there quietly and bask in it.
Later I write. I tell myself the words are not poetic enough. That is what my mind says. My mind says my friend, Jamie, could do better. My mind says I write like a child.
And that is true in a way.
I guess when I really talk to God from my heart…I feel young. But then again, when I talk to God from the heart…perhaps I am… In the bigger perspective, as Dave has also mentioned, I am a glittering drop of water on the edge of a sea of awareness.
Here is what I wrote later:
Show Me
what is beyond my mind
Show me
what I cannot know or see
Show me
wisdom and love caressing me
Show me
a stump…left to decay
Show me
there is a gift
life transforms
help me find my way
Show me
the mystery, the grace, the love
Show me
release, how to let go
it leads to trust
I crave to know
Show me
the spiral that unwinds my heart
we move counterclockwise
in Grace thou art
Show me
myself, I don’t know who I am…
a glistening tear in the eye of a lamb
Show me
this heart in which I exist
its gentle currents
its waves of bliss
pink green and blue
soft pillars of light
they ripple and flow
they dance with delight
Show me
that change is not what it seems
the scent of perfume that wafts through my dreams
Show me
that prayers do linger on…
appearances change
love’s never gone
Show me
a feather whose time has come
I let it go gently
releasing someone
Show me
how to reclaim what has been judged
the parts of myself I have feared and begrudged
Show me
that life is more than I see
please open my eyes
I wish to be free
Show me
the circle where love never ends
pierce the veil
pierce my heart
I wish to die
live again
And later I wrote this:
I am a crystalline
drop in the sea
of God
I let go
I melt in
I am that
I am
…again
Here are some photos from this week. Anomalous, one of the readers here, asked for a photo of what I was drawing. I saw this white rose on the path in front of me one day when I was feeling hesitant to pick a flower. I took it to my room and made this.
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Terra! Wow! What an experience! What a poem! That is a love poem! As good as any. Keep breaking open in that chrysalis of becoming! Something tells me you’re dowsing your way into being. What a beautiful article. What a beautiful experience. 🙏❤️
PS your drawing is gorgeous Terra 🥰