The Chalice Well, the first sacred stepping stone on my path since leaving El Salvador

The sacred exists in many forms, and what happens near such energy is often unexpected

“The vesica, symbol of the union and dissolution of polarities can be seen throughout the gardens in many forms.” p. 83 Chalice Well the Story of a Living Sanctuary, 2009

As I sit at this tiny white table in a bedroom decorated in soft blues, gazing out at green…so many shades of green…which cover the distant plains that used to be a lakebed and paint themselves over the soft rolling hills beyond, as well as impregnating the leaves of the yellow rose bud inches away from the closed window in front of me, which keeps the heat in, and weaving their way across a great arch formed of nature’s branches that leads to a beautifully unkempt garden missing its gardener outside the same widow, I wonder what to write to you this week about reaching this first stepping stone on what I plan to be an approximately year-long journey to bathe in sacred places?

And some gentle tears come.

This is often the case for me. I feel touched. I often don’t know why. Something feels exquisite and beautiful and it is not that I feel sad…but something alchemical happens and I begin to cry. Perhaps this is what it is like in those moments one gets closer to heaven and to frequencies of divine love. Such places are soft and gentle. I know the energy of creation can also be strong for creation is not to be sneezed at in a disrespectful manner. But creation is also made, the way I sense it, from delicate threads of gossamer that are like musical notes. You and I are part of that. We walk through space and often without knowing it, we have an effect as we leave a wake behind us which we don’t see or hear. Even these keystrokes create ripples in the matrix. I know that. It is just that sometimes, I can forget.

So, I believe I shall tell you some stories.

First, I want you to know that I have wanted to come to the Chalice Well for many years. Ever since someone mentioned it, or her, to me. I don’t remember when that was, or who told me about it. Perhaps it will be the same for some of you? As you read or listen to my words today, or see one of the photos below, you may feel a stirring in your heart. A stirring that at some point, despite the natural resistance that always arises when one sets out on any quest, you choose to listen to and in the future, you will be here, like me, wondering where the whisper began and not quite recalling this moment. You don’t have to.

The Chalice Well is actually a spring. A spring in the town of Glastonbury at the base of a hill known as the Tor. In a photo, the Tor is a simple green hill with a tower at the top, which is all that is left of what used to be a church at it’s summit. In the distance, near the top, you will see tiny dots in a line like ants following one another. The ants, highlighted by the sky beyond, are people, some of whom are pilgrims, climbing up to visit the summit and the tower that holds memories of so much more. I read pilgrims in the past used to make the ascent on their knees. I also read that the hill tracks the movements of the stars and seasons and is an advanced astronomical device, if one knows how to read it. At the solstice (I don’t remember which one), from another nearby hill, you can see the sun, like the pilgrims, appear to climb its slope as it makes its way to the summit. I do not believe that is by accident. Although the hill is said to have a limestone core, the outer covering of rock and soil, covered in more green grass, has been molded in intentional ways. There are terraces that used to have apple trees and are thought to have perhaps been part of a labyrinth route to the summit. The terraces, in relation to the stars and movements of the sun and moon, also predict the seasons.

But at first glance, it is simply a green hill, with a tower, in the middle of a great green plain with other hills here and there.

But glances leave much unseen. To see and to feel, takes time. Time is what our current world tells us we never have enough of. Time is what the world tells us to use only for glancing at things.

I feel differently.

I am reminded we live in a magical world with ancestors who knew more than we perhaps give them credit for. I gaze at my computer screen. They gazed at the stars. I wonder, (and those prickly tears come again), who is more advanced?

Legend has it that the Tor may be hollow and that there may be people buried in secret places within. In the channeled books I have enjoyed, it is said that some of the ancestors of Jesus are laid to rest on these lands and perhaps within the hill, at whose base I sit as I type these words to you.

In my blue room.

Which feels soft and soothing.

There is a booklet on the nightstand written by the beautiful silver-haired woman who owns this house. After I arrived, I realized she is an artist. The booklet speaks of color and frequency. She states that blue is actually a warm color, with more heat in it than red. This is because Blue has a higher frequency and the photons hold more energy.

“Colours are merely a dissection of the amount of pressure and heat there is on each particular wavelength and frequency. Red is a much cooler temperature than blue. In colloquial science it is thought to be the other way around, but in reality, energies of a shorter wavelength, such as blue, are denser and therefore more heated and powerful.”—Jan Billings The Healing Power of Colour and Light

And I realize, that controversy is rampant and it would be easy to get into controversy over whether blue is warm or cool. But I like to see and feel that once more, what I thought was a simple fact is perhaps not as factual as I was led to believe. It softens my edges and my vision. It allows me to see and feel more, when I let go of rigid beliefs. And later, as my mind trys to argue the point one early morning and tells me, “fire is warm Terra and it is Orange!” I remember that the center of the flame, the hottest part, is blue. So there you have it. Things are often not as they seem, or as I have been led to believe.

After only a few days, I have many stories. I have, of course, been praying in my own way. I have been contemplating what I see as my current blocks and challenges. I have asked for help to heal the challenges the ancestors have faced and often passed down on the female side of my lineage. By chance, if there is such a thing, all that was happening around Mother’s Day at a sacred spring that runs with reddish, iron infused water our of a chalice and a lot of shapes in the garden that look like parts of feminine anatomy. I didn’t come here intentionally to work on my resistance and the pain held in the feminine lineage of my family. Yet, here I am and that is what came to me. Already, much of what I felt and asked about has been softening.

I also asked the Spring/the Earth/the subtle beings about friendship and its energy. You see, my long time practice partner, Sandra and I are no longer practicing. For years we have met every week and taken a dive into what I consider and call in my mind, The Dojo, to explore the energy of things and hopefully, learn to imbue what we explore with more love for ourselves and what arises. There has been an undercurrent we have called “The energy of tea.” Sandra mentioned once that she wanted to experience care in a relationship. “It would be so lovely to feel a man, making me tea.” I too, find the energy of tea in this sense quite lovely.

So, here I am, finally coming to England, home to my practice partner. “Sandra, do you have a few minutes to answer a few questions for me, perhaps another time when we are not on this call?” She didn’t respond with enthusiasm nor did she express interest or excitement in seeing me. The part about seeing me is fine. It would have felt nice, but I am not here for that. But the lack of time to advise me…well, it got me thinking.

You see, I advise people a lot. When my new friend Jake was driving through Sedona, I texted him suggestions of places to see. He was grateful and it was fun for me. When people arrived in El Salvador, I would send them all the contacts I had made. They too were grateful and it was fun for me.

Now I was flying to England and I wasn’t sure at the time, if I needed to rent a car to get to Glastonbury. I wanted to ask Sandra. But Sandra, my partner of many years and friend, I had told myself repeatedly and sometimes said to her, did not express interest in advising me.

I realized I wasn’t feeling the energy of tea.

I was reconsidering our calls moving forward and when she appeared on my screen the following week she announced, “I have decided to take a break from all my calls.” That break, included me. I was one of “all my calls.” I wished her well. I was feeling a similar withdrawing, although I held my time with her in a place in my heart that mattered, in a unique way. But her words confirmed something for me.

I would like to be with people that feel like true friends and that somehow, include the energy of tea.

I sat in a sacred room at the top of Little Saint Michael’s House, where I was staying in the garden and asked about these things. I sat next to the Chalice Well and contemplated things as well.

Then I did what I have been writing to you about. It is a magical thing. It seems to change reality. People call that magic don’t they?

As I sat in the sacred room upstairs, where many people had sat before me, I thought about friendship. Did I have friends? Often, I have told myself that they change over time because I have changed over time. But that is not necessarily true and in the end doesn’t matter so much. What was my reality in that moment? I wanted to feel friendship. My practice partner was not offering what I desired, although I truly did wish her well. She mentioned checking in with me in a few weeks. Maybe we would resume our calls then? And I felt the old codependent tendencies in my past that have led me to relationships with avoidant people. I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue in a few weeks after her break. Not in a reactive, angry responsive way. I was noticing what I wanted to feel, that I was not feeling.

So, as I sat, I started feeling for friendship. When had I felt what I wished to experience more of? And scenes and people started coming to me. I began to feel a network of friendship underneath and around me. People I haven’t spoken to for over a year came to me. They still felt like friends. I realized the kind of friendship I want to experience isn’t about give and take. It isn’t about transactional energy. It truly is about tea. The people I enjoy seem to have enjoyed me as well, although my self-critic objects at times, their behavior shows me something different.

More than one person has supported me on my psychadelic journeys. Some have hiked with me. Many have shared their hearts and held mine with care. As I sat there, it felt so lovely.

I was feeling the energy of friendship, the way I want to experience it, and already have in this case (although I don’t believe that is necessary for this to work and imagination is more powerful that you may think). It felt lovely.

Then, a still-surprising-to-me thing happened. People started texting and reaching out. People I didn’t imagine were even thinking of me. Carlos, a young thirty year old driver in El Salvador, said he hoped we could play chess again soon and sent me a photo of a game he just played. I told him I was traveling and he said he hoped we could play when I returned.

Another friend in Colorado texted her apology for not responding to my Happy Birthday text to her that I forgot I sent months ago. She wanted to talk to me.

Yet another, who I haven’t spoken to or texted in a few years, asked if perhaps I was in Arizona so we could meet? She was traveling there soon. I told her I had just left a few days before and she responded that we would meet…

My uncle and I have emailed and texted a bit. And I have met new people here. New friends.

One of them, after we finally met and she had given me a lovely massage to soothe my back that was complaining of too much luggage moving, asked on the way out the door from the massage room, “Terra, there is some lemon water on the counter there for you. And, would you enjoy a cup of tea?”

“Yes, please,” I said. I didn’t miss what had happened. I had a new friend, who had offered me tea.

We sat together with her husband, whose weekend workshop I had taken years before, and sipped our steamy mugs of tea and I felt it. These people were friends for me. They even have a small guest house they rent on Air B&B.

Now I have done what I told myself I wouldn’t do. I have told you the story I didn’t plan to tell because I have another.

This too is about magic.

I will be brief.

I feel I must learn to be more brief as a part of me wants to hurry. A part of me wants to go on more adventures and not spend too much time typing. But that is silly as this too is an adventure and you matter to me. We’re connected you see.

So, let’s get to it. I likely will not edit this much. Let’s see if Terra Brooke can be brief.

It feels important to share this with you.

Story #2:

I am sitting next to the Vesica Piscis pool at the base of the Chalice Well Garden, which has just opened. In my lap is a glass bowl with white swirls in the beautiful glass. Dave, the gardener, suggested I put my vest on my lap underneath it, which I have done.

Dave has taken the bowl to the side of the pool where a small cascade of water falls and filled it.

“John Wilke’s seven bowled flowform was installed in 1993 and replaced the existing open shuted waterfall. In each of hte bowls the water describes a perfect figure of eight. If the flow of the waters circulation in the third and eighth bowl are timed and counted, it can be observed that they circulate at 18 and 72 times per minute. These are the rates of the breath and the heartbeat.” p. 84 Chalice Well the Story of a Living Sanctuary, 2009

Now it is in my lap filled with fresh, crystal clear icy water and in the middle floats a green leaf.

“See you on the other side,” says Dave as he smiles at me and walks away.

His comment surprises me. The other side?

I glance overhead and see a chem trail making a line across the sky. “That is not by accident,” I think to myself as I wonder what the energy field of the universe is about to teach me.

Then I follow Dave’s directions and lower my hands into the icy water as I close my eyes and he walks away.

That’s when I realized the meaning of Dave’s words.

Instantly, I was in an altered state.

The frequency shifted. I know how to feel them: frequencies. Looking back, I realize it is a lot like when I worked with my Chi Gong teacher Beverly. When I went for personal energetic healing sessions with her, sometimes the energy of the room would shift.

I have felt similar things with psychedelics.

Now I was feeling it with a bowl of Spring water and a leaf.

I am telling you this because I want you to know what is possible.

This is not just about me. This is about all of us.

Dave does this with many people and he told me, “Terra, we can all do these things.”

I think he is right.

Earlier, I arrived at 10 am sharp when the Garden opened. Dave had agreed to meet with me.

He is both a gardener and a dowser. Dowsing had always intrigued me and I wanted to learn more. A dowser holds rods in their hands and asks questions. The rods move in response. People have used them to find underground springs.

They have used them to sense energetic lines in the Earth.

I told Dave how I used my hands to feel the answer to questions I had. “I am interested in whatever you want to teach me,” I said. Sure I wanted to learn dowsing. But maybe I didn’t need it. My hand thing had been working pretty well.

(God, help me, I don’t know how to be brief).

Suffice it to say, Dave started to teach me and he used the Dowsing rods and they are a lovely tool that are unique.

“You have to start with a clear question, Terra. Gaia listens. She takes in the question and all the information about you and your soul. Then she comes up with a response.”

Here is the clear question Dave asked that led to that leaf.

“What is the plant for Terra Brooke’s well being?”

When he asked it, the rods that had been pointing straight forward swung immediately to his right.

I had seen him do something similar with a new friend of mine the day before. That time one of the rods moved almost imperceptibly. Dave told me the garden and its spring were taking in a lot of information. That the process can take time and it is a beautiful thing, how much time the garden and Gaia takes to respond to people and offer what they truly need. That day he told her they needed to meet again later.

But now with me, those rods were assertive and Dave headed right off in the direction they pointed.

In the twelve acre garden, he only had to go about ten yards. The rods moved in a slow curve and he stepped over a few plants. There was a small green one that had already gone to seed with a few fresh green leaves. The rods crossed over one another there.

It was an herb I had never seen.

“This is Sweet Cicely. There is lots of it in the garden,” he told me.

“I’m not familiar with it,” I responded.

“Well Terra, the rods and the garden took me here for you. And it didn’t take me to any of the Sweet Cicely. It took me to this plant. And if you’ll notice, Terra, the rods have crossed over this particular leaf. She has put the energy of the answer to your question here, in this leaf, in this specific plant. Now Terra,” said Dave, in teaching mode, “the rods also tell me how much of this leaf is meant for you.” And he took his hand and showed me that as he moved his fingers up the stem, the rod in his other hand swung towards him a bit when he reached a particular point.

Dave pinched off a piece of the Sweet Cicely and held it out to me.

“This is for you. The garden has put just what you need into it.”

I trotted after him where he produced a bowl from a small office/gardening shed/break room strewn with papers, bits of crystals, and water marked wood and coffee mugs.

The bowl was in a cabinet under the sink.

Dave told me that we live in an energy field full of wisdom. “We think we humans are so advanced Terra. But we are just learning and there is so much wisdom in the world. It astounds me.”

Dave knows he walks in the midst of a wise field of energy. It is caring. It is alive.

He told me he has never done what he did for me, and what he does for others, for himself.

“I’m here as a helper Terra. I serve the garden and work in the middle, between her and the people who come here.”

He said it happily.

Dave appears to be a bit of gnome, elf, and fairy. I am leaning more towards Elf, and I think he has the energy of them all.

photo on the door where Dave fetched the bowl…Dave is on the left and another delightful gardener, Martin, is on the right

I sat for two hours with my hands in the bowl of water.

I realized judgement, my judgement of things, was affecting me.

Dave told me Sweet Cicely is good for clearing the sinuses and third eye. I don’t typically have sinus issues and I had been asking the garden to help me “see” subtle energies. In fact, I had been putting water from it in my eyes each morning after reading that some people found it had that effect on them.

Now I faced my judgement.

“What is the gift it offers me?” I wondered.

Anger could serve me if I didn’t project it. If I felt it like a pillar of energy and used it simply to help me find clarity and assess a situation.

What about judgement?

And I realized, underneath, was my discernment. It was ok not to like things. If I look under Judgement, I can find a place where I simply can Discern things.

“Do I want to stay in this situation?”

“Do I want to spend time with this person, or living in this country?”

Some things, like that chem trail we started with, I can’t change.

I can choose to settle in a place where I notice less of them, certainly. And I can also notice that I don’t like them and let that be fine. It is ok for me not to like things. But at the same time, I don’t have to get caught up in judging what I can’t change.

I can use it to discern. That is the gift in it for me.

Since then, I took the leaf home and put it in some fresh Spring water. That evening, I followed Dave’s advice and put my hands in the water again. Immediately I felt myself in an altered state.

I sat and simply felt the frequency. I tried not to think too much. I wanted to let Sweet Cicely work for me and with me. My mind didn’t need to keep figuring things out.

Energy swirled through my body.

I removed my hands and took a sip of the water.

I plan to keep some in a bottle and keep sipping it for the next few days.

It is magic.

It is a gift.

From the garden, and the wisdom of the Earth, to me, Terra Brooke.

It was hard to let Dave ask the question like that. I wanted to say things about my soul. I wanted to skip over the tiny human here having an experience.

But Dave and the Garden did not and neither did that Spring.

Terra Brooke was special enough to put magic, in a special way, into a certain plant, and then into a special leaf, in just the right amount.

This is not just about me. And it is.

I matter that much and the Earth responds with that kind of precision.

Dave does this a lot.

You matter too.

I added a bit extra to the last couple minutes of audio…if you choose to listen.

See you next week…

Blessings

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