Connections

by Clare Fisher

I love how things connect, don’t you? Late summer, nearly autumn. I was in Southern France with my dear friend Sally. She and husband Andy live in a hamlet of some 100 souls, called Hounoux, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Their home is atop a knoll, and from the gardens you look down on the tawny sun-bleached landscape – for forty miles towards the Med to the east and round to the rise of the mountains, far to the south. We were chatting on the lower terrace of their suntrap of a garden.

Birds are my passion so I usually have my eyes on the skies, particularly here at Sally’s where all sorts of exotic birds come to visit – golden orioles, spotted flycatchers ,buzzards and sparrowhawks galore, and if I’m lucky,bee catchers with their turquoise, orange and lime green plumage. Sally indulges me and rejoices with me when we spot someone unusual.

So she was equally excited when, “Oh look Sally, to the east! That’s one big fella – likely a raptor of some kind.”

“Might be one of our eagles. Andy says he sees them a lot, but I always seem to miss them.”

It held the air. A distant form, flowing closer.

Then, “Look, look Sally, there’s another, no there are one - two - three – four - FIVE of them!”

The distant forms revealed themselves. Definitely eagles, but what sort?

“More Clare. There are more! Andy! Andy! Come and look!”

In all twelve eagles flew from the eastern haze into our view. They rode the air currents, not a wing flap between them. All too quickly, they followed the flow round our knoll on their migration to their over-wintering grounds in Southern Spain. But before we lost them from sight, their turn to the sun revealed them for what they were. The sun caught their ‘landing lights’ and we knew them for Booted Eagles. Booted Eagles have a patch of white feathers on their shoulders, and as they fly, this startlingly white patch flashes in the sunlight and hence the name ‘landing lights’.

Much rejoicing in Hounoux. Eagles, Eagles! A significant bird. The king of birds. He catches the sun, he rules the skies. His legends match with King Arthur.

Twelve. Twelve! On returning home I set about that number. Twelve: an abundant number, the first of the abundant numbers, for its factors (2 6 3 and 4) add up to more than its cardinal value. Twelve: a number which signifies completeness: the twelve months of the year; the twelve signs of the zodiac in so many cultures. Twelve is also significant in many world religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism. In antiquity the Twelve Olympians formed the principal gods of the pantheon; the Norse god Odin had twelve sons. King Arthur is said to have subdued 12 rebel princes. (And much more of course.)

And then. I belong to a Druid Grove in the New Forest and I was enthusing about my sighting of twelve significant birds, when lo and behold, it turned out that the grove was about to celebrate its twelfth year. Would I do a write up for the newsletter giving my personal connection to the twelve eagles and the twelve years of the grove.

So at the Winter Solstice 2016 the Grove had completed its own twelve year cycle. Winter Solstice: twelve years before, first light of Sunday 27^th December 2004. The newly nascent grove gathered to celebrate its first ceremony at Burley, up the hill and into the trees there: the founding group of druids opening the way for the twelve years to follow, each susurration of the seasons, each turn of the year marked and honoured.

I looked up that date to see what the natal chart foretold for the grove that day in December, little dreaming what I should find.

Energy. Force. Magnetism. Power. Vitality. A burst of energy had been travelling for 50,000 light years and on the morning of 27^th December 2004, as the grove celebrated its first ceremony together, that wave enveloped the earth. In that brief instant, came a wave of power equivalent to the light from our own star, the Sun, shining for half a million years. The source of the power was a magnetar: SGR 1806-20 on the other side of the Milky Way, 50,000 light years away. A magnetar, I learned, is a vast star, collapsed and condensed, which was, nevertheless, not quite massive enough to become a black hole. Magnetars have a magnetic field 1000 times more powerful than ordinary pulsars. When their crust twists and the magnetic fields attempt to realign themselves, it is like our tectonic plates shuddering and moving. But on a cosmic scale. The death zone of their tsunami, the ensuing shock wave stretches for several light years (!)

In this force field our grove had its beginning. The energy burst came from the region of Sagittarius – the archer. The flight of the arrow projecting our minds towards new horizons, expanding our awareness, entering new environments, absorbing new facts and points of view, expanding our consciousness and becoming aware of the basic laws of nature. We are forever on a quest to search for meaning, with faith in our ideals and holding always to our fundamental principles.

Visualise the bow shape on this cosmic scale arcing from the magnetar to Earth: how like the Rainbow Bridge, allowing energetic shifts and reality switches. This arc may have been in existence for but a moment in space-time, but its power remains for us to access as we seek entrance to another world.

The media reports of events surrounding Magnetar SGR 1806-20 relate its destructive power and danger – it knocked out satellites and electronic systems on Earth – but I found this event amazing, exciting, affirming. While those with other view points might quiver and quake at the power and might of this magnetic burst, I like to think we can celebrate our place in the Cosmos and align ourselves with the wonder of nature’s forces.

Connections. I love them.

With thanks to Google and Steven Forrest: The Inner Sky.