Sacred Landscapes, Part III: Ley Lines and the Energy of the Earth

Over the last two weeks, we’ve been exploring the idea of re-enchanting the world. Two weeks ago, I introduced the idea of re-enchantment through a discussion Max Weber’s claims that the world has been “disenchanted” by industrialization. Re-enchanting, then, is potential work that we as druids and earth-centered spiritual people might do. If we want to do this re-enchantment, however, we need to draw upon and better understand the ways in which ancient humans created sacred landscapes. In last week’s post, we explored the historical understanding of “ley lines” and alignments on the earth to understand some of the physical tools that ancient humans worldwide used to enchant the world. Today’s post continues this discussion in a more metaphysical sense–understanding the more modern “ley line theory” as it applies to earth energy and considering the energetic work we might do.

Ley Lines as Energy

As I mentioned in last week’s post, many people today in the metaphysical and druid communities think that ley lines are only energetic in nature, as in they are lines of energy flowing across the earth’s surface.  But ley lines have much more ancient roots that were also physically embodied upon the landscape through old straight tracks, mounds, marker stones, trees, stone circles, sacred sites, and much more.  The picture is a bit complex: it is clear that ancient humans had energetic/metaphysical/spiritual purposes for their ancient physical alignments (which I will explore more in this post) but, as “leys” were rediscovered, the physical and metaphysical features were also considered in isolation.

The modern conception of the ley line as an energetic line is traced by Pennick and Deverux in Lines on the Landscape. They argue that this conception began with a footnote that Dion Fortune read in W. Y. Evans Wentz’s The Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries published in 1911. Wentz discusses in his footnote how fairy paths that “circulate the earth’s magnetism.” Fortune expands upon such an idea in her Goat Foot God (1936), where her characters are having a discussion of how to purchase a house for a ritual to invoke the Old Gods. This discussion includes a discussion of the lines of power that go between sacred sites, and how the house should be located along one of these lines of power (but not that close to the sacred sites themselves, due to tourist energy). By the 1960’s, with the publishing of John Mitchell’s The View Over Atlantis, Mitchell also picks up on Wentz’ footnote and expands this ley theory with the influence of Feng Shui and the dragon paths (lung mei), which he notes must be part of the earth’s natural flow of force or magnetism. Another term he uses for these energetic leys is the concept of “dragon currents” which I have heard also used in the modern occult scene. The View Over Atlantis led to many other discussions of energetic ley lines; this idea spread far and wide.  For example, dowsers picking up on the idea of earth energy and dowsing for ley lines. Another place that this energy of the earth as metaphysical reaches back into the old druid revival texts, although I haven’t seen it referred to as “leys” (the druid revival pre-dates this) but as “currents” of energy–the three currents: telluric (earth), solar, and lunar.

Of course, scholars working in a disenchanted worldview would dismiss the above discussions as hogwash and focus primarily on, physical features, but we have already established that western civilization is the only civilization in the world that has abandoned the metaphysical entirely–and look what a mess we are in!  Dion Fortune, W. Y. Evans Wentz, John Mitchell, and other occultists were certainly onto something important–and something that ancient humans clearly knew and understood. The idea that ancient peoples knew and understood–and worked with–energy is certainly there in the historical records. Let’s now look at three ancient peoples and how they conceived of these “energy lines” to better understand the energetic side to ley line theory.

Ancient Chinese: Qi and Spirit Roads

In China, the concept of “Qi” or energy is still known and worked with. Qi to the Chinese is understood as “universal energy” and they believe it flows in patterns similar to water. We druids would call Qi by another name–Nywfre–the spark of life. In Ancient China, the long-standing practice of Feng Shui included working the landscape for harmonious living and being. Feng Shui literally means “wind-water” and focuses on the harmonization of features (physical and metaphysical) for the working of Qi. The Chinese believe that Qi is concentrated in the landscape in varying amounts, depending on the shape and features of the landscape and how humans have built into that landscape. The Chinese, then, can subtly shape landscapes over time with human-created features to bring the flow of Qi into harmony.

If there are “unfortunate” features in the landscape that would make Qi sluggish (which would cause a loss of vitality and fertility to the land) or flow too fast (which would cause burnout to the land), the practice of Feng Shui has means of altering the landscape through various techniques to remediate these unfortunate features. Straight mountain ridges or artificial straight lines (such as streets, railways, and so on) speed up the flow of Qi, and the termination points of these places (such as the end of a straight street) are considered to be problematic as the Qi flows too quickly and breaks up harmonious accumulations there.  These lines are also known as the “secret arrow.” The secret arrow is mitigated by dispersing the straight line with a wall, water fountain, building, windmill, and so on–these features will channel the Qi to the surrounding landscape in a more harmonious way.  Only the Chinese Emperor himself was able to harness the full power of Qi in the form of straight lines and straight tracks due to his rulership–which is critical also to understanding the “energetic” aspects of leys.

Rulers, Royals, and *Regs

Many of the ancient ley lines were also connected to kings and rulership–as we see in a number of myths, a king or leader figure can literally represent the embodiment of the land and help hold the land’s fertility (this, for example, is the root of the ‘Great Rite’ ritual).  In fact, Pennick and Devereux argue that Kingship itself derives from a “straight movement” through the etymology of the Indo-European root word *reg (to set straight).  Reg becomes regal, regency, regime, regin, realm, royal, rule, regulation, or regiment (p. 247).  A “ruler” can be both a straight edge and a king; these etymological connections take place in many languages other than English including German, Dutch, Old Saxon, Latin, French, and Hindi. The etymology is fascinating, and some researchers have surmised that the Indo European *reg traces the whole way back to the European Neolithic period when nomadic peoples began to transition to agricultural ones and the regs were those who led their people straight (the most ancient form of *reg may be some kind of ley surveyor) (p. 249).

Sacred alignments, likewise, were used in China, Egypt, and by the Aztecs all to “radiate” the king’s energy outward for rulership and to bring fertility of the land (p. 255).  For example, as Pennick and Devereux describe, the Emperor of China, sitting in the middle of his throne in the Imperial Palace in the Forbidden city, has a series of four cardinal gates, opening outward in the four directions–the energy of the Emperor himself radiating outward to his kingdom (p. 250).  Pennick and Devereux also note that the Imperial tombs have “spirit ways” that have long straight roads; it is said that spirits travel along straight roads.  These roads are not meant to be used by the living.

The Inca, likewise, used a Ceque system (a system of lines, radiating outward, appearing like a sunburst) from the Inca Temple of the Sun, where the Coricancha (the ruler of the Inca) sat, just like the Chinese Emperor. The Ceques were physical roads that radiated outward like rays on a sun; it is likely that the Cueques were laid out based on the Milky Way galaxy (p. 253).  The Ceques were leys–that is, they were marked straight paths- that led to huacas (shrines).  These Ceques led to 333 shrines, with 170 of those being springs or stones (p. 253). As Pennick and Devereux write, “The fact that ceques, like all ley-style alignments around the world, had multiple functions, with various degrees of utilitarian application.  The only common factor is that they all seem to have had some holy or magical quality…the straight line in the landscape was seen as a sacred line, whatever other function it had or came to have.” (p. 254).

Leys as a Vehicle for Spirits

As the Chinese example above describes, the Chinese knew that Ch’i (or spirit), flowed through straight lines. Pennick and Devereux also describe other cultures where the leys are seen as a vehicle for spirit: on Bali, for example, small “spirit walls” were built behind temple entrances to prevent certain kinds of local spirits (traveling in straight lines) from entering (p. 255). Fairy paths, likewise, were straight-line roads between sites that were used exclusively by the “good people” in Celtic world, predominately, in Ireland.  To build a house or to sleep on one of these paths would surely draw misfortune. For example, in The Secret Country, Janet and Colin Bord describe a number of problems that people have had in Ireland with fairy paths: owners of a house built over a fairy path would need to have doors on opposite sides, which could be opened to let the fairy through. In other cases, a corner of a house that was on a fairy path was knocked off to appease the good folk. W. Y. Wentz, in the Fairy Faith in Celtic Countries, notes that the Welsh Fairy, the Twylwth Teg, put to death humans who walk on certain paths.  These pathways are only for the spirits to use.

In a similar way, Pennick and Devereux describe the spirit path that is established between a Native American sweat lodge in the Sioux tradition. According to Lame Deer, a Sioux Medicine Man, the sweat lodge itself is believed to house the spirits of all living things.  The hole in the center of the lodge, the hole that will hold hot stones and have water poured to create steam, is considered to be the center of the world.  The soil from this hole is made into a mound outside, an unci mound (grandmother earth) about 10 paces from the lodge in a straight line.  Another 10 or so paces, also in a straight line, the fire burns.  This is known as a spirit path. When the ceremony begins, the power of the Great Spirit, as well as a powerful, beloved, ancestor (relative) will also be present in the pit. None can cross the line between the fire, the unci mound, and the lodge itself.

Aboriginal Songlines & Singing Paths Act of Creation

Bruce Chatwin wrote The Songlines, which explores the Aboriginal Australian’s mythology surrounding the sacredness of the world, the creation of the world, and energetic “songlines” that cross the landscape.  These songlines, according to Chatwin, were “the labyrinth of invisible pathways which meander all over Australia and are known to Europeans as “dreaming-tracks” or “songlines”; and to Aboriginals as “Footprints of the Ancestors” or “The way of the law” (p. 2). The Aboriginals’ world creation myth included the ancestors as singing the land into being. Because of this, the Aboriginal Australians believed that the entire landscape of Australia was a sacred site. One of Chatwin’s informants, for example, also told him that the Aboriginal words for “country” and “line” were the same word–the Aboriginals saw the lines on the landscape as a sacred typography that was sung. His informant explained how “each totemic ancestor, while traveling through the country, was thought to have scattered a trail of words and musical notes along the line of his footprints, and how these Dreaming-tracks lay over the land as ‘ways’ of communication between the most far-flung tribes…a song was both map and direction finder. Providing you knew the song, you could always find your way across country” (p. 13).  The Aboriginal Ancestors’ songs were the acts of creation; those modern Aboriginals who went on ‘walkabout’ were making a sacred journey, a singing of re-creation, singing the original song and walking the original path of their ancestors who created the world.

Arkady, Chatwin’s primary informant, also describes the Aboriginal philosophy about the land as follows, “To wound the earth is to wound yourself, and if others wound the earth, they are wounding you. The land should be left untouched: as it was in the Dreamtime when the Ancestors sang the world into existence” (p. 11).

Remembering and Re-Creating the Sacred on the Landscape

What these examples above have explored is the idea that physical leys, in a number of places, are connected to energetic understandings of the world and the sacredness of the world.  In the case of the songlines, the leys do not even need to have physical markers–the songs themselves help determine the pathways.

Pennick and Devereux conclude by making the argument that, as the songlines themselves suggest, the straight line ley is a universal concept, an archetypal one, that all major peoples understood and enacted in some way. They conclude their book with the following, “The straight line in the landscape, the result of another kind of human awareness interacting with a differently-perceived environment, reminds us that we have forgotten certain things.  We have forgotten about our inner life; we have forgotten that the land is sacred, and we have forgotten the interaction between them both” (p. 262). Ley lines, and their associated metaphysical connections, is ancestral knowledge.  Not knowledge of a particular people or tribe, but the knowledge that all humans once had.  This is the deepest kind of ancestral knowledge, the kind that cannot be fully eradicated by a disenchanted world.

We all know of the sacredness of the land, in some way, even if our conscious mind in its disenchanted cultural conditioning disallows such knowledge. We know, subconsciously, of the magic woven into the fabric of the land by countless generations of human ancestors that came before us. Even today, people would rather look out their window at a forest than a busy street. People “vacate” to natural places, to hear the rhythmic crash of the waves or the splendor of the mighty waterfall, to feel themselves being restored and renewed. It’s why natural wonders of the world have millions of tourists each year coming to witness their splendor.  It is why, when I spend time in the old-growth hemlock grove that is such a rare and wonderful place, hikers go silent upon entering.  This knowledge may have been largely forgotten of in the conscious mind, but it is still present with us in our blood, in our bones, in our spirits.  The ancestors whisper–it is time for re-enchanting our land.  It is time for us to understand, sense, and create the subtle flows of energy upon the landscape.

Our ancestors have left us a roadmap–a roadmap that I’ve been working to share over the last few posts. This roadmap is clear: there is magic and sacredness in the landscape, and we can connect sacred points within it, over short or long distances, with both physical and energetic means.

And so,  ancient people wove physical and metaphysical aspects of the sacred into their landscapes through stones, songs, and through sacred sites.  The question is, what will we create? What will we do? What does our re-enchanted world look like? How do we, as individuals, as groups, as humans, take up this work again?