Here was my sanctuary from the world. Somewhere unknown to the small town of Lampeter below. Free from constraints of time or rule. Solid. Constant. Patient.
My eyes closed to the playful breeze that carried the faded hint of ocean with it. I sit back against the stone that had stored the sun’s warmth of the day within. This was my place. I had come to know the different edges of this rock well over time and I shuffled around slightly until I found the little niche that allowed me more comfort.
I traced my fingers over its ancient surface, over the rough glacial rock speckled with minuscule shards of quartz. I found the papery lichen that grew over the skeletal remains of its forebearers and mapped the stone in dendritic patina. In the cracks and crevices, young, spongy moss had taken root and spread through the shadows of the rock like that of a mycelium network.
In the setting sun, the air sparkled and shimmered. Was it just the effect of air pressure that caused the spangled markings in my vision? Maybe. But I always thought of it as that primordial force of nature – an energy of the world that children could see; and now seemed only to exist in places of energetic power.
From the valley behind me, I could hear a donkey baying into the twilight, then the dogs responded. Their barks passed from farm to farm now they had been disturbed. Sheep roaming the mountain occasionally interrupted the sounds below with their guttural sounding grunts and grumbles as they sounded their sleepy objection to the raucous dogs.
The breeze shifted and caught upon the gorse, carrying the delicate, honey-like fragrance of the eternal flower[1] to me. The dried stems of grass flowers shivered and whispered into the fading light as the last, blood red drops of the sun bled into the sea fret. Cloud and atmosphere filled with the fine Saharan sand; the illusive appearance of a green flash as the sun descended out of sight.
Before I had taken my seat against the stone, I had stood precariously balanced on its topside ridge with dowsing rods held lightly in my hands. The cool, copper rods twitched and shifted within my curled fingers as they picked up the currents of energy. I untangled the meaning of the crossed rods: here was where the ley lines crossed and charged the stone; one line passed east to west, and back again, and another came from the south, from the bluestones of Preseli spiralling around the stone before returning to the south.
Here was where the path of the storms was altered by the mountains and intersecting valleys. Often the wild weather was funnelled into the narrow corridor created by the steep walls of the parallel mountains that stretched from here to Llandewi-Brefi, or else the storm would be halted in its motion until it fizzled out – never more than two or three rumbles of thunder and a few flashes of lightning would pass this place if the storm came from the east.
Here was where the stone was nestled in the heart of the Cambrian Mountains with the most advantageous view of Wales. It was equidistant to three other mountain ranges like a triangulation point. To the east, I could see the black, shadowy peaks of the Brecon Beacons slicing the horizon with their sharp undulations and ripples of stone. To the north, I could see the foothills of Snowdonia rise up beyond Aberystwyth, the grey stone determined to be seen even as the the incoming sea fret softened their foreboding faces and concealed the truth of their height. And to the south were the Preseli Mountains. They were the elusive ones that were so often veiled by weather and haze – as they were today. They were the gentlest of the mountains. The soft peaks rising gently from the Dragon’s breath to meet the heavens with soft lines upon the firmament before vanishing back into cloud in the blink of an eye.
Here was where the secret wilds and ancient landscape rewarded the adventurous trail finder with so much as it watched over the modern world below.
Here was my sanctuary: the place I had sought out in a world filled with turmoil; the place that slowly revealed its secrets to me as I shared my heart with it. The place where my path was revealed to me.
[1] Eternal flower is a reference to how the gorse plant will always be in bloom somewhere throughout the year
