Whoopee!

My dowsing rods have for some weeks been languishing in a corner, no doubt yearning for those heady glory days of midsummer, when we swung around picturesque remnants of the Neolithic world.  I was happy to put away the pendulum.  The rods are different.  They have a much stronger resonance for me.  I like to be outside, I like archaeology and I like stories.  Rods fit in with all of that, and they feel right to me.

Some might think I have taken leave of my senses when I stop hiding my rods and become an out dowser.  I do not care.  My year’s journey has introduced me to some people and some beliefs wacky beyond tolerance.  Observing the enormous range of wackiness and kookiness on offer has given me the confidence to make this choice.  I felt something working when I dowsed those locations.  It is my little subjective view, and my own experience.  The rods moved.  Now I just need to work out why.

 I cannot separate the influence of a subtle force from the work of my imagination or from the natural effects of walking over rough ground.  I decided to get help from the dowsers’ on line forum.  I can find my way around a forum, now.  At the start of this project, I was hardly aware such things existed.

I do like the dowsers.  They represent an interesting tea and scones conformity against a background of outlandish individualism.  I first received kind replies to my post, all urging me to keep trying to learn my own way, but maybe to find some support from a more experienced dowser. 

These were followed by some more detailed postings, which told me more about the complexities what some dowsers in this field believe.  One answer led me to a site where a dowser had painstakingly drawn a diagram of lines he had traced at a stone circle.  My findings at the same circle looked like a half-finished version of his; I had lines in the same places, but he followed them for longer, and they ended in little spirals.  Finding that picture was like opening a gift.  Start the party!  Bring on the balloons!  Something went right!

There is no orthodoxy, no party line among the dowsers.  There is pottiness at the extreme edges.  At times, there are echoes of Spouter, I am afraid.  All corners of the offbeat world are tainted by people who inflate their personal experiences into dogma.  I need to proceed with caution and choose with care.

So that is it.  I am not tying off this particular thread.  I know that something is working for me there, and I know I can have guidance from good, Spouter-free sources if I am careful who I mix with.  Dowsing is going with me.