Crystal woods — Leiffenderven 2

All journal-items with the title ‘Crystal woods’ form a whole and are part of a new project. During 2017 I expanded my research for nature and life-energy to seven woods in a range of 10 km around my living place. The Crystal-woods-journals. The Crystal woods story consists of photographs, maps and paintings. In Crystal woods — Introduction one can find global information about this project.

The Leiffenderven is a part of the Red Stream valley that is wider than elsewhere (1000m). One of the main features of the Leiffenderven is a confluence of two streams, the Red Stream (Rode Beek) running from the Brunssummerheide in the south, and the Rodebach coming from the east.

January 2005: When in 2005 the Red Stream is freed from its concrete bed there is only left a barren sandy plain. In the black peat soil that became visible under the sand many very old trunk came to the surface. It was then that I found an intact rectangular whetstone in the peaty soil of the new bed. I tried to imagine how somebody living in the Iron Age carried this stone tool with him as a kind of talisman.

A first survey

June 2005: For the first time I survey the life-energetic places near the confluence. On a little island in the stream (at the left above on the ground plan) I find a Solar-place. The Lunar-place is located on a mound that is partly surrounded by a broad curve of the brook.

On the left bank of the stream an small alder wood has been saved. Here a more or less rectangular shaped earthwork (a stockyard to protect sheep or cattle?) attracts attention. Even in this nature area nature is threatened: in connection with the high-voltage cable that runs strait above the alder wood, a strip has been deforested. Unfortunately an oak and an alder standing on a Deva-place upon the mound had been cut down too.

At the south part of this alder wood, hidden on the border of the brook, the Red-place (3 on the ground plan) is located. An oak and a laying willow and also the lacking of undergrowth draw my attention. A bit more south the Black-place (1) lays in the wet peat where a ditch ends in a pool near the dike.

There is another mound (2 on the ground plan) that lays in the fork between the Red Stream and the Rodebach. It is reachable over a dike that runs along the stream and starts from a bridge at the edge of Schinveld. At the reconstruction of the river bed some big boulders were placed on the mound. Exactly on the spot where these boulders lay I find the White-place. I wonder about how beautiful these subtle-energetic places coincide with eye-catching landscape features.

Connection of male and female principles

November 2005: I also notice that the White-place is surrounded by a square. The angular points are determined by a new Lunar- and Solar-place, a new Michael-place and a new White-place. All new life-energetic places are characterised by the connection of male and female principles (unity-white, heart-green). Isn’t this a hopeful insight!

Only in 2018 I learn that the White-place near the confluence is merged with a Green flow-place. I shall call this a White-green-place.

An incomprehensible rhythm

August 2006: I Sit down against one of the big stones on the mound and shut my eyes. The next moment I see an intriguing image, an amazing complex rhythm of bent and crystalline shapes in a bright field of white and yellow-white hues. It fulfils me entirely, but I cannot comprehend it. In September 2006 as I give a workshop I visit the elevation once more with a small group of people. While we’re meditating one person gets an image of a serene face with both male and female features. Another person feels the merging of head and pelvis space. Different images of duality becoming unity.

All merges

August 2007: I make a water color sketch at the confluence. I took a long oak shelf that I found nearby in a meadow, and now I sit upon the shelf looking at the fast flowing water below, trying to paint the inimitable movements of the water and the reflections of grasses. Soon my handwriting follows my eyes, that try to track the continuing deliquescing upon and in the water. For a moment the direct and open perception makes shapes dissolving into a playful, light handwriting. All merges.

Streams and beams

November 2016: Only ten years later I experience the connection of the male and female principle once again, but this time in some recurring dreams in which one question or ‘koan’ emerges: how to experience two as one, or how to connect the flowing and bending with the strait and radiating? In the last dream I see two black stones and then a transparent sphere constructed from complex patterns that reminded me of the inner image I saw on the mound in 2006. When I paint it the connection originates between round and strait lines and shapes, streams and beams.

The last Place of connection

3 November 2018: Last night it has been freezing for the first time. Once more I’m on my way to the confluence. The low sun puts the leafage of the willow wood in a yellow gold glow that reflects in the stream. Meanwhile a large alder-willow wood has grown along the Red Stream and around the mound. It gives this special place a green shell.

I presumed that I had discovered all life-energetic places, but today unexpectedly one more Place of connection reveals itself on a location that is the closest to my house of all Crystal woods places! When I walk with the dowsing rod around the mound I find three new life-energetic points. Together they create a Place of connection. On one of these points an alder with four stems growth with its feet in the stream. I noticed this tree some time ago but now I experience the powerful tingling orange-rose flow while I stand beside it and in between many young alder trees while the dusk falls. But it also is becoming clear to me that the Place of connection that I found at the confluence is the last place that I’ve been searching for…

The flight ahead comes to an end

21-11-2018: A few days later when I walk a bit further into the marsh near the confluence I see some deer, a fox and two wild boars…Close by at the north side of the confluence a cycle track runs through the Leiffenderven. On sunny Sundays many people come along, but they have no idea about this hidden place of wholeness.

While thinking over the distinct moments of my quest for Places of connection I realise that my driven searching not did not only evolve out of a longing for wholeness and deep connection with the soul of the landscape, but also was a flight ahead, powered by old emotional patterns that express itself in rectilinear and harsh thinking and unlimitedness. I feel it is about time to admit the place of connection in me…