Even in North Carolina, the predawn hours in late December are bitterly cold. A full moon hangs low in the southwest, as if waiting for its appointment with the earth’s shadow. The air is crisp and clear; a faint whiff of wood smoke from the sweat lodge fire sweetens the breeze from the east. The earth seems hushed, as if the animals and the plants, the devas and the landscape-angels are holding their breaths in anticipation. Through the chill, a tangible sense of hope can be felt rising up from the ground.
The People are coming! The quiver runs through the woods. The old raccoon chatters nervously and the wood sprites dance with a wreath of swirling leaves. The People are coming up the hill, a slow solemn procession walking reverently in the bright cold darkness. They pass through the rainbow gate and enter the earth temple, forming two concentric circles among the stones. They are here–as the animals and the spirits know–to attempt something almost forgotten, something that must be remembered if our planet, the planet that belongs to all of us, is to survive …
In a way, Grid Engineering is mankind’s oldest science. The Ashmolean Library at Oxford houses a set of small hand-sized carved stones, dated to around 2600 B.C. At first thought to be toys, recreational or perhaps gambling devices, these precise geometrical spherical versions of the cube, tetrahedron, octahedron, icosahedron, dodecahedron, and other compound and semi-regular solids, such as the cuboctahedron, are now recognized as evidence of neolithic man’s familiarity with the concepts of sacred geometry. The stones illustrate the patterns necessary to visualize the earth’s energy grid.
This early interest in solid spherical geometry was not idle intellectual curiosity. To create, as a mental image, the complete grid pattern from its regular solid components produces a deep level of resonance between the consciousness holding the image and the actual pattern on the earth. This resonance allows a flow of in-form-ation, a dance of energy shapes, to cascade from one level of the hologram to another. In other words, visualizing the earth as a nest of spherical solids allowed the ancient engineers to communicate directly with the intelligence of the planet itself.
Many of our ancient civilizations began with major geomancy projects. From the pyramids and the Giza complex, to Stonehenge and New Grange, all the way to the Adena people of central Ohio (carefully marking out the serpent mound in the center of a geologically unique area), great cultures seem to grow from great geomancy projects. In fact, those three civilizations were more or less contemporary, making 2800 to 2000 B.C. the golden age of earth temples. The synchronicity grows even stranger when we consider that the last vestige of these cultural currents died out at about the same time. The Adena culture faded about 500 B.C., but was revived by the Hopewell, who continued into the 6th century A.D. The Celts were also the inheritors and continuers of the megalithic traditions, and they were finally Christianized, orthodoxly, in the 8th century. The Temple at Heliopolis fell to the Muslem Arabs in 640 A.D., thus ending a chain of knowledge that was over three millennium long.
History is a long list of these losses, a catalog of the extinction of cultures and traditions. Urban sprawl, with its suburban concrete enclaves, is the result of an ignorance of the earth’s rhythms and structures so profound as to be literally pathological. The plagues of the 20th century, from industrialization to Total War, from cancer to AIDS, derive from this pathological dis-association from the reality of the earth beneath our feet. We must remember the world web, and how to work with it to enhance our lives and our communities, or we may not survive.
Perhaps the best representations of the physical reality of the world web or grid comes from the work of R. Buckminster Fuller. In Synergetics 1 he presented evidence that under ideal conditions of delicately balanced heat and pressure, balloon skins revealed patterns identical to his Unified Vector Geometry 120 Circle surface pattern. Since the crust of the earth is much like the balloon skin, also under delicately controlled heat and pressure, then this analogy would seem to hold. This 120 circle pattern is also the complete symmetry angles of an icosahedron, which contains within it all the other regular solids, and is the final result of the neolithic visualization of the spherical solids.
UNIFIED VECTOR GEOMETRY (UVG) BASIC TRIANGLE. Within the Basic Triangle’s 30, 60, and 90 degree angles (whose line and vertexes define 120 of those triangles, 62 major grid points, and 15 major great circles) are arrayed at 45 intersection points and 16 lines which manifest 106 minor great circles and 4800 minor points over the surface of the globe (UVG total is 4862 points).
To clinch the connection, we need only consider that semi-regular spherical solids found among our ancient visualization stones, the cuboctahedron. Fuller patented a world map based on the cuboctahedron, claiming it was the only shape to correctly map the proportions of the land masses from a sphere to a flat surface. Perhaps out neolithic engineer had the same realization.
Given the reality of the planetary grid, the question becomes: how do we tap into our local portion of it?
The problem of locating the grid on the earth is solved by placing the three anterior angles of the spherical tetrahedron on the major geothermal, and geomagnetic disturbances of the planet. This can be taken as the basic orientation for the rest of the grid. We then look for the major UVG triangle containing our location. For the mid-Atlantic states the UVG bio-region runs from off Bermuda to Hudson Bay, over to Alberta, and then back to Bermuda. The center line of this triangle, which acts as a conduit for the flow of the entire bio-region, runs through the saddle of an unusual geological formation in North Carolina called Pilot Mountain. An isolated peak dominated by a granite dome rising over 2000 feet from the valley floor, the mountain gained its name from its prominence as a landmark and vantage point.
To the indigenous people historical to this area, the Saponi and Keauwee Indians, the mountain was called Jomeoke which meant something like “home of the thunder.” Indian shamans from all over the eastern woodlands would visit the dome-like outcropping of quartz and feldspar riddled granite to commune with the raven spirits who dwelled there. The ravens are still there, but the Park Service frowns on climbing the dome. The Grid line (center line of the whole bio-region) runs between the dome and the hump-like escarpment three hundred yards away.
This creates an enormous upwelling of energy. The energy of the line is thrown high into the atmosphere, forming a 45 miles-in-radius torus of energy as it falls back to earth. This circular area is organized by an extremely regular pattern of energy and yields twelve crisp UVG triangles. Immediately suggestive of a zodiacal pattern, the circular regularity of the bio-region and other propitious feng shui, point out the area’s geomantic uniqueness. These unusual qualities made it an excellent choice for the location of an earth temple.
If we take the greater bio-region’s center line as the solstice line in our local zodiac, then each of the UVG triangles can be seen as a sign of the zodiac–the solstices being the cusps of Gemini/Cancer and Sagittarius/Capricorn. This gives as a new way to describe the quality of each component of the local bio-region, by relating the zodiacal attribution to its correspondences in other traditions and cultures.
The Earth Temple project began as an exercise in a class on Grid Engineering for architects and city planners. The class was held at Wellsprings Farm, a retreat center in Vienna, North Carolina, which was geomatically analyzed and dowsed during the course of the class. Wellsprings falls within the Cancer region, or the heart meridian in Chinese terms; and the center line of that region runs through the property. Intersection of the 0-7 line, running north/south, and the 32-33-41 line running east/west, falls just north of the old Yadkinville Road on the property. This dome-like intersection point creates a small torus, similar to the one at Pilot Mountain except its only a few hundred yards in diameter. This torus spins off a complex patterns of energy spirals, nodes and yin points. An energy map of the Wellsprings property looks like a plate of phi ratio spaghetti.
The most important point on the energy map is found just northeast of the main dome where thirteen spirals of primal water erupt up to within a few feet of the surface and then arc out into a somewhat regular pattern. Two of the spirals were close enough together to braid into one flow, which became the Gemini area, and the other eleven are space so that a regular zodiac pattern could be imprinted upon them. This blind spring falls in the edge of the dome’s torus, and also extends into the north/south flow of the 0-7 line. This causes the location to act as a control gear on the flow along the local UVG line, which carries the energy of the rest of the local grid into the central vortex of Pilot Mountain. An energy jump is made from the 33 point directly into the vortex of the torus upwelling; there are no other points in-between. A 33 point is a direct access to the main grid structure.
The Wellsprings’ geomantic structure has been located by a Native American shaman who placed a simple wheel of quartz stones in the center of the blind spring’s dome cap. This acted to temper the flow. But the flow was unfocused, allowing and reflecting a broad range of dissonance. The Grid Engineering class was focused on how to tune this unique control-gear location.
A simple geometric pattern emerged as we developed the basic numbers 12 and 33. The thirteen flows of primal water were used to create the hologram of the zodiac, within which the seven sacred planets or rays move and interact. The circle of the nine archetypes of human evolution create an image of the surface of the planet and the mental condition of humanity. The six-pointed circle is the atomic and sub-atomic forces within matter and the five-pointed star is the microcosm of the mind that projects the entire hologram.
THE ZODIACAL EARTH TEMPLE DESIGN: Outer Circle: Twelve obelisk-shaped igneous stones (granite) corresponding to the zodiac, Planetary Circle: Seven rocks which move throughout the structure (milky quartz), Ennead Circle: Nine porous sedimentary stones (limestone or soapstone), Hexagrams: Six energetic dense stones (obsidian); Triangle: three large pieces of ocean rock (marl), Two Pillars: dense sedimentary rock trimmed to 1 sq foot (slate), Five-Pointed Star: Five near-perfect quartz clusters with individual points, 1″ to 3″ in diameter, Center: One large, near perfect amethyst point.
It was a fascinating exercise, a wonderful flight of mystical geometry. Perhaps we came closer to understanding how the designers of Stonehenge thought about their work, and certainly a few of the architects began to see their work in a different light, but I never dreamed that I was designing an actual structure. Or less than a year later, it would be under construction.
It happened because the landscape angel demanded that it happen. Our first awareness of this entity came when Bill Stewart, who participated in the original medicine wheel ceremony, took a photograph of the spot just after the wheel had been finished. He saw nothing as he took the shot, but after the photograph was developed, there was a ghostly sphere of light floating in the southwest of the circle. This was definately not a film glitch or something on the lens. With the aid of a magnifying loupe, the ball is glowing clearly enough to light up the leaves and rocks around it. I named it “the landscape angel,” and forgot about it. That is until the last session of our Grid Engineering class …
It was raining. I walked up to the dome to check on the possibility of bringing the class there. I sat on a log and for about 45 minutes I went into a state of deep meditation. All I could remember when I came around was that a very tall, orange figure had been insistent. Since I knew the pattern, I should build the temple. And he/it would take no excuses. I laughed it off, but it refused to go away. The idea grew until one day, almost nine months later, the owners of Wellsprings called and said the time is right to build the temple. Let’s do it. They didn’t know then how right the time really was!
ZODIACAL HOLOGRAM. This design shows the web of inter-connectedness modeled by the ZET. This view has each level separated out so that the individual sturctures can be more easily seen. Note the position of the five-pointed star within the central triangle. This shows the nature of the spirit pathways in the pentagram and the relationship of the horizontal or elemental plane to those flows of energy. The ZET embodies the universal hologram and contains ever richer depths of symbollic meaning.
Designing an abstract exercise in sacred geometry is one thing, getting it built on the land, charged and ready to go on time is quite another. The creation of something like the Zodiacal Earth Temple inevitably becomes a community project. many people must contribute their time and expertise if the project is to succeed. Given this perspective, it is easy to see how civilizations were created by the social cohesion of these vast religious projects.
Very early on the question was asked: “Just what are we trying to accomplish here?”
The purpose of the Earth Temple is to create a geomanically resonant structure which will allow conscious access to the world grid. This open channel could then be used to tune and adjust the flow of telluric energy. Such a structure would function on the level of an integrative geometric projection of hologramic coherence which produces harmonic phase-lock between the three holon-to-photon orthorotations of dimensional scale. In my fanciful moments I called it a “metaxic monad,” that is a singularity tangent to all realities but located in none of them.
Basically, the Earth Temple was designed as a place to heal and transform, both the earth and ourselves. The difference between any sacred spot and the Earth Temple is the degree of awareness and conscious intent that went into the design and its execution on the land. The geometric qualities of the design began to unfold into complex symbolic correspondences as the project developed. Each point in the diagram became a stone of a certain density and type, or a certain size and programmed with the very specific “magickal” or subtle energetic qualities. This turned the geometry of the design into psychic architecture; building the Temple between the worlds.
THE HEXAGRAM can be considered the union of masculine and feminine, up and down, fire and water, and so on. This primary duality of function is represented in the ZET by the inclusion of the triangle and the pillars within the figure of the hexagram. Each of these symbolic structures acts upon the whole pattern in unique ways.
THE PILLARS OF DUALITY fall on the ascending sides of the upright, or masculine, triangle;of the hexagram. They create, within that triangle, four 3-4-5 Pythagorean triangles. The first diagram above shows the interference pattern generated by these four triangles. The second diagram illustrates how these Pythagorean triangles influence the archetypal and zodiacal circles by a process of lamination, or direction one-to-one projection. Only one of these laminations is shown in the diagram.
These complex processes transform the temple into a metaphor, a living symbol–a space where mind, spirit and matter intermingle. However, even as the project went into development, one crucial factor remained unexamined.
Adjustments of the telluric currents are traditionally done as the rising of the appropriate celestial objects over the horizon. Stonehenge is aligned to the mid-summer sunrise, for instance, while many North American medicine wheels align on bright stars such as Sirius and the Pleiades. The Zodiacal Earth Temple, designed as a balanced transformative structure, needed a balanced timing of sun and moon. This limited us to either a summer solstice with a new moon, or a winter solstice with a full moon. As soon as this occurred to me, I knew there was the possibility of a problem–an insurmountable one.
Simply put, this combination–a full moon within 24 hours of the solstice–occurs only once in 112 years. The celestial requirements were extremely important if we actually hoped to effect change within the web. If the Earth Temple was to become anything more than an intellectual exercise, these requirements of timing would have to be met. Then suddenly another and even bigger celestial requirement made itself apparent. If our “metaxic monad” were to have any effect upon the grid, it would have to be inserted at a moment when the energy of the grid was “off-line.” We needed a lunar eclipse. These specific celestial requirements together happen once every 672 years. It seemed impossible that we could be so lucky. But we were.
December 21, 1991 marked the solstice, as well as a full moon with (from where we were in North Carolina) a partial eclipse. We had embarked on a large project–one that could only have an effect once every 672 years–at just the right moment, by “coincedence.” To me, this is the most remarkable part of the whole Zodiacal Earth Temple story. That so much was guided into place, including a trip three quarters around the world to charge the central crystal in the ancient geomanic centers of Egypt, is almost beyond miraculous. We had higher guidance: it is almost as if the planet herself needed this to happen.
The triangle turns the feminine or down-pointing triangle of the hexagram into an unfolded, or flattened tetrahedron. Each face of the tetrahedron has two points of the inner triangle as its base line, generating a tightly focused movement of energy toward the point of the tetrahedron. This unfolded tetrahedron then reflects itself onto the archetypal and zodiacal circles. In this reflected (as opposed to laminated) projection, the direction of the flow of energy is reversed, going from tightly focused in a point to broadly covering three points on the outer circle. These processes are representative of the structural differences between masculine and feminine psyche.
The masculine triangle of the hexagram connects the 1-2-3 progression of the stem with the fourth, or grounding quality of the inner triangle of the unfolded tetrahedron. The flow line of that figure continues on through the spirit pathways on the pentagram into the pillar point on the opposite side of the masculine triangle. A quantum interval is created where the feminine triangle of the hexagram reflects the flow, producing the flowering of the outer circle. The feminine triangle of the hexagram acts as a mirroring interval generating quantum discontinuity across dimensional scale.
By the twenty-first of December, our community had grown to almost one hundred people, including well-wishers, ill-wishers and the merely curious. Three months of classes and fieldwork and ritual ceremonies led up to the all-night vigil. A dedicated community of geomantic engineers came through the prolonged and intense process. This community continues to evolve new ways of providing stewardship to the earth.
At 5:23 am that brisk solstice morning, a group of approximately one hundred hardy souls witnessed the charging of the Temple. Most of these people had spent the evening in purification rituals along with drumming and chanting or simply meditating in the Wellsprings pyramid room. The 45 stones of the Zodiacal Earth Temple pattern had already been charged and placed in their circles, including the planetary stones in their appropriate places within the signs of the zodiac for that moment in time/space. The template itself was ready to be activated.
The landscape angel had been very specific about how to turn the temple on. Sound, at the earth frequency harmonics of 7.83 hertz, which would then be turned into scaler waves by the Waz Scepter. This device is similar to the ancient magic rod of the Egyptian priests, but designed to be used as a geomantic instrument. This instrument was placed in the center of the Temple, over the amethyst central point and allowed to vibrate and eventually gyrate in synch with the earth harmonics generated by voices and 7.83 harmonic “Earth Attuners.”
The Waz Scepter turned the sound waves into a scaler wave front vortex that aligned with the geometry of the Temple to generate a phase-lock across dimensional scale, so that the alignment of holon-to-photon ortho-rotations allows the Temple to spin freely though all dimensional co-ordinates. Our model then becomes a more-or-less functional mirror of the Universe, from our local point-of-view looking out to the cosmos.
The activation went smoothly. A tingle went through the grid, creating those resonant frequencies that permitted the web to cohere. It felt to me as if the earth sighed when we touched the right point. A great sigh of relief and comfort, as if a long neglected itch were scratched.
It took several months and some fine tuning for the energies to smooth out. The owners, who had to live with all this weirdness, reported glowing lights, as if the forest were on fire, coming from the Temple. Wiring and other electrical problems commenced the moment the last stone went into place the afternoon before the activation and continued for a full month. “Things” were seen in the woods, and some people, coming upon the Temple late at night said they “had the holy Be’jesus scared out of them.”
It was quickly apparent that the Temple acted as a mirror. Whatever feelings or emotions people brought to the Temple was amplified and reflected back at them. The Zodiacal Earth Temple became a marvelous teaching tool with lessons about psychological processes as well as having connections with the earth.
As I sit in the Temple, thinking of all the work and the miraculous timing, I flash on that simple neolithic engineer with his spherical projections of the elemental solids. We are remembering a lost science, pulling the pieces out of history’s dust heaps and dark corners. But who taught that neolithic geomancer? Did he invent the spherical projections he carved into the stones to reflect the nature of his perceptions of the grid, or did someone reveal this information to him?
Perhaps, as we explore more geomantic engineering projects, such as the structures on Mars, the answer will find us.