Ruby Reed (advaya): Hi, everyone, welcome. This webinar is in light of our upcoming course, Wisdoms of Water. The idea of the course is to explore how our lives are connected with water in many ways. From bodies to oceans, rivers, to blood, water is everywhere. It is a connector, healer, and a facilitator. To understand water, means an understanding of our existence, where we are, and where we're going. So in the webinar, we're going to look at the importance of reclaiming ancestral traditions and understanding their importance in our contemporary world, which is increasingly drifting away from them. So we're going to be joined and led by Charlotte Pulver, who was born into a family line of apothecaries, and is deeply rooted in the ancestral traditions of the British Isles. Charlotte has dedicated her life to the guardianship and celebration of water. She has a rich background in hosting water ceremonies and pilgrimages in the UK. She's currently crafting a book on London Springs and wells, while co founding the Fellowship of the Spring, which is a group committed to preserve and water heritage. Charlotte, in the webinar today will share an ancient Norse myth about the Well of Memory, which communicates the profound essence of water, and the role of humanity in upholding the balance of water as well as all of life. We're going to look at how ancestral traditions have been oppressed and erased, and why reconnecting with them is a revolutionary act. We'll also touch on the relationship between the ecological, civic, and spiritual. Charlotte will share her own personal experience with water guardianship, as well as how each of us can take action in our own lives. So the webinar is an hour in total, we'll end on the hour. And if you have any questions, please write them into the chat. And then the last 20 minutes, we will invite you to ask your questions directly or, depending on time, I'll ask the questions. So to start off, Charlotte, I would love to invite you to set the scene and tell us the story of the Well of Memory.
**Charlotte Pulver: ** Ah, thank you so much for inviting me to come to this table with you today. And to tell this tale of the Well of Memory. Just to clarify, this isn't an Old Norse myth because myths don't belong to one author. They are timeless, they are maps, which are relevant for any time any generation. So in telling this tale is going to give us lots of clues to do with water, guardianship, and what actually water is. And this tale was passed on to me by a Norse teacher. Okay, so wherever you are in the world right now, I invite you to to get really, really comfy, whether that's in your chair or lie back on your sofa on your bed. This is a time of entering into sacred time together tonight or the daytime wherever you are in the world. And allow yourself to really relax and receive this story. For myths talk to the deeper parts of our minds, to our unconscious, they touch the deepest senses of our bodies and touch our own Well of Memory that lives within our own bodies. Myths form records in our in our in our hearts, like droplets. So it may unravel various memories and remembering that you know, within yourself this story may evoke feelings and an understanding that you already knew you just forgot them. Okay. So, let me introduce you to the World Tree within the Norse cosmos. And for this tree, this world tree was called Yggdrasil. You got to sell the translation of it means the tree of Odin. Today, we're going to be taking a journey deep into the underworld, into the roots of the tree, fall within the tree lives the most profound spring that you should ever come across, often called the Well of Memory. For this tree, purpose and potential is completely fused. With this Well of Memory, it cannot reach its highest purpose on this planet without being infused with the springs waters. And the wealth of memory cannot truly fulfill its purpose without the tree itself. They are in complete divine union together in a balance of reciprocity, they are not alone. They are literally married to each other. And this is a concept. Yes, it is within myth, but actually all the trees of our planet today have a very profound interrelationship with water. And without the trees waters cannot fulfill their highest potential, which is to feed all of life through the conduction from the trees. So this spring of the Well of Memory, which resides in the roots of egotism, is like no other spring that you have ever seen. It is glistening, it is golden, it is that kind of water that you have been seeking your whole life to ever behold and drink from if you are dead, give them the opportunity to suck from its water droplets. And presiding the Well of Memory is a three guardians of the well. Now call the Norns otherwise also known as the Sisters of the weird, and when I say wyrd, I mean W Y R D. So this is the root word which are word that we use all the time weird comes from, but the weird that the sisters are the weird, they are weaving the fabric of reality day and night and night and day. They weave a web of the wyrd of both past, present and future together. And they weave this web with the water droplets from the well of memory itself. The Norns are Yggdrasil. They live within the realms of the gods.
Let me introduce you to them: Urðr is who sits on the seat of the past. She is woman who has become, she is holding all the hearts and all the breath of all the ancestors who have become on this planet. She holds them dearly and her hearts and in her hands. She touches the waters. She touches the waters in the past and when she touches the well of memory, she is weaving the thread of the ancestors. Let me introduce you to the Norn who weaves the thread in the present. Her name is Verðandi, a woman who is back humming, she is becoming constantly in the unfolding moment. But when she touches the Well of Memory, she's immediately touching the past, connecting to the thread of all its hand. When you touch water in the present moment, you are immediately in contact with the past. So water never disappears. It is forever unfurling unfolding and recycling itself. So the water that we have in the present moment right now, is the water, which has always been here, since the beginning of this planet's formation. Let me introduce you to the Norn who holds the seeds of the future waves with the water droplets from the present unfolding moment, into the potential future. Her name is Skuld. But if ever you were to come across and lay your head at the feet of Skuld, you will never see her. She always holds a veil upon her face. We are never to really see the future. It is always changing in the unfolding moment. A future is never to be seen so clearly. Because the the nature of the reality is, life is always unfolding in the present moment. Potential is always changing. So schooled weaves the threads from the present moment in the unfolding moment, ripples into the future is just of the potential. So when we touch water in the present moment, here today, we are immediately in touch with the past threads of the past, touching the water in the present moment. We are affecting how water flowers and forms into the future. We affect how it structures and what balance and where that water goes. So day and night, the Norns are tending to the well of memory. And with the water droplets, they take the water droplets and they combine them with the clay in which you're going to sell the World Tree is held in the clay and the minerals and all the soil and may combine it and form it into the roots, day and night and night and day, to the broken roots of the World Tree to the fractured roots, to the oozing roots, they mend with his ambrosia formed by the water droplets of the Well of Memory and the soil. For this is their service to all life. You see, the whole of creation is held. And the balance of creation is held in the hands of the Norns.
These waters, the wealth of memories waters. They are from the place of the gods, which flower through all of humanity, and an all of creation, and all the animals, and all the plants are fed by these waters. But these waters return to the Well of Memory every morning. And it's the Norns who collect it. And they collect it in the morning dew which forms upon the trees leaves. And this is haste to go and collect the morning dew before the sun burns into the sky and those water droplets disappear. And those water droplets only form by humans remembering that these water droplets form and they collect these dewdrops, these crystalline little dewdrops on the on the tree's leaves and feed them back into the Well of Memory, feeding it back every morning every morning to restore the balance of creation. And that's like a haste like I said in collecting this morning you because the Norns have, in their own way, almost been forgotten, those who are the guardians of the well. And they have the sense that there will be a time when those water droplets won't be there anymore, because the humans have entered a place of deep forgetting.
So I'm going to share with you a central teaching within the story about memory and water. Knowing of the future, the woman who is yet to become her name Skuld, translates as debt, and I don't mean a Western, you know, understanding of debt of, you know, your, your owing money, or you have minus 100 pounds in your bank account. it's not about that, but the sacred understanding and in the ancestral understanding of debt in this story is, for a well tree to be fed in balance, and for the world's waters to flower, and form, and restructure into beautiful crystalline energy to feed or life and to feed the world tree itself, an order of creation, how that water is coming into balanced information, is by remembering the past. Remembering where we've come from, and making a debt, a payment and offering from your heart, the highest offering is from your heart, to ancestors. And I'm talking about the ancestors of your blood and bone for all the ancestors, which line up behind you, both in breath, and with all those ancestors who have breathed you into being in this miraculous occurrence of being here today, but also the ancestors of Reverend stone. For those beings, or those trees, or those waters, or those animals, which are familiar to you, in the place of your bath, they are the ones who also held you and still hold you today and breathed you into being. For it's the earth who feeds you every day with all your sustenance. So it's making that daily offerings to both threads of ancestors. And it's also to do with feeling. So when we feel we are able to heal, and when we have the capacity to grieve and shed those tears, they go back and are the ultimate sustenance into the well of memory. The thing is, we are born into a culture which has millennia of unresolved grief, and oppression and destruction in all our ancestral lines. And if we have the capacity to open our hearts and feel and come into great relationship with our fellow kin, then that helps heal the web or the wyrd and helps us to remember and feel and for all those memories to to restructure as to on the on the tree of life. So it humanities show, that remembering is vital for things to be in reciprocity, and balanced with all of creation.
So it's a very beautiful story and it has so many so, so, so many gifts of, of medicine and teachings about what water is. So the Norns, the three Norns are like holding the different threads of time. So in science itself, they sometimes they say water is quantum - water is time. And I love that that the story holds that. So honestly, like if you've got some water in your cup right now next to you, you might be drinking just like place your hands on it. This water honestly is the same water that has been with us since the beginning of the planets formation. There's something called the water cycle. And water is constantly cycling it never disappears. And so when we touch water In the present, you are physically touching the past, from whence that water has come from. The thing is that water has come from the beginning of this planet's formation. So you can actually, if you think about it, you're touching the beginning moment of this planet's formation. And you are, in some ways, touching, and in contact with all the peoples who have touched that water, the ancestor, so a lot of people say, How can I, what is a wonderful ancestral practice, and I'm just like, literally, just go to your local springs or your weathers or even just your tap water and just touch it with that reverence of wow, I am, I am in contact with the past and where it's come from. And then as you're touching it in the present moment, you're, you're, you're in contact with that past, but you are affecting the future of how that water flowers and forms, you're affecting its potential. And the future is always about potential. It's not clear cut, we can't know the potential, we can't know the exactly what's going to happen in the future. And a lot of indigenous cultures say that, you know, we can't read the future, but we can affect its potential because everything is in potential. Everything is unfolding.
Ruby (advaya): Thank you so much, Charlotte. I loved hearing you talk and speak about the tell the story, and how through story can convey so much more than you could just with a normal talk, or through a more rational approach to conveying information in communicating. So the message of the myth as well, and what you're talking about now with water and how water destabilizes our ideas of time, in this dominant world that we live in, this dominant paradigm. And it destabilizes ideas of ancestors, and the past, because it brings the past into the present, and the future into the present. This is the main is one of the big messages that I got from when you were when you were telling the story. And I was reflecting also about your work personally, in the sense of reviving ancestral traditions and working with ancestral traditions, and how through that, in the same way as through water, you're bringing the past back into the present again, and honoring everyone that's come everything that's come before, in a way that is honoring them the present, and honoring life itself, which. I was thinking about the way that the dominant paradigm, the materialist paradigm that we live in, or capitalism, because you're going into consumers, and whatever we want to call it has always had an agenda to maintain the other side of that, to maintain an idea of linearity, that you're not connected with the past that you are like not, you don't have that sense of empowerment or, or connection. And there's, there's an effect of this dominant way of being which is a disconnect. So you're no longer connected to your ancestors, you're not connected to your place, you're not connected to each other, or the sense of the sacred. And thinking about how sacred sites have been badly I've been affected in this, as well as this memory as well as the traditions and how you've been working a lot with wells, and particularly thinking about also the Stonehenge project that's been happening in the UK now. And I wonder if we switch to talking about water, guardianship, and why your work has centered so much on reviving ancestral traditions, recognizing sacred sites. Recognizing this role of water in who we are and who we need to be and in our relationship with land in place. I wondered if you want to talk a bit about that.
Charlotte: So why we take a guardianship role, it's not something we choose, you know, we just follow what feels right in our heart and what we love and actually what we're seeking and what we need help with. And water is a conduit and In support for feeling our emotions and of safety, we were born in amniotic fluid in water, you know. And I think that's why you'll see that. In many cultures, it's it's the feminine presence, which is the guardian of waters, you we have the sea gods. And that's, but it's really the feminine principle. And what you said about the current paradigm, of not wanting to look to the past, not wanting to have to, for us to like Rivera ancestors, I feel that's really to cut us off from our feelings. And that whole story talks about is like, the World Tree is going to wither and die if humans aren't in touch with their feelings, and grieving and remembering, because in that grieving and healing and remembering, it allows us to be in our bodies and to heal otherwise, how can we transform our trauma, you know, as individuals and as a culture, and when we are in a traumatized place? What what has tends to happen is this is this is this illness of consumerism, we trash our homes, you know, we're the only species who does that. And you only do that when you don't feel like you belong, you know, when you feel like you belong to a place, or, or, or like you'd like to go to your nearby spring or your rivers or your ocean to do you feel like you've belonged to those places, and they belong to you. You take care of them, you're not going to be constantly outside yourself needing to, to buy things and, you know, try and like heal that numbness and pain side. So for me, like most of my life, so far, I don't live in London anymore. But for 30 years, I lived in London, and it was a serendipitous moment, like, for prior to living in London. Well, actually, from the age of like 10, I lived in London, and I would go outside of London to seek the sacred sites and the springs and you know, go on adventures trying to find them. And actually, it was one day I was just trying to find the postcode of someplace to send a card to my friend and I knew she lived next to this church, I went online, and I looked up the postcode and this church was on its website, it said, " St. Mary's, holy spring is inside the church" and Willesden and I was just like, "what? This spring in London? Why haven't I thought of this?" It was just like, "I've been so thinking it was outside the metropolis." And I was like, "okay, I gotta go and see the spring immediately." So here I am, I went to the church, it was open, the priest happened to be around, I was like, "hey, I really want to see your spring, can I drink from it?", and he was so excited that I'd made this trek across London to visit his spring and I drank from the water. And I tried the water and I had this like, light bulb moment, I was like, "okay, now it's time to find all the springs in London", and so that's what I did. And why I did that, especially in the city is it helped keep me grounded, to help make me feel safe. It felt like I belonged to the city, to this deeper intelligence, which is water. And, you know, I came to understand that like London is a water city, it's actually on top of a lake called the London basin, through London is 21 rivers. Now they're all under underground. And from those rivers, there's lots of springs, which form these rivers and there's wells, and some of them are above ground, and you can visit them and some of them are capital, pretty much all the main places of power on top of the springs, and you can't have access to them. So I just mapped all out. And I guess it was part of my healing and feeling safe in the city and connected and emotionally centered. And it was by doing that, you know that. That is how it really came into play. And I guess London was my training ground. And Am I answering your question?
Ruby (advaya): Yeah, yeah, you are.
**Charlotte: ** (Told with photos in webinar) So I just started mapping them out and you see like the little lines there's a Darius rivers which are the springs are connected to, you'll see that some of them are on literally on the rivers and all these rivers flow into the River Thames I can give you the link to this map, which you know explains what the springs are and where they are. And I formed a Facebook group where they people who are like spring geeks and water geeks of London can share their knowledge and then the next next photo Okay, so then I started becoming very connected to a wider group of people there's a Facebook group called holy springs of Britain and like we've literally mapped out through the whole of the UK and this is just one example this is just cool for you. (Next photo) So this is a spring where I live I live in the woods in Hastings St. Helens Woods is where I live. And this is my local springs, St. Helens spring. It's quite a tale how I found this spring, maybe I might tell it I'll tell it very briefly. And it because it'll tell you, when you really align yourself with a spring. It can hold you in so many ways. So the first part of my issue is saying more of my water guardianship really started in London, which I you know, shared a bit with you and mapping everything out. And then we go to the various springs and just naturally host ceremony with the springs in London. And then like a few years later, I found myself inside Stonehenge on as you do on the summer solstice. And there's a stone which is an outer perimeter stone. It's not the inner part of the hand, but this stone is is in alignment with the summer solstice sunrise. And if you want to make your prayers on the summer solstice sunrise, you go to the stone and one of the names for the stone is called the helis stone. So you go there to pray. And what happens is when the sun is rising, it hits the stone, that stone will form a shadow on the ground and snake itself all the way into the inner sort of chamber of the henge and kind of pierce the center where an altar stone used to be. So it's kind of like this fertility snake of a shadow sneaking itself in and then out and this happens on the summer solstice sunrise. So you go to this, this stone to pray and because it's in alignment with the sun, the sunrise, so I went there to meet my prayers. And I didn't really have any fixed form prayers of what it was going to be. Why I was going to Stonehenge that that that morning, but what arose from me as I prayed as the sun was coming up with, I wish to connect more deeper to the waters of the British Isles. And when I got home that night, I looked on Facebook as you do an appt popped this image of this amazing spring that you this image that I'm sharing with you by a man called Mark Goulding. And he was telling his tale of how he found this spring and how it was covered in a swamp in the woods and had been lost for decades and how he dug it out of the ground. And something told me this is the answer to a prayer that you made at Stonehenge. And then I also saw that there was an alignment between the name St Helen and the name of the stone I made my prayer which is which was at the Heller stone. So Heller is one of the names for Helen okay, it's an old it's an old name and the predecessor goddess to on St. Helens you have the Goddesses which were crystallization of these. These wells is Ellen at e l e n. So this site would wash it to the Goddess Ellen and the goddess Ellen. Her name means shining light. She is the goddess of the track queen. So people would call upon her if you're feeling lost in life. And like you're lost in the woods, or you're feeling lost internally. So you go to these waters to bait if you need, like guidance of a direction in your life, or you need your internal trackways cleared out. So I was just like, this is the answer, I need to be in these waters. Anyway. Six months later, I did visit this spring and moved in the waters wasn't expecting, you know, I didn't go with any expectations. But my whole life changed. Anything in these springs, I tell you, like within a year, I left a 13 year relationship. We sold our house, I sold all my businesses, it was just like all this huge change. And I knew it was from like, literally immersing myself in these waters. And while this change happened, but I was I was seeking this change, I just didn't know how I was going to make it happen. But anyway, thankfully, it happened, despite it being quite a quite, quite chaotic, which comes with change. And this was my temple to go to, this was the spring I would go to, to kind of find my alignment. If I needed support and to get revived from being in the London, I would always go to the spring but it was my it was my place to go to to escape from the city. And then Okay, so this is the map. So basically, when I saw the photo, the spring I, I, I emailed the man who shared that image, Mark Goldie, and I was like, Hey, Mark, I'd love you to show. Show me the spring. He's like, I won't show you the spring, I'll give you a map. Here's here's the map. So you can draw this like little treasure map, just like go find it. And that Okay, so this is a map that I still give to people today, if they want to find. So I use this beautiful map. Next Next photo. Okay, that was me on the day that I decided to be there. And then that's mark, that's Mark who dug out the spring. And okay, and this is in London. So you know, I said that, like, there's springs that you can see and drink from. And then there's springs which are underground, which are cat, which you might not know about, but when you when I started to map them out, I then knew which were the potholes where the springs were. So this is in Hyde Park, in the area where the fountains are, and yeah, even like went down it. And honestly, down there is like the remnants of an old bathing well, and you can still see the water. And I because I did all the mapping, though. The this spring St. Anne's well is connected to the river West born, which then flows through Hyde Park, and then goes down to Sloane square and then into the Thames. So something and then this is supposed to something to share, it's really, really beautiful if you live in a city and you start to map out your springs, to the ones which are capped. Because when you stand over them that you know, if they just put that cap back on and just stood over it, you can feel like the energy of rushing water below your feet, you can feel like the magnetism of the water. And so you can pray, you know, in the city, like above the cap springs, and pray and knowing where that those prayers flow to the difference parts of the city. So it's a very powerful way to connect with nature within the city and knowing where those prayers are taken through to the city. So next photo. So this is a spring called this strand spring or the Roman Bath. This is literally in the centre of London, just round the corner from the Royal Courts of Justice. So you can't really see the water because it's black and white photo, but it's really crystalline water. And it's just such a mystery because this is really an a condensed part of the city. But this water comes all the way from the hands to teeth. And it's still really unpure by the time it gets there. And next photo if there's any I think that's the last one.
So that's just a little snapshot of my little adventures with water. So yeah, it's like, especially the ones in the city I find are the most precious jewels. You know, it's just like, wow, you're still here. You know, so That's why I really loved finding the springs in London when I lived there. And, you know, it's not just London, it's like, every every most cities in the world will have their springs bound and remembered, as most of them are very forgotten.
Ruby (advaya): Thank you so much. I love the sharing those photos and, and those stories, it's it totally enhances your experience of being in a city or anywhere you find yourself to have the stories and the and the histories and to recognize that, and I wonder if you wanted to share a little bit about pilgrimage as well, and the role of pilgrimage and what you've been doing with the fellowship of the spring, as well through that?
Charlotte: Sure. So okay, so our ancestors, you know, in all cultures have been practicing pilgrimage, you know, taking walks to the land, and pilgrimages I guess it's a really simple vessel of transformation, you know, yourself in one place, you know, knowing where your final destination is, but you just let life unfold as you go. And you can set prayers and intentions and let life reflect or back to you what those answers might be, or you can use pilgrimage to transform. But you know, all the old pilgrimage routes are all following the waterways, you know, because people needed water people needed to drink the water, or if they had their animals, you know, to, for their horses to drink from the waters or going back to Neolithic times, people would follow the tracks, say in in the British Isles, it might have been reindeer, or big auric you know, ancient cows through the land, they would follow the tracks. And where the tracks went was always to the waterways. So you know, our pilgrimage routes are synonymous with water. So when I was just finding the springs is essentially within London, I could see there was pilgrimage routes, and you kind of create amazing little, little quests, little adventures really. And that's how, for me it was the waters got me into pilgrimage, but also it was by going to my my my favorite spring, which is the Ellen spring in the woods where I live to hear today. No, she's the goddess of the trackways. She's the goddess of pilgrimage. And so kind of, they've been in her waters and getting direction because her name is shining light. It just opened up that passion but that passion I realize had always been for pilgrimage. Since I was a kid, I'd always get a map very early age and go and going on an adventure. I would just like leave home and go off.
Ruby (advaya): And, and that's, that's one of the reasons why I'm so excited about the course, Wisdoms of Water. And I'm so happy that you can take part in it as well. And this idea of bringing together different elders and people working with water who've been researching water academics around water, and spiritual practitioners, people with very practical relationships with water to scientists, to re water our realities to so that we can really recognize how integral it is and reevaluate how we relate to it, to then hopefully change how we re how we engage with life as a whole, by putting water back at the center. And something that really, I was really inspired by and something else I wanted to mention it when you're talking about storing how you've been engaging with water in your spiritual, the spiritual practices around water, the ancestral practices is, is how fun it can be as well. And how it's a process of learning and exploring and experimenting and finding what suits you. Also, not something that you have to find an ancient book and follow word by word. It's like a It's almost like a discovery. And that's something that I really got when you're when you're telling your story. But then it's also political, that we're talking now about, like water and memory and ancestry and brain load into the present. But in that it's becomes like a radical act. It's a political act. And I was thinking about the work that you've been doing around land access, like collaborating with the trespass movement, but also around Stonehenge with the recent, the recent attempts to do construction and corporate forces playing a role within within that. And I wonder like, I think it would be so nice to have some questions as well. But just before we move to that, I would love if you could share a little bit about what you've been doing there with the Stonehenge campaign.
**Charlotte: ** Okay, so I don't know how much is within people's awareness to do with what is called the Stonehenge tunnel. I don't know how much people know about it. It's an issue actually, which has been around for like 25 years, the government have been wanting to build a drill actually a very deep tunnel through the Stonehenge World Heritage Site. So Stonehenge is a whole site, World Heritage with many sacred sites, and they're all aligned with each other through different ages of our culture, going back to Neolithic times, so they've, you know, living 1000 years ago, there's they found archaeological sites. You know what I'm saying? Archaeologists have found Flint tools from them. So yeah, it's a whole site. And the oldest site itself, is what is known as the Stonehenge spring. The name for it's called Blick Mead, you can look it up, I'd highly recommend looking at it. So in 2019, I was hearing about this Stonehenge tunnel. And I looked around online, and I heard the name Blick Mead spring was going to be drastically affected. And obviously being interested in springs, I was like, okay, so I searched let me spring up to pop to this photo of the spring. And I was just so taken by the energy, this ancient ancient water, and reading about a 200,000 artifacts of Flint napped tools had been found within the spring, and an ancient 10,000 year boat, you know, and the waters are just so crystalline. It's like a very precious place, which has really not been affected, thankfully. And I was like, "I need to find the spring and I need, I need to see if I can help in any way". Anyway, I managed to get in contact with the Guardian, the owner, because it's on private land on a like an old family estate. But this family they have given their estate for me in a what you call it a nursing home. So it's, it's the land of the nursing home in which I love babies, ancestral waters, and the elders who live on this land, and the last parts of their lives are able to be with the spring, you know, anyway, um, I introduced myself to the owner, and I told them that I did pilgrimage. And I'd love to bring people to the spring and like a tithe of the pilgrimage tickets we'd always give to the archaeologists so they could pay for their radiocarbon dating of what artifacts they pulled out the spring. So yeah, I've I've had this very special relationship with the spring for the last five years. And, and in relation to the tunnel. So this is the oldest site within the world, Stonehenge World Heritage Site, and the tunnel is going to be bored right next to the spring. So like, if the tunnel goes ahead and his board, then this spring will be no more. And all the artifacts, I mean, there's so many artifacts within this spring, they will be no more because it's a choc fed spring. And it's a very rare environment. And it allows the artifacts to be perfectly preserved. And they've been perfectly preserved for like, over 11,000 years, you know, so once that water is drained, you know, all these artifacts won't be able to be radiocarbon dated, they'll like start to disintegrate as well. So the government is aware of this spring and so as English Heritage who are for the tunnel, if you want to know why I can tell you this, it's very political. And it's all to do with money as well. They don't care, they don't care that the old is part of the Stonehenge awadhesh site will be no more they just do not care. And the reason why they want this tunnel is that they think it might speed up your journey by like, five minutes. In fact, that's it to spend a 3 billion pound tunnel just to speed up your journey by maybe five minutes, maybe. Maybe and and to like, destroy the oldest part, which is the spring. Yeah. And all the artifacts within it. They're so happy to do that, and so as English Heritage. So yeah, it's been a big part of, I guess my god in shape is trying to raise the awareness about this place. And like English Heritage calls Blick means the Stonehenge spring they call At the cradle of Stonehenge, it's like Stonehenge, the hinge itself only exists because of the spring because it was the waters which brought people to that part of Salisbury that part of the UK, the river Haven flows into it. And it's, it attracts all the animals. And actually 11,000 years ago, they realized, actually, people were starting to make sense, semi permanent structures, which, you know, next to the waters, because it was such incredible waters, which, again, change the rule books for archaeology, that people back then didn't make structures, but they did. Little homes. So yeah, it was it's like the most sacred part of Stonehenge. And um, yeah, I feel very deeply part of the protection of it.
**Ruby (advaya): **Yeah, thank you, Charlotte. And then if people wanted to learn more or less somewhere where they can go.
Charlotte: Yeah, I'd say there's a website set up by the Stonehenge Alliance. So where it is that right now is the government, sorry, the courts ruled in the favor of the government to be able to go ahead and drill it. And that drilling will happen in April 25. So next year, but they filed an appeal to take it back to the courts. We're waiting to hear if the pool has been granted. And then the only other thing which might change it is if the Tory government are booted out the general election, which is probably going to be in January. But who knows, you know, labor for it, or, you know what I mean? But, you know, it's like, there's this Can we still, you know, reverse it happening and being drilled.
**Ruby (advaya): ** And when it comes to people connecting with springs at home and water at home or practices, what is the first step that you recommend people doing? Like if we're going to end the call? What would you say to people wanting to start their own water based ancestral practice? Practice, okay. Or any personal practice with water?
Charlotte: Yeah, personal practice. Okay, a lot of people say what is the highest offering, you know, with water? What is the purest water, you know, people have our obsessions. You know, the purest water and the highest offering you can give to otter is to bless it with all of your heart. You know, bless it with all your heart, you're connecting your feeling body with water, which is basically the feeling body of the planet communicator. Also simple practices literally just to come into the present moment and touch water, in a bowl or in your cup, and feeling in your body you are touching all the way back to the formation of the planet. And those waters formed. That's a really stunning practice to do in itself. And then in relation to your local springs, just just don't get out. Some Ordnance Survey maps, I mean, if you're in the UK with the I can send you the links to the Google Maps and you know, where they're mapped out in the UK, go just find your local springs have fun, it's an amazing adventure. Clear out, give it a lot of love. You know, give it offerings, decorate it, you know, this is what the springs need, they need to be remembered. Get your friends involved, get community involved, make it a regular occurrence. And there's one practice I'm going to share with you if you want to clear out your local spring or a stream or a river. Okay? This is so powerful, but it's so simple. Okay? Just go to that body of water, whether it's a spring or a stream, and say to it, I'm going to clear you out so you can feed all life. All right, so when I say clear out if there's stones or rocks or rubbish in the way of, you know, blocking its flow, just take it out. This take it out. And when water starts to properly flow is like this, the vitality returns back to the water and the land, it loves it, it starts to sing. And then what you can do as you're clearing out the water and blocking its flow. You can go with your own personal prayer of like, Okay, what I'm going to help you can you help unblock something in your life, maybe you feel there's an illness in your body or you feel stagnant in one part of your life. Just hold that intention. So as you're unblocking the flow of water, you're also blocking a certain stagnancy in your life. And you do that inner outer work and I tell you, things start to change in your life. And you're doing that in a reciprocity relationship with water. It's so simple, it sounds like child's play, but you know it, you know, most wonderful things are from a place Plain and just, you know, reverence and being in your heart.
Ruby (advaya): Thank you so much. I am. I've really, really, really enjoyed speaking.
