Creating Sacred spaces: Chi Gates

Open Intersections

Years ago, when I was studying Biodynamic agriculture, I was introduced to Hans Andeweg. He was working with farmers and growers to help them measure how healthy their farms and soils were. For this he has developed a complex system of energetic measurements, which he describes in his book ‘In resonance with nature’.

I studied his book, which brings many theories together (not unlike my own) and loved it. But at that time I didn’t do much with this new knowledge. 

Some years later, I started making mosaic artworks displaying celtic knots:It occured to me that I was creating something that Hans Andeweg had mentioned in his book:

‘Open intersections’, as a friend had told him, were points through which energy from the spirit world can enter ours.

See the image in black and white below. Left: a circle made of dots, making a ‘closed point’; middle: a circle made up of lines -an open intersection; right the radiant point you would see if you would zoom out from the middle picture.

My mosaics could be seen as such ‘open intersections’, implying that energy might be able to enter our world through them.

I started bringing in the workings of light into my mosaics, by making them transparent. Sunlight itself is energy coming to us from the spirit world -as one of my children once told me when he was about 7 years old: ‘the light of the sun is God’s Love shining down on us’-.

This energy from the spirit world comes in through the open intersections, it shines out through it like the sunlight does in these artworks.

In my mosaics I had not paid much attention to the third image from Hans Andeweg’s book. My patterns keep the energy looping in the image. It is only when we allow the light to shine through that the energy can truly come out of the image and into the surrounding space.

From mosaics and artworks to Gardens

Recently I made a new design for an artwork (this time using different materials) and I had shown the image to a friend.

He visited again a week later, and said two things:

-that the centre square needed to be split into 4 sections by means of bars/beams coming out from the center -breaking up the purple;

-and he mentioned that he thought it was a garden design.

It was not a garden design at all, but that did get me thinking… 

I had at some point in my thoughts about the Gardens of Love scribbled something down about creating a landscape temple of some sort, and spend some time looking at various designs, but the things I had been playing with got replaced with other, more practical designs, and the temple was forgotten.

A couple days later inspiration and realisation hit! What if we do make our Gardens of Love into ‘open intersections’? Would we be generating energy? Can we create a new kind of temple?

And that other remark, combined with a look at Hans Andeweg’s book and the third picture of a radiant point…. It became clear to me that we can create these patterns, like in my mosaic designs, to welcome a flow of energy. But it will be important to allow the energy to leave the Garden and stream out into the wider landscape.  -Like in the last artwork design, where beams of light should be added, to radiate out from the middle, leading the energy into the surrounding space. - If we try to keep the energy in the Garden, it might get flooded with too much energy and cause the whole Garden to get stressed, leading to disease - as Andeweg also describes in his book.

When we create a Garden like that, were Life energy streams in, then is blessed by the quality of Love that we add to our Garden and flows out...what healing may we bring to our world?

I was left with some questions:

• Will a series/ community of Gardens all generating this kind of energy be too powerful? Or will it be the very thing that helps rejuvenate the world?

• How can we make sure the energy flows out in a helpful way, not overloading the surrounding landscape?

• Will it be useful and beneficial to build our communities on existing energy lines, like Leylines? It might be a good way to rejuvenate these systems, and safely transport our new energy over the Earth. But It may also be that we will disturb the existing system if we do this.

• How important will it be to keep harmonious patterns? That is to say, will it create energy blockades if we break a pattern, by putting a building in the energies path for instance?

Later that spring, I had an amazing opportunity to meet with Marco Pogačnik, a writer and one of the first people who have been working with groups on geomantic (=working with Earth energies) Earth healing. After a lecture (which was very interesting, read about what I learned in the short aticle about it here), I spoke to him shortly about the Gardens of Love project and asked him my questions.

In Marco Pogačnik's view it would be very possible to generate energy in the way I described, and it shouldn't pose a problem of creating too much when there are a lot of Gardens together. He said there was no need to connect to the existing Leylines and such. The Gardens would be points of connection between Mother Earth and the Cosmos, and could easily stand alone because of this.  

Pogačnik further said it was very important to allow each family or person to be creative in their Garden, to be free to find patterns that feel right to them, and not be told to keep to a specific form.

From further research in Pogačnik's books as well as 'In resonance with Nature' mentioned above, I think that it is important to create a balance between yin and yang energies. Yin (feminine) energy is usually strong in water, Yang in stone and hills. (our current culture in which we build so many stone structures brings an imbalance of too much Ying/male energy). The ponds and streams in the Gardens can help make this happen, perhaps assisted by some rock garden features (which are also good for snakes, slowworms and nature spirits).

From Pogačnik's reaction to the picture above, with the paths leading out of the Garden, it seems this would be effective in sending the energy on into the wider surroundings.

Orgonite

In my most recent artworks I have been using resin, metal and crystals to make what I have called Chi Gate Light-art. The shape of the Celtic knot pattern is made in metal wire, crystals are placed in places that accentuate the pattern and resin in different colours fills in the picture. When light falls through the light art is complete, the Chi gate is bringing in Chi.

This combination of materials uses something that was first recorded by Dr Wilhelm Reich. He realised that when organic and inorganic materials where used in alternating layers, they attract energy[1] to them, an energy he called Orgon (after the orgasm). He realised later that this energy was the same as life force energy and Chi.

Some decades later someone else started using resin as organic component and metal shavings as inorganic material to make objects to enhance the living place. He found that the energy of the objects he made with the mix felt more harmonious if he added crystals. He dubbed this new mix of materials Orgonite.

It took me a while to realise that the organic -inorganic effect could also be used in the Garden. Here the organic component is very present in the form of all the plants and trees. The paths setting out the Celtic Knot pattern should now add an inorganic component. This can quite simply be done by making the paths with stone. Whether you choose to work with paving stones, bricks, gravel, concreate or perhaps ‘permeable paving slabs’, there are plenty of options to choose from.

Because the Gardens are large spaces, I think large crystals would be needed to give any significant effect of harmonising the energy-flow. This put me before a bit of a challenge. Large crystals are very expensive, so it would be unreasonable to expect a whole network of Gardens over the whole Earth -something that is part of my vision for the Gardens of Love- to use ever rarer crystals in their designs. In addition to the monetary cost of large crystals, there is also a cost to the environment and human lives. Unfortunately, most mines where crystals are found are not sustainable or humanely run, resulting in polluted areas, forests cut down, and communities destroyed and exploited to mine the precious metals that are the main enterprise these mines are run for. So, in short, using large fancy crystals is not a good option.

Some thinking and a quick internet search helped me find a solution. There are some stone types, granite, basalt and marble the most well-known, that are also considered crystals, with their own healing properties. These come in large blocks, and while they may not be cheap, they are widely available. These blocks could then be placed in the pattern in places where they enhance the pattern, similar to the crystals in the artwork above.

Once I saw this use of ‘Orgon accumulator’ materials in the Garden, I realised the organic- inorganic effect could be used in some other places as well:

• We can build a home (and animal housing) with cob = a mix of clay and straw. This is already a mix of organic and inorganic. Add some granite gravel or similar crystal stone to the mix and your house becomes an ‘Orgon accumulator’.
• Or build with wood as the organic part and an inorganic insulation material between layers. It would be a bit harder to find the best place for crystals in this building material, but it could be built into a render on the in- or outside of the wall.

In the house, when putting in underfloor heating, the inorganic water in the heating pipes will interact with an organic resin floor, or perhaps with a wooden floor. Putting in crystals would be easiest in resin. It is even possible to create a pattern, although not a knot pattern, as the pipes shouldn’t cross, and also need to exit in the same area as they come in. But a simple spiral or labyrinth pattern could be made. These patterns have a deep symbolical nature and are healing patterns.