(click on images to enlarge)

London Heathrow Terminal 5

MARLBOROUGH, July 20, 2008 - With only three days on the ground at home in Scottsdale in between my Peru and England trips, I barely had enough time to clean and change my wardrobe, let alone process my  Peru experiences before starting to record some new ones about crop circles.  But that's the way the schedule worked out this summer.  So I just had to suck up and go with the flow.

Just as I did not know anything about shamanism less than a year ago, I was similarly clueless about crop circles.  But one thing led to another, and this year I got to explore both.  My friend Heather, an Inka-trained shaman from Sedona, introduced me to both.  Her boyfriend, now husband, Bert, who hales from the Netherlands, has been researching crop circles for over 15 years (click here to go to his web site).  And since they were running for crop circle watchers for the first time this year, I decided to join them.  In fact, this was the first summertime trip I booked this year, before I had decided to go to either Montenegro or Peru.

Introduction to "Croppies"

When I first mentioned my idea of going to England to watch crop circles this summer to my younger daughter, she rolled her eyes as if thinking, "What's next?  First shamanism.  Now this... My Dad has really flipped."  Over time, she came to accept shamanism as something that could possibly be of value.  As for crop circles... well, with so many skeptics even around here in Wiltshire, where they are a daily occurrence at this time of the year, who can blame people from far away who doubt their veracity.

Now that I've spent a couple of days with the crop circle crowd, here are my observations.  The "croppies," as they sometimes call themselves, are a breed of their own.  They are as passionate about what they do as is a scientist who spends his lifetime studying the mating habits of armadillos, for example.  An obscure subject to most people is a source of immense passion for a few.  That's the "croppies" in a nutshell.

As for myself, I have found the first two days quite interesting and eye-opening in many respects, but painfully slow, at least for a guy who has traveled millions of miles around the world, and considers a three-day stay even in a major city a long trip.  After two days, I feel I now know about about the crop circles about as much as I care to.  So I am dreading the next five days of the snail's pace tour.  I have even tried to get an earlier flight back home, but was unable to do it without incurring exorbitant costs. And so back to the snails I go... loaded with newly found patience and love of thy neighbor that I brought with me from the Holy Mountains of Peru.

With that as a preamble, here's now a play-by-play so far...

London Heathrow Terminal 5

On this trip, I finally got to experience Heathrow's infamous new Terminal 5 (above), luckily only as a pedestrian, not a passenger.  For, this is where our tour began.  Some of the overseas tour participants were met here by Roeland, Bert's friend and our driver on this tour, and then driven to Marlborough in Wiltshire (see the map) to meet the rest of the Dutch people who were driving to England themselves.

Wiltshire, Days 1 & 2: Communing with "Croppies"

The weather was gloomy and foreboding when we got to Marlborough, a cute little town in southwest England (see the map).  We had passed through a few drizzles but no serious rain, just enough to remind us of what the English summer is like.

Our host and tour leader Bert couldn't wait to show us a crop circle near the Alexandria House, a nice and modern conference at which we are staying.  He took us there even before we checked in.  Above is apparently a famous crop circle that cropped up on June 1 of this year.  It is famous because its geometry delivers a "pi" formula, including the decimal point.

As we listened Bert's morning lecture and a late night presentation by Janet, another crop circle researcher (click here to go to her web site), one would get a definite impression that some "aliens" or "crop circle makers," as they call them, are trying to communicate with us.  Why?  Because they want to enlighten us, according to Janet.  She and some other crop circle researchers have concluded from the messages we have received so far that after Dec 21, 2012, the end of the Mayan calendar, we will not be facing a catastrophe, the "end of the world," as some people think, but rather 1,000 years of peace, which is apparently another ancient prophecy.

Both Bert and Janet think that you can manifest the designs that eventually show up in crops.  As a case in point, they cite the crop circle that showed up on the right, which includes six Templar crosses in the middle.  A few years ago, the two of them and another four people had envisaged the Templar cross as a design over a few drinks at a local pub two days earlier.  They got the idea from a local church in Marlborough.  Two days later, their ideas showed up as a crop circle you're looking at.  Janet showed photos of some other similar examples.

"So can 'they' read our minds?" she asked rhetorically.  "Or are 'they' already inside of us?" (meaning the same spirit drives both forces).  You can decide for yourself.  Personally, having seen what I have in Peru, I am more inclined to believe the latter (that some people CAN, in fact, manifest their ideas and communicate them to the spirit world).

Bert also said that some RAF (British air force) pilots had told him that they could see the crop circle designs in fields using their infrared goggles BEFORE they actually materialized.  So it seems they happen when "they" (circle crop makers) pull the trigger and activate some electromagnetic light force that whips up the wind which flattens the wheat or barley helms into a particular shape.

Some people on our tour think that "they" (whoever they are) will send thousands of UFOs for those earthlings who want to leave before 2012 to evacuate the planet safely, and then return again as a new breed of humans after the cataclysm is all over.  "Nobody will have to leave.  Everybody will have a choice," this person said, citing a vision that came to her.

I can just see now my younger daughter thinking or maybe even saying, "see what I mean?"  And I would agree with her entirely except for two things that the mountain and earth spirits at the Holy Mountains of Peru have told us (the visiting group of shamans).  First, that women will be charged with a responsibility of creating a new breed of man.  Second, that medicines of pharmaceutical companies (who are damaging the environment - Mother Earth) will no longer work in five years (i.e., after 2012). So put these two data points under your hat before you dismiss anything out of hand.  Feel free to ignore the seemingly outlandish prophesies of some Dutch psychics.  But dismiss the comments by mountain spirits that we heard "live" and firsthand, and you might as well join the ostriches.

Silbury Hill, Avebury "Stonehenge"

With that as a summary of my observations about the first lectures, let us now rejoin the tour...

Our first stop was the Silbury Hill, a mysterious man-made lump of earth that juts out of the flat fields that is said to be 5,000 years old (left).  In the middle left shot, you can see yours truly with my Dutch roommate Walter.  Next we moved on to Avebury (two right shots), the site of another "Stonehenge" that gets gets Bert even more excited that the Stonehenge, which we are due to visit on Wed. Personally, I was more excited by the beautiful big trees, like that bronze maple in the rightmost shot.

The ancient stones, that are said to have been placed here in a sacred circle, are over 4,500 years old.  I like the casual manner in which they are still displayed. 

Sheep graze all around the stones, while tourists meanders and touch them, in the hope of "hearing" the message or feeling the energies they transmit. You can see some more beautiful big trees in the middle left shot, and a wider-lens view of the "stonehenge" from a distance.  Finally, the rightmost shot gives you an areal view of the Avebury sacred circle of stones.

While waiting for the group to reassemble and move on (something I am becoming very good at - waiting... nothing ever happens on time in crop circle country), I took a picture of some pretty flowers in an Avebury garden.  Then we moved on to the Sanctuary, another ancient site in the area, before burying a group despacho under a clump of nearby trees.

On the way to and from the despacho site, we passed this "gypsy"-like wagon.  It seemed to belong to a solitary man who likes to carve trunks and roots of small trees.  Each to his own... Back on the road, we witnessed a policeman giving tickets (citations) to another group of crop circle watchers who had evidently trespassed on some angry farmer's land.  When I walked over, I jokingly said to the cop, "I hear you are the crop circle tour guide around here."  As everybody laughed, the copper waived me off saying, "there is nothing here to see."

Well, when you're bored out of your head, then even cracking jokes at cops is better entertainment than watching grass grow.  One saving grace throughout the day has been the beautiful, serene, picturesque scenery of Wiltshire (rightmost shot). Its tame, rolling hills were quite a contrast to the rugged Peru mountains from which I had just descended.

Although the day started as cloudy and gloomy, it ended in glorious sunshine, as you can see from the above sunset pictures of Marlborough.

The weather has been also beautiful back at the Alexandra House where we are staying.  This former military property, now converted to a conference center, sits in the middle of a large property, with lots of greenery and gorgeous lawns.

And that's all she wrote from this Saturday, July 19, in Wiltshire, England.

Love  Light

Back to   Home