URQUHART CASTLE, Scotland
I approached Urquhart Castle by boat, during my tour of Loch Ness. Stepping from a surreal feeling of suspension above magical water, on to the ground of this stone fortress was energetically challenging, I found. I was entering a dense area of ‘transition’ and unresolved ‘dispute’.
Once a Pictish hill fort around 580AD, a castle in the 1200’s, a medieval fortress in the 1300’s, it has transitioned through various ownerships to today’s visitor attraction. The castle played a role in the Scottish Wars of Independence, amongst other battles, and current ruins date to between 13th-16th century. Located on an energy ‘power point’, you can see why. According to our tour guide, ‘there are reports of two chambers under the castle: one containing the Black Death, the other gold. No-one knows which is which and no-one has dared to open them.’
The soft and magnetic water of the loch adds to the air of mystery around the castle. I am less interested in the history, more the underlying energies which are at first difficult to tune into. It’s as if a black cloud emanates throughout it. I noticed the body language of some of the other visitors - a hushed murmuring and change to people’s energy fields, mine included. It had an odd silence, as if we were being overheard by something…an echo of silence within the sound of silence. My sense, is this place has gifts and probably the chambers are true, but they hold something far more mystical and precious than gold or disease (which was probably a clever decoy). I was reminded of my recent trip to Stonehenge when I sensed sonic chambers beneath it - and I have since learned of chambers rumoured to use water to create sound and ‘communication’ under the pyramids in Egypt. The land of Urquhart was probably one such place, connected by previous civilisations to other sacred - and geometric, I want to say - sites.
As I walked up the castle hill, and through the Gatehouse my chest instantly tightened. I couldn’t breathe properly and my eyes filled with tears. I was guided to sit in a little corner, out of sight of most people. My head felt cloudy and I had an overriding feeling of the land needing healing…that it is sacred underneath and people visit the history and view, not the land itself. There is so much death, but also a mystical truth. My channel tells me: ‘The land is consecrated and that is the disturbance you feel. It has not been released and it is also not honoured’. Is the energy good or bad? I ask (aware of the duality of my question, not one I would usually pose, but somehow significant). ‘The energy is blessed and it is potent. It harbours gifts, should one seek them,’ I am told. ‘The reason you feel as you do is because you are called to heal. So do so now.’
Climbing higher within the grounds I find a spot to meditate. Despite my uncomfortableness, as soon as I closed my eyes I was held. I instinctively invited the land to release itself, to relax, offering light into it. I did not sense trapped souls, more so the imprint in the land itself which could benefit. Slowly my energy field, too, released - as I invited the land to reclaim its powerful wisdom. ‘The fortunes of the loch enable the destiny of the land,’ I am told by my channel. ‘This remaining castle is such significance - a reminder of the fight for the power of the land and its divine water. The waters belong to the land and the land protects the water. Humankind’s fight is between the layers of truth while avoiding what constitutes its presence.’
As I begin to leave, I feel grateful I am able to make a small contribution to the energies of Urquhart. Much, much more is needed. It is important to visit these places, but I am also struck by how the visitors themselves, by appreciation and thought of the history, contribute energetically to keeping the denser imprints in place. With over half a million visitors a year Urquhart is, I sense, still a victim of its more recent past. It is still in battle.
Before boarding the coach taking us back to Inverness, I spot a protruding white rock which feels reassuringly safe to ground upon…an example of the soft underlying energies beneath it. I pop down to the waters’ edge to place my feet in the magnetic water of Loch Ness. Both were needed, to clear my energy field of what I had experienced. Turning to leave, I also had the distinct sense of angels and metaphysical beings having ongoing ‘battles’ in the skies and ether above the castle.
Urquhart created mixed feelings for me, a yearning for the underlying green and richness. Symbolically, it provokes action; beginning with our thought and choices - a reminder of the power we each, in visiting, partake in. Everything is magnified when it echoes through time: a reminder we can choose light in the midst of battle.
I would love to hear your experiences - it certainly would benefit from the visit of more light.
Love,
Delilah
[visit: 5th October 2023]
I took the Loch Ness by Jacobite ‘Temptation’ Cruise.
Read my report on Loch Ness for the first part of this trip.