We Are Waking The Sleeping Giant

~~~~~~~ Third Eye~~~~~~~

The pulse continued along St Domingo Rd where the busses come by and went through a gate into the northeast corner of the park. Near to this entrance the path climbs the highest hill in the area which is right on the border of the crown and 3rd eye chakras. It’s another windy place that provides the biggest view of the whole Giant. We stood on the hill for a few minutes, watching as a tough-looking guy on a noisy motorbike came by down below, ripping up the turf and eyeing us suspiciously in a territorial way. We saw the pulse shining off this guy - it seemed to be riding on his back as he patrolled his terrain. They zipped back and forth a few times, then he sped southwards and the pulse left him just before he moved out of sight.

The pulse was imprinted with this symbol:

A tough guy suspiciously patrols his territory on a noisy motorbike.

We left the hill and walked a bit east, then southwards through the 3rd eye area. We noticed that the pulse was now hovering around a bench as if inviting us to sit down. So we did. We’ve taken in the view from this bench on other occasions, and it’s a good one. It’s close to the top of the same riverbed that we had seen and described from below. Looking out from the bench, the squared-off pool (or foundation?) which is the upper end of the riverbed is right in front of us. Just to the right of the pool and up on a small rise is a grove of trees. So if we were to climb up the riverbed from bottom to top we would arrive at these trees. This is significant because we already know that the trees are an important landscape feature in the Giant’s body. We’ve been drawn here many times. Like the bench in the will chakra, Sweetheart Park in the heart chakra, and the locks down the hill, this grove of trees in the 3rd eye chakra is situated along the midline of the Giant’s body.

A bamboo spike has been planted under one of the trees in this nearby grove. Also, all of the receptor dishes that were placed throughout the Giant’s body on our first visit were pointed towards this area in the 3rd eye. It’s a focal point in the 3rd eye in a similar way that Sweetheart Park is in the heart chakra. The chimes in Sweetheart Park are connected up with the spikes throughout the body. We anticipate that in the future the receptor dishes will connect with a larger receptor in this grove of trees in the 3rd eye.

These four G-chi paths we’re walking on this trip are all culminating in Sweetheart Park, via a connector path that diverts the flow of the pulse from its usual circulation. Later on we expect to focus on the 3rd eye as the destination of travel and bring what needs to come to this chakra from the rest of the body. It looks like the riverbed is the diverting path that will be used to move from the locks towards this grove of trees.

While sitting on the bench we remembered the Giantroom that had been erected around this grove of trees during the first walk we made through the Giant’s body in 2006.

On that autumn day we were carrying the bowl of spring water from the root chakra carefully along with us and were also pulling a cart loaded up with the yellow fabric and lots of bungie cord. We had looked around the whole landscape of the Giant’s 3rd eye a few days earlier and found that this was the only area where the Giantroom could possibly go. So when we arrived here we stretched the bungie cord around the grove of 5 trees as high up as we could reach. Then we pulled the fabric around the trees as well and tucked and clipped the top edge over the bungie. We made a doorway with a short corridor near one of the trees. The room was about 15 feet in diameter, irregularly shaped according to the placement of the trees, and open to the sky. We each had some time alone inside. It was a beautiful experience to be in there. The walls blocked off all visual reference to what was outside except for the moving shadows of the branches of the trees. The fabric was a strong yellow so the room was bright inside. Naturally empty places such as this area are more common than we’re used to acknowledging. We don’t create them but the simple act of describing this particular hole with the fabric just served to point it out and make it more accessible.

And still the presence of the bright yellow Giantroom in the falling light of dusk lingers in the trees. The landscape is slow to let go of such an event. An experience of it is still available. It can be revisited. Nothing goes away but it blooms into form out of emptiness and then recedes back into emptiness. In this case forgetting has not been hastened along by obstructions – the trees still shimmer in the breeze, the bench we sit on is the same bench offering the same point of view as it did when we sat here on the evening when the Giantroom was erected. It is a most tender sight. On that evening a bit of emptiness was wrapped in yellow. We went inside the room alone and stood surrounded by walls of light, open to the sky above. There was quiet while the sun disappeared behind the hill. A quiet hole in space, a timeless experience of rarefied beauty. The opportunity still exists. The hole is still here and we can still peek through it. While we sit on the bench, the pulse dances in the grove of trees, reenacting the presence and experience of the Giantroom.

Eventually the pulse started moving southwards again. We got up from the bench and followed, silent and joyous. There’s a clear visual line all the way down to a prominently-placed church miles westwards down by the docks. Sight naturally flows towards its steeple just as water flows downhill.

The G-chi path skirted a childrens’ playground on the right. Then, about 200 yards further, the pulse came to the northern edge of a raised rim of land that surrounds a huge bowl sunk into the earth. There’s a majestic view of the whole panorama of the city from this rim. The bowl itself is an almost perfectly circular crater in the landscape. It’s completely grassy like the park surrounding it and is hundreds of feet in diameter. It slopes gradually from the rim to the centre where it’s about 20 feet deeper. There are other places in the Giant’s 3rd eye chakra which offer a sweeping view outwards, but here the bulge of the Giant’s eye also looks inward into the land itself. What an amazing landscape! There’s as wide and grand a vision outward as there is inward. This is a place to spend more time at, for sure. More will be said of our experiences here so far in the description of the third path of the pulse.

silent movie of 3rd eye section of Path#1 (down)

(movie runs 2:49)

~~~~~~~ Throat ~~~~~~~

Continuing on with the pulse southwards we come to a row of trees that mark the border of the 3rd eye and throat chakras. Once past the trees the view from this top part of the throat opens up and the whole expanse of the city can be seen again. It’s wide open for a good long time. The pulse sweeps along the contours of the Giant’s body, up and down the dips and hills of the park, all the while providing us with this invigorating view.

Now we were riding the pulse and the tempo was picking up again. The way opened up to our left and sloped gradually downwards. The pulse turned with the long curve to the southeast and as it did so we saw a gazebo off in the distance in the corner of this big open area. We were moving pretty swiftly down the slope and playing the frogs enthusiastically. Even from a distance we could see that 4 people were inside the gazebo. We both remarked that we felt some apprehension as we approached it. We didn’t know what sort of encounter, if any, we would have with them. The pulse continued to gain momentum. Allen especially was spinning the sound off the frog’s back with powerful, loud strokes – in this way sparks were flying off the pulse in front of him. As we drew up beside the gazebo we saw that two young men were standing up and watching us keenly while two young women were sitting on the bench behind them. They were very wholesome-looking people.

To us the gazebo looked like a small and delicate boat bobbing on the edge of a large ocean. And to them we might have looked like a big wave coming straight towards them; some unaccountable and surprising force of nature that, if it turned on them, they would have no match for. The apprehension we had felt had clearly come from them. When the pulse passed close by, still being carried along by the strong current that flows through this area, they watched us with some real interest. These people were unusual in that they had some facility at seeing energy. They saw the pulse coming towards them. We have no idea how they would have described the event to themselves or others

In any case, this new symbol was now imprinted on the pulse:

A small boat bobs on the waves near to the shoreline: its occupants watch while a huge wave moves past.

The pulse continued east along Kinder St. We had to wait to cross Everton Rd just north of the bend in the road that becomes Brunswick so at this point the pulse got ahead of us again. It’s a hard crossing here because the traffic races around the curve and we can’t see it coming until it’s almost upon us. So eventually we just ran across hoping for the best, turned right to walk along the south end of Grant Gardens, and entered through the main gate. The pulse was already there lighting up the place with its invisible presence.

The garden is situated with the entrance at the corner of Everton Rd and Brunswick, which is a very busy intersection. It used to be the Necropolis Cemetery but about 100 years ago the graves were covered over with soil and the whole place has taken on a new layer of identity. Not that the old decayed bodies have gone away; they’re still underneath. Apparently there were so many people buried here including many that were heaped into pit graves that the toxicity of the place was too much and this is why it was sodded over and made into a park.

When there was road work done recently along Everton Rd the workers were warned that they’d probably dig up some human bones. Do they then wander outside the confines of the cemetery once underground and out of sight? There are still people who wonder where their ancestors are and think they know which area of the yard their tombstones stood to mark them. We’ve heard that there is some displeasure among the descendants about the way these markings were obliterated.

On all previous visits to the Giant we had seen this landscape, not knowing its name or that it was a cemetery, while traveling along Everton Rd on the bus. It’s strange that we never spoke about it because I remember it now as a remarkable sight and was always strongly affected by it. It appeared as a desolately empty place. The desolation was old, like a plague in the area’s history that had left this scar on the landscape. And the emptiness was different from that – neither one thing or another, just a visible pause in the otherwise busy city action. And there was some size distortion to it – it seemed huge and remote, well out of proportion to the space it could possibly occupy in modern times. On one occasion while passing by on the bus I was curious to see someone enter at the far end of the yard and begin to walk across it. I remember craning my neck to watch him while the bus moved past. Until then I had never seen anyone in there, and was really surprised at the sight as if it were an impossible feat, out of range of the reality of the emptiness of the place, for a person to be there at all. I had been looking at the past and suddenly saw the present move through the same space like a magical event. Now its remoteness began to soften as the place was gradually becoming accessible. It seemed to be coming into focus. So it’s not surprising, in retrospect, that we eventually entered the place ourselves, whatever the story we told ourselves of the chain of events that led us there. And there’s a very practical explanation of how we got here, too - Allen had looked at the Google Earth satellite pictures before we came to Liverpool on this trip and saw that the placement of the gardens is so prominent in the Giant’s body that we simply needed to check it out.

So we entered Grant Gardens. There are thick stone pillars that stand to each side of the main entrance on the south side and from there a wide path leads straight up the middle of the empty space like an airstrip. Franny and Charlotte have painted their names in big bold letters all along the path. About ¾ of the way along, this path meets a big circle of garden. No plants are growing here now. The place is empty of anything that could be carried off or vandalized, including benches. Past the circle, the path continues straight ahead again to the far end where there’s a narrow entrance through the wall. There’s also one more narrow entrance on the west side. The east side is one unbroken line of brick wall, quite impressive for its length.

Along this east wall is one of the tallest trees in the yard which had a large black fabric caught in its branches high up out of reach. It had obviously been there for quite some time because it was well shredded by the wind and those torn parts were further tangled in the branches so that it looked like it would be there for a long time yet. It was flapping in the wind and looking very witchy. A curious flag for this place.

We walked up the middle of the Gardens along the wide path. The views from outside and on the bus hadn’t given us any inkling that this was a place we’d feel good in but we both did. However, the pulse was not lingering – it had moved around as if nourishing the place with its touch then headed for the gates again. In the meantime we had just walked up as far as the circular garden. We turned around to follow the pulse out. We were excited by this new discovery and looked forward to coming back to spend more time here.

After leaving Grant Gardens we came to a very busy intersection where the busses come barreling down Everton Rd and onto Low Hill. They come just as fast up Brunswick and onto Everton going north. This is a major energy channel in the Giant’s body. We felt some confusion here while waiting for the light to change so we could cross the road and as a result, lost sight of the pulse. When we got across we weren’t sure which way to go. We were stumped for a moment, then chose to walk along Brunswick.

Just a few steps past the corner stands an old heritage building. It’s so solidly entrenched in this landscape that it’s more like rock than architecture. Heavy currents of traffic have been flowing along its side for a long time. It’s streamlined in just the same way that a boulder sitting downstream from a waterfall is eroded, with all its edges, anything that might once have stuck out, long ago smoothed off. Surprisingly, a door into this building was open onto the sidewalk. It was a small iron door that looked like it would have had to be pried open. Four men were standing inside the excavated room, all with their backs to us as we passed by. It was a cramped space with a low ceiling and dirt floor. The light was dim and yellow from one hanging bulb. The men wore city-worker vests and hardhats and were standing close together in the middle of the room. Each one held a thermos dangling from one hand as if they’d all just arrived for the day’s shift. They were conferring about the job to be done. They looked like miners in a mine shaft. It was a surprising sight to behold – the tiny door open upon such a strangely-lit tableau. The effect was very theatrical. All kinds of dreams are enacted in the body of the Giant. The door might only have been open for a very short time – time enough for the pulse to slip in and receive the impression of the occasion. The symbol of that imprint is:

In a small underground cavern, four miners are discussing the difficult job they have undertaken.

We continued around the corner and onto Hall Lane, crossed Prescott and turned right briefly before making a left into the hospital complex. This part of the path, from leaving Grant Gardens until meeting Hall Lane, will later be mapped slightly differently, as will be described on path #3. As has been experienced in other areas of the Giant, the flow of the path can be unpredictable and changeable due to temporary blockages and it will always take the route of least resistance. It wasn’t until after this first walk that the pulse took us along a smoother route. However, it’s interesting to note that today’s variation of the path enabled the pulse to encounter the last energy pickup.

silent movie of throat chakra section of Path#1 (down)

(movie runs 1:47)

~~~~~~~ Heart ~~~~~~~

At this northeast corner of the hospital complex there’s the tall smokestack that can be seen from far away. It marks the border between the throat and heart chakras. We followed the pulse as it turned into the complex. We walked past the back of Sacred Heart church where there’s an iron gate at this end of a walkway that leads to a back door of the church. This gate is locked tight and shows every sign of having been that way for quite some time. Just inside the gate, just out of reach, is an impressive pile of liquor bottles. There must be over a hundred of them. Strangely, they’re not broken. It’s an interesting sight because the way they’re piled up at the end of the blocked path is a perfect sight of the congestion of energy when it travels a G-chi path and comes to an impasse.

The path continues along to the far end of the hospital parking lot where one lone house stands at the northeast corner of this main entrance to the lot. It used to share a wall with another house but that one’s gone, and so are all the others that must have lined a street, and so is the street. It’s barely surviving being so isolated. Its special quality is a fleeting one. It exists between two times, a remnant of the past standing derelict and abandoned, its roof sagging under the weight of the accumulating dust and noise from the construction site on the other side of the entrance where another hospital building will soon stand.

A seagull perches on the tip of the roof like a whimsical weather vane. There’s a yard around the house where a garden grew. A fence surrounds the yard, drawing the delicate line between what was and what will soon be. A thick tangle of brambles sidles up to the fence, adding some natural barbed-wire protection to the whole place. It is no real protection, of course, and with one swoop of the wrecking ball the house would crumble, a quick bit of work from a demolition crew would make the whole thing disappear. It’s as delicate as a doll’s house in this environment but in spite of the odds, and the oddity, there’s still life in it and it remains standing. It must be a strong life indeed.

Surely there’s no one living inside anymore but the house itself retains a presence as strong as if there was. Some act of will is holding its place here. It’s hard to avoid looking for a face in the window while walking around it. At least there must be some furniture in there, perhaps a few books and some dishes and personal things. We wonder why the house is still here. Is there something inside that needs to be taken to Sweetheart Park? Maybe the next time we travel with a pulse along this path, this house will be gone. But even after it’s demolished something of it might remain in the landscape – we’ll be back again later to see what it is.

The pulse continues along the path to the top of Oxford Park. This downward left path that it has been traveling on since turning around at the crown chakra goes through Oxford Park and continues southward all the way to the root cemetery. This is the normal flow of energy through here. However our decision for all these 4 walks is to make a diversion from this regular flow and to bring the pulse into Sweetheart Park. We stopped here for a minute and looked down the line southwards. If we didn’t act at this point the pulse would continue its natural circuit around and around. It needed our influence to change course – it wouldn’t do it without us. So we turned to face westwards and willfully threw out a line of energy to Sweetheart Park. Right away Sweetheart Park responded by reaching out and connecting with the pulse. This really was a momentous event! The switching of the pulse from its conditioned track onto a new one gave a charge of energy that we felt as a great surge of joy and excitement.

The pulse immediately began moving along this new route and we were coming along for the ride. We stayed right with it while moving away from Oxford Park. It turned west onto Oxford St and made the crossing onto Mt Pleasant. Then there was a long straight stretch westwards. Here we really felt the pull from Sweetheart Park – the pulse was being reeled in more quickly and intensely now. There were lots of pedestrians in the area and the frogs croaked loudly, sending more sparks from the pulse into the Giant’s body. The closer we came to our destination, the more energetic was the ride. The connection with Sweetheart Park was so strong that it was a very emotional ten minutes ride. We veered right at the old Irish community centre then made a quick left onto the much quieter Cathedral Walk. The frog sounds were greeted by bird song from the trees in Sweetheart Park as the pulse approached. It went straight to the tree where the chimes are hung. The cord connected to the chimes was all tangled in a branch up out of reach but with the help of a long stick we could catch the cord and ring the chimes.

We kept pulling on the cord and ringing the chimes, each taking a turn at it, all the while sweeping our minds over the whole path, remembering the landscapes and events of the day. The pulse had begun in the root chakra where we remained awhile with the Elders who oversee this work. It flowed smoothly into the hara, through an area of delicate beauty and another of difficulty and sorrow. In the will chakra it opened to music and harmony in the midst of the commonplace. In the heart it saw the courageous expressions of love and also the resistance.

Within the throat chakra there is stored a great potential, a history waiting to give its wisdom to this time. In the 3rd eye there is the grand landscape - a vision that can encompass the whole truth of the Giant and all it contains and a theatre large enough to enact its stories. In the crown chakra the pulse encountered the unearthing of more mystery, always more being discovered. It flowed down the length of the 3rd eye theatre again, past where the hole once surrounded by the yellow room is still empty of all delusion. It rolled past the gazebo where a true audience had stood and watched something larger than themselves in action.

We kept ringing the chimes as the pulse released the imprints, one by one. These are the seven energy pickups that the pulse brought to Sweetheart Park:

The impression of the alcoholic outside the hara church.

The impression of the flashy-dresser in the heart.

The impression of the woman walking through the throat field.

The impression of the huddle of children in the crown.

The impression of the patrolling motorcyclist in the 3rd eye.

The impression of the gazebo bobbing on the waters in the throat.

The impression of the miners in the mineshaft.

In fact there is not a lot to say about Sweetheart Park at this point. Just this simple action of release at the end of the day’s path. The imprints may contain endless complexity as experienced along the path but they are brought to a simple place at the end. It is a place in the heart which can accept them all easily.

We felt triumphant. This was a huge accomplishment. We had done what we set out to do. We traveled with the pulse and turned it off its usual circuit and into Sweetheart Park. We didn’t linger here but left to rest up for tomorrow’s walk.

silent movie of heart chakra section of Path#1 (down)

(movie runs 3:22)