News Flash: A real drag- it turns out, believe it or not, that I'm not infallible after all. I know that's really hard- if not impossible- to imagine but there you are. I done made a boo boo. It's nothing too major though.. ahem... I accidentally attributed the crossed ley's at Whitstable's All Saint's Church to all saints day AND may-day/beltane when it is in fact aligned ONLY with may-day (see part two). It actually makes no difference though to anything discussed there- the ancestors, womb, tomb, Isis and the number 18 are still relevant.

That said, it's time to move on to the next cross-quarter day- lammas or harvest-festival roughly 45 days after summer-solstice, in the sign of the lion, leo.

Leo: The Self

Ruled by the sun- and in ecclesiatic terms- 'the son,' as christianity celebrates its rites on the day of the sun, Sunday. It's direction is north-west and time of day is from noon to two-o-clock. It's totem animals are several, distinguished by their loud 'roars' or voices- and often a mane of hair: the lion; the stag, the hart, the boar, the hunting dog, the mule, the goose. It is the regal sign of the monarch and it's body-part correspondences are the heart, spleen, liver and spine.

Never gonna find any of that out there in the landscape, surely?

Blean is an interesting place name- in Anglo-Saxon we arrive at the word "bleona," which would have been pronounced much the same as the present day inhabitants do. Note that this older form of the word contains a close match to the lions letters "B-LEO-NA," hinting at the solar nature of the old word, lost from view in the modern rendering. Bleona means sol, appearance, colour and form. Honey Hill is reference to bees who arrange their complex society around a royal family, with the queen at the centre of everything. This is nature's model of a successful society with a monarch at the top which early philosophers noted and applied to the human world. But if we take it back to its A.S. roots we get Hon-Hill which spells out some altogether more elevated ideas: to hang, suspend, crucify, adorn and the tendrils of a vine. The sun is suspended in the sky at the centre of the four quarters of heaven, and the son, his anthropomorphic representation, hangs crucified on the vegetable cross- originally a vine- associated with blood. Vines make wines, and wine is symbolic of the blood of Christ. Blood is ruled or governed by this sign.

The ancient "god of the vine" was Bacchus/Dionysus, who was strongly associated with this sign. The Roman name for leo the lion was "Bacchi Sidus" or Star of Bacchus. He was known to the Greeks as Dionysus but there is little memory of the ancient Briton's name for him, though there is no doubt he was propitiated here. Many of our older cathedrals and churches are decorated with his foliated forms. Canterbury Cathedral is no exception.

The Christian day of worship is the day of the sun, so I read: christianity is a leonine, solar-religion. The Bible is full of references to solar worship, just two of which follow: ‘When I am in the world I am the light of the world,’ and in Hebrews, 12:29: ‘Our God is a consuming fire.’

Jesus was viewed by the ancient Brits as a familiar being, another incarnation of the Solar Logos in the long line of appearances. There are numerous passages in the bible that refer to him as a lion- the animal associated with this sign: 'Lion of the tribe of Judah;’ and ‘Judah is a Lion’s whelp....he couched as a Lion, and as an old Lion, who shall rouse him up? Genesis 20:9

There was once, in antiquity, a solar-temple on top of Duncan Downs on Clapham Hill, over-looking the Swale Estuary and the Isles Of Sheppey across the bay. Clap-Ham is where we get the phrase, beating like the clappers, because 'claeppian' translates into modern English as to beat, throb, clap. It's what your heart does until you die- leo rules the heart. From this high vantage-point the sun can be seen setting over the Isles of Sheppey during the summer months when fiery leo warms the waters round the Isle- June, July and August. During the winter, the sun never makes it as far as the Isle, staying on the mainland, making it a place favoured of the August sun, and the sun god.

The Isles of Sheppey, place where the summer sun sets, is a triple island. And it has three names: The Isle of Sheppey, The Isle of Harty, and Elmley Island. It is in fact three closely clustered together islets, divided by three once-navigable rivers; but more, it sits amidst three much larger rivers itself- the Medway, Swale and Thames. This, you probably realise, is significant, for however you look at it, such tripling marked it out to the ancient thinkers as a sacred place- islands were deemed sacred in their own right as it was. but this one is three in one, like the holy trinity.

As far as the individual is concerned, the sun represents the spirit, ego or character; secondly it stands for the physical heart with its soul attributes of human and divine love, and lastly, the sun makes the above two possible by flooding the earth in light and warmth. In all three senses, life and love are at the centre. The island looks like a heart, and one of sheppey’s islets is called Harty. A ‘hart’ is a young male deer, which in former times roamed these islands on the sun-set horizon in numbers. The harts as they mature will grow a ‘crown of thorns’ upon their heads and become, by divine right, the monarch of the glen- or the ancient British version of a lion, the mighty stag, representative of the king of the animals.

At Minster on Sheppey are the ruins of Minster Abbey, a nunnery founded in 640 AD by the Saxon saint Sexburga, the widowed Queen of Kent. In 1991 two wells were uncovered by local archaeologist Brian Slade. They date back at least 3500 years. During the excavation, right at the very bottom beneath coins, pottery etc, and the usual votive offerings, a triple-goddess was found - a bronze female figure with three heads! Ever since the find, miracles have regularly been attributed to her- infertile couples are finding themselves unexpectedly pregnant and sick folk are suddenly cured. Brian says he has heard of three similar accounts of women successfully having babies despite a history of miscarriage. There is little doubt of a life force here, he told a local newspaper. It is ancient, pre-Christian, but I believe it is a force for good.

The Tudor King, Henry the VIII stayed on Harty for his honeymoon with Anne Boleyn- the stag sporting with his doe, the Sun-King with his maiden. The Anglo-Saxon word tudor is where we get the word for a tuber or fruit, meaning posterity, offspring, descendent and issue.

The Leo alignment crosses the Thames Estuary, roars through Essex and enters Hertfordshire, just above Hartford. Harty, Herts and Harts, in the sign of the heart and hart. Is that appropriate for the sign of the lion? Space in this blog is at a premium so I will only stick around in Hertfordshire long-enough to tell you that there's an entire district called The Three Rivers.

Rapidly continuing north-west the alignment includes Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Derby, and many, many more. A very quick interpretation of these well-known place-names should be enough to confirm the leonine influence.

Manchester: What's in 'man's chest?' Man's heart, of course. Liverpool: leo rules the liver- the only organ known to regenerate itself, like the sun god after his trip through the nether-regions. Leeds is A.S. lee, that is, leo the lion- he who leads, the monarch. Sheffield is the field or region of the chief- the sheff or chef. This sign is the sign of monarchs- or chiefs. Derby was originally Deorby- the place of deer. Deer are harts and hinds or stags and does. Of course, the heart is also the organ of love- dear is derived fron deer, a term of endearment.

In anglo-saxon lifer means liver, and liferhol means a hollow in the liver, much the same as a pool in the liver. In ancient times, the liver was thought to be the seat of the soul, was connected with the heart and was used to divine the outcome of events- to tell the fates.

One quite astonishing fact about the liver is that if two thirds of it are removed through trauma or surgery, it will grow back to its original size within four weeks. An ancient Greek myth seemed to have revealed this fact before the existence of modern science. In the story of Prometheus, Zeus punished the demi-god for giving humanity the knowledge of fire. Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock and made him endure the eternal torture of an eagle eating his liver out every day. His liver would promptly grow back every night.

One of Liverpool's most famous exports is of course The Beatles. I find this an interesting synchronicity because the beetle- the scarab beetle to be precise, was held to be a representative of the sun-god by the ancient Egyptians.They venerated the scarab, partly because the dung-ball the beetle makes resembles the sun. The scarab apparently mummifies its eggs- stashes them up inside a dung-ball or miniature ‘sun.’ The beetle has already prepared a vertically descending-shaft, at the bottom of which is a horizontal passage, at the end of which the sarcophogus- sorry- dung ball, is placed. The entombed mummy- sorry- grubs, hatch-out inside the orb of dung, which they eat. After a time the Pharoe- sorry- hatchling beetle, emerges from the secret passageway to begin its life as a scarab beetle. The ancient Egyptians saw in this life-cycle and behaviour of the scarab a close allegory to the eternal cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth. Some egg-heads have even made the suggestion that the tunnels and subterranean passageways in the pyramids were modelled on the tunneling, entombing and emerging behaviour of the scarab! The scarab beetle was never portrayed in isolation- in Egyptian hieroglyphs it was usually portrayed along with the symbols for man, woman, health, life, power, kings and queens. A heart-stone- a scarab carved in precious stone was placed on the heart of an 'important' mummy, but on no other body part.

Interesting these ideas might be, but I'm sure that the ancient Egyptian genius did not, as those same dry scholars would have us believe, seriously think that the sun was actually pushed across the sky by an actual, gigantic scarab beetle. No more than the ancient Brit's believed that a golden-chariot was daily driven across the sky by a long-maned Adonis, pulled by four stallions. They called it symbolism- something our archaeologist's and historian's don't seem to be too familiar with.

Leo rules the fifth house of parties, laughter, and romance. The beatles very first release, written by Paul Mcartney, said it all...

Love, love me do, you know I love you, I'll always be true, so please, love me do, oh, love me do

Love, love me do, you know I love you, I'll always be true, so please, love me do, oh, love me do

Someone to love, somebody new, someone to love, someone like you

By the time of their best selling album, Abbey Road, the Mersey muse had captivated the worlds ear and the light of the leo sun was even more obvious:

Here comes the sun, do do do do, Here comes the sun, and I say, It's all right

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter, Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here

Here comes the sun, do do do do, Here comes the sun, and I say, It's all right

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces, Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here

It's all right, Here comes the sun, do do do do, Here comes the sun, It's all right, it's all right

"All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

John Donne

The islanders might feel inclined to disagree with the sentiments of John Donne- Man IS an island- it's in the Irish Sea- and it's on our leo (The self) alignment.The Manx cat is a famous export of the islands- and cats are miniature, domesticated lions. Even the TT Races held here every year fit the 'energetic circulation' model inspired by the heart. And looked at from above, the Isle of Man looks very similar to the Isle of Lambs, err... sheep (Sheppey), both being markedly liver and heart shaped. The triple symbolism can’t be avoided either- the flag of the Manx people shows three legs, joined at a central spindle, running in a circle - a symbolic heart or pump, and symbolic of the holy-trinity. Anciently, according to Albert Churchward in his book The Arcana of Freemasonry, the county of Kent, where this alignment started from, was represented by the same three-legged symbol.