Water, Earth Energies, and Sacred Sites

Earth Energies: Exploring the connection between heaven and earth By Karen Crowley Susani

Water is a special type of earth energy and plays a significant role in creating sacred sites. Water is beloved around the world. Hot springs, holy wells, and rivers have been sites of reverence, healing, and pilgrimage throughout the ages.

Native Americans have a long history of revering hot springs and used them as sacred healing places. In Europe, many churches have a holy well associated with them. Rivers, such as the Ganges in India were, and still are, places of healing pilgrimages. The Hindus believe that the Ganges river flows down from heaven to purify humans. The source of mighty rivers is also a powerful place of veneration.

Ganges River

The Danube River in Europe flows through 10 countries, and its source contains magical qualities of rejuvenation. Sensitive people feel its high vibration from a distance away. Standing in front of the bubbling source, you can feel its healing attributes, cleansing your energetic body. The energy from the healing spring rises through your energy body and chakras. After experiencing such powerful water, there is little doubt that these waters have healing qualities that were prized and sought after.

Holy well legends of healing have a rich history, dating back to pagan times. These special wells and springs often have stones or sacred trees associated with them. Some of the stones even have a depression, large enough for rituals involving a woman lying on it to ensure conception. Bathing and drinking from the sacred waters was another popular ritual in hopes of a cure from various illnesses.

Holy wells at St Gilles, Pligeaux, France. Prisoners would wait at the fountains and the left fountain would help calm their fears. The right holy well is a fertility spring.

Associated with the Otherworld and named after Goddesses, these Irish holy wells changed with the times. Christian Churches were constructed next to them, and the healing waters were then used for baptism. Some old churches even contain a crypt or grotto that revealed a hidden sacred spring that the church was constructed over.

Healing waters are also found inside the earth and were valued as much as their better-known surface expressions. For example, Neolithic people erected menhirs over a crossing of subterranean water veins. These rivers flowing beneath the surface are what gives the stone its unique healing qualities. In Brittany, France, there are many famous standing stones associated with fertility. Kerloas Menhir is one such stone. It even has two carved bumps that newlyweds rub with their naked bellies to conceive.

Kerloas Menhir and the carved bump for women, the one for men is located on the opposite side

In France, there is a special word used to describe these important subterranean rivers, Vouivre. In English, it is Wyvern. Both names are associated with a mythical creature, like a serpent or dragon, who guards fabulous underground treasures. In my tradition of the European Master Builders, Vouivre is related to energies circulating inside the earth such as water veins and geological faults. Vouivre are depicted with a red jewel on its head. Many times they are portrayed in a battle with a man.

This imagery of a knight battling a dragon is worth exploring in depth. On the surface, it looks similar to the battle between good and evil, like St George’s battle with the dragon who demanded human sacrifices. But there is something else going on with these Vouivre at sacred sites.

The Vouivre

In Europe, many churches have statues of saints with dragons, devils, or serpents. The figure connected to these dragons and serpents is very consistent. Saint Michael is a famous saint using this imagery. We know that according to the bible, Archangel Michael and the angels cast demons (depicted as a dragon) out of the heavens. Archangel Michael often stands victorious over a demon/dragon/devil, with a sword held high or a spear in the mouth of the dragon. But there is more than meets the eye in the placement of his statue in churches.

St. Michael also has long been associated with healing and one of his earliest temples, called Michaelion, in Sosthenion, Turkey. It was built over a previous pagan site by Constantine the Great in the 4th century. This pagan temple was associated with healing and medicine, and St Michael continues to be associated with healing waters. This imagery makes sense from an earth energy point of view when you learn what type of unique energy he reveals. It is a combination of water veins and geological faults, which oddly enough has some very healing qualities.

St. M Michael at the 7 Saints Chapel in Le Vieux Marché, France

The remarkable earth energy of St Michael involves a geological fault inside the earth, positioned below a water vein. This fault is unusual. Its color is yellow. It has a characteristic bubbling up energy that rises to the surface. Because it is below a water vein (think healing water in this instance), it creates energetic steam that rises to the surface and felt when standing over this point.

This characteristic healing earth energy opens the Kidney 1 point, known in Chinese Medicine and Tai Chi. Felt as a tickling sensation on the bottom of the feet, this vital point is where the earth’s energy rises through the body and the meridians. It cleans energetic blockages and is healing energy. We can think of it as a beautiful treasure of healing guarded by the dragon.

St Michael is not the only one to use the dragon to indicate a point of earth energy. St. Marguerite of Antioch is also placed over the same earth energy; a yellow fault with a water vein running over it. Her story with the dragon began when she refused to marry the East’s Roman Diocese and renounce her faith. She was cruelly tortured and was swallowed by Satan in the form of a dragon, but she escaped alive when she used her cross to cut her way out of his belly.

St. Marguerite of Antioch

Let’s look at this story through the lens of the earth energy she indicates. You can see she has “tamed” the vouivre of the earth and has made the point into a valuable place of healing energy.

Mother Mary is also associated with earth energies. She is depicted with her foot on a serpent or even crushing its head. This action symbolizes that she was instrumental in defeating the devil or serpent through the immaculate birth of Christ. In the Master Builders tradition, this snake or Vouivre are underground water veins that Mary has tamed. Now their energy is healing and spiritual.

Mary with her foot on the serpent, church of Campénéac, France

Mary, Queen of Heaven, usually holds her hands in several different positions, indicating what type of earth energy is found in front of her. When her hands are held open, pointing towards the earth, this shows a connection to the earth. Hands in a prayer position, at her heart level, indicate cosmic energy, which sometimes can be related to opening the heart chakra.

The common element of each of these saints is that they conquered the dragon or the serpent. Thus, placing their figures in a special place of Vouivre or earth energy makes perfect sense because of this power. By doing this, the Master Builders are showing us that they too subdued the earth’s energies. The defeat was made possible by building with measurements found in the solar mandala, the place’s real sacred geometry.

In conclusion, there is one last symbol connected to earth energies found in European churches called the Chi-Rho. It is a very ancient symbol and was used by the Master Builders to indicate their mastery over the Vouivre of the place. The ‘X’ was used to show the angles of the solstices of the site. These angles were important because they are part of the solar mandala and geometry used to build and tame the earth energies. Not all Chi-Rhos depict the place’s solar geometry. Many of ‘X’s” have mutated into 45° angles.

But some examples of this symbology exist. For instance, at the church of Saint Béat Saint Privat, Haute-Garonne in France’s Pyrenees, a Chi-Rho is found above the south entrance. The angles of the ‘X’ match the solstice angles in Haute- Garonne. There is also a vertical line with a ‘P’ and an ‘S.’ In the Master Builder tradition, the ‘S’ represents the serpent or Vouivre that the builders tamed as they built the church using solar geometry. It is interesting to note that this serpent is below the symbol’s horizon line and lives in the underworld.

Chi-Rho symbol from Saint-Béat Church - Père Igor, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://cre- ativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The Master Builders of all civilizations knew how to tame these dragons while building sacred places of healing and spirituality. The builders reserved the biggest and best quality for sacred structures because of their ability to heal and help us touch the divine.

To learn more about sacred sites, earth energies, and solar geometry sign up for Karen’s free monthly webinars at https://energeticgeometry.com/live/

Karen Crowley Susani is a Master Builder specializing in energetic solar geometry. She loves sharing her wisdom in online classes, sacred site tours, and by creating energetic healing structures. Her love for sacred sites began with a passion for art history. She received her degree from UC Santa Barbara, and this began her exploration of religious and sacred sites. She also is the owner of Sacred Geometry World and blogs about her adventures. Karen is excited to be one of the authors of the book: Secrets of Sacred Geometry: Solar Geometry for Health and Life energeticgeometry.com fb: @EnergeticGeometry