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Curious Mind Grapes
Curious Mind Grapes is a podcast where we explore all the strange, wondrous, interconnected things in life. In each episode, sometimes with guests, we explore topics like psychology, health, energy medicine, science, pop culture, and so much more.
Curious Mind Grapes
Sacred Spaces: Sacred Geometry and the Spirit of Place
What if ancient civilizations had secrets we are only just beginning to understand? Join us as we contemplate the intricate geometric design of Washington, DC, and speculate about the historical and mystical significance of architectural designs and ley lines.
Ever wondered if cities had their own personalities? Inspired by N.K. Jemisin's "The City We Became," we imagine cities coming to life through avatars, and contrast the vibrant energy of newer American cities with the timeless character of ancient European ones. We also touch on the sacred geometry of places like Roslyn Chapel, highlighting how these locations continue to intrigue and inspire.
Sharing personal anecdotes, we also delve into how environments can deeply influence our emotions and even our pets' reactions! From the unsettling vibe of certain parks to the surprising uplift of Edinburgh, we explore the palpable energies of places. Finally, we emphasize the significance of cleansing and maintaining sacred spaces, discussing cultural practices that transform areas of dense energy into harmonious and positive environments.
Rosslyn Chapel https://www.rosslynchapel.com/
Sacred Geometry Academy https://sacredgeometryacademy.com/
Secrets in Plain Site Documentary https://sacredgeometryacademy.com/course/secrets-in-plain-sight
The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin https://bookshop.org/a/19443/9780316509848
Visit us on Instagram @curiousmindgrapes_podcast!
Feel free to share your questions or episode requests. Thank you for listening!
Welcome to Curious Mind Grapes with your hosts Christine and Mary.
Christine:So remember we were talking about the stones and I said that I thought the expert who was there helping us she had said something about it's. It was like meeting points. It was how people came together.
Mary:Right.
Christine:And we were saying, like that, that seems like too simplistic, that it's just like a road sign. So I was Googling a little bit more and I'm going to share with you what I found. So I was Googling about ley lines. You've heard of ley lines, yeah, and these stones. So the ley lines are those, these stones, so the ley lines are those. So they're tracks or paths which connect up ancient or sacred sites in straight lines and they were created in the distant prehistoric past by peaceful ancient tribes, possibly the survivors of lost civilization. This is where it gets a little speculative, yeah, yeah a little speculative, but what they were.
Christine:The other thing that they said was people are looking at ley lines as it's like a.
Christine:They said it's a pattern of interconnected straight lines which crisscross places like england. So the article I was reading was talking about how, when people look at these ley lines, they're looking at, you know, ancient times, in particular the stone age. When people look at these ley lines, they're looking at, you know, ancient times, in particular the stone age, when people traveled in places like england following like tracks that were straight from one landmark to the next, and that these lines going from one landmark to the next were related to like seasonal things, like the sun, like we know from. It's like stonehenge where they're considering that. But when I read it, it made it sound like, yes, these people were walking in straight lines going from place to place, an ancient site to ancient site, but that these they were also sort of following energy lines as they walked from place to place, like there was a reason why these paths were there and it wasn't just because it was convenient. It's because they were following energy lines. Does that make sense?
Mary:and how did? What were their theories about how they determined that these were energy lines? So, yeah, related to that, um, I think I told you that I had a recent brief visit to DC where I was looking at a map of the downtown area, the mall area. I know I've looked at the map a million times, having lived in the area for several years, but just realizing real beautiful geometry of it. I know it was designed with sacred geometry in mind, um, sort of the harkening back to the, the um kind of practices you were just talking about. So, um, and and from what I understand, like the on the solstice and other things, you can see the sun coming up behind the Capitol building or the Washington Monument. They're aligned. Mind the foot, peer, yeah, l'enfant who designed DC, I believe, was a mason, and so they practiced. Masons use ancient wisdom in their symbology as well as in their architectural designs, I would say most likely to again harness these kinds of energies to honor and align with the seasonal changes in the planets and I know that sounds all very Dan angles and circles and proportions of each section. And in noticing this, I did a little searching and found this website on sacred geometry.
Mary:This guy had created a sacred geometry or called Secrets in Plain Sight documentary series and his website is sacred geometry and you can go on and look at it. And he not only talks about these. He doesn't really talk about these things so much as what he's read other places but he actually has looked at maps all over the world and done calculations on distances between important sites in every major city around the world. He starts with DC because it is so rich with all these different geometrical shapes and proportions. But he goes on to look at places all over the world and he touches on ley lines he doesn't call them that, but at one point using Google Earth. That's a lot of how he did.
Mary:His research was going on Google Earth and measuring the distances between different important sites all over the planet and some of them like run from Scotland, like Roslyn Chapel. There's a straight line from that, I think, to Rome with something else in between. So things like that, where he'll take three points or more and just show how they're aligned and then what angles those are on. He repeatedly sees 30 degree or 33 degree angles in these alignments and he talks about, yeah, it could be chance. But then he goes on to give further supporting evidence that it isn't necessarily just chance, or most likely not chance. So it is interesting and they go. As he said, ancient civilizations who are supposed to be prehistoric clearly had ways of measuring these things long before we had satellites, like long before we had Google Earth, and the precision is just amazing. So like where did? Why did we lose the knowledge? Where did it go? Where did it come from and how long had it been around?
Christine:Yeah, and when I read about ley lines, like some of the stuff is something I hadn't really thought of, like, uh, related to aliens, and you know aliens, you know having to like map out our earth, and some of the things I read about ley lines, it's just um, it's paths that people were taking to get places and to trade and that people were building sacred sites along these paths. And then it I mean it's interesting. It almost seems like chicken egg, like did they pick these paths because they felt the different energy fields, or did they because so many people were using these paths they became plates? I don't know. It's a really interesting idea.
Mary:It is. And, yeah, the alien question is interesting. He doesn't really entertain that. I've read, or I mean it's fact, that China had explorers who mapped out very accurate world global maps like a thousand years before Columbus. So who knows how far back people were exploring and taking very detailed notes of our planet as far as things like the Nazca Lines, which can only be seen from like airplanes. I don't know how people did that and I don't know that. I don't know who holds that knowledge. But what I found interesting too is that as things are built in our world cities I mean DC was just built 300 years ago or less than 300 years ago and newer cities that have been created, like San Francisco, also use a lot of these very precise, very intentional, sacred geometric principles. So clearly the knowledge has been passed down about these things and harnessing these energies or harnessing this knowledge.
Christine:Yeah, and we were talking last time. We talked about just the way different places can feel to us just personally, and that we were sensing. Yeah about just the way different places can feel to us just personally and that we're sensing yeah, I mean, we both lived in dc and it definitely had.
Mary:It has a very distinct energy yeah, there's a lot of it, and a friend recently commented that the reason it's so intense for some people, people who can perceive these kinds of things, is that so many different people are drawn to to DC because it is a very powerful place. Um, for many reasons, um, and, and because of that, you've just got so many different types of energies, different types of intentions, different types of motivations all coming together in one. Different types of intentions, different types of motivations all coming together in one, one small place, a pretty small place. It's really concentrated, yeah.
Christine:And then, if you add on to that, if if it was designed in a way to harness the energies, then it's amplifying it. I definitely sense that there was something about living there. There was an intensity to it.
Mary:I just realized at some point it wasn't a match for me.
Christine:That wasn't where I wanted to stay, it wasn't where I wanted to grow old. It wasn't where I wanted to be, and it's a lovely place. I know many people that still live there. For me, the energy wasn't a match. It always felt. Do you remember? In Eat, pray, pray, love. Elizabeth gilbert is talking to her friend in italy, and I think it's a friend in italy, and they talk about the idea that each city has like a word that describes it, describes it, and I think I don't know roma, it might have been something like sex, you know, or passion. And you, if you describe DC, I think the word would be power.
Mary:Yeah, sure, I was thinking about the power of when people all come to DC for a cherry blossom festival and just do that circle.
Mary:They circumambulate the title basin and there I've never been. I wouldn't say never, but the only other time I felt that kind of collective peace and unity was that, like the first time I saw the Dalai Lama speak was in Central Park and there were like a million people just totally quiet, hanging out, being kind to each other in Central Park and I was like, wow, this is, this is powerful stuff, and the cherry blossoms seem to be able to do that too, and it's like that, that kind of unity, consciousness, that sense of peace and and admiration of the beauty of nature. Um, with from people all over the world coming together at one time. Almost it's like it's amplified, like from the, from the energy structure that dc has to begin with, so it can be used for all sorts of things yeah, do you do?
Christine:what are other cities that you notice have a feel like that we talked about dc's feel. Have you been other places where you feel like there's a word popping up or a definite tone?
Mary:to listen for you yeah, when you said rome and passionate, that's not right. I was gonna say chaotic, but I think the word is passionate, definitely passionate it is also a little frenetic there.
Christine:It's a little, it's an intense, there's an intensity to room yeah, yeah, and then french, uh sorry, paris.
Mary:paris, to me, just feels aesthetic, I don't think, I don't know, I can't think of a better word, but there's just this appreciation for, for beauty and visual and taste, and all that not everywhere, but that's the overall vibe I get from it. Um, yeah and uh, tokyo was like order, um collaboration, like it was just amazing how people move through the city. Um, even at rush hour it was just so orderly and kind of no one bumped into anyone else and everyone smelled really nice. Even at the end of the day there wasn't garbage on the floor. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. It was orderly, and I think I didn't get to spend too much time in Dublin or Glasgow, but both of them just felt very musical and heartfelt, for lack of better words.
Christine:I think in Eat, pray Love the word they used for new york was. Achieve was another word that came up word for new york and the one for I think it was like sicily would have been fight yeah, I didn't read it.
Mary:I love, so I don't know.
Christine:Yeah but it was an interesting and they played with the ideas and then they started asking each other, like what's your personal word? Like if you had a personal word to describe you.
Mary:Yeah, in New York I would say creativity.
Christine:Interesting.
Mary:Yeah, just intense creativity. Something's always being made there.
Christine:So maybe it's the perspective of the person there. And what part of New York? Definitely that's not the word that would come up for me with New York, I would have thought something, something with a little more intensity to it yeah, well it's, it's a high energy, high intensity, but stuff's oh, it has always been being created out of it, like it.
Mary:it it's just a place that, whether by necessity or just by opportunity, um yeah, and I suppose moving forward, like maybe the idea of achieve is coming in.
Christine:It's always pushing the envelope, moving forward.
Mary:Yeah, yeah, and I guess, like you said, it's going to be different for every person, and how personal your relationship is with the city where you are in your life at the time and and and how, like, like you said, good to match a place is how, how, how good a fit a place is with you, with your personal.
Christine:Yeah, yeah, I was in Philly yesterday and I really do think I know Philly gets such a bad rap as being a tough town and you know that old story about them throwing snowballs at santa to the eagles game which santa was asking for it, if we're gonna be honest. But but you know the nickname is the city of brotherly love right that's how I feel in philly, like I do feel like it's a warm city in many ways.
Christine:That's always the vibe that I get from I mean it's not an easy city feel like it's a warm city in many ways. That's always the vibe that I get from I mean it's not an easy city. I mean it's definitely some elements of that city that can be tough. But yeah, that's how I but you know it always cracks me up that that's the reputation. I'm like you. You there are people that are so helpful and so kind in many ways.
Mary:Yeah, yeah, I again. I think it depends on how well you know a city and what your perspective is to begin with. Like New York, people say New Yorkers are rude, but I don't find them to be rude, they're just very straightforward. And when you have that many people packed into a small space, if you're not seeing what you need or what, what will help keep things from falling into total chaos? It would just it. It gets crazy. So that directness is is interpreted as rudeness for people who are not used to that kind of culture.
Christine:Yeah, that is the word that I was thinking of, as you were saying. It is directness, um, because I don't see it as rudeness at all. Right, I get more annoyed by people who are indirect and you know, like you gotta try to read their mind to figure everything out and that's annoying.
Mary:Like let's just yeah, my daughter has said that about Seattle um, and others have too, and that she often has to say use your words.
Christine:Yeah.
Mary:Yeah, yeah, not the passive, aggressive stuff is very hard and as a city like that gets bigger and bigger, it's harder for things to function Well if people are being passive aggressive rather than direct.
Christine:Yeah.
Mary:So, yeah, every city has its own personality.
Mary:Um, there's a really wonderful series of books by nk jemisin, who's a speculative fiction writer, and her first book was the city we became.
Mary:The idea is that cities, once they reach a level of maturity, um develop a kind of soul, like we've been saying, not just a personality, but a soul that then becomes embodied by avatars for those. So one person is kind of chosen by the universe whatever, we don't know how they're chosen to represent or embody the city's personality, its soul, its spirit. And in this book, the city we became, new york has just reached that moment and, rather than one avatar, it develops one for each borough, because each borough is so different. And it's just really fun, um, it's, it's very intense because the different boroughs have to negotiate each other's differences and try to work together to fight against some external force that's trying to take away its uniqueness. And apparently this has happened all over the world throughout history as cities have come into their own. I just love that concept and it's really it's just a really fun book, the way she portrays the different nuances of the different boroughs.
Christine:Yeah, I love that expression, the way of talking about it a city coming into their own, because American cities are so different than when you travel to other parts of the world, because they are so new.
Mary:They are yeah, and they yeah. I mean the east, the northeast, the original 13 colonies actually, it's not the word. The original 13 colonies are the oldest established cities, have the oldest established cities in the us. But as you go out west, I'm always amazed to see signs that say established 1890. It's like, wow, yeah, when you, like you said, when you go to rome or when you go to europe, um, you've got cities that have been around over a thousand years.
Christine:So was it about ross? Were you talking about Rosalind Chapel? I know it's sort of like Dan Brown stuff.
Mary:Scott Anstott, who developed this website. Sacred Geometry Academy made that little documentary series Secrets in Plain Sight. He in one of those maps where he used google earth. He started with roslyn and that.
Christine:I forget what the other points are, but again it's a straight line well, you, I did not get to go, unfortunately it it didn't work out for me to get down there. But you said you, when you went to edinburgh you did go visit and it was really, it was one of the places in Scotland that you felt. You know, I don't remember the word you used, but you said you, really it felt really good to you yeah, I felt.
Mary:I felt very comfortable there. It was definitely a sacred site, even though there are tons of tourists that come through it. Now it uh the people the information desk were saying that ever since um, ever since dan brown's book they've had much more interest before that. They get just a few hundred visitors a year.
Christine:So that is like the top, one of the top things to see there yeah, yeah and they.
Mary:So they have a very modern visitor's center and then a courtyard, and then you go into the building, which is just such a beautiful piece of medieval architecture, and inside every single surface has some kind of symbology, like they're every single yeah, every single surface has something carved into it or painted on it. Oh, there's also yeah, there's also a beehive. Apparently that's kept in the attic because bees are considered very sacred in celtic culture. Okay, and um, there's considered to be spirit messengers. They are incredibly smart. They can organize from a distance. They have these intricate dances to communicate with each other about where food is. They're honored. We didn't get to see them because the hives are on the roof and they were not hanging around, but you could see bees occasionally here and there on the flowers.
Christine:Oh wow, I didn't know that yeah, um, and it clearly too.
Mary:As far as I remember, there are lots of clues about the masculine, feminine mary magdalene. Oh, by the way, it's the feast day of mary magdalene today. Happy, happy Mary Magdalene feast day. Yes, yeah, and the vine, which is one of the symbols of the connection between Mary Magdalene, miriam and Yeshua or Jesus, is very apparent inside the chapel.
Mary:There are some really cool frescoes down in the basement area that you can look at, but it just felt, yeah, it felt like so much care went into it. Interestingly, too, there were these tiles at the top, so the pillars at the front of the church, up by the appsse or whatever close to it, because it's not that big a chapel these little tiles around the columns and along the top of the wall at the front, and they had different. I can't remember exactly what the patterns were, but each one was different and some repeated, but never in the same way. So it looked like a code, and one of the people on the trip with us who was a musician the flute player was saying that they reminded him of musical notations in a way. Oh, wow, we were trying to figure out if there was a melody there and what that represented.
Christine:I need to go back so I can see it.
Mary:I was just like I couldn't go. Definitely worth it. I could spend a couple of hours there just looking at every little detail like that.
Christine:Oh, it's nice to know. I mean, there's so much hype about it. Now it's nice to know that it actually does live up to the hype.
Mary:It does. Yeah, and again, we were very lucky to have I mentioned this in the last episode that really or maybe I didn't mention this in the episode, I mentioned it to you we had a wonderful tour guide, Sue Martin, who knows the area very well and could tell us about this more esoteric things like the symbolism hidden everywhere, hidden everywhere. But she also is a very knowledgeable historian, so she could tell you about exactly what dynamics were happening among the different rulers at the time and how the church was playing into all that. So it was made for a really rich experience no, it does look like an amazing place.
Mary:Yeah, it sounds really beautiful and peaceful yeah, despite the fact that it now has is one of the most popular places to like, I found that other other places that are supposed to be sacred, places like like the vatican that gets so many people I didn't feel that sense of peace there. The energy felt more intense to me oh yeah yeah very intense.
Christine:Well, I think we might have talked about this with um sedona, that um there's so many people there now that some people say that they just feel like the energy is harder for them to notice oh interesting yeah, but I have not been, so I don't know.
Mary:Yeah, yeah, whereas, um, somehow, somehow, rosalind Chapel maintains its its very grounded in a beautiful peaceful sense. Yeah, again, it's not that big um, and I feel like there's the dose of their. The docents have been around for many, many years, like decades, so they are really tuned into the place and maybe just their kind of stable presence helps to their calmness.
Christine:But you can really feel the energy of a place and it's like you said, recent events and your own experiences can impact it. There's a place not far from me that I had never really gone to growing up, but I sort of discovered it later in life and I was looking for more interesting parks to go to. And I mean, the parks around here are all really beautiful. We have a lot of beautiful gardens and some reason I just would get the ick every time I went to this one area. I just felt like it just felt dark to me. I don't know how to describe it. I just I'd feel depressed when I went there.
Christine:And it's lovely and I was telling someone about that. I'm like I don't know, I just don't like going to that particular park. And there's the ones in that area and they said oh, that's actually a super fun site.
Mary:Oh, oh, that'll do it.
Christine:But there's a huge. It hasn't all been cleaned up. There was just huge levels of toxic chemicals landed in that area. I don't even know the whole story, but I was like, oh, I wonder if that's what I was picking up on.
Mary:That's a serious yuck yeah.
Christine:Yeah, and that has nothing to do with the original energy of the place. It's how it was completely changed.
Mary:Right of the place. It's how it was completely changed, right? Yeah, we had a few years ago gone to this park in alexandria. It was actually during the pandemic, when we're just exploring every single park within a one hour radius, um, and when you enter the park it's just kind of it looks like just a city park, pretty plain, but then as you're walking around there are trees and lawns and different paved paths, so not really out in the woods, but it was lovely. We came out to this clearing and I had to stop and I was like I can't go over there, I just can't. There's something just so like icky about this place and there was this kind of weird little cement building. It was a narrower block on the bottom and a wider block on the top, almost like a watchtower, just randomly in this park. So when I got home I Googled it in this park.
Mary:So when I got home I Googled it and it turned out that it used to be a prison camp during World War II for Nazis. I was like what is that doing right here? Yeah, I was like, oh man, yeah, somebody needs to clean up this energy, and it's not. It's going to take more than just me doing yeah, I mean it's interesting.
Christine:I I think I've told you when I visited a concentration campsite when I was in Germany. I mean, no one bats an eye when you say, oh, you could feel the heaviness, you know you just sense it, but I think a lot of people are just assuming.
Christine:Well, I know the history so it just feels heavy to me. But there truly is a heaviness. But when you talk about other areas, I don't know if everyone really tunes into it that way, but it's the same idea. You go to places. We felt it in parts of Scotland. We both talked about how we got to Edinburgh and felt completely different. We felt lighter, even though that city has a lot of harsh realities about its history too.
Mary:Sure.
Christine:Both feel that there's a sense of playfulness and lightness. You were mentioning even the Fringe Festival. That's there high levels of creativity. We both felt like an ah as we got to that city, but it's really interesting when you can pick up on the energy of an area quickly and I'm I think everyone can.
Mary:Little kids agree. Yeah, little kids and and pets often can sense like my dog when we're walking. She loves walking in city areas or in sidewalks and if she can go into a store she's so happy. It's like, yay, I get to go shopping. She loves the word shopping and near us in Falls Church, this place opened up a grooming place. It was in walking distance. I thought that's fun, get her nails done there. She doesn't love it, but if they're nice to her she'll have a fun time. And so we walked there, got to the front door. I opened the front door and usually she just goes barreling into whatever it is. She stopped. She like it was like a cartoon. She just was like, but feet planted and like leaning back, and I was like I guess we're not going in there. What? I don't know what happened in there, but it's not good. I have never seen her react to anything she's.
Mary:There've been a couple of times she's met people. She loves everyone, but a couple of times she's met people where she just kind of gives them the side eye and backs away, but I've never seen her put the brakes on.
Christine:Wow yeah, and there wasn't anything like truly obvious, like a really strong smell or anything. Yeah, just she just knew yeah interesting something bad went on there when you would talk to about this idea that the way people, the way we keep treating the land impacts the energy, obviously if there's toxic chemicals dropped on it. But the opposite can be true. You know you were talking about. You know some cultures and people go to the trouble of keeping a land clean and cleansed and open.
Mary:Yeah, yeah. My daughter visited Rwanda and said that the energy there was surprisingly light and she learned that government efforts there have been government efforts to really work on reconciliation and forgiveness, and I'm guessing energy work went on too just to because that could be a place with incredibly yeah incredibly painful energy.
Mary:But they've done, they've done a lot of work to try to heal that, so it can be done. Yeah, and many, many of the tribes in this country who are on especially um, their, their ancient lands, have done a lot of work to continually heal and um, heal and and honor the earth so that, um, there isn't that disconnect too. So I think that's part of where the that frenetic or intense energy can come from too yeah like well, super, super fun is a perfect example of well, I mean we all.
Christine:I mean we think about like I clear my spaces, I clear my home, I clear my workspaces, um, but I never really think about clearing a larger area. And if we can do it for a room, I mean people who aren't necessarily into that can sense when the room feels more clear to them. Maybe they're just tidying things up and putting away clutter, but most people can change the energy of a space putting different colors in their space.
Christine:And some people would just do it more purposefully by saging or doing little ceremonies to clear it. But yeah, the idea of clearing bigger spaces or whole buildings. You can have areas that are heavy and that people so there's areas that are have heavy, dense energy for whatever reason, and that the peoples and communities there take time to cleanse it and uplift and change the energy thank you for listening to curious mind grapes.
Mary:For more information, please check out our show notes, where we provide links and references to the topics we've covered.
