Eclipsed by the Beauty of Nature
Down Under

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Ever turned up at a party in jeans and t-shirt, to find that just about everyone else had opted for evening dress?  

 

I suppose when we latched on to the Explorer’s 2002 Total Solar Eclipse trip to South Australia, we could have expected some serious amateur astronomers in the group.  Standing in the vast expanse of the Woomera Rocket Range, we were surrounded by, literally, hundreds of earnest- looking people, armed with an impressive array of astronomical and photographic equipment – computer driven focussing, enormous tripods, lenses the size of tea plates et al.

 

If anyone had had the time, or inclination, to notice the presence amongst this distinguished gathering, of my wife, Ros, and I, equipped with two pieces of cardboard to make a pinhole camera, a point & shoot pocket APS, the mirror from a vanity box (partly covered with paper) and two halves of an aluminium coat-hanger, we might have seemed - quite frankly - comical. 

 

But no-one did.  There were portentous events about to unfold, and no time to waste on the niceties of social etiquette.

 

As with all good dowsing stories, chance and co-incidence played a significant role.  Never having been to the Southern Hemisphere before, let alone this remote, windswept (and prohibited) patch of the rocket-testing site, the odds against finding a good, vacant dowsing site on an earth energy line, with a clear view of the eclipse were, at best, problematic.  But, hey presto, there it was.  While others were unloading campervans-full of expensive optical instruments and chasing the lighter elements of their baggage, which were being unhelpfully whisked into the Outback by an unexpectedly strong wind, I took one brisk walk across the site.  My puny bits of bent metal latched firmly onto a strong female energy line, despite the swirling dust, and led me straight to a point at the arbitrarily-erected chain fence - occupied by no-one.  With that sort of assistance, anything becomes a piece of cake!

 

We had ‘seen’ an eclipse before, of course.  The 1999 totality had passed right over our house in Tavistock.  A once-in-a-lifetime experience.  The cloud cover went dark for a couple of minutes, and for some inexplicable reason - perhaps sheer frustration - lots of people took flash pictures of the gloom.  The eclipse itself came and went – leaving only disappointment.  

So it was, I found myself 12,000 miles away, and several thousand pounds poorer, clutching a coat-hanger in the desert.  I had left my favourite Sig Lonegren copper dowsing rods at home in case some over-enthusiastic customs officer thought they might be used to wrest control of a jumbo jet.  Indeed, standing in the wilderness, with my essential floppy hat tied on with one of Ros’s floral headscarves, I might have looked like a pantomime member of some subversive sect – part bag-lady, part Lawrence of Arabia – but I digress.  When I felt the wind, I thought my luck was out. Even the copper rods can wave about manically in the Dartmoor breeze at times – and bits of wire would be no match for the gusty Outback.  But I needn’t have worried.

 

There are various schools of thought about dowsing during eclipses.  The most widely held view, that I have heard, is that during an eclipse, the energy pattern shuts down, leaving a brief period of intermission, during which strange effects can be felt.  My personal 1999 experience had been rather different.  An earth energy line that runs through our bungalow - and is therefore well-known to me – seemed to expand (widen) during that eclipse and shrink back afterwards.  The fact that it returned to its usual width indicated that it was not just my attention that was causing it to increase.  But, beyond that, I had nothing but a bare result to consider.  As the 2002 totality would only be short - the event being right at sunset, and by definition close to the horizon - I knew I would have little time to experiment and refine procedures in situ.  So, after asking certain questions, I came up with what seemed to be an ambitious, but just practical, series of possibilities to investigate.

 

I wanted to retest the line-expansion experience.  Had I just made it up in the excitement of the moment?  I also had an inkling that the energy may change ‘wavelength’ during the event. So, during the build-up, as the moon started to obscure the orange disc of the brilliant early-evening sun (first contact), I measured our line to be about 12 paces wide – and resonating at about 7hz.  .

 

At this point, a softly spoken electrical engineer from South Wales disarmingly came up to me and said ‘Ah yes, divining rods. We use those quite a bit at work (for underground cables)’. We had a quick chat about what I was doing and he asked, just as an aside, had I considered whether polarity changed during an eclipse?  I asked him if he had heard anything about it before and he replied ‘No – it was just a thought’.  What an inspired thought! 

 

Our earth energy line remained pretty constant until close on full totality, expanding slowly to around 13 paces.  Then in the last few minutes it started to change quickly, and by the time of full obscurity (second contact), it had widened to around 16 paces.

 

In the event, the eclipse itself was – to use an over-worked adjective – awesome.  Most of the available 26 seconds was spent open-mouthed, burbling ‘Its incredible!’. I did, however, have the presence of mind to dowse the ‘wavelength’ of the line, which seemed to increase from around 7hz to about 9hz during totality.  (I would subscribe to the effect, but not the accuracy of the measurement!).  Perhaps even more importantly, the polarity did change!  For half a minute, our line went from being female (negative) to positive.  If this happens right across the energy spectrum, no wonder legend has it that eclipses are times of significant change, as well as extraordinary visual extravaganzas!

 

It has occurred to me subsequently, that if more experienced dowsers, with a stronger sense of focus, were feeling the specific quality of the energy of the earth at a given point – and that that energy then changed in both resonance and polarity – it would indeed seem to temporarily disappear. 

 

I would be interested to hear from other dowsers on this topic.

 

Blue Peter would have been proud of Ros’s covered mirror and pinhole camera experiments, which worked wonderfully – and they were certainly easier to carry around Australia.

 

In the end, the event was all about the experience.  Visually, it was stunning – to put it mildly – and the sensation of being there was quite unique.  The company was convivial - and the people we met throughout Australia could not have been more friendly.  

 

For some, eclipse-chasing has become a hobby, bordering on an obsession.  But then, we dowsers know all about a leisure interest changing your whole outlook on life.     

 

Nigel Twinn

Tamar Dowsers

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