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Camillus Forest
Unique Area
Camillus, New York
Surveys: September 7, 2003, October 5, 2003; October 18, 2003
Tree Data; Vegetation Report
Saturday, October 18, 2003 Leader: David Yarrow Assistant: Pam Rosatti, Vern, Patrick |
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Saturday morning, October 18, we returned for a third investigation of this ancient forest. This time, our focus wasn't on trees or vegetation, but on distinctly different objectives: underground water and earth energies. As a dowser, I would locate the spring that in former time was the source of the stream we explored on Oct. 5. I also intended to survey for "ley lines" and study the configurations of earth energies—all to confirm my growing belief this was a sacred site—an ancient holy place.
We again entered the forest from the northwest corner. As we left the farm field, I checked for ley lines. One was due east, running in a north-south bearing. On my right, another ley line ran on a northwest-to-southest bearing. Clearly they would cross within the woods somewhere near the spring—a promising indication this is a sacred space.
We headed southeast through the woods, searching for the spring at the top of the ravine. A hundred yards into the forest, we saw someone stooped over the ground. Approaching, we met an old woman—probably East European from her thick accent and halting grammar—gathering mushrooms from the forest floor. She already had a 5-gallon bucket full, and was now filling a plastic sack. Likely she sells her gatherings for money, and I calculated she will make a worthy wage for her work. Her enterprise reminded me while industrial forestry reduces forests to the single-minded value of its boardfeet of timber, ecological forestry emphasizes multiple benefits of old-growth forests, especially non-timber resources such as mushrooms.
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Continuing southeast, we soon encountered a shallow basin with distinctly thicker, taller understory and significant blowdown, which allows more sunlight to reach the soil. A few moments of dowsing confirmed a spring in the bottom of this hollow. The spring is only 24 feet below the surface, rising from a very large vein nearly 300 feet deep. I couldn't confirm that this spring once fed the stream that formed the ravine descending east to Nine Mile Creek, but it seemed a likely candidate.
Nearby, a large DBH maple had snapped off twelve feet above ground. Around the broken trunk, a thick crowd of brown mushrooms was blooming out of the soil, rising from the slowly decaying roots of the shattered tree—the largest, thickest bed of fungi I've ever seen. These fungal fruiting bodies were mostly past their peak and beginning to melt back into the soil. One small area was still in peak shape, and with Pam's help, I snapped a few photos of this remarkable fungal formation.
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A few feet from this, dowsing revealed the two "ley lines" crossing in the hollow. One runs north-to-south, the other northwest-to-southeast. However, a quick assessment revealed the forest is intersected by a total of seven ley lines. While I expected to find three or four ley lines on this forseted hilltop, seven boosted my belief this is a special sacred space. A bit of further south, dowsing revealed the real ley line hot spot.
Continuing south, we hiked a slight rise out of the hollow, and soon came to a cluster of older trees in a rough circle around a high spot showing rocky outcroppings. Nearly 300 feet under this bulge of earth, a "water dome"—a massive column of water—rises from deeper in the earth, then fans out in a radial pattern of 21 veins. Pam and Patrick slowly walked a wide circle around this water flow system, counting the veins, practicing their dowsing skills.
I assessed the overall volume of water flow, and was surprised to calculate well over 1000 gallons per minute rising up and flowing out deep below this scenic hilltop—certainly a significantly large and complex flow system—more data suggesting Camillus Forest is a special space.
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A few feet east, the north-to-south ley line passes through the clearing and over the summit of the hilltop. I didn't explore far beyond the circle of trees, but my impression was this is the highest point in the forest. Circling around the water dome, I counted five ley lines intersecting in the clearing. This left one ley line—the seventh—unaccounted for; most likely it cosses through the forest farther to the south.
One was the same north-to-south line I first detected before entering the woods. Two other ley lines cross the clearing in roughly east-to-west directions. But the other two took me by surprise: they enter the clearing, but terminate on the first north-to-south line. My assesment was these last two don't begin in the clearing, but end when they encounter the north-to-south channel.
These two terminating ley lines prompted me to quickly assess the local distribution of earth energies on the site. I wasn't surprised to dowse a large vortex on the west side of the clearing, with at least 20 channels of earth energy flowing horizontally from this whirlpool of flux. But what surprised me was this vortex is descending rom sky to earth. This is opposite to the two terminating ley lines. While the local earth energies are flowing outwards away from the clearing, the two ley lines are flowing into it.
According to the NYSDEC report, the most extreme blowdown in the Labor Day 98 microburst is just south of this area. I expected traversing the tangled trunks and branches littering this disturbed terrain would be challenging and time consuming. Investigation of this area would have to wait for another visit, since the hour was getting late and we had other errands for the day.
We turned back north, down into the shallow basin and up the other side, where we encountered the DEC interpretive trail. I began an intuitive assessment of tree heights and ages in this area. I dowsed a few of the largest DBH trees, and was surprised to get heights in excess of 120 feet and ages well over 200 years. The largest maple dowsed at 234 feet tall and 265 years old. This seemed unlikely, since Dr. Leopold's graduate students in their 1997 survey found only one tree over 120 feet (126) and only one over 200 years (285). Still, I was new at this intuitive technique with trees, and hadn't yet calibrated my method against the empirical results of clinometer, laser rangefinder and increment borer.
We followed the trail to the northeast corner. There, Pam followed her dowsing rod north off the trail, where it began to spin rapidly in a circle in her outstretched hand. Standing in a thick growth of toothwort, she looked at me in amazement, an unvoiced question in her face. I stepped over and quickly confirmed another water dome, slightly deeper than the first we had found. While I assessed this, Pam wandered west until her dowsing rod began to gyrate again. Following her, I detected another water dome, this one much shallower—not quite 200 feet deep. Wading through more calf-high toothwort, Pam's rod started to gyrate again, and I was surprised to discover yet another water dome, deeper than the last. In amazement, I informed my companions I had never encountered three water domes in such close proximity. But we had to move on and I had no time to conduct a detailed assesment of this triple flow system.
Once again, as we left the woods in the northwest corner, several butternuts were fund on the ground. But still we were unable to locate the tree producing these nuts.
Although I still lack a complete sense of the complete anatomy and nature of this forest, I was now sure it is a special sacred space. Many unresolved questions remained to define the structure of this site and its relationship to the larger countryside.
Clearly, this small, 40-acre patch of remnant woodland holds many curious secrets and will require further visits. My goals for the next survey are to explore the spring area more thoroughly, to assess and photograph views of Onondaga Lake and the City of Syracuse eight miles to the east, to locate seventh ley line and carefully map all seven ley lines, to map all the water domes, and to explore trees and the blowdown on south end. This is a lot to accomplish in one visit, especially with the oncoming cold weather and winter.
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The Earth Restoration and Reforestation Alliance — www.championtrees.org — updated 10/12/2003