Guest Author: G. Michael Vasey ~ Chasing the Mysterious and Magical to Connect with the Land

Kravi Hora

I have always found life to be mysterious. Even from a young age sitting contemplating reality and asking those mind-boggling questions… ‘why am I here?’ and ‘what am I?’, I have been driven by an outlook at life as an adventure filled with mysteries and secrets. These days I live in a city called Brno in the Czech Republic (or Czechia for short). I sometimes think Brno is a sort of parallel of how I see life. It is full of small bistros, cafés, pubs and clubs mostly unobvious from the street. Tunnels and cellars… often secret… serve many purposes these days. The architecture is that of a boomtown in a booming nation of the 1880-1917 era when the Czech Republic had the largest GDP in all of Europe. Each house, each street, each doorway has a little of the mysterious to it and often a secret to be explored whether that be a pub in the cellar or an ornate statue or design on the outside of the building.

For most of the last thirty five years, I have lived overseas far from my place of birth, family and friends. As the years passed, I realized that I felt more and more like a foreigner in my own country and that yet, when I set foot on the Yorkshire Moors or smelled the damp dank air around the Humber estuary, there was an instant connection. I felt safe. Grounded. Whole. In fact, in Czechia, I had a feeling of being alien… out of synch with the culture and the land. When that connection is lost or never found, the body and mind can become sickened. It is a bit like the relationship between the Fisher King and the land. I liked it here. There is a lot to like. And my daughter was here. But…

And so a couple of years ago, I arrived at Sue’s home for a long weekend visit. It was to be the grand tour of the sites that lay behind the book The Initiate written by Sue and Stuart. I had loved the book and longed to experience following the birds and to reconnect with the land of Albion. Apparently, when I arrived, I looked ill… so ill in fact they were very worried. But soon, the company, the conversation, the places we visited, and the land began to heal me. And throughout that entire weekend, something else became noticeable… synchronicity. To me, synchronicity is the magic that tells us we are on the right pathway.

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Pretty soon that magical weekend was over, and I was back in Czechia. I felt unconnected again and the loss of that connection was hard to live with. What to do? Well, I had asked Sue a question back in the UK and that question was ‘how do you connect with the land?’ She and Stuart told me that for them it began with the birds, but it took them to ancient sites, stone circles and there seemed to be a Templar connection. They had documented this in their books… the series that starts with The Initiate.

And so I began searching Google for Templars near Brno. For ancient sites and spiritual sites in Moravia or even Czechia. I had lived here for twelve years and never realized what a rich and vast land it was. Pretty soon, I was exploring valleys and forests, dowsing energy lines across Brno, and discovering the Slavic gods. And just as surely as eggs are eggs pretty soon I was following synchronicities of my own right here in Brno… right around the corner from my apartment. I began to connect with the land. I could almost feel the roots pushing down into the Czech countryside as I followed my adventure and discovered mystery after mystery and more magic than you can imagine… I was again that child sitting between rooms at home in the ’60s puzzling over my existence and finding energy and enthusiasm in my life. Meaning.

It actually began with a chance meeting with a shaman…

I too decided to write about my journey. Perhaps it would encourage others to do the same? The series of books I call Connecting with the Magic of the Land starts with Chasing the Shaman and Chasing Dragons in Moravia. It will end this summer with Chasing the Goddess. Do give them a look.

Join me on a video walk around Špilbirk Castle in Brno by clicking here.


About the Author

G. Michael Vasey is a collector of paranormal stories and a magician. He writes paranormal books that will keep you awake at night, poetry that will make you question reality and books on practical magic and shamanism. He grew up experiencing ghosts and poltergeists, studied and taught magic with a real school of hermetic sciences and these days can be found in search of the Goddess in the forests and mountains of Czechia. He hosts a podcast series called The Magical World of G. Michael Vasey that looks at reality, magic and myth.

He has had numerous paranormal hit books on both sides of the pond with books like Chilling Tales of Black Eyed Kids, My Haunted Life Too, and Your haunted Lives. He also touches on magic and the nature of reality with books like Chasing the Shaman, The New You, Inner Journeys and The Mystical Hexagram (penned with Sue Vincent). He likes to splash words on canvas and has issued several volumes of compelling poetry like The Dilemma of Fatherhood and Reflections on Life.


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Chasing the Shaman: The Magic of Connecting with the Land by [G. Michael Vasey]Chasing the Shaman:

The Magic of Connecting with the Land

From the ancient sites of Albion, to the mysteries of the Templars in the Czech Republic, via myths, ley lines, dragons and the Slavic deities, to the strange and unsettling encounters with the work of a shaman in the middle of Brno, G. Michael Vasey shares his journey back to the Goddess, the Divine Feminine, whose balancing influence is so often lacking in a patriarchal society.

This book is open and honest, adding new insights to those he shared with Inner Journeys: Explorations of the Soul. It describes a personal journey from feeling adrift to finding a connection to the life of the land. In many ways, brings its author back to a path he had never truly left.

The magical journey of reawakening continues thanks to good friends and a chance encounter with a local shaman.

Magic is real. You just have to let it in to your life.


Chasing Dragons in Moravia (The Magic of Connecting with the Land Book 2) by [G. Michael Vasey]Chasing Dragons in Moravia

The Magic of Connecting with the Land Book 2

The Slavic pantheon is a mysterious and complex set of deities but the eternal battle between Perun, god of thunder and Veles, god of the underworld is intriguing. As Vasey invokes one and then the other of this duality, things happen. Magic happens and what seem like unrelated visits and happenings suddenly take their place in what turns out to be a shamanic process of connecting with the energies of the gods and the Slavic lands.

Dragons, Gateways to Hell (Houska Castle), Stone Circles (Kraluv Stul), Earth energies, Butterflies and Birds… it’s all in this true and magical tale.


The Mystical Hexagram: The Seven Inner Stars of Power by [G. Michael Vasey, Sue Vincent, Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki]The Mystical Hexagram:

The Seven Inner Stars of Power

The Mystical Hexagram is a new and innovative way to work with this ancient symbol. Through personal revelations and exercises, the reader can experience the many layers of this new and insightful work. Edition 2.

The book explores a symbol. Not from some scholarly or deeply complex perspective, but seeing it as a representation relating to life and living. The forces and pressures that are associated with the hexagram are, after all the forces of life at both practical and Universal levels. By exploring and beginning to understand the symbol, we are able to learn and discover more about ourselves.

The meditations throughout the book take you on an inner journey of exploration, discovering the parallels between the self and the greater reality within which we live our lives. They illustrate the connection between the inner and outer world of the self and the cosmic forces of Creation. Having traced that connecting path, the meditations offer a practical way of applying that understanding.

In addition to the exercises the book includes two very special meditations, The Garden of Remembrance and the Circle of Healing. These two you will want to revisit many times, taking away from the experience a sense of peace and beauty.

Find these and many other books by G. Michael Vasey

on Amazon UK and US and worldwide


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Discovering Albion – day 8: A Tide of Silence

scotland trip jan 15 503Winter on Holy Island, it seems, is silent save for the song of the waves and the cry of the gull. The visitors had left; the locals all seemed to be indoors. It was as if we shared the island only with the birds. Which meant, of course, that we were hugely outnumbered.

scotland trip jan 15 487They were everywhere. Another robin, blackbirds and gulls… doves and sparrows. A posse of chickens ahead of us on the path… and we had the kestrels. And that was without the mallards, the lapwings and the heron caught on camera sneaking along the line of a fence. He obviously thought he was in stealth mode…

scotland trip jan 15 42288The place is a paradise for birdwatchers… and seals are common here too. But the fading light made it impossible to see if the movement in the waves were shadows or these creatures of the deep, and we felt that rather than watching the birds, they were watching us. We seemed to be constantly accompanied by feathered sentinels, and we went where they led and saw what they guided our gaze to see.

Continue reading at France & Vincent

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Bardic Study – Waltz of the New Moon…

hm15-1519*

Another one of Robin’s early efforts.

When invoking the  Bardic Spirit there are not too many candidates around, unfortunately…

For a spell, this was my all-time favourite song ever, if only for its helter-skelter whirl of minor-key madness…

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I hear that

the Emperor of China

used to wear iron

shoes with ease…

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I think these lines refer to a type of ‘not to touch the earth’ scenario.

That is, The Emperor, who is regarded by his subjects as a ‘God incarnate’ is held to be too sacred to be sullied by the touch of the earth.

In contradistinction to this rather absurd notion, Robin then sets out his own position.

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Continue reading at France & Vincent

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Bardic Study – The Iron Stone…

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Another early song from Robin Williamson.

Not too much to interpret, perhaps, in this offering.

Just a straight forward description of the finding of a stone, which we are bound to assume is the account of a true story.

And maybe, the answer to a mystery…

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A long wind

A weaving mind
Overall the land the wildflowers grow,
Echoing kind to kind.

On that day when I found the ironstone
Heavy in my hand in the sloping rain.

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Except, as descriptions of a day go that is, perhaps, far, far and away so far from normal as it is possible to be…

‘Long’ in time? Resulting in the ‘Weaving’ of mind?

The storyteller could be fishing.

 Continue reading at France & Vincent

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Waking

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white rose

Soft morning song.

The quiet language of joy

Breathing beside me.

I drink your smile

As you dream,

Touch you with my eyes

And remember peace.

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Exotics #midnighthaiku

Norther snow lays deep

Summer plumes grace bare winter

Incongruous fruit

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Ars Geometrica: Seal…

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‘For God created man immortal, and made him in the image of his own eternity.’
– The ‘Twentieth’ Leaf

The preceding image we had to own did not seem to us particularly god-like.

We turned the leaf:

7The Twenty-First Leaf

Continue reading at France & Vincent

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Discovering Albion – day 8: Out to the Castle

scotland trip jan 15 311We had found a pub and, duly watered and warmed by the coal fire of the Crown and Anchor, had wandered out to look around. The tide was still out, but the few visitors were already making their way back to their cars. We walked out along the deserted path towards the castle, passing only the obligatory black dog and his owner on the way.scotland trip jan 15 459The history of the island goes back to the earliest times, with finds dating to right to Mesolithic times including a quarry for flint with which the sharp tools were made. There are many birds… both seabirds and the more familiar birds of the land. The light sparkles on the water, glittering motes more precious than jewels, born of sun and sea… the essence of the life of earth. There is always something quite primal in being on an island, and though Albion herself is an island we forget that readily when we live inland. Here we are reminded as the sea closes in behind us and we no longer have a choice whether we go or stay.

Continue reading at France & Vincent

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Wayland: The White Horse… Stuart France

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But according to some, Wayland has far more onerous

responsibilities than shoeing the horses of passing way farers…

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A group of local lads were enjoying a drink

one evening at the White Horse Inn, Woolstone,

when an unknown man wearing old fashioned garb

entered and ordered a pint of the local beverage.

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Continue reading at The Silent Eye

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Bardic Study: The Eyes of Fate…

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‘Oh, who can see in the eyes of fate,
All life alone in its chronic patterns?
Oh, swan, let me fly you
To the land of no winds blowing.
I know nothing, and know that I know nothing;
All is in the eye, and in its blinks of seeing.’

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The first verse appears to record a conversation between Swan and Fate. Swan asks a question and is invited by Fate to another world where no winds blow with the proviso that Fate itself is ignorant but merely watches. ‘Blinks’ here, operate as links of time.

Continue reading at France & Vincent

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