Decoding
the Meaning
of Crop
Circles with Kris and
Ed Sherwood
by Celeste Adams
Crop circle researchers Ed and Kris Sherwood feel that the messages of the crop circles reflect the language of literal and metaphorical symbolism, and that they are directed at all of us.
The Sherwoods believe that, by exploring the crop circle phenomena with an open mind, without fear and without assumptions, they have been able to gain insight into their meaning.
In order to understand a particular crop circle, they feel, it is first necessary to let go of preconceived ideas.
Crop Circle ThemesAccording to the Sherwoods, the crop-circle designs are symbolic and literal metaphors that contain a wealth of encoded information. Sometimes, they observe, the genuine crop circles are so deceptively simple-looking that one might wonder if they really have something significant to say.
But the Sherwoods have concluded that even the simplest formations have multiple layers of meaning. The designs in certain crop circles even seem to be tied to sacred symbols from more than one culture.
"When we first look at a pattern, we might not immediately recognize it," Ed explains, "or we might recognize some aspect of it, and go off to investigate it — which I think is what we are meant to do. You may explore connections and associated symbols, and you may discover that one crop circle actually has multiple layers of meaning, all cross-referencing each other."
Meteorological and dragon symbology at East Field
Ed has been researching crop circles since 1984, but it was not until 1990 that he decoded one of them: the East Field formation, found at Wiltshire, England. This experience completely changed his view of who and what creates crop circles (the famous Wiltshire formation of July 11, 1990, pictured at right, was made into an album cover — to see larger image, click on the photo).
Ed believes that formations like the East Field pictogram were created from the psychokinetic energy of the collective mind in conjunction with natural forces and processes of the earth and cosmos.[1]
Ed came to feel that this particular design referred to dragons, leylines, water, weather, and an intelligence known as "The Nine." The famous pictogram of East Field may be made up of international meteorological symbols, and Ed suggests that it symbolizes a forecast of the prevailing weather conditions over East Field, before and after the crop-circle event.
This complex formation has claw-like and foot-like design features, and a double dumb-bell design. Ed claims that clues to understanding the crop-circle phenomenon can be found in exploring Eastern traditions in folklore and legends.
Additional clues exist in the fields of physics and metaphysics. "When you explore Eastern traditions, you find that dragons rule the weather. So there, you have meteorological symbols and dragon symbology overlaid and interlaced, cross-referencing in a very intelligent way."
Dragons were the weather lords, in that they were the masters of the wind and water. References to the Nine Dragons appear in many cultures — the Nine Dragons were revered in China. Also, the first religion of Egypt was based on nine Creation Gods. One of the dragons/gods was deified more than the others and represented the Messenger of Messengers. According to Ed Sherwood, the sphinx of Giza depicts this messenger god.
Indigenous symbols in crop circles
Although crop circles have appeared mainly in Wiltshire, England, they have also appeared in countries around the world. Many Native American tribes have seen crop circles that reflect their own symbols and the fulfillment of their prophecies.[2]
Colin Andrews spoke of a Hopi elder who said that a crop circle in the early '90s was a symbol of Mother Earth crying because of the damage inflicted upon her.[3]
In 1996, the Sherwoods were the only researchers to report on a crop circle that appeared in Laguna Canyon, California. This formation was remarkable in that although there were no telltale footprints or handprints of any kind near it, the soil was so soft that any human activity around the site would have left deep impressions. Ed photographed this formation, before he and Kris went into it, to document this absence of prints.
The formation was created in a different medium than most others, occurring on a hillside covered by many species of plants rather than in a crop field. An analysis of the bent plants by W. C. Levengood, a noted biophysicist and expert in crop-circle plant analysis, confirmed the authenticity of the formation.[4]
Most crop circles, as we have noted, originate in England. Here, only the plants originated in England! "Even though it formed in California, and even though there were numerous species of available plants, the pictogram was delineated by two English plant species," Ed says, "bent in the way characteristic of a genuine formation. But this formation looked more like a petroglyph than a typical English crop-circle design."
And their investigation revealed compelling connections between the design and the once indigenous peoples of the area, the Tongva Indians, whose sacred land and gravesites were being bulldozed in March of 1996 to build a highway.
The formation was comprised of three glyphs, one of which resembled the sacred sun-staff of the Chumash Indians. Could it be that the three glyphs related to the "three warnings" of a local indigenous legend?
A hero named Chingichnish, a Tongva spiritual leader, appeared hundreds of years ago to teach the people how to live in harmony with Nocuma, or the Great Spirit.
Chingichnish said that Nocuma would give three warnings to people who failed to respect the land. Beyond that, nature would take its course.
The Laguna Canyon pictogram, containing three glyphs, appeared at a site where there had been considerable local protest against a toll-road construction which was making a wide path through the last small piece of wilderness there.
The Sherwoods do not believe this was simply a coincidence. They suggest that perhaps it was a warning — that we need to change, or change will be brought upon us.[5]
Origins of Crop Circles
The messages challenge us
The messages in crop circles seems to come, according to Ed and Kris, from a level of consciousness that requires us not only to observe them but to interact with them if we wish to decipher their meaning.
"We're meant to think, we're meant to investigate," the Sherwoods say. "We think that the messages are coming from our collective consciousness. They appear to us like dream symbols for things that have been suppressed from our conscious minds, things we haven't been dealing with. They're symbolically trying to draw our attention to these issues, the way poltergeist activity will manifest.
"It's like a dream, but one which has been conceived by the collective consciousness. The crop circle is made up of more information than our conscious mind. That's why we tend to feel that it's conceived by something greater than ourselves."
Three possible originsThe Sherwoods think that there are three sources for the crop circles.
Some are manmade;
Some — generally simple circles, or sets of circles, with perhaps one or two pictograms — are made by extraterrestrials; and
The rest are made by Divine Intelligence.
Other researchers in the crop-circle community do not necessarily embrace this perspective, and there even are times when it is not well tolerated. Here is what Ed Sherwood had to say about this:
I've looked at hundreds of formations and I've also had multiple close encounters with the phenomenon that I feel is creating most of the genuine formations. We're not talking about extraterrestrial intelligence, we are referring to something beyond that, which is greater and more fundamental — the very source of where we come from and even where they come from.
And I've noticed that in the last five or six years there has been a slight change in other researchers' views. Some are slowly coming around to the idea that maybe it's more than just the ET explanation.
In 1990 I started to share my views with crop-circle researchers. For years, I encountered the opinion that the genuine formations were made by ET's. That's putting it pretty simply. They thought a formation had to be either manmade or extraterrestrial.
Others said that it was made by Gaia.
I felt very alone when I first started saying the creator was God or the Infinite Intelligence of Life. That is something I've been saying publicly for years now, and it may be the case now that more people are coming around to seeing it that way.
Some known researchers are beginning to change their views. Those who were very pro-extraterrestrial are now beginning to think the creators are the collective consciousness — a global poltergeist, but from an Infinite Source, expressing Infinite Intelligence. It's not like an aggressive, angry poltergeist that's coming from the collective consciousness of a single individual going through an emotional crisis. It's a global, collective consciousness that is coming into awareness, and is triggering a response from the infinite collective consciousness of all life.
Because some crop circles have been considered hoaxes, some researchers have jumped to the conclusion that they're all hoaxes. And this year, a number of hoaxers admitted that they had made certain crop circles that had previously been thought to be genuine.
As a result, some researchers have become so disillusioned that they have swung like a pendulum to the opposite extreme and are now saying that all crop circles are manmade. In spite of this, we maintain that some are made by people, some are made by ETs, and some are made by this superconscious force of creation.
The truth is often diverse and complex, and to find an answer to the origins you have to be like a true scientist — an inquirer, who doesn't believe in one thing or another. You have to see what picture the information paints. Over time it becomes clearer.
The Sherwoods agree that Colin Andrews is probably fairly close in his estimate that perhaps 80 percent of the crop circles made in England during 1999 and 2000 were manmade.
"There are very active groups that are vehemently trying to discredit and fool researchers," Kris says. "They want people to accept their formations as genuine. Perhaps some of them are sponsored by people who have big interests in making sure the genuine phenomenon isn't recognized."
The Sherwoods feel that the hoaxers believe in a genuine phenomenon, but don't know what it is, and are not interested in finding out.
Ed and Kris have also encountered a tremendous lack of discernment within the so-called "research community" to the point where they feel there are very few people who can actually tell the genuine from manmade.
Determining authenticity"Some people are inclined to call a crop circle genuine because they like it — not because it is really genuine," the Sherwoods feel. "Most people who look at crop circles are moved at a deep emotional level, viewing them as an art form and reacting to them as they would to paintings in an art gallery that they find particularly moving."
But the Sherwoods consider many things when they try to determine the authenticity of a crop circle. In addition to looking at the geometry, the mathematics, and the symbolism in the design, they look at the physics and logistics of how the circle was created. They also look at the energy — both natural and/or supernatural — that might have had a physical effect on the plants or the soil.
Here are their comments on methods of verification:
The way the crop is bent One indicator of a genuine crop circle is plants that have been bent at ninety degrees and at the ground level, yet with no cracks or breaks in the bend of the plant — it almost looks like they've been steamed into position, there's no damage at all.
Dowsing When people use dowsing rods to explore the energy that is present in crop circles, it only works if they ask the right questions. Proper dowsers, using a rod, rods, or a pendulum, ask questions where they get yes-or-no answers, then go through a series of cross-referencing questions to test their original results. Without correct questioning, dowsers could be picking up their own energy, their expectations, or the expectations of other people who are there or have been there. Since there are many things that can be detected through dowsing, it is important to ask the right questions.
Luminosities
Ancient peoples were in touch with a kind of light phenomenon referred to as Earth Lights. This may be the reason that they built stone circles in particular places.
The Sherwoods use the term "luminosities" to express a similar phenomenon. They say that there are basically two categories of luminosities, physical and non-physical. The physical category involves light that is visible or that would give you a reading on a magnetometer. The non-physical luminosities are only perceived in an altered state of consciousness or by using photographic equipment that picks up frequences outside of the visible range.
During the year 2000, in order to gather information about the luminosities associated with Earth mysteries, Ed Sherwood organized more than 40 psychic-photography experiments in England. These were conducted at ancient Sacred Sites, authentic crop circle formations, and within natural spaces identified as vortexes — points in the landscape where energy lines cross.
In these spaces, Ed and Kris Sherwood witnessed and recorded hundreds of luminosities, using 35mm, HI-8 video, and digital cameras. They were enormously successful in photographing luminosities that had been seen by everyone present inside crop circle formations.[6]
Ed finds that people have to let go of mental distractions before they are able to see the balls of light.
"We were in a crop circle at night, it was dark and we had just finished a short meditation," Ed reports. "I started to walk around, using a manual flash, flashing it towards what I sensed was the source of energy, which is what we commonly do. There was a retired physicist in the group who probably wasn't able to see the first few luminosities. When I suggested that he focus his attention on a particular point in space, he soon began to see them. It's like looking at a computerized picture where the designs are scrambled and pixilated. You have to look at them and stare at them in a certain way to see the three-dimensional image inside them."
Ed explains that we also have to use similar techniques when looking at the physical world if we want to see it clearly. "You have to disassociate your mind. I don't mean go cross-eyed, or look at the world bleary-eyed, but you have to give complete attention to the subject matter.
Co-Creative Nature of Crop Circles
Ed feels that we psychokinetically co-create a positive or negative reality, and that this creative factor is very much reflected in crop-circles. "The genuine crop circle phenomenon is teaching us to awaken to the fact that we are very powerful co-creative beings. When one person, or a group of people, or sometimes millions of people become aware or are witnessing something, they experience an awakening in their consciousness."
An interesting example is the coincidence of crop circles in England with a solar eclipse in Mexico City on July 11, 1991. As the eclipse was occurring, metallic objects of non-human origin appeared over Mexico City and other cities around Mexico. And because so many people were also watching the eclipse, these appearances were seen by hundreds of thousands of witnesses — it was later documented, Ed says, as the largest UFO sighting in recorded history. And these sightings were interpreted as the fulfillment of a Mayan prophecy saying that the sun god Quetzalcoatl would return "at the time of the sixth sun" — July 11, 1991!
As these phenomena were occurring in Mexico — before anyone knew about them elsewhere — crop circle formations started to appear in England. "We started to get formations appearing in the wheat fields, clearly making a reference to extraterrestrial vehicles," Ed says, and Kris adds, "They even called them saucer-grams, because they looked like cross-sections of flying discs. But the connection wasn't made that this was going on in Mexico and that the collective conscious focus was being reflected in these saucer-grams in Wiltshire. There is a real energetic connection between the area of Mexico's pyramids and Wiltshire."
Ed remarks that a similar thing happened in 1994, when hundreds of thousands, maybe a few million people worldwide were paying attention to the Schumacher-Levy-9 comet that smashed into Jupiter. That was the first time, aided by our current technology, that we were able to look at a comet hitting one of our local planets.
"Planet Earth would not have survived even one of those twenty-one fragments that hit Jupiter — and here we were, watching this and learning things from it. And as we were witnessing that — even before we had the images of the impacts in our conscious mind — designs were appearing in wheat fields in Wiltshire and Hampshire that clearly reflected what was happening on Jupiter.
"I think," Ed says, "that this Intelligence, the consciousness of the source of the genuine formations, was greater than what we knew consciously at the time."
The Gog Magog Incident
For Ed and Kris, the most significant crop-circle formation of 2001 appeared below the Gog Magog Hills near Cambridge, England. This elegant crop circle, quickly named the Angel formation, was reported on July 25. And there is an amazing story behind it.
Three days before the Angel appeared in the Gog Magog hills, Ed had conducted a long-planned, synchronized group meditation, specifically asking for a response from "the primary Source of non-manmade crop circle creation."
In the opening part of this meditation, which was held at a major ancient Sacred Site in Wiltshire, Ed held up a spiritual offering to the Infinite Mind and Intelligence of God: it was a medicine bundle, and on it was a crop-circle symbol from 1994.
Fortunately, this meditation was independently and privately witnessed and filmed by three US documentary filmmakers.
And three days later, the Angel appeared.
"It was a unique and amazing crop-circle formation in a wheat field near Cambridge. And it incorporated the same symbol that had been on the medicine bag offered in our group meditation three days earlier," Ed says.
Ed and Kris Sherwood's website : CropCircleAnswers
http://www.cropcircleanswers.com/Love Always
mudra
The last photo looks like a head of a bird of prey, a phoenix rising up, maybe? Or, is it a Thunderbird? Quetzacoatl?
