Abbot Dunstan was a goldsmith,
Alchemist; forging bells,
St Dunstan knew well the secret
Benedictine’s ne’er tell.

Philosophy Maturata,
Stages of alchemy,
Elixir Vitae, starter, 
Discovered Dr Dee.

Leland, King’s antiquarian,
Took the vital tract.
And the greedy librarian,
Would not give it back.

Leland’s alchemical findings,
Sent to Cromwell, his boss;
The librarian obliging,
Grand Master of the Lodge.

Standing in his ivied tower,
Dunstan never was tricked,
In the devil’s finest hour,
but his manuscript was nicked.

We all know how the story goes,
we all watched Fantasia,
hidden right there, under our nose,
Disney paraphenalia.

Yes, Dunstan was the Sorcerer,
Utter’d words of power,
To turn broomstick into porter,
Apprentice empowered.

Forgotten lay brother Peter,
stole the magical words,
broomstick brought beer by the litre,
he drowned; his death absurd.

The words of power, what be they?
I cannot really say,
Just in case you may wish one day,
To make broomstick obey.

Now sadly I am digressing,
the fault with gossip’s tale
I know the story is pressing,
and there’s more to unveil.

So I hope I have your patience,
as I try to unpick,
please ignore the deviations;
And the labyrinth tricks.

To be continued …….

Glastonbury Tor

The National Trust sign says the Tor has been a place of pilgrimage for some 10,000 years. It’s easy to see why it would be – this improbable, steep-sided hill rising from the Summerland Meadows in the vast lowland sweep of the Somerset Levels, views for miles in every direction. On a clear day you can see all the way to Dorset, Wiltshire, Wales.

Once the Somerset Levels were marshland, a glittering expanse of water and reed, misty, mysterious, and the Tor a hill island in fenland. Ynys Wydryn, the Isle of Glass. It’s a mythic place: Annwn, gateway to the Celtic Otherworld; Avalon, the magical isle where Excalibur was forged and where the mortally wounded King Arthur was taken after the Battle of Camlann; the Spiral Castle of the King of the Faeries.

St Michael’s church stood atop the Tor until 1275, when an earthquake shook it apart. The tower that stands there now is all that remains of its replacement, built in the 1360s and destroyed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. In that year, on this spot, the Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey and two of his monks were hanged, drawn and quartered, blood spilling into the magical stuff of the land. Christianity has a long history here yet still seems uncomfortable, alien, shattered by geophysical and political earthquakes, surviving only as a spin on more ancient beliefs – holy wells and chalices, votive offerings, liminality, gateways to magical lands.

View from the Tor at dawn

As a lover of The Autherian tale, of Avalon, The Lady of The Lake, the Knights of the Round Table, and Morgana Le Fey;  I for some reason felt a little jolt in myself.  The symbolism just sort of flooded my consciousness for a moment.  The magic of Avalon, is awakening, quaking.  The isle and lake that forged the magic in Excalibur gifted by the Lady of the Lake: what wonders great myths give symbol to.  And today, an Avalon quakes.

I thinks to me self:  What story rises again to reveal more mystery to the noticing observer?  What ‘sword’ rises up for the taking to fight fear away and give clarity to what needs to be known?  Who will lead the way?

This is a site that will give you a very general story of the Isle of Avalon and the celtic tale.

http://www.isle-of-avalon.biz/

Hidden long by disbelief in magic that once was steeped

In tales of joust and warrior feats

An Isle of Glass, a Lady rose from the deep

In the fog the isle disappeared no ears could listen or hear

The veil be drawn tho very near

To be seen and felt with release of fear

Magic is as magic does. Tis ever present ever was

When in the quest belief does pause

The Grail still waits it must because

Tis in this quest a warrior finds beyond the fears that bind

A knowing that the heart reveals

To boat the waters where the deep can heal

A helping hand lifts from the deep awaking you from the sleep

Forgotten power to fears defeat

A sword to clear away what needs release

Oh Avalon rise again, give your magic from where you’ve always been

HIdden from our fear that we

Might be more powerful and at last we see

Beyond the veil of fog and mist to know the joy and what is our bliss

The Wholy Grail may at last be found

We are the mystery at last unbound.

http://villabourani.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/merlin-series-five-locations-speech-house-lake/

http://villabourani.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/merlin-series-five-locations-cannop-ponds/

http://villabourani.wordpress.com/2012/08/01/merlin-series-5-locations-puzzlewood/

The Forest of Dean is a beautiful place to visit and it’s easy to see why the BBC have chosen some of these locations to film.

Until September then:

Beltaine has been and passed… sadly no dancing around the May Pole here, the weather has been atrocious.  I did manage to go out and wash my face in the dew.. well the rain and the dew, was hard to tell.   We have had rain rain and more rain…

Though my days as May Queen have long long passed.  *laughs*

I may have mention before we had to sandbag the doors at time as the rain became a river and flooded down the paths and the ground became sodden. A drought had been called in many places in the UK.  Ironically  just the day before the rains came, but even though the reservoirs are now filled, we may still have issues if the Summer is Hot. The rain came at the wrong time.

Lucky , the drains were cleared, and there were no real catastrophes. Though I did spend one restless night worrying if we were going to come down the next morning to a foot of water. 

OH has stood down from the Ark building at present… though if I am honest I was never sure how he was going to get it up from the cellar!

Mosaic of ‘Building the Ark’ in the Atrium of the
San Marco Basilica in Venice, Italy, dating from the 13th century.

Thankfully, just before we moved in last year, work was undertaken and a new culvert was built for the stream that runs down through the Lum. 

But the rain has been good for the trees – the Avenue is looking exceptionally Green as you can see

We were talking this morning and it’s a year since we were offered the Lodge… how time has passed.

After the wonderful weekend in Norfolk, which I have already told you about, I was away again last weekend.

This time it was in Glastonbury  or the Isle of Avalon as some still refer to it as.  Glastonbury is a wonderful place, with lots of places to visit, such as Chalice Well, Glastonbury Abbey, the Glastonbury Goddess Centre and many more. 

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882). “King Arthur in Avalon.” From: Tennyson, Alfred. Poems. London: Edward Moxon, 1857. P. 119.

A great place to find out where to go, what’s going on and how to get there is the Glastonbury Pilgrim Centre,  which is a not-for-profit organisation, that was formed by a group of local residents in 2007 and is supported by volunteers.

Oh and of course some amazing and wonderful shops- oh and lots of book shops!

[ Image from and copy-write of Blog of Vain Glory Sinner 2011- mine did not come out! - her blog is good fun, full of interesting  posts and she likes some similar things to me. ]

There are some wonderful places to stay in Glastonbury, and I stayed at the most amazing Covenstead, a somewhat unusual B&B, even by Glastonbury’s standards. But one of the most beautiful, amazing and  chilled out places to be.  It’s esoteric and witchcraft themed, and full of the most delectable  curios, and magical items. It’s like a museum, you could spend days just looking at all the items that have been collected and wonderful put together.  there are numerous books to read, and of course the most important [for me] it has wonderfully  comfortable beds to sleep in. 

The owner and her wonderful familiar, OK her beautiful Samoyed dog, Freyja, take fantastic care of the guests, and the breakfasts are amazing.  Nothing is to much bother, and it’s a place I can highly recommend. 

I wish I had taken more photos of it.  but take a look at the website and you can see the standard of the room, all immaculately clean, and all had a wonderful feel to them.

( he was shy and wouldn’t ‘t come into breakfast! )

Why was I there, well I was there for the first ever,  The Hekate Triformis Symposium, 2012.  Which was ‘awesome’… in every meaning of the word.  I had the most wonderful,  magical and spiritual time.  I have come home refreshed and raring to go.

I can’t say much at the moment, I am still processing it, enough to say I have become a Devotee of the Goddess Hekate.   Though in reality, I do believe, as do many of my friends, that she has been in my life for a very long time now.   I have jokingly said that she holds the key to the Lodge, and it was through Her that we arrived here.  I am now sure she does.

The Covenstead B&B were involved and supported the Symposium, and the every morning we were blessed to sit and have our breakfast before a Hekate Altar.  Now this may not be every one’s cup of tea, but we were aware before we sat that there would be an alter.  However, this was spectacular.

I ate and drank out most nights at the George & Pilgrim Pub, which is believed to be one of the oldest Pubs in the South West, and the building dates back to around 1400s, … great food and wonderful company. 

According to Cary’s Travellers Companion(1812) there were two inns at Glastonbury : the White Hart, opposite the Abbey, which dated from the 15th century and still exists and The George Inn This is a view of the centre of the town from a book called The Beauties of England and Wales. It shows the George & Pilgrim, though then just called The George Inn, it is the building with the sign hanging from it, on the left.

A description of Glastonbury from the above book, says:

This town is situated in the Isle of Avalon so called from its apples or from Avallac a British chief said to have first pitched his residence here..Like Wells Glastonbury is indebted for its origin to its monastic institutions which claim the hour of having existed from a period nearly coeval with Christianity. According to the monkish annuals Glastonbury was first instituted by St Joseph of Arimathea who buried the body of our Saviour, and whom Phillip the apostle of Gaul sent to preach the gospel in Britain….

I obviously had to partake of the local beverage.  I mean it would seem rude to go to Somerset and not drink Cider now wouldn’t it!

Flickr: mike warren
The Somerset cider trail: from orchard to glass

So that’s a rather quick update for you….the was, as always more to say, and I am sure I will. today we have some sunshine, and I am off for a wander up to the woods again, with my trust dog,  to see what I can find. I will of course post any images that I take…

*Morte D’Arthur Thomas Malory, ed. Vinaver, p. 716)

During the meditation in my Monday healing circle I was shown something very interesting:

During the times of Avalon, students were trained on the Isle in order to hopefully become initiated priestesses once they completed their training. Intense schooling as well as studies were required. Since Avalon had been moved into the mists in order to protect the sacred teachings, only an initiated priestess could find her way to the Isle. Once the schooling was completed, the priestesses were send away from the Isle and had to find their way back as a part of their initiation process. They had to find their way through the mist in order to get back to the green Isle of Avalon, also symbol for spirituality, higher consciousness and peace. This initiation process was often scary for the young scholars. What was most important for them was to not let fear take over, but to remember the tools they had learned during their training. Only then they would be able to succeed and return to their place of higher consciousness and peace.

During the meditation on Monday I saw many of us still stuck in the mists, overwhelmed by anxiety, the worries of what will happen, the fear of leaving loved ones behind in the process.

The truth though is that we have all the tools we need in order to reconnect with our higher consciousness. We have all the tools we need in order to ascend and find peace. All we need to do is leave the fear behind and step into a place of Divine Trust to allow the Creator to guide us.

The initiation process into the higher consciousness does not have to be fearful, chaotic or painful. Clear whatever comes up. Allow the energy of the Creator to assist you. Allow yourself to feel unconditionally loved and supported by the Divine. All is well!

(Copyright © 2011 by Avalon Healing. This program, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without written permission. Requests for such permission should be addressed to: info@AvalonHealing.de

The intent of this program is to offer information and does not substitute any form of medical or psychological treatment. The use of any information is on your own responsibility and the author assumes no responsibility for your actions.)

There are so many myths associated with Glastonbury that it is difficult

Glastonbury Tor

to know where to begin to talk about them. There are two main streams of legend that surround Glastonbury, though they twine around each other to some degree. The two streams revolve around the romantic figures of Joseph of Arimathea and King Arthur. Let’s take them one at a time.

Joseph of Arimathea
Joseph was the Biblical figure who took Jesus’ body after the crucifixion. According to some legends he was actually Jesus’ uncle, and had visited Britain years before with Jesus in the pursuit of his interests in the tin trade. It appears that there actually was a strong Jewish presence in the west of England at that time, and many of the tin miners may have been Jewish settlers.

At any rate, when Jesus died, Joseph thought it prudent to flee Palestine, and after many travails he came to Britain with a company of followers. He brought with him the Holy Grail, the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper. Some versions of the legend have it that the Grail contained two drops of blood captured from Jesus’ side when he was wounded on the cross.

When Joseph came to Britain he was granted land at Glastonbury by the local king. When he arrived at Glastonbury, Joseph stuck his thorn staff in the earth, whereupon it rooted and burst into bloom. A cutting from that first tree was planted in the grounds of the later Glastonbury Abbey, where it continued to bloom every year therafter at Christmas time. There is still a thorn tree in the Abbey grounds, of a variety native to the Holy Lands, and it does indeed bloom around Christmas time.

Joseph was said to have established the first church in England at Glastonbury, and archaeological records show that there may well have been an extremely early Christian church here. What happened to the Holy Grail is another matter. Some legends have it that Joseph buried the Grail at the foot of Glastonbury Tor, whereupon a spring of blood gushed forth from the ground.

There is a well at the base of the Tor, Chalice Well, and the water that issues from it does indeed have a reddish tinge to it, from the iron content of the water.

Other legends have it that the Holy Grail was interred with Joseph when he died, in a secret grave. The search for the mysterious Grail emerges again and again in the tales of Glastonbury.

Further legends tell that the church founded by Joseph continued for many years. Eventually it became a monastery, and one of the first abbots was the future St Patrick, who was born in the west country.

King Arthur and Glastonbury

Legends of King Arthur swirl about Glastonbury like a tantalizing fog from the nearby Somerset marshes. The nearby hill fort at South Cadbury has long been suggested as the location for Camelot. Indeed, excavations of South Cadbury suggest that it was in use during the early 6th century, which is the likeliest era for the real Arthur to have lived.

The association of Arthur and Glastonbury goes back at least to the early Middle Ages. In the late 12th century the monks of Glastonbury Abbey announced that they had found the grave of Arthur and Guinivere, his queen. According to the monks, an excavation found a stone inscribed “Here lies Arthur, king.” Below the stone they found the bones of a large man, and the smaller skeleton of a woman. The monks reburied the bones in the grounds of the abbey, where they were a very handy draw for pilgrims. The site of the grave can be seen today in the abbey grounds.

Glastonbury Tor, the enigmatic conical hill that rises above Glastonbury, has been linked with the Isle of Avalon, where King Arthur was buried after his death. This isn’t so farfetched as it may sound, for a millennium ago the water level was much higher, and the tor would indeed have been an island. Avalon was also called “the isle of glass” which does suggest similarities to the name “Glastonbury”.

The Holy Grail, the object of Arthur’s questing, is said to be buried beneath Glastonbury Tor, and has also been linked to Chalice Well at the base of the Tor.

One final myth of Arthur at Glastonbury: the landscape around Glastonbury is said to have been moulded and shaped so that the features (such as roads, churches, and burial mounds) create a zodiac calendar replete with Arthurian symbology. Like so many of the Arthurian myths, so much is open to interpretation and your own predisposition to believe or disbelieve.

Glastonbury Abbey
Is there a place more steeped in legend and myth than Glastonbury? Probably not. Legend holds that the earliest church here was founded by St. Joseph of Arimathea in about 60AD, and that when he planted his staff in the earth a thorn tree burst forth.

In the grounds of the ruined Benedictine monastery there is a thorn tree of a variety common to the Middle East which is given to bloom around Christmas time.

By the late Middle Ages Glastonbury had become the richest abbey in England, due to the heavy pilgrimage trade. It was rich enough to build an inn for well-to-do pilgrims (the George Inn, on nearby High Street, which still welcomes guests 500 years later). The best preserved building in the abbey grounds is the old Abbot’s Kitchen (see photo), a curious square building which appears round due to its octagonal roof. In the abbey grounds are the reputed graves of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, which were conveniently discovered by the Glastonbury monks in the 12th century, when the abbey needed a financial boost. Outside the grounds are the abbey tithe barn, which now serves as the Somerset Rural Life Museum (well worth a visit), and 4 miles away at Mere is the abbey’s Fish House, were fish was salted and cured.

The abbey is entered through the Abbey Gatehouse  an imposing arched gateway located on off Magdalene Street. Visitors pass through a fascinating museum depicting life at Glastonbury during the Middle Ages, and then enter the Abbey grounds proper. The first building you see on entering the grounds is St Mary’s Chapel, a roofless structure that boasts wonderful architectural details, from the recessed arches of the door to the repetitive arcading that rings the interior. Look up, where the curious small towers at each corner of the chapel seem almost Georgian in style.

If you continue past the chapel you will soon reach the Abbot’s Kitchen, probably the most recognizable symbol of the Abbey, and subject of numerous postcards! This is a peculiar building, with a high octagonnal tower over a square base bedecked with gargoyles. The interior is notable for the very large ovens and the high dome supported on reed-thin vaulting ribs.

Return from the Abbot’s Kitchen towards St Mary’s Chapel and you will pass a small sign on the green lawn. This marks the old burial ground, where, in the 12th century, monks conveniently found bones beneath an engraved stone indicating the burial place of legendary King Arthur. The bones and those presumed to belong to Arthur’s queen, Guinivere, were reburied within the Abbey Church, where a small memorial can be seen.

The grounds of Glastonbury Abbey emanate a sense of calm and peace; it is truly a magical place, and taken as a whole with the other attractions of this ancient town, make Glastonbury well worth an extended visit.

Visitor Information
Glastonbury Abbey
The Abbey Gatehouse
Magdalene Street
Glastonbury
Somerset
UK
BA6 9EL
Web: http://www.glastonburyabbey.com
Email: nfo@glastonburyabbey.com
 
Join us on a private guided tour of the West Country.   Visit Glastonbury, Stonehenge and Avebury Stone Circle.

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Glastonbury from the Somerset mainland

Researching for a tour, I’ve been trying to unpack the stratigraphy of Glastonbury’s hoary mythology. Given the complexities, this can’t be much more than provisional, but I’ve not seen it put down in one place quite like this before, so here goes.

Solid, attested archaeology at Glastonbury starts on the Tor, with a high status settlement of the C5 or 6 for which the best bet is a religious function: that is, a ‘Celtic monastery’. It only moves to the lower, abbey site around 700, when we have both documentary and archaeological evidence for the activities of Ine, King of Wessex: portions of his church lie underground towards the west end of the current abbey, for example. They stretched from the current ruined west wall at least as far as the  north porch.  Anything older? Well, the so-called hypogeum, perhaps some kind of a relic holder, beneath the altar of this church might or might not have already been there; and the well a little way west, given its location, is interesting. Ponter’s Ball, the linear earthwork isolating the Isle from the mainland, could be early medieval or iron age, but until there’s something iron age to put with it we should go for the former option. There are other possibilities, but nothing solid.

Except for one thing, and it’s the most important thing of all. Ine’s church, we are (much later) told, deliberately east of another structure, which was already there. The archaeology supports this. What was it? More anon.

Anyway, Ine’s church is enlarged twice over the ensuing centuries, the most important and ambitious coming during or after the abbacy of Dunstan, church reformer and future archbishop of Canterbury, one of the most important figures in Anglo-Saxon church history. The conventual buildings were rebuilt, too, around a quad which (though we don’t know if it had walks) may count as Britain’s first cloister, and one of the earliest anywhere.

Dunstan’s interesting for another reason: one version of his Life, written between 995 and 1005, mentions very briefly the idea that Glastonbury was founded by ‘neophytes’ — early Christian missionaries — but that they found a church on the site already, ‘built by no human skill’, and dedicated to Christ and St Mary. This is important: it is our earliest indication that the community believed itself to have uniquely early and semi-miraculous origins. It’s reasonable to assume they linked these origins to the rectangular structure that lay west of Ine’s church. Like all the Glastonbury stories, this one will now run and run, colliding with others and gathering narrative moss over the centuries.

By the Conquest the abbey was the richest in England, with vital links to the crown: three Anglo-Saxon kings were buried there, and six abbots had gone on to be archbishop’s of Canterbury. Its effectively owned the Somerset levels, running them almost as a seperate fiefdom, especially the core patrimony known as the Twelve Hides. In all these respects there are close comparisons with Ely.

The Norman Conquest is not a happy time for Glastonbury. In 1083 several monks were killed at the high altar by henchmen working for the first Norman abbot, who had attempted reform and was subsequently returned to Normandy under a cloud. He began rebuilding the church, but didn’t get beyond the east end, so it was left to the less controversial C12 abbot Herlewin and after him the mighty Henry of Blois, abbot of Glastonbury and bishop of Winchester, to knock down his predecesor’s work (and, if this had not already happened, the hoary anglo-saxon church too — but not the wooden structure to its west) and start again. The resulting church must have been one of the most ambitious and exquisite works of hte era.

At the same time — to be precise, after 1129 – William of Malmesbury was asked to produce a history focusing on the abbey’s claim to hold the relics of many saints and to establish its venerable nature. Here we have a classic Glastonbury-story-problem: his text, by far the most important document we have for its earliest history, exists only in a version produced by the monks much later (after 1184? or even after 1230?) and into which much has been inserted. However an effective precis survives in another work by him, the Deeds of the English kings, and its essentials are clear. He fleshed out the story mentioned in Dunstan’s Life, dating the coming of the ‘neophytes’ to 167 (when he had evidence for an early mission to the British), making it clear that the structure west of Ine’s church was indeed believed to be theirs, and was still there, and built of wattle and daub — but distancing himself from the claim that it was miraculously built, a claim which by now seems to include Christ’s disciples. And he asserted the presence of several other saints, perhaps most significantly Patrick of Ireland. Later the abbey would claim to hold Dunstan, too: it’s two main cults where both controversial, with very strong claimants to holding the relics elsewhere.  For all its wealth and power, this lies at the heart of Glastonbury’s history: more saints than anywhere (excepting perhaps Canterbury), yet unlike anywhere else with its profile, no truly major cult, and much that was from the first contested. *Are* we the first Christian church in Britain? *Do* we hold the relics of all these people? The narrative stones roll on. One of the spin-off documents produced after Malmesbury did his work, but still in the 1130s/50s, was a life of one of these saints, Gildas. This, by another author, introduced a new thread in the Glastonbury story: Arthur.

Then came a calamity. In 1184 the entire church, which can only have been a few decades old, burnt to the ground. In some ways even more importantly, its relics, documents and treasures where destroyed. The response is rapid, and energetic: within two years the ancient wooden church, known as the Old Church or Vetusta Ecclesia, was replaced by a small and sumptuous new one, the Lady chapel. This stands, roofless, and is one of the most exhaustingly ornate and important buildings of late twelfth-century England, the figure sculpture of its two doorways (north, facing the lay cemetery: very unusual birth and nativity of Christ; south, facing the monastic cemetery, but unfinished: Genesis stories) the very best the era could produce: a kind of stone shrine. The new main church was rebuilt, too, and completed rapidly, at least as far as the crossing: this uses gothic motifs, deliberately ignored in the Lady chapel, and appears to have had a modish Great Order elevation.

Then things slow down: the nave lay incomplete, the last stages of building with a cheaper stone. The most likely explanation is that royal support, funding this gret burst of energy, was withdrawn on the death of Henry II. He certainly seems to have had a posthumous hand in the monks’ response, the discovery in 1191 of King Arthur and Guinevere, buried 16ft beneath one of several Anglo-Saxon ‘pyramids’ (presumably obelisk-like carved stones) which stood in the monks’ graveyard to the south of the Old Church/Lady chapel. This seems to have been the last in a line of relics to have been ‘found’ after the fire, and also one of the most audacious, with none other than Gerald of Wales, self-publicist, raconteur and senior churchman, on hand to write an account. This entertaining eye-witness report tells us how Arthur and his wife were translated into the main church; it also for the first time equates Glastonbury with Avalon, a land that had cropped up in Arthurian texts forthe first time (unconnected to Glastonbury) earlier in the century. Lots of context here: the dramatic effects of the cult of Thomas Becket; the need for the Welsh, currently in mid (and ultimately incomplete) subjugation, to know their hero-king really is dead. And most of all, if speculatively, the loss of Henry II is a body blow to the fabric fund.

A new crisis blows up, with major financial implications: a series of bishops of Bath try to make Glastonbury their cathedral, or at least bring it to heel within the crisis; one result is their moving of the main seat of their see to nearby Wells; another is an agreement with the pope that must have deprived our abbey of considerable resources.  But Glastonbury retained much of its independence: ironically, if it had not, we might today have a Glastonbury cathedral standing in central Somerset.

This era, effectively the C12, is thus a dramatic and transformative one for the abbey, and our understanding of everything before it has to be seen through the prism of this C12 context. And the C12 is a transformative time for society in general: from town planning to intellectual activity, crusades to cults (not least Mary), the world was moving fast. 

Still, by the 1190s the east end is functioning – this is new stuff, dependent on work which hass now turned into a thorough review of the archaeology which may well throw up more new insights - and the monks appear to have made do with half a nave for the next century or more. They did, however, contrsuct a west front and a structure linking the Lady chapel to the main church, the Galilee: it’s variously dated but late C13 is the best bet. Now the Lady chapel was part of the church itself; whether the Galilee has a seperate function or simply enlarges the Lady chapel space is unclear. Its rather unusual, this blocking of the west front, and reflects somehow the significance and use of the Lady chapel.

During the C13, too, our various rolling mythological stones gather more moss, in the form of new versions of old charters, a compilation of texts called the Libellus, and a new chronicle, the latter written late in the century by Adam of Damerham. Among them is the first mention of a new figure, Joseph of Arimethea, and the idea that it was he who led our neophytes to Glastonbury, now dated as early as AD 63. By the time John of Glastonbury wrote a second chronicle, dated varyingly from ‘after 1340′ to ‘c.1400′, Joseph has become the bearer of two cruets containing the blood and sweat of the crucified Christ, and a also a lineal forefather of king Arthur. The rolling stones are colliding. Indeed unsuccessful hunts for Joseph’s body on the site were made in 1345 and 1367 and a chapel of St Michael re-dedicated to him in the cemetery in 1382.

Meanwhile, other developments: in 1243 an annual fair (one of four held at Glastonbury) was licensed on the Tor, which must have also been a site of religious significance as a church (St Michael) there fell down in an earth movement in 1275, the resulting tower being part of its C14 and C15 replacement. The only sense we get that the Tor had retained any special associations before this is that one of the forged charters of the C13 reinvents the story of an ancient wooden church being discovered, but making the discoverer Patrick and the site of the church, the Tor. While the Tor’s dramatic form cannot have made it just-another-hill, and the chapel on top if it makes much of its location (making it a cousin to St Michael’s Mount, St Michael de Rupe Brentor, and etc) it’s also worth remembering there were a number of other small churches and chapels on the Isle, at least two of which, St Benignus in Glastonbury, and a chapel at Beckery, are also known to have had anglo-saxon origin; such sub-sites in an important monastic landscape are not unusual, and there may be more to uncover here. So the modern focus on the Tor chapel is to some extent an act of selection, or (perhaps this is a better way of putting it) of reaction to the underlying form of the landscape.

Edward I and Guinevere, in mid-conquering of Wales, attended a solemn translation of Arthur and Guinevere to the choir of the main church in 1278; subsequent to this they lay in a grand sepulchre before the high altar, which also had the tombs of three Anglo-Saxon kinds around it. The church itself may not have drawn to completion until 1335, when the nave vault was completeed and painted; we hear of the installation of a grand new pulpitum screen around this time, too. A remarkable north porch, perhaps with a tower, went with the nave: the tower element was an afterthought. Somewhere between 1342 and 74/5, abbot Monington ‘did a Gloucester’ and recased the choir in a modish Perpendicular style: very modish indeed if this took place early in his abbacy: if only we knew. He also built a five-chapel square ended retroquite, remarkable for its archaeological faithufulness to the building of 1184 it abuts. There were two new shrines to St Dunstan, the second of which (1508) sparked a reigniting of an ancient dispute with Canterbury over who really had the poor man’s bones.

This era, c1500, effectively the abbacy of Abbot Beere, is an interesting one. He strengthened the area under the crossing (St Andrew’s arches) and vaulted the tower; after a visit to Italy he built a chapel of Our Lady of Loretto, apparently in a location of the nortth transept that mirrors England’s own Holy House, and its other great marian cult site, Walsingham. This may be partly, it seems to me, because he hollowed out the area beneath the Lady chapel at the Galilee and created a crypt dedicated to St Joseph of Arimethea, and the chapel as a whole soon came to be known as his. So Glastonbury didn’t have a Lady chapel. This crypt was a popular place to be buried, located as it was within the earth on which was by now known by one and all to have been the site of the oldest church in the country. It also obliterated any archaeological traces that church might have left. And it included a circulation route (possibly for priests rather than laity) that provided access to the intriguing (and C12 detailed) well immediately adjacent to it. There’s nothing unusual about a church being situated next to or incorporating a built-in source of fresh water, indeed it is well-nigh essential for a great church, but nevertheless the presence of this natural feature precisely on the site that is the tap root of our story is very interesting. And Beere also built a chapel in the location of a normal Lady chapel: at the east end, and dedicated to Edgar, Dunstan’s king and a key figure in Anglo-Saxon history. This was completed under abbot Whiting, and one wonders if (like the tomb of Prince Osric at Gloucester) it wasn’t designed to not-so-gently remind the king that Glastonbury held royal tombs. For that king was Henry VIII, and radical change was in the air.

The Dissolution of Glastonbury was late and terrible. Whiting was very competent many as well a powerful one; the monks of his great disciplined commune performed their offices and lived their disciplined, ritualised life style effectively and committedly right to the end. He played a passive-aggressive game of cat-and-mouse with the authorities, avoiding both complete compliance and confrontation, even after all the other monastic houses in Somerset had been dissolved. In the end the authorities snapped, found a charge to try him on, and had him hung, drawn and quartered (with a couple of other monks) on top of the Tor in 1539. His head was stuck over the Abbey gate; his quarters were displayed in the key towns of the county. Glastonbury was by then the second richest abbey in the country, after Westminster: now, its monks were pensioned off and the church left to rot. Its church in its post-1184 form was the biggest in south west England, though a strippling compared to such giants as Winchester, Canterbury or York; but the C13 building of the Galilee and the only-just-done-in-time Edgar chapel made it surely the longest church in the land, if only for a few years.

Here starts what to me is one of the most intriguing, and least investigated, parts of our story. What happens when one creates an enormous architectural and institutional vaccum in the middle of all this layered and cross-fertilising mythology, and at the heart of a spectacular landscape? And does so at a time when religious ideas (and then religion itself) are in flux in a way never seen before?

What happens is that many of our narratives: the abbey’s claim to be the oldest church in the country, and the first church anywhere dedicated to Mary, and to have apostolic and/or supernatural founders, and to be Avalon, the burial place of Arthur — keep rolling, and colliding, and splitting into new sub-plots; while some of the others, such as its claims to Dunstan and Patrick, evaporate. And the geographical and institutional centre of the story becomes a ruin, living its edge to sprout new myths. Glastonbury has a hole in its heart that the last half millenium has been trying (rather succesfully of late) to fill.

I can only trace the outlline. I cannot even find the date of one key development: the addition of Christ himself to Joseph of Arimethea’s church-founding party, and the conflation of Joseph’s cruets with the Arthurian grail and the location of both somewhere on the Isle. Is it post-Reformation, or from the Life of Joseph produced at the abbey in 1520? Certainly that text is the first to mention (though it doesn’t connect it to Joseph) the existence of a thorn at Glastonbury that flowers in winter. It’s not Joseph’s thorn, his miraculously-flowering staff, until the mid-seventeenth century, it seems; there’s a kind of floral recusancy lurking in the way this humble tree gradually becomes the focus, with cuttings of it prized around the country, even as all those mighty structures of stone and gold had vanished. And there’s a kind of healing cult in the claims in 1751 that the well beneath the tor, known to the monks but not known to have had any special significance for them (remarkable though it is as a spring, both for its colour and for its abundance), cured one man’s asthma, resulting in a brief but intense role for Glastonbury as a spa and ongoing interest in marketing its waters.

But Glastonbury’s modern rebirth starts at the end of the C19, and thus at the dawn of an incrasinly post-religious, or at least post-Christian, cultural era. The rediscovery of the well next to the Old Church/Vetusta Ecclesia/Lady chapel/St Joseph’s chapel in 1825 bought rumours of a ‘holy wells’. The beatification of abbot Whiting and his brothers in 1895 led to the first Catholic pilgrimage. In 1886 a group of Catholic missionaries occupied Chalice Well House, perhaps coining the new name for what medeival people had called the Chilcewell. Bligh Bond’s excavations from 1908 are a key stage in the process by which the abbey ruins became an ‘open’ site and the remains of the church understood; their later morphing into spirit-guided investigation a harbinger of what’s to come. Indeed Bligh Bond installed the spiritually syncrestic vesica motif to cover the Chalice Wells after the war, in 1919. Alice Buckton had tried, but failed, to make the Well the site of an English Bayreuth, focusing on Arthur rather than the Ring, from 1912: in 1958 the Chalice  Well Trust was formed: what could have been a cultural site or a Catholic one was heading in the direction which today makes it a major new sacred element in the landscape, cross-faith in a generalised New Age way. I’m serious here: my visit yesterday showed it to be a beautiful place, frequented by a huge range of people, easily outgrowing its roots in post-war counterculture. Other new myths appear concurrently: Katherine Maltwood ‘identifies’ the memorable but laughably specious ‘Glastonbury Zodiac’ as a 10-mile across landscape feature in 1935; the 1971 argument that the Tor’s many terraces (lynchets or natural?) traced a specific maze pattern known to neolithic man has better ‘legs’ archaeologically (though both have worked well as new mythologies, which is a compliment), though the lack of firm prehistoric evidence of any kind on the Isle itself is a major issue here: if there is a maze, could it not be late medieval? And finally, the Glastonbury Free Festival of 1971, now Glastonbury Fayre, at Pilton (so not really part of this story at all) is a cultural event that is becoming, gradually, a physical structure as well: both perimeter wall (which now frighteningly Gaza-like from the A361) and pyramid stage have some real permanency. Somehow, just as Anglo-Catholicism and other Christianities have colonised the post-Dissolution Walsingham void, the New Age/spiritual-without-a-dogma has colonised Glastonbury, remaking old myths as creatively and with as much abandon as all its predecessors. Doubly ironic, then, that it is at blue-blood, stolid Anglican Wells, still standing just down the road, that archaeology (rather than mythology) suggests a sacred site by a spring might have become an early Christian site and the tap root of all that follows.

REVISION: July 2011. In preparing for a further tour of Glastonbury, I’ve deleted a paragraph here that related to John Dee’s visit in the C16: it seems this is the result of a confused C19 biography of Edward Kelly, and the event is almost certain never to have taken place. Dee wrote a little about Glastonbury, but it seems there is no evidence he ever visited the site.

A photo montage video I made a couple of years ago about King Arthur.

Chapter 5

The Character of Mordred 

            The name of Mordred is synonymous with traitor to those familiar with the Arthurian legends. If ever a cursed figure has existed in literature, it is Mordred, for how can one feel sorry for him when he is the murderer of King Arthur, the greatest, most noble king Britain ever had? Yet Mordred was not always an evil character in the legends. In the Welsh tradition, he was even honorable and admired.

The earliest written source we have for Mordred is the tenth century Annales Cambriae where it states that Arthur and Mordred fell at Camlann in 539, but no mention is made of their relationship or their being on opposite sides. Mordred may only be mentioned as falling with Arthur because he was one of the highest and greatest members of King Arthur’s court.

Sir Mordred

Whether Mordred was actually Arthur’s nephew before Geoffrey of Monmouth’s writings cannot be determined; in “The Dream of Rhonabwy,” he is mentioned as Arthur’s nephew (Jones, Mabinogion, 140), but this Welsh tale could have been influenced by Geoffrey of Monmouth since it was not written down until the fourteenth century. Furthermore, we must notice that Mordred is described in the above passage as a “kingly” knight, and later he is grouped with the King of Denmark. “Kingly” would seem to mean that Mordred was himself a king, or at least of royal blood. He would be royal if he were the son of Arthur’s sister and King Lot; possibly, he would have even inherited a kingdom upon his father’s death. In some later versions of the legend, he was supposed to inherit Arthur’s throne, as will be further discussed in Chapter 9; therefore, the hint that Mordred may have been a king could be well founded.

Mordred’s ability to persuade people so that none could refuse him may need to be looked at a little more hesitantly. It sounds almost as if he were capable of manipulating people, but this interpretation may be false reading between the lines in an attempt to find sarcasm where it was not intended. Such a negative interpretation was often used by the later romancers in their portraits of Mordred. They may have simply been misinterpreting what the Welsh had said of Mordred, or the person who wrote these Welsh traditions down may have been fusing the Welsh traditions with other more recent concepts of Mordred’s character.

One quality attributed to Mordred that we cannot overlook is his purity. Mordred is perhaps the last character in the legends one would expect to have been pure. In Geoffrey of Monmouth, Mordred is so far from purity that he is trying to force Guinevere into marriage with him. However, the sin of marrying his father’s wife is a sin Mordred originally seems innocent of having committed since it is not mentioned in any of the earlier Welsh versions of the legend.

One final clue to what may have been Mordred’s true character is that the Welsh Triads give two reasons for the Battle of Camlann. One of these is the blow Gwenhyvar struck to Gwenhwyvach, said to be her sister in “Culhwch and Olwen” (Jones, Mabinogion, 106). The other, surprisingly enough, is the blow Arthur gave to Mordred (Guest, Mabinogion, 343). Here it appears as if Mordred is not even at fault, but rather Arthur! Does this statement mean Mordred is the good guy or on the right side in the battle? This interpretation may seem impossible, but we must keep it in mind because it will need to be further explored when we discuss the Battle of Camlann. Since the passage does not give Arthur’s reason for striking Mordred, it could also be interpreted that Mordred started the trouble and Arthur was merely retaliating.

Although the Welsh tales do depict Mordred as rebelling against Arthur, it is strange that if they were influenced by Geoffrey of Monmouth, they would have said so many nice things about Mordred which Geoffrey does not credit to Mordred. The writing of the Welsh tales may have been influenced by Geoffrey of Monmouth’s The History of the Kings of Britain, but they may have also been drawing on independent Welsh traditions from which Geoffrey may have also drawn. Perhaps Geoffrey only borrowed the negative aspects of Mordred’s character, while The Mabinogion presents Mordred as a more rounded and realistic character.

Geoffrey of Monmouth’s portrayal of Mordred as completely evil allowed Geoffrey’s successors to exaggerate this wickedness to extremes. Mordred’s character became darkest when the author of the Mort Artu (1205) decided to make him the child of incest. As we have seen, this incestuous birth may have been an almost forgotten tradition about Mordred; however, it also could have been invented to degrade Mordred further. A person born of incest was viewed as being nothing short of a devil by the Christian writers of the Middle Ages; these writers viewed Mordred’s incestuous birth as an act of lust, and through this act of lust, even greater lust was conceived; therefore, Mordred became the most despicable, lustful character in the romances, quickly losing his last good characteristic, his purity.

A few examples of the lustful deeds attributed to Mordred during the Middle Ages can be found in the Huth Merlin and Claris et Laris. In the former, Mordred is so lacking in gratitude toward his host that he seduces the girl who is his host’s amie (Bruce, Evolution vol. 2, 345). Even worse than seducing maidens, in Claris et Laris, Mordred attempts to rape a girl, but she is rescued before he can succeed. Later in the romance, he again attempts to rape a girl, but he is foiled in his attempt when the girl turns out to be a knight in disguise (Bruce, Evolution vol. 2, 271, 273). And of course Mordred is guilty of making attempts against Guinevere, which will be further explored in Chapters 6 and 7.

One reason why all this evil may have been attributed to Mordred could go back to our earlier discussion of his name origins. The Welsh form of Mordred’s name was Medraut or Medrawt, but it was later changed to Mordred, the Mor part of his name suggesting connotations to various European words for the sea. The stories of Mordred’s connection to the sea may have caused writers to believe he had some connection to death, specifically by drowning—hence his rescue from drowning at birth, so they borrowed from this new suggestive meaning in his name to depict him as evil. Of course, it could be that the name change was the result of writers wanting a name that more accurately depicted his already established evil character. In any case, Mordred’s character makes a change for the worse at approximately the same time as his name passes from the form of Medraut to Mordred.

Mordred’s wickedness, rather than growing into a more grotesque depiction, has received more sympathy from modern writers. We now live in an age of psychology where we look at the environment of the child that formed the adult. Consequently, trying to understand Mordred’s villainous behavior has provided him with a degree of sympathy; after all, how can he help hating his father, when that father tried to drown him, and furthermore, he must deal with the knowledge that he is the child of incest?

In some of the modern fiction, Mordred even appears to be regretful of his evil ways prior to the Battle of Camlann. Often he appears to be the victim of fate, trapped in a situation he is unable to avoid (Lacy, Arthurian Encyclopedia, 394). Even when he is not a sympathetic character, some writers depict him as not being completely at fault for the Battle of Camlann. Writers over the centuries, from Sir Thomas Malory to Mary Stewart in her novel The Wicked Day (1983), have arranged a meeting between Arthur and Mordred before the Battle of Camlann. In The Wicked Day, it is decided that Mordred will be king after Arthur’s death and have lands of his own until that time. In both Malory and Stewart, the Battle of Camlann begins during this meeting. While Mordred and Arthur are negotiating, one of their soldiers steps on an adder, which then attacks him; the soldier’s reflex is to draw his sword and kill the snake. The flash of the sword, at the same time Arthur happens to raise his arm, is interpreted by the two armies as the sign to start the battle, and so the wicked day begins. Here Mordred, although desiring the kingdom, was at least trying to make peace with Arthur so there need be no more battles, but it is Mordred and Arthur’s fate to slay each other, as Merlin predicted would happen when Mordred was born.

Occasionally in the modern texts, Mordred is even seen as having a purpose besides his own selfish desires for the throne. In The Mists of Avalon (1982), he is the arm of his mother, Morgan le Fay, sent to punish King Arthur for betraying the Isle of Avalon and forgetting his vows to the Goddess. Although Morgan seems a little fanatical at times in this work, the reader always sympathizes with her and so Mordred comes out on what is viewed as the side of good.

Perhaps the most unusual view of Mordred lies not so much in whether he was a good or an evil person, but in the theory that he, and not Arthur, was the rightful King of Britain, which would give a new understanding to his actions, making them merely an attempt to regain what was rightfully his. This interesting theory will be discussed more fully in Chapter 9. First, let us follow our chronological scheme of study and see what lies behind the tale of Mordred’s abduction of Guinevere since that is generally one of the causes for the Battle of Camlann.

For more information about Mordred or to purchase a copy of King Arthur’s Children, visit www.ChildrenofArthur.com

________________________

Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D. is the author of King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, available at www.ChildrenofArthur.com

Early December 2010

I am living a bad dream. Strewn across my bed are papers. Life insurance documents, sympathy cards, bank statements, and a copy of a death certificate. Carefully maneuvering around my disaster of a bedroom, my cat stumbles and knocks clutter I have no desire to pack onto the floor that needs a good vacuum. It has been years since I allowed my room to get this messy, not that it is ever very clean, but I seem to have outdone myself. For weeks I have thought I need to clean my room, it will help me feel better, but I could not bring myself to. I wanted the clutter. I wanted it to feel lived in. I didn’t want to move anything because the rest of my home was invaded and emptied way too quickly. However, today it was time to take a step. Three boxes packed, a bag of trash dumped, and sorted paperwork declared this day as the day I began to leave the only security I have ever known.

Exactly 12 weeks after my grandfather died, my father died. I lived in this condo with him. Right now, he should have a repeat of “Two and a Half Men” on in the living room. He should be sitting in his brown chair, and the home should be filled with his laughter. Later, his snoring would carry back to my bedroom, and then I would go and say, “DAD! Go to bed!” He would come to slightly, wave with his hand, reply “yeah, yeah” and ignore me. Then I would continue to call out to him until he began the process of getting up and going to his bed. We had a life together. We had our ways, our stubbornness, and our great sense of humor. I found him comforting, annoying, funny, not funny, and I always wanted him to take better care of himself. He put up with my moods, my late night phone calls from the bus, and my nagging. Over four years ago, I moved in with him. This has been the longest period of time we have lived together since I turned six. I cherish these years. Though he never was really able to take care of me emotionally, he was able to provide me with the space and security for me to conquer my depression and build a new healthy life for myself. My whole life, he was always there. Always a phone call away. This home was my sanctuary.

There are so many stories I could share from the past several weeks. At this point, all I want to say is that despite the amount of love you may have in your life, grieving is a horrible, lonely process, and what many don’t realize is that long before it gets better, it gets worse. Much worse. And not everyone will show you sincerity or kindness.

Mid December 2010

I was nowhere near as productive as I meant to push myself to be. Adrenaline had been my fuel, but the crash left me in bed alone and lost. I got rid of my boyfriend, whose unkindness was flat out unnecessary. A coward in the end, his sad, guilty eyes looked into mine right before I turned and walked out. My first poly relationship was a bit of a bust, but I suppose it did serve its purpose. No regrets and no desires for monogamy in my near future. According to a beautiful psychic, I wont be ready for a serious relationship of any sorts for around a year, and I should just have fun. Amen, sister! Bring on the lovers and new friends who in their own unique ways will inspire steps towards my infinite goal: to live life and to inspire and guide those who need it. Do to others what I want others to do to me. Interpret as you will, though I hear your dirty thoughts and am right there with you.

Every plan I came up with to move forward has not worked. I give up. No more plans. I feel as though a door is going to present itself soon, and all I simply need to do is pack up the condo and be ready to step out that front door and through another. The world is open to me. I don’t actually have to get a job yet. Thank you, life insurance. All I know is that I might feel horribly disappointed with myself if I don’t go and do something that terrifies me. Truly, what is left to fear? I’ve lost the most important person in the world to me. How strange I never realized before that he held that title, but if anyone were to hold it, it would have been my dad.

A series of events led me out of my bed funk. It started with a brilliant idea from a friend. You see I feel the urge to write. I feel that it is what I need to do with myself at this point. But I am full of procrastinations and bullshit excuses. My friend looked right through me and said, “You need deadlines.” YES! He was so right! Unfortunately, I can set a deadline with myself, but I wont hold myself accountable, and therefore, I am my own worst boss. In a stroke of genius, my friend recommended choosing someone where I would have to give him or her $50 if I didn’t reach my deadline. Why did the Universe never embark such wisdom to me before this moment? Of course! The two greatest motivators are money and sex. I declared him my “Deadline Man”, and finally managed to finish my background short story about my character “Mary”.

Shortly after the “Deadline Man” infiltrated my psyche, I had lunch with another friend. His wisdom: “There is no ‘perfect’ choice, but there is ‘good enough for now’, and ‘good enough’ will turn out to be exactly that. Just make a choice.” Granted, I have not made any choices in my life yet, but I am gearing up and telling myself that I simply will make a choice and it will be ‘good enough’. Nothing is ever permanent. I can always make a different choice later. As I made my way home, my mind was blowing up from all the shared insights. I felt less alone, and inside me a determination was growing.

The following night was a true turning point. It’s called breath work. Do it. The journey I went on was profound, and at this point I am choosing to keep it off the web.

January 2011

AI have been guided to leave the country. I am heading to the Isle of Avalon to attend Shamanic Practitioner Training. Finally, I am going to train in healing. Many have declared that I am a healer, but I am focusing on it for this next chapter of my life.

February 28 ,2011

Currently, I am sitting in a tiny room at Healing Waters in Glastonbury, England. Out the window is the Isle of Avalon. The legend of King Arthur was born from this land, as well as many other myths. Truly, my intuition guided me hear. I can feel that this is exactly where I need to be right now in my life. So much didn’t work out for continuing my life in Seattle. I knew I needed to stop trying to control moving forward in that city and let the Universe take me down my path.

Getting to Glastonbury was easy. More proof that I was meant to come here can be found in the fact that the week and weekend before I left I was surrounded by the flu and a horrible cold, yet didn’t even get a tiny bit sick. One stress occurred while waiting at Sea-Tac Airport when I discovered online that someone had somehow used my debit card number and pin to charge about $3,000 to places on the other side of the country. No idea how this happened, but the charges went through right when I arrived in England, and because they had used my daily limit, I was not able to access cash. Thank Goddess, I had a credit card and a bit of American money that I could exchange. That royally sucked, but the actual traveling by plane, train, and bus part went just fine. Also, how fortunate that I am staying in Glastonbury for a couple of weeks, so my new card can be mailed to me. However, I tend to be an incredible worrier, and by the time I got to Healing Waters, I was exhausted and stressed. A lovely woman named Noa, who is Israeli and helping Juliet run Healing Waters, met me. Noa asked me why I traveled here. Uh-oh. The floodgates opened as I told her my dad died, and I had no idea what I was doing. In that emotional moment, I completely forgot about my Shamanic Practitioner Training. I felt scared, sad, and vulnerable. Noa gave me a big, long hug. I have had more incredible hugs here in the past five days than I have had in the past few months. People here know how to hug and aren’t afraid of letting a hug last. I am in the land of healers, where touching heart charkas is seen as a beautiful thing, not an awkward moment. Noa invited me to go to a movie with her and Juliet if I didn’t want to be alone. I was warmed by that kind offer, but all I wanted was to take a bath and go to sleep. She hugged me goodbye and told me in our embrace that she could already tell that I am an amazing person. The rest of my night consisted of tears, an incredible Jacuzzi bath with color therapy lights, and deep sleep.

The next morning I slowly forced myself to rise. The bath had kept my soreness from my heavy backpack to a minimum. Luckily, I had scheduled a two-hour massage for the next day. It was my gift to my body. Down in the kitchen, I made my breakfast and tried to stop my brain from worrying about money, which was not going so well. One of the therapists who use the meditation room for healing sessions came in and made some tea. Her name was Anne, and she also was interested in why I traveled so far. The tears started again, but just a few. She said I must be “knackered” from my travels. I was so out of it, that I didn’t understand, and she rephrased, “tired”. As I ate, I knew I needed the internet and a phone to take care of my debit card issues. Noa said I could ask Juliet, who lives a few doors down, if I could use hers. The problem was that terror and anxiety were starting to get the best of me. After I got dressed, I suddenly felt incapacitated. I thought I might have a full-blown panic attack. Deep down, I knew everything was fine. My card issue would work out, and I had resources. I kept thinking I wanted to go home, but reminded myself that although I have family and a couple of friends back in Seattle, I didn’t actually have a home anymore. Just a storage unit. Finally, I gave myself permission to stay in bed all day if I wanted to. On the bed, trying to breathe, I let my brain run with all its thoughts. Finally, I heard “Be the strong, resourceful young woman you are”. It was on repeat, and I started to feel the anxious energy flow out of my body. Breathing helped, and the shift finished. I got up, got my stuff together, and made my way to Juliet’s where I was greeted with amazing kindness and generosity.

After my new card was arranged to be mailed, I had a lovely lunch with Noa, and then we went and explored the Glastonbury Abbey together. Not much is left of the Abbey, but it was incredible. I am loving the architecture here! I can feel the richness of the history, and the energy in Glastonbury is different than anything I have ever experienced. Apparently, Glastonbury is located at the heart chakra of the Earth. Once I heard that, I smiled knowing that this was probably a huge reason to why I, like many others, was guided here.

There is so much more to be said about my first few days here and the months leading up to now. But I am here. I am journaling again and sorting my thoughts. I am blogging. I am healing. I don’t feel new. I feel as though I am finally returning to myself. The self I have always been and had to fight dark energies to try and stay true to. I can look to my past and see how everything that has happened was a part of this path to lead me here. Finally, those dark energies that I tried to bring light to are not surrounding me, and I can simply embrace myself.

~Morgy

http://www.healing-waters.co.uk/

I have been a fan of Arthurian legend and medieval history since I read one of the definitive books of all time on the subject at least 20 years ago. That book was the late feminist, Marion Zimmer Bradley’s classic, The Mists of Avalon. There is something about the romance, mysticism, adventure and chivalry of this time period that resonates with me deep in my soul. I am quite sure I’ve had several previous lives in countries of Celtic origin and to this day my ancestry is Celtic.

This story is told from the female main characters’ perspective: Morgaine (a.k.a. Morgan Le Fay) and Gwenhwyfar (Welsh spelling of Guinevere) who are engaged in a battle for power during the reign of King Arthur’s Camelot; a time when Christianity is spreading like wild fire throughout the Kingdom of Britain, threatening the old Pagan/witchcraft ways that are taught on the magical isle of Avalon which is hidden from the rest of the world by a great mist. Dominant themes encompass the difficulties that arose with the evolution of leadership from faeries to Christianity and from goddesses to God. The Mists of Avalon is also a tale of love, religion, war, loyalty and betrayal.

Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote a series of similarly themed books including Forest House, Lady of Avalon, and Priestess of Avalon (with Diana L. Paxon), but none of them are as superb as The Mists of Avalon. The Mists of Avalon was also made into a 2001 television miniseries starring Angelica Huston, Julianna Margulies, Joan Allen and Samantha Mathis that isn’t exactly the same as the book but is definitely a worthwhile rental for fans of this epic story.

Plot Synopsis

“The Mists of Avalon follows the struggle of Morgaine, a priestess of the Mother Goddess, in her struggle against the encroachment of Christianity during the reigns of Uther Pendragon and his son (and her own half-brother), Arthur. When Arthur and Morgaine, neither knowing their relationship to one another, conceive a son, Mordred, the seeds of conflict between Avalon and Camelot are sown. Eventually, the battle between Arthur and Mordred leaves no one but Morgaine alive to tell the tale.”

Reviews

“There is no such thing as a true tale. Truth has many faces and the truth is like to the old road to Avalon; it depends on your own will and your own thoughts, whither the road will take you.” The Mists of Avalon is a story of another time and place. It’s the legendary saga of King Arthur and his companions at Camelot, their battles, love, and devotion, told this time from the perspective of the women involved. Viviane is “The Lady of the Lake,” the magical priestess of the Isle of Avalon, a special mist-shrouded place which becomes more difficult to reach as people turn away from its nature- and Goddess-oriented religion. Viviane’s quest is to find a king who will be loyal to Avalon as well as to Christianity. This king will be Arthur. Gwenhwyfar, Arthur’s Queen, is an overly pious, fearful woman who successfully sways her husband into betraying his allegiance to Avalon. Set against her is Morgaine of the Fairies, Arthur’s sister, love, and enemy – and the most powerfully believable person in the book – who manipulates the characters like threads in a tapestry to achieve her tragic and heroic goals. The Mists of Avalon becomes a legend seen through new eyes, with details, majestic language, and haunting foreshadowing that hold the reader through its more than 800 pages.” ~ Gloria Bauermeister

“A monumental reimagining of the Arthurian legends…reading it is a deeply moving and at times uncanny experience…An impressive achievement.” ~ The New York Times Book Review

“Masterfully plotted and beautifully written, The Mists of Avalon sheds new light on old characters – especially Morgan of the Faeries, Merlin, Lancelot, and Guinevere. An epic novel of violence, lust, painful loyalties and haunting enchantments.” ~ Publisher’s Weekly