Autumn Pilgrimage

Autumn is here...you can smell it in the air.....it reaches for us in wraithes of smoke and soaks our feet with dew...it is here in the swathes of leaves and the shafts of cascading sun through mottled green and copper leaves. The shimmering of dawn on the grey sea. The sense of needing to bask in the last rays of sun on the cliffs before they are hooded by mist.

I have just returned from a much needed pilgrimage to Glastonbury. The Tor too bathed in the melting mellow sun of Autumn as I approached it up Bushy Coombe between hedges of rosehips and hawthorn. The prayer wheels at Shekinashram as you enter the path welcome you and imbue a sense of sacredness. You walk with the meditative steps of a pilgrim, your awareness sharpened, your heart beating in unity with the blithe notes of birdsong. I have climbed the snake path many times, but I felt really peaceful on this particular journey. The golds, russets and burnt siennas of the trees juxtaposed with the blue of the sky. No cloud in sight; a clear, shining day. I was blessed.

I climbed the serpentine slopes, my breath heaving with the hard trudge uphill; my sights set on the tower above. The reward for the trek is the fantastic view over the Somerset levels and beyond to the Bristol Channel. Below hugged close to the church of St John and the Abbey ruins is the town of Glastonbury with Windmill hill to the right and Wearyall Hill and the famous Glastonbury thorn to the left. St Brigids Mound is beyond. Chalice Hill before you with the Chalice Well gardens and their famous healing springs. The Tor towers over all...St Brigid - the Mother Goddess-is here carved above the arch milking her sacred cow and on the other side what look like a pair of scales weighed by an Angel like the sign of Libra. The Tor is always wracked by winds which adds to its slightly gloomy atmosphere.. it is cold and shadowy inside and you are reminded that it is a place of execution..the last abbot was hung, drawn and quartered here in a Christlike martrydom. The Tower is dedicated to St Michael and is 14th century, replacing the older church dedicated to St Michael which was destroyed by an earth quake on the ironic date of September 11th, 1275. Here it seemed to me there was a union of male and female energies coiled in the labyrinthine womb of the mound and united in the Tower...like the energies depicted on
the Tarot card of the same name. There are always people here leaning against the tower basking in the sun..pilgrims meditating, locals walking their dogs. Two buzzards glided on the air as I stood there...soaring the eddies...and a butterfly spread its brown and gold wings in the
sunshine. One woman was from Michegan...she seemed into mother earth as she was asking about Blackthorn and its fruits. I enlightened her as to where to find it....most hedgerows! and a few others who didn't know that its fruits were - sloes!! Cornwall was also the topic of conversation ironically as one couple were on their way to Cornwall but their van had broken down....synchronicity that this was the topic I first overheard being discussed when I sat down!

I sat in the melting sun and soaked in what could be the last beams, gazing out to the levels bronzed and dusky in the mellow Autumnal light. Here there is a true sense of inner fulfilment, a goal achieved..the goddess slumbering and coiled beneath you and Bridgit here as Mother Goddess of fertility milking the green earth. the berries of the Hawthorn were like red sparkling jewels glossy and rich...the Hawthorn linked to Bridgit and the turning cycles of the goddess with its white blossoms in Spring and red berries in Autumn. This union of red and white echoed by the red iron oxide Blood spring in Chalice Well gardens and the White Spring at the foot of Well Lane. According to Legend Joseph of Arimathea visited Glastonbury and buried the two cruets containing the sweat and blood of Christ here in the site of Chalice Well gardens and this is the source of the springs with their healing properties.

I sat and meditated, back to the tower along with my fellow pilgrims...meditating on what had led me back and feeling blessed and grounded by this homecoming...back to Avalon and her mysteries. (To be contd)

Blessed Be xx