Gifts from Glastonbury
What I found through my calling to Avalon.
If you have ever been fascinated with Glastonbury or Avalon, take a seat. Today I share with you part of an essay I published in 2023 as it is still very relevant and great entry way into legend and lore of this land as well as my understanding and perspective on discernment in the spiritual scene.
AVALON
The island of apples, the fortunate isle, Avalon of the Heart.
I moved to Glastonbury four and a half years ago, on the Full Moon in September, 2020. What a journey it has been. I won’t go into detail here because the fairytale illusion and heartache that came with it (which is part of the initiation gift of the goddess) deserves its own space, as does the love story that followed.
I won’t go into the ascension cult, conspiracy narrative and “conscious community” here either.
What I will write about though is what AVALON means to me and why I still choose to stay in Glastonbury despite my strong wish for pristine rivers, waterfalls and faery forests.
First of all I met my partner here, freebirthed my son, buried our placenta between Wearyall Hill and the Tor (two local faery mounds and sacred sites ) and have friends and community here. So these are all precious and valuable reasons to be here, if not my main ones.
Yet there is something else. A subtle yet tight pull, that resists the more I try to weed it out. And the more I surrender it softens.
It´s the calling.
For those of you familiar with authors such as Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Dr Sharon Blackie, Maureen Murdock, Jhenah Telyndru
- you find a common denominator in their work and the folktales they recite: the woman gets called. And eventually can’t resist to take the first step on a life changing journey.For me it was the call from the Lady of the Lake that stirred my heart.
A remembrance of aliveness I haven’t lived but known in my dreams.
A hunger that swallowed bookshelves and ignited Immrama. Although no sins were committed - other than that of having shut myself down for too long.
Avalon is the ethereal home of the Lady of the Lake. Of the 9 sisters of the Fortunate Isle. Ruled by a Queen, a Sorceress, a Challenger.
Oh Avalon is so many things, there are worlds to explore. But above all, Avalon is an idea. An ideal. Yet as we know we can create heaven on earth (meaning: give even the most idealistic fantasies a manifested home on this planet), if we choose awareness over numbness and embrace the pain of opening our eyes to our sovereignty.
I will elaborate more detailed soon, especially on the importance of sovereignty and why I found this to be the main challenge on my quest.
In Glastonbury this mystical place called Ynys Affalon found its earthly home with the Christian Monks claiming it at the end of the 12 century. Those who know me and my work are aware that I am a big demystifier of this claiming as I believe the mythological island to be far more than a physical place, something that should be anchored in many places instead of being kept captured in a very human construct. Yet, for centuries people have pilgrimed here, to pay homage to the famous (potentially fake) grave of King Arthur and his Queen Guinevere. Others have come to lay their weary hands down in prayer next to the holy thorn tree, supposedly planted by Joseph of Arimathea. And today bus loads of women, dressed in priestess robes, walk the streets to trace back Mary Magdalene.
Glastonbury is also the place where the polarities meet. It is the crossroads of duality, of feminine and masculine, red and white, humans and fae. Even though Avalon is an otherworldly island that can be accessed in many places, and reached only through the gateway of the courageous heart, there are portals to be found here in the South West of England, the summer country and former swamp lands, now planted with cider apples.
Glastonbury certainly has charming aspects, if so with a Harry Potter Dress up flair. It’s certainly not subtle. Yet the true Avalonian Magic moves in invisible iridescent wafts through the streets and particularly through the sacred springs. Once they were united, alchemised but a wall has been erected and a road built and the sacred streams of Glastonbury are separated.
Red and White Dragons
Red and white roses are being offered on many places. They represent Hieros Gamos, the sacred union and the water springs - the water from the Chalice Well has a high iron content which colours the stones it flows forth from red and the white spring opposite has calcium deposits that would have layered white residue alla around its former cave home, that now is an old well house transformed into a sacred temple space.
The red and white dragons are found in Welsh tales and can be witnessed dancing in the Glastonbury High Street on seasonal festivals such as Beltane and Samhain.
But what most people, in their effort to classify what red and white means, overlook; is that they perpetuate the split that paves the road between the waters of love.
Red is seen as feminine, the menstrual blood and Mary Magdalene.
White as active, masculine, the semen and the pure Christ.
Or, if you dig deeper:
Red is the former masculine, the solar god, iron oxide being active and connected to Mars.
White is the moon, the lunar goddess and calcium carbonate regarded as the milk of Venus.
This does it for clarity of mind but nature is so much more nuanced and intertwined and colourful. (Plus as you can read in my essay here, the sun would have been originally a female deities and the moon a masculine one, so we are at square one again):
Nature is changing shades like dawn turns into day and dusk into night. One season overlapping with the other.
I don’t think that it is about red = feminine and white = masculine or vice versa, I think that either can be helpful and distorted ways of looking at it. Much more interesting actually is what Wendy Berg proposes: Red being human, the blood and White being Faery, the Otherworld. So much more enchanting.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter, as the real alchemy occurs when red and white intertwine, like the snakes (basically small dragons) on the Asclepius staff. So it has and will always be about finding both within.
And this is where I am at now. At the point of Equilibrium of realisation and recognition. And I know it will move soon again from crossing, overlapping to distance and swirling apart, only to meet again.
My two dragon lines are: Head and Heart.
Rational mind, overthinking, analysis, clinging to control, directing giving and receiving, changing perspectives.
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And trust, faith, flow, loosening the grip, allowing love to move where and how it wants to, returning home.
I thrive in down-to-earth communities, real-deal friendships, no-small-talk gatherings. And nature that is so gorgeous it does not need angelic frequencies to be channelled. Yet I am still in Glastonbury, where you get pretty much the opposite of all the above because I know there is something for me. beyond the judgement of spiritual ego escapism.
There is genuine devotion here, too.
And I am ready to tear open the pavement in myself that separated me from it.
What is at the Heart of Avalon? And what connects Avalon with our Heart and that of the Earth?
Avalon is calling forth many into devotion in various ways and from various worlds:
History, Literature, Mythology, Spirituality… And as a Priestess of Avalon my passion is to illuminate pathways into her worlds, so that you, too will find your individual quest and embark on it with courage, inspiration and love.
Learn the Faery Accord, its meaning and ways to restore it, alongside the Grail Mysteries and how they are relevant today. Discover who King Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot truly were and which stories they have to tell us today.
Be guided by Morgan Le Fey across the waters to the Healing Island of Avalon and witness her shape shift from Queen, Priestess and Sorceress to awaken these archetypes within you.
We are anchoring Avalon into our world.
If you would like to hear me speak more about Avalon and Archetypes, Priestess Work and Motherhood, and how we can practice to listen to our bodies and mend the split between head and heart, you can susbcribe for free to this Newsletter or dive deeper and join my paid membership for a year of studying and embodying the Archetypes of Avalon:
Paid members receive archetypal inner alchemy with monthly mythopoetic teachings and in-depth insights into the Avalonian tradition - and those of you that support me and my work as a Mystic Member get my rare personal essays as well. Which include my freebirth stories and private life updates, I have some news for you all in the next weeks!
