First off, winter solstice in Glastonbury is PACKED. Book your rooms early peeps.

My second weekend in Glastonbury was magical. We were entering the time of the goddess Danu, goddess of air in the Avalonian tradition. She is the ancient ancestress, the stillness of death, of the empty landscape, of the cold clear winter sky. She is the clear night scattered with stars, and the new moon of hope. She is the clearness, the clean-ness, the emptiness waiting to be filled.

by Steven Newton - wowzer, huh?
by Steven Newton – wowzer, huh?

 

Now, I totally didn’t get this before I went on down to Glasto. I was clinging to Crone energy, holding onto the comfort and transformation she brought with Her, and probably some of the horror as well (you know where you are with shitty times, don’t you?). I didn’t want to move on, as the Crone is so awesome and I didn’t want to go into new territory! WTF is this Danu woman about anyway, I was thinking. Anu’s a mother goddess, and earth goddess, what are they thinking putting her as Air?

I got to Glastonbury, popped into the temple, and I got it. Fresh and new! Sparkling lights everywhere, and a vibe of freshness and a calm place to start anew – and I got it.

Maybe it’s the silent, solitary energy of the Winter Solstice, but this weekend I felt the need to keep walking and get in touch with the land. A minute inside seemed to be a minute wasted, and every night I went on a trek through the dark through the winding pathways of Avalon up to the tor. It seemed a very appropriate journey – facing the fear of the Crone in walking through the countryside, in the dark, getting the heebiejeebies whenever you saw a big leaf move, hearing the stillness and silence and the blowing of the wind in the great old trees, and then coming up to the Tor, the freaking windiest place ever, and wondering if you were going to be able to get down again without Her winds throwing you off the path. How much do you want to walk this path? she was asking. ‘Cos it’s gonna be tough going, sister. You are gonna have to work with me or fall off.

On a windy day, St Michael’s tower (that’s the funny little ruined church on top of the Tor) is like a wind vortex, it’s mental. It’s completely open to the elements, no roof, and two open archways facing south-ish and north-ish, and when you stand in the middle the air is intense – it’s trying to take off you coat, to blow you off the hill, ripping through you. You have to stand proper leaning forward just to stay upright. Woooosh! Very Danu-ish. Blowin’ away the old.

(At least in theory. I always feel like there is something I’m not doing quite right, or that I should be connected more – like on top of the Tor, I felt a lot like I should be having this intense priestess experience of some kind, but it was just pretty cool with priestess undertones. I always have such high expectations for what and how I should be doing stuff, but I’m learning to just trust and accept and honour each experience as it happens for what it is.)

I went alone, and with a sister-in-training. Both times were awesome. And I tried to see the sunrise climb up the Tor from Windmill Hill on Sunday, but it was too cloudy. Still glad I did it though!

As part of our training we went for a walk at Westhay Moor. It’s this gorgeous marshy nature reserve, full of reeds and birds and otters (I heard one do a little freak out squeak but I didn’t see him).

It’s also closest to what the Levels would have been like in Glastonbury Avalon centuries and thousands of years ago, when the people living there would have lived in and among the reeds on tiny islands, getting around on boats or tiny little walkways among the reeds.

(Kind of like where I live now a few hundred years ago. Everyone around here lived in the marshes and ate eels.)

It was just the most magical place. Moss and lichen everywhere (I love moss and lichen with a creepy passion). Boggy paths, ghostly birch trees everywhere, lakes surrounded by reeds, and the clear winter sky. It was truly like walking into an ancient place between the worlds, full of magic that was resting, waiting.

Truly, I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere where I felt the press of an otherworld so much. I’m never 100% on my stance on if Faeries physically exist or not, but I felt I could feel them watching us, sentries in the woods from an ancient Tuatha de Dannan-type time, watching, waiting. Those woods were alive, man. I really felt like I could almost see them, in a kind of incredibly strong my-imagination-mingling-with-reality-and-projecting-out-so-it’s-like-there-there-but-not-physically-there-but-they-are-there kinda way.

We walked past these ancient, ancient twisted oak trees, and I did a double take, as I felt like I saw a huge majestic, shaggy white stag there, like a patriarch or king or deva-god of the forest. Really, crucially there. This was really intense – he wasn’t really there in touchable physicality, but it really felt and seemed like he was. Like a dream layered over reality. You know when you have a dream and it’s so clear and real it’s clearer in memory for months than reality? One of those.

Maybe I’ve just picked up too many ancient stag images and pictures from books and TV and I projected him there because it felt like the right place to do it. But I dunno, maybe not. All this visions and seeing-stuff malarky is weird and unexplored territory for me.

What I really felt though this weekend is how much I have opened up to Goddess in the last 6 weeks. Stuff has happened that I never thought would happen – I have prayed to Her and my prayers have been answered. For reals!! I can see a thread of meaning and purpose under almost everything I do – my challenges (cos there’s been a whole lot of them), my passions, my experiences. And I don’t feel alone anymore – I know she is with me, in a way I’ve never really figured before.

I am trusting my experiences and visions more. My intuitions, my whispers from Goddess, which I have always dismissed as a wishful imagination. I’m listening and they make sense!

In a rather clichéd manner, Glasto, or more specifically the land of Glasto, is beginning to feel like Home. I can’t wait to go back again!