I love the autumn in Avalon. Today I spent a wonderful golden afternoon walking amongst the apple orchards. The last of the summer sun warmed my skin, and turned the lingering dew on the grass into a million diamonds...the air was rich with the heady scent of ripe apples, a hint of wood smoke and cider as the fallen fruit burst with juices and fermented upon the soil. The apples on the bough, still firm and full of life, russet and gold, hung like garlands of jewels amongst the turning leaves. Damsel and dragonflies flitted around in clouds of azure blue and metallic green, alighting on the rich blackberries and the scarlet rosehips. The air was still, the silence broken only by the cawing of the crows, the distant cries of the buzzard circling over Glastonbury Tor. All around was natures abundance, overflowing and decadent, lingering still before the coming winter, lazy and full bellied.
The apples of Avalon are highly sacred. The mythical Isle of Avalon, the Isle of Apples traditionally held to be here, in Glastonbury in the south west of England, is a place of rest and wholeness, a place of healing. An Otherworldly Isle, positioned on the veil between the worlds, it is the first stop for travellers passing in either direction- a place of immortals and faery spirits, as well as wandering mystics, prophets, and lost souls seeking redemption. Modern day Glastonbury is much the same, a meeting place of spirits seeking something more...to cross the veil, or get a glimpse of the divine that here can feel so tantalisingly close. And always, the answer, the goal, the grail that is sought is summed up by the simple apple, the fruit of the gods.
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