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A Blessing to you an and all your line this Samhain / Calan Gaeaf...

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.

There's no doubt about it- we live in modern, changing times, when the old religious power structures and dogmas of the past are being rapidly over turned and quite rightfully, often treated with disdain. That's good. Free thinking, and free expression are wonderful things and we should be grateful that we can on the whole, in the West at least, practice our spirituality freely, according to our own ideas and inner promptings. There shouldn't be a problem with that- should there?

Well, sadly, there is sometimes. With the power to be our own clergy, comes responsibility, or the consequences for the lack of it.

Over the last few weeks, and not for the first time, I have found myself weeping at the news. There is so much horror in the world. We are left as helpless witnesses to the atrocities of the few wreaking destruction on the many- innocent children, men and women- with little hope of being able to make a real difference. While so many of us are losing faith in our political and other power structures, our awareness of each others perils and tragedies is greater than ever before. What is there to be done? When it comes to the wars and violence that rage over our planet, large and small, ( though is any act of violence ever small?) I no longer care about the arguments, ideaologies, histories, the endless tit for tat- I, like so many others just want the violence to end.

It is time we had a sea change, and moved beyond this endless cycle. Children are dying. If we are spiritual people, then it is our children out there. We are not removed by our physical distance. Our future is growing up in bomb shelters, and refugee camps, starving, traumatized, and without hope. We are slaying our innocence, our future, even by doing nothing. There is no excuse.

Midsummer runs riot all over this land, the winter lakes have long gone, giving rise to verdant fields and hedgerows, swathed with elderflower, cow parsley and meadowsweet like white foam. Comfrey flowers blush purple in the shadows. Glastonbury Tor truly becomes the Glass Castle of British myth at this time, entrance to the land of Faery. On Midsummer Eve, as the dusk gathers, the hill comes alive, pilgrims climb the summit to drum the sun down, somewhere in the woods that sprawl around its base, a fire is lit in vigil, as it has always been at this time. A new generation take over the duty every so often, each person called to the task by something inside them, a compulsion, a call from the hill itself. All who come to sit by its flames bring wood to burn, drink to share, a tale to tell… This night, and all through the season, the veils between the worlds are thin, or thinner still. This land of water and mist is only ever half a human place, the Summer Land – the county of Somerset- rises above the lakes when summer is at its height, to sink beneath the waters again when autumn comes. But for now Jack in the Green, Jack Stag as he is known here, is having his day…   

I make my way along the labyrinthine tracks, climbing along the hill's steep sides singing old songs to the spirits as I gather elderflower (Sambucus Nigra) for cordial and medicine. Blossoms fall like tiny stars as I reach precariously over brambles and nettles, I wind a strand of my hair over the branches in thanks for their gift. The apples nearby are swelling and green, not ripe for a few months yet. The promise of harvest can be seen on the horizon, but for now, for me, it is the time of the elder tree. Sleeping beneath an elder was said to lead someone into Faery never to return, and sitting below the tree at dusk on Midsummer's eve grants a vision of the faerie hosts. Here at this liminal time, as the wheel turns, on this Sacred Isle the realms of the Sidhe, of Faery, are close at hand. All who wander here step on to their Green Road, if only for a while.   

This Beltane I returned to one of the homes of my heart. I embarked upon a simple quest once more to feel my own soul strong within me, and spent some time on retreat in Sligo, Ireland. Not a long journey from where I live really, especially in these modern times, but a great distance travelled within, in the heart and mind. Furthest west, to the waters and the waves....No phones, no internet, no TV; a peat fire and the sound of the sea roaring beneath our little cottage.....and just beyond our garden, ours alone to visit, an ancient barrow mound, untouched but for the shaggy brown bull that munched on the rich grass that grew upon it.

On Beltane eve as dusk gathered, turning the sky to turquoise and the low hillsides to emerald velvet, I gathered my shawl around me and looked out at Sliabh Gamh the Ox Mountains, sacred to the goddess Aine, encircling me with an ancient and warm embrace. Ahead, Knocknarea stood tall and proud as Queen Medb herself, who is said to lie in the cairn upon its summit, and to the west, foaming around her toes was the wild grey Atlantic. This was an ancestral Beltane for me, one where I felt my roots grow deep and nourished by the very earth herself, where the wind and the rain and the crackling of the fire stirred up the very fibres of my being and made me anew in her bubbling cauldron.  In this place, at Beltane, the old gods, the Tuatha de Danann, the children of the goddess Danu, came to the mortal world.

I followed the flight of the heron through the willows, the wide blue sky above. Skirting my way around the little town, I made my way between the hills, between the greening orchards and down the leafy Well House Lane, the glorious lush green belly of Glastonbury Tor above me bright in the sunshine. I have walked this road a million times, in rain and summer heat, in winter shadows and sleet, in the utter darkness of a Samhain waning moon...it knows me well, and every time my feet tread this path I feel blessed to live in such a sacred landscape. I greet the tree spirits I have worked with over the years, the hidden springs, one a deep secret, another a mere boggy patch in the meadow upon such a day as this...

Turning the corner I enter the gardens of Chalice Well, and the hush of the day becomes somehow more refined as I make my way past the manicured flower beds and beneath the rose archway, passed 'the chakra border', a rainbow of blossoms unfurling. The sense of wholeness I have gathered to me all the way builds now, my body finds comfort in the serenity of the garden, as I make my way along the worn stone pathway to take my seat beside the well. Aching feet find ease upon the cool damp stone. There is the sound of distant drums beating upon the Tor, but all is still here, all is quiet. I am blessed with solitude, but I am not alone. As my stillness gathers, I feel the presence of this place all around me. The spirit of the well, the ancient goddess envelops me. Without words or ceremony, Her presence both warm and bright rises from the waters, and I sit in quiet communion, my spirit drinking in all She may offer. Her daughter, Her pupil, Her priestess.