I am finding it hard to get back into the energies of place. My spirit is still roaming the West Coast of the US. I am awake and sleeping at the 'wrong' hours and my 'being' is still processing my experiences.

This the last full moon of the decade, taken on the 12th day of the 12th month. In the High Sierra Mountains. The Cold Moon. A portal moon. It was captured whilst bathed in 104°F of warm swirling waters, of an outdoor Jacuzzi, surrounded by snow during ritual space, to the sounds of the surrounding forest. By Lake Tahoe. Pure Peace.

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I asked 'Them Upstairs' what came next? Flooded with a torrent of Joy, and the Spirit and Egrigore of Place, images of thousands of seeds being planted in fertile and lush fields all over the Earth flashed into my vision. It was thus the moment when I took another quantum leap into that deep place of Oneness, our human ability to feel that Divine connection with all that exists, and the Knowing of all that we might create together when we feel united in that place. Aho.
Alongside the Glastonbury Unity Candle, I look forward, in my Crone Years, to planting more seeds in lush and fertile ground over this upcoming new decade, my 70th one on this planet.
I look forward to sharing our oneness, our connectedness, so that we might allow our global community to be further strengthened and grow in love, understanding, and inclusivity. My hope is that this might go some way towards aiding us to find the strength to face the challenge of our dying global conditions, and the polarisation of our ideologies...together. Fancy helping me? I can’t do this alone.
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(The next photo is of me connecting with the great Cedar, as my last ceremony, by the waters of The Great Spirit Lake known as Tahoe and thanking the Spirit and Ancestors of Place.)

3rd December 2019
It didn't rain today and and I even got to wear my sunglasses.
The morning saw us enjoying a spelndid breakfast before heading through the performing arts area of San Francisco and up and down hilly streets known for their cable cars until we reached Grace Cathedral. Here I walked the labyrinth and lit the flame of the Glastonbury Unity Candle in the Aids Interfaith Memorial Chapel.​

 
The afternoon was spent at the Legion of Honor Fine Arts Museum. The core collection is Rodin, among other European works of art but the visiting exhibition was Tissot's. 'Fashion and Faith!'.  It was breathtaking and utterly magnificent to see the work of one of my favourite artists in reality. Devised in collaboration with the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Legion has brought together 60 paintings by Tissot – including some previously thought lost – as well as prints, drawings and cloisonné enamels. It traces his remarkable journey – from medievalist, to wildly successful society painter, to religious artist whose Bible illustrations, while little-known today, have resonated as far as modern cinema. There was one that struck me the most. The Apparition. I have seen it many times in books and on the web but not the original. The light shone brightly out of the work and it was real. How he captured it is beyond my understanding. I gazed on it for an age. 

The Legion also offered great views over the Bay to my right, and to my left, afforded my first clear view of the Pacific.
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The evening was spent at the home of a delightful Russian emigre who royally entertained us with great food, wine and conversation and thus the day continued until I fell face down on my hotel bed.

MORE TO COME...

|See also...POSTCARDS FROM AMERICA (1)

I landed in San Francisco yesterday. 
​Highlights of the journey?
Flying over Greenland. Having a bulkhead seat by the window. Peaceful. I rather feel I'd have jumped out of the plane somewhere over Aberdeen had I been sat with my fellow travellers.
Homeland Security. "Anything to declare?".
"Fork handles"
"Fork handles?"
"Yes, four Glastonbury Unity Candles".
It had to be done didn't it? The bored look on his face melted away when I answered his questions about them.
Seeing Diana and Robert. Hugging Diana and Robert. Then hugging them again.
Taking the rain with me. They haven't had rain for 6 months. It's poured down.

Wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with beautiful people who welcomed me into their family and their gloriously creative space overlooking Panhandle Park SF. The Panhandle forms the southern boundary of the Western Addition neighborhood and the northern boundary of the Haight-Ashbury. Now I am flaked on my bed in a hotel room, listening to a Mexican playlist, through open window, from a party in the next building. Tomorrow, my first day at the Dickens Fair. Happy Thanksgiving. My first one...I hope more will follow. 
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I seem to be getting the hang of speaking the language on these forrin shores. I have to say though, it’s freakin’ cold in California. Rain, gales and tomorrow, thunderstorms. Everyone is suggesting I brought it with me. Record lows apparently.
Day 2 of The Dickens Fair has been thoroughly enjoyed . It’s a mammoth production with a huge and adept cast. More later. 

Tales are aplenty but our 3rd day has been an exhausting one and so I have found places backstage to make a nest to rest and observe from. Behind the scenes delights, wonders and politics have kept me highly entertained. Folks are very friendly, curious and chatty.

Tonght we checked into the historic Stanyon Park Hotel directly opposite Golden Gate Park. Haight-Ashbury is just two blocks away. I shall be exploring what remains of the 1967 Summer of Love with excitement tomorrow. 
Dinner was in Cha Cha Cha - a boisterous eatery with Santeria shrines watching over us as we ate.

​It's still raining. Today, a great little 24% ABV beer known as Thunderpussy and brewed in the basement, was enjoyed in Magnolia's, on Haight Street. Our venue played an important role in the birth of the Haight Ashbury hippie movement in 1964 as the Drugstore Cafe, one of the original hippie hangouts in the neighbourhood. In the late 60s it became the famous Magnolia Thunderpussy's named for its proprietress, a larger than life San Francisco legend still talked about today.

A short stroll up a few doors took me to Pipe Dreams, the first smoke shop established in 1968. A linger outside, ostensibly window-gazing, nicely added to the the effects of a 24% beer.

My gracious and knowledgeable hosts, who lived right in the heart of this area for many a year, one of them born here, then proceeded to drive me up and down hill, down and up hill, then up and down again...through delightful and hilly residential areas, with fabulously creative architecture, pointing out places with fascinating narratives, until we arrived at the summit of Twin Peaks. Oh my...what a captivating view over a city I am already growing to be deeply fond of and how blessed am I to be with a knowledgeable San Franciscans to explain so much to me?

On our happy return to the hotel, the concierge greeted us with an invitation to partake of the manager's complimentary wine and cheese hour. "How spiffing", said I in my best Yorkshire accent, and headed off into the dining room with my companions. A grand and chilled day after a frenetic 3-day Thanksgiving weekend at Dickens.

As a Director of Glastonbury Information Centre, I am so delighted to share these photos of #Glastonbury winning five awards and a Highly Commended at the Bristol, Bath and Somerset Tourism Awards!
Visitor Information Centre of the year – Silver – Glastonbury Information Centre
Customer Service Superstar Award – Silver – Morgana West – Glastonbury Information Centre
Tourism event/Festival of the year – Silver – Glastonbury Abbey
Business Events venue of the year – Silver – Middlewick Holiday Cottages
Outstanding contribution to tourism award – Jill Barker (Middlewick Holiday Cottages and Chair of Glastonbury Chamber of Commerce)
Learning experience of the year – Highly Commended – Tor's Tour of the Tor - Sacred Tours of Glastonbury and the UK.
This success reflects the huge amount of hard work, dedication, and co-operation in our united approach to promoting Glastonbury – and long may it continue!
“May Glastonbury Flourish” 💚

It is twenty years to the day since I and my two sons left Yorkshire and headed to Glastonbury. I think back and gaze upon all I have learned on my passage through our two decades in the West Country.  I have been so blessed to have many teachers, companions and friends. My sons have grown into two beautiful men; one being a first-responder for Glastonbury's Fire and Rescue crew and  the other, well the other I can't really say. Something about having signed the Official Secrets Act. 

The photo below is of our Millennium Beltane after we had moved here in 1999. I don't quite know how I have managed to age forty years in those twenty but I am sagely advised it is 'something do with the wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey thing'.  Apparently its effect allows us to live life more fuller here. 

It's damp, misty and wet in Glastonbury. The fields are looking very soggy and interminable rain shows no sign of clemency. The trees are now adorning themselves in their finest of colours, exquisite against the grey canvas. Even on days like this, there is much beauty and spirit to be enjoyed. Personally, October and November are magical months being the time in the seasonal year when it is easier to feel a little closer to the golden spirit of Avalon, a little closer to connection with the divinity within this landscape. It also serves to link me with the energies of my beloved Yorkshire moors above the Calder Valley, something not often felt during the warmer months.

​My roots and bloodline are Brigantian and there is a well-known statement, usually spoken by Yorkshire folk and being one not many will venture to disagree with or challenge, “You are in God’s own country now”. This popular idiom refers to the legend that as a boy Jesus visited England with his great-uncle, Joseph of Arimathea, inspiring the musical prelude to William Blake's poem Milton. Considered England’s unofficial national anthem, the piece ‘and did those feet in ancient times’ fondly known as "Jerusalem" asks ‘did Jesus visit England and, in so doing, create the New Jerusalem, heaven on earth? To idealists, “New Jerusalem” is not so much a physical place rather a state of being, expressed through spiritual harmony and understanding in the hearts and the minds of all humanity; thus creating heaven, on earth.

​Rising above the ‘dark satanic mills’ in the valleys, and wandering the wild moors of Yorkshire, often in solitude and grey mist, ‘escaping’ from the real world, it was easy to feel that the next step up from being on top of the world was to step directly to some place not of this earth.  

​Glastonbury too feels this same anthem is its own and asks the question, ‘Did Jesus come here?’ Certainly, a fair amount of people undoubtedly feel so and the legend is indeed persistent. There is something to be said about the sheer strength of stories, perhaps changed in many forms yet still based on a central ‘truth’  to withstand the death of time and pass down through generations. Combined with the numinous ‘feel of the place’, the enigmatic Tor surely sparks, regardless of our beliefs and backgrounds, a powerful connection to something so much bigger than our little ordinary selves and suggests that here be something very special indeed. During this numinous time of year, that connection, and feeling, is so much stronger and easier to access.

This ‘New Jerusalem’ (to me) represents a place where, despite the differences, all can recognise the one-ness in their common humanness and where kindness, love, care, support, encouragement, peace and unselfishness reign sovereign. Where the physical earth is cared for and nurtured to the best of our abilities. ‘Heaven on Earth’........Spirit and Matter together in Harmony..........Paradise. That vision doesn’t seem anywhere like near a reality right now though does it? In fact, it’s pretty hellish for so many and very easy to despair. The dark of Winter rolls in, even in the sunniest places around our world. Chaos, anxiety, confusion, fear and anger is becoming a normal part of the group mind. Friends are turning on friends, sides are being taken, each withdrawing into isolation from perceived enemies. A wet, grey insular Glastonbury, enclosed in mists, reminds me of that. So, what can I do?

​On the moors of Yorkshire, I step up…In Glastonbury I step side-ways…and into the mists. Suitably attired, head up and back straight, striding onto the land gives me an opportunity to truly connect with the elements, ancestors and the many legends that abound here. Listening, and sensing,  can bring insights and understandings.

Here is a wonderful route around the town, starting at the Peace Pole outside Glastonbury Information Centre, 

​I head towards and up the High Street. I love how the brightly painted buildings remind us that even in the darker, greyer times, there are still many hues and shades in the world around us and how, not misplacing sight of that seems even more important in these social climates of extreme polarisation. Heading to the staggered crossroads at the top of the High Street I continue up Bove Town and when the road bears right, step into Wick Hollow. The trees, in this very Fae corner of Glastonbury, and their complex, visible root systems, serve to remind me of the network of diverse healthy roots that are needed to underpin a strong society.

If you are following this route with me, keep going up until you get to a T- junction. Continue forward, through the gate and onto Paradise Lane.

​ Wick Hollow, Paradise Lane…and soon Gog Magog and Stone Down…how can it be possible to not get transported into the magic through these names alone? Wandering along this old lane, through the trees and the gates, I marvel at an often-unseen view of the lie of the land itself - its contoured shapes, suggestive of water lapping and shaping, and the view over to ‘dragon hill’, knowing it as a place with its own mythology of a time where dragons roamed the land and the locals appeased.

 At the end of Paradise Lane, fields open before me and I descend the line of trees on the left, through the field towards the next stile in the hedgerow at the bottom. Now on an old medieval road, here I can hear footsteps from a distant past as shadowy shades pass by me.

Passing over the stile, through the next field, I travel on down to another stile in the hedgerow. Once through, and turning left, I come to the two old Oaks of Avalon, known as Gog and Magog on my right.  After taking my time and paying my respects here, I retrace my steps but continue along the lane, through the next gate and turn right into Stone Down Lane. Up, up I go, until I come out at the foot of the Tor. Another climb beckons.

Legend has it that Joseph of Arimathea made frequent visits to the area and is reputed to have been accompanied by Jesus as a young boy. The image above is a banner and can be seen in St John the Baptist, parish church of Pilton, formerly known as St Mary's and renamed after the Reformation. It was embroidered in the early 1930's and shows Joseph and Jesus arriving at Pilton 'harbour'. Formerly known as Pooltown, the village is on the edge of the Somerset Levels, which formed a vast tidal lake in Saxon times.
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“And did those feet in ancient time" is  a short poem by William Blake from the preface to his epic Milton a Poem. The date of 1804 on the title page is probably when the plates were begun, but the poem was printed c.1808.Today it is best known as the anthem "Jerusalem", with music written by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916.

The poem was inspired by the apocryphal story that a young Jesus, accompanied by Joseph of Arimathea, a tin merchant, travelled to this area and visited Glastonbury during the unknown years of Jesus. 

Google the hymn and you will find many versions. However, I rather like the one below, Emerson Lake and Palmer giving their own tribute to the hymn and to the Tor. 

When I first came to Glastonbury, 20 years ago now, it was a Pagan/Esoteric pathway that led me here. After about a decade, and the birth of the Glastonbury Unity Candle, I had experienced and taken part in many different representations of belief and I could feel these involvements were pushing my understanding and self-imposed boundaries to recognise how each different path was simply a representation of the whole town. For me, to not acknowledge that with love and understanding was to fail to see the bigger picture and the whole of the landscape and its people.
Glastonbury/Avalon of the Heart, a Facebook group I initiated in 2008 the day before my 49th birthday, consists of people from all over the world with very diverse beliefs; yet each sharing a common love for the energies of this small Somerset town. There, we can find a shared connection and common bonds, regardless of our differences and here we create a heart-space for everyone; not solely for those of any one persuasion. All are welcome to be free there and to express their own selves. Avalon/Glastonbury of the Heart has room for everyone, of good intent and loving kindness. Unity through Diversity.
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"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." Albert Einstein

​The second outing of the Glastonbury Unity Candle at Chalice Well, prior to being hosted at the Festival of Lugh in the White Spring. Lammas 2010.