The Real camelot

My first visit to Glastonbury was in the late summer of 1986. I

had been bicycling for a year throughout western and Mediterranean

Europe in search of stone circles, holy wells of the Earth goddess, and
Gothic cathedrals. All the while I had felt a powerful yearning to visit
the region and village of Glastonbury. It felt as if the place was
mysteriously exerting a magnetic attraction upon both my mind and heart.
The closer I came, the more my dreams and imaginations were filled with
images of dragons, fairy kingdoms, and Arthurian legends. Upon reaching
England, I hastened southwest toward the region of Somerset. Nearing
Glastonbury, cycling through emerald green valleys shrouded in fog, it
seemed I was entering a magical kingdom. Miles ahead in the distance the
great hill known as the Tor loomed high above the ethereal mists and
all the world below. It appeared, as it had been long ago, an island
jutting skyward from an inland sea.

The earliest knowledge we have of the Tor come to us from
legends. In prehistoric times the island peak was believed to be the
home of Gwyn ap Nudd, the Lord of the spirit world of Annwn.
Immortalized in folklore, Gwyn ap Nudd became a Fairy King and his realm
of Annwn the mystic isle and sacred mount of Avalon. Long a holy place
of pagan spirituality, the 170 meter tall hill shows extensive signs of
being contoured by human hands in Neolithic times. These contours,
indistinct after the passage of thousands of years, mark the course of a
spiraling labyrinth, which encircles the hill from base to peak.
Ancient myths and folk legends suggest that pilgrims to the sacred
island would moor their boats upon the shore and, entering the great
landscape labyrinth, begin their long ascent to the hilltop shrine. By
following the intricate and winding route of the labyrinth, rather than
ascending by a more direct line, a deep attunement with the Tor’s
concentrated terrestrial and celestial energies was achieved.

Archaeologists are prone to dismiss such legends as nothing but
fanciful myths of preliterate people. A wealth of studies, however, by
folklorists, dowsers and other earth mystery researchers suggest that
these mythic images may in fact be the dim memories of long forgotten
realities. In the mid 1960’s, for example, the brilliant scholar of
English antiquities, John Michell, found evidence of an alignment of
Neolithic sacred sites in the Glastonbury region. The Tor was linked
with such venerable ancient holy places as Avebury stone rings and
St.Michael’s Mount. More recent research by Hamish Miller and Paul
Broadhurst, featured in their book The Sun and the Serpent, has revealed
this enigmatic alignment runs all across southern England linking
hundreds of Neolithic, Celtic and early Christian sacred places.

Miller and Broadhurst have brought to light other matters of
great importance. Laboriously dowsing the entire alignment over a period
of years, they discovered there are actually two distinct lines of
energy – roughly parallel to one another – flowing for nearly 300 miles.
Because of the large number of St.Michael and St.Mary churches situated
upon the lines, these energy pathways have been dubbed the St.Michael
and St.Mary lines. While the lines are of far greater antiquity than
Christianity, it is not entirely inappropriate to have given them such
Christian names. St.Michael, or more properly the Archangel Michael, is
traditionally regarded as an angel of light, the revealer of mysteries
and the guide to the other world. Each of these qualities are in fact
attributes of other earlier divinities that Michael supplanted.
Frequently shown spearing dragons, St.Michael is widely recognized by
scholars of mythology to be the Christian successor to pagan gods such
as the Egyptian Thoth, the Greek Hermes, the Roman Mercury and the
Celtic Bel. Mercury and Hermes were considered guardians of the
elemental powers of the earth spirit, whose mysterious forces were
sometimes represented by serpents and linear currents of dragon energy.
Along these dragon lines were highly charged power places – the
serpent’s dens and dragon’s lairs of prehistoric myths – whose locations
archaic geomancers had marked with spear-like standing stones, cave
temples, and hilltop sanctuaries. Thousands of years later, as
Christianity began its relentless spread through pagan Europe,
St.Michael shrines were placed at these sites and the dragon-slaying
Archangel became a symbol of the Christian suppression of the old
religions.

As Miller and Broadhurst continued their dowsing research,
following the Michael and Mary energy lines to and up the sides of the
Tor, they made a remarkable discovery. The two lines appeared to mirror
the ancient landscape labyrinth as it winds its serpentine way to the
summit. Even more astonishing, the two lines move in a sort of harmony
with one another and, at the very peak, interpenetrate as if they are
ritually mating. The female, yin or Mary energy line encloses the
masculine, yang or Michael energy in the form of a double-lipped cup. It
is a most evocative image. The configuration of the Mary energy line,
containing the phallus-like mediaeval tower of St.Michael, seems to
portray a chalice or grail and is thus a potent symbol of the alchemical
fusion of universal opposites.

Descending the Tor, the Michael and Mary lines pass precisely
through other key sites in Glastonbury’s sacred geography. Primary among
these are the Chalice Well, Glastonbury Abbey, and Wearyall Hill. A
study of the myths and legends of these places will reveal more
associations with that mystical vessel, the Holy Grail. The story is
fascinating. According to old Cornish legends, Christ’s uncle, Joseph of
Arimathaea, was a tin merchant who traded with miners on Britain’s
western coasts. On one of his trading journeys he brought along his
nephew, the boy Jesus, and together they made a pilgrimage to the Holy
Isle of Avalon. Years later, following the Crucifixion, Joseph returned
to Avalon and moored his boat on Wearyall Hill. There he planted his
staff in the ground, where it took root and blossomed into the Holy
Thorn whose descendant is still growing on the hill today. On the site
below this hill Joseph built a small church, believed to be first
Christian foundation in Britain. From the Holy Land Joseph had brought
the cup used at the Last Supper, which held the blood of Christ that
dripped from the Cross. This most sacred of objects, the Holy Grail, is
said to have been buried with the body of Joseph on Chalice Hill, which
lies between the Tor and the site of Abbey.

Near the center of Glastonbury town stand the ruins of the old
Abbey, once the greatest monastery of medieval Europe. In the heart of
the Abbey, a St.Mary Chapel marks the exact site where Joseph set his
original church. Analysis of the ground plan of the St.Mary chapel
reveals proportions of sacred geometry equal to those found at nearby
Stonehenge, and a ley line running through the axis of the Abbey runs
straight to that famous stone ring, indicating a connection between the
two holy places in deep antiquity. During the Christian era large
numbers of pilgrims flocked to the Abbey to venerate the relics of
saints and sages, some of the most valued relics being those of
St.Patrick who ended his days at Glastonbury in 461 AD (Patrick, the
much loved ‘saint’ of Ireland is not actually Irish but was born in
England and later captured by Irish pirates and sold into slavery
there). In 1539 the Abbey was closed by order of King Henry VIII and the
great monastery fell into ruins. Before the closure of the Abbey, monks
hid the vast wealth of relics, manuscripts, and other treasures within
tunnels and caverns beneath Glastonbury Tor. Legends say these hidden
treasures will one day be revealed, ushering an age of peace and
enlightenment into the world.

The Glastonbury region and its Abbey also have strong
associations with Arthurian legends and the quest for the Holy Grail. In
1190 AD, following a fire which destroyed much of the Abbey, the
dramatic discovery was made of two ancient oak coffins buried sixteen
feet beneath the ground. Contained within the coffins were the bones of a
large man and a woman, and an inscribed cross identifying the bodies as
those of King Arthur, whose traditional burial place was Avalon, and
Queen Guinevere. Centuries old texts in the Abbey library describe the
adventures of King Arthur and his knights between Avalon and nearby
Cadbury Castle, where stood Arthur’s court of Camelot. More recent
research has lent further credibility to the ancient association of
Glastonbury with Arthurian legend. In 1929 an artist, Kathryn Maltwood,
discovered evidence of a group of enormous earth figures molded on the
landscape across ten miles of Somerset. These figures, delineated by
natural features of the earth and further contoured by human design,
have been interpreted as scenes from Arthurian legends based on
astrological patterns. While it is now known that the figures long
predate the historical period of King Arthur (500 AD), their presence
hints at archaic wisdom teachings encoded in the very hills and valleys
of mother earth.

Perhaps the most intriguing of all Glastonbury’s mysteries are
the strange balls of colored lights frequently seen spiraling around the
Tor. In 1970, a local police officer reported seeing eight egg-shaped
objects «dark maroon in color, hovering in formation over the hill» and
in 1980 a witness saw «several green and mauve lights hovering around
the tower, some smaller than others, about the size of beach balls and
footballs. One hovered outside the east facing window». This author
spent one summer night sleeping within the tower and, waking from a
dream of castles and magical beings, found the interior of the tower
radiantly aglow with a luminous white light. Glastonbury, the mystic
isle of Avalon is truly an enchanted place. A sacred site since time
immemorial, it is often forgotten but always rediscovered. Today a major
haven for pilgrims and spiritual seekers, Glastonbury is a power place
of potent transformational energies.

For those readers desiring more detailed studies of Glastonbury and its environs, consult New Light on the Ancient Mystery of Glastonbury, by John Michell, and The Isle of Avalon: Sacred Mysteries of Arthur and Glastonbury, by Nicholas Mann.