The Mysteries of Glastonbury and the Isle of Avalon

[Newgrange]

Glastonbury is on a former island in the Somerset marshes - the Isle of Avalon. It's a lively town with a long history and rich traditions. It has been a megalithic centre, a place of the Goddess and a Druid college. Its medieval abbey became a famous pilgrimage place. Today it's a town of 9,000 people with a unique atmosphere. It hosts a rock festival, several conferences and lots of events. People visit from the world over, pulled by a special something...

Glastonbury is overlooked by the Tor, a majestic, anomalous hill. It is a major sacred site, and home to the king of the fairies, Gwyn ap Nudd. He likes visitors. Legend has it that Joseph of Arimathaea built the very first Christian church where the abbey ruins now stand. Arthur and Guinevere were held to be buried here, and Glastonbury has been home to Saints Patrick, Dunstan, David and Bridget.

For the last hundred years it has been a mecca to occultists, mystics, healers and creative people. Its 'alternative' community has given the town new life as its traditional economy has declined.


Source: Isle of Avalon

[Hoarsewhisper]

There's something about the land of Avalon which makes it slightly shimmer, as if the subtle energies and perceptions of the inner worlds or the imagination permeate the physical fabric of this place and the life that goes on here.

The veils between the worlds are thin here, opening doors of deepened perception. This seems to have existed since the beginnings of time.


[...] mystery traditions variously infer that Glastonbury was:

- a remnant of the Atlantean civilisation

- settled by Sumerians who laid out a vast landscape zodiac here
a centre of teaching and initiation in ancient times

- a place of the Goddess and Goddess traditions

- the site of a classical Cretan labyrinth on the Tor
visited by Jesus as a young man (as in And did those feet in ancient time, walk upon England's mountains green?)

- later settled by the refugee Joseph of Arimathaea and twelve acolytes, bringing the Holy Grail and founding one of the world's earliest proto-Christian settlements

- the burial place of King Arthur and Guinevere and the resting place of many saints

- and, in recent times, a few have called Glastonbury the heart chakra of the planet.

Sceptics pass these off as falsities, the money-raising claims of medieval monks or the dreams of new-age mystics, yet there is something to these traditions, and they are outlined in this section. The challenge in this century is to establish a new relationship and dialogue between proven history and myths and traditions. The scepticism of the 20th C has been excessive and excluded too much - and Glastonbury is one of those places where this has had big effects.