Another blog on the Avalon mysteries this time looking at the goddess by Kathy Jones from http://www.isleofavalon.co.uk.
All illustrations by Diana Griffiths and additional photos by Simant Bostock.
Kathy has graciously granted me permission to publish her work here on the blog, Kathy has spent the last 30 years living in Glastonbury, also known as the Isle of Avalon, learning of the ways of the Goddess in this ancient and sacred place. She is a Priestess of Avalon and has played a key role in bringing back awareness of the Goddess into Glastonbury. Please go to her website www.kathyjones.co.uk to see more on the goddess and Glastonbury.
From time immemorial, the Isle of Avalon, in the Summerland (Somerset, England), has been home to the Goddess. This ancient sacred place is the legendary Western Isle of the Dead. Dedicated to an awesome and powerful Goddess, this Island lay far to the west in a shining sea. People were called here to die, to be transformed and to be reborn.
By tradition, a group of nine, thirteen or nineteen Maidens or Faerie Queens live, some say even today, upon this mysterious Western Isle. Skilled in healing and the magical arts of creation and death, they are the Keepers of the Mysteries of the Goddess. Their names come to us as those of Goddesses Anu, Danu, Mab, Morrigu, Madron, Mary, Arianrhod, Cerridwen, Rhiannon, Epona, Rigantona, Bride, Brigit, Hecate, Magdalena, Morgana, Gwenhwyfar, Vivien, Nimuë.
The Isle of the Dead is the gateway to Annwn, the Underworld of the Goddess, where the souls of the deceased await rebirth. The guardian of its entrance is Arawn or Gwyn ap Nudd – Gwyn son of Nudd or Ludd, the annual year king sacrifice now united with His Goddess. Gwyn is also Heme the Hunter, the Oak King and Cernunnos the Stag God. It is said that on Midsummer Night's Eve Gwyn rides out across Glastonbury Tor with the red-eared white dogs of the Wild Hunt of Annwn, sweeping in the souls of the dead to the Cauldron of the Dark Mother.
Today the sea and tidal lakes which once surrounded the Western Isle have been drained away. The seashore now lies 18 miles away to the west across the flat Summerland meadows, which are criss-crossed with rivers and small drainage canals, known as rhynes.
But when it rains heavily, the water in the rivers and rhynes rises quickly, spilling over the low banks and flooding out into the pastureland. The sea returns once more and again this Western Isle of the Dead rises out from the water and is visible for all to see.
All illustrations by Diana Griffiths and additional photos by Simant Bostock.
Kathy has graciously granted me permission to publish her work here on the blog, Kathy has spent the last 30 years living in Glastonbury, also known as the Isle of Avalon, learning of the ways of the Goddess in this ancient and sacred place. She is a Priestess of Avalon and has played a key role in bringing back awareness of the Goddess into Glastonbury. Please go to her website www.kathyjones.co.uk to see more on the goddess and Glastonbury.
Photo Source www.kathyjones.co.uk
Kathy Jones
From time immemorial, the Isle of Avalon, in the Summerland (Somerset, England), has been home to the Goddess. This ancient sacred place is the legendary Western Isle of the Dead. Dedicated to an awesome and powerful Goddess, this Island lay far to the west in a shining sea. People were called here to die, to be transformed and to be reborn.
By tradition, a group of nine, thirteen or nineteen Maidens or Faerie Queens live, some say even today, upon this mysterious Western Isle. Skilled in healing and the magical arts of creation and death, they are the Keepers of the Mysteries of the Goddess. Their names come to us as those of Goddesses Anu, Danu, Mab, Morrigu, Madron, Mary, Arianrhod, Cerridwen, Rhiannon, Epona, Rigantona, Bride, Brigit, Hecate, Magdalena, Morgana, Gwenhwyfar, Vivien, Nimuë.
Photo Source www.kathyjones.co.uk - Photo Simant Bostock
The Isle of Avalon surrounded by winter flood waters is the mysterious
Western Isle of the Dead. It is the gateway to Annwn, the Underworld of the Goddess.
The Isle of the Dead is the gateway to Annwn, the Underworld of the Goddess, where the souls of the deceased await rebirth. The guardian of its entrance is Arawn or Gwyn ap Nudd – Gwyn son of Nudd or Ludd, the annual year king sacrifice now united with His Goddess. Gwyn is also Heme the Hunter, the Oak King and Cernunnos the Stag God. It is said that on Midsummer Night's Eve Gwyn rides out across Glastonbury Tor with the red-eared white dogs of the Wild Hunt of Annwn, sweeping in the souls of the dead to the Cauldron of the Dark Mother.
Today the sea and tidal lakes which once surrounded the Western Isle have been drained away. The seashore now lies 18 miles away to the west across the flat Summerland meadows, which are criss-crossed with rivers and small drainage canals, known as rhynes.
But when it rains heavily, the water in the rivers and rhynes rises quickly, spilling over the low banks and flooding out into the pastureland. The sea returns once more and again this Western Isle of the Dead rises out from the water and is visible for all to see.
Glastonbury is one of those places where the very shape of the landscape speaks to the people who visit or live upon Her slopes. For it is here that the Body of the Goddess can be seen outlined in the contours of the small group of hills which rise out of the flat Summerland meadows. The Goddess appears in different forms to different people and as Her Nature changes with the seasons, She presents Her many faces to those with eyes to see. For some people the whole Island is Her spread and birth-giving body.
Viewed from the direction of Baltonsborough the island looks like a giant Goddess lying down on Her back on and in the earth. The Tor is Her left breast and ribcage. Wearyall Hill is Her left leg. Stonedown is her head sinking into the earth at Wick. The Birth Goddess Approaching Glastonbury from the southeast and the direction of Baltonsborough and Butleigh, many people have noticed that the side-view of the Isle of Avalon presents the profile of a giant Goddess lying down lengthways before them across the moors. Stonedown is the head of the Goddess, sinking back into the landscape. The Tor rises up as Her left breast and Her rib-cage. Chalice Hill is Her pregnant belly. Bere Lane marks Her hips and Wearyall Hill is Her left thigh and leg, Her foot sinking into the ground towards the nearby town of Street.
The Great Mother is the primordial aspect of the Divine, celebrated and revered throughout the ancient world. As all human life is born from a woman's body, so the Goddess was known to be the Source of all life. The earliest known sculptures are of the Birth-giving Goddess. The squat all-seeing Venus of Willendorf, which is 30,000 years old, is one example out of many.
As the Earth Mother She is Gaia. For the Celts and those who came before She is Anu-Danaa, the Good Mother, Goddess of Plenty. She is Madron, Mother of All. As a Moon Goddess, She is the Full Moon, shining radiantly to lighten the darkness of the night-time landscape. She is experienced by women when they are pregnant and during the fertile phase of the menstruation cycle. To the Welsh She is Arianrhod, High Fruitful Mother. Ariadne, our Kretan inspiration, means High Fruitful Mother of the Barley, derived from the same root as Demeter, Barley Mother – De meaning barley.
The Venus of Laussel in France, another early figure of the Goddess with protruding pregnant belly, milky breasts and fleshy thighs. She holds a bison horn in one hand and was once stained red with ochre. Moving round to the West of the Island in the direction of Meare, the spread body of the Goddess can be seen from the banks of the River Brue. The pregnant womb of Chalice Hill is in the centre, with the breast of the Tor rising behind. Her right breast is flattened falling down to the side of Paradise Lane. Her right leg is tucked beneath itself as St Edmund's or Windmill Hill. The left leg of Wearyall stretches down to the right. From here the head of Stonedown is not visible. From above Her whole body is visible.
Within Christianity, the Virgin Mary, the pure and spotless Mother of God, is the only nearly-acceptable face of the Goddess to be found. She is as yet unrecognised as the Virgin (One unto Herself) Mother Goddess. It would seem however that the first Christian builders must have been aware of the significance of this sacred spot when they planned their sanctuary. The Virgin Mary was often honoured in sites which are sacred to the Goddess. On the banks of the River Brue to the west of the island we can stand between the spread legs of the Goddess. In the centre is Her womb, behind and above is Her left breast. On the right is Her left leg. Her right leg is tucked under as Windmill Hill.
Glastonbury Abbey was erected upon the site of the first Christian church in Britain, built by Joseph of Arimathea in 63 AD. According to William of Malmesbury's De Antiquitate Glastoniensis, Joseph and his friends were told by a vision of the Angel Gabriel to build a church in honour of the Holy Mother of God – the Mother Goddess, and the Virgin Mary – the Goddess Mary, in a place shown them from heaven. This they did, building a small circular wattle church, which they dedicated to the Mother of God. For the early inhabitants of the Summerland the Virgin Mary was the Triple Goddess Brigit, who was the Goddess of Childbirth. At a later time St. Bridget was said to have been the midwife to Mary and wet-nurse to Jesus.
These proportions were re-discovered by Frederick Bligh Bond, the architect and clairvoyant, when he excavated the ruins of the Abbey, beginning in 1908. The study of the sacred geometry of the Abbey has since been developed by John Michell and Keith Critchlow.
Bligh Bond also found an Omphalos or egg stone during his excavations. This beautiful Omphalos now lies behind the Abbot's Kitchen in the Abbey grounds, its significance forgotten. The Omphalos is a universal representation of the Goddess as Egg of Life, Womb and Tomb. Shaped like an egg it has a depression in one surface. Here the menstruating Oracle of the Goddess would sit, Her holy blood collecting as she gave voice to the Word of the Goddess. This was the blood of the Goddess Charis, Aphrodite, Venus, Goddess of sexual love, from which the word Eucharist, meaning communion, comes. This blood was used in healing.
There is another depression in the Glastonbury Omphalos where the monks tried to christianise the egg stone by mounting it with a cross of sacrifice. This stone still gives off powerful vibrations and is a wonderful spot for a menstruating woman to sit. The grounds of Glastonbury Abbey are now a green and peaceful parkland with many unusual species of trees, including a small cider apple orchard. It is as if the Mons Veneris of the Birth Goddess were once again being allowed to sprout Her pubic hair. Festival of the Mother Goddess – Lammas Lammas is one of the four ancient Fire Festivals of the year, which come at the cross-quarter points between the Winter and Summer Solstices and the Spring and Autumn Equinoxes. These festivals mark turning points in the relationship between the Earth and Her fiery Mother, the Sun, revealing the different aspects of the Goddess. Lammas marks the midway point between the Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox and is celebrated on July 31st, Aug 1st and 2nd, between the hay and corn harvests.
Lammas is the time of celebration for the fertility of the Mother Goddess and the fruits of Her body, the Earth. For the Celts, it was the feast of Anu Danaa, the Mother Goddess, of Madron and of Arianrhod, the Birth Goddess. The first sheaves of ripened corn or other appropriate cereal are still made into a Corn Doll, or Barley Doll, in the image of the Mother Goddess, who is also Ceres, Demeter, Goddess of the Grain, the Barley Mother, Mistress of Earth and Sea. The Corn Doll is blessed and kept beside the hearth through the autumn.
At Eleusis an ear of corn symbolising the inherent life lying dormant in the fruit of all plants, played a central part in the Mysteries of Demeter. At Lammas Her special drink of barley, water and mint is drunk. This is the Kykeon, the sacramental cup of the Eleusinian Initiates.
Cornucopiae are goat's horns of plenty overflowing with flowers and fruit, which are brought to the Goddess's shrine in thanksgiving. It was the horns of the Goat Goddess Amalthea, which suckled the young God Zeus, saving his life, in the cave on Dicte on Krete. In Britain several sculptures have been found of the Deae Matrones, the Celtic Triple Mother Goddess, depicted as three robed figures, each carrying a cornucopia. Lammas is their festival, a celebration of human fecundity and the fruits of the Earth. The name Lammas come from Lugh nasadh – 'Commemoration of Lugh' or Llew, who was annually sacrificed as the Corn King to ensure the fertility of the crops. In mediaeval times Lammas was a Festival of mourning for Lugh and for all dead kinsfolk. These are known in the north of Britain as Wakes weeks, some of which are still celebrated at Lammas, as summer holidays. It was a time to visit the home of your Ancestors to give them due respect and honour. Glastonbury has long been a place of pilgrimage for people of all faiths. Many people visit Avalon, the Isle of the Dead, in the summer.
The dried ears of corn from the Corn Doll are planted in the earth at the following Imbolc in February, returning the Daughter seed to Mother Earth. The dried stems are burned and the ashes spread on the earth, the fire releasing the life of the previous year's harvest back into the Earth. So the cycle of the Goddess is renewed. The last sheaf of corn from the end of the harvest is hung above the fire through the autumn, containing the life inherent in all fruit. This sheaf will be made into a Bridie Doll at the following Imbolc. Echoes of the Lammas festival come down to us in the Christian harvest festival when the fruits of the harvest are brought into the church in thanksgiving. The Child of the Goddess – the Maiden Bride's Mound All Great Mothers must have a child and the Goddess in Glastonbury is no exception. To the southwest of the Island at Beckery, in a forgotten, derelict, industrialised area of Glastonbury, covered in part by the town's sewage works, lies Bride's Mound. This large mound can be seen as the emerging head of Her Child being born from between the spread legs of the Goddess. To stand or sit on Bride's Mound is to feel embraced by the landscape of the Birth-Giving Goddess.
From archaeology, from The High History of the Holy Graal, written in the 13th century, and from legend, we know that a community of women lived on Bride's Mound. Even today Bride's Mound is a large mound which would easily have supported a group of women with their own vegetable and herb gardens and chickens, even a cow. This was the women's sacred space with its own now lost Bride's Well. Until quite recently the Mound was surrounded by the tidal waters of the River Brue, which could be crossed at Pomparles Bridge or the Pons Perilous in the Grail legends. Visitors to the sacred land would cross this dangerous bridge to spend a twenty-four hour vigil with the women, before being allowed to enter the island. During this time they would have a vision or a dream of spiritual significance to take with them unto her Body.
Excavations on the Mound have revealed the remains of an early chapel dedicated to Mary Magdalene, the unrecognised Dark aspect of the Triple Mary Goddess. This chapel was part of a Mary Magdalene hermitage. It was here that St Bridget lived when she came to Glastonbury. According to legend King Arthur came to the Magdalene Chapel at dawn one Ash Wednesday, to find the door guarded by fiery swords, so no-one unworthy could enter. Within, an aged priest begins to say mass. The Virgin Goddess Mary appears with the baby Jesus in Her arms. The child is taken as the sacrament and his flesh is eaten, but afterwards he reappears whole and unharmed. At the end of the ceremony, the Mother Goddess gave Arthur an equal-armed cross of crystal, which was reputedly kept in the Abbey for many centuries and may still lie buried there. In memory of this vision Arthur changed his standard from that of a dragon to a silver cross on a green field, with the Mother Goddess and Her Son in one quarter and three crowns in the others. These later became the arms of Glastonbury Abbey.
Bride's Mound takes its name from Bride, Brigit, Brighde – the Triple Goddess of the Celts. A chapel dedicated to St. Bridget was built on Beckery or Little Ireland, in the fifth century. The nuns who lived here were said to celebrate Easter at the Aries full moon, no matter what day of the week it was. They lived in tune with the cycles of the Moon Goddess. St Bridget's emblem as the nurturing Goddess, of a woman milking a cow, is still visible on St Michael's Tower on the Tor and around the doorway to St Mary's Chapel in the Abbey.
The Goddess Brigit is the Triple Goddess of Brigantia, the ancient Celtic nation which included the British Isles, Brittany and parts of Spain. She is the Brigit of Poetry and Inspiration; the Brigit of Healing through the reciting of poetry at sacred Wells and Springs, and She is Brigit of the Flame, Hearth and Smithcraft. She is Goddess of the New Moon, experienced by women as a wave of renewed creativity and wellbeing after menstruation. Her symbol is a White Swan. Her flower is the snowdrop. The perpetual flame at Her shrine at Kildare in Ireland was said to have been tended by nineteen Virgins (One unto Themselves), symbolising the approximately nineteen-year (metonic) cycle of relationship between the moon and the sun. Brigit is also known as Bride of the Golden Hair and Bride of the White Hills. For the Irish She is popularly known as Mary of the Gael, equated with the Virgin Goddess Mary as Muse and inspiration. Festival of the Maiden Goddess – Imbolc The Festival of Imbolc takes place half way between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox and is celebrated on January 31st, Feb 1st and February 2nd. It lies opposite to Lammas, the festival of the Mother Goddess, and can be seen as the Festival of the Daughters of the Goddess. Where Demeter is the Mother Goddess, it is a festival of Kore, the Maiden. In Glastonbury Imbolc is the Maiden Brigit's Festival in which the Light of Illumination from Her perpetual flame is brought into a darkened room, heralding the coming of spring. Small honey and barley cakes are eaten and milk drunk in Her honour. On the first day, the ears of corn from the Lammas Corn Doll are planted in the ground and the dried stalks are burned, the flame releasing the life back into the earth. The ashes are spread upon the ground. In the evening a Bridie Doll is made from the last sheaves of corn harvested in the previous summer, which have hung by the hearth through the autumn. The Doll is made in the image of Brigit. Like the Corn Doll of Lammas She is decorated with love and good wishes for the coming year. Through the night the Bridle Doll is laid in a manger next to the fecundating flame. On the following day, the Maiden Bridie Doll is taken with Her Mother and Grandmother Dolls from previous years to the Sacred Well to receive Brigit's Blessing. Brigit's Healing aspect is celebrated through Poetry spoken beside the Sacred Spring. Unlike the Lammas Corn Doll, who returns Her life force and seeds back into the earth each year, the Bridie Dolls symbolise the nature of the Triple Goddess as She moves from Maiden to Mother to Grandmother. A new Bridle Doll is made each Imbolc, who then becomes part of the larger group of Mother and Grandmother Bridle Dolls. She brings knowledge of the present and future to them and learns from them their ancient wisdom. She represents the circle of the Ancestors who we will one day all join. Glastonbury as Birth Goddess
Glastonbury is a small eccentric country town where many people come to live an internalised womb-like life for a time. It may be nine or eighteen months or more, before they are reborn, sometimes spewed out from the body of the Great Mother. As the Goddess in the landscape is ever-pregnant and continuously giving Birth, this process is repeated in the many different areas of life for those who live here. Visitors too are catalysed into new ways of living by the touch of Her Life-Giving Body. The Birth Goddess is ever-pregnant and like Her, Glastonbury is a place of gestation, where new ideas, feelings and ways of being are glimpsed and anchored into consciousness and physical expression. It is here that dreams are nurtured and brought to birth, sometimes with great ease and at others with great difficulty, just like physical birth. The Holy Waters of Glastonbury Springs, wells and flowing water have long been associated with the Goddess as Water of Life. A woman's pregnant womb is filled with water and water passages are considered to be the way into the underground Womb of the Goddess.
Water is often a metaphor for love held too tightly in the hand – it flows away. Water, like love, is essential for fertility and creativity, without which the psychic world as well as the physical world becomes a desert. Goddess shrines are nearly always found near to wells, springs, lakes or the sea. In Christian times churches, hermitages and anchorages, especially those dedicated to women saints, were to be found near to a sacred well or spring. The Lady of the Lake was revered in Avalon in Arthurian times, but was worshipped here as the Goddess in much earlier days when Glastonbury was surrounded by tidal lakes. A large lake village has been found near Glastonbury dating from 300 BCE, with the earliest wooden trackway in the British Isles, dating from 3,500 BCE.
Within Glastonbury Tor itself is a huge volume of water, rising at great pressure from beneath the earth. On the northeastern side of the Tor is a Water Board manhole cover where the force of water can be heard roaring under the earth. The breast of the Mother is full of the White Milk of Life. In Glastonbury there are still many wells to be found, but sadly some of them lie forgotten and in a state of disrepair. Chalice Well is the only well which is truly honoured on the island. Here the healing properties of water and the peaceful atmosphere of the surrounding gardens are recognised. The White Spring which flows from beneath the Tor is once more being cared for and is dressed with flowers and candles at the eight fire festivals. The White Spring flows from beneath the Tor and has a high limestone content. It is probably from this Chalk Well that the name of Chilkwell Street comes. Brigit's healing water can be collected from inside the converted Wellhouse or from a small spout outside. Likewise the red Chalice Well water can be freely collected on the opposite side of Wellhouse Lane as well as from within the gardens, when open. These are the red and white waters of Annwn. Cerridwen, the Keltic Crone Mother can be translated as White Water Goddess. The Holy Well on the Old Wells Road has become a fishpond. Paradise Well, which is near to Gog and Magog, two ancient Druid oaks remaining from a grove which once led up to the Tor, sits in the middle of a field covered in brambles with crumbling brickwork. St Edmund's Well also crumbles in an orchard with trees growing up around its edges. The site of St Bride's Well is marked by a beautifully carved stone beside the River Brue near to Bride's Mound.
St Joseph's Well in Glastonbury Abbey can be found beneath the Mary Chapel. It was neglected for years and has recently been covered over, so the waters cannot now be touched or drunk. This Well is the earliest structure on the Abbey site and is probably the reason why the First Church was built here. Mary's holy waters should be available to honour. It is time for the honouring, opening up and caring for the sacred Wells and Springs. It is important for our psyches and souls as well as our bodies to honour the Goddess of the Waters. It is important that we recognise and welcome her fluid emotion and feeling once again as part of our life. Chalice Well
Chalice Well lies in a beautiful garden cared for by the Chalice Well Trust and founded in 1958 by Wellesley Tudor Pole. The Red Spring fills a five-sided chamber and flows underground to the Lion's head, where its water can be drunk. The waters flow down through the gardens splashing into a large Vesica Piscis shaped basin, near the gate, before flowing out beneath the town, along Chilkwell Street, and to the Abbey.
The Vesica Piscis is the symbol of the Chalice Well, which decorated the wrought iron well-cover given by Frederick Bligh Bond, who first excavated the Abbey. The Vesica Piscis symbol is composed of two interlocking circles, whose overlapping arcs form the Yoni or Vulva of the Goddess. This symbol represents both our birthplace into earthly existence from the Womb of the Goddess and the gateway to spiritual knowledge through Her Yoni, through sexual union with Her. On the Well cover this Vulva is pierced by a sword, a violent metaphor for the Phallus of the God. It is time that such swords were turned into ploughshares. "Plough my Vulva, man of my heart, plough my Vulva" ...sang the Sumerian Goddess Inanna, Queen of Heaven, Earth and the Underworld. In the lower Chalice Garden it is the Red Blood water of birth and of menstruation, which as we all know, flows through the Vulva.
Yew trees have long been associated with the Red Spring. The remains of ancient yew trees at least 2,500 years old were found around the well and today large yew trees still grow in the gardens. The yew tree is sacred to the Triple Death Goddess, Hecate. Its bark, sap and berries are red. Its place in the Celtic Tree Calendar is the day before the Winter Solstice, the most deathly day of the year. In women the red blood of menstruation marks another cyclic death. The monthly sloughing off of the red blood cells of the womb is death to the egg or any new life that may be hidden there. Menstruation is a time of dying, at the same time releasing the creative energy of the life that has been lost. Menstruation also indicates fertility. The menarche, the onset of menstruation in young women, indicates the beginning of the physically fertile phase of life as the menopause indicates its ending. So the blood of menstruation signals both physical and psychic fertility and death. The Red Water which flows continuously from the Womb of Mother Earth symbolises birth, fertility and death. The Blood Spring is dedicated to the Death Goddess in three aspects, as the Maiden, Mother and Crone. Chalice Well is the Well of the Grail, the Chalice and the Cauldron, the three kinds of Feminine Knowing – the Grail of the Maiden, the Chalice of the Mother and the Cauldron of the Crone. It is the perfect place to let things die, to give them away to the water and to the earth, to experience Her fertile Nature in the beautiful elemental gardens and to be reborn. The Isle of Apples
Cutting an apple across reveals the magical pentacle of the core, the Virgin Kore, Morgana, the underworld Goddess hidden within Demeter, the Earth Mother. This five-pointed star in a circle was the Egyptian hieroglyph for the underworld womb of transformation. Avalon is such a place of transformation.
Today many small apple orchards are still to be found covering the lower slopes of the Isle of Avalon. The Crone Goddess
In the landscape of the Crone, the Tor with its ancient terracing is Her ever-pregnant womb. Chalice Hill is Her soft nourishing breast. The Red waters of Chalice Well are the constant blood flow from Her womb. The White Spring is Her fertile essence. Her head with its crown and pointed nose is Windmill Hill where many people live and there is a good view in all directions. Her crooked body is formed by the undulations of Stonedown.
In the legends of Glastonbury She is Morgan le Fey or Morgan the Fate, sister to King Arthur and Queen of the Dead. She was one of three Faerie Queens, who ferried the mortally wounded King Arthur in their Moonboat, to the enchanted Isle of the Dead. Sometimes She is a Ninefold Goddess. Nine Sisters called Morgen who rule the Western Isles of the Dead.
The Crone is also Mary Magdalena in Her role as the Death Goddess. It is She who anoints the Chosen One with oil, signifying the Sacrifice to be made. In paintings and sculptures the Magdalena often appears with a skull at Her feet. For many She is the main incarnation of the Black Goddess, the Sophia or wisdom of the Gnostics. Festival of the Death Goddess – Samhain Samhain is the autumn Feast of the Dead coming at the midway point between the Autumn Equinox and the Winter Solstice. It is celebrated on Oct 31st, Nov 1st and 2nd. Echoes of this ancient festival come down to us in Hallowe'en and Bonfire Night. Samhain is the Celtic New Year when the shortening days and dying vegetation mark the end of the old year and the beginning of the new and a time of dormancy and hidden changes. On Hallowe'en children dress as witches, crones, warlocks and demons. Pumpkins, shaped like cauldrons are hollowed out and given Her face to ward off evil spirits. We bob beneath the water for Her magical apples of immortality. This is the night when the veil separating the visible and invisible worlds becomes thinner and the whole supernatural force is attracted to this seam between two years. It is now that we must face our demons and our fears. It is a time when anything can happen. The ancient feast of the Death Goddess still includes the ritual burning of the annual Year King sacrifice, now known as Guy Fawkes, but continuing an ancient tradition. We throw apple halves marked with the Dark Goddess's magical pentacle, to our loved ones across the Bonfire – Her good fire. It is in our relationships that the Dark Goddess often shows Her power confronting us with our hidden darkness.
Glastonbury is the Cauldron of the Crone, a great melting pot of regeneration and inspiration for the people who come here. This is the time of year when the clouds roll in across the flat Summerland and the mists thicken, shrouding the magical island and its secrets, concealing the landscape. Winter is approaching with its short cold days, bare landscape and darkness. The Crone and the Swan In the landscape of Glastonbury the Crone Goddess rides on the back of a Swan flying to the South West. Wearyall Hill is the Swan's outstretched neck and head, while the town and the lower slopes of the island form Her Body. The South West is the direction of the Dream, where the Kachinas, who are the Keepers of the Sacred Dream, live. To fly in this direction is to touch the Future.
Brigit is known as the White Swan. She shows by example the entrance into the Future. By following the Swan, we descend to the Dark Goddess whom She carries on her Back, to be reborn with inspiration and renewed creativity. As the Crone governs Samhain and the White Swan governs Imbolc, we meet this powerful combination of Goddesses during the winter months in Avalon.
The Tor Goddess From a distance the most noticeable feature on the Isle of Avalon is the Tor as She rises out of the flat Summerlands. She sits like a Great Goddess, a huge bounteous female figure in the middle of a landscape bowl or Cauldron. To see Her is to love Her. To the north the Mendip Hills form the rim of the Cauldron while smaller hills lie to the south and east. Stretching out towards the west the land is below sea level. Her Body is bounteous, fleshy, full of dips and folds. Her large belly, hips and thighs emphasise Her full sexual nature. She is the fecund Goddess of Love, Rhiannon, Aphrodite, Venus, the Morning and the Evening Star. She is Kundalini, rising Serpent Goddess of sexual energy and wisdom. She calls all to union, at-onement with Her. She is Goddess of the waxing Moon. Experienced by women during ovulation, She is full of desire, wisdom and creative potential.
Rhiannon of the Birds is the Virgin (meaning complete within Herself) Goddess of sexual love, tied to no man, free to love whom She chooses. Veiled in white She rides a white horse. She is the original powerful sexual image for all brides, now degraded in the patriarchy to symbolising a non-sexual virgin bride who loses her right to sexual freedom when she marries. She belongs to her husband. Rhiannon is also the archetype for Lady Godiva, the shameless woman who rides naked beneath a veil upon a white horse. "Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross To see a fine Lady ride on a white horse With birds as Her halo and bells on her toes, She shall have music wherever She goes"
The entrance to the labrynth lies at the western end of the Tor near the bottom of Wellhouse Lane, and is marked by large fallen standing stones. The first turning of the maze is on the third level counting up from the bottom of the Tor and marked by a stone. The labrynth follows a pattern of 3 2 1 4 7 6 5, ending on the fifth outer circuit. It is here that psychically or in the past physically the journeyer in the maze, enters Her Body, near to Her heart. This maze pattern lures the lover of the Goddess to their psychic death within Her depths. On Krete the pattern of this maze was received by the priestess in ritual communion with Ariadne as the Snake Goddess, source of inspiration and creative sexual energy. The Labrynth was laid out as a ritual dance floor and was sacred to the Moon Goddess in Her three aspects.
The labrynth took on a much more sinister meaning when the Minotaur the dangerous god/man/animal was imprisoned at the centre of a three dimensional Labrynth. The whole story symbolises the takeover of the major peaceful Goddess civilisation by the invading brutalising forces of patriarchy.
Festival of the Virgin Goddess – Beltane
Beltane is a time of celebration of the May Queen, the Virgin Goddess of sexual love, Maia. She is Virgin meaning unmarried and sexual. Holy Virgin was a title given to the harlot-priestesses of Ishtar, Asherah and Aphrodite, who dispensed the Mother's Grace through sexual worship. They were healers, prophets, dancers, Brides of God. The May Queen is Rhiannon, Blodeuwedd or Olwen, the Flower Goddess. Under Christianity the Virgin Goddess was split into two – the non-sexual Virgin Mary Mother of God and Mary Magdalene the Whore. It was a case of divide and rule.
The Whore, who has been much maligned, is also known as the Black Goddess and the Black Virgin. She is the Sophia of the Gnostics, the Shekina of the Jews. She is the hidden, sexual, despised because She is too powerful, aspect of the Mary Goddess. It was the Magdalena who was the Lover and Companion to Jesus. The Whore is the Other face of the Crone Goddess, Her polar opposite in the yearly cycle. She is the Goddess who leads us through sexual passion to spiritual transformation. She shows the way to union with the Goddess through sexual union between women and men. By tradition in Avalon women meet in the daylight beside the Blood Spring of Chalice Well to welcome the Goddess of Springtime. on April 30th. May Eve is Walpurgisnacht, the night when the witches fly around the Hollow Hills. It is a splendid time to walk into the centre of Her Maze upon the Tor, walking out of the Maze either with the dawn on Mayday or later at the end of Beltane. It is the night when a fire burns on the Tor and lovers jump over the fire together, pledging their faithful love for a year and a day to be renewed or abandoned on the next Beltane. It is the time for the Sacred Marriage, a union in the Sight of the Goddess. For a few years, each Beltane, a branch of the Druid order laid out a ribbon Maze on the slopes of the Tor. The new May Queen danced Her way into the centre of the Maze, changing places with the May Queen of the old year, who danced out of the maze. The May Queen brings with Her flowering sprigs of hawthorn. Hawthorn blossoms were reputed to smell of women's sexual emanations and were used in the orgiastic cult of the Goddess Cardea.
Beltane was the time when the Sacred Marriage took place between the Goddess and Her Chosen Consort, who would rule with Her for a day or a week or a year. In memory of this, small oat cakes are given out to the people. One is marked beneath with a cross or a coin is hidden inside. The person who bites into this cake is the Chosen One, who will carry the divine energy for the coming time. In times past this person would be sacrificed at the end of their royal reign. Nowadays to be Chosen signifies a special time of inspiration and duty to the Goddess.
Festivals of the Moon Goddess The Moon Goddess is usually seen as a Triple Goddess, whose qualities correspond to the phases of the moon as we see Her in the sky. She is Artemis, the Virgin Huntress, Goddess of the New Moon. She is Anu, Isis, Cybele, Mother Goddess of the Full Moon. And She is Hecate or Hel, Crone Goddess of the Waning or Dark Moon. The Moon Goddess could more accurately be described as a fivefold Goddess. She is Goddess of the New Moon, the Waxing Moon, the Full Moon, the Waning Moon and the Dark or Hidden Moon. In each lunar cycle of 28-29 days She presents Her five faces to the earth. The Festivals of the Moon Goddess take place at each of the thirteen New and Full Moons in every year.
The cycle of the Moon Goddess is potent because She symbolises the journey of all forms of Life, from birth to fruition and death, and then regeneration. Her lunar cycle forms the basis of all rites of passage and initiatory experiences. The Moon Goddess is a powerful teacher who has long been part of the Avalonian experience. She is easily visible from all parts of the Island. She is particularly connected to women through the inter- weaving of the Moon and menstruation cycles. She is connected to men through the unconscious experiences of their ovulating and menstruating anima or soul. The New Moon Festivals of the year are usually celebrated at the Sacred Springs of the Goddess. There are ceremonies in which Holy Water is drunk and the Goddess's blessing is received. At New Moon the moon and sun are to be found in the same Zodiacal sign in the heavens. The energy of the New Moon is qualified by sign of the Zodiac into which falls. The New Moon festival is a three day experience with one day of preparation, one day of communion and one day of expression.
The Festivals of the Full Moon are often celebrated around a fire, with feasting, dancing and singing. There is communion with the Full Moon Goddess and transmission of Her energy through the group into the world. Full Moon is also Full Sun and the sun and moon are to be found in opposite signs of the Zodiac. The energy of the Full Moon is qualified by both its own sign and that through which the sun is passing.
Black Kali is the Crone Moon Goddess, an eater of the dead. She sits impaled upon Shiva in his corpse aspect. Frightening and fearsome She haunts the Dreamworld, but holds the key to transformation. Bengal 18th Century. In a more meditative phase, Full Moon festivals are five day events with two days leading up to the day of Full Moon for preparation, cleansing of the temple, meditation and prayer; the day of the Full Moon as a day of communion with Her; and the two following days for creative expression and manifestation of the energy received. RELEVANT REFERENCES For Inspiration Descent to the Goddess by Sylvia Brinton Perrera, Inner City Books Fruits of the Moon Tree by Alan Bleakley, Gateway Books Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth by D Wolkstein and S N Kramer, Rider The Triple Goddess by A. Maclean, Hermetic Research Series The White Goddess by Robert Graves, Faber The Women's Encyclopaedia of Myths and Legends by Barbara Walker, Harper and Row Women's Mysteries by M Esther Harding, Rider Kathy Jones' Books The Ancient British Goddess – Her Myths, Legends and Sacred Sites 110pp, fully illustrated £6.50 Spinning the Wheel of Ana – A Spiritual Quest to find the Primal British Ancestors 262pp, 100+ drawings & photos £11.95 All from Ariadne Publications
I would like to acknowledge my gratitude for all that Glastonbury has brought to me so far in my life. My love and thanks to my children, lona and Torquil, to my lovely partner Mike Jones, to my Hag sisters, Diana Griffiths and Pauline Watson, and to all those wonderful people who have been a part of Ariadne Productions, without whom life would have been dull. I am aware in writing this book that the emphasis is almost completely upon the Goddess and upon women. This is not to deny the inherent equality between the Goddess and the God, between women and men, but to redress an imbalance of perspective several thousand years old.
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