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Glastonbury Culture
and annual events
Frances Howard-Gordon
adapted from the book Glastonbury - Maker of Myths
by Frances Howard-Gordon, published by Gothic Image of Glastonbury.
As with most things relating to Glastonbury, nothing is quite as it seems. Any attempt here to describe the culture or in any sense pin it down immediately involves sweeping generalisations. The truth remains elusive but for my purposes here, it will have to be subjective.
Regarded as the oldest and holiest of England's spiritual
sanctuaries, Glastonbury has always had its pilgrims,
the 'hippies' or 'New Age travellers' being merely current versions of the wild
specimens of humanity who would have come here in ancient and medieval times.
History has a way of repeating itself – and just as Glastonbury was a
pagan centre before it became a Christian shrine, so now the 'new
pagans' have made their home here.
History
The spiritual revival of Glastonbury could be traced to the founding of the Theosophical Society in London in the 1880s. At that time many were influenced by strange yet inspiring tales brought back from India and various corners of the British Empire. It was rumoured that the West lacked all spirituality and was entirely given over to materialism, whereas the East was full of sages and spiritual wisdom. Madame Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society, was inspired by Himalayan Masters, but Dr Anna Kingsford split with her to form the Hermetic Society in order to delve more deeply into the spiritual legacy of the British Isles.
Various magical orders with a Western approach followed suit, including the Golden Dawn and a ritualistic group calling itself the Liberal Catholic Church. The poets Tennyson and William Blake began to write about a new spiritual awareness in Britain and socialists as well as new occult groups began to see that our own British myths and legends have much to teach us. Both Blavatsky and Dion Fortune had resurrected the Goddess and the subject of Women's Mysteries, but it was Dion Fortune who finally wrote about Glastonbury as a centre of the Western mystery tradition. (See The Avalonians by Patrick Benham for details.)
Along with its reputation as a spiritual centre, Glastonbury was famous throughout the country in the 1920s for its culture. The National Festival Theatre of Music and Drama, which came to be known as the 'Glastonbury Festival', began on 5 August 1914 in the Assembly Rooms in Glastonbury. It was established by the British composer Rutland Boughton and became the model for art and music festivals such as Bath, Aldeburgh, Glyndebourne and subsequent rural festivals.
During his stay in Glastonbury, Boughton wrote a series of music dramas based on the Arthurian legends, a choral drama Bethlehem, The Queen of Cornwall and others including The Immortal Hour, which is based on Fiona Macleod's Celtic legend about a faery female and her human lover. Boughton put on performances of these and other works with his Glastonbury Players. In its heyday, patrons, visitors and performers included such cultural giants as George Bernard Shaw, Edward Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Thomas Hardy, D.H. Lawrence, T.E. Lawrence and John Galsworthy.
The Glastonbury Arts Festival was revived in 1996 and saw the performance by local Glastonians of the opera The Immortal Hour. Lunchtime concerts at St John's Church, evening concerts in various venues, son et lumiêre in the Abbey grounds, and an arts and crafts exhibition and fair were some of the events planned to take place yearly at this festival from mid-August to mid-September. The project did not last long, but its core intent of promoting the creative arts has instead been taken up by the annual Music and Dance Festival and the Classical Extravaganza in the Abbey, both happening each year in August.
Of course the hippies of the late 1960s had much to do with making Glastonbury famous for a whole new generation. With their nomadic instinct, new-found mysticism and quest for the meaning of life, they came to Glastonbury and the surrounding countryside, set up communes and craft workshops, and experimented with new ways of living.
Then, in 1971, the Glastonbury Fayre was held to celebrate the summer solstice. This was England's 'Woodstock'. It was the first of what became an almost annual event in the fields at Pilton five miles away from Glastonbury, and the views of Glastonbury Tor and the tales of magic and alternative lifestyles attracted a whole new wave of young people to settle in the area. Glastonbury was the perfect environment with its natural sanctuaries alive with myths and legends and, of course, the magic spell of its sacred landscape.
The present
In the late 1970s there were few outward signs of alternative spiritual aspirations in the town, although spiritual groups like the Winds of Truth had met for years. The Glastonbury Fayre, full-moon meditations and the Gothic Image shop with its Mystical Tours of Glastonbury were the only obvious signs of another kind of thinking in the town.
The Assembly Rooms was restored and revived as an arts centre for the community in the early 1980s and in the 1990s it was purchased by a collective of Friends who continue to run it in a cooperative, community-spirited way. Gog Theatre played a large part in bringing the place to life with their theatre performances. Notable also were the spectacular mystery plays, Ariadne Productions, often with a cast of 50 people, produced by Kathy Jones in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It became home to the Gothic Relief Theatre, pantomimes and all kinds of community activities.
A host of New Age shops emerged in the 1980s, alongside vegetarian cafes and a wholefood shop, and the setting up of talks, lectures and workshops on spiritual matters.
In the late 1990s Glastonbury was a safe haven for the road-protest movement and for the camps movement, initially founded in Glastonbury in 1984 and now a national phenomenon, who came here for their 'tribal gatherings'. Glastonbury now hosts a younger generation and 'tribe' from the dance movement of the 1990s.
The annual Glastonbury Symposium for Crop Circles and Signs of our Time, for crop-circle enthusiasts and esoteric thinkers, takes place annually in July, now in the Town Hall, together with the world-famous Goddess Conference in early August.
There are Avalon Pipers, didgeridoo players, and all kinds of spinoffs from Ozric Tentacles, the psychedelic rock band. Kangaroo Moon grew out of Glastonbury, as did Steve Jolliffe (once of Tangerine Dream). In the 1980s and early 1990s the rock musicians John Cartwright and Jaki Whitren led a wave of musical development which gave rise to many experimental musical experiences and groups, two more lasting groups being Silver On The Tree and the Avalonian Free State Choir. Spacegoats, Heathens All, and Tofu Love Frogs are local to Glastonbury, as well as younger DJs and mixers. They organise parties and gigs, usually in the Assembly Rooms, and have strong local followings. A more recent arts venture, the Phoenix Project, is on King Street, just down Northload Street.
The National Federation of Spiritual Healers now has its home here, and anyone can receive healing for a small donation. There are healers of all kinds and counsellors of a high quality, who draw people to Glastonbury from all over Britain and the world, seeking healing and breakthrough of a kind other practitioners somehow do not deliver. The Glastonbury Health Centre has also pioneered a scheme whereby alternative therapies are funded to play a part in the NHS provisions for the town. The Isle of Avalon Foundation, in the Glastonbury Experience courtyard off the main High Street, organises a variety of lectures and courses for serious students of esoterics, and many one-off workshops are organised by such groups as the Wessex Research Group.
The Library of Avalon is to be found in the Courtyard, and it is worth taking a look at its ever-expanding collection of mythological and esoteric titles. The quarterly Avalon Magazine covers the latest thinking and inspirations around all things Glastonbury-related. The Bridget Chapel, also in this courtyard, is a quiet place to say a prayer. The Goddess Temple is also in the courtyard.
The Christian community is very active and includes the Quest Community and the Celtic Orthodox church. Our current vicar, Maxine Marsh, is a minister who brings the Christian way to life to the whole community. All kinds of Eastern religions have followers here. On the last Saturday in June every year Glastonbury is host to the Anglican pilgrimage, when clergy from all over England gather with their congregations to process, with hymns and incense, down the High Street and take communion at the high altar of Glastonbury Abbey, the oldest church in the land. The Catholic Church meets here the next day, Sunday; this procession beginning on the slopes of the Tor and making its way to the Abbey. From 1998 these pilgrimages have taken place on the first Saturday and Sunday of July.
It has been a bizarre sight on the last weekend of June in Glastonbury, for that is the time of the Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Arts (commonly known as the Glastonbury Festival, locally as the Pilton Pop Festival, previously the Glastonbury Fair). The tiny village of Pilton, five miles from Glastonbury, is invaded by more than 100,000 people from all over the country and abroad. It is now the biggest rock festival in Europe, maybe the world, and Michael Eavis, farmer and impresario, donates large sums raised at the festival to Greenpeace and other large charities, as well as funding all kinds of local charitable projects. Big-name bands and stars perform, the theatre and circus events can be stunning, green alternative technology and sustainable living structures are on show, and the atmosphere is electric. It is said that if you remember Glastonbury, you weren't there!
In 1996 Michael Eavis began to put on something new for Glastonbury and for a different generation: a Classical Extravaganza in Glastonbury Abbey in mid-August, with a reputable national orchestra, choir and military band playing well-known pieces of classical music, the Abbey lit up for the occasion, water displays and fireworks. This has now extended to performances by artists such as Jools Holland and Van Morrison.
There is a Glastonbury Dance Festival at the end of July – a celebration of dance from around the world, with dance workshops and dancing in the High Street, all organised locally. One regular yearly event well worth mentioning is the Glastonbury Children's Festival, organised by Arabella Churchill, who runs the charity Children's World. This festival has been going since 1981, and still remains the only one with a 'lost parents' tent. The variety of fringe and experimental-type puppet, clown and circus shows are well worth a visit by anyone who may still be young-at-heart. It takes place over four days in August.
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Something altogether specific to this area, and possibly a relic from an ancient pagan fire festival, is the Glastonbury Carnival in mid-November, around Guy Fawkes Day. The carnival, with huge illuminated floats made by local clubs to raise money for local charity, tours several Somerset towns and ends up in Glastonbury. A spectacular, crowded, noisy, strangely kitsch procession of illuminated vehicles takes place – enjoyed by everyone.
For more about the internal workings of the local community, visit Local Community. For listings of events taking place in town, visit Glastonbury Online, get The Oracle, a monthly events sheet, at shops on the High Street, or try this:
Isle of Avalon |
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