 Fiona is one of this site's sponsors Atasha Fyfe started life in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia) and landed up in Glastonbury – one of the interesting people in this rather cosmopolitan small town who came to check out the place and never quite left! She took all the photos here (except for the background by Lesley Delamont) Her fellow Avalonians explain a little more here. They were asked to recount what they would most miss if they had to leave tomorrow. And this is what they wrote... |
Avalon of the Heart
Photos by Atasha Fyfe
Words by resident Avalonians
People who live in Glastonbury are often quite emphatic about why they live here and what they love about the place. Read on to find out what they think about the place...
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First thought – Chalice Well garden – particularly out of season. Second thought – the Tor especially on a clear starlit night. Third thought – how friendly the people here are and how welcome they have made me. – Chris Marshall
Views of the Tor from all around, and Glastonbury's colourful, eccentric, creative people. – Caroline Winstone
If I were obliged to leave Glastonbury tomorrow I would always remember the sense of a gateway it gave me: a gateway to infinite possibilities, not abstract, but right here on earth. It gives me the sense of a place set apart – a place quite other than the mundane – where I can be all I can be. – Nicholas R Mann
My first visit to Glastonbury, back in the summer of '71, left me with an indelible impression of 'immanence' and 'presence', generated simply by my first sighting of the tower on top of the very 'green' Tor, against a remarkable backdrop of clouds flushed luminous tangerine and a surreal translucent turquoise sky.
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This seemed to set a precedent: each successive visit was initiated by a sense of homecoming, from the moment the Tor came into view. This sense of awe and wonder, even after twenty-five years as a resident, still weaves its enchanting magic in my heart.
If circumstances compelled me to depart this land of Avalon, never to return, the essence of the sense of belonging would go with me for always, but the elemental joy of returning home would be left in the trust of my memory's imagining. – Simon Downs
I'll never forget becoming entranced by the sight of a full moon over Chalice Hill. I stayed up most of the night, almost oblivious to the cold, and just watched. A blackbird was wakeful, too, and sang to me all night. I didn't feel even a little bit tired the next day. – Geraldine Charles
To be able to walk up the High Street and smile at faces – strangers or friends – and to have these faces meet my eyes and smile back. Unique. – Collette Barnard
There is an 'energy' here, the nature of which might be difficult to identify. I felt it on my first visit – a climb up the Tor to spread my mother's ashes. The memory I would take away is a vision of the levels from up there early on Christmas morning 1999. A low sullen cloudscape with flickers of lightning seen through flutterings of light snow falling – and the sheer wetness of the Levels then – making one feel as if one really was on an island. Glastonbury opened doors of creativity for me, showing an almost hallucinogenic vista of possibilities. I've decided I'm not leaving. – Ed Murfin
For all the sight of the Tor, the heart-lift of recognising 'home', and for all the pleasure I've had walking and cycling in the area, what I would most remember, value and miss, if by some mischance I were exiled from Glastonbury, is the people I've met here. In Glastonbury, I have found a network of support and care that never fails to reach me when I need it. It's not predictable, it is not strongly related to the circle I may socialise with or how well I 'know' people.
It can be a hug on the street, or a chance conversation. I can no longer count how many times a moment's kindness has made the unbearable bearable. Before coming to Glastonbury, I suffered from a deep loneliness and alienation that I believed was simply the condition of being myself. Here I've found the heart-ease that is true companionship. To be banished from the community I have found here, with all its eccentricity, variety and challenges, would indeed be a terrible fate. – Dearbhaile Bradley
© All photographs © copyright 2003-4.
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