Isle of Avalon | The Many Faces of Glastonbury

<BODY> <H1><A HREF="avalon-manyfaces1.html">The many faces of Glastonbury</A></H1> <H3>1. The conventional view of Glastonbury</H3> <P>From what might be thought of as the conventional point of view Glastonbury is a small Somerset market town. A few Bronze Age and Neolithic artifacts have been found on the Tor but we do not have much solid fact about the place before about 600 AD when we learn of a wooden church established in Glastonbury.</P> <P>Later in about 950 AD we see written history emerging with St. Dunstan building a new Abbey around the wooden church. By the Middle Ages this had become the great Benedictine Abbey the remains of which can be seen today. Glastonbury was one of the wealthiest Abbeys in the land, its Abbot playing a major part in the ruling of England.</P> <P>This great monastery drew pilgrims from afar, kings, princes and ordinary people. These pilgrims found in Glastonbury what they were seeking spiritually and brought with them wealth which was donated to the Abbey. The Abbey grew in strength and prosperity as its possession of lands and property increased. Around this Monastery grew up a thriving town supporting the activities of the monks with local builders, butchers, bakers and merchants and services of every kind.</P> <P>With the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII, the Abbey was closed, the monks were pensioned off and disbursed. Many valuables were taken by the king's men, and the lead was removed from the Abbey roofs and the buildings were left to sink into decay. The town, its main purpose destroyed, sank quietly into its own backwater and faded from the political scene. Some local people felt some relief at this, since the absolute power of the Abbey had kept them as mere servants to the Abbey's monks and visitors  and this feeling survives today in antipathies felt by locals born and bred in Glastonbury toward incomers and their ways.</P> <P>Glastonbury then had to find a new purpose. Over the years it developed into an agriculturally-based market town and more recently a centre for processing sheepskins. Both these activities have now virtually ceased but Glastonbury has begun a new life as a Somerset visitor attraction. A town with unusual shops, where you can find unique items, hang out in cafes, attend events and visit the interesting sites around Glastonbury.</P> <P>To this town come tourists who look upon Glastonbury simply as another attractive place to visit  no different to Wells or Bath or indeed Clarks Retail Village in the neighbouring small town of Street. Day-visitors stay in the town for a short time and usually visit the Abbey and a few shops. Some visitors do stay a bit longer and are interested in Glastonbury as another small West Country town with attractive surrounding countryside.</P> <P><I>This could be said to be the conventional view, but there are other totally different views of Glastonbury.</I></P> <BR> <H3>2. Other views of Glastonbury</H3> <BR> <H4>Geology</H4> <P>The Town is dominated by the Tor, a natural hill, which can be seen for miles around rising out of the flat levels. Some say that the Tor was formed by the waters of what is now Chalice Well. Millions of years ago the iron rich waters of this spring seeping down through the soft sandstone gradually formed a hard dome-like crust. As the softer stone was eroded by wind and water over the millennia the iron hardened stone of the Tor gradually rose above the landscape. In time the low-lying land around the Tor was flooded by the seas leaving what was virtually an island in a marshy inland sea.</P> <P>The sides of the Tor have been shaped by human hand, with a succession of seven banks encircling it. There's much debate over the dating and purpose of these. Conventional archaeologists call them 'strip lynchets', formed as agricultural terraces during the Middle Ages  though no one has explained why these banks sweep round the northern, sunless side of the Tor, or why such terraces would be needed when there is no shortage of land on the Isle of Avalon. Many people regard the banks as a ceremonial three-dimensional labyrinth built during Megalithic times about four thousand years ago  a plausible, attractive and unproven idea. Some look on these banks as sacredly-intended, perhaps representing seven levels of reality and awareness.</P> <BR> <H4>Myths and legends</H4> <P>This island set in its inland sea has been held to be a sacred place for millennia and myths and legends abound. There are the myths of Avalon as a special pagan and Celtic site  a place where long before the Christian era the sacred was worshipped and seen in every spring and stream  in every tree and hill. The home of the bountiful mother goddess. A place where the cycles of the year and its seasons were honoured and celebrated. A place which was one of the great Druid centres of learning.</P> <P>The Christian legends claim that Jesus' uncle, Joseph of Arimathea , was a metal merchant and on one of his voyages to the lead mines of the Mendip Hills he called in at the port of Glastonbury. He brought with him his young nephew Jesus and they stayed for a while. Some legends say that there was more than one visit and that Jesus built the first simple Church in Glastonbury with his own hands. Other legends claim that Jesus came to learn from the Celtic Druid Priests of the mystery school on the island.</P> <P>After the crucifixion, Joseph is said to have returned to Glastonbury (around either 37 or 64 AD) with a small band of disciples and to have settled here establishing the first Christian Church in Britain. He is said to have brought with him the Holy Grail, the cup of the last supper, and to have buried it somewhere on Chalice Hill.</P> <P>The Church that Joseph established grew into the Benedictine Monastery of the Middle Ages. Because of the legends of its beginnings it was held to be the 'England's holiest earth' and was a place of pilgrimage for kings and commoners alike.</P> <P>There are the stories of Glastonbury as the mythical Isle of Avalon, with its links to King Arthur, his knights of the round table and their search for the Holy Grail. Arthur is said to have been brought to Avalon by boat, by the nine faery sisters , the 'Morgens', after his last great battle and to have died on the Island. Even the monks of the Abbey supported this legend claiming to have found in the Abbey grounds the grave of Arthur and his Queen Guinevere.</P> <P>Apart from the legends Glastonbury's has retained a reputation as a special earth-sacred site where many leys meet, come together and diverge, connecting with the other power centres of the world.</P> <P>This entwining of Christian and Pagan myths and legends can be confusing. But whatever beliefs one may hold there is no doubt that many people feel that Glastonbury has very special energies  that it is a notably 'thin' place where the veil between the material and spiritual worlds is tenuous. One effect of this 'thinness' is to amplify the personality traits of all who visit. It is said that one feels more spiritually aware and caring and loving  at the same time ones dark side may also be more pronounced.</P> <H4>Spirituality outside religion</H4> <P>After the First World War disillusion set in and many people lost their faith in established religion. However during the last fifty years there has been a spiritual rather than religious awakening. People are awakening to a need to find a way of contacting the non material world. A need to find a meaning in life other than that of the everyday business of family, working, shopping and having holidays. This awakening has arisen spontaneously in the hearts of many individuals and has not always flowed through the established religious channels.</P> <P>This extraordinary rekindling of awareness in 'the other' has led to many people seeking their own way of reaching out to the numinous which they sense. This new way of honouring the divine by a spiritual path followed outside any established religion has no generally accepted name. In Glastonbury its followers are thought of as the alternative community.</P> <P>One of the key tenets of this new way of thinking and being is that there are many paths that can be followed that lead towards a broader and more spiritual understanding of what it means to be alive  and that each one of these different ways of being has a truth and value of its own. The number of these paths has increased and changed dramatically in the last few years  nonetheless underlying them all can be detected a common theme.</P> <P>This theme has been called the 'Ancient Wisdom'. The concept is that there are certain ancient spiritual truths that underlie all religions and belief systems. Different people in different places and at different times have found particular beliefs appropriate to their local conditions but they are all reaching out to the same Deity by whatever name it is known.</P> <P>The Ancient Wisdom holds that there is a spiritual world that is one whole, that cannot be measured by today's science but which is nonetheless real, that each one of us has a spark of this Divine within us and can make direct contact with the Divine. Our life's purpose lies in knowing and understanding that the Divine is the Ground of all being. An awareness of the Divine needs to be present in every aspect of our lives and is not just something we think about in a church on Sundays. It is held that with acceptance of this understanding comes peace, fulfilment and embodiment of the Divine.</P> </BODY>  <script type="text/javascript" language="javascript1.2"> </script><script type="text/javascript"> </script><noscript><img height="1" width="1" alt="" src="http://nht-2.extreme-dm.com/n2.g?login=avalon23&pid=manyface&j=n&jv=n&auto=y"/> </noscript>