The Glastonbury experience

By respecting the 'angel', the energy-field, you'll succeed. How?

• There is something to learn and something to resolve and to heal – even if you have reason to believe you don't;
• What you think you're coming for is not necessarily what you'll land up getting, but it will be remarkable all the same;
• make a useful contribution to the town and take things as they come – and it will open up to you.
• hold on to preconceived plans and expectations, and there will be stress and difficulties;
• be willing to be stretched, and stay grounded – or you will be taught how to do it.

What tends to happen when you move here

Glastonbury has blessed me (Palden) with a more elasticised psyche, self-acceptance, openness, a soul-family, and an increased capacity to love and be loved. It has given me space to be myself and taught me to walk my talk. If I moved away, I think I would return later.

What happens can vary greatly for different people. I slipped in easily, yet I spent my first year crying bucketloads every day, shedding a mountain of past grief. I found friendship and support I had never experienced before and started my 'true work' within three years, after a decade of searching for it. I never thought I'd land up doing what I did.

In the first year, you are likely to experience three or four crises. You feel pushed further than you feel you can go. This is a stretching process. It will sometimes feel like hell-warmed-up, as if problems will go on forever. They don't. You'll be smiling soon after, freed of something. There are times of wonder, togetherness with others, joy and aliveness which have a profound healing effect.

Some people choose to resist – and some become difficult for other people to handle. They usually leave or experience astounding breakthrough. Everyone comes here to be healed. There's no end to it.

It takes about three years to really settle in, even if you think you're an exception. Some folks come to Glastonbury denying there is anything special about the place – and then it creeps up from behind. Many people, usually within three years, break through to something very meaningful. They step into themselves or start a process, a family, a line of work or a path which is very significant. This is the angel's gift, sometimes wrung out of us, as if by force.

Even if one has lived here a long time, this doesn't end. Local-bred people sometimes find this difficult. One is challenged to innovate, serve, support, manifest and accept many things. The earth energy and historic momentum of this place pervades everyday life, including paying the bills.

Having read all this, forget it. Don't make it a big thing. You're entering a new reality, that's all. We all have a job to do: it's a whole town in service. If you are meant to be here, you'll be here. If you're not, you'll find out. If you find this out well, you'll probably receive a gift to help you on your way!

Some practical tips

+ Don't expect anyone to help you. They won't. And they will.

+ It's worth cultivating some or all of your income-sources outside Glastonbury.

+ Sometimes you just have to take the plunge. Often, you need to do the opposite to what you're used to.

+ It doesn't work to lean on Glastonbury people's charity – if you're running on economy, bring something, offer something and make yourself useful. This works.

+ Glastonbury does need inward investment, better government support and local income. We make enough to stay alive. Seeking financial return is not the primary issue. The informal economy is stronger there than elsewhere.

+ Some people plan a transitional period after moving here, 'working away' or commuting for a few years, while the family lives here. This eventually gets stressful and has to end. Some just take a chance, and things work out. How much do you trust the life-process?

+ Glastonbury is a good place for kids to grow up, especially for 'indigo' souls. Local schools have recently undergone great improvement. Many grown-up Glastonbury kids are notably successful in their fields, thanks mainly to self-development, maturity and breadth of experience.

+ If you're weird elsewhere, you'll be normal here. For some this is welcome, for others it's disconcerting.

+ Many of the people you first meet can be those who have the time to meet you. Many of those at the heart of Glastonbury's community are very engaged, and they don't hang around. The best way to get close to interesting people is to do things with them.

+ The formal politics of this town are dreadful, unbefitting the place. We have an intense democratic deficit - bigger property owners. There's a tradition of behind-the-scenes power (some say Masonic) and British-style corruption (mutual 'back-scratching'). Government and the county council like to pretend Glastonbury doesn't exist. This can be frustrating, but it's part of the process. It's strangely convoluted, and quite a few people have tried to change it. Nevertheless, things happen, sometimes because chickens simply come home to roost.

+ Glastonbury has an historic social divide - it goes back at least to medieval times. Throughout the late 20th C it has been between the 'alternatives' (Avalonians) and the conventional community (Glastonians). Some Glastonians try to block Avalonians' initiatives, without realising that the town's economy relies greatly on Avalonians and their shops and businesses. Yet a spirit of cooperation is there too, and divides are not necessarily a negative thing. But there are large paradigm-differences to work with.

+ Ultimately, in human history, change happens because people grow old and die out, to be replaced by new people. This isn't unique to Glastonbury.

Here's a contribution by

Before I moved here, I visited quite often. I felt drawn, it felt like home and I had no difficulty in deciding, after living in London all my life, that I should move here. I had heard about 'the Glastonbury experience', about people having their lives turned upside down and big learning experiences, some staying and some deciding to move on. This didn't just come from the 'alternatives', but also from 'ordinary' folk too. I listened and took note.

So, when I moved to Glastonbury the first thing I did was do up my house and involve myself in getting my children and myself settled. I also decided to keep a low profile, neither expecting to much, nor rushing 'out there' to get involved with anything and everything I felt strongly about. I just tried to absorb the town – feel my way round. This doesn't stop the 'experience' of moving here – and for each it's different. What I believe is that it brings to the fore unresolved issues and perhaps patterns that we hold within ourselves that need to be resolved, right up in our faces so they can't be avoided. This gives us the opportunity to transform them and move forward, even leap forward in our personal growth. I think having an awareness of what to expect and even having an awareness that one might not get what one expects, but something completely different, helps. There are very good healers of all types here who can help and who understand this process. I know, because I went to them.

I've at times gone through thinking I've made the worst mistake ever in moving here, even though I knew deep down that it was right. My deciding to keep a low profile turned into shutting myself off and not wanting to go out and get involved – feelings of boredom, loneliness, in fact hugely varying different emotions, and many personal realisations and understandings about myself shown and given to me through my everyday circumstances. This has now changed, and I'm much more active. If anyone asked me what they should do when they moved here, I would say, move in slowly, gently, don't expect too much. This is the sort of place where you get back what you put in. Allow yourself time to find your feet and just allow yourself to become absorbed in the pace and feeling of the place, before rushing out 'doing things', because the reasons we initially had for moving to Glastonbury might not turn out to be all of the reasons why we've come.

I went back to London for a few days, for the first time since coming here, and it was then that I really knew that I love Glastonbury, that it is my home and that I feel a sense of joy to be living here. I'm now just starting to feel like I want to step out and get involved.

Sarah Soden

Here's :

I love this land and I live here because I do; I feel deep roots here.

'Somerset' means 'The Summer County'. Most people say that is because so much of it used to be sea marshes, drained only in medieval times, and the land was usable only in the summer when the water level fell. I have an alternative explanation. Another name for the area is 'Avalon' – the land of apples – the land where the Celtic peoples went after death, their Summer Country, where they met, and knew, and loved again those they had lost: a place of renewal, and of peace and of joy; the land of the orchards, and the blossom, and the healing of pain.

Sometimes, even now, one can get a sense of the power and mystery. It was a great centre of learning long before the Christ came along. Later the Christian monks established a monastery, one of the greatest in Europe, at Glastonbury. There is also persistent legend that the Christ child came here, in the years that are hidden in the Bible, with his uncle, Joseph of Arimathea. After his death, it is said, Joseph and the disciples came here with Mary and were granted twelve 'hides' of land, upon which they set up the first Christian church.

There is historical reference to twelve strangers from the East being given this land, and we know that Joseph was a Roman citizen, and in charge of Roman mining interests. He would have come to these 'Isles of the Mighty' for the tin and lead, because this was a major source in the Roman world. Ultimately, who knows, but it is a beautiful legend.

Glastonbury itself is built on three hills: Chalice Hill, Wearyall Hill and Glastonbury Tor. Legend and history have it that the Tor was the centre of the Old Religion, and the home of the Lady of the Lake (a 'rank' – the high priestess – not a person). I don't know about that, but I do know that sometimes, when the sea mists roll in across the Levels (the old marshes) from the Bristol Channel, the Sea of Sabrina, and the Tor is shrouded in swirling, pearl-coloured vapours, one can well imagine that one hears the distant chanting of the priestesses among the old standing stones, and that one might still be able to approach the Summer Country on the old, hidden tracks laid under the surface of the waters, and there find rest: peace, joy, love and succour.

Michael Perry

Now try these:
The Local Community
The Mysteries of Avalon
Out and About
or browse through the Visitor section on the left

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