Lisa and I arrived at Stonehenge mid-morning, alongside the bus tours and family tourists ready to go inside the fence and have a closer look at the world famous site.

Walking over the ditch into the complex itself, I asked the spirits of place for permission to enter, and to let them know that they were honoured.  The response I got – “Meh.”  They didn’t care.

Standing as close to the stones as you can get, it all looked rather small.  The jackdaws were having a lovely time of it, enjoying the attention. The stones, however, did not.  They still stood as tall and as proud as they were able, with the eyes of the world upon them, and yet they hated being a tourist attraction, a place where people simply come, look and then carry on with no real connection being made.  The stones themselves had withdrawn fully into their own being, not letting anyone or anything in.  They hated the tourists, unlike the jackdaws, who loved them (and the goodies that they brought).

For me, Stonehenge is a place of solemn ritual, not a place for hooting and hollering as the sun rises over that special point in the sky over specific stones.  It is a temple not unlike Notre Dame Cathedral – and you wouldn’t go in there and raise a racket, would you?  The original intention is lost to history, but if you try to feel it, to connect with it, there was something very wrong, and very sad about it all.  The intention wasn’t right.  I am perfectly aware that this is only my opinion, and that people may feel something totally different from the place.

Leaving Stonehenge we then made our way to Glastonbury; it was the destination to our pilgrimage.  We came in over the Butleigh road and saw the Tor shining in the sun – what a sight is always is!  Our hearts immediately opened to it, and we entered the sacred place that we call Avalon.

We made our way first and foremost to the Goddess Temple, to honour the Goddess. Inside was a Red Tent, which we smiled at the synchronicity of it all, for Red Tents have been popping up all over in our lives this past month.  The temple today was not a very restful or peaceful place, but I suppose that it is always shifting and changing. Children were running underfoot as we entered, and then the attending priestesses whispering loudly the whole time intruded a bit on my wish for silent reflection and immersion into the Goddess – along with the loud chinking of change right by my head as they emptied the donation pot to take to the bank before it closed. I know it is all necessary, but it certainly wasn’t peaceful. However, this was my first visit to the Temple, and so without going back to compare I know that my view is very one-sided.

Our B&B was on the hillside of the Tor itself, a lovely place with a labyrinth in the front yard and very down to earth, welcoming hosts with sharp wits and a love for the place that was infectious.  We climbed the Tor to watch the sunset and welcome the full moon as she rose, large and pinky-orange.  Time stood still on the Tor, and we have never experienced a sunset that slow, or a moonrise that took so long, but perhaps that was simply because the wind howled around us and we were freezing out butts off! Still, we gently drummed as we waited for the moon to rise on the sheltered side of the Tor, and eventually we did see it in its fully glory (though our best view was from the B&B itself!).

The following day we went to the White Spring, where we had booked an hour’s slot for peaceful ritual and awakening to this newly re-dedicated place of devotion to the powers of water and the Goddess herself.  The Victorians destroyed the old place where the White Spring used to tumble, covering the flora in calcite and making it a beautifully fey place, where green and white sparkled in the cove.  They had built a pumphouse in that very magical spot, to divert the water from the White Spring for Glastonbury town – a very foolish move, for it only lasted a couple of years before the pipes became so calcified that they could no longer use them. Glastonbury now gets it water from the Mendips, I believe.

At any rate, the pumphouse was reopened by the White Spring Trust, and is now one of the most evocative places that I have ever been. We were greeted by a lovely chap who showed us how to lock ourselves in, and then once we were sealed in the very dark, cavernous building we set to work.  Entering the threshold, the first view is of a large pool that the Trust built to collect water, a still and circular mirror surrounded by candles and fed in and out by a little waterfall.  Tall arched pillars stand to either side – it really does look like a film set, I thought!  So wonderful, so full of water – the sound of water was all that you heard, rushing down into the pool from the top of the left wall, and then out the other side, never disturbing the still surface of the large sacred pool itself. There was an altar to the Goddess, Brigit on the left hand side, and an altar to the Lord of the Wildwood on the right hand side.  We said our prayers to both, and sang our song of welcoming to the spirits of place, honouring them for all that they were. We disrobed, and then sang some more, honouring this very special place. Lisa took her drum out, and drummed softly.  We came together in front of the pool, and then it was time.

Stepping up onto the ledge, Lisa drummed and sang the Goddess chant, as I stepped into the pool of ice cold water.  The water was not very deep, but so very cold – I had been swimming in the deepest lakes of Sweden, and they were not this cold. Raising my hands over my head, I called to My Lady, to let her know that I loved and honoured her with all my body and soul, and lowered myself slowly into the black depths.  Once the water was past my waist, I could no longer breathe it was so icy cold – all you could do at that point was hold your breath and go completely under.  Coming back out, still unable to breathe, I gathered myself and rose up, standing with my arms wide, finally able to once again open my lungs and experience what can only be likened to the first breath of a newborn babe.  Exhilarated I raised my voice in zaghareet, my soul flung wide open to this Goddess of the Waters that was both so welcoming and so challenging. Grinning, I made my way out of the pool, and took up the drum as Lisa entered the still waters.

The beautiful follower of Elen, Lisa was all Earth Goddess energy blending into that of water as she slowly lowered herself, and came back up spiritually inspired to make the changes she so desired.  It was beautiful to witness and behold, as the candles flickered and the sound of the water falling mixed with my voice in chant as we gave ourselves up to the White  Spring.  Once out of the water, we drummed and danced in a soft, feminine way, and made our offerings.

Dried and with our time up, we left that dark and sacred place and stepped out into the sunshine once more.  We grounded ourselves and ate something, and then went to the Red Spring at Chalice Well Gardens, there to quietly reflect on what Glastonbury meant to us, and what we could give to honour it for all that is was.  A beautiful golden/yellow energy flowed from the wellhead, making  me smile as I sat beside it and opened my nemeton to this peaceful place, calling to my goddess Nemetona and letting my self release into her beauty in this wonderful place.  We need more places like Chalice Well and the White Spring, I said to myself, more places where one can open their soul in safety and honour the gods and goddesses that call to them, the spirits of place and the ancestors.  There were evocative places of reflection and communion.  I know that this can be found anywhere, but sometimes it is just nice to go to a place of beauty to be inspired, to open your eyes and see that beauty everywhere.  It’s difficult to explain.

We left the Red Spring and went back to Wellhouse Lane, just the other side of the wall to the road that now separates the White and Red Spring.  I took my bottles of water from each Spring and, with Lisa watching for traffic, stood in the middle of the road and brought the two waters together as they should have done, as they used to do, before the road was built and they were diverted from flowing together.  In the midst of the chaos of human life, I asked for peace and in the hope that one day these two otherworldly springs may once again join together.  A mother and a young child watched, and then came up to me afterwards, the young child wanting to speak to me.  “He thought you were a fairy”, the mother said, smiling as she later ushered him away.

We then spiralled up the Tor, making three circuits as we wound our way up.  Sitting at the top, with the spirits of the waters flowing from beneath the Tor, the ground rising up to meet the sky, the Spirits of the Three Worlds sang deep in our veins.  With so much elemental energy buzzing, I found it hard to connect – but moving aside I took out my medicine bag and reconnected with my self, and reminding myself before I could once again let go and feel that wonderful place again.  To let go of the self, you have to know the self first and foremost, I thought.  The sun shone brilliantly, the wind whipping our hair and the waters singing in our hearts.

After supper we retired back to the B&B, where we had our final experience of water in the land of Avalon, that land of water and mist – a lovely Jacuzzi!

After our vegetarian organic breakfast the next morning – this B&B had such a wonderful ethos – we made our way to Avebury.  The sun was hidden in a grey mackerel sky, for which we were thankful – our eyes did need a break after days and days of sunshine.  We walked the circle from quadrant to quadrant, honouring the stones that still stood and those that still lay beneath the ground, as well as those now broken up into wall boundaries, or buildings.  The most poignant part for me was coming to the inner circle where the Obelisk stone once stood.  Walking the circle as much as I could (for a church and other buildings were now in the place of where some of the inner circle lay) my gaze looked out and saw the stones as they would have been, as they should have been, though they were no longer there.  They were clear as day to my eyes, and Lisa’s chant that she received as a gift at the top of the Tor rang through my head the whole time.  I spiralled inwards towards the marker where the Obelisk once stood, and saw it standing huge and dark before me. I spiralled in and out of time, sometimes taking steps in this time, with the cars and tourists on the road, children playing on the banks, other times in a place of serene quiet where the huge sky overhead surrounded this massive stone. Flying through the shifts in time were the jackdaws, one who flew right next to me over where the Obelisk once stood – and through it where it now did stand, flickering in and out of time.  I made my offering there and then, and took out my stone that I have had for over twenty years, with the raven on it.  Another jackdaw alighted on the ground next to me, and I smiled at the little feathered fellow, saying my prayers to the spirits of place and honouring the ancestors.

Emerging back fully into the present time, we then visited the last two quadrants, where little newborn lambs with their umbilical cords still dangling down pranced near their mothers in soft and fuzzy joy.  Upon completing our circuit of the stones we then headed back home, stopping at West Kennet Longbarrow and Silbury Hill.

When we reached the barrow two youngsters emerged from the dark tomb, one with a drum, smiling at us and greeting us.  A felt a surge of energy follow them as they left, kind of pushing them back out into the sunlight even as I smiled at them and greeted them back.  I stood at the entrance and said a prayer to the ancestors and to My Lady of Sanctuary, knowing that I was entering a very sacred space.

The tomb was beautiful, but felt wrong – not because it was not a place for the living, though that could have been a big part of it, but that the energy there again was not right. Rose petals were strewn on the floor in the main back chamber, and unlit and dead tea lights were left in niches in the walls where the previous people had decided to leave them – littering, in my opinion.  I whispered my prayers for the ancient dead and left.

Standing out in the now emerging sunlight, we turned and looked back to the tomb.  It felt halfway between the open and welcoming energy of Glastonbury and the “piss off” energy of Stonehenge – it was withdrawing into itself, but hadn’t gone as far as Stonehenge yet.  The people who were coming here were had perhaps the best of intentions, but still not quite seeing the original intention, which is now lost to the mists of time.  However with a little common sense could it be sensed once again – it was a place of the dead.

Drumming and raising energy were all wrong for this barrow.  This was a place of silence, of darkness and of cool earth energy.  People were walking on top of the barrow, further leading to the erosion.  Why was this not fenced off to preserve this ancient monument of the dead?  Wildflowers grew upon the top of the barrow, being trampled by tourists and ritualists alike, along with other fauna that we heard in the yellowed grasses that had overwintered there – mice or birds squeaking deep within the sheltered blades of grass.

I think that the main thing for the barrow and Stonehenge was a loss of respect, something that was still quite evident and strong at Avebury and Stonehenge.  The Goddess was still be honoured at Glastonbury, but the intention at Stonehenge and West Kennet was lost.  They needed to become holy places once more. Failing that, we needed to create new ones.  Simply because something is ancient didn’t make it more worthy of honour that a newly built stone temple or place of burial for our dead.

Driving slowly through to the last stretch of home, through “Antler Alley” as I call it, where herds of deer live nearby, as well as the badgers, foxes, owls and other creatures, I considered the weekend, asking myself what I got out of it.  I then realised that a pilgrimage wasn’t about what you got out of it – it was about what you put in.  A pilgrimage was about giving yourself, of making the most of the time and energy that you put into it and offering yourself to the journey and the places themselves, which was what I had done.  It was a sacred time to stop and to honour all that which inspired you, to give of yourself without asking for anything in return. The gods, spirits of place and the ancestors should simply be honoured for what they are, not for what they can give us.

A sacred pilgrimage is an act of love and devotion to all that you consider sacred, and will reawaken your soul so that you can carry that into back to your homes and lives, sensing and seeing the sacred in everything.