Glastonbury, Isle of Avalon, has long been known as a place of sacred pilgrimage. From our distant past to now, in this fast and modern world, Avalon has beckoned the pilgrim to come and experience these strange, otherworldly energies. All who come here feel the quickening of their soul’s journey in many different ways that are pertinent to the visitor: one thing is certain, everyone feels something and this ‘something’ has changed the life course of many.
Living and working here on the Isle in my vocation as a Priestess of Avalon in the Goddess Temple, I meet many people from different cultures and countries and the one thing that seems to be a common thread is that people get a strong sense of ‘coming home’. Often this is interpreted as literally feeling that Glastonbury is home, however I feel that it means something far more than that to each person. This feeling of coming home is the only expression in our vocabulary to describe this sensory connection and it seems to me, and many others that have experienced the same, that it is more a sense of coming home to ourselves, to ‘know ourselves.’ This is something that feels like an essential truth. In today’s fast paced society and patriarchal paradigm we truly do not know who we are. At birth we are given our name, we are someone’s daughter/son, a pupil or student from a young age, an employee, we literally are layered with the identity labels that we wear throughout our lives.
Those who come to Avalon and surrender to the shifting energies here begin to peel back these layers, until all that remains for the time spent here is the ultimate observer, our self. This can often have a dramatic effect, visionary experiences, feelings of bliss and completeness, a deep connection and understanding of nature and sacredness of life. Once opened on a heart and soul level, we naturally want more and so begin a journey that continues and unfolds. And so this has been our journey, a collection of Priestesses from the Glastonbury Goddess Temple. Our quest to live a Temple life and serve the Mother Goddess and the Lady of Avalon, the Goddess in this land, to hold sacred space for the world-wide community. This then is the perfect place for the way of the Sacred Celebrant.
Dawn Kinsella