Avalon Of The Heart Tours

13/06/2024

Chalice Well Gardens is a world treasure, one of the best-vibe sites on the planet. A decision to remove a much-loved Madonna and Child statue has stirred up a lot of emotion in the Avalon of the Heart. This petition is an opportunity to register opposition that may hopefully lead to its restoration ---

https://www.change.org/p/restore-the-statue-of-our-lady-in-the-chalice-well-gardens?recruiter=37011678&recruited_by_id=34bc4db0-e548-012f-6df6-4040acce234c&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf&utm_medium=facebook&utm_content=fht-490098793-en-gb%3Acv_1202963&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0DkcTDBiaadLGlqKkSf71EfSgZBM_IyV_95pQcjYTz1PWHrJ_db3LESD0_aem_AUbktNLKgCTLSM-S4uibryUUG0jIlvAbU7papathfZMrF5bAj91i1xzyjjdZPtSEo0lwPFGx03RKYvoTbigpRAVt

Restore the statue of Our Lady in the Chalice Well Gardens

11/06/2024

Acknowledging St Barnabas on his feast day. A 'miraculous walnut' once grew in Glastonbury Abbey in the vicinity of the outdoor cafe that was said to bring forth leaves on the day in question, which was, prior to calendar change, the summer solstice.

23/04/2024

Reposting an old piece about St George and Glastonbury on his feast day. The George and Pilgrim pub sign could do with a clean-up in 2024. Hope the current trend in replacing old pub signs with nothing but words that has already infiltrated Glastonbury (King William, King Arthur) doesn't happen with this one. Pub signs are carriers of history and folklore. They are worthy of preservation and celebration.

    St George is the patron saint of England. He is known primarily for slaying a dragon with a spear and most versions of any story of his life...

01/03/2024

Acknowledging the feast of St David, Patron Saint of Wales, with this outstanding icon from his cathedral. He is strongly associated with Glastonbury Abbey through a number of contentious tales. William of Malmesbury tells us that, visiting here to rededicate the legendary Old Church (later claimed to have been founded by Joseph of Arimathea), he had a visitation from Jesus who told him that he himself had originally dedicated it and there was no need for repetition. By way of proof, he pierced David’s hand and the wound remained after the vision faded. It was healed at the moment of the consecration of the Mass on the next day. This story has formed part of the ‘Jesus visited Glastonbury’ mythos that only really became fully formed in the last century. Glastonbury held disputed relics of St David in the Middle Ages as it likewise did of St Patrick and St Dunstan. The daffodils are coming out in the Abbey now and a new season beckons. Avalon of the Heart Tours is ready for your visit. You can contact me through this page.

16/01/2024

An Avalon of the Heart Tour will inevitably give attention to Joseph of Arimathea. This video of a speech that I wrote for him to give to druids in Glastonbury, as part of our 2022 Jubilee events, communicates the feeling I have for the stories associated with him, a feeling I try to convey on the tours.

Pax Cultura Avalon of the Heart Glastonbury Platinum Jubilee 2022 event paying homage to the 1922 Alice Buckton ‘Glastonbury Past and Present’ movie. Joseph ...

22/12/2023

A winter solstice greeting. Hope to see some of you for an Avalon of the Heart Tour in the coming year.

15/11/2023

Today I have acknowledged the most tragic day in Glastonbury's history, on the date most generally associated with it. The judicial murder of Abbot Richard Whiting and his associates, John Thorne, and Roger James, on Glastonbury Tor, was an immense event that still impacts on the life of the town. A healing is gradually occurring. I was in the Abbey at noon to lay 3 white roses at the High Altar and say a few words.

04/11/2023

On my special All Saint's Day Abbey walkabout, I explained the fascinating history of the Galilee, the structure that linked the Lady Chapel to the main body of the church. It contained an All Saints altar until Mary's popularity extended her chapel all the way through to where the steps now lie.

16/10/2023

Into the autumn and the magic is still happening with Avalon of the Heart Tours.

02/10/2023

11/07/2023

The statue of Our Lady of Glastonbury goes walkabout during the annual Catholic Pilgrimage. It was created in the nineteen-fifties using an image on a medieval Abbot's seal as inspiration. This in turn may have represented a large statue of Mary that once graced the High Altar in the Abbey. It had been commissioned after the older famous statue of Mary that survived the terrible fire of 1184 and was placed in the new Mary Chapel was seen to move and clap its hands. I like to talk about the extent of the cult of Mary in Glastonbury on an Avalon of the Heart Tour.

12/06/2023

It was great to display a home-made icon of St Barnabas in Glastonbury Abbey on his feast day during my special intensive walkabout event. His 'miraculous' walnut tree is long gone but it was nice to later place the icon at the foot of a walnut tree in the Abbey grounds.

16/05/2023

The start of an Avalon of the Heart Tours event in Glastonbury Abbey. The peak season of May to September is here (thanks to Matt Witt for photo).

23/04/2023

On St George's day, I acknowledge a strange Glastonbury version of his story. Here he is with the sword Meribah, with which St Peter had cut off the ear of Malchus in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was brough here by Joseph of Arimathea. How George later got involved, in a process that revealed his coat of arms, is a tale you can hear on an Avalon of the Heart tour.

11/04/2023

From this vantage point in the Abbey car park, many would assume they are looking at the Tor hill. What is actually being seen is Chalice Hill with the Tor tower perfectly placed as if on top of it and the Tor hill hidden from this perspective. This is a great example of the Tor as shapeshifter, a theme I strongly engage with on an Avalon of the Heart Tour, especially when in the immediate vicinity of our holy hill of vision.

27/03/2023

As Dion Fortune said in Avalon of the Heart, "The poetry of the soul writes itself at Glastonbury".

01/03/2023

Today is the feast of St David, Patron Saint of Wales. He is strongly associated with Glastonbury Abbey through a number of contentious tales. Visiting here to rededicate the legendary Old Church (later claimed to have been founded by Joseph of Arimathea), he had a visitation from Jesus who told him that he himself had originally dedicated it and there was no need for repetition. By way of proof he pierced David’s hand and the wound remained after the vision faded. It was healed at the moment of the consecration of the Mass on the next day. This story has formed part of the ‘Jesus visited Glastonbury’ mythos that only really became fully formed in the last century. Glastonbury held disputed relics of St David in the Middle Ages as it likewise did of St Patrick and St Dunstan. The daffodils are coming out in the Abbey now and a new season beckons. Avalon of the Heart Tours is ready for your visit.

21/12/2022

A solstice greeting affirming the mood that Avalon of the Heart Tours hope to express.

15/11/2022

I am always aware of the most tragic date in Glastonbury's calendar. According to generally accepted records (and there are now some here who have pushed it back a day for complex reasons), on November 15th 1539, Abbot Richard Whiting, John Thorne, and Roger James, were horrifically executed atop Glastonbury Tor. The image is of a painting hanging in the Catholic Church here - an interesting situation as Whiting had signed up for the new Church of England and therefore did not die a Catholic.

21/09/2022

The usual tours will not be available on Sept 24th/25th and 29th. Firstly, I'm involved in exciting events in town over the weekend, including the planting of a new Holy Thorn and a presentation from myself bringing Jubilee events to a close with a commemoration of the Queen. On Thurs 29th, Michaelmas itself, I'm hosting an event in Glastonbury Abbey that I shall publicise with a separate post

01/08/2022

This stunning photo by Mike Jeffries is posted at Lammas, one of the great feasts of the Wheel of the Year, a time of poignant ripeness. August is a fine month to visit Glastonbury and have an Avalon of the Heart tour.

19/06/2022

I was very clear that the centenary of the Alice Buckton 1922 Glastonbury Pageant movie and parade should be an inspiration for however we tackled the Platinum Jubilee. It afforded opportunities for celebrating our unique history and mythos. One episode in the Buckton film featured our enduringly potent and contentious story of the visit of Joseph of Arimathea. When I heard that a contingent of Druids were going to be in town over the Jubilee period, it seemed obvious that a visit from Joseph to have a word with them was in order. On the same day that the idea had come to me, I met Speaking Tree supremo Gareth Mills in the Abbey. Knowing his thespian background I asked him if he would play Joseph to the Druids if I wrote a speech. He actually looks like the famous depiction in the stained glass window in St John’s church and has the perfect voice for the occasion. He immediately agreed. Communications were set in motion with the Druids by Thalia Brown and the game was afoot.

I chose my time to write the speech very carefully. I attended the Bardic event on May20th with the deliberate intention of simply abiding in a zone of creativity and trusting the Awen inspiration to come. Sure enough, I was up at 7 the next morning typing into my laptop the speech that Joseph would give. It pretty much came straight out. A few sentences got shifted around. A few bits of fine tuning. It was a great affirmation of my methodology and a sign of an increasing Druid vibe.

After the following Wednesday’s Jubilee Council Committee meeting, the little matter of a costume for Joseph was cleared up at lightning speed thanks to Zoe Jayne Price and Archdruid Dreow Bennett. All kinds of chaos intruded but on Saturday morning , June 4th, in Abbey Park, with Flying Tiger Productions filming, Joseph delivered the speech I had written.

I totally recognise the problems concerning the historicity of his alleged visit. Some of the elements I’ve woven in are very late developments. Thanks to Bard Michelle Diaz for photo. I feel some of you will understand what I was doing here. Here is peak Pax Cultura Avalon of the Heart Glastonbury Jubilee.

“Great king Arviragus, my friends of the sacred isle, you know me well of old. Long have I travelled here and we have understood each other. You recognised the boy I brought to you and what the movement of the stars foretold.

Now the great divine drama has played out, has been fulfilled. It was my privilege to help oversee a triumph of life over death that has changed the world forever. Down your triple Awen sun rays, the dove of the new dispensation descends.

The boy became a man and is now gone but is ever present and, as his time truly begins, I have come to you again as you knew I would. We knew the importance of this place from its past, to its present, to its future. We knew it from first sight of your holy hill of vision to be an eternal beacon. I have planted my staff as proof of this. His blood and sweat are now forever part of the inner communion here.

You mighty seers whose memory extends back so far into time, you know of the rise and fall of empires, of great building and ruination, and of truth that endures, of the nature of inspiration and the spirit, for you have the great temple of the stars as your teacher.

The days of the old Jerusalem are numbered and a time of tribulation approaches. We have come to establish the foundation of a New Jerusalem. Great king Arviragus, the gratitude of this isle will endure for the magnitude of your gift of land to me and my companions now. The ancient pattern of your stones, the pyramid of Aegypt, will be expressed anew here. You know that this is but a beginning of something, of which none of us will see the full glory of its fulfilment. We work for posterity in eternity.

Great King Arviragus, Druids of the Isle of Glass, beyond the turbulence of history, do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. We have established together that, here, the deeper truth is that there is Peace.”

02/06/2022

The alchemy of the New Avalonians creating a special flame to light the Tor beacon tonight. Very dream-like to find myself holding a Roerich banner (that's me on the left, hidden most of the time) by altar in church. Even more so with presence of banner of Our Lady of Glastonbury/Madonna Oriflamma, inspired by image on one of my book covers, considering this is C of E and not the Catholic Church. Yay the Avalon of the Heart.

26/05/2022

It's the death date of Saxon king Edmund I today. This photo, taken on my All Saints Day extravaganza last year, shows me standing where he was interred in the final full form of the medieval Abbey. It was Edmund who made Dunstan Abbot and lavished land and money on the Abbey. His wife Aelgifu, who predeceased him, was interred at Shaftesbury and became the focus of a miracle-working saint cult. He was father to Edgar the Peaceful, crowned by Dunstan in the coronation ceremony still used in modern times. His death in a bizarre brawl with a thief was seized upon by Margaret Murray to support her sacrificial divine king theories.