LEY
LINES
SACRED
SITES

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One of the most magickal natural sites in England is the Tor or mount at Glastonbury. It stands out like a beacon at every approach to the town. In modern times it is crowned by a bell tower, all that is left of the church of St. Michael.

Your astrologer (Susan Aiu) has climbed that Tor three times and watched the mists rise from the lowlands.

Mysterious Mists

In days of yore the rivers flooded the area, so that the hill was surrounded by water. The so-called "Mists of Avalon" of King Arthur's day rose off that inland sea. To be safe, people lived in houses built on stilts, over the waters.

A Druid College existed there long before Joseph of Arimathaea arrived from Italy around 40 AD and planted the famous thorn tree. As more churchmen came into the area, they built dams and levees causing the waters to flow into regular channels and the flooding stopped.

They also built a magnificent Abbey and Cathedral, the ruins of which still can be seen. Henry VIII closed the Abbey and Cathedral in 1539.

The mists still rise, however, and the Tor rises mysteriously above them.

Land of the Fairies

The Tor is the entrance to the Underworld, and Annwyn, King of the Fairies lives there.

The Tor has two magickal paths on its flanks and there is a maze up it's side that can be walked, spiraling back and forth to the top.

Earth Energies

Quite separately, there are a pair of energy (ley) lines which also wind their ways to the top.

Hamish Miller and Paul Broadherst have written about dowsing these lines, which run from the Saint Michael's Church in Cornwall, across Southern Great Britain, to Great Yarmouth on the East Coast just above London.

In their book, "The Sun and the Serpent", they write of following the ley line, with it's male energies, to Avebury, and finding a second, female energy line, known as the Saint Mary's line there.

As they retraced these two ley lines, they found that a church, named for either Saint has been built at intervals along this path.

Glastonbury Tor's Ley Lines

When the leys reach Glastonbury Tor, they discovered an interesting formation of the energy lines. (See the drawing below.)

The male lines are in red, the female lines are in green.

Great Rite

Those of us who practice the Craft and follow the God and Goddess, will recognize the ley lines on the Tor as the Great Rite.

No wonder the church tried to suppress this by building a church on the top!
(An earthquake knocked down the church, but left the bell tower we see today.)

Knowing about these ancient ley (energy) lines in the earth can add a deeper dimension to our rituals and add appreciation to our ancestors and their wisdom.

The magical waters still flow at Glastonbury. Today, this spring, with it's iron rich red water, emerges at the Chalice Well, so named because legend has it that the Grail the Templers sought either lies at the bottom of the well, or in a cave near the well. No one has ever proven that legend to be true, but no one has ever disproved it either.

This red spring also pours freely by the side of Wellhouse Lane, where a steady stream of people come to fill their jugs with this fabled water.