My experience with sacred places on this planet are somewhat limited I guess you could say; I have been to the Four Corners area of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah when I was young and visited the Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings and even as a young girl, I knew this place was something special. I have been to Carlsbad Caverns, which may not seem sacred but I have found that whenever a human being submerges themselves into the womb of Mother Earth, into what is known as the Underworld, and finds themselves in the darkness, alone with their thoughts, they are met with the possibility there is benevolence, peace, stillness and power below the surface that is unsurpassed by anything we can claim exists elsewhere.
The way her milky teats drip with the slowness of eternity, converging into one heavy, laden drop that releases only when it is ripe to do so; when the time is right, and when, through ease, flow and a gentle beckoning "to join the others" has called them to this point of surrender will they succumb to the darkness only to stand upon the shoulders of those who have gone before creating light beings who only grow taller with the fullness of their mineral-rich content.
I have been in such Earthen structures 5 times in my life, and my appreciation and wonder grow with each experience. More than once I have been gifted the opportunity to go underneath the Pyramid of Quetzalcoatl in Teotihuacan, Mexico; traversing the birth canal in reverse it seems, and in the manner in which the Toltecs believed the Sun traveled through the night sky, from West to East, only to rise again with the dawning of a new day. The Sun's journey at night was rich with potent dreams; the substance of our tomorrows, guided by the Stars and the cosmos, held in the womb of Mother Earth, where it was restored-held in the darkness with a blinding trust, so that it might once again find it's light. The Underworld was not to be feared, but revered and nurtured within.
There are no doubt many other places I have been to that I was unaware of the power and magick they held, as is most often the case for us humans; so much of the wonder and Sacredness on the Earth Mother has been lost to us now, although I do feel a shift happening, as more and more people awaken to the dream that is possible for life on this planet. In fact, it is experiences like the ones I am writing about that help us remember-remember who we were and remind us that we are the dreamers; the ones who can dream the life we want into existence.
When I planned my trip to England and Scotland this year, I admit I had no idea I was headed to a place that would serve as a powerful reminder that Sacredness is everywhere; that there is reason enough to believe that all we have to do is open our eyes and our hearts, and relinquish our minds to possibility; to wonder, and to magick; including the possibility that we, too, are wonderful and magickal.
I honestly thought my intention in going to the UK was to connect with my ancestors; to see where they once lived and feel the land upon which they walked-the same land their bones have lain in, for hundreds of years, and soon enough I would realize I was really seeking some connection to my Father-to the people he calls "family," and to whom I thought I belonged. My Father and Mother both have English roots, and it felt really important to me at this time in my life to put my feet on the soil, and feel the stones that were painstakingly honed and made into walls, fences, and homes, and I wanted to touch and smell the lifeforms they might have eaten, or fed their livestock with, or feasted their eyes upon and filled their nostrils with when they blossomed into the rarified and glorious petaled beauties they were groomed to be.
My relationship with my Father has not been easy, by any means. We have been mostly estranged for more than half of my life, and its best explained as "complicated." I know he and I have had multiple lifetimes together, some of which we were indebted to one another for, and I realize and have had others tell me this is no longer the case. This lifetime is where the indebtedness ends, and that sounds easy when I say "I don't owe him anything," but it isn't, and it has been even harder saying "he doesn't owe me anything," apparently, because I found myself feeling as though he did owe me something, and he didn't just owe me, but my 3 siblings, and my Mother as well.
Prior to leaving for England my resentment and anger over his abandonment and estrangement welled up, as it does about every 3-5 years, and a thought ran through my mind that if he died before he was to turn 90 in July, and while I was in the UK, how would I feel, and also, what would happen to the house he lived in, which was my grandmother's house and his childhood home, and what about his belongings? My thoughts turned to a longing for something I never had growing up; emotional availability and financial support.
I know he is incapable of emotional support, so that was a dead end, and I also know he never gave my mother or us a penny after he walked out on us. He did, however, co-own a house with his lone sibling, and while it is in a state of disrepair, the view is spectacular-it overlooks Will Roger's Shrine in Colorado Springs, The Broadmoor Hotel, and it's lush, mountainous grounds. I spent many nights sleeping in the oldest part of the house with my cousins, doing puzzles, and sharing holiday meals with family as a child, and I have fond memories of being there with my grandmother and cousins.
I approached my siblings about raising the question as to what his wishes were upon the event of his passing. I know we are estranged from him- the four of us children, and the contact is rare and constrained, and yet, I couldn't help but feel he owed us something, even though he has never shown himself to be capable of giving us much of anything. And as delusional as it sounds, I felt as though my trip to the land of his ancestors (and mine) would change things, which proved to be an illusion I have long lived with-that his people are my people and we belonged to them and vice versa.
What I didn't anticipate in going to the UK, however, was a sense of coming home, on so many levels-coming home to myself, to my roots, to a cultural identity and love for all of Nature, and home to a Sacred place that would help heal the painful wounds my Father left behind and help me reclaim and integrate the Divine Masculine that was so deeply wounded within me.
I was quite naive about several things, and part of that was by design; I really didn't want to know a lot about the UK before I went. In particular, I really didn't want to know a lot about the retreat I was going to in Glastonbury the last week I was there. I find I tend to overthink things a bit, and knowing this about myself, I made it a point to leave it all up to surprise and serendipity-perhaps because we have so little of that in our mundane lives and also because I simply adore being surprised and having serendipitous things happen! Serendipity is just another word for Magick-for Spirit to make itself known in ways we can relate to and that remind us we are held and there is reason enough to trust that.
On the island of England, in the southwestern region of the country lies Glastonbury, which is believed to be the site of the idyllic and magickal Isle of Avalon. This island is a realm between the worlds (yet another example of living between worlds), an entrance into the underworld, and has been for centuries a site of initiation and devotion. You may be familiar with the Arthurian Legend, with the Knights of the Round Table, King Arthur, Merlin and the Sword in the Stone, and of lesser known notoriety, The Lady of the Lake, who is rumored to have helped heal King Arthur when he was deeply wounded during a battle and brought him from the brink of death to glory so that he might win his next battle.
Glastonbury is hailed as the ancient and mysterious gateway to the Goddess, and there are two holy wells or springs in Glastonbury; the Red Spring or the Chalice Well, is so called because the water is so filled with iron deposits that everything it touches is covered with rust. The other spring is the White Spring whose water is filled with chalk, leaving a white residue where it runs. These two entirely separate Holy Springs are quite literally a stone's throw apart from one another, and are held to be symbolic of the blood and the milk of the Mother, and the Chalice Well in later years was thought to be the last place where the Holy Grail was seen turning the water red with the blood of the crucified Christ. As seekers, we know the Chalice is the symbol of the cauldron, the womb of the Mother and people of all faiths travel to the Chalice Well gardens to drink the Holy Water.
Avalon is another name for Glastonbury, and it means "The Isle of Apples," with the apple being the symbol of all beauty in the Celtic tree alphabet or Oghamic system. The triple circle symbol on the Avalon sign is called the Vesica Piscis-the vessel of fishes-and is wrought in iron on the well head cover of the Chalice Well. The two inner circles symbolize the physical and non-physical planes of existence; the point where they overlap being the vesica, the yonic symbol from which all creation comes forth. This symbol represents birth and rebirth, and it was here I would once again experience the birth of something new-a rebirth into a more fully integrated being, with a healthy balance of the Divine Masculine and the Divine Feminine within, and a much greater understanding of what that means, and why it matters, particularly at this point in time.
We have always needed a greater sense of balance and presence of these two principles in the world and in our being and without fully realizing it we have been witnessing an imbalance of these principles in every aspect of our existence, for too long now. Some estimate that it began in the 13-1400's, giving rise to Christianity, to the eventual rise of the patriarchy, and the suppression of the Divine Feminine-leaving us swimming in the toxic soup of unchecked and pervasive masculinity, only without the Divinity that is possible, in equal measure to the Divine Feminine.
This story is an attempt to bring awareness to this imbalance, and to serve as a reminder of what is possible with the restoration of the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine in our own beings, and ultimately in the world. I hope it provides you with insights and awareness into your own relationship with these two principles so that you seek greater balance, because too much of either one of them within our beings is substantial enough to bring further disorder and chaos into the world around us, as we have seen thus far.
Our greatest challenge in the twenty first century is to become Whole beings; to heal the wounds we have inflicted upon one another and the Earth Mother and all of her beings, and this means embracing all aspects of ourselves; the light and the shadow, or darkness, the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine, the doing and the being, the physical and the non--physical, and the lower with the upper realms.
Our obsession with looking outside of ourselves for answers is turning our attention away from the very thing we need to most attend to; perhaps if we stopped trying to fix the economy, or overhauling our government, or choosing a party to vote with, or worrying about what other people's sexual orientations are, and instead chose to look within and restore balance there, healing our Divine Masculine principle and forgiving it and holding it as Sacred, and healing our Divine Feminine principle and forgiving it and holding it, too, as Sacred, we might find that all of those other places where imbalances exist achieve a state of balance in direct correlation with the degree of Sacredness we assign to these principles, and to the Earth Mother, who is a direct reflection of the imbalances we are experiencing within our own bodies, our own Nature-with each and every extreme exhibited within ourselves we see it reflected in our weather, in our political climate, in our economy, in the way we treat one another, in the creatures and the plants, in our foods, in our minds and in our hearts until we have forgotten who we are, who and what Mother Earth is; and why are we even here...what are we made for? Is this really the dream of our Ancestors?
I don't think it's too late-I really don't. But time IS running out. We have forgotten much, and mostly we have forgotten to speak Sacredness into everyone and everything. To see Sacredness as our birthright, and to understand that Sacredness is a state of equality-there is no hierarchy in the Spiritual World, and there shouldn't be any in our own world. The Divine Masculine is not better or more Sacred than the Divine Feminine, and the Divine Feminine is not better or more Sacred than the Divine Masculine; both are necessary, both can co-exist, and both are Sacred. Until we really begin to understand that, and work to heal and actualize both of these principles within our own being we will widen the chasm that currently exists both within and without.
*(This is an excerpt from a book I am currently writing, and if you would like to be notified when the book is ready to read, leave me a message)!
If you would like to learn more about the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine principles and how to restore balance within yourself, and within your own world, I can be reached at zendebi8@gmail.com, You can also contact me through my website to arrange a one-on-one coaching session, or attend a course on Realigning the Divine Principles, or to receive a healing session to promote greater balance within at www.debikennison.com.
I am happy to answer any questions you might have and I would be happy to speak at your next event about this topic or any related topic.
Debi Kennison