A candid look at life under Glastonbury Tor on 21st and 22nd July 2021.
This one feels like a confessional.
Magdalene Feast day was coming up, and the atmosphere on Wellhouse Lane had been chaotic. It was heatwave weather and someone had taken up half the garden with their own 'healing for donations' scene, complete with a life size plastic Buddha. Frank Nemisis had been 'holding court', so early the next morning, I decided to clean the White Spring garden.
Wednesday mornings are often quiet. I took my broom, bucket and scrubbing brush and got to work. A proper clean, I scrubbed the bottom of the pools, removed all faded flowers and petals, chucked a bit of water around and reset the boundary.
A man watched me from the front of the building. I know him, he used to come here daily, but I hadn't seen him for years. He didn't think much of me and he was a bit of an antagonist. My friend Kathy who has now passed away often referred to him jokingly as, the Morbid One because he was so miserable and negative. Recently he had been sitting by the front gate with Frank Nemesis.
I finished cleaning and sat down while the pools filled from upstairs. There was a line of men waiting to collect water. MO came to the edge of the garden and spoke to someone in the queue, he pointed directly at me and stated loud enough for me and all to hear, "They are the ones responsible for the dark energies around here."
Oooph, the insult hit hard. I was shaking, but I stood up and challenged him. I called him out and told him he was being nasty. After watching me clean for 3 hours on my own without saying a word, it was a low blow.
I sat down again and wanted to cry. I felt hurt, not only from the insult, but the fact that not one person who witnessed this asked if I was okay.
I went upstairs, and as I passed MO, he was stood talking to a female police officer. I stopped and told her what had happened.
There was an argument between me and MO. He told me, in front of the police that it was true what he said and that he was here to protect the White Spring and to stop me bullying Frank Nemesis! I explained that I live here and have tended the White Spring for almost 15 years.
I was clearly distressed. He was mocking me and acting as if I was mad. The policewoman told MO he was in the wrong and it was anti social behaviour to intentionally cause distress to others. She took me aside and told me she was aware of the issues we were having with Frank Nemesis, and suggested I go upstairs and have a cup of tea.
The great British cop out ... don't worry dear, go and have a nice cuppa and it will all be okay. The police left and MO remained. He started to play flute into the building and I could hear it in the conservatory.
There is a whole back story to the Morbid One, but for now, it is enough to know that he caused us harm with his discrimination and negative comments in the past, telling vulnerable people we are vampires and satanists.
One of these men who had stopped taking his meds and was struggling with his mental health believed MO's lies. He turned up to my house welding an axe, (when I lived off site with my children) and I had to face him alone and talk him down. The same man destroyed the temple doors years ago. When the Morbid One started on me, it brought up all that trauma.
I was not okay!
Maybe I didn't get the kettle on quick enough. I totally lost it, shouted from the top of the building, told him I didn't want to listen to his bloody flute after he had insulted me. I told him to piss off and go and pretend to be a holy man somewhere else. I didn't care that there were lots of people in the street.
I had conflicting feelings afterwards, I was pleased that I stood up to him, but when you are a woman shouting in a public place, people assume you are the crazy one.
Oh well, I can live with that. I am a woman of a certain age and I ain't got time for this shit, so I nipped it in the bud. Whatever you think of it, that's what happened. Call me Karen and make me a cuppa, haha.
Magdalene Feast Day
There are two Black Madonna icons that were gifted to the White Spring many years ago. One is kept here in the cottage the other in the shrine of Our Lady of Avalon. On Magdalene day, we swap them.
I was cautious and guarded after the previous day's drama, so I went down with Max and he opened the cottage gate.
Oh my God, Goddess and all goodness!
We stepped out onto Wellhouse Lane and into an other world! The street was filled with women, all ages, walking up and down the lane. Gentle women getting on with the day unencumbered by anyone else. My heart filled up, the synchronicity of this feminine and faithful flow at this particular moment, washed over me.
Max opened the temple gates and stepped back, the only man in the street, honoured to witness, but not needed for this moment. When I went inside the sanctuary, three women closed in around the gate.
A flood of tears flowed from me, releasing some of the tension of the past few months. Then, a song for Our Lady. I exchanged the statues, left an offering and lit a candle.
The temple sang back to me, the chill waters dancing in the darkness, rippling over cold stone, clapping the surface, echoing and resounding through the chambers.
When I left the building, the magic on the street was tangible until we got back to the cottage gate. Then, like a changing of channels, it shifted. A family with children came round the corner, a car drove down the lane and everything started to go back to normal.
That afternoon, when I went out to get my daughter, the scene could not have been more juxtaposed. The street was full of men, some of the chaotic types who had been around, a few that tend to sit here a lot and one or two that come to play drums.
MO was sat out front with a small group gathered around him. As I drove past, he stepped forward and shouted something. His face twisted up nasty with bitterness. I stopped the car and got out, approached MO and asked him what he said.
"I said, have a safe journey," Smug as a snake in the grass he was.
I told him so, and gave him a mouthful about what he did to me on the previous day. He had to listen to how I was hurt by the damaging things he had told people before, and the impact his behaviour had on me. I did not let him argue back. My anger was magnificent.
Then, untangling my own personal story from the mythos, I stepped into something other. Somewhere between Bard, Priestess and raging menopausal woman. A rant of epic proportions unfolded. It went something like this,
"Today is Magdelene Feast day and I have got something to say. You are going to shut up and hear it! For thousands of years, the feminine and faithful have been suppressed and subdued. Damaged people are going about hurting good people. Dedicated people of faith should not have to put up with your bullshit on the doorstep of their sanctuary. This dysfunctional story has got to end now. I will not stand by and let it continue here and I will stand up against it whenever I see it."
Then I spun round and spoke to all the men.
"And you lot, sitting by listening to these horrible lies, letting it happen, you are part of the problem! Good hearted, faithful people love this place and work hard to make it a nice place for you to enjoy, the least you can do is be kind to them and call out this kind of crap. If you don't like what is being held here, go somewhere else."
I told the Morbid One to avoid speaking to me and if he talks to me like shit again, I will call him out. Every time.
I am not proud of my ranting, I am not ashamed either. The Tower needed toppling, and I happened to be at the base of it with heavy boots on. This is not my story, I just happen to be here.
So ends my confessional.
Much love and brightest blessings,
The Reluctant Priestess.