In Glastonbury, having lived here for a while, I find it difficult to harbour any illusions or, on the other hand, to deny credence to anything. Ancient Mysteries are everywhere, and modern conundrums too. Across the road, a play is in preparation, a Healing Rite for Samhain. Round the corner, homeless people, not locals but seemingly lost souls who have been drawn here by the energy centre that is Avalon, are given free meals from a mobile food kitchen. This is 1992.
Planet Earth is in danger, and the danger has been caused by human beings.
This is the over-riding reality of the modern world, specifically the industrialised world, a culture which has severed peoples' spiritual and emotional link with the Earth. By contrast, the Ancient Mysteries, ancient as they are, come from a time when people lived as part of their environment, and were sustained directly by it - physically, emotionally and spiritually. It would be romantic to suggest that in ancient times there was no separation between people and the Earth, that all was idyllically One. But I take the 'ancient mysteries' to be those forms of religious, shamanic and magical practices which discovered, celebrated and safeguarded the essential link with the Earth, the essential truth that we are one with the planet and with spirit. So long as this truth was maintained, through myth, through stories of the dream time, through an understanding of the gods in terms of natural phenomena, through seeing all things as part of the movement of the Tao or the Web of Wyrd, then the basic health of the planet was assured.