It began on the train from London to Exeter one Saturday morning, March 21st, 1998. When the train pulled into the station at Bath, I decided to break my journey for a bit of shopping. As I crossed the street, taking a shortcut to the market square through the bus station, the bus to Glastonbury pulled up and stopped in front of me. I hadn’t included the Tor in my plans that day. But the sun was brilliant, it was warm and beautiful, and I boarded the bus feeling free and unencumbered by the strictures of time, ready for an adventure.

I alighted from the coach in the Glastonbury town centre, just across the street from the Abbey Ruins. The day was so lovely, I decided to walk the mile up the hill to the base of the famous Tor and stop at the Chalice Well. The Gardens are now in the trust of the Guardians of the Well, a group dedicated to maintaining the gardens and the well and pools therein. As I stopped at the entrance booth to make my donation, the lady at the counter asked me if I would be coming back in the evening for the Circle. I hadn’t known about it and had made no plans to stay on in Glastonbury. Intrigued, I told her that if I could find an accommodation in the town, I would be back. She directed me to the Tourist Information Board and said she hoped she’d see me later.

I filled two bottles at the Lion Head Fountain, and sat quietly on a stone bench, listening to the water as it traveled on its route through the flow forms to the Vesica Pisces. In March, the grounds are a riot of color with daffodils of every conceivable shade of yellow bobbing next to purple hyacinth and other early flowering bulbs. The raised beds, all freshly turned, wait for the planting of summer annuals to begin. Ancient yews stand as sentinels in front of Arthur’s court while sweetpea and roses hint at glories to come. The weeping willows put forth verdant leaves which drift down to brush the waters of the Vesica Pisces Pool. The maxim of the Gardens at the time was "May you find peace here." I cannot see how it would be possible to do otherwise.

It was with reluctance that I left, though I had decided I would return later for the ritual. I found the Tourist Board on the High Street with no trouble, and was greeted by a typical English matron volunteer-type with short gray hair, tweed jacket and sensible shoes, very Judi Dench. She ran a Pub called "The Who’da Thought It,” where I found a place to stay. With a few hours to spare, I went for a reccy and found an Internet Café where I popped in, answered some e-mail, and posted a note to my online coven about where I was and what I’d be doing. I hoped that at the appointed time, some of them would be able to quietly join their spirits to mine during the Circle. One shepherd’s pie and a Diet Pepsi later, I was ready and my taxi arrived to take me back to the Chalice Well.

The taxi dropped me at the car park at about 6:45. There were several people milling around making small talk. I stopped to chat with a couple from New Mexico. They also had not planned to be in Glastonbury that day, but something had drawn them. A local artist named Paul joined us. He had a shop in Glastonbury, and although he was in the town daily to work, he hadn’t ever stopped at the Chalice Well before. Something, he said, had nudged him to take the walk that day, and like me, he decided to come back.

One of the Guardians came and opened the gate. He told us that we should queue up near the booth at the entrance where we would be given candles for the circle. The four of us moved through the gates and stood quietly with our thoughts. I couldn’t help but feel the kind of power that transcends individual belief and speaks directly to the soul: here, all people of Spirit were merely seekers.

As we moved slowly forward to the gardens, each with a candle, a woman in front of me turned and smiled. She said she was glad I could make it. It was the woman from the Tourist Board. I smiled back, a bit at loss for words, saying it was nice to see her again so soon. She returned my smile and told me I’d been expected. I realized that I was merely one of many who’d been ‘expected’ since I had managed to arrive. I had been somehow guided to this place and this time, to be healed of a condition that I had yet barely acknowledged to myself, much less shared with others.

By day, the Gardens had been beautiful and tranquil, but by night they were transcendent. The night was very still and the glow from the tall ground candles was gentle, ethereal, flickering like faery lights. From everywhere came the sounds of splashing, coursing water, of night birds, of soft chanting and whispered communion as we dispersed into every part of this sacred place. I stopped at the Lion Head Fountain and, kneeling, pressed the cup which stands always filled to my lips, and drank deeply of the healing. For a moment I called to the spirits of my friends, those who needed healing and those who were healers, offering them the cup and drinking for them. Then, I replaced the red stained vessel and stood slowly, grateful for the aid of another pilgrim who lifted me under the elbow and helped me gain my feet. It was Paul, the artist I’d spoken with in the car park.

He stayed near me as I meditated, calling out to my ‘other’ family, gathering many of them to me. Softly I chanted their coven names just out of human hearing. From a distance I heard the deep tolling of a bell, the signal to move to the Vesica Pisces Pool for the Circle.

I could see the incandescent glow of a host of candles, moving from every direction, converging on the main pathway in procession; solitary, and yet somehow part of something greater. Faces were indistinct in the soft luminescence. We were shades, shadows, spirits, some robed and hooded, many more like me, wearing whatever we’d had on when we were called. My impromptu companion kept his hand firmly beneath my elbow to steady me as we moved in time with the others. Softly he whispered, "Do you feel Him? The Horned One is here." I nodded mutely, for I had felt it. Here so very near the Eternal Womb, Cerridwyn’s Cauldron, the Holy Grail, Cernunnos Himself was leading us to the place of ritual.

Though the night was cool, I felt a rush of warmth as the ground beneath my feet seemed to radiate with a tangible primal force. As an old hand to ritual, I have often used the words: “A time without time, a place between the worlds…” But here for the first time in thirty years of practice, I felt exactly what those words meant.

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