TOR

A Magical Awakening

Many, many years ago I found myself in Glastonbury, Somerset, for the first time. I had gone there with a girlfriend of mine to get away from the madness of London and some respite from an ever increasing drug addiction that was gradually destroying and taking over my life.

If I remember correctly it was my girlfriend's idea to visit Somerset and she had booked us both a room at Tor Down Bed and Breakfast, which I was soon to find out was situated right next to Glastonbury Tor.

I planned to use this time away to try and clean up my act and get a new start on life. Up until then I was drinking excessively, taking copious amounts of drugs daily and inevitably getting into more and more trouble with the police.

I had been reducing my intake of substances for the past few days and as we set off on our journey I can honestly say it was the first time I had been clean in years.

We drove from London via the M3, glad to see the city pass away behind us, as we set off towards what I now know as the Summerlands.

I have always been interested in magick and shamanism of various kinds, in fact I sold my soul to the Devil once just to score some heroin in a city that was desperately dry of opiates at the time. It worked, and immediately after making my pact with Old Nick, I went around to a dealer's house who only hours before had been withdrawing as badly as I was, to not only buy some heroin but to actually be given a rather large amount for free. So happy was I with this new arrangement I thought I would test him further and promptly walked to the next dealers house, where exactly the same thing happened.

Needless to say the Devil got my soul alright and it took many years and many tears to reclaim myself back from the pits of hell.

However I digress, back to my story.............

There's a special feeling as you enter within a 12 mile radius of Glastonbury town. There's a conscious change in atmosphere, and a subtle but strong feeling that something is different here, something magical. It doesn't seem as strong to me now as it did that first time, whether that's because I’ve changed or the landscape itself has, I don't know, but the first time I felt it, it was amazing and to view the Tor rising from the rolling Somerset landscape was truly breathtaking.

We were greeted at the B&B by two very sweet older women who for some strange reason thought I was Boy George the pop singer. Every morning they would tap lightly on our bedroom door and then enter with trays of full English breakfast singing 'Karma, karma, karma Chameleon', then giggling like two besotted school girls they would reluctantly leave us to our eggs and bacon.

It was a lot of fun watching them play up to me, thinking I was the famous pop star, I didn't have the heart to tell them I wasn't him, but instead a crazed drug addict from south London trying to get clean (which funnily enough turned out to be not that far from George's situation in later years).

As I said before, the moment I entered the vicinity of Glastonbury I felt something strange - at the time I had no idea what it was, but I was soon to find out..

We spent long sunny days doing the usual tourist stuff, walking around the various occult and alternative shops, walking up the Tor and admiring the fantastic views and would eventually end up back in the B&B, deciding to give the pubs a miss, for obvious reasons, and have early nights in.

One particular morning after both sleeping well we awoke early to a ray of glorious sunlight and the sound of birdsong coming through our bedroom window. My girlfriend leant over to kiss me and we began to make love.

The bed was positioned so that my head pointed towards the bedroom wall with Glastonbury Tor directly behind it. I lay on my back with my girlfriend climbing on top, riding me.

We both climaxed, embraced each other for a short while, and then just as she climbed off and knelt on the bed beside me, it happened!

It felt like the top of my head exploded and was split wide open as a gushing torrent of white light rushed intensely through my body, it was so strong that my whole body trembled violently as it arched like a bow across the bed.

I have done a fair share of mind altering drugs in my time but never had I felt anything like this before, it was as if my entire being was dissolving into a pure white electric current that was totally consuming me.

I desperately tried to allow the energy to run through me. My whole body shook, my eyes clamped tightly shut, as this white heat tore through my being.

I had been clean from any form of drugs for two or three days at this point and I believe it was only because of my previous drug experiences that I was able to breath and ride my way through it. It felt very much like an extreme psychedelic experience but much more intense.

As my body shook on the bed, I was at some point able to communicate to my girlfriend with words to the effect of 'What the hell is happening to me?' to which she replied, 'I don't know but I can see it!'

She saw what she described as a serpent of light that was streaming into me but if that wasn't strange enough, she also said that she could see through the wall of the B&B and out beyond it, to Glastonbury Tor and that this spiralling light was emanating from a cloaked and hooded Merlin type figure standing on top of the Tor. In his hand was a crystal tipped wand, and from this wand shone the serpent light that spiralled downward around the ancient mound and eventually into my head and throughout my body.

She described the scene further saying that there were thousands and thousands of ravens flying in a circle around the emanating white crystal’d staff, covering the sky, that were helping to create this huge vortex of energy.

I know this story may be hard to believe and yes, I can hear you thinking, 'crazy addict, he was must have been suffering from drug induced hallucinations or even a form of withdrawal madness' but like I said, I had been clean for a few days now and the real crux of the matter was that my girlfriend was a pretty clean living college student who only occasionally took drugs and just had the odd pint with me, yet she too was having exactly the same experience. In fact as she described it to me her whole body was shuddering, as she weeped from the intensity of it all.

When something like this happens it's as if you enter into another time zone. We could well have been on that bed together for five minutes of five hours, who knows, but as quickly as it came it suddenly stopped and my body dropped to the bed exhausted.

Eventually I opened my eyes and looked at my girlfriend who was staring back at me in disbelief at what had just happened, with tears still running down her cheeks. I embraced and held her tightly as we both fell back into a deep sleep.

When we eventually woke we felt amazing, I literally felt reborn. We talked to each other about the experience and confirmed everything that had happened, still not understanding it.

For the next week in Glastonbury I had the most magical time of my life, I didn't drink any alcohol or take any drugs, I felt cleansed, purified, my soul reborn.

I have never tried to analyse this experience, still to this day I don't know who that hooded figure was a top of the Tor. Was it Merlin? Could it have been Gwyn up Nudd, Celtic Lord of the Underworld who supposedly lives under the mound? Who knows.

All I know is I am eternally grateful to the powers that be, from that moment onwards my life was changed forever. I can't honestly say that I stayed clean from drugs after I returned to London, I didn't.

What I can say is that from then onwards a strange set or synchronicities began to occur that eventually lead me back to Glastonbury and to me finally cleaning up my act.

I have been sober now for over 33 years and I can honestly say that this was my AWAKENING and from that point on my life was changed forever.

I have a raven tattoo on my right arm to honour that fateful morning and to remember that magic walks with and through me. My life is not my own, it has been claimed by the Other and I owe it everything!

Still to this day when i am meditating or performing a magickal task, i feel the presence of the hooded figure come to me, he says nothing, and simply stands silent, watching over me, emanating his tremendous power, protection and encouragement.

‘Blessings to all and may you too be touched by the magicks serpentine light!’