From the archives: What was supposed to be a quick, two day ‘raid’ on Dorset, back in 2013, somehow expanded, as our travels seem to do, to include a few other places… like Somerset. And eventually, Wiltshire…

Sitting on a bench in Cerne Abbas, watching butterflies and indulging in ice cream whilst leafing through the newly purchased books, we discussed the route home. We could go back the way we had come, take an alternative homeward-bound route, or we could, possibly, take a longer detour via a place that I and a dear friend had passed a few months ago and which I wanted to share with my companion. The outcome was inevitable. We chose to detour and headed northwest to see a dog’s nose. It was very early in the afternoon, after all….

The Nose in question forms part of the famed, if controversial, Glastonbury Zodiac.  Terrestrial zodiacs are monumental representations of the heavens in the earth. The Glastonbury Zodiac was brought to public notice in the 1920’s by the visionary Katherine Maltwood. The object of our quest was the Nose of the Girt Dog… Canis Major… otherwise known as Burrow Mump.

Whatever your opinion of the Zodiac in question, the Mump is a startling feature in the landscape. Rising steeply to seventy-nine feet high, the conical mound stands in sharp contrast to the flat plain. Crowned with the ruined fifteenth-century church of St Michael, it is a surprising sight as you round a bend in the road. At first glance you could be forgiven for thinking you are imagining things, so similar does it seem to another St Michael’s tower on the Tor, not far away in Glastonbury.

We parked and climbed, once again in the heat of the early afternoon sun. There is a stark beauty in the lines of a ruined church, framing nothing but the azure of the sky in its arched windows and empty doorways. Through the ravaged archways the horizon is framed in colours more brilliant than any glass and on a day as clear as this, even the Tor itself can be seen in the distance.

At a purely practical level, it seems entirely odd to have built a church here in such an inaccessible place, yet it is somehow also very fitting that it links the earth and the heavens with its fabric of faith and memory. There is also the theory that links many of these St Michael’s on the high and holy places of the old ones with his role as subduer of dragons…

The new church at the foot of the Mump was locked, but the pub next door was open. We had earned a cold drink beside the River Parrett as we discussed the next step of the journey home. Not that there was any doubt… it is very hard to pass so close to Glastonbury and not at least call in there. It is a place special to many hearts for many reasons, not least, I think, because so many Paths meet there in understanding and peace.

Before setting off for Dorset, we had been playing in the landscape all week, a landscape we see and feel as something beloved and sacred, that feeds the heart, mind and soul with its mystery and beauty. The return to home and the last hours of our ‘holiday’ before normality claims our attention did not need to be rushed. It would, indeed, have felt churlish not to visit the place fabled as Avalon. As neither of us had seen the White Spring, we chose to park near the foot of the Tor and visit this modern sanctuary to an ancient Nature.

We were surprised to find the place was not only open but ringing with the voice of community. Within the shadows of the sanctuary created there to honour Brigid, there were children laughing and a throng of naked pilgrims stepping into the chill water for healing and blessing. It was another moment of unexpected and natural beauty. Particularly lovely to behold was the heavily pregnant mother-to-be. It seemed entirely appropriate in those waters. It may not be our chosen way, but we can honour the faith of our fellow travellers, seeing the beauty and joy and sharing it for a moment when our ways meet. It is, after all, the same Journey we share, simply a different Path.

We stayed a little while in the darkened halls before returning to the car. It was a flying visit, but all that was needed at this time. There was, after all, only one way I ever take home from Glastonbury, and that held more ancient places… and it was still only mid-afternoon.  In many ways, it felt as if, by visiting so many of the old, hallowed places in awareness of their inner life and human history, we were joining the dots of a hazy picture written in the landscape. Like the chalk figures of Cerne Abbas and Uffington, cut deep into the earth for eyes and hearts to read, the meaning of that picture is not always clear, shrouded in the mists of time and veiled in the confusion of the hustle and bustle of daily life. Perhaps it is a simple picture that laughs gently and says ‘You are Home’.