From the top of the Tor it feels like you can see the world; there is an element of timelessness, a magic. It always amuses me to see the various visitors: the devout tourists whose achievement is the walk itself, marching, like the Grand Old duke of York, to the top of the hill and down again again without stopping to breathe in the air when they arrive. What I love about Glastonbury is the sense of freedom and acceptance; you are just as likely to see someone wandering around wearing fairy ears and rainbow shoes, as baseball cap and trainers, and nobody minds.Nobody stares. And the pace of life is calm.
One afternoon two friends came up with me. Between us we had several American Flutes, a didgeridoo and various drums; the sun was beginning a slow descent and we sat on the ground and began to drum together. After a while, Si changed to his didge, someone had joined in with a flute and I started to sing. Though I know songs I prefer to attune to a place and sing what comes into my heart, a unique rhapsody inspired in the moment. We attracted an audience and invited them to join us, a band of minstrels, blending with creation; the distant hills, the town below us, the birds and the rabbits and the mice that peered us from the bushes.
We needed to leave by dusk, as we were driving straight home that night. An elderly lady sat smoking, and she asked if she could sing us a song before we left, as a gift for our music. She stood and poured out her heart in a melody of her own composing, her own poetic contribution, full of her soul. Moved to tears, we started to pack away our instruments. A tall man, with striking blonde hair approached and bowed. It felt as if we'd travelled back in time! He held his hand out to me, and addressed me as Lady, asking if he could show us a "special tree" that had been struck by lightning but continued to grow, sticking out from the side of the hill, endowed, he told us, with magical powers of fertility.
He explained that if we both sat on the trunk we would certainly go on to have a child, an offer we quickly declined to take up, as we were not a couple and I have 7 children already! We thanked him for showing us the tree, and he kissed my hand, instructing Si to take good care of me!
Moments like these bring a beauty into life, a romance encountered rarely in the hustle and bustle of normality.