Wednesday 20 August 2014

HOLY THORN - A REQUEST

The Holy Thorn in all of it's glory
and as it still is in my memory,


Roy Vickerey of http://www.plant-lore.com/news/holy-thorn-update-3  is hoping to hear from people who have reminiscences or memories of visiting the Holy Thorn that once grew on Wearyall Hill, Glastonbury, Somerset. 

Unlike ordinary hawthorn trees, The Glastonbury Thorn flowered twice a year, the first time in December and the second time in spring and had a great deal of lore attached to it.
Sadly it will not flower this year as it has been destroyed by vandals, hence Roy’s call for your memories please.



Below are mine:

In the 1970’s and 80’s I lived in Glastonbury in a small house that faced Wearyall Hill and every morning, whether upstairs or downstairs, the Tree was always visible to me and in my focus. 
Glastonbury itself provided me with a lot of firsts in my life. It was there that I started a daily practise of transcendental meditation and where I began to compose poetry as well as sensing energies etc.

Living there one could not but absorb all of it’s myths and legends. The legend of St. Joseph of Arimathea in particular is so well steeped in the town that it is said he brought cruets of Christ’s blood with him
when he visited and that he secreted them in Chalice Well. These containers of blood are depicted in carvings on the porch of St.Benedict’s Church.

The Holy Thorn Tree on Wearyall Hill was to all who lived and visited the place evidence and proof of a living legend, a legend that told that the tree grew from  St J of Arimaethea’s staff and flowered twice a year.

I often walked up there, that’s what the majority of people did for it was somewhere handy to sit in peace and muse the time away or merely just to collect one’s thoughts, without having to make the long walk to Chalice Well or to The Tor.

Probably my last visit to the Tree was in the company of the late Olivia Durdin Robertson (co-founder of The Fellowship of Isis), in August 1997 when I took part in a short Lughnasadh ritual with members of Fellowship of Isis & attendees of the Goddess Conference.

If like me, you may have lived in Glastonbury, still live there or have even been a frequent visitor, in which case please share your memories with him. 
This is one way of keeping the Holy Thorn Tree in flower.
You can contact Roy via his website: http://www.plant-lore.com



All that remained after a mindless
 & senseless act of destruction.

17 comments:

  1. So sad to see the thorn like this.
    I just cannot understand why anyone would do this.

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  2. What a wicked thing to do. They who did it will be cursed forever more.

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  3. Why would someone do that? Such a selfish world that we live in :(

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  4. Why would anyone do such a mindless thing I wonder.

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  5. what a tragedy...do you think it will regrow...I love your memories. I have not visited Glastonbury but would love to do so some day. Maybe the tree will have regrown...we can but pray. xx

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    1. No Margaret it has not and will not recover. A sapling was planted adjacent and that too has gone. There is obviously a deranged person in the locality.

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  6. Oh Mel, I felt sick reading this post. Your memories are beautiful and only underscore the sadness that the tree has been hacked to pieces like this. It is a piece of history and legend itself and okay, maybe it's not so important in the greater scheme of world atrocities, but it is important as a reflection of what is happening to society today. I am so sad. I used to visit Glastonbury a lot in my student days and loved the legends surrounding the Tor and the tree. They always had a mystical beauty and appeal to me. How very sad.

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  7. Thank you for your comments Val which are truly appreciated. Society as a whole has lost what it means to be civilised and what occurred to the tree is a microcosm of the macrocosm of worldwide behaviour.

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  8. I'd love to throw these vandals into the lions den at Paignton Zoo and see how they'd fair, picking on a harmless plant, it just makes me so cross and of course sad!

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  9. I know exactly how you feel Suzie, unfortunately such an action would rob the psychoanalysts and social workers of a job..........!

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  10. A shame. The greed of some people. The joy and pleasure which they have taken there is immensely more than what could be done by robbing any bank.

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  11. I was shocked to see the damage to the thorn when we went there last spring; I have heard that the destruction was perpetrated by christians who were presumably motivated by the same iconoclastic intentions as the Taliban who destroyed the statues of buddha. Which, if it were true, I would find even more shocking than 'mindless' vandalism.

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    1. Dru, if as you say then it would have been the second attack by so called christians on the this tree because it was first attacked during the Reformation by the Protestants and rescued to live on.

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  12. I just find this mindless vandalism so incredibly sad - it is beyond anger - that anyone has so little respect for other peoples' beliefs, thoughts, way of life that he/she can totally destroy something.

    Thank you so much for your kind comments on my late husband's painting. Yes I have many of his paintings - the house is full of them. I too am particularly fond of this one.

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    1. I entirely agree with you Pat, the spirit of generosity towards the beliefs and treasures of others does seem to be sadly lacking these days.

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