For my first week of posting in the Pagan Blog Project I thought I would write about one of my favorite yet elusive topics.  Avalon.  I’ll admit that I have little in the way of “meaty” material to share on the subject and I certainly don’t have a lot of research to offer.  Instead I want to talk about the interesting phenomena that is Avalon.  It’s something I’ve been drawn to for many, many years and I have always found that, regardless of what physical attributes we give to Avalon or whatever pseudo-historical facts we try and graft on it, Avalon is its own being.  It is a living, breathing, magickal realm and not one that is easily bound by space and time.  It is what it needs to be for us and it shows itself to us when and how it needs to be seen.

Despite this, there are some real-world aspects to Avalon.  Let’s get some of these things out of the way first.

The name Avalon is said to derive from the Welsh abal, meaning apple or aball meaning apple tree.  It is also something connected to the modern Welsh word for apple, afal.  Ynys yr Afalon is a name sometimes seen connected to Avalon and means Isle of Apples in Welsh.  With the word apples being connected to avalon this is where we get the Isle of Avalon. It is also said that Glastonbury was once called Ynys Witrin which in Welsh means Isle of Glass, said to indicate it was actually and island.

Ynys Afallach is also the Welsh name for the Isle of Glastonbury.  This is where we see some of the “real-world” connections form.  Glastonbury, while no longer an island and now a peninsula, was once an island that had apple trees in abundance, hence its nickname Isle of Apples.  Glastonbury became associated with Avalon most specifically around 1190-1191 when monks at Glastonbury found what is believed to have been the remains of a long buried King Arthur and his Queen Guinevere.  This is said to have confirmed something that has been thought by many; Glastonbury was, at one time, Avalon.  In 1278 these remains were ceremoniously reconsecrated and buried and since then Glastonbury has been a pilgrimage site for both seekers of King Arthur’s legends as well as modern day Pagans longing for a connection to the mystical energy of Excalibur, the Lady of the Lake, and the sorceress Morgan Le Fay.  There are also Christian myths that talk about Joseph arriving in Glastonbury and burying the Holy Grail where the Tor now stands, a spot that is said to be the entrance to the Celtic Underworld, something that often merges many Christian and Pagan myths together.

So that’s the fact, some of the history as we know it today.  But what is Avalon?  Personally I don’t see it as a place, somewhere you can go and take a picture of to say “Look, I was there.”  Avalon is very much a place that is in the heart and in the astral realms, at least in my experience.

There are many layers to Avalon.  Dion Fortune’s book “Glastonbury, Avalon of the Heart” does a lovely job of trying to peel many of them back.  But I have yet to have the pleasure of visiting Glastonbury and being able to see the Tor or the sites of the King and Queen’s remains.  I am also an unapologetic romantic when it comes to Avalon.  I know that in reality the place where stories like Mists of Avalon and the things that have happened in these stories (especially Mists of Avalon which has a very decidedly modern Pagan Goddess bend to it) aren’t “real”.  But then, what is “real”?

I’m a big believer in the idea of the collective unconscious.  These people, places, and symbols that have come to define Avalon have become powerful archetypes of power, magick, and healing that are “real” in many ways and connect us to levels of energy and spirit that nothing else does…for some of us at least.

For many hundreds of years the myths and stories of Avalon have been told and retold, retooled to fit evolving ideas and beliefs, and together they have created another Avalon.  The Avalon of the heart, the Avalon of the spirit, the Avalon of the mind.  This is the place where the sick go for healing, the dead go for rebirthing, and those who seek to walk in the path of the Goddess as Priestess go to answer their calling.  It may not be a “real place”, but it is very real to me. It is a place that I have journeyed to for all of these things; to heal, to sit at the seat of the Goddess for wisdom, and to learn the ways of magick from teachers who, while not “real” to some, have become as real as you or I through the energy and the love that those who are called to Avalon have given to it.