The Red and White Springs of Glastonbury
Photos by Cassandra Uhl
The Red & White Paths
Red and white, red and white, red and white.
Weave together, weave together, weave together.
Always separate, but together.
It’s the third way and the middle path.
Birthing and dying, together.
Nothing and everything all at once.
A realm of nonsense for the weird.
One foot in each and body in both.
You, too?
Slowly now.
Feel it.
Red and white, red and white, red and white.
Weave together, weave together, weave together.
It’s happening without doing.
It’s already done.
We’re all already here.
Look and see.
I answered an inner call to visit the red and white springs of Glastonbury last month.
It was a pilgrimage of a lifetime and simultaneously ordinary. I have much to share, but what comes to me today is how struck I was by the separation of the two springs.
One with press and a marketing team, a gate and a fee to enter, precise and manicured, full and lush. A picture of beauty with her iron-tinted waters protected and flowing, accompanied by soft voices and silence. Old Yews gated in as grand guardians–much to protect and much to receive.
Red Roses from Glastonbury photo by Cassandra Uhl
Another, down a small road, no gate or fee, dogs licking out of the intentionally carved waterway. People milling about, discussing life, waiting in line to collect their drinking water. Candles lit inside dark walls with altars of all kinds, dripping with devotion. A picture of beauty with her waters open to all. Yews nearby, though gated in for one. Perhaps she protects herself.
One rich with iron, one with calcium. Both things our dear bodies need. Each spring perfect as is.
Packing light, I planned to purchase the “perfect” vessels to collect water from each spring there in Glastonbury. Nothing was quite right, so I thought, “fuck it,” and emptied my 2oz amber bottle of homemade electrolytes and decided I'd gather water from the two springs in one bottle.
My path often leads me back to a similar place. How do I walk in two worlds at once, even when there are intentional and sturdy separations between the two?
So, of course, I came home with these sacred waters blended, and the truth that always rings back to my question of how to walk in two worlds at once is I must. That is my path as a witch who serves the dying. Because, as a witch who serves the dying, I am inherently in service to life.
If quantum physics has confirmed wave-particle duality, the same particles which construct all that we are, see, and touch, perhaps we are all living the middle path—separate and together while we’re here in body and spirit?
As a witch, not a quantum physicist, I’ll continue working with my 2oz Amber bottle of blended waters from the red and white spring and let you know my findings. I do a different kind of research.
