Level, high, angelic, or unsettling, everyone is searching for something

I've descended off the high frosty borderland and into a Somerset of vast, flat, straight-line divided level Moor, dotted with little contour rounded humps and bumps. It's a place you could hardly call flat though, on very many levels.

Two days ago there was still snow lingering amidst the trees on the Blackdown hills, and I felt as if I was the only person there to see it, occasionally glimpsing a vast view below of Taunton, and the Mendips, framing the flat lands between. Descending on an old droving route the afternoon was spent walking through and between beautiful villages with huge houses built from local stone, and ghostly quiet with village shops closed down and pubs only open limited hours. This is idyllic, peaceful wealth, at a cost, and it felt a little sad and lonely. At the crossroads before Shepton Beauchamp, however, a car stopped, and a lady travelling with her husband wound down the window and asked if I needed a lift anywhere. She was very concerned when I told her where I was heading to that afternoon that it was miles (underlined) away - it was in fact about 2 miles. I very politely and gratefully declined! I think she thought I was very odd. At the end of the afternoon, near Coat, I met my dad on a little back lane. He had come to very kindly deliver new boots and the next pile of maps. We found his airbnb and I had been invited to camp in the huge extensive garden, near the duck pond and next to the tennis court. The host, Vanessa, was immensely generous with tea and use of shower and breakfast too. 

Yesterday was a reflective, quiet day of walking, with hardly a human soul about. I planned this bit for the names of the places not aware that this was where the entire Walker clan and hangers on would come when I was too small to remember. I joined the river Parrett up to Kingsbury Episcopi, visiting the grand earth coloured church, with a figure of St Martin sculpted into the wall of the tower, slicing his cloak in two to share with a cold and naked travelling beggar. 

Continuing along the river, I came to the hamlet of Muchelney, the abbey approached across a large field of sheep, the church quiet, no human presence about. But it is a church full of angels - subversive, humorous local angels, looking down from a roof painted full of them, bare breasted, somewhere between male and female, amidst garish clouds. 

The next village, Huish Episcopi, had a surprising Burne-Jones window, a host of striking red angels, surrounding the young Mary and her new born boy, facing on the opposite wall a small 14th century stone carving of a poor, cloth clad Christ, with no angel to protect. 

Not long after I entered the vast flat

sea level Somerton Moor, after meeting a quiet beagle by a farm, who watched me approach, and then went to fetch a large piece of raw meat, ribs poking out of it, and walked past me continuing to stare, and disappeared up the next driveway. Somerton Moor is suddenly dead flat, dictated by long straight lines of water and drove way, tracks of black, black mud, and algae ridden water. Buzzards swept silently over the surface of it, two groups of deer moved almost unseen, blending into the dullness of the sky and the bleakness of the land. It is the kind of place where tangles of barbed wire rattle in the low cold wind, evidence of some unseen and territorial presence, and even the litter at the side of the tracks looks sinister. I am left wondering when these people come to this place - perhaps after dark to appreciate the night sky amidst a haze of booze, needles and enhanced tobacco. 

Over the next rise and fall, crossing the startlingly loud A39 through the hard pressed village of Walton, the next levels had the huge Glastonbury Tor towering above, visible for miles around. 

Glastonbury had a many levelled welcome. The campsite was undergoing building works to the camping field and I was offered a patch of grass behind the deserted reception and the noisy main road. Fortunately my dad's airbnb had a small spare room, so I opted for that, relieved eventually that I hadn't accepted the unnerving patch of deserted muddy grass near the industrial estate. At the airbnb the host welcomed me with generosity. I mentioned, after we had talked about the waters of the white spring, that I had a painful knee. She produced a lotion of essential oils and instantly I became a walking decongestant - you could have smelled my menthol aura for miles around. She then posted my fundraising link on Facebook. It's a wonderful little interesting corner house near the centre of town, colourful, full of books and pictures, wall hangings and all different kinds of herbal tea. 

Today was a rest day. I know it's not long since my last one, but I have never been here before and wanted to spend a day looking around. 

We went up Glastonbury Tor first thing. The lowness of the surrounding landscape distorts perspective and I was surprised at how high it is. A cold wind blew up there, the views of levels all around framed by distant hills. St Michael's tower had a couple leaning against the wall in each other's arms, and a bare footed pilgrim circling the base anti-clockwise. We descended to the street of the White Spring, tasting the two different waters, sweet and fresh. The spring is covered by ancient walls like a cave, and is opened most afternoons for those who want to get closer and maybe immerse. 

We went our separate ways after that, meeting only for lunch - vegan salad and chakra tea. I had the 'I am' chakra tea, which helped to ground me and encourage creativity ... I think... it was very nice anyway. To be on the safe side I did also invest in a knee support bandage. 

And I just wandered, fairly aimlessly really. I sat on a bench and was joined by a lady in grubby pyjama trousers who sat down beside me, said 'I'm bored' and then wept. I stayed on the bench with her, smoking rollies, and talking about life and stuff. Later on I jumped around on a foot piano playing tunes with a man in rainbow shorts and a sheepskin coat. I wandered into shops full of crystals and singing bowls, Buddha figures and incense. I could release my feminine powers with a whole new outfit of carefully chosen colour combinations (I didn't), and even saw a tuning fork for the human body (it looked a little like an instrument of torture). Bookshops are full of magic, mystery, angels, healing, historical tomes and CDs of whale song and motivational speakers. Snippets of matter of fact conversation overheard often include 'lines of energy', 'the universe told me', 'my chakras were all out' and 'Dave lost his unicorn'. 

And everything, almost, goes. The strange and alternative is normal. Christ, Mary Magdalene, Archangels, covens, unicorns, the eternal Goddess, Buddha, yin, yang, and the people getting shopping in the supermarket, and having a drink in the local, all co-exist. And it seems to work. 

It's easy in a way, coming from the working environment I do, to be dismissive of this, or sceptical. And yet, every place selling food or groceries is deeply conscious of how they impact the fragile earth - this ancient landscape that gives freely of plants, creatures, earth, water, and the rhythm of light and darkness. Not so long ago, and still in some remote civilisations, we depended entirely upon the plants and animals, we lived in rhythm with the earth, asked forgiveness of her where we had been destructive, and so many people here are reconnecting with that which is ancient and deep within our story, our history, and our own being. We have disconnected from the earth so much that we all suffer deeply - every creature and every human and particularly those who are most vulnerable and have the least power. 

And, after all, we are all just fingers pointing to the moon. This is not to dismiss the fingers, which each have centuries of art, literature, music, spirituality, learning and reasoning. These make us and our own communities who we are - our identities. And yet, you and I both are searching, in our different ways, for a way to live more meaningfully. And because of this I feel welcome here, in a unique and serious way.