#5 Pilgrimage and listening to the land

Having walked the length and breadth of the UK, I share in this week’s episode the impact the experience of walking 2000 miles across the UK has had on my life and the plethora of things I’ve learnt from ever so slightly discovering how to ‘listen to the land’. 

The books I mention in this week's podcast are;

‘The Sun and the Serpent’ by Paul Broadhurst & Hamish Miller

‘The Book of Trespass: Crossing the Lines that Divide Us’ by Nick Hayes

‘The Spine of Albion’ by Caroline Hoare and Gary Biltcliffe

And the website https://www.britishpilgrimage.org/

You can follow our pilgrimage to Boomtown this year @boomtownfairofficial

The music and artwork is by @moxmoxmoxiemox

Nonsense in the Chaos is available on all podcast platforms. Please like, follow, and review. Also, please consider supporting the podcast by becoming a patron on my Patreon page... patreon.com/JolieRose.

You can get in touch with Jolie Rose on Instagram @kriyaarts or the Nonsense in the Chaos Page on Facebook. 

Hope you enjoy listening to this week's episode!

The music and artwork is by @moxmoxmoxiemox

Nonsense in the Chaos is available on all podcast platforms or you can listen here… https://nonsenseinthechaos.buzzsprout.com You can get in touch with me on Instagram @kriyaarts or the Nonsense in the Chaos Page on Facebook

Please like, follow, and review. Also, please consider supporting the podcast by becoming a patron on my Patreon page... patreon.com/JolieRose. And share far and wide please! The more people who hear about the podcast the better.

Transcript

0:04

The mountains and the caves. The wicked witches. The frosting of the unknown. Um, This week on The Nonsense in the Chaos, I'm going to talk about the pilgrimages that I have walked because they're a really big part of my recent experiences and a big body of work that I completed last year I'm doing a very short one walking to Boomtown this Saturday, I'm pre recording some of these podcasts because I'm going to be away for two weeks. I'm going to be walking from the Isle of Wight to Boomtown via the Ellen Line, which I'll explain a bit more about what that is, uh, in a minute, and opening Boomtown, which is really exciting. Megan, introduced me to all of that. And then Jonathan just dropped the bombshell in the last podcast that it's a land temple, which makes total sense because we could really feel the energy in Boontown. And so, you know, I believe in everything and nothing. I don't know what any of this stuff is. I don't know what it means and I don't know if it's real, but I have. So much out of walking these energy lines. the experiences I had at Boomtown last year were out of this world. I was stone cold, sober, and it was the most profound festival experience I've ever had. So regardless of whether it's real or not. It makes my life way more nourishing and enjoyable for these things to exist within it. So i'm happy to welcome them in and I don't care about what's true and what's real and what's not because actually true is the wrong word. I feel like truth is something i'm very tuned into but reality is a slippery fish and I feel that we're being sold a version of reality that actually is sending us all to hell in a handcart So i'm very happy to jump out of that cart and for you flopped myself into the sea of imagination and magic and it's a much more beautiful place in here and I'm having a way better life experience from being here than I was. Previously when I didn't believe in anything. who knows what these energy lines are, but I am walking with four priestesses who are representing the four elements. I'm spirit and we're going to walk from the Isle of Wight to Boomtown. It'll be three days. It's a tiny walk, right? That might sound a lot to people, but it's nothing to me. I'm used to walking for seven weeks, 500 miles from one end of the country to the other. So yeah, walking like 30 miles is nothing. Okay. But it's gonna be lovely. I also, this autumn, I'm definitely gonna go do a bit more of a bigger walk, but I'm gonna do it on my own because I've been walking with people for the last few years. So let me explain what I've been doing. I set off on a pilgrimage in 2018. It was the first ever. Extinction Rebellion, when they went and shut down London, a group of people walked from Brighton to London along the Meridian line. was a ley line. I didn't know anything about that. I wasn't even particularly engaged or connected to that when I did that. It was just, I remember that being mentioned And we walked this line and I wasn't able to walk all of it. I was really busy and I had to dip in and out of it. So I did like a few days walk here and there and then had to go back and do work and then come back again. But I was there and we walked through Forest Row and we went somewhere where there was a very old uterine, but I can't remember where we stayed. But each night we stayed in a church and it was arranged by extension of rebellion and that we would. stayed in these churches and sometimes we got to the church and people had cooked us whole meals and it was beautiful and it was so lovely, people were so kind. And each morning when we left the vicar would come and do a blessing for us. And, was the first time where I got a taste of how powerful pilgrimage is. It just felt like such a physical and important act for us to be walking to London. And I was absolutely blown away by the fact that we could get from Brighton to London via footpaths and countryside. I just didn't know that it was possible. It felt like everything's so urban, I guess, because we're just moving really fast via transport from one town to another, that it doesn't seem like there's really capacity for us to get from one place to another without walking along a road I just didn't expect that we could get all the way to London and via Blackheath, we actually got into central London without walking through urban landscape or really along roads. It's like the occasional bit you had to walk along the road every now and then, but really it was mainly just through countryside. And I just had no idea that that was possible. And how easy it was. That was the other thing. I was like, oh, so you literally could just walk out your door tomorrow with a bag on your back and just walk to London from Brighton. Absolutely blew my mind. And then when we got there to London, there was another pilgrimage that we then did through London that was along the Royal Path. And it's the route that the coronation, I think, still follows, but it definitely used to follow. And it included the London Stone, which is built into the wall of one of the big banks, in Bank. where people used to have to hit their swords and declare themselves when they first entered the city to say who their allegiance was with. and we went there and we've gathered all this water from the springs that we'd passed on our route up to London. And we took this water and we went to, the hill next to the Tower of London. There was a king called Bran who I think when he died he had his head buried in the hill. I don't think he was beheaded, I'm not sure how he died. But his head was buried in the hill. And he watches over London. And his totem animal was the raven. And that's why the ravens must never leave the Tower of London. And what that whole connection was. It was his tower, he built it. And it was, this ruling spot was this hill. And apparently, London is a whole series of hills and rivers, which you get the, there's that book London River that came out a while ago. It was a bestseller. If you've ever been to Glastonbury, the actual town and Avalon, that whole magical landscape where it's loads of hills and you can see how the levels would have been flooded and would have been water. And it would have basically been a load of islands, like a whole bunch of islands and London would have been the same. So it was a series of islands with rivers running between. Yeah. And we know it was a really sacred place because they found loads of offerings, in the Thames and the estuaries of these rivers. So you had all these sacred lands and, it was known as the place of the bees and it still is now. London is the busy bee. You know, it's the capital, it's the busy bee place. And so we went to begin on Tower Hill where loads of people were beheaded as well, which began the, enlightenment. So we chopped off the heads of all our religious leaders in this place and chose logic, which was fair enough. We've had a whole massive adventure doing that and that adventure has shown us and taken us to all of the things that we've achieved with the Hedron Collider and quantum physics and, you know, inventions of being able to build skyscrapers and go to the moon and all the things we've done. But, we did literally disembody ourselves and we've forgotten that we threw the baby out with the bathwater. So we didn't realize what we were losing by getting rid of that inner world. Part of things, which is spirit, imagination, emotions. And we have like a mental health crisis. We have lots of people trying to commit suicide, committing suicide, depression. people feel like life is meaningless and we, we made it meaningless. We decided that it was meaningless. we also say how that's a beautiful thing. And I love that end of science where it's like, we don't need to create magic because it is magic. And I fully agree with that. There's a wonder and awe missing from most people's lives. And I think it's easier. To connect with it on a spiritual level when it's a more spiritually guided thing than when it's the awe of science, because you have to kind of really be into science to fully get that. I mean, I do, I love it. I'm very half and half, like, I feel like I don't need it to be more than what scientists say it is. I don't need more than that because it is so magical and incredible. But I'm the art department, so my way of connecting with it and relating to it, much more engaged when there's a human story or a human connection, I learned Einstein's theories of relativity through theatre and it was through seeing the story of him meeting his wife and his partnerships and, his musical connections and then had the theories visually demonstrated through using a sheet and two members of the audience being put on the sheet and then being pulled together. I know I can understand now how these two different versions of gravity work because I've seen them visually performed on a stage. And I know more about Einstein and Darwin and Marie Curie because of working on these theater shows. So the way that I access this understanding isn't through reading or listening to someone. I'm a kinetic learner. I learned through doing and also through it being creative and engaging in a creative way. So, when it comes to gods and goddesses, the pagan faith, for me, feels way more connected to science because before we had science and before we had, all of the knowledge that we now have, we were really sensitive and very in tune and very, observant and slow. And we were taking notice of the world around us. And so we would have an understanding of how things worked. And we shared its knowledge through storytelling. So folk story, folk narratives are telling us about, the healing properties of those herbs or you'll have stories about a well. And the healing properties of that well, it will turn out when you actually test the water will have different, compounds within it that actually do the things that the stories said they did. So it's, for me, it's the art department of science. It's like, and also the pre, pre having the, scientific experiments to prove the things it was our storytelling initial connection to it and understanding of it, which, has been proven time and time again to be correct. It's when we then took that and made it extra metaphysical and went, okay, you're not allowed to believe in anything to do with the earth anymore. In fact, if you have any love or worship of the earth, you're a heathen and we're going to burn you. Now we're believing in a thing in the sky that's nothing to do with the earth and it's literally just an idea. That's when it went completely haywire. That's when we fully separated ourselves from. Reality, really. And we went, right, you've all now got to believe in a thing that is, in heaven, which is a made up thing, over there, with these ideas of what's good and evil, and if you don't behave yourself, it's like a CCTV camera who's watching you all the time, and you've got to behave yourself. And you've got to give it your taxes and you've got to do as you're told or you're gonna go to hell, which is also made up. Like that is when it all got, you know, a bit crazy. but previous to that, it was a goddess of eyesight that was based in a well that had compounds in it that were good for your eyes. So for me, it's the art department of science and I'm, yeah, I just, so I feel like I'm not, anti science and I feel like If science proves something to be, or to exist, then I'm fully on board with that. it's just that my way of relating to it is in a much more creative way. Having said that, when I went on these pilgrimages, They have made me connect with things in a way that I feel that we, there is many things in science that we do not yet understand or like, for example, NASA recognizes energy lines. they call it, geo stress lines and they think it might be cracks in the tectonic plates. Maybe the magnetic field is getting out stronger But the way I experienced them is it feels like they're a more direct line to communicate with the earth. That's what it felt like to me. I actually, think I got that as a downright, like it was a thing that came into my head that that's what it was. And it felt like I was being told that rather than me going, Oh, that's an interesting idea that I came up with myself. It felt like something came into me and told me that's what it was. And when you look at cultures that work with these lines, you have the song lines in Aborigine culture and the dragon lines in Chinese culture. They know how powerful they are. Only emperors were allowed to build on the dragon lines and the Aborigines go on walk about. and spend time with the land. I've done four walks now over four years, and I'm not meant to be doing one this year. even though I'm going to go do a short one along a line that I know and love, which I'm looking forward to doing, I'm feeling like I need to go and walk about. And if I don't, I will feel bereft. So I will go walking in September somewhere. And I'm looking forward to doing it on my own because it's been a big body of work that I've just been doing. So it began with me doing a walk on my own, in 2020. It was meant to be with a friend of mine, Joanne Chamarco, who I will interview for this podcast, definitely. we planned to walk together. Things didn't work out and she wasn't able to do it because she had some work that came in. I wasn't sure whether I was going to go on my own, but then one of my best friends died and My house during lockdown suddenly felt like a prison. I really wanted to get out. I wanted to be able to hug my friends. I wanted to be able to distract myself from the pain I was feeling. And it wasn't just my friend. about three people died and it was all horrific. none of them died from COVID and none of them died pleasantly. the level of grief I was feeling was overwhelming and so I was planning to do this walk I'd kind of physically got myself ready to be able to do it and I had all the kit and I had that time that I needed. seven weeks is not easy to carve out, but also because it was the pandemic, it was possible. And I just thought, you know, I'm going, I need to go. And so I walked on my own and I walked from Land's End or Cairnlabowl in Land's End to the Norfolk coast to, Hopton on Sea. Now, the reason why I took that route was because I looked on the British Pilgrimage Trust website and just looked for a walk that was seven weeks long. it was 500 miles, but it said it was along some energy lines called the Michael and Mary energy lines. and I was like, I didn't know anything about them. And it was the only pilgrimage I think that was along an energy line that they advertised. Like, I mean, that was the only one I noticed. It wasn't like that was what all pilgrimage routes are on. Some of them were between, you know, certain cathedrals and things like that. This one was called the Michael and Mary line. So I was like, well, that's interesting. it's an interesting thing to walk. I'm up for getting to know what this thing is that I've heard about, you know, I've heard like crop circles and there's things that you hear about and you know about, but you don't really know what they are. And so I was like, okay, I'll go and have a little discovery of what this thing is. so I looked into it and I found out that there was a book that was written in the seventies called The Sun and the Serpent. and they'd set out, they'd had a hunch that there was a ley line. So a ley line is drawn by a human with a ruler through a load of sacred sites. they'd drawn this ley line, they'd drawn a line with a ruler and found that there was, All these sacred sites in line with Beltane. So when the sun comes up at Beltane in the east, it would line up with all these sites. And so they were like, I think there's something there. And then what you do is you take dowsing rods and go and dows and see what's there. So they went and dows this line and they found an energy line. They found that there was something like a serpent kind of swooping along and they went really far along, before they realized that there were two lines, that it wasn't one line, it was two. So we went right back to the beginning again, found where the other one came in and tracked them all the way across the country. some of it was done in the field, no pun intended, but some of it was done with a pendulum over a map. so yeah, sometimes it's not always done physically. if you can't get through someone's property, you'd have to do it over a map. they, mapped these two energy lines and called one Michael because it went through. I think there's like 100 and something 160 odd churches dedicated to Michael and Mary along these routes along these lines, and one went through. more Michael churches and one went through more Mary churches, but also they do feel different, but I don't know how much that's because of the names that I feel the difference between them. But when I started walking, I'd read a bit, I didn't read the whole book. I'm really bad at actually doing these sort of things, so I got the gist. I bought the book, I'd got the gist and didn't read the whole thing. Also, I like to be surprised by things and I also like other people to tell me about it. So like, I knew about it. I knew the book and I knew the gist of it. But then I like hearing people tell me about it, who are invested in it, and who do believe in it or care about it. also it means that I'm not witnessing or experiencing the places along the route, already having a preconceived idea. So like, Once I have the gist, then I can go and discover these things on my own and then look back on the book or, hear what someone tells me about it and go, oh, and reflect on what I actually experienced, rather than have all of this sort of pre described information, because I think that will affect things. So anyway, hand read the book, and set off and, Walked for two weeks with my two friends Fran and John and in the first week my husband split up with me Which was the mega mega thing that happened on that walk And so my whole life changed my life kind of fell apart and I had no idea What was going to happen what my future was going to look like and I was walking along with John and Fran this masculine feminine energy and they're really buoyant and fun to be around and they left And I still, I was in the habit of saying us, but I was there meeting people and saying us and people like, well, are you walking with anyone else? And I was like, Oh no. Oh, sorry. I was, there were, there were, there were others. but it then became like, Oh yeah, but there's the lines are there as well. And I realized it still felt like there was a masculine and feminine with me. And the Mary line, especially I tuned into first, where, I just kept feeling like I'd walk through places and it felt like there was almost like an Instagram filter where it was all just very sparkly and tinkly and I just felt like magical. It felt magical and synchronistic things would happen and then I'd look at the maps afterwards so I wouldn't look before I'd look after and see if where I'd been had been on the lines and I was instinctively walking along the lines like precisely. And they were, you know, and I was having these experiences. So I was like, just going from A to B, worked out, roughly along these lines from A to B, but I didn't know exactly where the line was, but I was, automatically walking along them. When I got to Glastonbury, I really then tuned into both of them. I sat in the Chalice World's gardens, and I sat on this bench and it felt like a waterfall hitting me, and it was just pure movement and pure action. And I was like, oh, maybe that's one of the energy lines, maybe I'm sat on, An energy line, and that's why I'm feeling like this, because it's obviously really intense. It's a node point where they cross. So there's like node points, all the sacred sites were built on node points where they cross. And then I went to the well, which is very much, I mean, as soon as you got there, it was like, this is definitely feminine. This is the feminine energy. And it was absolute stillness. And it felt like, mother watching a child grow like a sapling grow and making sure nothing interfered with it. So it was still but deeply present stillness and deep like potently fierce, fiercely holding space. And it didn't feel anything like the full blown energy that I could feel from the, the Michael line, which had been so full of movement. And it was then that I had experienced The masculine felt like the energy of you can do this. You've got this and pushing me forward. And the Mary energy felt like looking after and nurturing and nourishing and holding. so that, then I tuned into them and then I had the experience that I explained before that when I went through Avebury, it felt like I went through some timeline shift and I, I shifted dimensions and now I live in a reality with, I have, I'm married to someone else. I live in a different kind of world. country and I have a completely different life and I'm no longer scared of heights and I jump off of cliffs for a living. just major thing, like I don't have asthma anymore. you know, things that, that are actually physical have changed. So it's quite amazing, what came out of that pilgrimage. And it felt like it was a healing. It felt like it was for me. and I reflected on it afterwards that in my practice of witchcraft, I walked from west to east, so when you're welcoming in the directions, north is physical, the earth, east is the air and is communication. The south is fire, it's your passions and your drive and the west is your inner world. And I walked from the inner world to the outer world. So I walked from the inner world to the thinking, the water to the air. And it felt like that was healing for me. it felt like it's time for you to welcome in and get to know your inner world and no longer pretend that everything's okay. up until that point I've been living a life that was prescribed for me and I was trying to fit in and do well in the game and was trying to Succeed and all these different things that we're tricked into believing are important. I literally bred and groomed to participate in someone else's storyline that they've created because they've realized that this is all made up and so they're like, you need to go to school and you need to go to university and you need to get a job and work and then you'll earn money and one day you might be like me and it's like, no, we'll never be like, you will never earn enough money. We'll never work hard enough to earn enough money to be as rich as you because you didn't get your money. Through doing that. That's not how you got your money. You got your money from selling human beings as slaves, or you got your money through like some really nefarious means where people got hurt and stuff got stolen and, know, nasty things happened and that's why you've got money. And yeah, if we do that, we go to prison. so yeah, it's all made up by people who worked out a long time ago that they could do whatever the fuck they wanted. And we can too. it's harder because all this reality has been built up, you know, laws have been created, everything's been created to reinforce and support the storyline that they've invented. But it also can be uninvented. And we can do that. And that's what we need to work towards. And it's why we need to have the imagination in order to do that. Really good book called, um, Trespass. The Book of Trespass by Nick Hines. Please read it. It's so important. It's such an amazing book. And he's the one that's got the whole right to roam movement happening. right to roam is really important, If you don't know anything about it, then look into it because it's about our right to be able to go anywhere. And the land is ours. Like the earth is ours. We didn't choose to be born into a world where a bunch of bastards made up a load of laws that keep us all in place and mean that we have to obey what they say. And they put up some fences and say, this is their house. Just because you said it is, just because you've made up a whole bunch of stuff that says that that's what's happening. So the footpaths are really important. And the right to roam is really important. And we have, you know, some things enshrined in law that mean that we can do that. But in Scotland, you can go anywhere. You can walk anywhere. You can walk across any land and we have it in Sark as well, where I live. We don't have any, Trespassing laws here, but you do in England, but we do have footpaths and some places don't have footpaths. we've got some things which are good, but we could and should have way more access to green spaces than we do. So that's something worth fighting for. this podcast, then please consider signing up to my Patrion account. Patrion forward slash Jolie rose, J O L I E R O S E. This is a full-time thing for me to be doing. It takes a lot of time and energy for me to create the podcast. And I want to be able to give them away for free. And I also offer moon ceremonies, every dark and forming, which are also for free. You just have to join the zoom link can take part. And I also create video blogs, but are every week or fortnight. That I share on my YouTube channel, which is Luna coven. I live on this tiny little island and I'm in the middle of nowhere and it's actually really hard to. Make a living as an artist here. 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I love doing this and I love that you're listening. It's a huge hugs and thank you so much. Now, back to the podcast. I did this pilgrimage, walked the length of the land, it changed my life, blew my mind away. And then the next year I had the bravado to go, Oh, I could now lead a pilgrimage. Who wants to come with me? cause a friend of mine was a delegate at COP26 at the UN climate conferences that happen each year. She's been going for years and I was so in admiration for the work that she did. And she came and joined me towards the end of my pilgrimage and said, Oh my God, it would be amazing to do a pilgrimage to COP. And I was like, I'd be thinking how. Because I work at a Tudor reenactment and I live as a Tudor person for a few weeks in the summer and the public paid to come and see what Tudor life is like and I've been going since I was 10 and it's been the most life changing thing that I've ever done. It's what got me out of Essex, it's what introduced me to people that saw things differently to the people I was growing up around and also being a Tudor as well introduced me to the fact that You know, there are different ways of reality being like the Jews really believed in their reality just as much as we really believe in our reality and they're completely different. So, which one was right? so that's when I first started to question reality was when I was, going from Essex to 16th century, Suffolk and meeting all these people from all over the world, And I was just like, Oh, hang on, the only way isn't Essex. There are all these other things going on. And it changed my outlook completely. And Kemwah was actually on the route as well. I was on the Michael line. So, I ended up walking to Kemwah, which was amazing because we'd always, So we were traveling players and that's the job that I do there. And we would always say that we'd walked many days upon the road from London and we'd just hazard a guess. We'd make things up. I mean, it was different every time we said it. But now that I've walked from Land's End to Kentwell, I walked all the way and it took me six weeks. So I know that it takes six weeks to walk there. So from London, easily a week, you could easily walk to London. Suffolk in a week from London. So yeah, that was fun. but yeah, having been a traveling player by performance at this Tudor thing for many years, we'd be doing performances called Mama's Plays, which are just short kind of morality plays, like little, it's like the precursor to pantomime. And I just thought, I want to be a traveling player walking up this line. with creating some sort of performance, but I also was, taught by my mentor, who's someone I'd love to interview on this, but I think because of her work, she can't at the moment, but some point, hopefully she'll be able to be interviewed on this. And when she can, it will be the biggest treat ever. Cause she's the most magical human being I know. she'd said to me, the storyline is trying to tell itself when she helped me write a play called sisterhood, which I'll talk about in another podcast, but she, Yeah, she said the play's trying to tell itself, so you just have to get out of the way. And so when I, then, I said to my friend Anna, who worked at Cop 20, at Cop, let's walk and we'll create a performance. And I put the word out, and 22 or 26, I can't remember now, ended up walking with us. and we set off from the hill where Brand's head was in London and we walked from London to Glasgow to COP26. But then when I was looking for a route, I found a ley line that ran up the north south axis called the Spine of Albion. Turned out no one had ever walked it before. a couple had written a book, Caroline Horne and Gary Buckliffe had written this book, the Spine of Albion. It was huge. I didn't read all of that either, but I did get the gist again. And it started in the Isle of Wight and it went all the way up to, Hope Bay in Scotland. And I was like, okay, let's walk. Let's walk that. But I looked and, you know, we'd get from London, we'd have to go along the Ridgway, which is back along the Michael and Mary line a bit, which is nice to reconnect with that, and then walk up the Spine of Albion and then get across to Glasgow. And I wasn't quite sure how we'd do that, but we mostly would be walking along the Spine of Albion. And then as I started to, develop the concept and I got funding from the Arts Council and some really interesting people, a guy called Ben Christie, who set up the Medicine Festival, got involved with helping me create it and, it ended up being more about the walk and the land and the lay line than it did about going to cop because obviously, I mean, yeah, it'd be great to go to cop and do a thing, but we knew it wasn't going to change the world. We knew it wasn't going to change anything happening up there, but walking the spine of Albion, the land. So, we worked out where we thought the chakra points were, and so the base chakra was in the Isle of Wight. the one in your pelvic bowl, was Winchester. And then the solar plexus was, Audley Edge. And then the heart was Long Meg. And then the throat was Edinburgh. the third eye was, Cavercarne in Scotland. And then the crown was the water's edge, up in Hope Bay. And Culver Down, which is the place where the lines come in on the Isle of Wight. Culver means pigeon or pigeon. dove, and down is hill. So it's like Peace Hill to Hope Bay, so there's something quite special about that. so that's where we worked out where we thought the shackle points were, and we decided to hold a ceremony in each place, and also at Dragon Hill, which is near where the Michael and Mary lines cross. Dragon Hill, which is a really epic hill with the big chalk dragon, which is the oldest chalk horse, but it's the oldest of the chalk horses, possibly a dragon. and it's a very sacred site. And so we decided to hold these ceremonies all along these places and to invite local wisdom keepers who were like the local Druids or people who knew the land to come and tell their stories and their mythologies and hold a ceremony for us. And it was amazing. I met most of them in London, the people who joined me and we walked from there. But Scarlett, who's one of my friends who I will be interviewing also for this podcast, she's been on loads of adventures with me. She came and we marked the beginning with the Druids, who were based there in the Isle of Wight. And then we walked up to Winchester and met with Jonathan Kaye And he told us about the land temples in Winchester of St Catherine's Hill, which we're going to be walking to with this pilgrimage to Boomtown. And this is along the spine of Albion. then we nipped across on the train to London, picked up the rest of the pilgrims, and then walked along the ridgeway and Mary lines. To Dragon Hill, where we then did a big ceremony, which was massive and very interesting. Insightful, in that we felt like there was a prescribed way of behaving that felt a bit evangelical and like, this is how you, Do this kind of ceremony and one of the pilgrims was a fool and she stepped out and started to be quite foolish with it. Like, Oh, I don't know what I'm going to say. And how can someone speak for the wind? And, and who am I saying the right thing? I don't know. I feel like this is all very earnest, basically fooled with it, which was brilliant and really cracked it all open. And then we started holding the ceremonies and we were a much more eclectic group than the sort of people that were being drawn to come and do this, wisdom keeping thing, which did feel very, like, quite privileged, you know, more privileged background than we were from, because we were more made of, like, barmaids and, poorer people generally. And people that weren't fully bought into or, part of this sort of pagan world. And so we then started playing more with it and we then became very powerful with what we were doing and empowered. by playing with it and not just doing it in this particularly like, Oh, I speak for the wind now I call in the different directions. And it just already sounded very church like the way it was being done. And so we started to play with it and it really broke things open and was very interesting and we kept trying to be as accessible as possible. So we weren't weirding people out. We were doing things where we're inviting in the townspeople and the village people from wherever it was that we went to. we wanted them to feel safe and comfortable and part of it. we wanted to talk about the elements, but we didn't want them to feel like we were kind of doing some witchy spell on them. So we just talked about our experience of the elements and What our experience of the earth have been like on the walk and the air and the water and the fire because they wanted to know that actually that they wanted to know about the pilgrimage. And that's what then became our performance. So when my mentor had said, the story's trying to tell itself, just get out of the way. That's what came through. We were like, Oh, actually, our performance is going It's a ceremony, but it's a hidden ceremony that people don't know is a ceremony. And it's us reflecting on the elements and sharing what our experiences have been. And we did it in a very foolish way, where people became the mud and were like clinging onto the person's foot who was being the pilgrim. And they're trying to walk, but they're being dragged and held onto by this, like, People being mud and stuff. And yeah, very silly, um, but really powerful. And we did the performance up at COP. people cried their eyes out. we were the only emotional people there, which I was really surprised about. We brought the tears because we were exhausted. We were so tired and yeah, it did feel like we'd got our hands dirty and we really spent time with the land And then when we got there, we were vulnerable and broken and open and we were the only people I saw doing that. I'm sure that there were people doing it in other spaces, but the spaces I went to, we were the tears. and the, bigger, emotional, cracked open things. what the spine of Albion, was a line drawn, a ley line that's drawn, but then you dows and this couple of dows, these energy lines. Yeah. Gary and Caroline, and they named them Ellen and Belenus. So Belenus is the Celtic sun god, and Ellen is the goddess of the ways. And they're a bit like Apollo and Artemis, but the Celtic versions. And they're not brother and sister, they're not related to each other, but yeah, Belenus is the sun god, Ellen's the goddess of the ways. And on the way up, I was expecting them to maybe feel the same as the Michael and Mary lines, I was expecting the same kind of energy. But, gosh, it wasn't. And yeah, felt very ferocious, feminine energy. It felt like trying to ride a dragon. And I know it was also because I was undertaking a harder task. I had, 22 souls that I was trying to protect and make sure they didn't hurt themselves. anything that happened to them would be my fault. And I was the insurance and I was the planner, the route planner. And it was terrifying. But it just felt like it was much harder. Everything was much harder. And like I was saying about the North, South, East, West thing, North is physical and the South is the fires, the South is your willpower. And it was like, having got that healing from the earth from Michael and Mary, it was a bit like, and now what are you going to do? how are you going to show up in the world, in the physical world, with that passion and that fire and that drive and the things you care about, And I walked to COP26 with 22 people and we created a performance and we performed it there and we did healing ceremonies in each of the chakra points and we carried on up to the top of Scotland as well and we drove. The last bit because Scotland's a different kettle of fish all together, and I didn't have the experience or the equipment for traversing that landscape, but we drove up and we went to cover Khan and we went to hope Bay and we did ceremonies in each of these places. So it felt to me like we did a massage. We gave. Great Britain a massage and I walked up its spine and my friends joined me and we walked up the spine and we gave the earth a massage and that felt really important but it completely took it out of me like it killed me. that was so much and I felt battered and bruised from it but I came back and I was already in a relationship with my now husband he was so supportive while I was away. So amazing that it became clear that I wanted to marry him. Like he was someone I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, even though he's half my age. he was under half my age when I got together with him. So it was a big thing and I was a bit concerned about doing it. But. He's been nothing but incredible and our relationship is beautiful and we get on really well. It's just easy and we're happy and we have a really lovely time with each other and I just so honored to be in his presence and the fact he loves me is the best thing that's ever happened to me. So, It felt like a gift. Like I went through this huge undertaking, which was for the earth and was a gift to the earth from me and from us and from everyone that we met, it was called listening to the land and we learned. in a way to listen to the land, but realize how far we've come from being able to. So this is what I was saying about people being more sensitive and being able to like, just tell that there were certain healing attributes in the waters because they were more sensitive to things. And we're so far from that now, but I got a little taste of it and a tiny appreciation and understanding of how deep that relationship could be. And met indigenous people up in Edinburgh who are way more involved in that relationship and learned loads from them and just the, you know, basically was like, this is a love affair I want to be part of and I want to do more and I want to connect with more and I want to I want to devote my life to this relationship, which includes my relationship with my husband as being part of that because he's also in love with the land and with nature. He's very fairy like and very fey. And he's, yeah, he's, it's like he's a land spirit. So, all of that connection was amazing. And we did this performance. And then, the next year we, some of us wanted to carry on and be the traveling players and do a mama's play because we did sort of snippets of mama's play within our performance that we created. We did George and the Dragon along the Michael and Mary line, back the other way, because I felt like it was meant to be the other way, because then you end in the West Country, which feels way more, you know, like the Holy Grail when you get to St. Michael's Mount. It felt like that was the right way around. Actually, on Discovery, there was perks to both ways, actually. they both, offered something. we performed George and the Dragon because St. Michael is a dragon slayer. He's, there's pictures of him slaying a dragon. And so there's often him and St. George on stained glass windows. they're the dragon slayers and they're shown together. There's lots of stuff about what the dragon is. The dragon, for me, represents the earth and the land and the wild part of us. So the whole twin effect of fighting with your twin and slaying your twin, but in doing so you're actually slaying part of yourself and you need to learn to love that part of yourself and not slay it, and not just pretend to be this shining knight, pretending to be all like, oh, look at me, when actually you're slaying the animal part of yourself, which is the bit that's connected to the land. And in Chinese, mythology, the, energy lines are called dragon lines. So the dragon seems to represent the land and the land spirit and power. And then I think within ourselves as well, there's the dragon within ourselves. So, we performed George and the dragon along the Michael and Mary line. that felt like an amazing gift. People welcomed us in and everyone heard about us. People would hear about us 10 miles down the road and be like, Oh, come to our church, come to our school. we were getting invited to all these places and it was wonderful. And then, the next year we walked slightly different people, but almost the same number, but not quite exactly the same people. we'd walked from Edinburgh down to the Isle of Wight back down the spine of Albion. This time we decided to write our own Mama's Play and along this line there was lots of Arthurian legend So it goes through the round table in Winchester and then there's, knights who are meant to be, and King Arthur, all the knights, are meant to be buried under Alderley Edge in a cave. And when the land is in need, they'll rise again. And so our play was called Arthur's Awakening. And it was King Arthur awakening to come and save us and help us in our hour of need. And it's very bizarre. it didn't make any sense. It's mummerish, which is wonderful. folk theater shouldn't make sense. it's speaking to some other bit, the inner world. And so, the more kind of mysterious and I don't know what's going on, the better, I think. so we walked down doing this bizarre play, loads of knobbed gags and innuendos, very Monty Python. and it was interesting because. That then was woven in with Boomtown, so we actually went to Boomtown before we set off, so it was the week before, we went and did Boomtown. And, I was asked to do the end room of the game, so that was what Megan had asked me to do. And it was only when we were Talking about it that she said the character that the storyline was based around was called Ellen and everyone was looking for Ellen. And that's when we realized that it's just outside of Winchester. So this whole thing of Jonathan saying about the land temple and all the things that have then come from it have blown my mind because that, yes, that was what happened. We felt it when we were in boom town. We felt the energy line being empowered by us throughout the weekend. When I was there, I had loads of women. saying to me that they'd had really abusive, horrible childhoods, but now we're finding their way through. And like, I'd had loads of therapy and healing, but it was mainly through creativity and spiritual awakening that they were now feeling empowered. And the feminine was rising and they felt the power of the feminine and the power of creativity. And then everyone's looking for Ellen. And then in the end ceremony, Everything that Jonathan taught and has been talking about was just there in the end ceremony and all the fireworks were going off and I've never felt so like the universe was doing something as if it was a film the synchronicity and the connection and the yes this all just makes sense and I am on the right path and this is just and we're all going to be okay and wow and I want people to Let this in a little bit because it might not be true, but bloody hell, it's amazing. And yeah, just the power and, I don't know, just validation and everything that I felt. The love and connectedness and this sea of love where everything is moving together and it's all meant to be happening. That Jonathan's talking about, that it's this power of the imagination. It just happened in this bowl that he's now revealed as a land temple. And then we went up to Edinburgh and walked back down towards the bowl and back down to the Isle of Wight along the energy lines. And they just felt so much clearer. It was such a, wonderful time. And that that was the four directions. We walked in these four different directions. when I finished that walk, I came out of it feeling so powerful and strong and, unshakable. And that didn't last forever. I'm actually going through quite a difficult phase at the moment. I'm finding things really, dark night of the soulish at the moment, which is fine. You know, life's not, you don't just get to some lovely easy place where you're enlightened and everything's great and easy. You have moments of it, tastes of it, and then you go off into another cycle of, mess and darkness and discovery and another layer gets peeled off. I feel like an onion. Oh, there you go. I was putting a stone. So I was like, I need to put a stone. It's been an hour and the stone was hail. Hey, glaz, which is exactly that. Hail is made of ice. It will thaw and it will just turn to water. It's like this too shall pass, but you are in the thick of a storm. And that's what I was just talking about. At the moment I feel like I'm Something's happening. I'm going through a process. I'm actually being rubbish at loads of things that I care about, but it's finding the time to do everything, giving it the time and attention that it actually needs. I'm prioritizing because I need to make a living. I need to earn money. there's the immediately earning money, which isn't necessarily doing the things I want to do, but I'll be getting money for doing it. And then doing the things like this that might potentially help earn money, and it's more what I want to do. And then there are things that I do not get paid for, like being in the government, that I really care about and I'm really passionate about. and could be doing some amazing things in the world and definitely for our little world on the island, but possibly in the world in general, but I don't get paid for that. So it's just weighing everything up the whole time. Like I'm really struggling. And then I'm also kind of having a real meltdown and we're about to go to Boomtown and it's terrifying. I'm about to stand up in front of 55, 000 people and it will be fine. And I know it's going to be great. It'll be absolutely fine, but I'm terrified and I'm struggling. And it's been a beautiful year. I got married and it was amazing. And it's the mythos of love was my intention for this year. And I am seeing that in everything that's happening because people are sharing beautiful things with me and looking after me and holding me while I'm struggling and we're holding each other. And I feel really loved and surrounded by love and honored and privileged to have the love that I have. and I'm able to be there for people and I'm doing everything from a place of love, but hard. It's still hard. I'm struggling. I'm definitely struggling at the moment. but it also shall pass and that this is just another layer, you know, it doesn't end. I always think like sharks drown if they stop swimming. It's like you got to keep swimming, unfortunately, you get to stop when you die and you then get to do that for eternity. So this is a tiny little window to be alive. And yeah, sometimes you don't want to keep swimming and you want to just stop. And actually, if you do want to do that, I highly recommend going and doing a 10 day for passioner. So it's where you go and meditate for 10 days and you sit in silence and you meditate for 10 days. It is really hard. It's really painful. But if you ever want that experience of stopping the train, and getting off. I couldn't recommend it enough. Also, going for a pilgrimage on your own, which is what I'm going to do in September. I'm going to go for a nice long walk on my own. I don't know where I'm going to go yet. I'm in two minds about where. I don't really want it to be part of the story that I've just been sharing because I'm writing books about it and they are a big story and there's loads of detail in there. I was just giving you an overview. but literally every day encountered generosity and kindness from strangers People are kind, you know, and I stayed with fox hunters, I stayed with catholic old ladies, I stayed with landed gentry, old money that now was poor, dairy farmers, a scything champion who's a farmer, all the different walks of life all these different types of people. and They just welcomed me into their home and shared their vulnerabilities me and their stories and everyone was scared and everyone was struggling and everyone was doing their best and everyone was so kind. And yeah, we're all just trying to get through, you know, we're just doing our best. All of us. What beautiful things we are. And so I can't, yeah, I'm struggling and going through a process, but it's okay. That's part of life, and I wouldn't want to just suddenly be Ta da! here's the finishing line, because what? And then what? What would I do for the rest of my life? this is what makes it juicy and worth living, is for it to keep going through these different crunchy periods. And then, You discover something new from it. I think the only thing we have control over is what we make it mean. that's literally it. Everything else is out of control. It's all chaos. Well, except, what Jonathan says, it's not chaos, it's just that you don't understand it. But, the one thing I feel like I have control over in my life is what I make it mean. And so, it's not necessarily how everything happens for a reason, because I think that's a bit of a privileged Because, people obviously have got horrible lives and horrible things going on and you can't just say that, you've chosen this or that everything happens, you know, whatever, but you can choose what you make it mean. And you can have, brother and sister going through really horrible lives and horrible situations. And one of them's. pessimistic and one of them is optimistic, or you can have children from very happy families where everything's lovely and one of them's pessimistic and one's optimistic. it's up to you what you choose to do, how you feel, how you let things affect you, and if you can find meaning I learn from everything that I do, so I make it mean something. it's not that everything happens for a reason, I find a reason for everything happening. That's the way around that it is. And so at the moment I don't know what the reason is for what's happening to me, but it will be revealed. And yeah, I feel like I'm in a hailstorm at the moment, but I'm okay with that. I can't believe I'm about to go off and do the pilgrimage literally in four days time, and then we're walking to Boomtown and then it's all happening and it's opening. I can't wait, and I'm really excited, and I know it's gonna be wonderful. But I don't feel ready, and I've got loads of loose ends to tie up here, terrifying, but it will be worth it my chaos crusade for this week, I hadn't even thought about, so let me have a little, um, my chaos crusade will be when you're walking, when you're out walking, to not listen to a podcast or music. Go and do a walk that's fully immersive I've been thinking. I mean, I'm writing, I'm making podcasts. I'm creating content that takes your attention. So I appreciate the hypocrisy in this, but I'm becoming more increasingly aware of how much our attention is stolen from us and we are addicted to our phones and we're addicted to entertainment, short endorphin hitting entertainment. I'm trying to, have a digital detox. My birthday is New Year's Eve. So after my birthday and the birthday messages that you get from social media, which is nice to receive, I then do a digital detox and I don't go online again until about Easter and I love it, I love doing that, but I'm starting to feel like that's not enough. And if we want to imagine a better world and imagine our way out of all this, we do need to. detach from our phones even more than we are. So this next walk and me doing the pilgrimage requires me to be on social media and also doing the podcast. But after that, I can continue doing the podcast, advertising and bits and bobs and do the things online without having it on my phone. So I'm going to take Instagram and Facebook off my phone and only engage with it on the computer. And that means that it's more of a, I'm doing work thing rather than just automatically opening it and scrolling. Cause I sit down to do a meditation and then I find myself opening WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook just to go and check them before I meditate. And it's like, Oh, I've just finished doing some yoga about to meditate. And I'll check all my social media and it's just an addiction. So I would say going for a walk without taking a phone with you and being present and spending time without it. Cooking without having something on, taking a shower without something on. I know it means that you might not listen to me so much during the podcast, but I also think it's really important and we need to detangle ourselves. And, yeah, that would be my Chaos Crusade. So thank you so much for listening, my dearest ones. And I hope this is, taking you on a little journey. It is for me. I'm amazed at how this is sort of telling a story. and I'm excited about all the people that I want to go and talk to because there's loads. so yeah, letting the story unfold naturally, organically, it seems to be happening. thank you. Speak to you next week. See you then on. Um, Something's wrong.