Cornwall Sacred Sites Tour of Initiation 2026

Glastonbury – the Archetype of the Holy Land and Avalon
Glastonbury is not only a geographical place in the south-west of England, but above all a symbolic spiritual centre. For centuries it has attracted seekers, pilgrims and mystics. In the European tradition it holds a place similar to Jerusalem, Delphi or Santiago de Compostela — a meeting point of the sacred and the profane, of the visible and the invisible world.

The Archetype of the Holy Land
In a psychological sense (for example in Jungian terms), Glastonbury can be understood as a manifestation of the archetype of the Holy Land — a space in which
• matter is divinised,
• nature reveals its sacred face,
• and a human being experiences a return to the source and to unity with the whole of life.
It is an archetype of an initiatory place — a space of transformation where the hero descends into himself in order to renew contact with the soul.

Avalon — the island of the soul
From Arthurian legends we know Avalon as the mystical island to which King Arthur was taken after the battle to be healed.
In spiritual tradition Avalon becomes a symbol of the inner world that can be reached only through
• silence and intuition,
• contact with nature,
• and a transformation of consciousness.
In this sense Avalon is not a place in space but a state of consciousness — a moment in which a person crosses beyond duality and experiences the unity of spirit and matter.

The Archetype of Femininity and the Sacred Earth
Contemporary spirituality in Glastonbury refers strongly to the archetype of the Great Mother and of the Goddess as a symbol of life, fertility and cyclical transformation.
Tor Hill is interpreted as a hill-womb — a temple of nature in which life is reborn.
It is the feminine aspect of the sacred, reclaimed after centuries of the dominance of patriarchal religions — a return to an intuitive, ecological and embodied dimension of spirituality.
Axis of the world and the centre of the soul

Glastonbury Tor is often seen as an axis mundi — the axis of the world connecting heaven, earth and the underworld.
In inner experience it is an image of the centre of the Self — the point around which the whole psyche becomes ordered.
The ascent to the Tor symbolises the process of individuation — the climb toward wholeness, the integration of the shadow, the return to the spiritual centre.
Transformation and pilgrimage
Archetypically Glastonbury evokes the theme of pilgrimage — a journey toward inner transformation.
Anyone who comes here with intention participates in a symbolic process:
leaving everyday life (the world of the profane),
crossing a threshold (initiation),
and entering into contact with one’s own sacred — with the soul, with nature, with mystery.

Contemporary meaning
In times of spiritual saturation with technology and rationalism, Glastonbury attracts those who seek spiritual grounding in nature. It is a space in which
• Celtic Christianity and pagan mysticism meet,
• Jungian psychology and new age practices meet,
• ritual and inner work with archetypes meet.
It is a living myth of a return to the sacred world — a reminder that spirituality is not somewhere outside us but here, in the soil, in the body, in everyday life.