Glastonbury Blue Bowl

Recently in my practice I have been feeling like there was something missing. Something sacred that during ritual I just needed to have on my altar, dip my fingers into etc. Well after several times of feeling this way, I meditated and found that I needed to work with a sacred bowl. Not a cauldron, which is very important to me as well, but a bowl. Something to told sacred waters. I started to look around. I wanted it to be blue and hand made. About the time I found the bowl (Below) I found out (via internet research) about something called the Glastonbury Blue Bowl. There wasn't much information on this so while I was talking to my mentor Mara Freeman, I asked her to tell me about it. I had never heard about the blue bowl before, but it is no surprise that my soul was craving it. After being at the Chalice well, and standing right next to the building that housed the bowl, (but not being able to enter) I must have picked up on the energy. Perhaps it is more simple than that, the more I align myself with the energies of Avalon, the more the little things come into my life.

In 1908 a French man named Wellesley Tudor Pole became convinced that he needed to move to Glastonbury. Along the way he became convinced that he would find a sacred object there, and would need three maidens to help him. In 1906 an object was uncovered at Bride's mound. It was in fact a blue bowl. Unfortunately it was not the artifact that they had expected. After carbonating and other research they found that the bowl was placed there in 1898 by an English Doctor named Goodchild. He had spent much time in Italy treating tuberculosis years before. He purchased the bowl there and brought it back to the UK with him. After a profound dream where he was told that Jesus had actually carried the bowl, he became convinced that he was in possession of the Holy Grail. He brought the bowl into an antiquities dealer who could neither confirm or deny where it had come from, but suggested that it was very ancient. Since the shop owner who Goodchild had originally bought it from told him that it came from inside of a wall on an old site. He became even more convinced that it was the Holy Grail, and placed the bowl in Bride's mound where he thought it belonged. Though we now know it was not the Holy Grail and that most of the information was incorrect. It now carries the energy of Bride's mound, and Chalice Well (where it now resides inside locked away).

I personally think that the grail if it does exists is NOT a blue bowl, but I do think we can work with the grail and other healing and water energies through working with a sacred vessel. I personally love my chalice but it holds wine, a very important part of ritual. I needed and wanted something more. The energy of the "concept" of a sacred bowl has now been spreading through my own practice, and with out telling my students it is creeping into theirs. I now have one that has come to me with similar information, urging her to start to work with water, by holding it in a bowl. Amazing isn't it? How egregore can be passed from teacher to student and vice versa with out intention. That is why those of us that are called to the Priestess path (or Priest) have to consider everything we do before we do it. (More of that later in another blog) I am happy that this bowl has come to me, and that my students want to work with water more. Maybe it is the sacredness of the water, or the vessel itself. I am not sure, but time will unravel this little mystery.