GLASTONBURY, England – The Glastonbury Goddess Temple has opened the doors on its latest offering to the public: The Goddess House. This facility is a spiritual and educational place of healing, dedicated to promoting Goddess awareness.The Goddess Temple organization and its affiliated ventures support the vision of Motherworld, a society that places Mother Earth, mothers and the values of mothering – love, care and support for each other – at society’s centre rather than at its periphery.
The Goddess House [Courtesy Photo]
The original Goddess Temple space, located in the Glastonbury Experience Courtyard, at 2-4 High Street, was opened on Imbolc 2002. The following year, the space was recognized officially as a Place of Worship, and is believed to be the first such place to receive official recognition like this in the UK for 1500 years.
Then, in 2008, The Goddess Hall, located on nearby Benedict Street, was opened. It offers more space for larger gatherings and educational offerings. Additionally, the organization runs Goddess Temple Gifts, also located in the Glastonbury Experience. The store provides financial support to the Temple and features a range of Goddess themed items for sale.
The newly opened Goddess House, with its many opportunities for healing of the body, mind and spirit, will expand the outreach of the Goddess Temple organization to the immediate community and even beyond. Kathy Jones, teacher, Priestess and co-founder of the Goddess Temple, described the community effort to make the Goddess House a reality. She said:
Over the last few weeks we have been painting and decorating this lovely house. Lots of people are helping, each person offering their skills and creativity to this Motherworld venture. Something very beautiful happens when people come together to put their love and energy towards a good cause, in this case the creation of a Healing Temple, which will offer healing therapies of many different kinds to people in need. Lots of people have helped to clear out wires left by the previous tenants, filled holes, sanded down and painted the many walls of the building. We have also received generous gifts of chairs, tables, carpets, kitchen equipment, cups, plates, pots and pans, as well as images and statues of Goddess. This is a big venture and we are very blessed.
On March 28, the Goddess House hosted an open day, featuring mini-workshops, tours and opportunities to sample some of the services available. Free talks on a range of topics were given, such as Soul Healing, Ecstatic Pregnancy, Goddess Yoga and Herbal Medicine. These talks ran every 30 minutes from 11:00 until 4:00 pm. In effort to remain accessible to the community, a fundraiser was held Apr. 12. An outreach stall was set up, and donations were collected for the Anam Cara Counseling fund, which provides free counseling to people in need.
Goddess House Kerredwin Room [Courtesy Photo]
This reality makes it an ideal location to successfully support the four busy Goddess Temple establishments and related events. This success is also thanks to the dedicated Priestesses and Priests of the Temple, as well as the Melissae, or volunteers, who attend to the two temples and the Madrons, who support Temple work through financial donations.
The Goddess Hall, on Benedict Street [Courtesy Photo]
Priestess Healer Kathy Jones and (I) got to know each other as (we) worked together with others on the special Ceremonial Healing days held by Glastonbury’s Goddess Temple. On these healing days healers and melissae create a dynamic healing space, in which several healers work with one patient, in ways that have benefited many people. We recognised each other as priestess healers of old who had worked together before in different times and places. Healing is so needed in the world and we decided to create a new holistic Goddess Healing and Educational Centre, which can be open to the public everyday. We began to look for suitable buildings and it quickly became clear that the vision of a Goddess Healing Centre was going to manifest! After viewing several buildings on the High Street, we found our new venue. It felt right as soon as we walked in the door. It is called Goddess House and is set over 4 floors combining healing and treatments rooms with educational and workshop spaces.
We asked both Twydall and Jones what it meant to be a part of something as meaningful as the Goddess House. Twydall said, “I feel it is part of my soul’s path to put my energy and passion into co-creating something of beauty, something for everyone, where we come for renewal, re-birth of our physical and spiritual selves. It is an opportunity in this lifetime to serve, to heal, to love and share sacred space of Goddess with others.”
Jones responded, “As a priestess it is part of my soul’s calling to bring healing to as many people as I can. I am a Soul Healer and a teacher of healers. I believe in the power of healing to help us become whole.”
In the few short weeks the Goddess House has been open, it has already provided comfort, healing and awareness to visitors. Twydall added, “Everyone who enters Goddess House loves it. There are tears of joy, smiles, gratitude. People sense it is a Temple space and they begin to relax and feel safe. In a short time we have welcomed many new visitors to Glastonbury, who may not have been to anything relating to Goddess before. Goddess House is opening new doorways to Goddess and to Motherworld.”
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[Editor’s Note: The Wild Hunt welcomes writer and filmmmaker Dodie Graham McKay to its weekly news team. For nearly two years, Dodie has been providing commentary from a Canadian Pagan perspective for our monthly Around the World column, and her hard work has been a welcome addition to the team. Now, she will be joining us more regularly as a dedicated news correspondent and journalist, reporting on both Canadian and world news.]
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As long as they do not EVER turn their backs on someone due to their race, gender, sexual orientation, political views or even religion… then this is a good idea and TRUE Paganism. 🙂
As a gay man of Romani heritage I can assure you that they are open to everyone, it has been an honor to help decorate there, and to train within the Kerridwen priesthood, where we provide Anam Cara services. Xxx
I wish they would do that here in Maine USA but unfortunately there are too many bigoted idiots who would ruin it for everyone. 🙁
Like the “anonymous” person commenting right below you? 🙂 Don’t worry. Change is coming. I believe the Divine Mother will find all who seek. And when we find each other, we will be strong and be able to create sanctuaries.
“the vision of Motherworld, a society that places Mother Earth, mothers
and the values of mothering – love, care and support for each other – at
society’s centre rather than at its periphery.”
This is a fairly ridiculous premise. First of all, motherhood has been at the periphery of no society ever — at least any that lasted more than a few generations.
Secondly, to tag love, care and support as values only belonging to motherhood, and that these values are discarded otherwise, is absurd. Let me assure you, love, care and support is equally a value of fatherhood, and the sacrifices a man makes for fatherhood are rarely — if ever — recognized.
Finally, the fact of the matter is, there is a dark underside to motherhood that most people don’t want to look at — child abuse. Biological mothers are three times more likely than biological fathers to abuse their children. To claim that motherhood is nothing but “love, care and support” is to disenfranchise the many victims of childhood abuse committed by their “loving” mothers.
https://mkg4583.wordpress.com/2009/09/01/mothers-abuse-children-3-times-more-than-dads-federal-hhs-statistics/
The gentle and the nurturing and the traits often associated with motherhood have indeed been greatly devalued and demeaned for a long time. You can complain all you want if the Mother Goddess is growing stronger your hate won’t stop it. All abuse is wrong, and men commit a lot more of the statistical violence in the world than your selected biased website mentions. Men and women are diverse, gender is fluid- and the Mother Archetype of the nurturing caregiver will appeal to who she appeals to. I find it humorous that some people find it very important to spread the DANGER of more loving healing in the world. If it weren’t so destructive and damaging. But I think the ship has sailed, the mother is already growing too strong to be taken down by these kinds of criticisms. People of an gender can identify with the mother archetype, we can learn to use more diverse language to bring the concept into our life, but for now these are the words we have to describe the valuable set of traits associated with creating life in the womb, birthing, loving, nurturing new people- and healing and supporting each other. Peaceweaving, creativity, community building, replenishing, growing. You can call it yin and yang, you can call it parasympathetic and sympathetic. And of course you can think in totally different constructs other than duality or pluraility. There is room for diversity! There is room for the Mother Goddess, don’t try to destroy her just as she bursts into new strength. At least not unless you want to face me and others as her defender.
What’s more, healed supported parents who are nurtured and treated gently are more likely to do this for children. It takes knowledge of being supported to do that for others. So if you are concerned with maternal abuse of children then healing mothers and lifting them up is a good place to start. Supporting nursing and bonding in infancy also is protective against child abuse, helping mothers get time off to spend with their children to bond with them and reconnect to the empowered nurturer within, helping her heal from wrongs done to her, and helping all people with economic stability that brings stability, these are all things that help build up healthy peaceful parents. In order to build up nurturing mothers who can discipline without violence, we need to be supporting mothers and helping them connect to the divine power within. We need to let all who want to embrace and connect to the mother goddess embrace this aspect of divinity, the self, nature, the world without shouting down all the reasons the mother goddess is uniquely bad compared to any other divine figure.
If only there were some sort of pill I could take to better understand your point of view, possibly of a vermilion variety…
This is a potentially beautiful venture. I only hope that the experiences of myself, and many other committed priestesses, who have questioned various practices of the Temple and been ostracised because of it will not be repeated for those who are now becoming involved.