February 19th – belated Imbolc visit to Swallowhead Spring.
Today I was out at Avebury with a couple of friends and a young Cambodian man who was visting from London for the day. We did the Henge, Silbury and WKLB – refreshing to see this fabulous landscape through a visitor’s eyes. Coming back from WKLB we did a detour over to Swallowhead Spring – the subject of tying ribbons on trees at ‘sacred places’ came up with our Cambodian companion. He said this is common practice in Cambodia and is now used as a means of protecting trees from being chopped down. The Cambodians are deeply religious in the Buddhist sense and if a tree is deemed a ‘spirit tree’ it will not be touched.
The willow at Swallowhead was festooned today with ribbons and flags; springs flowing and water running fast. We made our way across the sarsen stepping stones to the stile that accesses the water meadow. This was the first time I had walked across this meadow from the spring or seen the Kennet from this perspective.
Very lovely, and yes, it did feel sacred.