Under cover of darkness on Dec 9th the Holy Thorn tree on Wearyall Hill in Glastonbury was vandalised by someone cutting off all the branches at a height of about six feet from the ground. This senseless act of vandalism has shocked the local community and people around the world. As no-one has been caught by the police it seems to me to be pointless to try and guess at the motive for such a shocking act of violence. Instead I want to focus on a couple of positive observations.
If you dont know the significance of the tree, legend states that Joseph of Arimathea arrived here by boat in the middle of the first century to found the first Christian church in England. He is reputed to have stuck his staff into the ground and it sprouted leaves and grew. So there has been a middle eastern thorn tree growing in Glastonbury for nearly two millenia. Although many reports on the internet call the tree 2000 years old, it is actually a descendent of the original tree taken from cuttings. The famous Glastonbury and Arthurian writer Geoffrey Ashe in his book 'The Landscape of King Arthur' says that this particular tree was planted on Wearyall Hill in 1951. An earlier ancestor growing on this spot was attacked by Oliver Cromwell's men during Britain's short period as a republic, but the tree survived.
My point is that this act, terrible though it is, has not killed the tree because cuttings have been taken, it may resprout from the standing trunk and there are other descendents growing elsewhere in Glastonbury. It is much more resilient than one single act of violence can destroy.
Fountain International propounds a wonderfully simple method of directing healing energy to your local community by choosing a focal point and spending just five minutes a day sending love and healing towards that point and visualising it radiating out into the surrounding community. I twice set up Fountain groups in English cities when I moved there. On both occasions within a week of us starting to send light and love to the chosen focal point a senseless act of vandalism occurred there. I saw these as thoughtless expressions of anger by sick people for whom the new light at this place was too bright to bear, and rather than accepting this gift of healing energy they tried to destroy it. We continued and no further acts of aggression occurred, in fact both places started to feel much lighter and more uplifting, even the man with the 'End of the World is Nigh' sign started smiling and then laid down his sign.
In recent times the holy thorn tree had become a focal point of healing energies demonstrated by the numerous clotties or prayer ribbons tied to the railings around the trunk. Let us maintain our positivity and continue with the healing work. Those in need who want to be healed will avail themselves of it, those who are too damaged to see their need will move away from the intensity of the light. Bless them!
