Every landscape has a story. Every pilgrimage leaves a footprint. Every lesson begins by listening. Welcome to Lessons from the Land, a continuing series exploring the wisdom discovered through sacred travel, personal transformation, and our relationship with the living world.
In my previous blog posts, I shared that my teacher and dear friend, Andrew Steed, would be traveling to Spokane, Washington, for the first time this September. Over the past ten years, I have had the privilege of joining Andrew on sacred pilgrimages throughout the British Isles, the United States, Canada, and Jamaica. As we prepared for his visit, I began taking a trip down memory lane through some of these adventures. This week, we travel to Cornwall and Glastonbury, England, for a pilgrimage that unfolded in September 2023.
A Gentler Season
This pilgrimage arrived a little over six months after Jamaica. By September, I had begun adjusting to a new reality without my twenty-year career at the university, and without our sweet Maeve. I still carried both losses with me, but the weight had changed shape. Looking back, this was in many ways the gentlest pilgrimage I had experienced so far. After the recent losses and changes in my life, that gentleness was most welcome.
Arrival in Cornwall
Brandon and I flew into London, where we met our dear friends Tracy and David at the train station. The four of us then traveled on to Cornwall to meet Andrew. We stayed in a beautifully remodeled farmhouse in a small village—a truly lovely place that became our home base for the first part of the pilgrimage.
On previous pilgrimages, Brandon and I had gotten used to taking whichever room was left once everyone else had chosen—not because anyone was unkind about it, but because it had simply become the natural order of things. This time, Andrew noticed the pattern and gave us first pick. Tracy and David were completely gracious, and although both houses we stayed in had lovely rooms for everyone, I will not pretend it did not feel wonderful to be handed the best one. We joked that we felt like the King and Queen of the trip.
Beneath the humor was a small but meaningful invitation: we did not have to automatically step aside. We were allowed to choose.
St. Nectan's Glen
One of the many highlights of the trip was our visit to St. Nectan's Glen, a lush woodland shaped by river water and waterfalls. We arrived just as the site opened and had the space to ourselves for about an hour. From the entrance, we walked down to a beautiful pool beneath an extraordinary waterfall that flows through a keyhole in the stone. We each had the opportunity to greet those waters privately and spend time there in sacred silence—or song.
We ended the day at the on-site cafe, called the Tree of Life, which felt like an echo of the Tree of Life we had visited on the Olympic Peninsula. You seriously cannot make these synchronicities up! There is something magical about the way these connections continue to reveal themselves. It feels especially poignant knowing that we will soon have the opportunity to bring Andrew to our rainforest in Washington and introduce him to the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
St. Nectan’s Glen
Merlin's Cave
Another special experience was tucked beneath one of Cornwall's most popular tourist attractions. Most travelers come to see Tintagel Castle, but not us. On the beach below the castle is Merlin's Cave. Andrew brought us inside one at a time. It was pitch dark. I had brought a headlamp, but he encouraged me to keep it off.
He asked me three questions: Do you trust me? Do you trust Spirit? Do you trust yourself?
I answered the first two without hesitation. On the third, I paused—only for a second, but long enough to notice. Clearly, there was still work to do in cultivating trust in myself. I am still working on that one, but I am making progress!
That brief hesitation revealed how easily I could place trust in my teacher and in Spirit, while offering that same trust to myself did not come quite as automatically. The darkness of the cave held the question where I could not avoid hearing it.
Leaving Merlin’s Cave
Glastonbury and the Peacock Barn
After Cornwall, we traveled on to Glastonbury and stayed at the Peacock Barn, a refuge for animals. The property was extraordinary, filled with artwork that had belonged to the owner's mother. The owner was such a delightful and sweet soul, and it was a pleasure to spend time with her. She gave us a tour of the grounds and introduced us to the many animals and birds who lived there. We even made a few friends, including our favorite, Derrick the Donkey! You can find the Peacock Barn at peacockbarn.co.uk.
Another highlight was walking up Glastonbury Tor at sunrise. The summit has been a place of settlement and spiritual significance for centuries. St. Michael's Tower is all that remains of a fourteenth-century church built after an earlier church was destroyed by an earthquake. The Tor is also woven into legends of Avalon and King Arthur; in 1191, monks at nearby Glastonbury Abbey claimed to have discovered Arthur's grave.
At the Tor that morning, we gathered around a stone marker that served as a kind of compass, showing what lay in each direction. One at a time, we held a sword toward the sky and spoke our sacred vows. Speaking my vows as I turned my heart to the West was a unique and empowering experience—one I will carry with me forever.
Pathway to The Tor
Lessons from the Land
Looking back, I can see how the lesson of this pilgrimage appeared in moments both lighthearted and profound. It began when Andrew offered Brandon and me first choice of the rooms. Our practice was simply to accept—to resist the familiar impulse to defer, step aside, or assume that something good should belong to someone else first.
Merlin's Cave carried that lesson deeper. Trusting Andrew came easily. Trusting Spirit came easily. Trusting myself required a pause. Perhaps choosing is not only about selecting a room or deciding which path to take. Sometimes it means choosing to honor our own inner knowing and extending to ourselves the same faith we so readily place in others.
Cornwall and Glastonbury taught me that choosing does not always arrive as a grand decision. Sometimes it is accepting an invitation to go first. Sometimes it is speaking a sacred vow at sunrise. Sometimes it is recognizing a question asked in the dark and choosing, little by little, to trust the answer that comes from within.
A Question to Ponder
Where in your life might you still be waiting your turn, stepping aside, or hesitating to trust yourself—and what might change if you gave yourself permission to choose?
A Pause Before the Final Pilgrimage
Cornwall and Glastonbury mark the final pilgrimage from the past that I will revisit in this series. Next week, I will share a look back at what these pilgrimages have taught me before we step into what comes next. I will then take a break from the blog for the rest of September while Andrew is here, and we are living the next chapter rather than writing about it. Lessons from the Land will return in early October with the story of our Olympic National Park pilgrimage.
See you next week!
With gratitude,
Jenna