St. Nectan’s Glen

I lay nestled and protected between high sumptuous bosky slopes, where honey sunshine drips through the tree branches weaving their magic, to dapple my sacred waters. I am a nexus in the winding path of this bright and sparkling river that murmurs and sings with prayers of wide skies, Atlantic winds and flowering gorse. I am the place of water falling through slate and honeyed air, into an inky pool of nurturing and renewal, before winding out in skeins into the welcoming sun and filigree of branches that shadow my waters. 

My hair is soft, long and mossy green, with tendrils of unfurling fern and dashes of tenacious lichen colour. My eyes are deep pools that shift with the weather, sometimes a cornflower blue, a glowing cloud white or a tempestuous slate grey. I sing and roar through night and day, winter and summer, and I hold a deep peace and gently feral dreaming in my wide frothing skirts. 

Come to me travellers, be you footsore or dancing, weeping or joyous, weary or festive. Come to me with your prayers and woes and joys. Tie them to my outstretched branches so that they may dance prettily in the breeze, or place them gently on my stones so that they may sit peacefully, undisturbed in the shelter of my being. Or sing them into my flowing waters and you can choose to sing with gentle voice into the current of my glides and riffles, or you can sing with mighty potent voice into the unceasing thunder of my torrent. Come, come into the water, brave my vigorous twice-born waters as they fall into the rumbling cauldron of rock and lichen. Come and be washed clean, refreshed and renewed in the prayers of wide skies, Atlantic winds and flowering gorse. 

I am garlanded with the wishes and prayers of so many, they sparkle in the peridot light that flows into my valley, my divine vessel of peace and healing. I carry feather-light wishes and stone-heavy griefs out into the wide mother ocean. I welcome with open arms all who journey to me, I hold them in my wild embrace, in falling and flowing, free-running waters, in lush and verdant vegetation, in dappling and shifting light. Let my magic run through your hair and dry on your skin, let my serenity seep into your bones and pulse with your blood. Let me hold you in my untamed waters.

© Elena Tornberg-Lennox 2023