Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott.
Today you find me in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk and as you know I've been exploring the Michael and Mary energy lines on my pilgrimage and today is very significant here at Bury St Edmunds because the energy lines come together.
They don't actually cross,
They don't cross like they have done at node points in the past significantly,
For example like at Avebury or Glastonbury,
But they come together.
So let me just explain where I am.
I'm standing in front of what's known as the Norman Tower and if I turn my back to the Norman Tower and look ahead of me it's the most unusual looking set of houses that you could envisage.
They almost look like they've been built into some ruins and they have because what we're looking at here is the original west front of the abbey that was at Bury St Edmunds.
It was one of the largest abbeys in Europe and was in its time absolutely spectacular.
It was all ripped down during the reign of Henry VIII when it came to the dissolution of the monasteries and all that remains are some rubbly sort of almost like fingers pointing up into the air where some of the archers would have been.
The west front here,
This is probably the biggest part of it that remains which is the old rubble that would have been behind the stone that would have faced the actual abbey itself.
So I'm looking at the rubble behind that stone work in the original abbey and houses have since been built into it and over the years the original abbey was basically plundered for its riches and then the building materials were taken away and repurposed for houses and other buildings elsewhere.
So there's not a lot left of it and I was really curious about coming here today because I knew that the Michael and Mary energy lines,
They come together in what would have been the abbey itself but they don't cross,
They kind of kiss,
They come together,
They run very close alongside each other,
Maybe they even touch,
I don't know,
And then they go off in their own directions again.
And it wasn't easy trying to work out where in the ruins of the abbey they came together because there is not a lot there to see but hopefully there was some information about the different parts of the abbey and I found the place and I sat there for a little while and I just felt this extraordinary sense of peace and contentment and gratitude and I just felt the spirit of the place,
The sacred spirit of the place still remains.
And bear in mind this is a sunny spring day in the holidays,
The children are off on holiday,
It was busy in there in the gardens,
It's called abbey gardens where the ruins are,
It was very busy,
Noisy,
Laughter,
Playing,
People just out enjoying the sunshine and yet even in the midst of all that I felt the essence of the place.
And today has just been a reminder for me about the pilgrimage,
This would have in its time been a place of pilgrimage,
When it was an abbey it was a place of pilgrimage,
People would have travelled probably from all over Europe to come and see it.
My hunch is it used to be a pilgrimage site way beyond there being an abbey here and it's still a site for pilgrims now,
Me included.
This is a place to remember,
To recharge and to reconnect.
And today I feel very blessed that that has happened for me.
As you know it's been hard for me over the last few days,
I've had blisters and it's just been tough walking actually,
But today has had a different feel to it.
It feels as though I'm remembering once again and recognising once again the true essence that is shared by all.
And for that I am truly grateful.
So Bury St Edmunds has been an extraordinary place to visit on the 43rd day of my pilgrimage and tomorrow is another day.
My pilgrimage is coming to the last few days now,
But today I just feel as though I was absolutely recharged in spirit.
