The 'healing' power of Glastonbury

[boredawn]

Sorry if this is a bit of a downer, but does anyone else use Glastonbury of a place of almost 'healing' the wounds of the previous year? I haven't been since 2016 (which, despite surviving other 'wet' years like 2005 was actually really difficult, because the rain didnt halt from start to finish with no respite in 2016) and unfortunately the years in between haven't been that kind to me. We've all been through a rough time with lockdown and so forth, but this year the Sunday will be the 2nd year anniversary of my mum dying. The two years prior to that were filled with a lot of stress caring for someone against an illness that you just cant fight, as you watch it steal a person you love from you, and I can't say that i've had many moments of joy in between. I remember going to the festival in 2014 when I was 27, and my Dad had died two months before and somehow I managed to have one of the best years every. There was something genuinely cathartic and healing about having the festival to care for my emotional wounds, and I am so greatful that I have this years festival to hopefully do the same. I think this year is probably going to be my most important year at the festival for purely having a space for five days to forget all the drama and heartache, and just exist in the moment. I'm normally fleeing with excitement by now, but my wee brain almost cant compute that it's actually happening!

I hope this wasn't too depressing, and I hope for anyone else that's had some heartache that the festival can fill a similar function for you. Its well needed for me this year, and I'm so very happy that the ticket gods were kind to me this year. All i ask is please dont rain every day again like 2016, please weather gods!

[balti-pie]

i think there's definitely something cathartic and healing there. i'm a fairly pragmatic and practical thinker, not one for woo or fairy-related solutions to things, but i find the glastonbury site really, really lovely to be at - the very first time i came through the gates i felt immediately comfortable, despite the 200k people cavorting around. Its very hard to explain, people can try and describe ley lines etc to me all they like but i dont want to be any more scientific (or non-scientific) than just to say that its a place of great happiness and some of that happiness is lying residually in the corners of the field, to be picked up and bathed in a bit if you need it.

The more i go, the more time i spend in the greenfields, and taking part in a bit of yoga etc. I love the simplicity of yoga - stand like this, move this bit, breathe in, lie down, do as you're told and dont think about anything. Its really not what i expected me to do when i first went in 2005 😄 i hope you can find a couple of spots that make you feel better, wherever they may be onsite 👍  

[glimmers_of_hope]

I find glastonbury to be mentally refreshing and it refills me with positivity, faith in human spirit and kindness.

When you are surrounded by happy people who are looking out for each other and there is a great vibe then it has to have a healing power. 

I smile a lot at glasto and it's not unusual for me to cry a bit as well. Definitely reconnect with being a human there. 

[grayfitz]

I think there's certainly something to the idea that if the festival is important to you, the process of attending does allow you to leave behind a lot of the emotional weight you've been carrying. I think perhaps it's that a week at Glastonbury allows you to 'reset' and escape the cycles you find yourself repeating in the real world.

A month and a half prior to the 2022 festival I had an operation to have my thyroid removed after they found cancer. I'd had the diagnosis in January, and I spent the first half of the year incredibly anxious about the entire thing - it would manifest itself in some weird ways, and I lost count of the number of days or evenings I lost to feeling overwhelmed by everything going on. Three or four times a week I felt like I was dying and there was nothing I could do.

I remember the Monday before the festival I was still feeling terrible, with me calling up a friend and crying over the phone about how I didn't want to feel how I had been while there. This was despite already having had the operation and being back to work, living my life like normal.

While at the festival, I ended up feeling the best I had all year, and getting home after the festival, everything seemed to lift and I was able to basically go back to a normal day-to-day without the feelings I'd had before. The whole thing could be coincidence, but I do honestly think the process of going to Glastonbury and just existing there for a few days helped me get past it.

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

I 'gave' away two festival tickets for two years attendances, as I knew that I was mentally unfit to attend. The second but last time I attended I had just had half my intestines removed (about 1" off needing a colostomy bag). I could barely get far from the camp, and was asleep by 1am latest - mind you, I was back at it at about 6am! Anyway, that's all an aside. I haven't been for years, but every time I have gone, I have lost all communication with my everyday life. It's like being a kid during the summer holidays and the sun's shining. You get that 'freedom' back. Only for a few days, but you do get it back. 

@boredawn - I wish you (and all) the happiest of festivals this year. Savour it, and enjoy it - for it is a beautiful thing.

[angelin]

Being going since 2005 also. My diagnosis in October hit me like a bus I still dont think’ its happening to me.  The chemo is working well and thats all I want to and need to know. The first thing I asked my oncologist through the tears and snot was, can I still go to Glasto?? He said yes, you will be at Glastonbury. As it happens I will be coming to the end of my chemo and Im going to ask nicely if I can shift it back a week. After that it will be radiotherapy. Im not religious but I pray everyday. Glasto is really the one thing that has made me determined to get through this. Its not going to be the same. I know that. I will just take it very easy. Ive been looking for a decent chair. Plenty of time in the. Healing fields. Evenings I usually come awake so im looking forward to wrapping up and being more my normal self.

 

It is a healing place without a doubt. Yes, its not like it was in 2005 but there are still pockets of serenity there were you can just let your self lie down and  have a cry if you want. I will be bloody crying my heart out if bloody Pulp dont show up. My favourite band ever and I never bothered to buy a ticket for them as I was convinced they would be there😂 

 

i think five days just existing in the moment sounds perfect for you. In my cancer group they always say dont worry about tomorrows sorrow and its absolutely true. None of us know whats around the corner.

 

now, lets get this party started! See you all safely on the farm and cheers to you all 🙂🙂🙂l 

[Ayrshire Chris]

3 hours ago, boredawn said:

Sorry if this is a bit of a downer, but does anyone else use Glastonbury of a place of almost 'healing' the wounds of the previous year? I haven't been since 2016 (which, despite surviving other 'wet' years like 2005 was actually really difficult, because the rain didnt halt from start to finish with no respite in 2016) and unfortunately the years in between haven't been that kind to me. We've all been through a rough time with lockdown and so forth, but this year the Sunday will be the 2nd year anniversary of my mum dying. The two years prior to that were filled with a lot of stress caring for someone against an illness that you just cant fight, as you watch it steal a person you love from you, and I can't say that i've had many moments of joy in between. I remember going to the festival in 2014 when I was 27, and my Dad had died two months before and somehow I managed to have one of the best years every. There was something genuinely cathartic and healing about having the festival to care for my emotional wounds, and I am so greatful that I have this years festival to hopefully do the same. I think this year is probably going to be my most important year at the festival for purely having a space for five days to forget all the drama and heartache, and just exist in the moment. I'm normally fleeing with excitement by now, but my wee brain almost cant compute that it's actually happening!

I hope this wasn't too depressing, and I hope for anyone else that's had some heartache that the festival can fill a similar function for you. It’s well needed for me this year, and I'm so very happy that the ticket gods were kind to me this year. All i ask is please dont rain every day again like 2016, please weather gods!

The festival is often referred to as escapism but that’s far too simplistic and not accurate. It can easily be a life changing experience and completely change your attitudes. That’s certainly what it did for me and Mrs c. @boredawn, i hope you have a tremendous festival. 

[westholtschic]

Well we took the plunge to move to Glastonbury last June, 2 days after the festival. We have wanted to live here for 10 years and finally got the chance.

I can honestly say that the last 10 months have been the best of my 54 years of life. I actually feel like the person I should have been before. This is even without the festival ever year, which is of course the cherry on the top.

I am truly the luckiest man in the world.

[Jay Pee]

3 hours ago, grayfitz said:

I think there's certainly something to the idea that if the festival is important to you, the process of attending does allow you to leave behind a lot of the emotional weight you've been carrying. I think perhaps it's that a week at Glastonbury allows you to 'reset' and escape the cycles you find yourself repeating in the real world.

A month and a half prior to the 2022 festival I had an operation to have my thyroid removed after they found cancer. I'd had the diagnosis in January, and I spent the first half of the year incredibly anxious about the entire thing - it would manifest itself in some weird ways, and I lost count of the number of days or evenings I lost to feeling overwhelmed by everything going on. Three or four times a week I felt like I was dying and there was nothing I could do.

I remember the Monday before the festival I was still feeling terrible, with me calling up a friend and crying over the phone about how I didn't want to feel how I had been while there. This was despite already having had the operation and being back to work, living my life like normal.

While at the festival, I ended up feeling the best I had all year, and getting home after the festival, everything seemed to lift and I was able to basically go back to a normal day-to-day without the feelings I'd had before. The whole thing could be coincidence, but I do honestly think the process of going to Glastonbury and just existing there for a few days helped me get past it.

Good Story mate.  Respect

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

2 hours ago, angelin said:

Being going since 2005 also. My diagnosis in October hit me like a bus I still dont think’ its happening to me.  The chemo is working well and thats all I want to and need to know. The first thing I asked my oncologist through the tears and snot was, can I still go to Glasto?? He said yes, you will be at Glastonbury. As it happens I will be coming to the end of my chemo and Im going to ask nicely if I can shift it back a week. After that it will be radiotherapy. Im not religious but I pray everyday. Glasto is really the one thing that has made me determined to get through this. Its not going to be the same. I know that. I will just take it very easy. Ive been looking for a decent chair. Plenty of time in the. Healing fields. Evenings I usually come awake so im looking forward to wrapping up and being more my normal self.

 

It is a healing place without a doubt. Yes, its not like it was in 2005 but there are still pockets of serenity there were you can just let your self lie down and  have a cry if you want. I will be bloody crying my heart out if bloody Pulp dont show up. My favourite band ever and I never bothered to buy a ticket for them as I was convinced they would be there😂 

 

i think five days just existing in the moment sounds perfect for you. In my cancer group they always say dont worry about tomorrows sorrow and its absolutely true. None of us know whats around the corner.

 

now, lets get this party started! See you all safely on the farm and cheers to you all 🙂🙂🙂l 

I have ran out of up votes.

Total star and a trouper.

Enough respect. 

 

[Mich1268]

Thank you for starting this post Boredawn. Everything you say, so many of us feel, as you can see from the replies. 

[marathonsteve]

Absolutely stupid I know and not rational, but as soon as I see the Glastonbury sign on route to the Sacred Place the spine tingling excitement starts. Sometimes We go by w@y of Avenbury and have a look, but mostly drive past Stonehenge on route 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BlueDaze]

out of upvotes for all of you with tales of such personal bravery... Who are we to question the healing powers of those fields in light of your experiences..

One thing is for sure, the moment you arrive your spirit is lifted and the few day there will restore your faith in humanity....   

[philipsteak]

I don't have anything as dramatic as some of here but I do know the place is special.

I want to be a better person. I don't want to be a cynical grump but life, you know. I live in a large shared house with people I absolutely would not choose to live with and work in hospitality so there are limits... It's fair to say things haven't paned out as I'd have liked. And if you're paying attention then the world is a bit of a mess in many ways isn't it. Hence, cynical grump.

But for 1 week a year at the end of June I am that better version of myself. 

[BlackZeppelin]

Like others, Glastonbury has been very healing for me.

I had chemo in 2018 and could hardly walk, but the goal of being able to walk around the site drove my rehab.

While I'm not going this year, due to a second line of treatment, I'm planning on coming in 2024, and bringing as many friends as possible. 

For me,  it is as close to what I would want the afterlife to be like....music, dancing, and good fun with good folk. I think my energy doubles as I walk through the gates, and sustains for the entire duration. Very special place.

Have a great festival boredawn,  I'm sure it will be very healing for you.

[boredawn]

Can I just really quickly say a very heartfelt thank you to the replies so far, as well as any after this. I can't express how much of a comfort I have found it.

Reading your stories has genuinely brought a tear to my eye, and has somehow distilled a little of the essence of just why the festival has this very healing power we speak of. Someone said they are very pragmatic, and I am much the same - I wish I could be more spiritual but the world presents to me are very chaotic and unfeeling at times. However, what adds value to that chaos is the people and places we find ourselves in during the crazy times. I think the healing of Glastonbury probably routes most firmly in its ethos and the good nature of the people who attend - likeminded people such as those of you who have been kind enough to spend a bit of time sharing on my daft wee post. Like many I will shed a few tears at the festival ( bringing some of my mums ashes so she can finally be there with me) as I do every year when I step through those gates and get overwhelmed by a sense of wellbeing and safety that I can't find anywhere else. For those that shared their journey I wholeheartedly wish you all the best and good health my will can muster. You deserve these days of respite. 

Its so hard to explain to outsiders how special it is to walk through those gates, and i can agree with a fellow poster when they say it was life changing. Mostly, I'm just greatful such a place exists and I get to share it with you kind people.

[Ayrshire Chris]

4 hours ago, westholtschic said:

Well we took the plunge to move to Glastonbury last June, 2 days after the festival. We have wanted to live here for 10 years and finally got the chance.

I can honestly say that the last 10 months have been the best of my 54 years of life. I actually feel like the person I should have been before. This is even without the festival ever year, which is of course the cherry on the top.

I am truly the luckiest man in the world.

I totally understand the sentiments you have expressed. We visit the area as often as we can outwith the festival. It’s difficult to explain to our friends etc why we do it, we just feel at peace there. We’ve been down countless times. Whether it’s for the festival, or just walking the lanes, climbing and sitting on the Tor, it means so much to us. 

[circus92]

Love this thread!  Read it last night and found it really moving and uplifting reading all the stories.  Was out of upvotes last night and have come back this morning to add some, but still don't have any!  So ❤❤❤ to you all and hope you all have the best time ever next month.

Dare I say it, but unless I am mistaken you just don't get threads like this anywhere else - this is exactly why this community is so unique.

[boredawn]

11 hours ago, philipsteak said:

I don't have anything as dramatic as some of here but I do know the place is special.

I want to be a better person. I don't want to be a cynical grump but life, you know. I live in a large shared house with people I absolutely would not choose to live with and work in hospitality so there are limits... It's fair to say things haven't paned out as I'd have liked. And if you're paying attention then the world is a bit of a mess in many ways isn't it. Hence, cynical grump.

But for 1 week a year at the end of June I am that better version of myself. 

I once read a proverb that's 'my sore finger is worse thank your broken leg' and it highlights that pain is subjective, rather than objective. We all have our struggles that fit into a glass, but the capacity for liquid in that glass is different for each person and all our troubles are very real and personal to each of us. 

I wish I was a person who practice what they preached more, but your future isn't limited by your present. You should always 100% believe in your capacity to change and improve your life, because you ( us all I guess) deserve happiness. Keep the faith that the very fact you recognise that the present isn't keeping you satisfied will spur you on to a better tomorrow. I definitely remember that stage of my career where I had just graduated with and English degree during the crash of 2008, and suddenly the advice of 'go get a degree, any degree, just get one' was useless and had turned to 'why did you study English if you don't want to be an English teacher'. All of a sudden I went from working in Sainsburys to... working in Sainsburys with a useless degree . It took a post graduate course and a lot of volunteering/sessional work, but I now have a job I love in criminal justice working. It's not the dizzy heights of some other careers, but I enjoy getting to see both side of the justice system from the inside/out, and I'm fortunate that my post is mostly about rehabilitation and helping people to overcome their past and strive for a better future. 

Best employability advice I can give anyone is if you are going to train, pick someone vocational and tied directly to an industry rather than something abstract like English or geography etc. Things like a trade, programming, social work, teaching etc line you up for an actual post when you finish... from my humble experience of giving careers advice.

[bexj]

I'd already been to over 10 Glastonbury's before I lost my dad 3 weeks before Glastonbury 2010, so I was very aware of the special nature of it.  There was never really any doubt that it would be a big part of my grieving process and so I came along with my husband and a few close friends.  It was, on the whole, great.  I had a few quiet moments where I'd taken myself for a little sad time.

The incredible thing that happened was I met, through a friend, another couple.  We stood infront of the Pyramid together watching Ray Davies, and when he got to "Days", my tears started falling behind my sunglasses.  Years later and as I'm now good friends with this other couple, I was talking to the lady and she told me that she'd also had tears falling down behind her sunglasses because her dad had also died a few weeks earlier. 

That year changed lots of things for all sorts of reasons but finding a lifelong friend who was experiencing grief alongside me was one of the most special things.  I don't regret ever going to Glastonbury that year.

[angelin]

Although I am absolutely dreading Elton singing Dont Let the Sun Go Down on me.ill be a bloody wreck 😃

Ill have to pretend Im crying for George Michael🙂

 

 

Edited May 3, 2023 by angelin

[westholtschic]

As I’ve previously said in other chats, the 2013 festival was the hardest for me. My Dad was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour in the January of that year. He lasted until the April. Whilst he could still speak they announced the Stones as a headliner, one of his favourite bands.

He told me to take some his ashes with me so he could be at the set and have a very large hip flask of his favourite malt to drink, which I duly did. Some of the ashes may or may not have gone on the floor during the set. The farm will always be the most special place on earth for me. 

[boredawn]

1 hour ago, westholtschic said:

As I’ve previously said in other chats, the 2013 festival was the hardest for me. My Dad was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour in the January of that year. He lasted until the April. Whilst he could still speak they announced the Stones as a headliner, one of his favourite bands.

He told me to take some his ashes with me so he could be at the set and have a very large hip flask of his favourite malt to drink, which I duly did. Some of the ashes may or may not have gone on the floor during the set. The farm will always be the most special place on earth for me. 

Wow, I have almost a carbon copy of your experience literally one year later. Dad was diagnosed with a brain tumour in January ( although turned out this was secondary cancer caused by stage 4 lung cancer) and he died in April, with me going to the festival in June with instructions to pour out a malt for him. I hope I'm not projecting onto your experience, but one of the things I've found most comforting about this is that grief and trauma are such lonely emotions. You feel like you are caught up in a world of your own hurt and dismay so much of the time, so I'm finding that there is a real beauty in sharing here and realising that we're not alone in all of this, and we're all really in the same boat tying to muddle on by until the grief subsides enough for us to feel something other than hurt. I'm sure your Dad would have been delighted that you followed through with his wishes.

Hopefully on a slightly lighter note about following through on a loved ones wishes, I'm Scottish, and my dad died before he got a chance to vote Yes in the independence referendum. I came into the hospice one day to find him having a heated discussion with someone on God knows what phone-line in the Scottish government having a very heated debate about how he couldn't pre-lodge his vote since he 'would most definitely be pan - breed (Scottish slang for dead) kicking the arse of thatcher' (his words) by the time of the referendum. He was a bit downtrodden by this so he made me promise to find the biggest 'Yes' sticker to go on his coffin I could find, so I literally spent the day after his death chasing round all the SNP constituent offices to find him a bloody suitable sticker! It went front and center on the coffin and my mum was suitably horrified. 🙂 you have to find the joy where you can in such times eh? 

[BBC7BBCHEAVEN]

On 5/2/2023 at 4:25 PM, glimmers_of_hope said:

I find glastonbury to be mentally refreshing and it refills me with positivity, faith in human spirit and kindness.

When you are surrounded by happy people who are looking out for each other and there is a great vibe then it has to have a healing power.

This is what I felt was missing last year, maybe I have just become too miserable for recovery, but there seemed to be more coked up arseholes being totally oblivious and self absorbed compared to the usual interactions I see

I don't think the crowds helped much either, there just seemed to be constant waves of people moving through all areas, even the woods were packed, so didn't feel like there were many places to just sit and chill out

[Skip997]

8 minutes ago, BBC7BBCHEAVEN said:

This is what I felt was missing last year, maybe I have just become too miserable for recovery, but there seemed to be more coked up arseholes being totally oblivious and self absorbed compared to the usual interactions I see

I don't think the crowds helped much either, there just seemed to be constant waves of people moving through all areas, even the woods were packed, so didn't feel like there were many places to just sit and chill out

I totally agree with this.

IMO the vibe was slightly off last year.