This is my penultimate Summer Solstice post. I have one more – a real counterpoint to this story – which will teach me another strong lesson, but we’ll come to that in time. For now, we have arrived at Tintagel – home of all things Arthurian, especially the gift shops – and we have just scoured the town for some incense. We found some at Tintagel’s only new age shop, where the owners were very helpful and a delight to talk to. In a good mood we set off for Tintagel Castle where I hoped my tide times were correct and I would be able to enter Merlin’s Cave for the first time.
I only had one thing on my mind and that was to visit the cave that a lady named Zoe had talked about. Kal had met her at Glastonbury Abbey and had introduced me to her. She simply said to me that I should pass on my thanks to Merlin when I met him. There was a distinguishable twinkle in her eye as she said it, though, which stuck in my mind. That seemed so long ago now but the memory was still strong, and I had taken the directive as a personal quest. I would indeed deliver her thanks now I was here.
Maybe I can’t read or something but when we got to the shoreline and looked out to the base of Tintagel Castle the tide was in. I would have to wait until it turned before I could reach the caves. Kal showed me a secret ledge upon which we dozed and watched the waves, lulled by the rhythm. I picked up two stones – a flat one and a small quartz-veined pebble which I pulled out from a patch of grass. How I had known it was there I can’t say!
To sit on that wild perch listening to the lap of the waves, and to watch bird life wheeling around in a constant careering carousel like some kind of baby’s mobile spinning us to sleep….
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