ABOUT US
(Bahli Mans-Morris, Casey Jon, Avia Willment, and Yuri Leitch)
In the 1920s the Arthurian scholar and mystic, Katharine Emma Maltwood, discovered what is now known as The Glastonbury Zodiac - which she came to see as King Arthur's Round Table of the Stars. For nearly one hundred years people have been working with this treasured and sacred landscape.
During the 1990s Bahli Mans-Morris - who ran an Arthurian inspired shop in Glastonbury called Pendragon - had many visionary experiences whilst working with The Glastonbury Zodiac. Bahli's 'Ladies' came to her over many visions. Each lady was a woman from the Arthurian Romances and each lady represented a sign of the zodiac.
This system is growing into being; of individuals working with their own inner and outer landscapes, working with the Well Maiden tradition and the Arthurian Mystery Traditions, to restore the Wasteland and to heal ourselves and our planet.
BAHLI MANS-MORRIS (1945-2011)
Bahli was a well loved figure in the town of Glastonbury and she is greatly missed. She was a kind and gentle person who always focussed on the best in others. She was a profound Seer and she helped many people.
She was a romantic visionary and she had a deep love for the Arthurian legends and the sacred landscape of the Glastonbury Zodiac. She opened a shop in Glastonbury in 1989 called, 'Pendragon, Spirit of the Celt', which was her base in Glastonbury throughout the 1990s. At Pendragon she networked, inspired, and helped a great many people.
Bahli was a founder member of the Creative Health Network (CHN), bringing healers together from all around the world.
Upstairs, above Pendragon, Bahli gave readings to people. Her favourite method was through the wonderful colours of Aura Soma. Bahli had worked closely with Vicky Wall, the founder of Aura Soma. Bahli helped people mainly by clearing away old issues that they were carrying around from previous incarnations.
It was whilst at her Pendragon shop, during the mid 1990s that Bahli envisioned 'The Ladies' (which is explained, in her own words, further down this page). All of her knowledge of colour, astrology, shamanism, and healing, found expression through the Arthurian legends and the Temple of the Stars.
Bahli's Pendragon shop closed down at the beginning of the new millennium. The following year, 2001, she met Yuri Leitch, artist, who had recently moved to Glastonbury; they were very old friends, brothers from ancient Mesopotamia, and still Temple Guards of Ishtar, Venus, and Beauty. Bahli and Yuri quested around the Glastonbury Zodiac for many years and in 2009 they called the Maltwood Moot into being. This gathering of Glastonbury Zodiac enthusiasts created the first Glastonbury anthology since 1979, the huge and beautiful, Signs & Secrets of the Glastonbury Zodiac.
In Signs & Secrets of the Glastonbury Zodiac , Bahli presented her vision of 'The Ladies' for the first time in public; whilst she had been working on this inspirational vision for over ten years it was still evolving and remained 'work in progress'. Sadly, Bahli died in the late summer of 2011 and Signs & Secrets wasn't published until 2013. The Well Maidens of the Summerlands is an attempt to fulfil Bahli's vision by those who loved her.
CASEY JON is the daughter of Bahli Mans-Morris and she inherited 'The Ladies' when her mother died. Casey and Bahli spent a great many hours walking around the Glastonbury Zodiac chatting about 'The Ladies' and other mysteries. Casey is a member of Wild Medicine, a company that makes flower essences from sacred places, and in 2010 Bahli helped her to make Zodiac Essences in the Temple of the Stars. Casey is an artist, inspired by nature and wild animals, she works in ceramics.
www.facebook.com/WildHeartCeramics
AVIA WILLMENT is an old friend of Bahli Mans-Morris and first met her in 1995. Like Bahli, Avia was also a member of the Creative Healing Network. Avia is an architect, a business woman, and a musician. As a sensitive empath she is also a geomancer, dowser and earth energies balancer (she is a Libran). Calling back the Well Maidens and healing the land is very important to her. She has recently set up the Nature's Quay Beauty and Wellness Centre at the Universal Marina on the River Hamble, near Southampton. She is also the owner of the Babaguru art gallery, Beckington, near Frome.
YURI LEITCH was a good friend (and 'old' friend) of Bahli Mans-Morris and often talked to Bahli about one day illustrating her 'Ladies'. Yuri has been interested in Celtic and Arthurian traditions all his adult life. He is a professional artist and author, and he lives in Glastonbury. In 2007 he published, Gwyn, Ancient God of Glastonbury and Key to the Glastonbury Zodiac. In 2009 he and Bahli called the Maltwood Moot together and he was the Editor of Signs & Secrets. He illustrated the Sacred Sites Oracle Cards for Barbara Meiklejohn-Free, and in recent years he has been studying Tree-Lore and the Ogham (Celtic Tree Alphabet).
'THE LADIES' - IN BAHLI'S OWN WORDS - THE LADIES OF THE LAKE
Once upon a time, way back in the mists of time surrounding the mystic Isle of Avalon, lay a beautiful lake in which fishes swam and upon which swans glided. It was in the times of peace and plenty, when the essence of the feminine was loved and understood by man. As time passed, sadly, man became more warlike, these waters dried up and the faery peoples who lived there retreated into the hollow hills. The grael of love was lost to mankind and the land became waste and barren.
However, there were those seekers who had heard in their hearts of that far-distant place, of a grael that contained the essence of love and beauty, a place where women were honoured and men were brave. The courts of love - where Queen and King ruled in tune with the land. A place that was above all safe and nurturing, where children blossomed, a place where the faery people talked and walked with men and women. That place was Avalon. Is Avalon. It was to this place I journeyed - to the land within the land - to meet the faery peoples, the shining ones, the Tuatha-de-Danaan.
I find myself on a rocky path that leads away from the sacred thorn tree on Wearyall Hill. I walk and walk until I come to a glacier, high on the mountainside. The sun sparkles on the ice and reflects rainbow hues as if it were a huge crystal. Somehow I step inside and a woman dressed in blue and gold leads me into a huge cavern, strung with strands of shining colours. There on a throne sat a queen wearing soft webs of light. She is Arianrhod. She takes me to a high tower from which we look down onto the land.
There, stretched over the Glastonbury Zodiac, the Vale of Avalon, is a huge flower-wheel of rainbow colours, the web of the land. At each of the twelve spokes of the wheel stands a woman, and above them twelve more, weaving the tapestry of the cosmos. These are women of power. They wear silver-white gowns and silver headbands. Each wears a girdle or sash, of a different colour of the rainbow, around her waist. The women on the land are the Arthurian women of power. They begin to dance, to spin. Each becomes a wheel of colour till it touches the next and becomes a core of power: it becomes an open flower, and all the creative and healing energies of mother Earth are born.
Who are these other-worldly women? All are creative aspects of that which is now manifesting again in women in the world. Many have lain dormant for centuries, some not used at all. Each has a name and a story.
These stories are beginning to be told.
