This was an experience I had in July 2009 when we went to see John Tavener in concert at Winchester cathedral. Earlier that afternoon, I had spent the day at the home of one of my daughters and had sprayed myself with one of the essences I’d made in Ireland at Maeve’s fort in Tara. For two hours, I felt dizzy, nauseous, completely ungrounded and very shaky! I wondered if it were the essence or because we had to do some work in the cathedral later. Sometimes, when my consciousness knows there is work to be done, I experience a ‘preparation’ of sorts. An energetic shift. As if the energies required at the site fill my energy-field beforehand. (Now, in 2025 I don’t feel it so strongly it makes me sick, but I do feel it).

When we arrived at the cathedral, the program said that Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’ would also be played. That turned out to be rather pleasant but not a patch on Tavener, which was incredible. It really was energy music. It was called ‘Towards Silence’ and it was a meditation on the different states of Dying and Being, according to the Vedantas. The sound was created by a Tibetan singing bowl and strings. It was magical. (I’ve put the Spotify link to the music below). Attending my first Tavener concert, a few years before this visit, I saw that Winchester cathedral was built on a large blue water line that looked like a wide flowing river flowing from one end of the cathedral to the other. It was a feminine frequency. Tavener’s music is so spiritual that it does things to the energy of the cathedral.

Totally absorbed in the current concert, I became aware of how the music opened a gateway to another realm. As I sank deeper into the music I saw the god Pan sitting with the orchestra. He was the fawn, with hairy legs and a beard, with a crown of leaves and berries and he was playing a pipe. He seemed to be in a nature dimension which co-existed with our physical one but which was invisible most of the time.

He played his pipe with the orchestra and then disappeared but in his place appeared a man who looked like Father Yule. ‘What’s he doing there?’ I wondered. ‘ Isn’t Father Yule Saxon?’ This man seemed to embody a pagan version of Father Christmas. He was a fat, red-cheeked man, naked except for a red cloak which hung around his shoulders and he wore some kind of woollen trousers. Around his head was a crown of ripe fruit and leaves and his energy was that of male abundance.

When I ran a group in Winchester years before, we went to the grounds around the Cathedral and did a meditation. I saw a huge monolith where the Cathedral now stood. It seemed to be on an island surrounded by water. An energy which called himself ‘Jack in the Green’ showed me how it had been here in the past. It was a male fertility site and was balanced by St. Catherine’s Hill which lies to the south east of the cathedral. St. Catherine’s Hill is the Feminine site in the area. Energy flows from the sun into the hill and is then channelled through radiating energy lines into the landscape, keeping it fertile and abundant.

The Saxon aspect makes me wonder if the builders of the Minster and the New Minster, which were built side by side, (so close apparently that when the monks were singing in each one their voices overlapped) were aware of this energy partnership and its radiating masculine energy. The Saxons had a very different understanding than the Normans who built the current cathedral.

Back at the concert, watching the musicians play in front of the ornate rood screen at the top of the nave, the image changed and white-robed priests appeared in a circle in front of the stage. A hole opened in the centre of this circle and gold light began to flow out, like honey. It continued to flow, filling the floor of the cathedral with gold liquid until it lapped against the pillars. It was a few feet deep and it was as if the music was also filling the cathedral with golden light. The sun had nearly set and its light shone into the cathedral, filling everything with light.

The sounds of a very large Tibetan bowl resounded around the cathedral and it felt incredibly powerful. As the sound bounced off the walls the image changed and I now saw vines and plants climbing up around the pillars. The cathedral was filled with nature and a few minutes later, the image changed again. Pan was once more visible on the stage and the cathedral was open to the sky. Nature had returned.

The priests walked in a line and stood in front of the stage, looking down the nave to where the audience were sitting. They seemed to be waiting. As the music drew to a close, the Yule father appeared again, smiling broadly as the priests walked forward. I thought they were going to reform in a circle again, instead, they walked around the outside of the circle they had already created and then walked out a door in the south-side of the cathedral. A door which is no longer open and which would have led to the Close where they now have the Christmas market. They were obviously following a much older route.
The music drew to a close then, and in silence, everyone left the cathedral.

This was a fascinating experience and because of my previous experience at the cathedral, at another one of Tavener’s concerts, I should not have been surprised. It was also fascinating how Pan’s music and the music of Tavener called the Yule Father into this space. Tavener’s music is a divinely dictated, as he suggests himself and Pan certainly seemed to appreciate it. It makes me think that although Tavener picks up divinely inspired ideas for his music, some of that might come from the nature realms. The sounds he creates flow along those lines.

The Saxon Yule Father also makes sense when I think about the Saxons and their minsters. King Alfred’s wife also had what are now the Abbey grounds and it too is energetic and energetically connected to Winchester cathedral. The feminine balance to the Masculine. But he also had fruits around his head, so his summer abundance was also very present.

There is a lovely dedication to John Tavener now in the cathedral in the form of a water sculpture which needs to be seen to be properly appreciated.

The music of this concert can be heard here:

https://open.spotify.com/embed/album/49ZL7UHf65TBfJ4M2sBdHO?utm_source=generator

Interview.