The Remembrance Codes

The Land That Called Me: Journey into Avalon

• Susan Sutherland

Share episode

What happens when you follow an intuitive call with no plan, no research, and no logical reason - only a knowing?

In this episode, I share the story of my pilgrimage to Avalon (modern-day Glastonbury) and the surprising way intuition opened every door along the way. From effortless international travel to sacred encounters with the Chalice Well, the Tor, Avebury Stone Circle, and West Kennet Long Barrow, this journey unfolded with a kind of magic that only hindsight can reveal.

You’ll hear how time expanded, how the land felt instantly familiar, and how synchronicity, guidance, and earth wisdom created a living initiation — one that held the energies of shadow and light, sacred union, and deep remembrance.

This episode explores:
 ✨ Following intuition without needing proof
 ✨ Sacred sites: Chalice Well, Glastonbury Tor, Avebury, West Kennet Long Barrow
 ✨ Earth offerings, reciprocity, and working with natural allies
 ✨ Divine feminine remembrance & the Rose Line
 ✨ Pilgrimage as integration, activation, and soul-level transformation
 ✨ How Peru prepared me for Avalon
 ✨ The coronation path of rose petals
 ✨ The Vesica Piscis and the balance of shadow & light

If you’ve ever felt called to a place without knowing why, or wondered how intuition guides us toward exactly what we’re ready for, this story will meet you there.

We walk this path of remembrance together.
Thank you for being here.

For a deeper share of this journey, and over 170+ posts, join me in The Keepers' Garden The Keepers' Garden | A private, living sanctuary for deep soul nourishment. | Patreon

SPEAKER_00:

Friends, when we allow our intuition to guide us, the walk is both mysterious and magical. I have said it and recently I have walked it, and I want to share that journey with you today. I recently went on a pilgrimage to Avalon, and this is actually the first podcast I am recording since my return. I felt this urge, this even urgency before I left to get several weeks of podcasts scheduled. And I did that and just kind of followed my intuition for what wanted to come through and did not realize the ease and the rest and breath that I would require when I returned home from this trip. But clearly my soul self was prepared for it because when I got home, I got to just sink in and allow the integration and the understanding to continue unfolding as I got home and didn't have to get back into logistics right away. And oddly, the messages that I shared were also ones that I was walking, that I walked there on the on the paths in Avalon and that I was walking as I continue to integrate the experiences that I had there. So I won't go into the initiations that I walked, but I want to walk you through the intuitive experience that I have. Because the thing is, is your intuition is only revealed in hindsight. And so when my husband's saying, Why are you going? Why are you going? All I knew is that the land will remember me, or I will remember the land. And I'm not sure which is true, but it turns out it was both. So I want to walk you through some of the synchronicities, some of how when we follow our intuition, the gates just open for us. Even if sometimes it looks like it is not happening for you. For instance, when I went to Peru in late January, my flight got jacked up. And I ended up not being able to fly with my friend that I was going to go with. So I ended up making the international flight and the journey to the hotel by myself, which doesn't seem like a big deal to a lot of people, but I am a travel princess. I show up with my luggage, and my husband has coordinated all of the logistics for our vacations almost all of the time. And partly he does that as a service, but 98% is because he's a control freak and has standards that are different than mine and wants to make sure everything is exactly how he wants it, which is totally fine for me because I manage the logistics of our family every other week of the year. And so it doesn't really matter that part of my vacation is not having to worry about anything. I I'll accept that. So for this trip, I had the knowing that it was a solo journey, and he had offered to accompany me and let me have my days to myself, and he would do his own thing. But I knew that this was something I had to do alone. And now I had at least a nugget of faith in myself that I made it to Peru, and they were speaking a different language, and I I navigated that situation okay, but surely getting to the UK, I'm gonna be fine. And it was. In fact, let me tell you how fine it was. I had a flight that left at 11.59 p.m. So I got there a couple of hours early. And when I arrived at the American Airlines desk to put in my luggage, I was the only person that you could that be seen in all of check-in. And they sent me on my way to security, and I was the only person that was not working there that was passing through security at the time. And it just felt like, I don't know, five-star status. Whereas like we've shut down the whole airport for your arrival, Susan. Please come on through. So on through I went, and I went to the American Airlines lounge and hung out for a little bit until it was time for my flight, and I got on my flight. And I was a little nervous about not sleeping on the plane, and then I'm gonna get to the UK, and I've got to figure out how to get to the other train station to take a train to Castle Carrie, which is the closest place to Glass and Barry. Glass and Berry is modern-day Avalon. I was called to Avalon, it is now Glass and Berry. Anyway, that's why I will use those words a little interchangeably. But I got a little nervous about navigating those logistics after having flown on the red eye. You know, can I do it? Can I manage this? So I booked a private transfer, which is something I have learned from my husband, is sometimes just take the easiest means is okay. So I booked a private transfer to pick me up at the airport and just dropped me off at my Airbnb, which is just under three hours. And when we get close to the airport, I'm flying into London Heathrow. The captain comes on and he says that we are arriving an hour early. Now I've I've done quite a bit of traveling and I have never in my life heard of arriving somewhere an hour early. But so we did. And I was like, well, you know, now my driver is gonna have no idea, and I'll just be at the airport an extra hour. That's not a crisis, you know, no problem. When I turn on my phone, I get an alert from the app that I booked him through that says, We notified your driver. He will be there waiting on you. So I went through customs, which took minutes, it didn't take long at all. And there he is with my little name on the sign. And away I go. So I end up at the Airbnb at 3.02. I think I anticipated getting there about five, assuming there would be like logistical delays at the airport and you know, those kind of things. And she's waving on me, gives me my key. I get settled in and I get out my reusable shopping bag to walk into town and get some groceries. I've got a little kitchen and no car. I'm just gonna walk to the mart and get everything I need. And it was a week I was spending on foot and I was excited about that actually. And in this walk into town, it just felt like I knew where I was going. And I will tell you, I never know where I am going. Ever. If I have been somewhere 120,000 times, I will still use a GPS to get there because I can get twisted around so easily. And Glastonbury is a small town, but uh I always just felt like I knew where I was going. Everything felt familiar, if that makes sense. And I can be three blocks from my neighborhood and somehow feel lost. And here it just felt so familiar. So I got my groceries and I walked back to my house and just kind of settled into the space and you know, unpacked a little and felt really comfortable in where I was. And I had booked somewhere originally, and then I changed my location because what I saw was it was a flat and there was there was no landscaping around it, and I got a little nervous that I wouldn't be able to sit outside or I don't know, it just felt like I was gonna be in my home space a decent amount of time, and I needed I needed some greenery around me, and I got this cute little Airbnb where a lady her she was an empty nester, and when her kids moved out, she portioned off the back half of her house and made it a little apartment, and it is so freaking precious, and she's got apple trees growing in the yard, and it was lovely. So I immediately felt at home in that space, and it was far enough out of town that it was a 10-minute walk to town and really in the heart of Avalon energy, and also just a 15-minute walk to many of the sacred sites. So it was just perfectly positioned and lovely, and immediately I just felt breath. You know, when you are on vacation and you blink, and somehow it's Thursday, and you're like, oh my god, only two more days, only one more day. The countdown, the panic of time slipping away is there. And what I experienced is I didn't have any of that. The days felt long, but not in a tedious way of like, oh my god, will this day ever end? It just felt unrushed. Like time expanded for me to have space sitting where I wanted to sit and going and walking the lands I wanted to walk and writing in my journal for hours, and then somehow still having time to read or to do whatever I wanted, but it it never felt like the day collapsed in on me, or even the week for that matter. Like everything just felt big, it felt spacious and alive. And it's interesting because I had a little bit of resistance about the timing of when I was going. I felt this call in the spring, and it felt to me like there was a window in September that I could have gone, or a window in November that would have been resonant. And it felt like I had to know if this was meant to be more of uh meeting people, more of a social journey, it would be September. And I knew that it wasn't. Now, when I received this urge to go there, what I would have normally done several years ago is done all of my research. Where do I need to go? What do I need to study? You know, all of this kind of thing. What is more aligned for me now is to walk remembrance, to allow my own knowing to come through instead of reading or tapping into someone else's. And so I didn't study the sacred sites, I didn't study all of the lineages that have been there. I knew there was a lineage calling my name. I thought it would be opening up something new, perhaps. I didn't know it was this rose line, the Magdalene current, that was calling me there. It was all a surprise. But I was trusting enough to just go, to just go and see what is there. I wasn't trusting enough to think that without doing any research, I could navigate all of the sites myself. And so I had reached out to a priestess there. She's a bridge priestess, and I reached out with her and and said, you know, could you open sacred sites for me for a few days? Just kind of walk and hold space for me. And she is normally a teacher and a guide. And so I had to specify like I I don't want the lesson, but if you could provide sacred space holding, that would be really aligned. Well, when I arrived there, it was like, I actually don't need anyone opening doors for me that will fly open as I arrive. And that is how it felt for me. And she had actually reached out and said, Hey, I don't know that you need me to do this because she knew you don't need a guide to go to the tour. You need just to know how to get there, and then you woke up. But I didn't know that going into it because I didn't do any research. So she said, I have a recommendation. Why don't we meet for coffee and I'll give you some guidance, we'll have a chat, and then on Thursday, I'll meet you and take you to Breed's Mound, which is Bridget's Mound, and she is a Bridget priestess. So that felt really aligned. And also that was a trickier sacred site to navigate to. It's off the beaten path, and she was able to take me through farmlands to get there in a really more aligned, beautiful way. But as I was sitting there talking to her, the nuggets I needed came through. Little guidance that there's a Magdalene chapel on Magdalene Road. Even about my trip away from Glastonbury to Aveberry, she had little nuggets that proved out in hindsight to be exactly what my soul needed. And so when you trust that the right people and the right information and the right doors will open, you can walk in that mystery. You can allow it to just unfold perfectly. And it will. So one of the things I started doing over the summer was drying out my flowers. I like to keep flowers in my bathroom. And when they are finished in their full beauty in my bathroom, I've been drying them out and then offering them to a tree down by my bench in my backyard, or by collecting the rose petals and putting them in this little pouch that I have that I keep in my purse. I also have been collecting seashells or stones or rocks that I collect on my walk and keeping them in my pouch and using them as offerings. So when I went to Colorado and sat at the water or went to spaces that felt really connected, when I walked the Manitou Incline and got to the top, I could make a little offering just in gratitude for what I received, what I experienced, what I felt when I was there, of gratitude to the land and the earth for holding us. And um, it has become a really sacred practice for me. And then I go to the chalice well, and the chalice well is a garden where the red spring flows through, and they have several different sitting points, lots of really beautiful places to meditate or have quiet conversation or journal and really be in a very beautiful feminine energy. And everywhere there are little offerings, little offerings to trees or to small altars or in front of the well itself. It was so beautiful, and it was like, okay, now I understand that before I even made it to Avalon, Avalon had started working through me. Her wisdom and her guidance and her understanding of this is how we can experience and express sacred reciprocity with the land and the water and commune with all that is in presence, in this acknowledgement that you're not just passing through the garden. You are sitting and saying thank you. Thank you for what you offer me. And I have been doing this and not even understanding that that was an Avalon remembrance that was coming through me. And it's quite interesting because when I was doing it in Colorado, it's one of those things where you kind of like check around your shoulders and make sure nobody's looking. And perhaps if you feel like that in Colorado, in North Carolina, you'd be like, woo, I really hope nobody's looking as I, you know, kiss this tree and offer my seashells and a couple flowers. But here we are. And what was so beautiful and magical there is it was so normal. It was so normal for someone to be bringing a piece of fruit and leaving it at the well or tying a ribbon of what they are releasing at the white spring. It was so intentional, and there are so many different lineages and belief and and practices that live and and honor each other and the land in this space. It is not one mode of thinking. You have many different religions and ideas and spirituality backgrounds that all live there and seem to share this respect and honoring of the earth and of each other. And it was not weird at all to see a man hugging a tree for five minutes before he went and sat down and meditated, or you know, had a quick drink of water from the well and then went home. It was such a normal practice. And for all the ways that I feel weird here, it felt like home there. And so when you feel a land calling you, maybe it's just to say that here feels like home. I'm not going to move there, but it gave me a sense of understanding that even if people may not understand me here, there is a place where it's not weird and where it felt so beautiful and so aligned and so intentional that it makes me want to, I don't know, bring it back here in a way that maybe nobody else will pick up the practice. But I will no longer do it in quiet. I will no longer hide myself doing these actions because they truly are beautiful and it is something that should be expressed more visibly as a way to honor our earth mother, our ancestors, our lineage, our people, each other, ourselves, the way that we can really take the time and not just say a casual prayer. But in order to have an offering, you have to have thought of the offering before you arrive. It is, it is creating that space of intention and making it more than just the words that you say, but the intention before you arrive and the intention when you get there. And it is a practice that I found very, very beautiful. So I will just keep doing it. How about that? There was a lot more that understanding of working with these earth allies, with working with crystals and oils and plant essences and water that I felt move through me while I was there that feel very abandoned, at least near my home where I am. And so I feel like part of that will be returning with me as well. Not part of that, like I already know it. So I returned with that, this desire and this knowing of how to work with our earth allies in a really beautiful way. So that was fantastic. Another sacred site that I went to is the tour, and it is a tower up on a hill. I have walked through a lot of cathedrals, and this only held the tower, the tower of St. Michael. And what I really loved about this is the tower and its height up on an elevated hill felt more like orientation than Lemquest. It wasn't placed there, and now we rise above you, but now it stands there and kind of centers where you are. It was really fantastic because for me to get to the tour, I had about a 16 or 17-minute walk, and it took me past farms and farmlands. And every which way you look over the fence, I could see the field of sheep and then the tour on top of the hill, and just acres and acres of apple trees, and it just felt like a magical journey to get there, and then walking up the tour, walking up the hill to get there. When I got to the top the first morning I was there, the wind was so strong. And when you stood in the archways, the wind coming through that went through the tower would almost push you over. And I leaned into the wind and I walked to the other side of the tower and I just sat there, um, allowing the tower to block the wind. But it almost was like the wind itself was a voice and it was speaking to me. And just sitting there, sitting up there on this cold morning, I I realized I would not be sitting up there by myself on a sunny September day, that the November timeline had given me the space to experience these sacred sites with very few people around, and I should say very few people in human form around because the entire time I felt very surrounded and very accompanied in my journey. It just happened to be that I was walking with the unseen and not my fellow formed friends. But November allowed this space. It also allowed 440 sunsets, and so I had a lot of time that felt like going within the sun is down, and you have that desire to snuggle up, snuggle in, and allow that reflection to come through. And so I had a lot of space created for that. It also happened to be the Celtic New Year and a full moon. So I had lots of opportunity to really invite, release, and to process what has come up for me this year, particularly since I started my year in Peru with ayahuasca, and an experience I will tell you is still unraveling and unfolding for me. And actually, somebody has said which was more profound for you, Avalon or Peru. And I will tell you, I don't think Avalon could have happened without Peru. I think Peru opened so much for me to be ready for what Avalon had in store. I'll say it that way. One had to happen for the other one to arrive. I think their timing in this year has been very intentional for me, and that one became the opening for the next. So anyway, that was a little sidebar for you. Now it's interesting because when I did that reading, that soul journey I told you that I had a couple of months ago just set on my heart to ask her this question. And I said, Do you have any guidance for me when I go to Glassenbury in November? And she said, It's not just Glasssenbury, you have to go to Avesbury. And she had never been there, but she is receiving this guidance for me. And she said, You have to go to Aveberry. If you don't go there, this mission is not complete. That Glassenbury is going to be the divine feminine earth wisdom, and that Avesberry, which is the largest in circle, is going to offer the divine feminine cosmic wisdom. When I had coffee with Marion, she also told me about West Kenneth Long Barrow, which I had no idea about because again, I didn't do any research. But she said, on my way to Aveberry, I must stop there. And I trusted that the knowing fell over. This is a nugget for me. On this one day that I had scheduled a driver to take me to Aveberry. It was a driver that my Airbnb host recommended. And we're on our way, and he just makes a stop. He decides to stop, and he was like, You need to see this. Okay. And it was called Nunny Castle. And it was the smallest castle you've ever seen, but it was on a little island with a moat around it, and a lot of it had been demolished. And so we stopped there, and I knew that this had a nugget for me, but I didn't really understand it at the time. And I mean, just isn't it quite amazing that my hired driver is just going to decide that I need to stop somewhere? And then he does. This is what happens when you allow when you just trust and you allow things to unfold as they should and not be like, dude, I've got to get there. We need to go, you know, just trust that if if he's deciding you should stop, something bigger is at play here. So our next stop was then West Kenneth Long Barrow, which is a Neolithic tomb, and it is built into a mound in the earth, but you can walk inside of it, and there are carved out rooms. And this tomb is over 6,000 years old. Y'all, stones hold memory, and they hold the prayers that they are built with and the intentions they are built with. And so you can feel the difference between a fortress that is closed off and protected, and the womb, the place where ceremonies are held, where loved ones are buried and new opportunity is birthed. And I say that because at that time there was not so much uh a fear of death. It was a cycle of living and dying. And where someone is buried holds a transition feeling, an energy of transition, where it is as much the ending of something as the beginning of something else. It is the transition. So this is the womb of transition into the next phase of your essence experience. Okay. And it doesn't feel it's not like a haunted cave. It had a really different energy. And from there, we then went to the ancestor walk, which it is a long, long path of stones that were put up for the ancestors, and you walk them down into this path to get to the stone circle. And here, these stones are out in the open, right? They are upright and they are exposed and they are sturdy. Much of what I experienced, I will say for the the keeper's garden or for my personal experience, but I will tell you having this day to walk my own path through stones of feeling the need to protect information, to protect and not hoard, but protect with such reverence that I guard it and to see how that is beginning to crumble, that I can hold it and steward and not only steward but trust, that there are other flames out there who are meant to carry the same, that I don't need to hold information with a closed fist, but I can uh allow it to be received by others. I have really walked this interesting path of learning how to do that, how to not hold the seeds tightly, but learn to scatter them and trust that where they are meant to bloom, they will, because we live in a place where so much of sacred has been distorted. So many leaders are distorted, spiritual and religious, and otherwise, once they have any kind of following, any kind of platform, there is often distortion. And I have allowed that to, I guess, excuse me from just uh hoarding what I know to be true and sacred to protect it with a moat and sturdy walls and maybe some cannons. That's how it felt. And then I got to walk into the womb where this is a place of transition. This is a place where the old becomes new again. And then I got to walk the circle and see how it is safe and it is open and it is no less divine to be shared. And and it felt like a really incredible walk. That I made that day that that brought a lot of understanding to me. So I just say that because just with the understanding that came through that one day, I had somebody who gave me a soul journey who helped me get there. And then a priestess I had coffee with that helped me get there. And then my cabbie for the day who helped me get there. It was the understanding that I needed, the remembrance that dropped into me. But all of those people were in play for me to arrive where I needed for that to happen. And that's that's what I say. When it's it is both mysterious and magical when you just start trusting that everything is going to happen in the divine order it's supposed to, when you get out of the way and start allowing for it to happen. Many of the things that I experienced were surprising and also familiar. Maybe I'll say that. And it was, it was really awesome. This is what I will say too is if a land calls you, go. Even if you can't put together why, understand that your field remembers, and whatever is meant for you will be received by your participation in just allowing yourself to be there, to experience it, not to overanalyze. That is one of the releases I did before I left, was thinking that, uh, or I guess placing expectation on what it should look like. What is the magical thing that's gonna happen? I was completely off base with what I thought I was gonna go there for. And that's okay, because I had released the expectation and and the control of what was meant to happen. One of the amazing things for me, because I'm not huge on cold weather, but I had looked and the temperature, I think the highs were like 52 and it was gonna be raining every single day. And it turned out that I opened my umbrella one time. It happened that as I was walking to my Airbnb, the rain would begin. When I went to Aveberry, it lashed down in Glastonbury. There were evidence of puddles that were inches deep when I returned, but it did not rain until Aveberry, until I was in my cab coming back to Glastonbury, where it had stopped raining. Like everywhere I went, it just seemed to yield to my presence being there to allow the experience to happen as it needed to happen. And it just the whole experience felt magical. The last morning I planned on going one last time to the Red Spring, the Chalice Well, and sitting there and expressing my gratitude for the whole experience and having my last little journal session beside the water. And when I woke up, the sun was shining. And that was that was a rare experience there. In fact, when there was a full moon, I did a full moon ritual, but it was so cloudy, I never actually found the moon. I just operated in trust that I know it's up there, I know it's full, I know it's big, but there were clouds all the time. I wasn't in the rain, but I was in the clouds. But that last morning I was there, the sun was so bright and so shiny. And on my way to the red spring, I was like, I have to walk up the tour. I it is calling me to go back there. And as I got onto the path through the farmland and onto the path, there were red and yellow rose petals sprinkled, and they were sprinkled the entire length of the path. And I know somebody didn't put them down for me, but I'm telling you, they did. And it felt like I was walking my own a coronation, maybe. Is that the right word? A crowning of the new person that I had walked into during this pilgrimage. It was a celebration, a release of who I had allowed to let go of to thank her for the experience of getting me there. And then the releasing of that version of myself and really stepping into the next version of myself. And as I walked this petal path with the sun just beaming down on me, it just was such an incredible experience. And I went and sat at the chalice well for a little bit after that and just kind of took it all in. And I was always walking back the farmland roads to get back to my Airbnb to do my final packing as I waited for my ride. The sun was shining on my back, and the shadow, my shadow, was so big in front of me. And I had not seen it the whole time I was there because there had been no sun. And I had this realization that I shared in the garden. There wouldn't have been that shadow without that bright light. And that was the whole experience that I had in Avalon. If I if I had to sum up the walk, it would be the walk of the Vesica Pisces. The Vesica Pisces is two overlapping circles, and in it, that that shape that is formed, the almond shape that is formed, that center is the sacred union. And that is the path, that is the map that I walked, was around in the circles to get to that center, to find the shadow and the light, and not to try to eradicate one, but allow their balance, allow the shadow to be beautiful because it represents the light that is in my back, to allow the feminine to be so soft and flow so freely because she has the masculine form to flow in, to allow the anointed one to do the anointing, to be the sacred union. That was the path that I was walking, is learning to find that balance where, you know, on the scale, both are at even. Not because you lean so far into another, and then for me, usually overcorrect by trying to balance the other, but by trying to stop being perfect and just lay little bits piece by piece and welcome the imbalance that allows you the opportunity to correct this nurturing of ourselves that doesn't wish to eradicate anything, that doesn't wish to, I don't know, present ourselves as perfect or or some kind of wholeness that says that we don't make mistakes, to find that wholeness that is so imperfectly human and so unmistakably divine. That's the walk. That's what I was called to. That's what I was remembering with lots of really amazing support from the roseline. So it was an incredible journey. I kind of thought that my trip home was going to be disastrous as a kind of reminder that this is where things are nice and you're gonna go home and things are gonna be hectic. But let me tell you, it wasn't. I was nurtured equally as wonderfully on the way home. The seat beside me was empty. We arrived 55 minutes early. Really? When does this happen, y'all? Mark had warned me that because of the government shutdown, they had laid off 50 baggage handlers and it would take us forever to get our bags. And we went down there. It was so quick getting through immigration. We went down there, our bags came out immediately. The lady beside me was like, international bags never come out this fast. I'm like, girls, sometimes they do. When you're where you need to be, trust, just trust. Everything just was that good. As uh Susan, you did it. You listened, you trusted, you showed up where you were meant to, and the gates opened for you. So that was my walk. I wanted to share a little bit about it with you, and thanks for joining me on this journey. More will be coming out, not specifically about this trip, but in my knowing in what I have brought home with me, which in turn is very much for you. We walk this path of remembrance together, and I'm grateful for you. Truly, truly grateful.

Head Shot

Susan Sutherland

Host