Pilgrimage...in Oxford?

Frideswide. Patron saint of Oxford, I learn, and pilgrimage draw for many who come into Oxfordshire. You can learn more about her here, at least what the popular-historic story is about her including the King who sought her hand in marriage (which she refused). I’m more interested in the story depicted in the stained-glass window and shrine area at Christ Church: a woman who gathered other women for song, work, safety in community. Yesterday, we visited her holy well–St. Margaret’s Church & attributed Frideswide well behind the church. It was a stunning, energetically intense encounter for me. So much gratitude…

We had already walked close to 5-6 miles just to get to the church, back in Binsey area, a relatively short distance from Oxford but a village feeling miles away. I didn’t mind the lengthening walk so much, but it was a blessed thing to finally arrive at the church, at the end of a long row of stately (if still relatively young) trees. A laminated paper sign read “Church” with an arrow pointing left. 

You come around the ancient stone wall into a cemetery with a pathway leading eventually to the church door. It was the centuries-old yew tree that took my breath away, however. I approached her dripline, pausing for permission, welcome. Deep belly smile into the cover of her branches. Putting my hand on her trunk, I saw that someone had placed a plaque at her trunk-base, a text from Colossians: And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony (3:14). Prayers of gratitude welled up. I leaned my back against her and looked out to see what she sees, how she views all around her. The tombstones scattered around. The church itself. Then I was drawn to the well behind the church, where my cousin Dave was standing, perhaps in prayer.

It was marvelous to lower myself down to the highest step, resting my weary legs, beginning to breathe into the spaces and pauses deep within. I felt a song begin to bubble up within me, but I hesitated, holding it in. I was really aware of my (atheist? Non-spiritual? Philosophically spiritual?) cousin sitting some distance away, patiently waiting for us while doing her own thing on her phone. I knew she was just fine for as long as we needed AND I felt a vulnerability of being my full spirited self in her proximity. Tears came, whether from grief or my refusal to surrender to what was coming forth. Eventually, I allowed it to come into voice as gratitude, as prayer, as offering. “Woman,” from Red Tent circles and acoustic-spaces in which all of me wishes to participate in the F/feminine all around and within me. More tears. A bit of recognition or feeling heard, welcomed, by the well.

I sat next to my cousin Dave for a bit, feeling the shared prayer between/within us. I moved quietly to sit with Brian a bit, on a bench further away, where he had landed in the garden. Eventually, I meandered into the church itself, appreciating the feminine imagery but easing out quickly, feeling too closed in, too suffocated by the traditions of these elders. The location of most rest beckoned–a chair made out of an old stump, facing the yew tree from the other side, facing tree and church, with the well off to my left. I sat there for a long while, receiving anything that might arise from there.

The story of Frideswide that I learned in Christ Church? Frideswide was a young woman who gathered other women for song, for work, for safety in community. She provided spaces for women to live together in faith without any necessary reference to men, even as she was pursued by a man who greatly desired for her to be wed to him. He was struck blind, so his story goes, and she healed him from the waters of the well. The Museum of Oxford storying focuses on that storyline–of course–but Dave was sure to point out the more interesting story of her life for me. The power of the F/feminine to gather, to share in wonder, to co-create welcoming and creative spaces for all willing to live within such energies, value.

A beautiful pilgrimage day. Kendy, Dave, Brian and I have mused a lot on the various Oxford-academic aspects of their time here, the boon it is/has been for Kendy’s research interests and professional integration(s). I am so very glad for her in all of it. AND Oxford is simply not that attractive to me, except for the ancient elder trees I’ve gotten to visit, sense, honor. But even those along the Oxford Parks system–surely precursors to Tolkien’s ents–cannot hold a candle to Grandmother Yew, outside of St. Margaret’s, leading to St Frideswide’s well.

I had no idea I was going on a pilgrimage in Oxford, of all places. Glastonbury Tor, Chalice Well, coming up.