Credit: Far Out / Glastonbury Festival

Lucy Harbron

Thu 26 June 2025 13:48, UK

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I am lying on my back, hearing the rain pour outside, sweating and absolutely freezing. I am trying to focus on my breathing, but mostly on everyone else’s. This has been one of the most chaotic weeks of my life, including a break-in and an injury, and then suddenly, I landed at Glastonbury. The sun beat down on the opening day, and I was trying not to crash out when I realised, wait, isn’t this supposed to be sacred ground?

The first year I ever came to Glastonbury, day one coincided with the summer solstice. As we drove to Pilton in the early, early morning, we saw the masses gathered at Stonehenge to worship… something? It’s a running joke with my friends that I’m to be kept away from that stuff. I was once banned from going to church as a teenager when I tried to rebel by getting baptised. Since then, I have always teetered on the brink of joining a cult.

I linger around the Hare Krishnas for too long on Oxford Street unless a caring hand is there to steer me away. I’ve stared more than once at the Scientology building and thought, ‘I could just go check it out‘. I shuffle tarot cards, I go for aura readings, I buy crystals when I feel helpless, I follow TikTok recipes for spell jars. In short, I am always looking for… something, especially in times of crisis, which, realistically, is now.

As I hobbled across the field this year, lugging all my stuff alone and muttering “fuck, fuck, fuck” with every step on my broken toe, my brain told me I needed something and I knew where to go. My notes provided the answer: 4pm, Wednesday, meet in the fire circle, the opening ceremony will begin.

Up in the Healing Fields is one of Glastonbury’s oldest areas and certainly the one with the strongest sense of community. The area is laid out as a series of circles: fire, earth, water, air, ether. My fellow reporter, Ben Forrest, doesn’t feel it; he’s a self-confessed cynic, and his experience was notably different. But for me, I always crave something, and a space like this feels full of potential. Sitting on a bench waiting for the yearly opening ceremony to begin, my foot, brain, and anxious heart are aching and heavy. I’ve decided that these people, coming towards us singing “let the sunshine”, all dressed in red outfits to represent their element, can fix me.

Exploring the spiritual side of Glastonbury

The opening ceremony is beautiful, but only if you’re like me; Ben finds it troubling. During it, you journey through the elements, each one coming along with a little speech about togetherness or love or caring for yourself and the planet, maybe a little yoga and then a sing-along. Committing to each bit wholeheartedly, desperately hoping that those Earth Circle deep breaths and moments to touch the grass might make me feel less frantic or that if I genuinely do bow to strangers, conjure up the memory of my ancestors or clap along enthusiastically, something spiritual might kick up inside me.

The thing is, it kind of does. I say ‘kind of’ because it’s the age-old question: do I feel better because of this, or do I feel better because I’m simply trying to? I love the healing fields. I love this community that you can peer into each year and see the exact same people, always wondering who they are, where they came from, and how they manage to get tickets to set up shop here reliably. But by the time they’re done guiding us through, by the time plenty of people have genuinely sobbed and my 13-year-old self spirit has sung hymns like I’m back trying to have a church phase, it’s hard not to feel better. Is it the so-called healing air up there as they light a fire full of carefully chosen herbs and flowers? Or is it just the mass crowd of people all smiling lightly?

The question stays with me. At about 11pm that night, trekking up to The Park, the swearing under my breath had stopped. My foot genuinely feels better, and the tension in my body has eased. Again, is that the ground or the atmosphere? Is it the strong cider? Is it the gaggle of friends around me?

The theory needed to be tested further, but alone this time. So there I was, early morning, lying on my back, hearing the rain, in some tent with other people clearly seeking the same, while a woman hits a stick against a metal bowl. She tells us to feel the vibrations moving through the ground and into us. I can’t seem to, thinking that perhaps there are too many people here all hogging the vibrations, none are left to reach me in my corner. With my hands to my stomach, I breathed as instructed. I’m trying hard not to fall back asleep at first, but then as she moves to a different bowl, a louder, harsher frequency, I’m jumped awake each time.

Thinking now about all the other times I’ve been in this exact position: lying on some floor, paying someone to heal me by basically just surrendering to what they tell me to do. It always has varying results. One time, I watched as a woman wept during a soundbath when a big pink crystal bowl was placed right on her chest, right over her heart and gonged. One time, tears streamed down my face, too, when the yoga instructor I’d been relying on to basically sort my life out via an hour of slow yin flows every other day told me I was getting really good. But right now, I’m thinking, I’m thinking, I’m thinking, and the woman at the front, moving between these various noisy tools, is telling me not to.

But it’s impossible. I’m thinking. I’m thinking about the day’s tasks, who I’ll see, what I want for breakfast, and whether I’ll have phone service today. I’m thinking about the break-in at my house and how hard the journey home will be on Monday. I’m thinking about the rain, how I’ll stay warm, whether it will rain more, and where I put my raincoat in my bag. I’m thinking about the other festivals I’ve been to and the times I didn’t pack warm enough clothes, and I’m calling myself an idiot for that, saying, ‘I hope you’ve packed better this time, idiot’. I’m thinking about my foot, and it hurts again. I’m wondering when this will end, but she’s still going. Gong. Gong. Gong.

It’s the longest hour of my life. Lying on a tent floor listening to everyone else breathe, I had to fight the urge not to hyperventilate, wishing I had the guts to simply get up and leave rather than lie there, fighting with every anxious thought.

Leaving the tent, incense and all, behind me, I felt dismayed. I’m always looking for something, some kind of healing hand, but that wasn’t it.

There is a conclusion to be found, though. Thinking back to the opening ceremony and the way I felt leaving those designated healing fields, it was pure and warm and optimistic. I left feeling loving, feeling very much in the spirit of Glastonbury, being a kind of modern Woodstock where peace and love are meant to rule. Leaving the soundbath and instantly paying £5 for an iced coffee, I felt jaded, wandering through a commercial land back to my base.

In short, healing can be found at Glastonbury, but it’s in the community, in the choir all choosing to sing a silly song about water, maybe not in the paid-for early morning soundbath where some stranger’s toes are on show and you’re left alone in your sleep deprived mind for an hour too long.

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