Birthday Weekend

Last Sunday I turned 31. I think in the 31 years of my life this is the third time I can remember it being sunny on my birthday :-) And I had such a lovely time. Mitja took Freyas Day and Moon Day off and popped to the North for a very short trip to see my family on my birthday. We didn't do anything in particular on the Friday. Mitja offered to bake me an apple cake for my birthday, and because I couldn't decide which one I wanted he made me two. He is so incredibly loving.

Oh how lovely they were. We had one of them right then on the Friday.

On the Saturday my mum and I drove up to Magdeburg for a family celebration. My mum's cousin and his wife, my uncle and aunt, celebrated their 70th birthday. I don't get to see too much of my family so it was really lovely to be there. I even met some relatives I hadn't ever met before, only heard my mum talk about them. Her other cousin lives in Budapest with his son and lovely lovely wife. I liked them alot and Mama invited them over next year for her own 70th birthday. It's gonna be quite a big, international party!

On Sunday we had a lovely birthday breakfast. My older brother couldn't be there, but my younger was, and I was really glad to be with my family.

Where I sat at the breakfast table with the candle of the light of my life. Mama decorated my place with flowers and leaves from the garden. She does every year. I love it. That's why I go home. Nothing is as wonderful as having your mum look after you.

And this year I had my partner with me as well. How blessed am I.
We didn't have any lunch: We went for a walk instead. With my pregnancy it wasn't a very long walk, but the weather was so gorgeous we just enjoyed being out so much. We found the most beautiful apple tree by the side of a field and picked some apples and ate straight away. I wish we could have picked more to take home, they were delicious and I could have made them into yet another cake :-) I love apples. They are the sacred fruits of the Goddess and as I was born in the season when they are ripe they always make me feel extra blessed by the Lady. Also I can't think of any way in which apples aren't tasty. They are lovely in juice, in cider, fresh, cooked in compot, in apple sauce, in cakes, in pies, in pancakes, in savoury dishes, with pork or chicken, dried and in so many more ways! Thankyou Goddess for your wonderful fruit!

Then we had cake and coffee! Vally was there as well, and brought an other cake, this one with chocolate and nuts and creme and egg liqueur. So we enjoyed all!

My birthday cake. Mitja cut the central aple into the shape of a heart. Did I mention how much I love him?

And then we gathered by the fire place and spend some time chatting, reading and playing cards, while Mama had a little nap. But of course we weren't done eating! Mitja and I had cooked a pumpkin soup earlier in the day from one of the pumpkins from my mum's garden. She is the Green Goddess and harvests the most beautiful fruits and vegetables every year! The pumpkin was delicious.

The dinner table.

Vally couldn't stay for much longer after dinner, so we spent the rest of the day by the fire place, just the four of us: Mitja, Mama, Malte and I. And the little fairy in my womb who kept hopping and dancing, causing funny little bulges on the outside of my belly. Mama and I watched and felt her doing that for about an hour.
So, that was my birthday, very calm and quiet and more delicios food than we could manage!

The next day after two more meals with the family and a stroll through my mum's garden, Mitja and I went back to Bonn. We took the rest of the pumpkin with us to Bonn. It's huge. I have so far made another pumpkin soup, for when Mitja's step dad visited us on Wednesday, I have just made 7 glasses of super duper pumpkin marmelade, and there's still so much left that I'm planning to make a pumkin cake tomorrow for the Samhain ceremony on Moon Day evening. I don't know if I'll have used it up then. But I can't let the Mother's (Mother Earth's and Mama's) gifts go to waste! And I love cooking.

My lovely Mum and I in her garden.

I had such a lovely time in the North. It's about 7 weeks until Yule when I go back. Can't wait!

Autumn

Ah I have had such a lovely quiet autumn! I have not been working for three weeks, but instead taken my time to reconnect with friends, to continue my studies about the Goddess and to be creative. Here is my Autumn Equinox Altar to Banbha/Nerthus the Mother of Earth:

I have been working on this painting for three years, She was very difficult to capture. The wonderful Dana and I have also completed another card which you can purchase on my etsy shop. It is a Yule Card showing Perchta the Shining One, but maybe you'd also like to check out my Samhain Card of Nolava the Crone

While I was painting Banbha I felt the energy change. It got really cold, crispy and clear, very wintery. The veil between the worlds thins, and Samhain is here, the beginning of winter. I made a few necklaces, this is the one I made for Keridwen, the Dark Mother, the Crone, the Great Transformer:

The Skydisc of Nebra and the Solar Observatory of Goseck

My mum and I went on a little pilgrimage into the past. For years I have been following the discovery and presentation to the public of the Skydisc of Nebra.

This Bronze Age disc dates back to 1600 BCE and shows the night sky viewed from Sachsen-Anhalt. It shows the full moon, the crescent moon and the Plejades, as well as 25 more stars. This depicts the points in the agricultural year of sowing and of the harvest. The two golden bands (one is lost) show the angle of the sun rise and sun set at the Winter and Summer Solstice. At the bottom there is a boat, which in Bronze Age mythology is quite often depicted. In mythology it often carries the sun across the sky.
I love this piece.
So on sunday we went to the Interpretation Centre, where there is a nice presentation in a planetarium about what secrets the skydisc holds, but apart from that it wasn't very interesting to me. It seems to be rather set up to entertain families with children, then to address a scientifically interested audience. I didn't mind though, since my mum and I have studied the skydisc and knew pretty much all about it before.
We then took a shuttle bus up to the top of the Mittelberg, where treasure hunters found the skydisc in 1999. It is a lovely place, we walked through a beautiful autumn forest for about 500 metres until we reached the summit. They have cleared the summit from trees when they excavated it, and there is a ring-shape earthen wall which was built in the Iron Age. We walked through an opening gap in the wall and visited the Skymirror, a little monument to mark the exact spot, where the disc was found. I like the connection, the Skydisc in the eart mirroring the nightsky above, and now that the disc is in the museum in Halle the Skymirror has taken it's place and mirrors the sky day and night.

The Sky Mirror

There is a really ugly tower which you can climb, and from the tower there are concrete markers lain out on the ground pointing you to where the sun sets and rises at various points of the year, several of them aligned with other sacred mountains and hills, like the Brocken and the Kyffhäuser. We didn't climb it, becauser we didn't have much energy left and were still to go to the solar observatory of Goseck!

This woodhenge monument consists of two concentric palisades with openings aligned, again, to the directions of the sunrise and sunset at the Winter Solstice, Summer solstice and other meaningful times. It is about 7000 years old and it is surrounded by a wall and a ditch.

Mama standing on the wall, overlooking the beautiful peaceful monument our ancestors created in neolithic times.

The wall and ditch

Sunset seen through one of the openings

It was lovely. Because it was so late when we arrived there was nobody there and we had the whole sacred space to ourselves. It is a wonderful place. It has only recently been discovered and excarvated, and it was ceremonially opened at the Winter Solstice 2007. I left an offering of dried rose petals, lavender and herbs, honoring the ancestors and saying a prayer. The sun was setting gloriously while my mum and I were inside the circle and exploring the surroundings.