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.

Autumn Equinox

It seems the little person is making me turning back towards myself. I am very grateful for this. For so long I have spent my lif doing things, creating and manifesting things, scheming and working for things, also achieving things, but I have at the same time frighteningly forgotten to nurture myself. The upmost thing I did to treat myself, was lying in bed for a while reading a novel. For me this was a big improvement, since I havn't read any novels while I was in Uni, only books on my subject. I have now realised that I have not done any of the things I wanted to treat myself to. I havn't done the scuba diving course I wanted to do, I haven't gone back to dancing class, I have for several years not taken the singing classes I was going to take, and I have postponed taking up Yoga again for 12 years now! I can't believe I have actually for 12 years believed there were reasons why I couldn't go back to Yoga now, I was always going to do it sometime soon.
Now I'm doing Yoga for pregnant ladies, and I love it. It's so good to do Yoga again. Even though this is of course different from the Yoga I did when I was 18, I still find it exhausting. My beautiful friend Graell reminded me that I am growing a human inside, so I guess I'm ok. I'm loving the Yoga Class.

I have been struggling with severe headaches since the Goddess Conference and I know that these are drawing my attention to how imbalanced a life I have been leading. I love how I am taking time for myself again now, paying attention to a better diet and making sure that I give myself the time to be with the Lady in meditation, in song and in the dreamtime. Working with the energy of the autumn equinox I have realised which parts of my life need to be nourished more and my friend, the wonderful Elaria, has helped me a lot with this, sharing her wisdom as a mother with me, and elped me to truly understand, that this is not the time to work to achieve things, but to do things with curiosity and joy, and not because the serve a purpose.

I am so grateful for the gentle changes that are happening and all the healing I receive. Belinda facilitated a beautiful Mabon ceremony by the Rhine, where we were giving thanks for the harvest in our lives.

Harvest Altar at the Autumn Equinox

That evening really marked a home-coming for me, coming home to myself. I am so grateful to my baby, for pulling me back inside. She is now very active, dancing and hopping around a lot inside her happy ocean womb. I sing to her evryday and Mitja and I love feeling her little movements.

The Mother at Lammas

As the Wheel turns and we are approaching the Festival of the Autumn Equinox, where we celebrate Banbha, the Mother of Earth, who is Hertha/Nerthus in Germany, and the Harvest Mother Tanfana, I realise I am somehow still waiting for the Lammas energy to arrive. It feels like we've gone straight from Domnu into Banbha. I was planning to paint the Great Mother Goddess in her season, when the days would be hot and golden, when the sunlight would seem endless and I'd go cycling through Her crop fields, watching Her golden hair spread over the land in the summer.
Instead ist's been cold and rainy and gray and dark.
So it is time to find the Mother not outside, but within. What a joy, since I am pregnant with my first child. At my beautiful Blessing Way ceremony in Avalon, facilitated by my friend, the wonderful Katinka Soetens, the women looked at me and they SAW the Goddess. What a humbling experience. I am now in my 18th week, can't yet feel my baby moving, but am showing very much. I love it. I can't wait to be a mother. I am so looking forward to having my baby. At the same time this seems to be a time of facing the fact that I will eventually have to let my own mother go, and that this is killing me. I want to be a mother, that doesn't mean I don't need to be my mother's daughter anymore. I need my own mum. I am very much walking a path of light and darkness at the same time right now. I can't do much except for sitting with what is and letting my baby and my mum know how much I love them. Maybe the Equinox will help me accept and find balance.
I am still planning to paint the Great Mother Goddess. And as my baby grows and as I change and experience the Mother Goddess on a whole new level the idea I have of this painting will change until I will eventually paint it.

The central altar at my Blessing Way Ceremony.

The ceremony was incredibly beautiful. It gave me so much strength and when the women sang a beautiful song by Sally Pullinger for me, I felt transformation happen.

Freya's Fire

Today I can feel life's energy stirring within. I am full of ideas. I want to paint Freya and also a painting of Mother Nolava is shaping up in the back of my head. I also want to facilitate a workshop on Isis and I want to plan and create right now. But I'm off to work, so it'll have to wait just a little longer. On the other hand I very often come up with some really good ideas during work, note them down and that is valuable progress also.
I am going to facilitate a Beltane Ceremony on Saturday evening though. On the actual eve of Beltane Mitja and I went camping, so we did a very beautiful ceremony together, calling in the Lover Goddess, honouring each other, sending love out into the world and sharing May Wine. The event on Saturday is open to everyone. We will be celebrating the Lover Goddess Freya, Loreley and Rhiannon. We'll be celebrating our own sensuality and sexuality, we'll be calling in the Lover Goddesses of the world, we'll find the Lover within, we'll walk the Labrynth and we'll give thanks for the Love in our lives. There'll be drumming and singing and jumping the fire!
We'll meet at the Bus Stop Casselsruhe at 5pm. Minimum donation is 12/15€. If you want to come please let me know here or on facebook (look for Freyas Feuer) so I can get an ideas of numbers. Blessings of the Lady of Beltane xxx

Growth and Manifestation

I'm in a funny place. I feel how change is happening very deep down inside the core of things, while on the outside not much seems to be happening. I'm between trust and impatience, excitement and a feeling of failure, and at the same time I feel deeply connected to the Lady. I know that everything is in the flow, I see my life being full of love and joy and laughter, creativity, frienship and connection. And I know some of the things I want but haven't achieved yet, will manifest in time, and many more wonderful things I am not even dreaming of will come as a lovely surprise.
I've spent the last few weeks writing on the German Wheel of the Goddess, researching many of HER beautiful faces and names, connecting deeper to the Goddess heritage of my homeland. While the trees were blossoming in all their spring glory I lay on the meadow, reading and typing away. Mitja and I left some offerings of coloured eggs for Ostara on the day of the Spring Equinox, calling in fertility, growth and love.

We made Holle's plaits and and read the dialogues of Inanna and Dumuzi to each other. On the morning of Easter I went to the brook to drink some water in the morning sun, always calling in growth, creativity, fertility and abundance. Life is peaceful and quiet.

I'm hoping hoping hoping to get a positive response from one of the publishing houses soon. I love to write and it would be a dream fulfilling if I could one day live off being a writer. This is what I want.

The Healing Process

The time is moving so quickly! I have had a very interesting time of Quickening with Bridie and of walking my truth with Skadi. When I had my Saturn Return I wanted to leave behind fear that causes me to make choices which don't support me on my own path to Truth and Happiness, but choices which seem to keep me safe, mostly following other people's fears and expectations. Having called in healing and liberation and change everyday I have at the same time tried to hold on to the same false security which suffocates me and takes my energy and makes me waste my time, living in fear, trying to fulfil expectations which don't nurture me. The fear to end up on the street and in poverty is so strong in me that I have never dared to be brave to live my dreams. And because all those plans which I try to follow to lead to safety and security never work out for me, because they were made by other people and for other people. They are like garments that just don't fit me.
So I struggle and I fail.
Goddess has such a strong way to draw attention to the things which aren't right for us. She has been telling me for six weeks to stop following somebody else's plan, and that I don't need a plan, that I just need to start living my life!
After a car accident, a break-in into the car I borrowed to use while the other car is at the garage, since repairing it seems to take forever, and investing a hell of an amount of money which I don't have I have now decided to give this job up. I have never so clearly experienced being kept from doing something (working at the school). I did enjoy it, but I'd rather get out before something worse happens to me.
So the message is clear. I am to believe in myself and to use the gifts I have been given, to listen to my own heart and to spend my life doing the things I love, instead of doubting myself and trying to be a person that I am not.
A huge and scary thing. I hope one day this prospect stops feeling scary, but natural.
So I love writing, painting, singing and the Goddess. I will do these things from now on without feeling guilty because they won't support me. I will do them because I feel half dead when I don't do them.

By the Rhine I did a ceremony today to let these old fears go and to be reborn, into my new life, to be reborn to truly be the woman and priestess I can be.
I ask for your blessings, Great Goddess, be with me on this path and help me. I feel deep gratitude for my partner and family who accept and love me the way I am. Bless my new life Lady, and let me be free!

The last days

I start to shop for souvenirs. I walk through the Souk everyday on my way to school, listening to my music and ignoring all that's being said to me. Eventually I manage to enjoy the colours and the scents of incence and of the spices again.

Two boys on a donkey on their way to the harvest in the sugar cane fields.

A well deseved break.

Playing

The school organizes a trip to Abydos and Dendera and I spend a lovely day with Hathor. The tour guide is not great. I know more about the gods and goddesses and the history of the pharaohs than he does, and I havn't even studied Egyptology. I leave Sofia, Alice and Paolo to talk to him and wonder of by myself. I see the kings list of Abydos and some beautiful depictions of Nut in Dendera. As I said before, I don't usually think much of anything later than 18th Dynasty, but I like the temple at Dendera. I know there is a relief of Kleopatra VII with her son Cesarion and I find it eventually. I have never been intrigued by Kleopatra before, but now that I stand before this testamony to the last great Queen I suddenly think that I want to know more about her. This will be a lovely subject to study when I'm back home. I also like the Sacred Lake. Other than the lake in Karnak this one is dry, it seems more like a palm tree garden, and it is very beautiful. The whole complex of Hathor's temple at Dendera is very beautiful. Currently there is conservatory work being done on it, and I can imagine, when everything is bright and clean again.

A beautiful Nut in Abydos.

With Isis outside the temple of Sethos I at Abydos.

I at one of Hathor's chapels in Dendera.

The Gang.

Back out in the sunlight.

In my last week I go back to the Theban Mountains on my own and spend a very happy day there exploring. I walk into Saff tombs and into other tombs, crouching down and crawling in through openings. I find bones and mummy wrappings, and bones with bitumen und resin and stuff on it, and cones. Nothing is worth anything, but I still leave everything in place. I'm a bit disappointed because I don't know whose tombs they are or which archaeological mission has the concession of them, but there's nothing I can do. I watch the sun set in Deir el-Bahari and say goodbye to Hatshepset. I'm very tired that evening, covered in dust and my shoes are beyond cleaning, but they weren't meant to come back home to Germany with me in the first place, and I am very happy. It was a great day in the Theban Mountains. As much as Luxor and modern day Egypt annoys me, as much do I love the Western Mountain and the timelessness there.

A ghafir at the mortuary temple of Sethos I in Dra' Abu el Naga pushed me up the ruins. I managed to tell him that I'm scared of heights in arabic!!! He wanted us to climb up even further, but I had enough.

Looking into one of the tombs.


I am told that there is going to be an exam on my last day in school and it amuses me, since I am doing the course just for fun and don't need the exam for anything. I study and at the same time I send out applications for jobs and prepare for interviews, which I hope to have when I'm back home. Sallam thinks I will have 100 per cent in my exam and I do, and I feel like I'm Hermione Granger. I hope I will manage to fit continuing to study Arabic into my busy schedule back home.
While I enjoy my last days in Luxor and count down the days to go home I hear about the uprising in Tunisia and the reactions in Cairo and Suez. I get emails from friends and family back home, asking me to be careful. I can see no reactions in Luxor, everything is as quiet and calm as always.
Of course I spend my last evening on the roof watching the sun set above the Theban Mountains, and the temple standing there, as grand and as silent as always.
I can't wait to come home to my lovely man.