My passion is to travel to authentic places where I not only connect with indigenous peoples but even more with the places where they live or have lived. In these places I’m in touch with nature and with our ancestors. At the powerful places my chakras open naturally and I feel very connected to the earth, the sun, the moon and the stars. However, I never felt the need to visit the places especially connected with Mary Magdalene and the Cathars until I read Kathleen McGowan, Ton van de Kroon, Lars Muhl and others.
I became curious about these places and, as I usually do, I impulsively booked a spiritual journey. This time I went with a tour group. Always exciting!
We had to travel by bus to Narbonne. I will never do that again. Halfway there we had to transfer to another service at 5 in the evening. It was a disaster. We stopped at a restaurant en route and all 80 passengers were expected to queue for a fatty meal and eat it in three quarters of an hour.
Of course, all 80 had then go to the toilet so by the time we were back on the bus we were totally stressed.
Back on the bus they showed a children's movie. It sounded so loud that I couldn’t read my book and I had to put it aside. The tour guide considered himself to be very funny and all the time told us what we could and could not do as if we were little kids. All this was not the ideal preparation for a spiritual journey.
Anyway, I suppose you have to deal with this sort of situations when travelling in a group. It slowly became clear who belonged to the group. When we arrived in Narbonne we were picked up by our guides, we were accommodated in a large house that overlooked the beautiful Pyrenees mountains. We had finally arrived in the land of the Cathars.
Certainly, the way the Cathars lived out their beliefs made a great impression on me and is still a source of inspiration; despite the fact that only the Cathars counted the spirituality. To them the earth was the hell and the body puts limits on the soul. The Cathars saw the liberation of the body as their highest aim on Earth. They expressed, one way or another, this philosophy of life. Either they were ahead of their time, or perhaps the "message of love" always remains the same but just changes its shape.
On the following days we visited places such as the ruins of the castles of the Templars, Rennes le Chateau, Carcassonne, Montsegur, the Grotto of Mary Magdalene and the holy mountain with the inauguration of the Cathar caves.
The initiation caves were absolutely the highlight for me.
The main initiation caves are Grottes des Eglises, de l'Heremite and Cave of Bethlehem.
On the last day of our trip we went into the Cave Eglises to prepare our inauguration. We went into meditation which turned into sounds. The well-known energy of the Elders filled my body and I started trembling. When that happens I become emotional and I know I need all my strength to ground.
When my body settled down and everyone had landed again we went into the cave of Bethlehem. This cave is a stone altar where some of the group sat while the rest of the group stood around the altar stone touching it with their hands to feel the energy. For most of us it was a special experience.
In the same cave there’s a silhouette of a pentagram on the wall. One should stand In this pentagram throughout the night. Some of my group stood in it. This was not so easy because the rocks were slippery. When I stood in the pentagram I wanted to meditate a little, but my body started shaking again so I could not stand any longer. According to one of our guides that is the powerful energy of the pentagram going through you. I was now called an initiate or what the "Good Christians" (Cathars) called a "Bonne Femme".
After the inauguration it occured to me that Mary Magdalene stands for the feminine aspect for the mother goddess. She was not only beloved by Jesus but also an initiate and an important apostle.
However, this female aspect has been deliberately deleted from history. I realised how important the energy of Mary Magdalene is at this time of transformation. After being separated over 2000 years from Mother Earth and from the Source, she asks us, after all, to express our passionate, earthy nature. All this will have an important influence on how we relate to each other and eventually brings us to Unity Consciousness.
Then I traveled to Ireland also to make contact with our ancestors and the places where they lived. Fortunately, I travelled by plane. But the queues for the security checks at Schiphol are getting longer and longer. What a hassle and to me it's just false sense of security; you have to take in radiation given off by those control gates. I also have problems with airlines like Easyjet. You think you have a ticket for 70 euros to Belfast but when you check in online you have to pay an additional 70 euros for your seat and your suitcase. I felt trapped. But I cannot complain because I know how lucky I am to do this work.
An English friend had booked a couple of weeks in Ireland and had no problem that I came along for 10 days. I had never been to Ireland and this was a great opportunity. But I am gradually getting to know I don’t go for nothing to these places. I was confident that I would be lead to the right places. I just needed to be there and to make connections with our ancestors.
My friend, who says she is not spiritual, worked out the whole programme, even taking into account the fact that I would like to visit ancient places. We had beautiful weather and so it was a treat to visit the ancient sites.
Little is known about the first people in Ireland. Probably they were farmers about 5000 years BC. They came to Ireland and brought seeds and animals.
It is incredible to think that I have visited tombs in County Meath: Newgrange, Loughcrew and Knowth which have been made 5000 years BC. These people who lived on the earth at that time worked as intensively with the sun as those who built the pyramids in Egypt and those who built Stonehenge (but these are younger creations).
Some graves are so constructed that with the winter and summer solstices rays of sun will come in at sunrise or sunset. However, the construction of the tombs is more connected with the moon and the female cycle. Inside, we often see the colour red which represents blood and earth. The shape of a grave sometimes takes the form of a mother’s womb and I had the impression that there was a connection between the womb of Mother Earth and the Great Goddess. Also, one has the idea that some tombs represent the form of a whole body.
I traveled a lot in recent years and was touched by many ancient stones; recently at 5000 meters altitude in the Sierra Nevada, but they keep pulling me and amaze me everywhere I’m going. What I also found very fascinating again were the drawings that are still visible in these ancient stones. No one knows for sure even these days why they made these drawings and what they represent. To me they represent the circle of life.
Besides my fascination with these ancient stones, I was also touched by the many ancient trees, and by the warmth and the hospitality of the Irish people. As poor as they are when your glass is empty someone will fill it. Magnificent is their white skin and beautiful red hair. I once read that only 10% percent of the world population has red hair and that 90% of them live in North West Europe. Well, I have never seen as many as I did in Ireland.
The thick red hair was required to endure the cold winters.
I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my thin blond grey hair. I had always thought that my ancestors came from North West Europe but now I have my doubts.
One evening we were in the pub to listen to live Irish music (click for the music on the microphone under the picture). It’s so easy to make contact with the Irish, but you can still feel the pain of their past. We all sang together and in the end we all stood up for the Irish national anthem. An Irishman said to me: “We never won, but we like to sing.”
I melted away and had tears in my eyes. People are so beautiful.
It was a treat to be able to visit these wonderful places in the South of France and the Middle of Ireland. It does not matter where I am but the ancient places tell me so often the same story as they communicate with me and with each other. Each time I experience miracles and I never get bored.
