seeking the mythic in the neolithic

I hired a bike, to cycle out and visit some of the hundreds of neolithic sites that sprawl across the entire length and breadth of Bretagne. After the last ice age the hunter gather people of northern Europe began to settle and farm the lands that had previously been covered by the frozen ice sheets. In Carnac (Karnag – Breton) these early inhabitants left the world’s most prolific series of standing stones, Menhir and burial sites, Dolmen and Tumulus.

The Mother of Many

I set off with the desire in my heart to pedal right around the Gulf of Morbihan to Arzon, to see my first of these magnificent ancient sites. I was so excited and incredibly curious as to the frequencies I might experience. These ancient stones have been calling to me for some months now.

The bays are laced with rivers, salt marshes and inlets, so when Google maps delivered me to a crossing that was tidal in its nature I was stuck facing a footpath of mud yet to reveal itself. I would now have to cycle almost the entire distanced already covered to cross that water, far inland and start the journey all over again. Instead, I decided to head to a Dolmen that I had previously ruled out seeing that was half way back along the salty inlet.

I was so glad though that I was called to this remarkable Dolmen du Gorneveze. I was so unsure as what to expect. What kind of message might come through? I just sat there for ages staring at the five stones unwilling to touch them. I did immediately sense the frequency of hunting and searching for something lost however. I offered a little local cider to each stones and sat again just feeling the space.

Finally I reached forward and touched the top stone that seemed to defy gravity by floating above the four teeth stones. Straightaway I felt an immense sadness and deep loss of joy. I felt strength and power too but hidden far back. Then a teardrop of cider rolled slowly down my wrist and I gasped.

It was time to crack out the cards and ask if there was any kind of message. What followed was so deeply profound for me and those who watch this video after. Truly amazing and beautiful but not at all what I expected.

Part of my 13 Moon Galactic signature is the phrase that I ‘Seal the Store of Death’ but it seems here that I was able to connect into that store and open the door to release this Priestess spirit, so that she could return to us and heal others. I remain truly humbled and honoured to have been called by her so she could be remembered and empowered again.

I also tapped into the energy of ceremony that took place to create this Dolmen by her tribe to honour her and to bury her. Seeing how the small community was that created this Dolmen by using earth to surround the supporting stones and then they pulled the top stone over the top. A few days later this insight was confirmed when I visited the Musée de Préhistoire in Carnac.

We can’t be totally sure that these early Dolmen were left as covered mounds or exposed but my sense is that they were left covered over in soil and then trees or plants grown next to or on top of them. The highly acidic soil has removed most bones and evidence. Later Dolmen were much larger and some have a corridor into them so that further bodies could be added later.

Full Moon in Aries

With the incredibly moving responses to this post I could feel the priestess was still with me unfolding her story and adding to my understanding of her presence. She didn’t feel like a new guide that would be working with me for long but she did say that she would help with my readings for a few now.

Her truth was to go out and settle into the wider community again and be the ‘Mother of Many’ as she described herself to be known. I felt that this Queen of Wands card best described her energy with all the candles around her. Obviously she has a dog not a cat. This Huntress of Inner Fire suggested that by lighting a candle and calling to her she would come and assist all who called. She has already been guiding others to learn new esoteric skills in prophesy.

So I settled into the Moroccan courtyard of the tiny house where I am staying and Mother of Many communicated her messages for my full moon reading for the 1st October. A favourite day of the year for me as it’s my birthday. More about me and that day later. Here’s the reading.

The Double Dolmen

Setting myself an even longer bike ride the next day to the opposite side of the Gulf I set off to see a double Dolmen and its two silver birch trees. Again I was sent off track by Google maps but this time it was to keep me off the main road and the very fast cars that were so ignorant of my vulnerability as they shot past me on the often very narrow cycle lane. It took me hours but I arrived and sat down for a well deserved rest.

This place was so peaceful and so calm and so full of loving energy as I suspected it would be with its twin silver birch trees I’d seen in photos of the site. The silver birch tree yes where are they?

They had been butchered and destroyed in an act of foolish preservation that was in truth an abuse of the energy of the place. I did notice an fledgling oak tree though attempting growth and so I spoke a protective spell for its continued growth.

Here the energy of place while calmer was much busier having been in constant use right up into the Romano-Gallic period as there were fragments of statues of Venus found during excavations along with a Celtic mask and shards of a goblet or beaker. The message was about the Universal Language of Love and the ‘Mother of Many’ just winked at us again at the very end.

The Alignments of Carnac

I came to Vannes with the sole intention that on my birthday I might visit the world’s largest collection of standing stones and burial chambers from the neolithic period, Carnac. I tried booking my entrance to the Maison de Megaliths but it was fully booked until Monday the 5th but I was going to be put off. Unperturbed I did book a time to visit the Musée du Préhistoire, a separate museum containing most of the artefacts from many of the excavations all over the region by James Miln, Zacharie Le Rouzic, his locally trained assistant.

Arriving at the entrance to the Alignments du Ménec, the sun shone out for the first time for two days and I thought I pop into the Maison and try my luck. It clearly was my lucky day too, as not only did I get in for free but also my birthday is the first day each year when visitors are allowed to actually walk among the stones which are fenced off all summer to curb tourist erosion. I stared to watch the film of the history of the site but quickly decided that I needed the place to unfold naturally for me as I explored it myself.

Like Avebury the stones and the place itself have sadly over the millennia been disrespected. Houses and farm buildings were built inside the stone circle at the head of the Alignments. Many stones have also been removed and used as building material for those very houses. I would say its shocking but it’s just what happens when newer cultures rise, they supplant the sacred sites of those before them to demonstrate their dominance. This morning with the sun out and feeling so warm, my first glimpse of the Menhirs was with their shadows being cast. It just felt so perfect.

Off I went with the boldest spring in my step and for the first hour or two I was entirely alone among the sacred stones. This was a divinely special moment and I was so humbled again to be somewhere so special.

What energy was I feeling here? Firstly I was getting joy, happiness, community and stamina. Vastness and counting. Not a need to count the stones themselves as such, just counting. They are arranged in 11 rows, the Master Number of the Earth Grid in my understanding but why?

For me it was the sense that the stones are markers or demonstrations of growth. The grand stones at the start fell away to smaller stones and some rows vanished altogether in places but that could mean either stolen for building material or walls or removed entirely to make way for roads.

Some were twice as tall as me others didn’t reach my knee. Some were surrounded with grasses and others with gorse and wild flowers such as heather.

The first great arena of lined markers flowed over the rolling landscape and slipped away as a road intersected them, obliterating any sense of their continuing ever onward. Here there was also another handful of stone cottages.

Then came a division created by a brief pine forest and the obligatory high season overspill carpark and toilets with a viewing platform above.

This was ended as the next great eruption of granite monoliths burst to life like a stone forest. This second area is called the Alignments de Kermario and was even more impressive than the Alignments du Ménec in their height and placements.

This marked something new and also contained the first Dolmen to the far right hand corner, squashed next to a road. These stone giants were mingling and bustling with a new story that I wasn’t able to understand other than it marked an expansion of the original community into new pastures. This felt very different and though the layout altered from du Ménec it was still rowed lines that flowed down hill and shrank in size again. The Dolmen here was quite a big space for multiple bodies.

I soon reached and stopped at a view point atop a converted water-tower. The view was great but the stones here had been depleted and so not were not impressively regimented for a photo.

There are of course many myths surrounding the stones. One saying that they are an entire Roman legion turned to stone by Merlin, hence the lines. Merlin is connected to the forest, north of this site but not in the Neolithic period. Also suggested is that they are a group of pagans who were trying to chase down Pope Cornelius, hoping to stop the spread of Christianity. He prayed to god asking that they were turned to stone. Again this is just the wrong period in history but I love a myth.

Some of the stones are from 4500 BCE while others are believed to be from around 3000 BCE but exact dates are difficult to pin down as they were few artefacts found to Carbon Date them. The frequency I was picking up was that the rows representing tribes or family lines or settlements. Each stone was created at the birth of a new child. This growing pathway of Menhirs was a reminding connection back to the founding elders of the area.

As people died and were buried in the Dolmen the people moved up the lines toward the largest stones, becoming the new elders. Open air community meetings could also be held or festivities enacted with a sense of connection to the dead ancestors as well as the living elders. These elders could pass down the rows and then bring thoughts and decisions back to the circle at the start of the lines for the elders of each tribe or community to discuss.

If a tribe grew and more members were born and they needed more stones, then more were added, this would be a privilege and a feeling of pride and wellbeing with a family tribe. A sign of prosperity among the communities. As the tribes grew so did the need for more arable lands to feed them all and new, taller elder markers Menhirs were created to stake out territories of newer communities. Their elders would hold community meeting and together with their tribe form decisions that affected their fields and pastures. They would be able to send their elders as well to the elders of the original settlements to hold larger community discussions. Keeping the ancestor connection very much alive and in the present. Markers of history, growth and time. I also understood how the stones were decorated at certain times for ceremonies with flowers and leaves as well as natural pigments used to colour them.

Tumulus vs Huacha

I wandered next towards the Tumulus de Saint Michel. This huge false hill or mound is 125m by 50m and 10m high and was used as a community burial site and was built around 5000 BCE. It is also the highest point in Carnac.

This reminded so much of the Huachas in Peru. Large temple complexes that they believed were deliberately buried as cultures died out. My question immediately was “What dying culture has time or enough people to bury its temples under a mountain of soil?”. I suspect in both Perú and here that the soil was always part of the plan, to create dark and sacred spaces inside the earth not just for ceremonies but also to hide these sacred sites from others by making them look a natural part of the landscape and giving a high vantage point to act as a protective lookout.

This Neolithic Tumulus was abused of it original sacred purpose when in the 6th century a chapel was built on the top of the mound. The current chapel is the fourth such building and even that it is now closed and entry forbidden. I wonder at what point someone will realise that the dead aren’t happy with the chapels they keep building?

The Tumulus was first excavated in 1862 which suggests to me that the false hill was believed to be real right up until then. In 1900 it was explored again and a second chamber was discovered with stone chests and other artefacts adding to the complexity of the site and the people who built it.

The Tumulus is the highest point in Carnac with views across to the sea and Quiberon where further tombs and stones can be found.

Le Musée du Préhistoire

Founded by James Miln (1819-1881) the Scottish archaeologist settled in Carnac to live and work. His love and passion for antiquity brought him to seek answers to the ancient sites almost entirely forgotten until now. He employed and trained-up a local man, Zacharie Le Rouzic (1864-1939) and between them they created the World’s first Museum of Prehistory amassing a staggering collection of over 6000 archaeological artefacts covering 450,000 years of history, the Museum was, during Zacharie’s life, listed as a ‘Monument Historique’ by the French authorities.

Here I was able to give a sense of just how large some stones are. There are a number of carved stones which makes the mind boggle as to their purposes. Are they basic primitive art or are they abstract accidents? I suspect some are complex concepts like mapping with contours to be used in discussions or to mark places of food supplies. Or are they just strange faces staring out across time?

These vast carved stones were removed from various sites around the area to protect them, which though something I feel is wrong, I understand the need to protect them from vandalism. Though it seems telling that they survived millennia yet humans of the last century and a half cannot be trusted to respect them. What does that say about the false mask of sophistication that 20th Century humankind hid behind? In truth we have never been so destructive as a species.

This is a strong reminder of humanity’s peak point of muscular strength and physical prowess that has been in decline since the industrial revolution and the age of machines. This was so stark when looking at the artefacts found in the tombs. Jewellery was discovered in many of the burial mounds, presumably adorning the dead. The bones, I said before have been entirely rotted away. They did however eventually discover some skeletons wearing their beads in the site at Téviec in 1928.

Talisman Bead Work

There was a video in the museum showing the process of creating beads for these talismans. It was a fascinating inside into methods of production before metal tools in the later Bronze Age. Flint blades were used to cut away at coloured seams found in rocks from as far away as modern Spain and Portugal. These coloured fragments were then sanded into shape using large flat rocks with grooves worn into them.

Once the beads were shaped, a spindle of another hard rock was glued into a piece of wood with sticky tree sap left in the sun to harden. This was then mounted on a bow and arrow like mechanism allowing a rotating drill action to be created. By pulling down on the string that ran across the bow the shard of hard rock slowly pierced the beads. They were then polished on leather hide to bring out the full glossy colour and strung together. How modern and now do they look?

I sensed that with the toil and labour required to create such jewellery and the bloodied and damaged fingers created by working with just stone tools that creating a piece was a labour of love and would have been undeniably the property of the person it was created for. These were surly people who felt little pressure about the image of their own beauty but were fascinated by the image of stones when transformed into beads and strung together.

There seems no sense of inheriting property from a family member on their death. What was theirs in live went with them at death. These charms were theirs and their story was attached to it and so it was required to keep them safe on their journey forwards into the next world, hence being buried wearing their precious talismans.

There was an amazing variety of bead talismans too but mainly created from this distinctive jade colour though they used different rocks the seams were all a similar blue/green colour. This tradition seemed to continued in Bretagne culture well up to the end of the 19th century as can be seen here. Only now utilising beads made by different method during the Industrial Revolution.

The Unalignments of Carnac!

There are times when no matter how prepared you believe you are for life, the Music of the Spheres can serve a curve ball directly at you. Though exegetically it hits you silently, you carry it and it unfolds in its own unique time. I was hit by such a frequency early in the week and I didn’t suspect it at all. Mine was a Neptune/Pluto volley that hit me and unfolding during my birthday. I tried hard to ignored it but it was an echo from my birthday 30 years earlier when my deepest personal wound was lanced into my life and my entire world collapsed leaving me tormented with self-hatred and depression. I’ve posted a series of ‘Depression Confessions’ under the tab ‘Opening Up’. I’ve included the link so that I don’t have to write it all again.

What’s additionally interesting is that 2018 was the year my half life completely fell apart. It was in April that year that Chiron, the wounded warrior returned to the same spot in my natal chart. Chiron takes about 50 years to return and swings forwards and backwards in a sign for over 8 years. My Chiron is 0° 45′ of Aries which is a very powerful point as it is the ‘Aries Point’ of the Zodiac. The new astrological start or with Chiron, an old wound picked open again to see if you’ve really healed from it. I thought I had laid it to rest but it was back, crawling out from under a rock.

So how does that work? Well Chiron slowly meanders back and forth slowly progressing through a sign. Back in 2018, when my return began, I realise my partner was a cowardly narcissist and I walked away from him triggering my worst depression ever. I needed this though to find me and my self-respect for the first time in my adult life. I have spent the last two years doing with endless shadow work to assist my transformation to self acceptance.

Observing thoughts and the faults they opened in my psyche seemed endless. Changing those faults/thoughts to newer more caring behaviour towards myself at times seemed impossible too. This is, the Shadow Work I talk about so often in my readings. Questioning every aspect of myself to see why I do things. Changing patterns of behaviour I believe define me to create a new and better self loving vibration. The Music of the Spheres is constantly shifting and while I have healed myself a great deal it wasn’t as complete as I believed. This week was when the test returned to check in on me and see how far I’ve come. It’s like an emotional wobble to see how strong my Luminous Warrior really is..

So since Monday I’ve been on a countdown to Carnac, checking in on the decades old wound that I used to think had ruined my entire life. It was actually the making of my life but it took me decades to understand. It also took years to learn to forgive myself. I have however learnt to truly love myself and it’s been a long battle. I can even say “I love me” out loud, without hearing my mother tell me to stop blowing my own trumpet, which was also a huge barrier to self respect. I needed however to change my inner narrative and to stop blaming myself for problems dumped on me by others. They were projecting their self-hatreds on me to disguise them from themselves and they were displaying jealousy in their cruel actions.

I had always blamed myself or took responsibility for the faults of others because I believed I made then behave that way. I never considered that some destructive actions are the fault of other people’s negative projections. This is a complex paradox though as I manifested that behaviour in some ways too because I believed I was to blame all the time. We are responsible for our own actions but so are other people responsible for theirs. I finally accepted that I blame nobody and judge nobody either because all the dark traumas have been the rungs on the ladder to get me to this point right now where I can say I love all that I am. It helped enormously chatting last night with my wonderful friend Misha, who is also an expert astrologer. We worked back through my charts to see the frequency of the Cosmos when I was first deeply wounded and saw that there was a karmic element written in as a life challenge. Thank-you Misha I love you so very much.

Thankfully too, while at Carnac and in the thick of the emotional soup, I had my new friend the white stag Priestess, ‘Mother of Many’ by my side to protect me from the ‘Keeper of Karnag’. This ancient Guardian of the Stones was here to poke around in my psyche and prod the old wounds. He was here to throw a fog into my head to confuse me. To see if I was brave enough to march on still. As the afternoon rain fell on me and drenched me I walked further and further away from Carnac towards any place I could grab a bus out of there. Trouble was there was no bus for hours and I was very wet, so to cheer myself up I bought myself a dry shirt and scarf. It’s what they sell in Bretagne, shirt-wise.

I was worn out, tired, miserable and broken but I never lost my faith that I was flowing through the correct frequencies to learn something important. Once home I thought I had yearned to visit Carnac because it felt cosmically aligned to me but it had left me feeling bruised and bullied by my past.

That was the point of course and why it called so loudly to me. Carnac connects us all to the past. I thought I’ll never go there again but I have decided that I shall return and I shall seek counsel with the ‘Keeper of Karnag’ because I have passed his test, his initiation. I will return there, knowing that I didn’t crumble in the face of the heavy energies. Instead I allowed them to unfold their ghoulish waking real-life nightmares and I shadow-walked myself through them. I’m very proud of me for doing that. When I return and I shall sing to the place. I shall reconnect it to my Alma Mater, Stone Henge through Astral projection and gift Carnac with a celestial healing in thanks for bringing my traumas forward to be finally laid to rest properly. Chiron I am healed so get with my future plan or sod off.

Pick a Menhir

Yes people I will be posting a video for you all. There’s no theme this week I want each stone to just tell its story. Hopefully it will be Sunday but we we see when the ‘Keeper of Karnag’ is ready to obliged us. I fear they might be quite dark energies but we are strong and we are ready as spiritual warriors.

Time Stamps

1/ 11:18
2/ 29:32
3/ 52:40
4/ 108:47

Wassail and thanks again for all the kind wishes on our collective full moon birthday xx