An encounter with the spirit of the earth mother

West Kennet Long Barrow is a Neolithic barrow located in the south of England, very close to Avebury. It is situated on a small hill and is freely accessible. On a warm full moon night, I joined a group of shamans to join them in drumming. A long dark passage leads deep into the maw. At the far end of the barrow is a large roundish chamber where we gathered.

When we had been drumming for quite a while, I suddenly had the unmistakable feeling that the whole chamber was spinning on its own axis! And at such a speed that I thought we would take off at any moment! The massive stones suddenly resonated with our drums and threw the sound back at us in the form of a deep “wham wham wham” sound.

At that moment I saw her, the Earth Mother, dancing with us in wild and detached ecstasy! She looked exactly like the countless Venus figurines that have been found all over the world, some of which are 15,000 – 20,000 years old!

What I found particularly fascinating was that it consisted only of a solid earth body and had no head, like many of the Venus statues, which only have a torso. Our ancestors must have been clairvoyant, because that’s exactly how I perceived her spirit! She was brimming with raw, archaic and unbridled life force! She was anything but a delicate Venus, a goddess of love, a seductress!

In retrospect, I had to think of all the indigenous cultures that lose themselves in the same wild passion during their ritual dances and draw their strength from this ecstatic connection! We modern people lost this ability a long time ago, but this experience shows that we too can reconnect!