The Western Mysteries, Orkney
Languages: German and English
A week in a holiday cottage between Christmas and New Years
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Mystery places on the Orkney Islands
with Renatus Derbidge
The famous and very inspirational stone circles of Orkney, the Ring of Brodgar and the Stones of Stenness as well as cairns like Maes Howe and the oldest stone-built houses like Skara Brae are beacons of our cultural evolution. We will explore what they tell us about the evolution of mankind, the evolution of consciousness and why they were built. We will spend extensive time to perceive the places and structures. Observations together at the sites will be a schooling path to learn to perceive and to read their language, to get to a point where they reveal their secretes. We want to come to an understanding of what they still can mean to us today. Do they ask something of us? Is the impulse from many millennia ago still important today? Cairns and stone circles can be experienced as polarities. Extreme darkness in a cairn and extreme exposure to nature in a stone circle. Going through experiencing theses polarities we arrive at the fundamental polarity of world and self, inner and outer. Strengthening the soul between theses extremes we can develop our soul capacities to unite with the higher in us, in nature and in community.
Stone Circles are also be seen as installations or demonstrations of an ideal of social life that includes nature, the landscape, the cosmos, and everyone in its uniqueness. This trip is all about own experiences of this social "archetype" which is the fundamental experience of the "Western Mysteries"
We will spend consecutive days at Stone Circles and cairns and their surroundings. We`ll visit the sites at different times of day, weather conditions, moods, not only on mainland Orkney, but also on the islands of Hoy and Rousay.
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Apart from the megalithic period there will be a second focus on sites of the Celtic saints. The holy sites of the Celtic Church, today just ruins, still contain a strong sense of peacefulness and inner qualities. These atmospheric places once where the centers of pilgrimages in medieval times. An esoteric Christianity has once lived here and is now deeply inscribed into the places where we can connect to that spirit.
We will connect our experiences with insights from Rudolf Steiner about the "Hibernian or Western Mysteries". This trip will be an investigation of what theses mysteries are today and how they can enliven our lives and communities in times of much needed change.
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Please ask for further information.
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We travel in cars- please bring one (orvrent a car from Kirkwall) and share it or join an existing car group. All car costs will be equally distributed among all participants.
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To register please use the contact form.