Voice from the Past (Part 1) - How I found my way to the Dolmen
When I hit a roadblock in my journey to becoming a mom, I sought out a spiritual coach. It was the point where I said - I can’t go in the same direction I’m going anymore, something has to change. I started to allow my intuition again and no longer wall it off to deal with society's judgment of me. And a book was suggested to me - Anastasia by Vladamir Megre
It was the most poetic and beautiful story about creating a child in love. And also so many concepts taught to Vladamir by this woman, Anastasia, who lives in a traditional way like her Vedic ancestors have in the Russian forest. If you want to have your mind blown about so many topics - then you simply must read the books for yourself. But, I will introduce you to one concept that took hold of me here. That is the dolmens.
Many theories have been put forth as to what they are and why they existed, but most just saw them as some sort of ancient burial site or ancient ruins. And so over time, many of these sites have not been regarded well or kept up. Anastasia claims that these are from her Vedic ancestors and that they were actually spaces where people went into eternal meditation. But, not just anyone could be allowed to enter into these spaces. Only those who were deemed the wisest of the group would be allowed. The concept she teaches is that they are still portals where we can visit and get wisdom from the souls that are there. They are literally waiting to teach us the ancient knowledge, but have been abandoned as the generations started to forget what they were and who they were.
After reading the books, I had found some answers to my health challenges, but also went through a divorce in the process when he told me he realized (after 4 years ) that he didn’t really want to have children. A few years went by and I was having trouble meeting a suitable partner. I felt in order to create change, I needed to do something different. Some people go on quests or travels to ancient civilizations or dolmens. I instead took a huge leap and decided to move countries. I looked for jobs, teaching at an international school, hoping I might find something near a dolmen site. The normal time to apply for international school jobs is usually starting September to January for the next school year. So, as I was looking in June, there were not as many jobs listed at that point. And I was searching for a very specific teaching job - that of an orchestra teacher, so that already makes the list much smaller. But, the first search I did - I found exactly one job, at a school located in Southern India, for which my qualifications were perfectly matched.
I applied for that job and less than 2 months later, found myself in a little town of Kodaikanal, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. This town is a hill station and so it is located at roughly 2,100 meters high or nearly 7,000ft above sea level. (This picture is a view from a bakery located a little ways from the main city center.) I found a tourist post online about a dolmen site located somewhere on the hillside near the school. And, so I looked forward to possibly having a dolmen encounter during my year of teaching.
But, with the culture shock and arriving a month after school had started - I dove straight into teaching and for a while largely forgot about my dolmen quest. You can see in the picture here, a view from my classroom at the elementary school, surrounded by lush green trees and we occasionally had monkeys visiting us here on this railing.
But, in the spring when I realized I would not be returning the next school year, I started to ask around if anyone knew where the dolmens were and if it would be easy to go visit them. One of the Canadian women, Barbara who had lived in the town for many years and led many school hikes to all different locations around the hillside told me that we were literally surrounded by them.
“If you want to visit one, we will be going on a field trip with the art class in a few weeks and we are including a stop at a dolmen site, along with a visit to a coffee plantation.”
I was excited to have a chance to go and then also kind of kicking myself for taking that long into the year to visit something that was right in my backyard. I had never seen a plantation with coffee plants either, so that added to the intrigue.
As I learned from multiple outings with school and other adventures, sometimes construction or random changes would make a certain plan not work. When we came around the corner where the first visit to a dolmen was planned, Barbara found out from the driver that there was construction blocking that area. She knew the area so well from all her hiking excursions that she asked the driver to go to a different location. It was a bit farther off the path, but to my amazement - it was the spot that I knew I was supposed to visit.
We were with many students and several teachers and told we only had about 5-10 minutes to look around. But, I knew from the moment I got out of the van to look around that I had to come back. And, that was what happened. A few weeks later, after classes were done and I had a little more free time, I hired a driver and brought a friend to go back and visit this spot.
When you looked out from this hillside, there was a view in many directions and yet no sign of modern civilization or city life. There was a small village located nearby, but that was it. I couldn’t believe that no one had tried to build around here. That somehow the sacredness was being preserved, even if unknowingly. We lived only about a 30-minute drive away, but this spot was largely unknown. In fact, when we asked the taxi driver why he wasn’t going to go do something else while we spent time there, with tears in his eyes he said,
“I have lived here my whole life and I have never been to this spot before. It’s so beautiful. I would rather hang out here as well.”
The synchronicities of the fact that Barbara had known about this hidden spot, when others did not - was kind of amazing to me. (To be continued in Part 2)