From my talk Moving Through Time: Neolithic Pilgrimage as a Path to the Ancestral Mother, Wisdom of the Mother Symposium, 23.4.2026

Symbolic Language of the Monuments

Now, before we shift to the movement experience of this session, let’s have a quick look at the symbolic language of these sites. You might have heard this play of words before, but it’s often hard to distinguish between the quality of tomb or womb, and indeed, in the burial mounds, dolmen and cairns, they seem closely interrelated. That is one avenue of introspection, our relationship to the cycles of living and dying.

The structures themselves are often circular, oval or consist of a mound rising from the earth, or a hollow, inverting down into the earth. Many also contain simple geometric patterns like concentric or repetitive circles, spirals, zigzags, flowing waves, serpent-like lines and even rainbows carved into the stones.

The architecture combined with the carved symbols worked together to express a cosmology of continuity, mirroring patterns already present in nature. The spiral echoes shells, unfurling plants, whirlpools, weather systems and the inward-outward rhythms of life, death and rebirth. Serpent forms suggest life force, fertility, renewal and earth wisdom.

Whatever their original function may have been, I experience time and time again is that these are threshold places linking life and death, past and present, body and land. I also learn so much from bringing these symbols into movement and spiritual imagination.

Symbols in the Body with Qi Gong

Bringing symbols into the body can evoke different knowing than through cognitive analysis. A circle for example can invite a felt sense of wholeness and inclusion. Spiralling movements may support a sense of rising and expanding life force, Because symbols speak to deep layers of the psyche, embodied practice can stir memory, imagination, insight or renewal without needing words first. So let’s explore some symbols in the body. You can remain seated or choose to stand, either is fine.

We explore the following symbols:

Infinity sign: in the hips (timelessness, past, future, behind, in front)

Circles: hip bowl and sacrum (lap of the mother)

Spirals: Lifting the Water, Pouring the Qi (greening power)

Snake: Swimming dragon  (rising life force)

Descent-Ascent: Buddha holds up the earth (dark and light)