Yule on the Brookberg

The idea to take the train to Nijmegen was good, but the carrying out was quite another story... Ron drove me to Haarlem Station. I took the train to Amsterdam Central. There I would take a direct connection to Nijmegen. No such luck... There were troubles with the trails around Utrecht, so I had to make a big detour and switched trains no less than 5 times with long waits in between. Instead of an hour and a half it took me almost 4 hours to travel from Amsterdam to Nijmegen. To save me another switch Wonder picked me up at Arnhem Station. We were very late to arrive at the Brookberg. What a start!
The weather was still cold and sunny. Everything looked beautiful. The lake was frozen for a large part, the trees were white frosted, it was amazing. I took picture after picture. You can see them all here.
The sweatlodge was ready, the fire was burning. We did four rounds without leaving the lodge in between (the cold outside would cool us off too fast). It started mild, but in the end it was pretty hot. I could take it though. The Yule sweatlodge is very special with protection by Grandmother Bear. I asked to be able to let go of something very difficult for me: my body image. I would like to accept my body as it is, even now or maybe especially now...
After we had dinner there was a small fire ceremony. Those who wanted to trust something to the fire could do so. Wonder, I and 2 others drummed during the ceremony. Back inside Ben lead a chrystal ceremony. It was wonderful, but I had to try very hard to concentrate, because I was very tired! Afterwards we went to the tent with two mattresses, because our inflatable bed leaked. I slept like a log nevertheless. We had plenty of blankets, so it wasn't cold.
In the morning it was time to put down the tent. a lot of people had already left. We did the closing circle inside with 9 people. It became a very interesting discussion about how we had been this weekend. I told about my body problem and got some advice. I also received a very nice compliment that touched me. One of the women compared how she saw me in the sweatlodge to a statue of Gaia she has at home, the goddess of the earth. Someone else said I made her think about the Venus of Willendorf . I just wish I could see my body as that of a goddess...