Place of Power: Saxon Switzerland

Rarely do I feel a true, vast, and unstoppable power emanating from a certain place. Recently, I experienced this feeling while exploring Saxon Switzerland, a mountain range in southeastern Germany, extending further into the Czech Republic. The mountains aren't very high, so they're accessible even to novice striders like myself. At the same time, the area offers a diverse landscape with incredible cliffs and rock formations formed by the slow erosion of sandstone prevalent there.

But I don't want to talk about geology and geography, although those are interesting topics as well. In that place, you could feel a mass of emotions emanating from the ground, from the surrounding rocks and forests. One particular place struck me like a hammer, leaving me breathless. It happened on one of the summits, to reach it you had to climb a narrow metal ladder in a small crevice between the rocks. There on the top grew an oak tree. A huge, sprawling oak. And at its roots, there was a kind of niche. This hollow, at the top of the mountain, at the feet of the mighty oak, drew me in like a magnet.

I sat down in it and surrendered to meditation. Half an hour passed in the blink of an eye. I felt surges of energy, emotions, or perhaps mana, flowing through me. Mana in the original, Polynesian sense - the trace that ancestors leave behind on objects and places for their descendants. While I had previously struggled with my own spirituality, it seems to me that at that moment I truly experienced a kind of inspiration.

Only later, after exploring more of these mountains and reading about their history, did I understand what I truly felt. Like most of the areas in today's eastern Germany, this region was originally inhabited by Slavs, and then colonized by German settlers between the 12th and 14th centuries. Additionally, the Elbe River valley was an important trade route, and countless castles were scattered on the peaks; fortresses of bandits and nobles, though the difference between the two is truly minor.

All this conflict, all this spilled blood seems to gather in the Elbe Valley, washed into it with the rains. Is this bad? Is it a place of evil, negative power? It doesn't seem like it to me. Such events themselves are not a guarantee of evil spirits, they merely blur the boundaries between the worlds.

Sitting under the oak tree and absorbing what surrounded me, I felt no fear or sorrow. Before my eyes, I saw people sitting where I sit, in a circle around the fire. The eldest among them told stories to the younger ones, giving advice and warnings. This is what kind of Place of Power it is. A Place of Council and Wisdom. I recommend to all seeking spiritual enlightenment to make a pilgrimage to Saxon Switzerland, find the great oak tree at the summit, and engage in solitary meditation.