#39. PSYCHOPOMP JOURNEY IN THE VAGINA CAVE
Bidding Farewell to Heikki
27 August 2022 — Kirkkonummi, Finland
Yesterday, 26 August 2022, proved to be a momentous day for our Oksanen family here in Finland. During our breakfast preparations, Anna’s father, Heikki, died after a fast and furious week of bodily decline with liver cancer. On Friday, 19 August, he had officially started his home hospice care. The doctor and nurses visited the home and set up a visitation schedule for the time to come. And then, only one week later, Heikki died peacefully in his own home with his wife Irma, his daughter Anna, grandson Kivi, and myself present.
There is a lot more to say at some point about the sudden realization of his cancer and his last weeks here on Earth, but what I want to focus on in this episode is my trip to a local natural site, what is often referred to as the Vagina Cave of Kirkkonummi. Just as when my own father, George Hartley, was dying, I was now being called to perform a departing ceremony to honor Heikki’s journey into the beyond. I felt called upon to attend to this sacred moment of transition from this plane to the next in my role as a psychopomp—one who assists the passage of the dead into the next world.
The Vagina Cave is a place I have been feeling called on to visit for at least a year now since I first discovered it online. The cave is only a few kilometers from the Oksanen family home, but nobody here knew about it, which for me only added to the mystery of it. While there seems to be very little about the cave online on the typical websites, you can find quite a few Facebook posts featuring photos of individuals and families who have made the hike over the rocky hill to visit this remarkable cave.
Our car was the only one in the parking lot during my hike yesterday, which from what I can gather online is not atypical. I followed the signs that read “Luola” (which is Finnish for “Cave”), which proved to be helpful, given the twisting nature of the trail as it winds its way over and around the rocky cliffs of Högberget (which is Swedish for “High Mountain”). Running roughly parallel to the cave trail were the horse riding trails that come up from the Wikner Horse Farm on the opposite side of the hill.
Once I reached the crest of Högberget I could see the horse farm spread out below me on the southeast side of the hill and the hills to the east in the distance. I could feel the presence of the cave slightly southwest of where I was, so I turned to my right. I quickly arrived at a steep cliff face going straight up in front of me and dropping straight down behind me. I was a little surprised to find myself at this dead end but returned to the trail (which was no longer marked) and wound myself down towards the farm road below.
Just a few dozen meters down I saw a path leading to the right, just below where I had gone when I had reached the dead end. It turns out that I was right earlier in my intuitive GPS alignment but hadn’t taken elevation into account. Now I saw the cave entrance up on a small incline just below the cliff.
I was a little surprised to see that the cave’s entrance did not resemble the very vagina-like images I had seen in the photos online, but as I entered the cave I discovered that its Vagina aspect began as a second, inner chamber. Here was the magical geologic miracle that so perfectly expresses the womb-like nature of our Earth Mother! The cave was a little smaller than I had expected. I had to hunch down to fit through most of it, and by the end of the cave I was almost crawling on my hands and knees. I made my way to the very end of the chamber and turned around to face the cave’s outer entrance. In one of my photos you can see my blue rain jacket on the entrance rock, which gives a little sense of the dimensions of the structure.
Once I got myself seated and settled, I sank into my usual tuning-in exercise, which is the pranayama breathing exercise I learned from the Kyy Serpent spirits here in Finland back in 2012. This exercise draws me much more deeply into the etheric, astral, and mental body dimensions of perception and communication. Now that I think back on it, I could hear my High Self, Adam Kadmon, explaining what I was seeing and feeling as I sank into the multidimensional nature of the Cave. Adam Kadmon was reminding me of the profound initiatory experience I had had in 2011 in the West Kennet Barrow in Avebury, England. I agreed that the energy was very similar and therefore very familiar.
Not long into this experience I began to see the walls and the space between slipping into that etheric glow that almost always marks by entry into the etheric realms of perception. Almost immediately after this I began seeing glowing human-shaped figures moving around in the Vaginal chamber. Adam Kadmon told me that these entities were the local Elves that oversee the portal nature of the chamber. Interestingly, the energy of the Elves that I was feeling was much smoother and less disturbing initially than in my previous experiences with Elves. This energy was very warm and welcoming—appropriate, I suppose, for the maternal aspect of the magical geologic space I was sitting inside of.
One of the Elven shadows took on a more defined humanoid shape and introduced herself as Ishkaya, the Elf who oversees this space. She informed me that she served a similar role as Callador, the Elf I had met in our home in Athens, Ohio. And just like Callador, Ishkaya’s job in part is to guide all beings as they pass through this portal space.
Ishkaya then told me that it was very important that I had followed through on my prompting to journey out to this Vagina Cave as part of Heikki’s ceremonial passing into the Underworld. I was reminded of the same role I played when I led my own father into the Underworld after he had died in December 2020.
I was also told that the Vagina Cave enacts the coming and going of the birth and death processes that we all go through as part of our mortal existence on this planet. I had ceremonially, archetypically re-enacted the entry into the womb at the moment of conception and the birthing process through the birth canal as I would soon crawl out of the Vagina Cave and back into the “normal” world.
In my mind’s eye I saw Heikki go through this birthing and dying coming-and-going process in and out of the Cave. I can still hear the Elven song faintly in the background that provided the backdrop to this whole experience.
I thanked Ishkaya for this experience and this lesson. I crawled out of the Vagina Cave, undergoing, I suppose, a rebirth of my own as I enacted it for Heikki. In a state of sacred elation, I climbed back up and over Högberget, wound my way back down to our car, and drove home to re-enter the family circle at home.
