The Traveler
Two Roads in a Russian Cathedral
I wrote the following text as a New Year’s letter for the year 2026 to accompany the 2025 Christmas card (Peace in Freedom), when the world was teetering on the brink of a possible Third World War. Susanne Ehlers, co-owner of the German magazine Raum und Zeit, was so impressed by this letter that she published it on their website as a New Year’s letter: The Traveler – Two Roads in a Russian Cathedral.
I borrowed the symbolism of humans on Earth as ‘travelers’ from a remarkable man, a well-known Dutch Reverend Hans Stolp, who had made a profound impression on my mother. In my view, he is a Reverend who bridges the gap between religious thinking, as is common in churches in Western Europe, and the world of, let’s say, shamanism, clairvoyance, nature religions, the afterlife, etc.
Does it now seem like the years are getting shorter? Wasn’t I just writing the previous letter yesterday?
Age… that must be it! I increasingly catch myself considering myself a traveler. When you are on vacation in another country, you know that the language, politics, and climate are only temporary circumstances for you, because in a few days or weeks you will leave again. It doesn’t really affect you what happens there, because you come from elsewhere, from somewhere far away. That’s the feeling I’m referring to.
Now I have lived in the Netherlands for many years, but I will not stay here forever. Where did I come from again before I was born? No idea… my memory fails me for a moment. Where will I go back to later, maybe only after decades? Home? Where is that?
One day in 2001, I was violently reminded of a time long before I was born in 1960. That was when Linda was very ill. Probably triggered by the pain, she sometimes suddenly started speaking in another language and sometimes even sang in that somewhat Russian-sounding language. Sometimes she shouted very loudly a few words that were always the same: “Nasja bei Uzbekiya!”
Her parents asked a medium if she received anything about it, and so it happened that one day a letter was suddenly delivered from that medium. Linda opened the envelope, read what was written, and then began shouting loudly at me. “See! I didn’t make it up! Come, come!! You have to be there! It is all being shown to me!”
I sat down and read the note that began with “1532 – Russia – a past life.” And I suddenly started crying. “My name was Nasja!” I said. “But my real name was Natascha.”
A lot happened to both of us then, because in that life too we had been lovers, Igor and Nasja. That memory, that knowing, suddenly came up with such force that we were both overwhelmed by it.
Russia
For this photo on the New Year’s card for 2026, we deliberately chose a very special cathedral in the heart of Moscow, knowing that many people would have questions about it. We notice that ‘talking about Russia’ is currently very sensitive. People don’t like to talk about Russia, not with us anyway. But we do this not to provoke anyone. Quite the opposite! Let me explain…
What you see is the cathedral often briefly referred to as the ХХС, the Храма Христа Спасителя (phonetically: Chrama Christa Spasítelja). The Cathedral of Christ the Savior. That sounds quite religious, and we are not. Also, the excessive wealth of this Orthodox cathedral is rather over the top. But there is something special about this cathedral, and I want to write something about that.
The decision to build it was made immediately after Napoleon’s army – which had wanted to conquer Russia – was defeated and left the country. That was in 1812. However, it took until 1883 before the construction was completed and the cathedral was consecrated. Then came the Russian Revolution, and one of the new rules was that religion was abolished.
If there is one thing you should never take away from people, it is their connection to Above. Whether you connect with God, Heaven, the Afterlife, or as I sometimes simply write, with ‘Above’, through a religion in a church as is very normal in Europe, or for example by invoking the Great Spirit in nature as the ‘Indians’ (in all respect) still do, it does not matter. It is about that invisible Dimension from which we came before we were born and to which we go when our body can no longer house our soul. That Connection is sacred! No one may touch it!
But Stalin came to power, and he hated this cathedral and had it demolished. That happened in 1931. But shortly before that happened, suddenly all the important artifacts from the church disappeared, and no one knew where they had gone. On the site where this cathedral had stood, a pompous monument to Lenin was to be built, over 400 meters high, the tallest structure on Earth at that time. When it was discovered that the ground right next to the Volga river could not support such a monument, a swimming pool was built instead.
Russia went through dark times. Hitler invaded Russia, but Hitler’s army was also defeated. Under communism, people lived in fear, of the government, but also of each other, because anyone could betray you just like that. Who could trust whom anymore?
Years later, Gorbachev became president, and hope began to dawn. The rules became milder, and the people began to cherish hope for the future. And then, under Yeltsin, the wish from the people to rebuild this cathedral could no longer be ignored. The original building plans were retrieved, and in 1990 the reconstruction of exactly the same cathedral began. In 1994, the construction was completed. But the rebuilding of the cathedral ran parallel to the revival of religion in Russia. Didn’t Europe go through something similar in the Middle Ages? That was the Renaissance… the age of Enlightenment.
What was special was that all the artifacts suddenly reappeared. They had been hidden until the right moment… this moment. This cathedral stands for the power of the People, of Humanity, which cannot be taken away by anyone. Oppression is possible, but taking away is not! No matter if you’re religious or not, this cathedral is more than a church; it is a sacred symbol of hope, it connects people with each other and symbolizes the Connection with the Heavens.
In 2014, we visited this cathedral in the heart of Moscow, and in 2015 I went there again with our friend Stepanida. As I already wrote, we are not religious, but we feel very strongly connected to that invisible divine dimension. When we entered the cathedral for the first time, we were amazed. To begin with, we saw the excess, and we are not fond of that, because it illustrates once again the enormous discrepancy between the wealth of ‘the church’ and the poverty of ‘the people’, as you see in many religious buildings all over the world. But something caught our attention that has to do with another symbol I created: the Two Roads.
I made the first version of the Two Roads in 2004 and called that artwork Faith. Because it is an isosceles cross in a round ring, but viewed from an angle as if you are looking over your coffee cup. Your coffee cup is round from above, but you almost never see a photo of the round top of a cup, saucer, or plate, because that is not very recognizable. From a slanting front view, you immediately see what it is about, but in the photo, you then see an oval.
When I thought I was finished, I felt that something had to be in front, and I hung a red stone in front of it, set in an Akaija symbol. But we only got the name ‘Akaija’ a year later in 2005. At that time, we only had the shape. I called it Faith because it is a fusion of all conceivable religions (crosses) in the world, so of all the ways people connect with Above: the Christian cross with a longer lower arm, the Maltese cross, the Celtic cross with a ring around it, etc. Even the Holy Grail is reflected in the bowl shape.
In 2011, we came into contact with Eliza in Northern Ireland, and she told me about a holy man of the Lakota, Black Elk. He had had a vision when he was a child and had been in a coma for 12 days. The concept of Two Roads was shown to him by ‘the Spirits.’ They are two roads, he said. From bottom to top, you see the Good Red Road of Spirit. That is the road to the Light. Across it, horizontally, is the Dark and Fearful Road. In the middle, where both roads meet, is a sacred place, the place of the Red Stone of Power… your Heart.
If you only stay safely on the good red road, you will see the Light in the distance, but no matter how fast you walk, you will not get a step closer. If you walk the dark, dangerous road, you can fall, and nobody wants that. But you can walk it safely if you stay connected to your Heart. And people often forget that. We do too, I must add :-), more than once.
But after a fall, you can get up again, right? If you then dare to look at what you have fallen over, and also dare to examine your own role in it – that is called shadow work – then you grow in Consciousness. That is how you progress further on the good red road to the Light.
This concept was explained to Black Elk in the form of yet another cross, which I had not thought of at all until then: the Native American Medicine Wheel. I had only made it from a different perspective, but already with that red stone in its heart! Now look again carefully at the photo of the inside of the XXC. How many Two Roads crosses can you count? I can definitely count 30, but if you walk through the church, there are hundreds of them, some very simple and minimalist, others very elaborate, complete with a stone in the middle.
I sometimes ask myself the question: Suppose I was born in Japan? What would my religion be then? Or suppose I was born in India? Would I then be a Hindu? Or suppose I was born to strictly religious parents somewhere in the Bible Belt of the USA?
Well, my parents were not strictly religious, so I could quite easily break free, investigate everything, and ultimately I decided not to belong to any religion, but to choose my own path. Connecting with Above (with all respect) can happen anywhere and anytime, that connection is sacred!
But now a more difficult question. Suppose you were born and raised in Russia… whose side would you be on during this horrible war? Or suppose you were born in Israel to very religious parents? Who would you support then? Or suppose you were born to parents in the Gaza Strip? Whose side would you be on?
Or… let me take it a step further: Suppose you were born on another planet and you are floating in a flying saucer above the Earth, knowing that you are only a… traveler 😉 visiting the Earth?
Whose side would you be on then? Left? Right?
Where is your Heart?
And from your Heart… what are your wishes?
Well, our wish can be read on the card below.
Marianne and Wim
