Ukrainians’ text below↓
Psychohistorical Journey №2 Journey to the Glacier Valley
5.08-6.08.2023, Berlin
The group gathered at Neuhelgoländer Weg 9, 12559 Berlin (https://goo.gl/maps/5jaxjL2YZLAQXS6B9) in the parking lot at 11:00 AM.
Harri Kraievets announced the rules of the walk: mobile phones were prohibited and talking was forbidden outside of designated activities. Participants could stop participating at any moment. The importance of water consumption throughout the route was emphasized.
First Stop. Working with markers.The group spontaneously formed a circle and began passing markers to each other. Gradually, participants were chaotically eliminated from the game by the facilitators and had their markers taken away. The last participant was also deprived of their marker, completing this part of the ritual.
Second Stop. In the invitation to the walk, participants were told to bring a pumpkin, but the purpose was not revealed. After the group gathered, everyone had to find an arbitrary stick and carry it throughout the route. Then began the search for a place to bury the pumpkins.
Third Stop. Searching for a place to dig. The group collectively searched for a suitable location. The first three or four location proposals were rejected, after which the facilitators imposed their own choice. The group rejected it. Participants could not reach agreement on a suitable location for a long time, which caused significant stress and tension. The uncertainty of choice and the symbolic nature of the future burial of the pumpkin in the ground created psychological pressure. Eventually, the group decided to resort to collective divination using Tarot cards to make a decision about the place of ritual burial.
At the chosen location, participants were given time to bury their pumpkins. Those who did not manage to complete the burial ritual lost their pumpkins—they were taken by the facilitators. The next day, these pumpkins could be brought and placed in the center of the circle.
Fourth Stop. Exit to the lake.The group chose two participants: one to read a scientific text, another to read a text about Kai. Collective listening to the texts took place on the shore of the water body.
Fifth Stop. Field, second lake.The culminating part of the walk: participants had to arbitrarily choose someone from the group and ask for their forgiveness, explaining the reasons. It was necessary to name at least three motives: conscious, subconscious, and «true» unconscious. This practice created space for deep group catharsis and reflection on hidden relationship dynamics.
The walk concluded at the second lake, where the group spent time in silent reflection on the path traveled and the internal processes that occurred during the ritual passage through the glacial valley.
Duration of the walk: 4 hours.
Conductors: Harri Kraievets, Maxim Yarmolenko
Historical Background
The Berlin Glacial Valley, part of the Warsaw-Berlin Glacial Valley, was formed at the end of the last ice age approximately 18,000 years ago. It served as a spillway for meltwater from internal ice during the Frankfurt ice margin period. The valley trajectory extends from Eisenhüttenstadt through Berlin to Friesack, where it connects with the Eberswalde Glacial Valley.
The valley consists of powerful sands over 20 meters high that serve as groundwater reservoirs. During the Weichselian glacier, many ice blocks formed, which melted and today form lakes and swamps—Müggel, Tegel. In the Middle Ages, ice valleys were natural transportation obstacles; merchants chose narrow places for crossing, where they founded cities like Cologne and Berlin.
Second Day
Start at 11:00 AM. Address: galerie weisser elefant (Auguststraße 21, 10117 Berlin).
The second day took place in the format of a classical psychoanalytic group, in which there was an opportunity to reflect on the new experience lived through in the psychohistorical journey, as well as to explore revealed gaps in old movement patterns. Group work helped notice around which repetitive actions anxiety focuses and how it transforms under the influence of the local group.
Collective Conclusion of the Group:
The walk revealed the fundamental paradox of the Glacial Valley: at the moment of attempting to perceive it as it is in itself—beyond symbolic distortions—the ice evaporates into nothingness. This Ice paradox involves temporal feedback: the cause does not exist before its consequences, but is retroactively established by them through repetition and echoes in the structure of the signified.
The ritual with pumpkins and sticks revealed the impossibility of a direct approach to the traumatic core. If one tries to understand the Glacial Valley directly, independently of its subsequent consequences, only a meaningless factum brutum remains—a crude fact that has no direct impact on the psyche. Only through echoes in the symbolic structure does this fact retroactively acquire an Icy character and become a Cause.
The final forgiveness ritual at the second lake allowed participants to experience this retroactive establishment of trauma through three levels: conscious, subconscious, and unconscious—where the latter proves to be the true place of the Glacial cause.
