Ruins of Chersones at Sebastipol
Photo by Andrew Butko

Continuing my shamanic exploration of current events in Ukraine I find myself drawn more to the old things than the new ones. Something about the place is surprisingly familiar. I've had no problems traveling to the places in Ukraine I've targeted, which isn't the way this usually works. If it's a new place I spend a lot of time setting up shamanic pathways and jump points, finding the old shamanic networks that take someone like me here and there. This isn't the military style of remote viewing – it's travel, and it's hard work. I wonder now if I've been there before, for reasons I've forgotten. A lot happened in the old days and I don't remember all of it clearly, though I still pick up bits and pieces.

What I did last night connects to a dream I've had several times over the past few months. In that dream I'm walking along the crest of a hill that stretches down to the sea. The hill is covered with tall grass, wet with dew since it's late at night, and down at the base of the hill almost out of sight are fortifications and guard posts. Most of the installation is out of view, but well lit by arc lights. If I move farther down the slope I can see the tops of buildings and the barbed wire perimeter fences. I work my way closer to it using what cover is available and eventually cross a security fence into the space behind a low block building. Most of the time the dream ends there.

Last night I was in that dream again, following the same trail over and over, dreaming encounters with people that didn't seem completely real – being washed down for radiation exposure at a clinic where to the medics it all seemed normal and boring, limping to a grocery market down the street and finding that I was almost too weak to walk. These things didn't seem pertinent and I periodically reminded myself that I'm looking for places of interest in the Ukraine. That realization would put me back to my starting point on the hilltop and I'd try again.

Eventually it struck me as at least possible that this was the hilltop over the base at Odessa. Seemed unlikely and way too easy to be true, but I should at least check it out, so I wandered down to the coast and tried to make sense of things. All this was in that murky dream state where things shift and aren't clear, but I kept pushing for more, looking for those moments of clarity that come when you've found something.

I found one. I'd been walking near the water along a flat stretch of pavement when I came to a section that was broken. Looking down through the hole I could see the old sub channel that led into the Odessa submarine base. I remembered that from the pictures I'd scanned the day before. If I was in the right place then there might be an entrance somewhere down the road behind me. I looked back but didn't see anything obvious and decided to push forward through the gap in the rubble. Following the channel I came to a place where I had a grand overview of the base within the hill, more as if I was seeing individual parts of it but all at once. It didn't seem to be that open to view physically, with the various areas connected by channels and corridors – it was remote viewing on the spot. The place looked empty, corroded, falling apart. I thought about what it must have been like in the old days, a hub of expert military activity, one of the power centers of the world. Surprising that it all falls apart so quickly. Everything our navies do depends on the sailors who chip paint. Without their constant grumbling efforts the sea swallows all, one bit of rust at a time.

I considered going in deeper but decided not to. The base is empty and no one cares about the secrets any longer. I was looking for something else anyway. I don't think I'm looking for news of the Ukraine flu outbreak any longer but I'm still looking for something. So I jumped back to the trail on the hilltop and wandered off again, coming across one more clear viewpoint before quitting for the night. One of the reasons I do this is to find those special moments of clarity, even if they aren't visually special. This one was a wheat field that hadn't been harvested yet, the grain waving tall and rust brown in a valley between wooded hills. Perfect and transitory, just like the rust at Odessa.