It is not easy to find - too small for most maps, and only the larger neighbor village Horni Vestonice has a sign from the main road. There are no signs for tourists, no fast-foods offering "Venus burgers" - and this makes it so very special. In Dolni Vestonice, the traveler interested in archeomythology does not get it all ready to eat, you have to find it yourself and talk with the people who live there today.Dolni Vestonice is situated in the South of the Czech Republic close to the city of Mikulov. Dolni is a small village with approximately 500 inhabitants - the most important thing seems to be the main road with some restaurants and little stores and shops. It is Indian Summer, fishers are on their way to the near artificial lake and colorfully clothed bikers relax in the shade in front of a road inn. There are no signs that say "museum" or "archeological exhibition". After driving through the village from all sides some time I finally found the museum of Dolni Vestonice, plain gray with a simple sign saying "Archeologicke Exposize". The cashier lady only speaks Czech, but she does not only offer entrance tickets, but also information leaflets in German and English and rough-made plastic casts of the Venus of Vestonice. I get myself a leaflet and enter the exhibition. There are lots of text in and around the showcases, but all in Czech language, and although some words look familiar, I soon give up. The leaflet explains that I find only remakes of the originals from Dolni Vestonice and the neighboring village Pavlov. The archeologist Karel Absolon made excavations from 1924 to 1938 and found, among many other interesting tools and items, the statuette of a woman made from burnt clay (today plastic...) - she became famous as the "Venus of Vestonice". Like her "sisters" from other archeological excavations worldwide, the "Willendorf Venus" from Austria, the "Venus of Laussel" and the "Venus of Lespugue" in France she is depicted as a voluptuous woman with heavy breasts and broad hips standing in an upright position. But unlike all the others who don't have face features, she has eyes - slit carvings that make her look like squinting in the sun. They are all very old, those ladies - the village Pavlov gave its name to a complete time period, the Pavlovien as the older phase of the Gravettien, 30.000 - 25.000 years before our time. Along with the venus, zoomorphic statuettes have been found, made of clay, stone and bone, carved or modelled. And there is another Venus figurine who did not become as famous as her darker colored sister - she is very special, because her face is carved very carefully, and her body is nearly complete. Both Venuses are shown in the same showcase next to each other. The museum offers a lot of interesting and very special details of our ancestors - hints on how colors were made and used and the reconstruction of a burial site of three young people, a woman and two men - the woman was found with shamanic headbands made from teeth, claws and shells. Strange and rare circumstances gave us even the fingerprints of one of our forebears on a lump of clay. So much for the historical details of the museum. I was interested to find out more about the experiences which the famous archeologist Marija Gimbutas called "archeomythology".I leave the exhibition, and in the souvenir shop on the other roadside I find a book in English on the archeological findings in the area, and I also get a plastic pendant of the black Venus. Then I take off to Pavlov. Nobody can tell me where the excavation site really was. After asking several people in the village I give up and go on according to one of the black-and-white photos I had seen in the exhibition - showing the successful professors on the excavation site of Pavlov right under the ruins of Pavlov castle. The ruins still look the same today. I park my car and climb uphill past grapevine fields and orchards. Below I see the green shimmer of the large artificial lake, and I keep asking myself how many wonderful treasures it may hide from us forever. Rotting trees reach like hands out of the lake, on their silvery gray branches cormorants dry their feathers in the sunshine. I keep on climbing, still watching the angle from which the castle looks down on me. Now this looks like the right place. A farmer comes my way, pulling a little cart loaded with grapes. I smile at her, pointing at my Venus pendant. "Archeologicke Exposize?" I ask. She nods and smiles at me, pointing downhill towards the village behind us - Dolni Vestonice. "Yes, Dolni Vestonice, Muzeum!" I make the signs of digging in the ground. She laughs, shakes her head and offers me some grapes. I have to laugh, too, thank her and walk on. Now here must be the place. In front of me a vast empty potato field stretches all the way downhill. Next to it is a little place with hard grass and some small bushes. I walk towards the bushes and sink in to my knees - Bingo! This is historical ground, here they have been digging, the professors. Mammoth bones lay around here, as big as my collie, wolf skulls have been found with the spear heads still sticking in their jaw bones. Here our ancestors fought against their enemies. And the venus and other goddess figurines, here they have been waiting in the lap of mother Earth. I sit down on the dry earth and try to imagine what this area looked like before the artificial lake covered the lower parts. I compare the picture of the venus in the archeology book with the pendant I'm wearing. Thinking about what I learned from Dr. Felicitas Goodman about shamanic body postures and trance (she tried the postures of the old statues with her students and found out stunning experiences in and about trance), I get up and stand like the Venus of Vestonice. I take a deep breath, roots grow from my feet. A deep calmness, security, trust spreads within me. Time is not important, 25.000 years more or less... time does not have to be cut and measured anymore. I feel the wind on my skin, the warm sun on my face, the stability of the earth who carries me, yesterday, today, tomorrow. Peace and harmony well up within me and a trust that has not been there before. Yes, I can imagine it - the maker of the figurine who wanted to give this feeling to others - the image of an earth mother spreading the feeling by touching her: I am here, I have always been with you, and I give you the power, calmness and stability you need in this very moment. Walking back down to Pavlov I find the hidden hints to Venus still being here - as a pictograph she is looking at me from the windshield of a city bus, and the small inn next to my parking place is named "U Venuse", the Venus. Maybe people held these small, voluptuous goddesses in their hands when they faced critical situations - women giving birth, men hunting mammoth and aurochs, or simply when they wanted some calm moments after a hard day. I am here, I have always been here, and here shall I ever be - that's what they say to me and others, the Venus of Vestonice and her colleagues, yesterday and tomorrow, for all of us to feel and see.