The pilgrimage will begin and end in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, which city lies just north of the Rila Mountain, the crown chakra of the beautiful Rhodopi Mountains.

The Rhodopes, home of the Thracian bard, Orpheus, and one of the cradles of European civilization, constitute a complete landscape temple about 240 km long and 100-120 km wide, with an average altitude of 785 m. The pilgrimage will embrace the whole length of the mountains, from root to crown.

The myth of Orpheus and his wife, Eurydice, is intimately connected with the Rhodopes. Orpheus, who is believed to have lived at the time of Moses (2nd millennium BC) and visited Egypt to be trained in Egypt's mystery schools, was the institutor of the Orphic Mysteries. These were a major reformation of the Dionysian orgiastic nature religion which had existed in the Rhodopes for several millennia before Orpheus.

The Greek and Roman Mysteries were derived from the Orphic-Dionysian Mysteries, as also was Pythagoreanism. These were major factors in the growth of Christianity and the Renaissance in Europe, and underlie the whole of European culture. The birthplace of Orphism, therefore, in the sacral or procreative chakra of Europe, seems entirely fitting.

The pilgrimage will be visiting places such as Perperikon and Tatul, the former being the largest megalithic acropolis and temple structure in the Balkans, dating back to 5000-6000 BC, and the latter being an equally ancient shrine complex later dedicated to Orpheus and containing the symbolic tomb of the poet-musician.

Also to be visited is the extraordinary Great Goddess cave, located high in the mountains to the west of Perperikon, and the Devil's Throat cave in the dramatic Trigrad Gorge, near the heart of the Rhodopes.

The Great Goddess cave is shaped like a uterus, with its entrance looking like a woman’s vulva. Through this opening the Sun produces the image of a phallus on the cave floor which grows and shrinks seasonally, engaging in symbolic intercourse with the Great Goddess. To this is linked the local legend of Saint Marina, who was born in a cave after her mother had asked the Sun to give her a child.

The Devil’s Throat cave, on the other hand, not only contains the highest underground waterfalls in Europe but is where Eurydice is supposed to have descended into the Underworld and where Orpheus likewise descended (and re-emerged) in his attempt to rescue her.

The pilgrimage will culminate in the Rila Mountain, visiting Moussala, its highest peak (2,925 m), and the famous Rila monastery. It is in the Rila Mountain, in the region of the Seven Rila lakes, that paneurhythmy—a dance-yoga created by the spiritual master Beinsa Douno (1864?-1944)—is danced each year.

This geocosmological pilgrimage, which is by invitation, will be the seventh in the nine-year series of ‘Bull and Europa’ pilgrimages, in which each of the major chakra areas of Europe are being visited in a meaningful sequence.

This series is being carried out as part of the science and art of doing the right thing in the right place at the right time, in order to help facilitate the building of the etheric light body of the planet.