Noticing

“I wonder, did we know we were happy?” Paulette says as she picks up the photograph with a hand that is lined with wisdom and age. The fingers of her other hand taps the image softly once, twice, then three times.

Caresses it, as if to reach back in time, to sit once again beside the man who was her husband for over sixty years. To feel the warmth of his body against hers, maybe to lean her head once more on his shoulder, to breath in his scent and say, This. This is happiness.

Later, Emilie, Diane and I are eating dinner at ‘Le Marilyn’ in St. Rémy, at a table for three just inside the open-air restaurant. We’ve already been caught by skies that turned dark on a dime with rolling thunder and pounding rain to risk eating under an umbrella this evening.

As we wait for our meals to arrive, we snack on olives with toothpicks, sinking into an easy silence, comfortable together after three weeks.

My own reverie takes me back to where we’ve just spent the day – Forcalquier, a small town in the Alpes-de-Haute-Province, where Paulette lives. She’s a much-cherished friend of Diane’s and before today she was just a name on our itinerary to me.

It’s funny and amazing and wondrous how the sacred can drop into our lives when we least expect it. Even when we’re on a pilgrimage seeking the sacred, when our senses are heightened to see, to hear, to experience. To expect.

And then, and then, and then…..

Close your eyes once,
Lean back in your seat,
Relax,
Let go,
Surrender.

Hand over the reins of expectation to the Universe.

Once you do that,
Maybe, maybe, just maybe…
Then maybe a Paulette will walk into your life.

Maybe she’s nearing ninety but walks the cobblestone hills near her house
with an energy that defies age.

Maybe her beauty will shine as much as her wisdom,
As much as the force of the feminine,
As the Light of the Divine,
As much as the lustre of the grey braid
That rests between her shoulder blades,
That makes me think of my own grey hair,
Hidden by a box bought at Whole Foods.

I’m thinking of Paulette and the transmission we received just by being in her presence. Sitting, now, in a restaurant named for a woman we can only know through imagination, through the filter of a stranger’s interpretation, who has become an archetype, a symbol, and perhaps a reckoning.

An invitation…
A question…
A noticing…

I wonder, do we know when we’re happy?

Swimming in the Sea of Transformation

Travelling has a way of making time become elastic,
of stretching and looping around on itself.
Days have lost their meaning,
as one runs into another, into another, into another
and suddenly we’ve left the month of May.

Far from home, from the familiar, from obligations,
immersed in a language whose words I understand,
but fly around inside my head and too often get stuck
on my tongue when I try to speak.

But still I try.

Still, I feel my way into imagining
what it would be like to live here,
to be born here, to be French.

As I walk through the streets of St. Rémy,
down the narrow, limestone streets,
past the windows of colourful cotton dresses
that beg to be tried on.

Beg to be bought to better clothe myself,
to costume myself,
to make myself French,

I look up at the gathering grey clouds,
purse my lips and scowl the way I saw the shop ladies do.

Ooh là là!

A thunderstorm is threatening,
is almost upon us!
We must walk quickly,
heads down,

Quick! Quick! Quick!
Before we’re caught in the downpour.

I talk to myself as I walk,
practicing French phrases,

Still somewhat incredulous that I’m here.
Still curling into the open-ended question of —
Why?
What will I learn?
How will I be changed?

Because one thing I know for sure —

Is that I’m swimming in the sea of change.
Of transformation.

And when I’m in the middle of that sea,
Soaking in the salt water of all that has come before,
And all that is yet to come –

I’m being undone.
Taken apart.
Dismantled,
Disassembled,
Unstructured.

Every cell and fibre of my Being is dancing in this energy.

This is why I travel.
Feeling the expansion of my heart
Slipping through the sliding doors of time

Come with me.

Walking Alone

I’m sitting in my bed in St. Rémy with the shutters and windows wide open, listening to the clinking of the dishes and the quiet chatter of the family next door as they eat their breakfast. The resident cat has just meandered down the steps, past the flowering jasmine, having left her nighttime perch (and her hair) on the patio chair below my window. I’m the first one up but I fear I may have been Emilie’s alarm clock with the noise of the espresso machine I’ve just used.

Walking through our door yesterday evening from our four days with Véronique felt like crossing the threshold of a time warp portal. Were we even gone? Roni, herself, is a walking portal into the Divine Feminine. Her depth of knowledge, her heart, her humility. She is a walking transmission of the voice of Mary Magdalene for those asking and open to receive.

I’m trying to decipher the notes in my journal, pausing to scroll through the dozens of photos on my phone, and then I stop where we began, standing before the cliffs of Sainte Baume.

I close my eyes and I’m immediately both here and there at the same time.

We can see our destination carved into the cliffs high above us, La Grotte-Sanctuaire De Sainte Marie-Magdaleine. But first lies an almost two-mile vertical hike through a magical forest. We’re gathered around Véronique, as she explains how Mary Magdalene spent the last years of her life in prayer and contemplation, hidden in this cave.

We’ve been joined for three days by another woman I met just an hour ago as we waited in the lobby of our simple hotel for Véronique to come with her van to pick us up. She’s a close friend of Emilie’s and Diane’s and immediately the three of them fall into a conversation and I’m sitting on the fringe, outside the lines drawn by their connection. And not for the first time do I wonder, why am I here?

And I ask this question not as a victim, not in a way to mean, “why am I not included?” Instead, I ask more as a way of opening into the curiosity of why this trip? Why now? Why with these women?

Because all of it is meaningful, even if I can’t make sense of it yet, right now, right this minute.

Later, as I watch the three of them share a group embrace at the entrance to the forest path, I curl more deeply into these questions, witnessing the feelings that flit through my body like a hummingbird, here, and then gone.

Feelings of being excluded, of being an outsider. Not wanted, not needed. Extraneous.

But these feelings are like wispy clouds that barely brush through me and dissipate as quickly as they arise. It’s interesting, these familiar feelings. This sense of looking through the window at the lives and links of others. Outside, looking in. As if they have something I’m lacking. As if I’m the one lacking.

A pilgrimage can often present opportunities to examine beliefs that no longer serve. Or shake up the way we see things, our perceptions. As if to say, Can you see? Can you see? Can you see? While each time turning the kaleidoscope.

We may all be walking the same trail, but we’re each on our own path. Our own journey.

I smile at Véronique and turn away from the tripod of women to head through the canopy of trees, welcoming their cool embrace.

I’m not alone, I’m with my Self, with that ephemeral presence some call God, that I sometimes call Mother Father God Source of All Being.

I’m with my own rising remembering of Mary Magdalene.

She Who Walks With Me.

Red Threads of Connection

When I finally open my eyes, I’m sprawled in the middle of the bed, covers thrown off and I have to shimmy to reach my phone on the bedside table. It’s just past 7am and with the window and shutters pretty much closed, it’s dark and quiet. And hot. The air conditioning hasn’t been turned on yet.

I’ve been waking early these past days, just as dawn begins to creep through the cracks in the half-open shutters, but it’s a delicious kind of awakening. The kind where you don’t have to get up. Where you can lie still, keep your eyes shut and luxuriate, luxuriate, luxuriate, swimming in the wake of dreamland.

After I open the window wide and clip the shutters open, I hop back into bed, fluff my pillows into a pile and lean back, closing my eyes, wondering if I can fall back asleep.

A cool breeze now blows through the window, along with the small chorus of birdsong. I wish I knew what kind of bird they were, or could at least see them, but they remain hidden to me.

Instead of falling asleep I drop into remembering my zoom with Kate and the kids yesterday evening. Hazel holds her arm up to show me the red friendship bracelet still tied around her wrist. I finger the matching one twice-looped around my own wrist and slip into the afternoon we made them – on our last Nana/Hazel day before I left.

That afternoon, as we sat side-by-side on my chaise lounge braiding together Hazel said, “I wish these bracelets had magic powers, and that we could talk to each other through them.” Five weeks of being apart is a lifetime to a six-year-old.

“They do, in a way,” I answered her, “Whenever you need me, just hold your hand over the bracelet and feel me in your heart. We can talk to each other that way – through our hearts.”

And then I tell her that the colour red symbolizes our fertility —

“Fertility?” Hazel interrupts, her brow furrowed.

And I talk about the seeds of our imagination and creativity. About our courage and passion. About what it means to be female, to be a vessel of feminine energy. To remember the truth of our hearts.

Because the power of being a female encompasses more than growing babies (although that’s a pretty amazing thing!)

And as Hazel’s little fingers weave and weave and weave I tell her about the number three. About how it’s considered a perfect number – the number of harmony, wisdom and understanding. That three can also be body, mind and spirit. I tell her about the triad of Maiden, Mother and Chrone.

“That’s you, your mama and me,” I tell her, because even though she’s only six, she’s already walking the path of the power of the Maiden.

Then we tied the finished bracelets around each other’s wrists and practiced feeling into our hearts, into our own heart connection.

And aren’t we all connected?

Each and every one of us.

Each of us facets of the same divine source.

Each of us made from stardust and earth.

Meeting together in the space of our hearts.

I can hear Emilie unloading the dishwasher downstairs, so I pull on my bathrobe to go join her. Even though we’re here to give voice to Mary Magdalene, the dirty dishes still need attending to.

A Pilgrimage Begins

The limestone patio beyond the French doors in front of me are glistening in the rain. This is our first morning of what will be a month of mornings waking up in St. Rémy de Province. A month spent pretending that we’re French, eating croissants and baguettes while drinking tiny cups of coffee throughout the day and glasses of wine in the evening. (although my wine will be lemonade)

We’ve spent three days in Paris and already my body is telling me enough already with the gluten and the dairy! Today we go shopping for fruit and almond milk and gluten-free bread – just enough to temper the tastes from the many visits to the boulangeries.

My two dear friends and I are on a pilgrimage. We’re not walking the Camino with backpacks and blisters and only three pairs of underwear. We have six pieces of luggage between us, a mid-sized Peugeot, and many changes of shoes for our temperamental feet. One doesn’t have to punish the body, or lean towards the ascetic to be a pilgrim — a pilgrimage is made through travelling with intention.

We’ve journeyed to a distant and unfamiliar land on a spiritual quest. With each step (and yes, with each glass of wine, piece of baguette, and much joy and laughter) we will be circling closer to our own divinity, to the rising remembering.

Emilie, Diane and I have been planning this trip for years, long before Covid shut down the world, long before we began to journey virtually via zoom, sitting in place, going inward while watching a screen. Now, we are finally here with the scent of jasmine greeting us and red poppies growing wild along the roadways.

We depart early tomorrow morning to meet Véronique, our escort for the next four days. Who will guide us in the footsteps of Mary Magdalene. Not the Mary of the bible, edited to be subjected, to be pushed down, pushed away, and disempowered. Rather, the reclaimed Mary of feminine lore and legend.

We are here to deepen our learning, to uncover our buried knowing, and to bring home the empowered strength of the feminine. I am not religious, and it took me years to redefine my relationship with the word “God.”

I’m working to balance the force of the masculine and feminine energies that flow through me, that flow through all of us – to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The Patriarchy has done so much damage to humanity and to the world, but we would do well to keep the positive aspects of the masculine. To keep the strength and the courage – and bring to it the fierceness of the compassionate heart. To bring the full force of the feminine heart to bear a much-needed counterweight.