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.

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.