"My river changed face according to seasons
Frozen in 2007 is the fear of creating beauty
Flowing in 2008 is the welcoming home of masculine and feminine in my body
Dancing together for the senses"

newness friendy tornado

The last two days have gone cold and if I needed reminded I feel that I've missed the warmth. My body, skin, insides need some warmth. Summer simply forgot London over these last few months and I feel like going away in a nice and warm place somewhere in the world. Anywhere.

I dream of going to California to dance with Gabrielle Roth but cannot make my mind.
I imagine my skin giving thanks to the sun while lying on the beach in Dahab, Egypt.
I compare flight fares to Majorca or Barbados only to close the websites and get back to Earth.

My clay feet are glued on British soil. Shamanic training in the West country. Dance classes and workshops in London. Maybe this is what I need rather than what I want. Keep my feet on the ground, be earthy, well balanced and centered to sustain the strong winds of transformation that have battered my life for the last few months...

After 3.5 years living in the same flat and experiencing a variety of flatmates, I knew that it was time to move on. On a rainy Monday morning in the middle of November 2006 I just knew. It wasn't time for the how, when, where... but the seed had been planted next to a Cornish sacred well. About 3 months later, a opportunity came up and by the 1st of April, I moved in my very good friend Mick's flat for 6 months while he was backpacking in Central and South America. This brought a life change by itself.

2 weeks later I made an offer to buy a ground floor flat close to the river Thames - after 10 years in the UK and approximately 2 to 3 years during which I knew that my life was to be here, it was sending the world, and mostly my friends and family the tangible signal that my life was in London - for the foreseeable future.

A week after that I was meeting P. and the relationship is a real learning curve for me: learn to respect both what he is in all his qualities and limitations and what I am in all my qualities and limitations, be present to him, me and us, opened and vulnerable, human, woman... It had been a 2 and a half year "gap" between love relationships and the fear factor was very much present... especially as this new relationship did not resemble any I'd had before

At the beginning of June a dance worshop mixed up with strong influence of shamanism ripped off part of my hiding place. I discovered I had no right to lie to myself any longer in one specific department - I am a sexual being and a sensual woman, who likes and needs to be touched and touch others. I am still busy integrating this in my life and going through ups and down in accepting this new reality with no reference model to follow.

Finally (?) the recent entering into the world of shamanism is opening more doors. I have become a child again over the weekend and I am noticing that the rhythms of my steps have changed, that I sometimes feel awkard and broken in a movement I have practiced for nearly 36 years and that could not be more unconsciously done (except maybe breathing). I keep forgetting things and meetings at work and this makes me laugh. My clocks at home (mobile phone, ipod, cooker...) are playing up with me giving me wrong (and all different) times making me late for work. My heart recurrently opens up and his fire spreads to the rest of my chest. If this sensation made me feel extremely vulnerable and terrified of all others just a few days ago, it somehow makes me feel closer to all creations of the world tonight, including human beings. Yet I have no reference point (again!!) to adjust and I have difficulties finding the balance between feeling compassion and fear of carrying someone else's burden. Yet I feel confident that I am learning and a new way will emerge.

I've now moved into this new flat nearly 2 weeks ago. I do not have furniture inside and boxes are still lying around. I feel some pressure for "sorting it out" asap and be settled. I'm pleased I am not surrendering to this pressure as the new space is slowly infusing into me and I discover day after day the way I want to make it mine - I refuse the IKEA/Habitat reference and it is not always easy...

Two days ago, I've found my power place - facing the south pilar of Tower Bridge from the "beach" at low tide. I've found an overwhelming need to receive the steadfastness of these stones, the majesty and proudness of the towers and above all the strength of the bridges legs playing with the coming and going waters of the river. The bridge not only connects both sides of the river it also brings together the earth and the sky, and the elements air, water, earth. And fire makes it shine.

Maybe there's so much happening within and without, there's no need for me to go anywhere in search of newness.

body - spirit - soul - mind

Not been long in this way of life and I keep meeting more and more interesting people. I still sometimes feel very small when they talk about what they've lived and experienced and still sometimes compare... yet I've noticed how self-confidence has improved and how I can also laugh at that worthless feeling. It is lovely.

Not been long in this way of life yet I have tested/tasted a few different ways in - 5Rhythms, Qi Gong, Tantra, Shamanism, Crano-sacral... all of them radiating from analytical psychology. Of course, there are lots of other ways in that I might try (or not). I used to have high expectations before a session or a workshop, looking for the great, the amazing, the overwhelming... and it had happened most of the time.

I give thanks for these experiences that fulfilled a need.

Yet I have been more and more conscious over the last few months how I could separate entirely the experience from my day-to-day life. On a very practical level, I would leave my phone at home and would cut all possible ties, and travel alone - in order to have time to transform by the time I arrive? I would becomes irritable when people talked about their jobs or their lives back home... Interestingly, I have recently seen how I would have an experience, maybe write about it and then put it in a box on the shelf clearly labelled with a date, a name, and the transformation that took place. Then it was a question of "been there, done that"...

4 months ago or so I went to a 5Rhythms worshop and had consciously decided to not only take my phone with me but to use it. The experience I had wasn't any less important and transforming for it. For the first time, I allowed my day-to-day life to leak and enter the life in parenthesis and vice et versa. It was a very healing experience by itself. The split within getting narrower.

Yesterday I have come back from the first component of a 1-year training in shamanic healing. My day-to-day life penetrated even more this time, spreading to talking to my sister on the phone, sending emails to close friends and talking to P. and even checking with results of the rugby game between France and Ireland (France thrashed Ireland by the way, if you are interested...) Even though I have long known this is a 1-year training, resistances were strong and it is not before the third day that my body and my mind accepted that I would see the circle again and again and again...

I am learning to incorporate the teachings of this training into my dayto-day life because ultimately that is what it is all about - a way of life. I know this is going to be a real challenge but I know I have support from my circle and in particular my dear buddy A.

I give thanks to every person of this circle for making it what it is and I give thanks to all the forces of the Universe that brought us together and made this circle what it is.

lost for words...

I went through maybe the most powerful spiritual experience on Friday night. Hear spiritual in a very litteral way, as I was blessed to be touched by the Great Spirit.

And I'm pleased to say that I really don't mind whether this make you smile and being credulous or go away from this page and blog to never come back...

I will not be trying to relate, explain or convince. It only happened. I know it. I physically feel it in my heart since then - a burning glow that sometimes go as far as hurting when it is being ripped open. I feel extremely vulnerable but also I feel a magnificent strength, power, determination growing from within. It is beautiful and beautifully offered. It is now up to me to make it mine, incorporate it in my life and make sure I don't let it leak and waste...

I give thanks to the Great Spirit for being chosen and to the circle who witnessed the experience.