The Pilgrimage Continues

Since I last wrote, Alea and I have been to the Orleans Cathedral, the Chartres Cathedral, and today we visited Notre Dame in Paris. I have to have a least a day for each sacred site - to visit the site, to process and integrate the experience, and then to journal and become conscious of what the experience and initiation was all about.

I think that I already mentioned that I don't really know what the experience is about as I am experiencing it! I really have to trust that it is all perfect and that whatever I experience is what I am here to receive. And so far, I really don't know until I wake up the next morning and am journaling. Only then do the threads reveal themselves and the opening occurs.

Quite the experience for me.

The other aspect of this journey is that it has become intensely personal and I am not sure how to share it here. There are so many different people reading this, and from all perpectives and belief systems and I am aware that I feel nervous to expose my journey, both at the risk of exposing myself and at the risk of confronting and challenging belief systems, especially religious ones.

At this point, what I am willing to share is that at each and every site, I have experienced a profound opening and learning. I feel as though I am being initiated...into what I really do not know, but something is happening that is bigger than me. Every step is being guided - on so many levels all I can do is feel grateful. Like yesterday, we left the Chartres Cathedral to head to the train station to head back into Paris. We, of course, forgot to look at the train schedule when we arrived, and we both trusted it would all work out perfectly. And yes, it did. We got to the station with a train leaving for Paris in 8 minutes. Perfect...things keep happening like this for us. And we just give a happy thanks.

Today, we had gone into Notre Dame and knew that it didn't feel right. I was overwhelmed by the huge numbers of people in the cathedral, and couldn't find my bearings to know even where to go or to begin. Begin what? Just finding where to go in the cathedral.

So Alea and I came back to our room (which is right across the street, right? How convenient!) and looked up some information in one of our books. It had talked about a carving on the main facade that we had not been able to find. Going back, Alea found it immediately - just below eye level in the center of the main doors of this facade, smiling at us!

It was one of the carvings representing the medieval sciences, this one being "Alchemy." It was of a woman seated on a throne with her head touching the clouds, with 2 books in her hand, one open to represent the exoteric path of mainstream Christianity, and the other closed, representing the esoteric, or heretical path, to illumination. Seeing this carving prepared us for entering this beautiful cathedral, and created the container for our experience.

I am a "Financial Alchemist" through my specific coaching training that I received just over a year ago. Am I being initiated into "spiritual alchemy" and if so, what does that even mean? Right now, I still cannot make sense of it, but as I mentioned earlier, something bigger than me is opening up and occurring. I just have to stay open and keep taking the next step...


The Internet shop is about to close...not sure if any of this makes sense or not, but these are my musings at 11pm on our last night in Paris...

Will write again soon. Much love to you all...