As the new year starts, thoughts of travel are already wafting through my mind. Some dear friends of mine have spent their holidays in Paris and every day my thoughts rest on them for a moment. What crazy experiences have they had; what nooks have they found? The only news I have received since they left was this titillating Facebook post, “Please send my cat and guitar to Rue Poulet dans Montmartre!”
Paris is a perfect place to play guitar.
In Seattle last night for New year’s eve, my family and I spent several hours with friends who have a large house on a hill looking west towards the Sound. The basement houses an amazing array of vintage keyboards, organs, amps and guitars in a sort of dark brown den layered with Persian carpets, vinyl records, funky lamps and Velvet Underground posters. Their teenage son collects and curates the whole lot and attracts lots of visiting musical friends.
Georgetown, Seattle
As the adults sat around an upstairs fire discussing the mysterious and ghostly history of Georgetown (an old section of South Seattle) and its ghosts, music began to build below. Our conversation turned to the delicious kind of curiosity that leads some to ravenously follow a thought… a subject… or a dream. It can lead into unexpected arenas and odd coincidences. This curiosity does not necessarily seek a definitive answer… more to wander through and revel in the fascinating experience of infinite life around us.
Over the past few years, I have noticed golden threads of interest that materialize and tug at me– beckoning and magnetic! When I listen and follow them, I find that they are not unfamiliar… hints have been dropped throughout my life. Some so long ago that I would never have realized until now, in retrospect… that they had significance.
When I was six years old, I remember knowing that I would live in France one day as an adult. Why? I don’t know. Nobody in my family had any connections to France and I knew nothing about it. In fact, my father tried to teach me German, but I wasn’t interested. Later in 6th grade, I was placed with a small group into a special French class because I had completed all available reading textbooks. Did my interest attract this opportunity? Or was this something different… a sort of predestined path?
Last summer I was drawn to pick up a book about Francoise D’Aubigné, the secret wife of Louis the 14th– secret for almost 40 years! It turns out that she lived for quite a long time in the Marais– my favorite area in Paris.
Print of Francoise D’Aubigné from linked article above
Another interesting thread… last month a fellow songwriter shared an article with me about a secret river in Paris called La Bièvre that was concealed a hundred years ago. It is a small tributary that flowed into the Seine and still flows somewhere below the streets as part of the sewage system. You can find it labeled on certain sidewalks. Apparently there is a movement to uncover it as well as artists who, inspired by its presence, are defining themselves geographically in relationship to the river. How I love the idea of uncovering history and seeing a river that no one has seen for a hundred years! Don’t we all have places inside that feel as though they have been concealed by time and life and yet long to feel free again?
In October of 2014, please join us for our second French retreat! Joy and The Feminine Path is about feeling the deep river of energy inside each of us and awakening! Our bodies, minds and spirits will be our guides, and Paris’s beauty, history, art and music will be our inspiration! Allow her to do so and she will weave a subtle and intoxicating new breath of curiosity and wonder into your life! More details to follow…
Happy New Year everyone! Where will it lead you?
Love Tiger
joyandthefemininepath 