Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, near the Pech Merle Caves
Yesterday, I wrote a letter to the wizard merlin and tucked it between the stones of an ancient druid well named for him. I had to get in the water to reach the spot that felt right, but it was raining so hard a little skinny dip didn't feel like much of a weather shift. I needn't have worried about my clothes getting wet either, because the plants hanging across the trail and the steady pour of rain were so wet that, this next morning, my jeans are still soaked through.
We tipped the halfway point of our great adventure last week, and it feels impossible that we started only three weeks ago. First we met in Rome for a few days that we'd imagined would be restful but became charged with excitement because Juliette had met a powerful astrologer who had some stories to tell, and we wanted to explore, and this thing called Podcast for Spirit was so loose in our hands we needed to put minds together about a big list of things.
Then we were so kindly received by friends in Genzano, a little town on the crater's edge of the gemlike Lake Nemi. They had also been extraordinarily kind - I had crossed paths with one of them, Romeo, while she was visiting Massachussetts last summer and picking up a few shifts for her old catering company to cover the cost of travel. We sliced tomatoes side by side, in a tent in sweltering heat, and within an hour she'd invited Juliette and I to come explore the ancient temple to Diana just a mile from their door. Romeo and her husband Matteo were so immensely generous - showing us the sights, introducing us to a wonderful local historian, sharing stories of their life, the medicine possible in theater and storytelling, and demonstrating how it subtly changes everything to live with a connected relationship to deep and spiritual history.
Then we spent two days on trains to be plopped in Aix en Provence, and the Magdalene voyage began. From there to the cave where Mary lived for the last 30 years of her life, and from there to a gorgeous hotel that's become a crossroads for people going on Magdalene pilgrimages to meet and frop in and nourish, it felt to me like we got whisked from a steady, beautiful slow stretch of to a lengthy course of rapids. As river folk know, the best way not to flip in rapids is to maintain momentum, and we managed to do that without going too fast not to also find the current and navigate the turns. It was really intense. The middle ages were intense. And Mary Magdalene was, and is... a saint. Perhaps a goddess. Perhaps combined with ancient goddesses to show up as one now. Perhaps an ancestor to any who want her to be. Certainly, good for the heart.
This last week we've shifted again to focusing more on Gaelic and pre-historic ancestors. We visited caves with 30,000 year old cave paintings that re-wrote my whole brain. Humans back then were not what I thought; what I'd quietly been taught - the had profound intelligence, a masterful understanding of beauty and flow, and contain so many mysteries I can only rest in wonder. The caves were definitely the best art museum I have ever been to, though Monet's gardens, which we also stopped by, were breathtaking as well.
Wherever we've been on the road, there's been always a feeling of community. Both from you, coming along with us across the distance, bending time to listen to all the stories we're so excited to share on the podcast, and from the people we meet. So many have been so kind, sharing laughs and thoughts even if they don't want to be recorded, recommending must-see places and helping us find our way, once even extending such and irresistible twirling rainbow ribbon of friendship we re-routed a whole day to share her food and sleep that night in her garden.
I can't wait to share all about what's happened and happening. Thank you so much for being with us, and for your patience while we experience it!
Wishing everyone a truly magical Samhain :)
- Juliette and Larkin
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