Montreal … the city where I came into this world. Canada has always felt like a foreign land for my soul. For some reason, I never understood and always questioned why I was born here. Dreaming of adventures by foot, walking this earth continent by continent, searching for something and never really knowing what it was.
On this journey, I got familiar with having no roots, moving, being a nomad, being content wherever I put down my bags, my things, my body. I saw through the eyes of many cultures a piece of my own world, a face reflecting mine. Whenever it would touch a deeper part of myself, I would feel I retrieved something and then felt a call to move on, to continue this quest with no goals.
Why was I feeling so much at peace having no home, having nowhere to go back to, only having something to look forward to just across the horizon? Will this search lead me somewhere or am I simply avoiding something ? On the traveler’s road, we often say that nomads are running away from something by always moving. Yet I also see sedentary people avoiding themselves by putting their head in the sand with regards to the unknown. What is it that pulls some people so far away, on a planet so vast, so diverse in experiences. I always wondered if this quest would have an end.
I eventually landed somewhere, in Bali, where I felt like making a nest, a cocoon. I wouldn’t say a home, but a cocoon. A place that gives the impression of being home, but in reality, relies on transformation. The purpose of a cocoon is not to settle into the familiar but to push you through a transformation that will be just as painful as it is liberating. It is an encouragement to go towards something that will be better for you once you are out of it, yet with no guarantee of success. A journey of vulnerability within, to become more powerful once out.
To me, it is akin to birth. Leaving the comfort of the fluid gravitational cocoon and being naturally pushed to the next stage of growth. Perhaps I needed to finish this process I started coming into this world. Maybe I needed to change the way I experienced how I landed into this world.
For me, I was told I came slightly too early out of the womb, if there is such thing as right timing. Perhaps I was curious to visit this planet, maybe I was excited to experience this world. Yes, I recognize that in myself. When my heart opens up and blooms, it is a rather quick process and at times may be surprisingly fast. Otherwise I tend to be a rather shy and meticulous person when it comes to new experiences. Yet, when my heart is touched, I seem to jump off the bridge not knowing whether the bungee cord was even attached. Perhaps it was my window, my timing, my rhythm.
Trust.
Basically, I know what I want, even though, sometimes, the world doesn’t seem to respond well to those arriving too early. I didn’t realize my lungs weren’t finished forming. Ai … what a painful start. The world has laws of physics I wasn’t ready to comply with. Story of my life. The space of the lungs limiting the space of the heart. So the pain is felt everytime my heart opens up.
And so it’s true, I do repeat this pattern from time to time.
Bali has been a rough ride. It has allowed me to study the reflection of my entrance into this world. The painful limitation of a body with a spirit that cannot wait to express fully my love and joy. It’s as if there is not enough time in one lifetime. Not enough space in my body for all this love.
The irony of life seems to be that we must discover who we are, even though we are already all that we seek. We tend to learn who we are through the opposite-- dark defines light and the night defines the day. A simple reflection in the mirror or through the lens of a selfie is of great help but can only reflect one face of our self, it won’t show us what we are not. Without our opposite, we cannot see ourselves fully. It is through others, or through seeking the opposite of our essence that we learn to define the self and our limits. Yet it’s important to recognize those limits so we don’t end up trying to change our true nature to be accepted or loved. In simple terms, I was like a banana trying to be a strawberry.
Home is a peaceful rest in one’s own essence, without having to change anything to become who we ought to be. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. What I was looking for wasn’t as far as I thought, even though the road to get there took me across the globe a few times around.
I now see that changing what I didn’t like in myself wasn’t going to help me accept who I am. But simple acceptance itself, changed the way I relate to myself. I’ve made the commitment to be in full integrity with respect to the rhythm of my essence; to let my soul land in my body. I’ve allowed myself to come home to my heart in simple and deep surrender. Only then can I let another person land in my heart.
To be matched truly by an equal rhythm. Like attuning musical instruments. Like whales responding to the echo of another under the sea. Attuning oneself to another. Everything about the other can be different than you, but just like the right key, the essence of that heart attuned the core of mine in the rightful tone. Just like pitching forks, or the principles of homeopathy, like cures like. Immediate calibration through the heart’s resonance and the rest of the body comes home.
Letting what matches you be your match. It is the quest of all homeopaths, to find THE remedy, the closest frequency to your core. Perhaps like a twin resonance somewhere in this universe. For some of us, it is in a pearl at the bottom of the sea, for others, a distant star. In a remote location or in the ink of a skilled writer, or perhaps even, it is to be found in the gaze of a soul mate, a lover’s deep surrender and the forever deepening space emerging from that presence.
Consciously letting yourself be touched by your match is the subtle difference. Allowing, rather than seeking. This is the key.
I’ve searched for who I wasn’t. That is why I learned so much living across the colourful spectrum of cultures, land and people. Making a nest anywhere is possible, and is going to bring you amazing growth and experiences. Yet home isn’t something we can make with our will only, it is something we feel when it finds us. Some people are born at home and always felt it. Not for me. Home is something that came back to me after a rebirth that took years, and ironically, it found me in the same city where I started this life.
A sense of emerging is appearing within me, a sense of commitment to being here. In nature, the heart chakra has 12 petals of wisdom to bloom within a lifetime. This process is one of them. A deeply intimate process that gives birth to an energy meant for two, a home for you and another. Yet one resonance uniting the field.
I see it, I feel it unfolding within my chest, like the rich density of the dark night about to break open by the rising light of dawn.
It is so shocking to realize your lost keys were in your own pocket the whole time.
My life looks like the one of a galactic backpacker searching across timelines for a place to be, finding myself through what I am not, and by a random coincidence, hitchhiking a ride that would bring me back to where I was born. Yet the journey it took me on is one of unforgettable insights into the nature of human consciousness.
A journey through the cosmic divine feminine. Born from my mother and reborn from mother earth. From the heart of a woman, to a womb, to a cocoon, to the heart of a woman.
As we unfold in the womb, we hear the sound of the heartbeat of our mother from the third week already. It is pulsing, guiding our journey until our own heart joins the symbiosis. While we live, we are guided by the pulse of our own heart with the echo of the memory of our mother’s heart, in harmony with the pulse of the goddess, of mother earth, deep down within or somewhere far in the universe.
The heart of a woman is one of the most precious fields I have ever witnessed. A place of infinite devotion. Relentless nurturing for all beings. A fertility of magic. Love beyond Love. The heart of a woman will constantly teach me a new way to love and be loved. A quest to recreate the world one night at a time. A quest for depth like the roots of a Banyan tree.
To all women. Thank you for this precious gift.
A woman’s womb gives space to birth a new life, a woman’s heart gives space to birth a new man. To make a man reborn.
The space between two hearts gives rise to a womb of light.
Make it sacred.
With Love
Jean-Manuel
my dear mother …
