France as a Spiritual Pilgrimage

This has been my longest break from posting on this blog since I started it in 2020. Significant focus on preparation and paid work was required for my 2025-2026 overseas trip and this somewhat distracted me from my creative pursuits. Also, happily, singing and performing took centre stage at the end of last year. Although the flights had been booked several months earlier, I hadn't announced this trip on my blog, preferring to share my insights following my journey rather than anticipate its purpose or outcomes. I arrived in Paris on Christmas Day and travelled around France in an anticlockwise direction, including some locations in Italy and Belgium. Although I had a basic plan, most of the stops were booked only days in advance, which allowed me to have room for spontaneity and for following the nudges from Spirit.

New Year's Eve at Mont-Saint-Michel, France

For me, the pull toward travel, particularly solo travel, doesn’t have much to do with pleasure or having a relaxing holiday, although these can be part of it. I see it more as an investment in my expansion – from a person who was highly sensitive, very shy, and scared of almost everything, to the person I am now - still highly sensitive and scared of a lot of things, but much more confident and resilient. I love that it is just me and a handful of my belongings, let loose in the world, and having to rely on my trust in myself and the higher powers that are guiding and protecting me. I love that I am always learning. I love that my soul is being flooded with beauty. I love that I am being challenged physically, mentally and emotionally, and that I am thinking new thoughts, feeling unexpected feelings, and having unexplained 'knowings'.

Pilgrimage to Lourdes, France

Although the choice to travel is intentional, I am now mostly living my life by following the ‘knowings’ – without needing to know why. This is because I have learned that life has a way of directing and redirecting my path to support my expansion, despite my plans. A few months ago, I had no thought of travelling this year and no pull towards any particular place. One day, realising I had seven weeks free between semesters, I knew it was Europe, France, seven weeks. As the trip grew nearer, I realised that these seven weeks would coincide with the final seven weeks of the Chinese year of the wood snake and that it would act as preparation for the year of the fire horse, beginning on February 17th. Also, 2026 would be a number one year, the end of a nine-year cycle and the beginning of a new timeline for the world. This excited me, as I realised that this experience, of being almost solely within my own energy for this seven weeks, would enable me to reflect on the conclusion of that cycle in my own life, shed what no longer served me (in line with the waning year of the wood snake), and gain clarity on my own goals and intentions going forward into this time of increasing momentum.

It was interesting to see how places that had been just names on a map became locations of specific connection that began to call to me. I found myself placed on key leylines and sacred pilgrimage sites such as Mont-Saint-Michel, Lourdes, and Chartres. I happened upon past life connections in Clermont-Ferrand and Vichy, and I was able to reflect on how themes from that life might have impacted my choices and struggles in this life. I found places with which I aligned and some with energies that I found challenging. I was able to observe the ways in which I was challenged by being alone and the ways in which it was a gift. Through being challenged and out of my comfort zone, I was able to gain more clarity and release additional layers of grief and pain from past experiences. I became aware of some childhood trauma that I was able to work on healing. I was also prompted to reflect on boundaries and become more assertive and intentional. I reflected on and responded to dreams, signs, synchronicities, and the images I saw in the clouds. I did some energy/grid work such as singing to the land and placing pearls in locations that welcomed them. On the last day, in Paris, I felt called to visit Montmartre Cemetery and assist in closing cycles for those souls who had not yet found safe passage.

Also, with travel, is the beauty that can be experienced - having the opportunity to appreciate the diversity of landscapes and the uniqueness of cultures and people. Realising, also, that people are fundamentally connected in their human experience, that they are mostly kind and understanding, that places other than home are safe, and that home is also to be appreciated for the comfort and beauty that it offers. We can easily become afraid of the outside world and of people and places that are unknown, when our views are mostly being formed by the media that we have access to. The future will be more connected, and travel helps us to become more open to this connection with others. It was interesting to see people's responses to my social media 'sharings' and to be happily surprised by some people's openness to Spiritual perspectives that are not yet mainstream. Significant world events also unfolded during my time away, and it was interesting to observe the way these were reported and discussed in countries other than Australia.

I'm not one hundred percent sure where I'm heading with this blog, or in my life, or where the world is headed. I have ideas and I have accumulated understandings. I fully believe, however, that we are at the beginning of an entirely new stage, and the important thing is to embrace the 'not knowing'. Being on a mostly spontaneous trip where every day involved the 'not knowing' was an exercise in trust/faith. I can tell you that I'm far from perfect at it, but that in embarking on the journey, I was embodying the intention to continually strengthen my ability to trust that I will be protected and guided through each step of my journey through travel and through life. This is the Spiritual connection that most people search for and struggle to find. It is trust in ourselves as humans, in our higher selves, and in those other beings and energies that are guiding us through our human journey. We need to remember that we are fundamentally safe, and that looking for security in our four walls or our retirement savings is not safety. The soul is here for growth, and if material security is impeding our growth, it will be upended. Although our human selves long for comfort, we will not grow and expand if we are too comfortable.

I urge you, also, in this critical time in Earth's history, to embrace truth. Don't be afraid of truth in any form, even if it is dark and unwanted. Whether this darkness exists in the world or within ourselves, facing and embracing it is the key to our freedom and our happiness. We need to understand the ways in which we have contributed to our shadows and to our pain and take radical responsibility for them in order to move forward. Likewise, we must understand that the outer world is a reflection of ourselves as humanity and take radical responsibility for the constraints in which we find ourselves as a world. And if we are afraid of truth, we can honour our fear and still take small steps towards understanding. We must integrate and transmute the darkness rather than deny it or push it away. Only then, will we be able to create a world in which we want to exist. Expect that this will be a time of unprecedented change. Know that the world will heal and evolve on a level that is beyond our understanding. Be open to your experience changing and your role becoming more evident. I am feeling a stronger sense of what is and what is not my role. We are here for service, yes, but not to save others - they must also step up and take responsibility for their lives. Feel into higher levels of purpose that are aligned and true to you. Most of all, don't lose hope. I will leave you with a quote that I read at the pilgrimage site in Lourdes.

May the storms of life not extinguish the flame of love!

Remember, the flame of love is within us. We are the hope of the world.

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