Article by Magalie Bonneau & photo by Lahcen Mellal
Somehow this Solstice is hitting me deeper than usual. It’s shedding light on a powerful, beautiful, challenging and transitional run around the sun. In the spirit of rebirth, wishing to bring you into my world of this past year for just a moment to share a few lessons I’m taking away… lessons that may prove to be insightful for you.
A year ago, I got a hunch that it was time to leave the Bay Area and step into a new life chapter. I found myself in between two stories; one of the past that was no longer suiting me, like a dress I had outgrown and still not fulling living into the new story yet to be born. Although I had the willingness, energy and availability to manifest new work this year, life had a different plan for me. It turned out to be a year of deep listening, mourning, a big and short love story, dropping new roots in the village I long for, and a few false starts on the professional side: purpose work doesn’t birth on demand.
And through this transitional reality between my two stories, a great harvest was born. Here’s what I’m harvesting:
1) The virtues of patience and faith are essential when you are birthing your soul work. While choosing the nomadic path is a strong way to discover what brings you most alive as you follow resonance, creating a nourishing space for gestation is wise to support new manifestation. It’s only when I paused and began rooting down that I was able to to begin building the foundation that I needed to thrive.
2) Everything is born in its own time. When something is ripe the doors open up effortlessly. And when it’s not, it doesn’t matter how much you work for it or want it, in my experience it won’t likely take off, or will get messy.
3) The power of eros and soul connection is one of the most amazing catalysts to find yourself where you’re mean’t to be. Although my intimate journey with two southern California men was strong, amazing and short, what effortlessly emerged on the other side is the village and sanctuary I now call home, the one I had been longing for. The sisterhood and children I wake up to daily are truly divine. I had no idea how ripe I was to experience family and village life. Bless divine unfolding!
4) When you let go of the safe harbor and embrace a time of transition, you had better learn to surf on a sea of doubts, grace, confusion, clarity, serendipity and beauty. These are all essential truths of daily life. It certainly has been for me. Embracing this path of uncertainty has been so enlivening and tests my inner capacity to trust that the natural cycle will lead ultimately to something positive. Let’s see what emerges in the months and years to come! So much gratitude for my friends and family who generously held me and hosted me through this transition — and a special shout out to Claudia whose friendship and hospitality was so rich in the spring and summer as we shared home and creative time together. With great sadness, Claudia and her beloved Erik lost their sacred place in the Sonoma Fire. What a time for the initiation of deep letting go for so many. I’m glad to share that a new home that meets all their needs opened up soon after they lost all of their material possessions; a great reminder of divine and community support.
5) Last but not least — the most amazing allies one needs will show up on your path, and at some point when your soul is ripe to evolve on its own, they may well leave your life as fast as they arrived. I lost my three closest mentors, friends and great supporters of Dancing Without Borders this year. Each of them were instrumental in my growth and the launch of my work with dance and social change over the past 10 years. The passing of these brave souls has felt like the closure on a profound life chapter and an invitation to trust my own knowing as I step into new terrains. I dedicate this solstice to their extraordinary lives and all they will offer from the other side of the veil.
Bless the healing and nourishing power of soulful community, natural rhythms, openings and closings, death and new growth. With tenderness and faith in the perfect unfolding of wild times of personal and collective transformation, I send you my love and best wishes for the solstice and the holidays.
Recent Comments