Back to beading !

This week, I started beading again, after a very very long pause.

True, there was many things happening in my life, but I can't help noticing my creativity stopped just after I started working on the Maid with no Arms, and DOM, the Decent Old Man.

Dom, the first from the left on the picture below, was cut out from the ceremonial cloth I carried with me in shamanic workshops, and in India (to be honnest, this cloth is what made me decide to start visiting India by coming though Chennai/Madras - yes, i know it is very foolish). He is supposed to help me heal from the legacy of wounded ancestors...

A few days ago, listening to Clarissa Pinkola Estes' tape "How to love a woman", I discovered the Inuit tale of "Skeleton Woman". I cried, and creativity came back... Just like me, she doesn't like being photographed. It is funny because I kept wanting to add bones in my october page...

Gentle cleaning

Denise Desjardins

Today I saw a film about Denise Desjardins, and she was there after the screening to answer questions.

I first heard about her many years ago through my yoga teacher.

A much loved figure in France, she was first a successful painter and decorator. After her marriage, she spent much time in India and followed the teachings of Mâ Ananda Mayi, and later on of Swami Prajnânpad. Together with her husband Arnaud, she founded the first ashram in France in 1974.

She went through a kundalini experience, and experienced memories of past lives simply lying next to Swami Prajnânpad. She says past lives are not to be understood as something that belong to you, but rather as energies that are deeply imprinted in your psyche for some reason or other, and that should be cleaned, so that you can find the real you.

She never chose between her spiritual life and her family life. She used to take her two children with her in India. She managed to maintain a balance.

She explained this idea, which I heard in India, that a woman taking care of her family and children does not need special rituals or mantra, because her whole life is devotion. However she follows the paths of fullfulling all the heart's desires so long as nobody is hurt, not even yourself.

She is funny and warm and so simple. What an inspiration !