Paris, mon amour.. Love versus fear..

I am one of the most spontaneous and impulsive people I know.
Living in the NL attempted to get this out of me.. :-)

As I discovered early on after moving here, not having an agenda while living in the Netherlands seems like a blasphemy, like "cursing in the church" as the Dutch say.. 
I tend to organise something at the last moment.. This can lead to frustration and loneliness in a country where most people plan in October where they'll go with holiday in August next year.. I had to learn to manage it and I even found a few Dutch friends that are quite spontaneous themselves.

So you can maybe imagine how much I was looking forward to going to Paris - when I tell you that I planned that trip 3 months in advance.
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I was going to see Teal Swan, one of my favourite teachers. in Paris on November 15th. I had the train tickets, the hotel booked and of course, my ticket for the workshop. I was so looking forward to this.

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( in the picture, Tour Eiffel, detail from my painting "Paradise Bird in Paris", sold January 2015)

I was planning to go to Paris on Thursday evening, for a long weekend with V and C, the nanny, This was going to be my birthday present to myself.

However, soon after I started planning our trip I was invited to hold a workshop at the Romanian embassy in The Hague, on November 13th in the morning. I was honoured so I changed my plans and decided to go to Paris Friday evening or Saturday very early morning
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At the end of October Kuki died - and after that I had two weeks of walking in a thick fog.
I had to dig myself out of it to prepare for the workshop and also to finish a commissioned painting, Purple Garden XL (see my next blog post).

I believe in putting good energy and love into what I do - so I did everything possible to get myself on a floating line, with the help of a few good friends (special thanks to Chris!).. After all, if I had learned something about being a healer and a helper, one cannot heal somebody else or cannot help anybody unless they themselves are not emotionally torn and down..
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​(also, V was watching Robocar Poli a lot these last few weeks - just watch those Robocars and you'll know what I mean.. :-) )
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So when I gave the workshop on Friday I was feeling better, be it very, very exhausted. V also was recovering from my temporal lack of real attention and joy so I was looking forward to a mini holiday. My b'day present.

When I came back from the workshop I took V over from D, who had stayed at our home with V (thank you!). I told D that we were going to Paris with the Thalyss the next morning and V started crying - as he thought we were going that evening. He said to me, if we do not go now, we will probably not go.. I assured him that we already had tickets and we are sure to go..

That evening V told me all of a sudden that in Paris there will be lots and lots of people on the streets and a lot of policemen. I contradicted him and said that no, Paris is a wonderful town, we will have great walks and I will show him the Tour Eiffel. I was kinda annoyed with him saying that - as I translated it into "sure, he projects the Youtube videos he is watching" (not the most peaceful at times) and also as "he does not want (me) to go to Paris".. 
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We were going to sleep at the nanny's as it's closer to the station.. 

That night V fell asleep very early compared to his usual evenings. But I could not really sleep. I had just another nightmare, like every night of the previous two weeks.. I thought: right, yet another way to die tonight.. I've had nightmares about planes faling next to me and V, floods, rape, war, being shot, having a bomb explode in my face, you name it.. (besides fire, weirdly enough)..

At 4 o'clock I was so awake I thought, I'm probably forgot something at home. I was having these thoughts about not being safe to to go Paris, about seeing the conference-hall being attacked, of not wanting to go to Paris. I put my clothes on, told C that I will take his bike and I cycled to my own home, deep in the night.

At home I decided that I could do some things to try to turn the unease feeling into more ease. I turned the heat off totally, filled Mary the Cat's bowl with food, moved the lemon tree so it has more light, closed the curtains to the bedroom, whatever I thought might've woke me up.. I could not really remember one particular thing that I had "forgotten" at home - usually it's what keeps me from totally giving myself to a trip.

When I could not think of anything anymore I just closed the door behind me, saying in my thoughts goodbye to my home. I thought, I'll see you in two days from now.. And I heard my home in my own thoughts answer: "Really??"

By this time I was completely annoyed. Even I was not believing that we should go to Paris any more. In the same time I wanted it so badly, quite frankly I was scolding myself for being fearful of my trip.
I was feeling I should not go but in the same time I wanted it so much.

Back to C's house I laid next to V and tried to get a bit of sleep and a grip.. After a short while C woke up and he came to our room. He had a peak at the news and told me a short version of what about what was going on in Paris the night before. That there were many deaths and wounded, that the evening before there were many people on the streets, and many policemen. That in his opinion we should not expose V to a war zone. That we should not go to Paris. That I had ten minutes to think about it (before we were supposed to go to the station) but he thought we should not go..

Of course, it all made sense at once.. In the same time, everything was still open. I could decide to still go - as the "danger" was over, as it was impossible to be in danger in Paris the next few days, with all the policemen on the streets.

In the same time, I wondered how was everybody doing - the people I was supposed to meet at the workshop, and Teal. And my friends in Paris. And my Paris.
And I wanted to be in Paris, to be there to help raise the love level in a time that there was much pain and hatred would rise.. And I felt, exactly in these moments it is necessary, imperative, to bring more consciousness to such places. I felt it was my mission to be in Paris that weekend.

But.. I did not want to do that to V. I did not want to bring him to a war zone with no one on the streets and filled with sorrow. He is much too sensitive. He also does not sleep if I am not around - so going without him was no option..
I did not want to do that to C, either. He did not deserve to go to Paris and be terrified, stay in the hotel (which I knew he would) for two whole days.. 
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​So I chose not to go.
I chose out of love for my son and for C.
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don't know where the original post is coming from (I got it from FB) - to give it credit.. if you know it, please tell me. thanks

But I wondered.
I wondered if my choice came out of fear in place of love.. I wondered if I was giving in to fear and if my choice (for which I had ten minutes to decide) was coming from real love. 

The whole weekend I was distraught. Again.

In the same time, my heart bleeding. Again.

In the same time being aware of all the rumours, theories, possible scenarios. In the same time, seeing the whole truth. I n the same time, seeing each truth. The truth of the aggressed. The truth of the agressors.. And looking at the truth of the ones who are behind the aggressors... 

My workshop went ahead and I was not there. I was looking forward to this for so many months and I chose not to go. It was a workshop for peace and I chose to listen to the war.. Wasn't it?
The people who went to the workshop and Teal herself were all safe. I would've probably been safe, too... Wasn't I?

I will never know. I can keep wondering about this choice. About the choice of listening - not only to my love for V and C - but also to the feelings I got that I should've not gone to Paris.

In the past, I would've had the feeling and still push past it.
Sometimes it payed off and nothing really bad happened. I would arrive in such a place like Paris was that weekend and maybe helped, on a subtle invisible level, to ease the pain. I would take the pain in and I would keep it in.. (lately I learnt what to do with that pain..)
Some other times I would not listen to the feeling and I would get in a big mess. A mess that I simply cannot afford anymore as a single mother. I have a responsibility which goes beyond myself now. 

So I suppose I "should" listen.

It is a weird new feeling that I cannot easily accept - but I do, more and more...
There is a peace in listening to the hunches we get from our intuition, there is a peace in following the flow of life. And this is a peace that is stil really unknown to me, a peace that I am building every day, since a wee few years ago..

And in the same time, there is the person me who wants (other) things. Who always craved adventure and "crazy stories" (and still does somehow, sometimes, and is kinda proud to tell those stories of survival in the last moment). Still addicted to being in the craziness. Still addicted to pain (I am working on it).

I am more and more conscious of this and I am trying to soothe myself at times - ironically enough more for wanting to be at peace and loving my life.

It is only a superficial contradiction..
For many many years I learned that "life is a bitch and then you die" - or that "life is hard"..
In Romania for many many years I felt bad if I was even remotely happy.

I am learning now to not make my life so hard anymore.

I am learning every day how to shine, more and more. 
But it's a learning.
And a choice.

In the same time, I am touched deeply by the pain that Mother Earth still suffers and carries - by the pain of the suffering animals, by the pain of humans.

In these last few months this pain seems to come closer and closer to me - even geographically.. We so tend to not want to feel other pain, if it's not close to our skin.

There is even a new age thing that avoids looking at (or even stating it or describing) pain. The Law of Attraction states that we attract more of the things we pay attention to, conform with the feelings we have around the issue..
So what happens when we concentrate on pain and we suffer?? People who are aware of the Law of Attraction are tending to look the other way in face of pain.

I am still not really sure at how to deal with this.
Putting my head in the sand and not seeing what is going on in the world feels very wrong to me.
Not talking about the reality of suffering feels like I am abandoning myself (all over again).

I still can remember, once in my childhood, looking at some foreign tourists and thinking: they must feel what is going on in Romania, they must know, they must go at home and allert the international community about the horrors here.. I remember waiting for the Americans to "save us". Then many years later I heard: "we never knew".. "we saw something but did not understand" "we cannot imagine that what you say is true".. ""what do you mean, there was no food, no heating and sometimes no electricity??? " - even from people who went to Romania in those times.. And I learned that we were in that situation because of an international accord.. 

I feel it is important for us to know what is going on. About Syria. About Palestine. About the refugees. About what happened in Club Collective in Bucharest. About what happened in Beirut and about the planes that are attacked and fall from the sky. About Mali. About terrorists. About Papua New Guinea and the fate of women there.. And the list can go on and on and on.. Not only when it comes close to us, when it's in our face. 

And also - I feel we should not only know about it but became conscious of who and what is behind all of it. Of why and by whom the wars are started. About whom are the ones seeding fear and hate and who profits from it. 

Not for blame. Blame is seemingly helpful because when we point fingers we feel like a part of the pain is lifted from us and goes into fury against the ones we blame.. But if we don't pay attention, blame transforms really fast in hate. And hate grows even more from fear - fear for our safety and status quo. And fear grows from hate and soon enough we make choices out of fear and hate in place of out love... And we hate a "group" and it's mostly the wrong group. We tend to hate and fear what we see because we are not aware about what is behind it.

There's such a fine line... such a subtle difference. But it makes all the different in the world.

And then, the fear of war. These days, all the European parliaments talked about it. It comes really close. The TV and Facebook are full of fear and incentives to hate. What can we do if we still want to live out love? Where can we turn to?

I'd say, choose love.
Choose to see it.
Choose to think about it. 
It starts with us. Every one of us.
​Ask yourself every moment, when you make a decision (even when you decide what to think about), is it out of fear or out of love? 

When we choose love, we co-create a present and a future where this pain will (slowly) disappear.
When we choose fear and hate, we co-create a life and Earth where war is king. I certainly don't want this last one.. Do you?

I always see both sides. I see the ugliness and the pain. AND I see the beauty and the love. 

I am convinced that seeing both sides is the right path for me.
I know plenty of people who see only one side. People who see the overfilled garbage can when in a beautiful park filled with flowers. Or people who see that one little flower growing out of the pavement in a polluted, grey, filled with fear town.. 

I see both.
I call it awareness, for the lack of a better word. I see both AND I feel both. 

And in the same time, seeing both makes me even more aware of the beauty. Looking behind it all, there is beauty in everything, even in the ugly.
In Paris, that Friday evening there was the #PorteOuverte movement, just regular people taking stranded strangers in while attacks were still going on.  And in the following hours when people were not allowed to travel in Paris..
..And there was the "You don't have my hate" dad..
​..And there was this:

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When V was awake on Saturday morning (Nov 14th) I explained to him that I decided Paris was not safe for us to go. That we will ride the Thallys another time. That there were bad people that killed many other people and there were many policemen on the streets of Paris (and then I remembered with amazement what he said the day before.. about not going with the Thallys, about people on the streets)..
He said, to my amazement: it's fine. We will just play today.
(this amazed me once more because he on Friday he had cried - a lot - that we were not going to Paris at once)..

Our children are love, if we do not teach them otherwise. Our children are powerful and if we allow them to co-create a life full of love and understanding I am sure we will live in a more and more beautiful world.
If we do not teach them fear and hate, they will be free to make up their own minds. 
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If we allow them to be the love that they already are, we give them the chance to create a better world.

with thanks to "The Master Shift" for the initial posting of this picture

I wish I could have titled this post with "from Paris, with love"..
​Instead, from The Hague, with love.