Beneath the Tides

I went to Paris with only a small bag and no map for the days ahead. I carried no expectations - only the wish to swim through the city with my whole body and soul, to let the universe whisper what I most needed to hear.

And it did.

The streets became rivers, carrying me exactly where I needed to be. In unexpected moments and passing encounters, I met reflections of myself - gentle reminders that the shifts I’ve made within are not only for me, but ripple outward, quietly touching others in ways I may never fully see. I am deeply grateful for each and every person I met and spent time with this weekend. Each encounter felt like a gift, reminding me how beautiful it is when lives cross paths with honesty, lightness, and joy. These connections - whether fleeting or lingering - were proof that when we show up with openness, the universe responds in kind, and the journeys get connected.

I was reminded, too, that life patterns return not as punishments, but as invitations - to look closer, to grow deeper, and to step more fully into the person I am becoming.

Last year, in Oceans in Me, I wrote of tides - of grief, of memory, of belonging. I felt then how the ocean inside me carries both heaviness and hope. And it’s still there. The grief, the growth, the sitting with it. The gentle solitude and its unexpected warmth. The despair, yes, but also the uncovering of the true self that waits beneath it all.

Growth never happens overnight. It is the quiet work of unseen currents, the patient shaping of shorelines. And yet, when the shift finally arrives, it feels sudden - like stepping into a new atmosphere, breath caught by the vastness of it all. Overwhelming, yes, but also deeply elevating.

In the stillness of a Paris afternoon, I found myself thinking of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

Paris reminded me that growth is a dance between remembering and becoming - between the intimate and the infinite. Beneath the surface of our everyday lives lies a deeper truth: that once, before all division and loneliness, we were a singular presence-boundless and whole, where distinctions like “I” and “you” had not yet emerged.

This awareness stirred within me a quiet longing to awaken to that vast interconnectedness again, to feel beyond the boundaries we carry now, and to honour the fragile beauty of belonging-not just to places or people, but to the great unfolding mystery itself.

I came with lightness, and I left carrying more than I had imagined - not in my bag, but in my being. I carried the knowing that beneath all the tides of change, we are still part of one great ocean, moving together, always homeward.