Yesterday I visited Julie, her son Raphaël, her husband Bart and her mother Annieck in Roborst, Belgium.  It’s only the second time I’ve met her in the same room.  We’re friends on Zoom with the Evolutionary Collective.

At the end of our time together, as Julie was driving me back to the train station, we both realized we hadn’t taken any pictures.  And when I was rushing to the correct train platform, we forgot again! 

Oh well.  What you see here is a photo when Julie and Raphaël visited me last summer.  He was an infant.  Now he’s two.

A true hug with a friend is a glorious thing.  We lingered.  We walked and talked … about her home, her garden and what was moving us in the moment.  It was easy, as all conversations should be.  And I sang her a song.

Julie is a healer through physical touch, a graduate of the Barbara Brennan School of Healing.  I loved sitting with her in the quiet of her healing room.

Julie showed me the wonders of her garden while Raphaël kept pointing to things and saying “Papa”.  So sweet.  There was life everywhere – the fish in the pond, the chickens in the woods, the bees in their hives, the birds in their glory aloft.  Raphaël showed me his little house in the yard.  We all need “our place”.

Bart is a miracle of creation.  He raises bees and joins in the becoming of honey.  He cultivates grape vines.  He raises vegetables from infancy.  He takes clay and a potter’s wheel, and a kiln … and ceramic miracles are revealed.  Plus he teaches his students to do the same.

Annieck just got back from a journey to Spain.  And soon she’ll be setting off again, going with friends to the Galapagos Islands, in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Ecuador.  After her husband died, she keeps being invited by friends to explore faroff corners of the world.

It was all so alive.  And what pulls everyone together is a two-year-old named Raphaël.

Family