The St Lucian government sent us on a little trip… on my usual monthly visit to immigration to extend my visitors visa, I was told that I needed to leave the island and come back before they would keep extending my visa. Apparently as a non-citizen, you need to leave each year, something I wasn’t aware of. Interesting timing tough, you see I had been in St Lucia for 18 months already and no-one had mentioned it, not a peep about it. And now that our slavery healing work had begun, hey presto! Combine that with a deep desire to go on a little holiday, to have a rest away from it all (even in tropical paradise there’s that need). Our wishes came true! On paper finances said ‘no, no, no’ to our trip but we managed to make it happen (spirit really wanted us to go)… a 3 day break in neighbouring Martinique. Of course we knew we were going to do more than to have a break and to visit Bruno’s sister who lives in Martinique, there was energy work to be done. The ex-slaves on Pigeon Island who were longing to re-unite with their loved ones wanted us to go, the ex-slaves held energetically in Martinique wanted us to go and of course spirit wanted us to go (see previous post – Pigeon Island). So with a little push from Immigration, we went! But first we popped along to Pigeon Island to take a ‘piece’ as promised. We took a splinter of wood from a very old building (don’t worry we didn’t take it off the precious building, it had already fallen off… promise!) which sits right next to the spot where the mourning ex-slaves were ‘hanging out’, also a small piece of root from a hanging tree, the type where the roots grow down from the branches, like tears. In our planning, we struggled to find accommodation close to the port that we were arriving into, nothing was coming together, and then we found something in a totally different spot which felt perfect. We realised that it was close to a monument that Bruno had mentioned several times, it’s a monument to slaves who drowned at sea. A ship was anchored in the wrong spot during a storm and hundreds of lives were lost. Those who lived were transported instantly, traumatised, to the plantation to which they were assigned. It felt like the right place to visit and to do some energy work. As usual it turned out perfectly. Of course things didn’t go to plan. Instead of resting the first day, we spent the day driving around Martinique, it was a lovely day but we were knackered and certainly didn’t have that holiday feeling we so craved. We also had what seemed at the time, a mishap with a placenta, but that’s another story :). We vowed to have a restful morning the next day (I know… only one morning!) and to go to the slavery monument on Sunday afternoon. We relaxed and it felt good, we debated should we go to the monument that afternoon, there were frustrations… we weren’t resting enough, but also we came to do some energy work and weren’t doing it. Grrrrr! We decided to call it quits for the day and to go to the monument the next day, our last day in Martinique. Bruno’s sister had invited us for lunch so we decided to go to the monument first. Of course things didn’t go to plan :). We walked into the local village in the morning, just like you do when you’re on holidays, went to the ATM, popped into a couple of shops etc. Time felt strange and we moved very slowly, as if we were being dragged. At the time I thought it was the heat, the sun was beating down, but in hindsight it was more than that. With the morning gone we headed off to lunch with the plan to go to the monument after (I know!). Problem was that Bruno’s sister lives up in the hills, quite a way from where we were staying. Getting to the area was pretty straight forward but once we were close it became impossible, or so it seemed. We took turn after turn which looked familiar (from visiting on the first day) and felt right but kept taking new roads, discovering new areas. And with every turn we passed old plantations, some abandoned but most revived in ways to become homes, resorts etc. We felt heavier and heavier. I felt calm (just as well because I was driving and on the other side of the road to what I’m used to!) but Isabella was becoming more and more upset, Bruno became more and more angry. We were in the most beautiful hills, lush green, cool, amazing views of the valleys and mountains close by, absolutely stunning. You see with each turn, each section covered by our compact hire car, we were getting the attention of ex-slaves who had been walking and re-walking certain paths for hundreds of years and who didn’t know what to do to be able to change that. Perhaps they didn’t know there were options at all. We were getting their attention and were collecting them along the way. The emotions were intense, hence Isabella and Bruno picking up on sadness and anger. Bruno was voicing that he wasn’t able to make his own choices, that he was being controlled etc… sounds like the energy of slavery hey! At one point he even stomped his feet. My lovely friend Kathy Baker, who helps us to make sense of so much stuff, later explained that the foot stomping was linked to the traditional dance of the ex-slaves. We knew the anger was linked to the slaves and that Bruno was picking up on it, it didn’t make it any easier though. Have you ever set off to find a place, not managed to find it, and given up?… well that was us. A couple of hours of driving around we felt defeated and headed back to the south of the island where we were staying. We felt terrible to let Bruno’s sister down, we couldn’t call and hoped that she would understand. We decided to head straight to the monuments while we still could… what we felt we came for. Of course things didn’t go to plan. We were heading down the motorway, I was driving toward our accommodation thinking that the monument was close by… it wasn’t really. We had words, illogical words, the type of illogical words when other energies are involved. We argued about where we were going, how to get there, my going the wrong way, it being too late to go to the monument, but the monument was the reason we were in Martinique, so we had to go, oh boy! Many deep breaths were taken. But we managed to navigate our way to the section of the island where the monument is. There’s a beautiful coastal road, really beautiful, dotted with holiday homes, lovely beaches, sweet villages. Once we started to drive on that road it felt like we had one giant sigh of relief, we were setting souls free on that coast, some were leaving us, bit by bit we felt better, we actually felt relaxed and cheerful. It felt like a whole bunch of slaves had arrived to the coast all those years ago and had been transported to the hills to do their ‘work’, and this was their chance to be brought back to the same coast to leave again. It also felt like an even larger ‘bunch’ had escaped and fled to the hills, and had to stay there for fear of being caught, and this was also their chance to be brought back to the coast to leave. Eventually we foundhe spot, the monument. It’s a beautiful monument to a very sad event. Bruno had been there many times and felt deep sadness each time. This was his chance to transmute that energy. I handed things over to Isabella and Bruno to ‘do their thing’. It felt right, they are after all descendants, of then-slaves. I held the space for them. Bruno said some beautiful words and released the pieces taken from Pigeon Island. Bruno cried, I cried, Isabella chuckled. Such a relief ! And back to our relaxing accommodation we headed to prepare to leave early the next morning, job done! (If you are interested in finding more about the memorial, it’s called ‘Anse Caffard Memorial’. It was created to commemorate the abolition of slavery and the sinking of one particular ship which moored during the night after the importation and sale of slaves became illegal. It comprises 15 figures made of white stone and standing 2.5m tall. The white stone symbolises death and the triangular formation of the figures represents the the shape of the ocean routes the ships took when the slave trade was at its height.) Our good friend Kathy Baker explained later that on the ferry we were tracing the journey made by slaves who were transported from St Lucia to Martinique. So all along the way, healing was taking place. Of course! May the healing ripples run far, wide and deep! |