Devouring “The Iron Flame” is not going to cut it. It’s time to “snap out” of fantasy and back into reality.

Or is it? What is in fact real and what is not?

What other veils of illusions are going to drop before we can see our divinity and humanity in totality?

I’ve been binging everything these past few days upon my return to Dubai.

Food. Shows. Pages.

Three spontaneous unexpected months away from my space, my bed, and my routine will do that to anyone, especially a homebody like me.

The ache in my joints and bones make me feel like I am Violet herself in the Iron Flame, riding dragons and fighting wyvern all weekend.

Traveling to 5 different locations in less than a month will do that to your system.

London. Ibiza. Sainte Baume. Crans Montana. Dubai.

Work. Play.

Play. Work.

I can barely separate these moments and memories in my head as though all the threads are jumbled up in one tight knot.

Luckily, one of the things I love most is tweezing out and disentangling whatever has been enmeshed with great precision, gentleness and care.

All so I may lay them clearly and neatly and contemplate them for a little while.

All so I may integrate all that is being asked to be re-membered.

Now it’s important to not confuse contemplation for daydreaming or consider it unworthy of your time and energy. Contemplation is an intimate act of coming into contact with the present moment.

And nothing that is outside the parameters of the present moment is actually real.

And nothing that is beyond this moment should consume you to the point of losing your connection to God.

I’m writing this as much for myself as I am for you.

As we are nearing the once in a blue moon Sagittarius Moon on Sunday, the invitation is to surrender in ways you’ve never surrendered before, while simultaneously wielding your sword and planting it so firmly into the earth, before you aim for you stars.

As I’ve returned from being displaced for the last few months, from pilgrimage, from turning a year older,

Non-linearity is etched into my bones as though I can no longer separate myself from this one simple, yet undeniable truth:

The pieces of your life will not come in any particular order.

You may get a glimpse, a trailer of what your life will look like next year today,

You may experience a deeper sense of who you are right now, and forget all about it until the end of summer,

You may receive a grand epiphany of what to do, and not act on it immediately,

Blooms happen when spring has sprung.

Things don’t need to go from A-Z, or in a 1, 2, 3 sequence

to add up,

to make sense,

to be perfect.

To guide oneself correctly in life,

To make the right decisions,

To move in accordance to your soul’s guidance,

It is important to contemplate,

To remove the placeholders you have between past, present and future

And scratch beneath the surface of what is

So you may feel something deeper than just the superficial

Experience something more profound

If you’re blindsided right now and can’t seem to see,

Move to higher grounds.

Become a tower.

2026 and the year of the fire horse seems to have taken everyone by surprise

And yet, I feel pretty self-assured.

Personally, it’s hitting the nail on the head with what I imagined it to be

Purifying.

Cleansing.

No bullshit.

Both cutthroat and compassionate.

Only moving ahead if it’s in integrity.

It’s either it or it’s not.

To mark a new beginning means something in your life has to end

The end of a habit, a way of being, of blaming, of moving, of operating.

In this moment right now, can you feel the duality between

Your strength and your stagnancy?

The push and pull between wanting to move slow and quick?

The softening of your heart and also the firmness of your boundaries?

The melting into what is, and the yearning for your Beloved?

The acceptance of what we made of life, and the impatience of seeding a new one?

To listen acutely to your intuition while remaining oh so tender with the decisions you’re making?

And when the noise gets too loud, because it will this Gemini season, return to the body (Taurus)

Feed your fire (Aries)

Listen to the ache in the joints.

The weight of the bones.

The breath that is happening right now, whether you’re paying attention to it or not.

That is the only country that is real.

Like many, he thought this was going to be his year.
And to many people’s surprise, this year is burning more things to the ground than expected.

I can’t say I am surprised.

The Astrology, the Human Design, the energetics of these times…
they were never designed to be easy.

And many of us, light workers, warriors of love,
did not sign up for easy.

We signed up to roll up our sleeves,
to get back on the saddle,
and to keep going.

But the real question is…go where?

Where does one go in times like these?

For most, direction feels external.
Galloping toward something new.
Striving for higher ground.
Reaching for a better horizon.
Trying, somehow, to outrun the weight of the world.

But for those of us walking a more mystical path,
direction is not outward.

It is inward.

It looks like stretching the body beyond what we thought possible.
Opening chambers of the heart that have been closed for centuries.
Excavating what has been buried…
and finally, retrieving the gold.

And yet this path,
this inward path,
requires silence.
Solitude.
Space.

So how do we hear ourselves
when the world is so loud?

When there are sirens,
bomb blasts,
grief echoing through the body…

how do we hear the birds again?
How do we hear our own heartbeat?

Right now, many of us are holding extremes.

Gratitude and grief.
Despair and hope.
Trust and doubt.
Motivation and exhaustion.

I feel it too.

I’ve been in London for most of March now.
Back in a city I once called home for eight years,
a place I left nearly four years ago.

And something in me has been unraveling here.

I’ve been making jokes…
saying I’m technically a refugee of war.

But beneath the humor, there is something real.

I remember how angry I felt when I arrived.
I remember the moment it hit me,
that if I were to die,
I would want it to be in my own country.

Even writing that brings tears.

I think of the hug I gave my father at 5am
before heading to the airport.
I think of the smoke rising from the land
as the plane took off.

And something inside me breaks open again.

I notice how uncomfortable people become
when I speak about war, about systems, about what I see.

Sometimes I wonder…

how much longer until people wake up?
Or am I the one who is still asleep?

The last month has been a lot to hold.

And if I’m honest…

I don’t feel like holding on to this old world anymore.

I don’t feel like grieving systems that are clearly collapsing.
I don’t feel like living a half-life
because of decisions made by men in suits.

And yet, this morning, I pulled a card:

The Calling. You are beckoned.

A reminder that it is time to share.
To speak.
To move.

To get back on the saddle but this time, from a different place.

This is the second time this month I’ve pulled this card.

And each time, the image is the same: Mary Magdalene, standing before the cave.

The caves of Sainte-Baume, a place that has held prayer, exile, and devotion for centuries.

It brings me back to my first time there, almost two years ago.
When I arrived without really knowing what a pilgrimage was…
and left completely changed.

It reminds me that I will be there again in just a few weeks.

And something about that feels deeply connected to this moment.

Because here we are…

living through a time where our region is once again carrying so much.
War.
Displacement.
Grief that moves through borders, through bloodlines, through the body.

And here She is…

A woman from this land.
From the Levant. From Palestine.

A woman who knew exile.
Who was forced to leave her home.
Who carried her devotion across waters, into foreign lands, into caves…

and continued anyway.

There is something in that
that feels incredibly present right now.

A reminder that even in times of rupture,
there is still a way to remain connected.

To love.
To truth.
To devotion.

And maybe that’s what I’m here to remind you of.

That this is not the time to turn away.

Not from what is happening.
Not from what you feel.

But to gather.

To pray.
To remember.

To walk the path again, and remember something more ancient in the body.

This pilgrimage in May was never meant to be separate from the world.

It is a response to it.

A space where we come together not to escape…but to meet what is here with open hearts.

Through:

– daily circles
– meditation
– reflection
– simple, nourishing meals
– walks through sacred forests and caves
– and the moments in between, that become sacred when shared

And yes, the practical is here too.

There are 2 days left before the 3-month payment plan closes.
After that, only full payment will be available.

I’ve also opened 2 scholarship spaces, offering financial support
for those who feel the call, but need to be met.

But beyond all of that…

If this keeps returning to you,
if something in you recognizes this without needing explanation…

then you already understand:

you are being called.

You can reply directly to this email
or message me with “PILGRIMAGE” and I’ll share the details.

With love,
Maria 🌹

I arrived in London over a week ago, and the first few days were rough. Mentally. Physically. Emotionally.

Spiritually, I was surrendering to what was unraveling. But out of all the times I’ve left Lebanon, last Saturday was the hardest.

I took off as flames and smoke from overnight bombs rose into the sky.

Tears started streaming down my face.

A deep sadness overcame me, and the days that followed in London were quite revealing. Every sound seemed to echo something my body had just left behind.

The engines of cars.
Doors slamming.
Trash being thrown and picked up.
Planes flying overhead.

All of it sounded like bombs dropping.

I hadn’t realized just how much my body had been bracing.

Luckily, I have the somatic awareness and practices to move, shake, and release energy out of my body.

But my stomach was not cooperating.

It felt flipped upside down, as though my body had become an extension of the land itself.

I shared a reflection about this on my Instagram feed, and many people resonated with it. I wanted to share it here too, in case it serves any of you as well.

“Is it the war in the Middle East that’s causing me so much distress?

In Lebanon?
My homeland.

In Palestine?
My brothers and sisters.

In Kuwait?
The country I called home for eighteen years.

In London?
The city I seem to keep returning to. Again and again.

In Dubai?
My home for the last three and a half years.

I do find myself standing on the precipice of something new. Spring is around the corner. The trees are starting to bloom.

And yet, strangely enough, I also find myself needing to run to the bathroom every hour.

As the reader, you won’t have to wait too long for the act to be revealed.

And don’t worry, it won’t be a bunch of word vomit.

I’ve been preparing for years. Decades.

My whole life, really.

Preparing.
Trying.
Giving it another chance.
Never giving up.
No matter what.

It’s in my blood.

I am Lebanese, after all.

Resilience lives in our soul.

Lebanese.
Resilience.

Resilience.
Lebanese.

They might as well be intertwined.

Married.

Like two lovers that could never leave each other.

Divorce is not an option, habibi.

If Lebanon were an archetype, it would be the Phoenix.

The one that rises from the ashes.

Again.
And again.
And again.

Intact.
Untouchable.
Undeniably beautiful.

She is beauty herself.

It may sound strange to speak about a country like this.

But it is true.

The world has always been hungry for our land.

Ravenous.
Famished.
Unsatisfied.

Like a vampire that hasn’t drawn and drank enough blood.

To be Lebanese means everything to us.

And I mean everything.

It’s not a land we will ever give up.
Not a history we could ever forget.

For thousands of years they have come

with their ships
their flags
their gods
their guns.

Each empire convinced
they would be the one
to finally tame her.

But Lebanon has never belonged to empire.

She belongs to the sea.
To the mountains.
To the cedar roots that have been holding the memory of this land
long before borders were drawn
by tired men in suits.

You can bomb a country.

You can fracture its cities.

You can scatter its people
across oceans and continents.

But you cannot erase what lives in the bones.

We carry her with us.

In our accents.

In the way we argue loudly
and then feed each other five minutes later.

In the way laughter somehow survives
even in the middle of collapse.

Lebanon does not disappear.

She multiplies.

In London.
In Montreal.
In Dubai.
In Paris.
In Sydney.

Little embers of the same fire.

And maybe that’s why my body is trembling right now.

Maybe that’s why my stomach keeps turning.

Because somewhere deep in my nervous system,
my body remembers.

Every war.
Every exile.
Every return.

I pray for our lands to know peace once more. I pray for Love to be restored back into the fabric of the Earth. I pray for us to remember Her, our Divine Mother, at every moment of every day.

With love,
Maria

A Mystic in the City ✨

And yet, for so long, I’ve found myself not fully going for it, out of fear of being polarising.

But when heads roll, babies sacrificed, and the world showcases a level of depravity and decadence that cannot be ignored, it feels important to say things as they are.

We can’t fool ourselves into believing we’re already living on a “new timeline.”

We aren’t.

We aren’t manifesting our way into a New Earth through positive affirmations alone.
We can’t meditate our way out of these times without changing the way we live.

There is still work to be done.

Warriors of Light, I am speaking to you.
Warriors of Love, I am calling you out of your shells.

You’ve been primed for these times.
You’ve marinated long enough in your struggles.
You are ripe enough now to let your creative fire move through you.

If you are reading this, you are part of what is being born.

It certainly won’t be our politicians or governments who create this new timeline.
Nor will it be a single Messiah or spiritual savior.

The days of believing there is only one Son of God are over.

This isn’t to diminish Jesus or any of the avatars who have walked this Earth.
It is to remind you that none of us are separate from Source.

In the eyes of the Divine, there is no difference between you and me.

Many of us are already moving toward a different way of living.
A life of greater abundance, grace, and connection with the Earth, the Cosmos, the Divine, and each other.

Many feel as though they are no longer the person they used to be. As though their inner wiring is being upgraded.

I do believe many of us are stepping away from the karmic timeline humanity has been entangled in for centuries.

The one built on emotional guilt.
On impulsive reaction.
On overgiving to feel valued.
On decisions made from fear and scarcity.

The sovereign timeline asks something different of us. It asks us to remember our worth. To trust our bodies. To magnetise rather than force. To hold clear agreements and boundaries, even with our nearest and dearest. Especially them.

With all the massive astrological shifts happening right now, many of us are indeed moving closer to this new way of living.

And yet, even as a spiritual lover, I cannot dismiss the reality that this is not everyone’s experience.

And it’s not because people don’t want peace or abundance.
It’s because systems that have ruled through fear and extraction do not disappear without a scene.

Empires don’t fall without a sound. They collapse loudly. And often, try to burn everything sacred with them. And usually, those considered most “dispensable” suffer the most.

Yes, we are allowed to feel joy, gratitude, and power as old structures crumble.
Yes, we are going through an accelerated process of evolution. But we must also be honest. We keep speaking about a new timeline. A new earth. Higher consciousness.
A great awakening.

And yet, very little has changed in the way we relate to life itself.

We still treat land as something to own. Bodies as something to control. Labor as something to extract. Resources as something to dominate.

We say we want peace. We say we want healing. We say we want a better world. But we still operate from fear. From scarcity. From survival logic.

And that logic is old. It says there isn’t enough. Not enough land. Not enough safety. Not enough power. Not enough money. Not enough resources.

So someone must take more. Someone must control. Someone must dominate.
Someone must win.

History has shown us this pattern again and again.

Empires don’t fall because they lack vision. They fall because they interfere with life. With land. With bodies. With minds. With hearts. With spirit.

This pattern isn’t just political. It’s spiritual too.

Love spoken, but not embodied. Wisdom taken, but not honored. Earth extracted, but not protected. The feminine discussed, but not truly lived.

We keep waiting for a new world to arrive while repeating the same relationship to Life that created the old one.

A new timeline isn’t something we think our way into.

It’s something we practice. In the way we eat. The way we work. The way we speak to one another. The way we treat the Earth. The way we move through the world.

You don’t “exit” a fear-based system by simply imagining a better future. You exit it by changing your relationship to life itself.

And this other way is often slower. More feminine. Less performative. Less obsessed with appearances and outcomes. More rooted in rhythm, cycles, and relationship.

It listens instead of controls. It tends instead of extracts. It cooperates instead of dominates.

This is one of the reasons pilgrimage has become so sacred to me. Because pilgrimage is not about escaping the world. It’s about stepping into a different relationship with it.

You walk instead of rushing. You listen instead of performing. You pray instead of producing. You let the land teach you instead of trying to master it.

There is no extraction. No domination. No urgency to prove anything.

Just steps. Breath. Stone. Sky. Silence. And the revelation of the patterns you’ve been living inside of.

Pilgrimage is one of the few spaces left where we practice another timeline with our bodies.

Not as an idea. Not as a concept. But as a lived, walked, breathed experience.

If you feel called to walk with us

In May, we will be walking the lands of Mary Magdalene together.

To remember how to live in it differently.
More slowly.
More truthfully.
More devotedly.

If something in this piece stirred you, it may not just be the words.

It may be the remembering of a different way of being.

And sometimes, the path back to that way begins with a single step.

If you’re interested, write back to me.

I’ll send everything your way.

But I didn’t disregard it totally either. It felt like they were on to something and I did go down a bit of a rabbit hole for a few weeks.

Last week on Friday night when I started reading the files posted on social media, my stomach did a back flip.

I didn’t realise it until a few days later, but I stayed on my couch binge watching yet another crime show. I could not get out of the freeze mode I hadn’t noticed I was in.

I thought, maybe it’s also the Full Moon in Leo that was hitting me hard and making me more emotional than usual. Maybe it’s my own moon that is about to start. Maybe, it’s just all of it together.

Right before covid started in 2020, I started to cycle with the phases of the Moon. New Moons. Full Moons. Every single month for the last 6 years. That is two moons a month for 72 months. 144 moons.

And let me tell you, once you start paying attention, you begin to recognise a pattern.
Big events being revealed around astrological timings.
New Moons. Full Moons. Eclipses. Planetary shifts.

Sure, we can say these things are happening because of the planets changing.
And we can also admit that something feels off about it happening almost every single time.

Can it be that big world events are planned around those dates for a very specific reason?

The energies are charged.
People’s shadows are naturally magnified.
You become more susceptible to falling into fear patterns and doomsday mentalities.

Your light is far easier to harvest and extract during these specific times and they know it.

This doesn’t mean turning a blind eye or disregarding what is happening.
It means understanding that they want you to feel small.
Insignificant.
Powerless.
Threatened.
Unsafe.
Disconnected from your heart, your joy, your faith, your divine and human birthrights.

Nothing is released or shared on the “news” that isn’t also part of an agenda.

They don’t care that you know how bad they are.
They want you to know they can do what they want and get away with it.

Just like how those who obliterated Gaza are suddenly positioned as the ones here to restore peace, the ones part of the Epstein files are the very ones releasing it for the world to see. They’re giving people what they want and unfortunately, either people are desensitized, entertained, or at worst, their immune systems are deeply affected.

They want you completely fragmented.
Frazzled.
Overstimulated.

By releasing the files on the last Full Moon of the Year of the Snake
after so many have been shedding major layers of skin
at a moment where what once was is no longer,
and what can be hasn’t arrived yet…

It’s because they know this:

If enough people fall into fear patterns right now,
if enough people feel disempowered,
the cycle continues.

History repeats itself.
They stay in charge.
They gain more control.

Lots of news around the Epstein files surfacing around the Leo Full Moon is not a coincidence.

They have you exactly where they want you to be.

We are literally at a crossroads between winter and spring.
A corridor in time where what once was isn’t
and what will be hasn’t taken shape yet.

→ this is Imbolc: the corridor between Winter and Spring, where the soil under our feet is defrosting and the seeds are about to crack and move towards the light.

A threshold.
A hinge point.
A moment of becoming.

Regardless, it is important to say this clearly:
What has been shared is awful.
Inhumane.
Depraved.
Demonic.
Satanic.

A literal temple for demon worship was revealed through these files.

All the theories around child sacrifice are not just theories.
We saw this in Gaza, where the majority of casualties were children.

And yet, in the same breath,
how do we stay angry and connected to our hearts?

How do we witness what is happening without becoming consumed by it?

How do we untangle ourselves from the manipulation
and still be the Warriors of Light we came here to be?

How do we remain open, empathetic, sensitive,
while holding the vision of a New Earth?

A world where indigenous beings everywhere are free.
Where children are protected and safe.
Where justice is present.
Where cyclicality is honoured.
Where the Mother is remembered and revered again.

We absolutely did not come here to repeat history.
To learn the same lessons our ancestors already paid for.
To stay stuck in old loops.

They knew this time was pivotal.
And they are trying to use it to their advantage.

May this message receive those of you who are here to bring a new world into form. Those of you who are warriors of light. At the forefront of what is happening. Not just pouring prayers into the field, but also showing up in the ways only you can.

A little Gene Keys Update

If you’ve worked with me before, or attended one of my courses, you know that I’ve started to weave in Human Design & Gene Keys.

This past week, we had two very powerful Gene Keys:

• Gene Key 19 (Root Centre) which is all about being sensitive to the needs of the collective. It’s the pressure humans feel to have their needs met. To survive. To respond to life’s demands.

• Gene Key 13 (Identity Centre) which is all about listening with your whole body what is happening around and learning from past events to choose differently

Gene Key 19:

• Shadow: Co-dependency: this is the shadow of humanity where we let fears drive our decisions, where we overly invest in the emotional needs of others, where we suppress our own desires to maintain harmony, where we lose a personal identity in the pursuit of harmony and connection

• Gift: Sensitivity: this is about remaining open to life without erasing yourself. It’s the capacity to remain open-hearted without losing your centre. It’s balancing your own needs with the ones from your community

• Siddhi (virtue): Sacrifice: letting go of what people think of you. A state where you are giving from a place of abundance, not fear nor need. Sacrifice is about making things sacred again and remembering that every thing you touch, including yourself, and everywhere you enter needs proper etiquette.

Gene Key 13: This is alive and present right NOW for the collective. Whether you have this gate in your human design chart or not, you are experiencing this.

• Shadow: Discord: this is collecting secrets without processing. Emotional fatigue, nostalgia, heaviness. Speaking too soon before meaning has landed. Getting stuck in the past or defined by old narratives. Carrying emotions and memories that do not belong to you.

• Gift: Discernment: knowing which stories matter. Listening deeply without being entangled. Allowing meaning to form before expression. Extracting wisdom from experience.

• Siddhi: Empathy. you are witnessing all of this without merging. You are letting these stories teach you, and then you release the residues. You prioritise heart-truth over mental noise. This is the energy of the oracle, the wisdom keeper, the elder.

And yet, rather than feeling impatient, panicked or pressured to have my whole year figured out, I chose to slow down.

Cut down my phone screen time. Binge watched crime shows. Read books in bed while listening to high frequency music.

Went for morning walks by the beach, drank celery juice and powered myself with sunlight. I deepened my work with clients and started recording longer format videos.

Prayed in the mornings and wrote down my dreams. Edited my next poetry book and wrapped up the last few pieces.

With all the craze on longevity, biohacking and self-help books, I find that simplicity, slowness and stillness are far greater medicines than anything you could find in a pill, cold plunge, glucose monitor, or medicine ceremony.

Not that those things are wrong, or bad, but where do we let those things take precedence over our intuition, internal knowing and natural rhythm and pace?

It is one thing to need a GPS to get us from point A to Z, but how necessary is the data on your Oura ring? How much is your glucose monitor telling you about the hard conversations you’re avoiding? The ones potentially spiking your sugar levels in the first place.

I’m not the only one over the manifestation programs being sold. Or the endless ways of becoming your Higher Self. Or the performative spirituality. Or the endless gadgets I can buy to be better.

I have people coming up telling me they’re kind of done “healing” or digging any deeper. They just want to enjoy their life. Live a little. Party from time to time. Have a drink or two, or three, on a Friday or Saturday night. Indulge. Be in the material world without feeling guilty.

Fair enough. I get it. I do.

There is a fine line between healing because you’ve been taught to believe you are broken, and devoting yourself to this path of service, out of love for God and a calling greater than the self.

As someone who is here for the latter, I’ve spent the last few years exposing my own deep, dark shadows. It seems that with the evolution of the collective’s consciousness, there’s been a heavier load of dirty laundry being aired out for all of us to smell. And it sure as hell does not smell like roses.

It was far harder swallowing this pill of truth than it was to drink medicine: I have way more room to devote myself to something greater. I still have space to mature, refine, sharpen and master my own energy. Not to transcend higher, or channel light language, but to be a better steward and guardian of the Light. To be able to navigate these challenging and dystopian times with courage and strength.

Having worked corporate and been in the financial field, I can tell you for sure: the patterns that exist within the corporate world have infiltrated the spiritual one. And maybe it has always been the case. Maybe we have always commercialised God.

True spirituality is not here to tell you that money is evil, or to not want for niceties, but I also don’t think it’s telling you to abuse Divine Feminine and Masculine principles to make it happen either. Key word: abuse. There is a difference, a subtle one perhaps. Between remembering you are abundant and “manifesting” abundance.

This is not to shame anyone because Goddess knows, we need to put food on our table, a roof over our heads, and enjoy our lives more than just a little. I’m not saying no to money moving into the hands of those who know how to distribute it and use it to safeguard the Holy and the Sacred.

If you are reading this, you may be one of the few that have caught on already.

The patriarchal program has transferred from one world to the other.

Just because you’re marketing God rather than goods, doesn’t necessarily make you a better person.

There’s been an overindulgence in data and information, and not enough in devotion.

A decadence to the millions of self-help books, while we remain one of the most depressed societies in all of history.

A hierarchy of beings we looked up to and put on pedestals, only to find out they are just as bad as the politicians.

I may not have all the answers as to how we got here, or how to get out of it, but I can tell you one thing for sure: focusing on the ordinary, mundane tasks of life can greatly improve your life.

Don’t demonise, dismiss or depreciate the ordinary.

The ordinary is filled with extraordinary moments.

The ordinary is helping you remember what is already here, not punishing you for dreaming bigger.

The ordinary is inviting you to recognise there is magic here too.

You don’t really need to heal more, manifest more abundance or be in contact with the Galactic federation.

You don’t need to prove you are worthy to your parents or your partner, and certainly not God.

I can’t say without a shadow of a doubt what God thinks or not, but I have a strong feeling, God doesn’t care about whether you’re selling out your courses, or if you’re a sellout.

But maybe, just maybe…

God is asking you to plant seeds on the graves of the past versions of yourself.

Make a ceremony of your life.

Ritualise your routine.

Pick the pieces of yourself you found too hard to love and hug them tight.

Tend to the wounds you may not be responsible for and stitch them into the fabric of your skin, leaving you with a good story to tell your grandkids.

Maybe, just maybe…

God is asking you create the structures to hold the dreams you both have for Life.

God desires you more than you desire anything else in the world.

If you thought, you were “done” healing…

I invite you to stay a little while longer on your path of self-discovery, shadow work and spirituality.

Not because there is anything wrong with you but because above all else, the world is hungry, and the people are starving.

The world is ravenous, and the people are famished.

The world is dark, and the kids are kidnapped.

The world is decadent, and the children are being killed.

The world is malnourished, and the soil is depleted.

The world is sick, and the soul is longing for home.

If your healing is not bringing you closer to God and dissolving the space between Creator and Created, there is still something left to explore.

If your life doesn’t feel like one big, answered prayer, and your hands and feet are not being used to remember the magic in this world, there is still something left to explore.

If your life is not in service to something greater, and you’re not moving through your fears, there is still something left to explore.

And even then, there is still more to love.

The devotion does not end when your life feels like a living prayer. Nor when your life is in shambles. That is when your devotion deepens and strengthens. That is when your next initiation begins.

Spirituality will ask you to devote yourself entirely to your mission, even when it gets challenging. Especially then.

Spirituality will ask you to sit through the fire and burn away all the falsities.

Spirituality will often make you want to throw in the towel because it is a slow, and long burn.

Spirituality wants to know for certain if you’re in it for the long run, or just a sprint.

Spirituality is not a casual, short term, catch up or hook up with God. It is so much more than one breathwork session you did once, or even that yoga teacher training that changed your life.

There is a reason I have been on this path for the last 11 years.

And there’s also a reason I don’t wear a Fitbit or get too obsessed over all my health markers.

It’s because I have been humbled enough times to know that there is no destination.

No finish line to cross. No peak to reach.

But that does not mean there cannot be a sense of arrival. A sense of feeling at home in your body. A familiarity and intimate dance with God.

Enlightenment, although exciting and thrilling to ponder about, is perhaps not the end, but a new beginning.

Perfect health, although enticing and inspiring, is not quite possible without the integration of God back into lives.

The Divine is not a thing or a being living outside of you.

God lives in your habits and in your words.

God hides in your closet and in your shoes.

God masks itself as your lover and your enemy.

God is in the work you do.

In the services you share.

In the food you eat.

In the breaths you receive.

In the spaces between your fingers.

In everything you create and destroy.

On one hand yes. I get it. You’re tired of healing. You’re exhausted from doing the work.

And although you are welcome to take the heavy layers off, remember you wouldn’t be where you are today without them.

On the other, no. I absolutely don’t understand.

Why you would excavate something deep and leave the plot empty and flowerless.

Why you would go through intense grief, with no ceremony to mark the end of an old life or way of being.

Why you spend hours on vision boards, yet not take the steps required to bring them into form.

Why you would open the door, take the leap, and give up at the first sign of challenge, or celebration.

Why not continue a little further.

Get a little more honest.

Plunge a little deeper.

Become more intimate.

Tend to what has already been revealed.

Water the soil you’ve opened.

Stay long enough for something to grow.

Play all your cards.

And never stop praying for the children of the world everywhere to be safe, to be fed, to be protected, to be loved.

Much love,

Maria

Now, we are always in the presence of the Divine at every moment of every day.

We don’t need to travel far to meet the sacred.

All we ever need is to go within.

With every walk, every blink of an eye, we can come back into right relationship with life.
With our breath. With our body.
With Mother Earth, Father Sky.
With the elements of space, fire, earth, air, and water.

You can do it right now.
Close your eyes for a moment.
Breathe. Remember. Feel. Surrender.

And yet… something shifts on a pilgrimage.

Something ancient and energetic awakens when you intentionally step onto foreign lands and walk in the footsteps of a Saint.

Pilgrimage is entering the liminal.
The place where everything feels alive, pulsing, flowing, eternal.
Where your shadows brush up against your light.
Where insecurities surface.
Where you unmask and undress what has kept you from meeting your Self fully.

These sacred places may be foreign to your body, but they are profoundly familiar to your soul.
If these words find you, trust that you’ve walked those lands long before, lifetimes ago. Your mind may have forgotten, but your soul remembers.

In the last year and a half, I’ve been to Sainte-Baume three times. India, twice.Glastonbury, once.

Each journey stirred something deep in me, desires, greed, fears.
Not the pleasant stirrings… the transformative ones.
The ones that change how you move, create, write, love.
The ones that turn your entire life into a prayer, your body into a temple.

Five years ago, if you told me I’d be going on pilgrimages, let alone leading them, I wouldn’t have believed you.
And yet here I am, more devoted than ever, witnessing the fruits of this path, and this might just be the sweetest one.

I always knew the body held codes of remembrance. I felt it through yoga, meditation, energy work, breathwork, somatic practices.
But I had never considered the codes carried by the greater body, the Earth Herself.
Codes older than all of us.

Over the last few years, I’ve been slowly decoding the whispers of the lands.
Listening to the frequency of the Earth.
Letting Her awaken what had been dormant.
The Earth has a song, a melody that resurrects what has been desecrated, restoring us and this planet to a higher state of Love.

Just as your body carries gifts, the Earth holds energies capable of reactivating what is asleep, altered, or poisoned within you.
She can wipe your DNA clean.
She can rewrite your story, one free of pain, shame, guilt, doubt, and lack.

I believe every moment of my life led me to that first pilgrimage in Sainte-Baume in May 2024.
I heard the call, and I answered it right away. It didn’t have to ring twice for me to jump into the arms of the Divine Mother.

Answering the call is not about taking the easy way out.

Answering the call is not about getting what you think you want.

Answering the call means to put aside your own small desires, and fulfil your Soul’s Desires.

Answering the call means to trust the path, the vision, even when it’s unclear, uncertain and unknown.

My small desires are many and plenty and although some intertwine with my greatest Desires, I’ve made a conscious decision to offer them up often and regularly.
Because Her offerings are always riper, wiser, more exquisitely aligned.

When I went to Sainte-Baume the first time, it was right after a friend’s wedding and bachelorette.
While many my age are being initiated into marriage and motherhood, I am being initiated into the Lineage of the Rose.
Into the Greater Mysteries of Love and Life.
Into the Sacred Golden Weavings.

As a single young woman, I too have longings, love, partnership, children. However, my soul is thirsty for something else.
Divine Love. Divine Union.
The inner marriage of masculine and feminine.
A recoding of my lineage so I’m no longer bound to the past, but free.

When I took my mom to Sainte-Baume in May 2025, I knew we were going to heal the Mother Line together.
We’ve had our ups and downs, our breakups and makeups.
It’s not the perfect mother-daughter relationship I longed for as a child, but I trust in the weavings of the Great Mother, The First Mother, the Primordial Mother.
She who births and destroys.
She who resurrects.
She who asks only that we meet Her, even halfway.
One step toward Her, and She will meet you with a flood of love you may have never known.

The third time I returned in October 2025, I co-hosted the pilgrimage.
That is how quickly the Mother moves when you devote yourself to Her.
In a year and a half, from attendee to facilitator.
This last journey initiated me more deeply than the previous ones.
I felt my spine strengthen. My legs root. My heart flower. My grip on control soften.
She still moved something immense, fears around abandonment, rejection, and death and has been pulling me closer to Her daily.

I’ve journeyed with many spiritual tools.
But nothing compares to the transformations I’ve experienced through pilgrimage.

A total rewiring of my nervous system.A transmutation of ancient fears. A release of ancestral baggage. A forgiveness of old wounds. A remembering of ancient wisdom.

If this speaks to you, if your soul feels the pull, join us in May 2026 in the South of France.

“Walking the Mother Line” is a descent and a return.

A weaving of myth and memory, earth and spirit, body and soul.

A pilgrimage to heal the Mother Line and remember Her, in all that we say, do and are.

DOWNLOAD THE PILGRIMAGE GUIDE BELOW:

https://sowl.co/p/yKAJ2

Even after going twice in the last two years, I still feel like I’ve only scratched the surface.

Seoul is a megacity, home to over 10 million people, buzzing with life at every hour.

It’s busy, bustling, and full of hidden gems waiting to be found.

☀️ When to Visit

As a kid, I used to spend summers in Korea, right in the middle of the rainy season.
If you can, visit in April–May (spring) or October (autumn).

My last trip in October was a mix of sunshine and rain, a refreshing change after the Dubai heat.

If you have time to explore beyond Seoul:

• 🏝 Jeju Island – one hour away by plane, with dozens of flights daily. Lush nature, waterfalls, and volcanic beaches. (will share a post about this one soon)

• 🌊 Busan – coastal city with great food and ocean views.

🗣️ Language & Local Tips

Each year, I notice more people speaking English, especially the younger generation.
Still, most locals primarily speak Korean, so these apps help a lot:

• 📍 Naver Map (works better than Google Maps)

• 🗺 KakaoMap

• 💬 Papago (real-time translation)

It’s beautiful to watch how Korea is evolving. It’s one of the few countries where you it’s still deeply traditional yet increasingly global.

And while I’m ¼ Korean through my mother’s line, my love for this country runs much deeper than heritage.

🧖‍♀️ How Long to Stay

At least 5 full days.
It’s worth slowing down and giving yourself time to adjust, especially if you’re coming from far away.

✨ Jet lag tip: A visit to a Korean sauna (jjimjilbang) works wonders. My mom always makes me do a full body exfoliation to remove dead skin (Seshin). Although it feels like the most awkward thing, my skin feels amazing after.

🌆 What I Did

• 🏯 Gyeongbokgung Palace – classic and majestic (you can rent an outfit and walk around in traditional Korean wear if you’re feeling adventurous)

• 📚 Starfield COEX Mall – home to the famous Starfield Library

• 🍳 Seoul Cooking Club – a 7-course Korean cooking class (enjoyed this one a lot - good activity to do on a rainy day)

• 🎨 Colour Arte – personal color analysis session

• 🖼 Leeum Samsung Museum of Art (Itaewon) –

• 🎢 Lotte World - theme park

• 🗼Lotte World Tower – 123-floor view deck and shopping mall (there are several Lotte Department Stores, some are newer than others)

🍽 Where I Ate

(I’m gluten & dairy intolerant but these were still amazing!)

• 🥢 Samwon Garden – 10/10 traditional Korean BBQ and food

• 🍷 Onyva – 10/10 fine-dining set menu; great with dietary accommodations

• I definitely ate at more places but they were typically in a department store or hotel

🛍 Where I Shopped

• 🕶 Haus Nowhere – home to Gentle Monster & Tamburins, plus a Nudake café upstairs

• 🌿 Monoha (Seongsu-dong) – minimalist lifestyle shop

• 💎 Tamburins (Hannam-dong) – perfume heaven (10/10)

• 🕶 Double Lovers (Seongsu-dong) – cool sunglasses brand

• 🛍 The Hyundai Department Store – my favorite department store (food court downstairs and top floor have many options)

• 🛒 Shinsegae & Lotte – classic department stores

• 📚 COEX Mall – for the Starfield Library

☕️ Cafés & Brunch Spots to Try Next Time

• 🍵 Cheong Su Dang (Ikseon-dong) – viral hanok café with pond & stepping stones

• ☕️ Blue Bottle Coffee – multiple branches, minimal & consistent

• 🌿 Scène (Seongsu-dong) – one of the trendiest cafés in the city

• 🍛 Ikseon Chihyang – hybrid restaurant-café with great food

• 🍞 Nudake (Sinsa-dong) – pastry art by Gentle Monster

• 🌸 Salt Pond Café (Ikseon-dong) – cozy brunch spot

• 🍖 Katsu by Kohban – famous tonkatsu

• 🐟 Fish Place on Naver Map (click here to open it)
  Show them this order:

보리굴비 × 1
고등어구이 × 1

🏙 Areas Worth Exploring

• 🧡 Seongsu-dong – my favorite; creative, industrial, and full of cafés

• 🍃 Ikseon-dong – narrow alleys lined with hanok cafés & vintage shops

• 🌳 Sinsa-dong – upscale boutiques

• 🖤 Hannam-dong – modern, artistic, design-focused

• 💄 Myeong-dong – the ultimate shopping district for souvenirs, accessories,…

• 👗 Apgujeong & Cheongdam – more luxury fashion

• 🎧 Hongdae – energetic, young, fun

• 🏯 Jongno – where heritage meets modern Seoul

🍵 Matcha Spots

• Osulloc – the OG of Korean tea culture (multiple branches)

• Avek Cheri – cozy break-spot post shopping

• The Gabae (Seongsu) – best matcha I had this trip

• Super Matcha – sleek, modern chain (I found this at the Lotte World Tower)

💆‍♀️ Beauty, Skin & Hair

Skincare & Clinics

• 🧴 Olive Young – Korea’s version of Sephora (everywhere)

• 💫 La Miche – full-day spa experience

• 💉 Ppeum, Muse, Me Clinic, Human Dermatology (Yongsan), Wonjin – reliable, aesthetic-focused clinics

Hair Spas

• 🌿 Eco Jardins

• ✂️ Juno Hair

🌮 Street Food

• 🍢 Gwangjang Market – the famous Netflix Street Food spot

• 🥯 London Bagel Museum – aesthetic, hyped, apparently worth the wait

🍸 Bars & Nightlife (for the vibe)

(I don’t drink, but these looked fun!)

• Zest

• Art Monster Gangnam – beer + comfort food

• Pussyfoot Saloon – playful cocktails

• 232 Seoul – modern, sleek

• All Day Sound Bar

• Ugly Bar

• Two Hundred – café × bar hybrid

• Blue Nude – natural wines + small plates

• Peter, Paul and Mary – live-music pub

🎨 Art & Museums

• MMCA – Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art

• Leeum Samsung Museum of Art

• Ilmin Museum of Art – saw the Issy Wood exhibit here

• Pace Gallery / Daelim Museum of Modern Art

• National Museum of Korea

• K-Pop Museum

• DDP (Dongdaemun Design Plaza) – Zaha Hadid’s futuristic masterpiece

• Hoam Museum of Art

• Bulguksa Temple (Gyeongju) – not in Seoul but a must-see

✨ Final Thoughts

Seoul is a city of contrasts, neon and nature, tradition and futurism, chaos and calm.
Whether you come for skincare, cafés, temples, or techno, there’s always another layer waiting to be discovered.

If Korea isn’t already on your travel list, it should be.
You’ll come home inspired, full, and glowing (literally).

This name has been circling in my field for years. When you walk the path of love and divine union, it tends to appear. Avalon. King Arthur. Mary Magdalene. The whispers of myth and mystery. I’d long known that certain places on Earth carried frequencies and medicines of their own.

While I believe every place on this emerald green planet is sacred, each holds its own flavor, its own seasoning.

The first time I heard about Glastonbury wasn’t in a spiritual context at all. It was nearly nine years ago, back in my corporate days, when a colleague was excitedly planning her trip to the festival. (Coincidentally, that same weekend the UK voted to leave the EU.)

Over the years though, I began to hear of Glastonbury less as a party place and more as a sanctuary, a town where people prayed and communed with the Divine.

So what is it about Glastonbury? Why do pilgrims from all over the world feel called here?

I arrived in Glastonbury on a whim, in the way most of my pilgrimages unfold: I hear the call, and I follow. My friend Alyona mentioned she was going, and without hesitation, I said, count me in. The heart doesn’t wait for logic. You may not understand the reason at first, sometimes not for years, but the call always has purpose.

And what better place to follow the heartbeat than in what’s known as the heart chakra of the world? (For those curious: the Levant is considered the throat chakra.)

The Arrival

I knew little about the town itself, so Alyona took the lead on accommodations. She booked us into a whimsical guesthouse called the Apothecary Garden, a mix of Indian sculptures, fairy-tale corners, and prairie vibes. Lord Ganesh greeted me in several rooms, including mine. A familiar face from my recent pilgrimage to India.

One thing that struck me immediately about the English countryside: its untamed wildness. There’s something raw and real about wild gardens where flowers bloom not in a straight line but all over the place.

As I walked through the wheat fields, my body became electric. A buzzing current ran through me. My fingers pulsed, my posture shifted, my heart lifted towards the heavens while my feet stayed rooted to the earth. The sensation mirrored my Ayahuasca journeys. The same buzzing, the same heightened awareness, the same queasy undertones (I did struggle with some gastro troubles from Lebanon).

A Taste of Home

That first evening we dined at The Queen of Cups, a Middle Eastern Michelin-star restaurant run by Ayesha Kalaji, a Welsh-Jordanian chef. The very first item on the menu: Teta’s pickles. My eyes lit up. My grandmother’s presence was suddenly in the room with me. The food was so exquisitely divine I insisted we return the next evening.

Pilgrimage Through the Sites

The next morning was dedicated to Glastonbury’s spiritual sites: the Tor, the Chalice Well Gardens, and the White Spring.

The Tor drew a particular kind of pilgrim, dreamers and builders of the New Earth. Offerings of flowers lay at the tower’s base, people meditated in different corners, others lay on the grass in bliss. I wanted to linger, but time was short.

The town itself felt like stepping into a time capsule. Every shop a portal, every doorway a world of its own. Incense hanging in the air, books and tarot decks spilling from shelves. It’s like my living room but bigger.

At the Chalice Well Gardens, the atmosphere shifted. Sacred, spacious, soft. People picnicked, meditated, played flutes by pools of water. Offerings of flowers, coins, fruits, and song at every corner.

Renewal, reset, rebirth. That’s what the place carried.

When I finally reached the inner garden, I felt as though I had stepped into the heart of the world. The innermost sanctum. I prayed deeply there, until it was time to leave for our private visit to the White Spring. On my way out, I stopped to thank each flower individually, a practice I hadn’t done in years.

The White Spring

The White Spring is something else entirely. No phones, no photos, just candlelight and silence. Inside the temple, altars surrounded pools of living water.

I sat at each altar in turn. At the altar of the Divine Masculine, I lit candles and prayed for the men in my life, and for the men and boys of Palestine. Tears streamed down my face.

At the altar of the Divine Feminine, I prayed for my lineage of women, and for the First Grandmothrer Mother of us all. More tears.

Finally, at the altar of the Waters, I prayed for all beings. Those deprived of water, and those thirsty for more: more love, more creativity, more devotion.

And again, I wept.

A Final Reflection

In that sacred darkness, something shifted. My heart softened, my being lightened. And yet questions lingered:

Are we here to keep seeking? For more answers, more meaning, more of everything?

Parts of me feel quenched. Whole. Complete. From society’s perspective, many things are still “missing”. The husband, the children, the conventional markers of success. But deep inside, I know I’ve already arrived. After years of wandering the desert, I found the oasis within my own being.

The love of God, of the Goddess, has never felt so profound.

And though I no longer ask for more, I know the moment I surrender fully, everything will ripple in, tenfold.

On my first afternoon, I was in a hotel room named Baptistine, “she who baptises.” I sat cross-legged in a black dress facing my teacher, Aude. We shared tea in ceremony, where every sip was intentional, and every word a recalibration.

At the end, she asked: “What are you offering Her today?”

What was I meant to give Her? Does it have to be grand and big and special?

As an overthinker, I know how my mind goes all over the place and I have learned to train it. I have also learned to trust the first answer I receive and the first one that came through before a whole myriad of things came after was: my desires.

A whisper so faint, I swear I could have missed it. A word so torn apart “it is good to have desires, is it bad to have desires?” “Is it shameful, sinful?”

There is judgment for having them, judgment for not. Really? This is what my soul is ready to offer up? Really? Out of everything I could give, I chose this?

I know how attached we humans are to what we want. I know how deeply chained to them I can be. My desires are many and plenty and abundant and accumulate.

My desires are personal and collective, small and big, meaningful and meaningless.

Maybe She wanted me to offer them up because some of them, if not all of them are rooted in fear. Fear of ending up alone. Fear of not realising my Self. Fear of being a fraud, an imposter, a fake.

Fear of not being good enough or magnificent enough. Fear of this all ending. Poof. Done. Game over. No life. New life. No memory. Begin again.

Maybe She knows. Oh, She knows. She knows what is keeping me from experiencing what my soul really wants. It is all these attachments to what I think I want. To what I believe is best.

“Take it all”, I stated. “Take it all. I offer you what I know myself to desire but I also offer you the desires I am not aware of. The ones that are hidden and unseen and forgotten and repressed. All is all is all. Take it all.”

We packed our things and drove toward Her dragon-shaped mountains. It was overcast outside, but sunny inside my chest.

It happened to be May 20th the day of Pentecost. The only other day of the year (besides July 22nd) when the town processes Mary Magdalene’s relics up the mountain. We hadn’t planned for this. We couldn’t have. I didn’t even know. Aude didn’t even know until the night before.

Out of hundreds of possible days, She called me there on the second most important day.

When we arrived, I stepped out of the car… and right in front of me, on the side of a blue electric car, was a single word in cursive: Désir.

Désir. Although it was a gloomy day, it was still clear as day. To have parked right there when we could have picked so many other places. Hundreds of cars, yet we were led to mark ourselves there.

Over three hundred days in a year, yet here we were, out of all of them, on Her procession day. You do the math. The probabilities are not very high. Chances are slim, yet they are.

Even the smallest of chances have the potential for greatness.

Even the smallest of seeds become great beings.

Even what seems to be the smallest of offerings can lead to tremendous inner transformations.

If you feel called in any way shape or form, do not sleep on this. The pilgrimage I’m co-leading October 2nd - 7th is the rebirth you don’t even know you need.

It is the one you’ve been longing for and thirsty for. Will you quench your thirst with Her love?

Subscribe now