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The walk began as a planned project with a wonderfool woman Jolie trained with as a fool, who she had a HUGE falling out with ten years ago. As part of their fooling practice they learnt that we are all one, so this woman was part of Jolie even though she had become her enemy. Jolie had given her the mask of being my enemy, but she could no more banish her than the UK could banish Europe after it’s split from the EU. Just as both land masses are part of the same planet called Earth, this woman and Jolie are part of the same play called ‘Life’. In recent years their paths had brought them back together again and they had planned to do this walk together as an act of healing. Healing their friendship and also healing the ever growing divides between the left and the right, the rich and the poor, male and female, people of colour and white people, leave and remainers… The list goes on.
The walk hoped, in it’s intention, to sew some of this rift back together again. But the friend, who is ruled by the Eris the Goddess of Discord, accidentally booked some work right in the middle of the pilgrimage, so in the end Jolie went on her own.
But other people joined her for some parts of it and by the time she set off she was looking forward to going on her own. During lockdown she lost four people, of varying levels of closeness, and set off in a state of grief, looking to do some healing on herself. In the first week of the 5 week walk her husband of 13 years split up with her so the walk also became very much about processing this.
Jolie was walking the Michael and Mary energy lines, but she had no idea what these were, but as she walked and slowed down to listen, she discovered that she could feel the lines and that they both had a distinct feeling to them. Michael made her feel brave and supported, like a hand on her back saying “You’ve got this” and Mary felt like a calm stillness that held her and made her feel safe, like a hand on her heart saying “I’ve got you”. Jolie discovered she had learnt to listen to the land.
She also discovered that listening to the people she met too was also deeply important. The pilgrim archetype is like a travelling confessional and she found that if she listened and got past the ‘soap box’ rant that everyone had on their lips about politics, Brexit and the like, that people opened up further and shared their emotional worlds. Everyone was scared, in grief and many were lonely. She found that everyone was kind to her and people were just doing their best to muddle through. Her empathy and faith in humanity over spilled.
Now Jolie lives with a new partner whom she is deeply in love with, on a tiny beautiful island called Sark in the Channel Islands that has no cars or street lights and only 400 other people live there. It is untouched nature in all it’s beauty. This feels like a gift bequeathed to her by the land, by Michael and Mary. Which is why she then planned the pilgrimage to COP26 a year later; to give something back in gratitude.
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