Gabriel was coming out of Shakti’s flat, feeling a bit dizzy. She had told him it was normal and would last a few days. As he walked down the stairs, he tried to process what had just happened to him. ‘’ Your third eye is opening, you have great powers’’. He didn’t even really know what a ‘third eye’ was, but somehow he trusted this woman as if he had known her forever.   

For the past year, he had suffered terrible headaches and had tried everything he could think of: doctors, pills, cold and hot therapy, acupuncture and so on – but nothing worked.  Desperate, he had finally accepted to go see his friend Alex’s ’ healer’ : Shakti. Alex had talked about her for a while now, but he could never imagine that a rational man like him would go do these ‘’ witch doctor “ things.

What even was a healer? He wondered.  His understanding of spirituality was limited to reading Harry Potter as a child and watching his grandmother pray before bed. Her son – his father - had passed on and she would often tell him that they needed to stay close to God. But he couldn’t. The anger was too deep as his loss made no sense. Not only was his father gone, but the light in his mother’s eyes had vanished too.  

 That was the first thing he noticed in Shakti – her eyes. From the moment she opened her door, he was struck by her deep and beautiful gaze, holding both the sparkle of a child and the wisdom of old trees. ‘’ Eyes are the mirror of the soul ‘’ she said, as she could hear his thoughts. “Follow me’’.

She led him into a room that seemed fairly simple: a massage table, a half-burned incense stick, some speakers and a small bookshelf filled with authors he had never heard of: Tanishka, Robert Bly, Jamie Sams, all names that made him curious, but it’s one title that truly caught his attention: Shiva and Shakti the divine union. Does Shakti actually mean something ? This one came out loud, unable to hide the burning desire he felt to understand this mysterious woman . She smiled and paused, as if about to reveal some universal secret that only she could know.

Shakti, she explained, was a Hindu goddess representing the divine feminine energy - the universal force that was at the center of creation, transformation and destruction.

It wasn’t her birth name, but the deity had come to her during one of her shamanic journeys – the practice that allowed her through the sound of the drumbeat, to enter a non-ordinary, spiritual realm.

In her vision, she received a clear message: the Earth’s physical pollution was a reflection of the collective subconscious; humanity was completely disconnected with its feminine essence, found in man and woman. The only way to restore balance on the planet and heal as a species was to embody it; we needed to reactivate our connection with the invisible. It was her purpose to initiate people. ‘’The drum will guide us home ‘’ she said.

His heart raced as she spoke. On one hand he could indeed agree that this world was sick. From the politics to the social system to the people’s faces in the subway each morning he definitely knew that something was wrong. But the idea of being able to act on it in a spiritual way made him quite anxious, as he knew he was powerless in that regard. 

‘’ Lie down, only experience will teach you’’. She plugged her phone into the speaker and the drum began. She gently asked him to take deep breaths, as she put one hand on his belly and one on his forehead. He felt the mother’s comfort he hadn’t had in so long. He could have cried. Then her voice: beautiful, deep, profound - she was singing. Was she even making sense? He couldn’t tell but he drifted off into space - a pleasant space, the type of space he had only briefly met while taking MDMA into a club in his youth, dancing to the beat of electronic music.

That’s when it appeared: in front of him, two meters high, an eagle, holding himself like a king. It didn’t use any words, and yet he knew – it was inviting him to fly up. He jumped onto his back and felt its power as it was taking him through the sky and cosmos. Where were they going? Here. Look.

‘’Welcome Gabriel, I’m Nimrodel, I have been waiting for you.’’ She was an elf-like spirit,  with beautiful green eyes and long brown hair. Behind her, what seemed to be a labyrinth. ‘’ There is only one way. Walk it and find yourself. Good luck’’. She was gone already.

He stood amazed. How could she have known? He had always been fascinated by labyrinths. Not just for the mystery they embodied, but also because his father read him the Minotaur’s myth many times as a child.

Without hesitation he went inside. He walked it slowly, taking each step consciously, hoping to uncover some transcendental truths. That’s when he arrived at the center that he saw it : His father’s notebook. He always had it with him. He was an archeologist, working all over the world on old civilizations. This was where he had written all the sites he went on and what he found. Pure magic for Gabriel’s young heart. He opened it, and found a note on the first page:

‘‘ I will show you the way. ‘‘

That’s when Shakti called him back. He shared his journey and she told him about the energetical vortex of the planet, found on sacred sites. This sounded like a quest.

The sound of the subway took him out of his reflective state. He looked up, and smiled, seeing an advert for a GPS: ‘’Un peu plus de sens* ‘’ .

 *A bit more meaning. In French sens can translate as meaning and direction.