Elisa’s Thriving Planet in Paris

By Elisa Novick

Thanks to all of you for your good wishes and prayers for the Thriving Planet World Tour. My time in Europe has been quite an experience, ranging from an arduous beginning to the sublime in many moments.

I’ll give you a little travelogue. Today, I will talk about Paris and our first workshop in the Forest of Fontainebleau. (As I write this from Amsterdam, preparing for our workshop tomorrow at The Rose and Vondelpark, much has happened and my schedule has been transforming itself. We’ll be in Brussels, on Saturday, May 11, for what may be our last workshop in Europe. If you’d like to join us, please write me for more information.)

I arrived in Paris exhausted from lack of sleep and dragging heavy luggage up stairs and over cobblestones for hours, trying to find my way in a country whose language I can barely speak or understand.

On the bus from the airport, I was already in a bit of culture shock at seeing garbage-laden shantytowns and when I finally landed in a somewhat vulnerable state, from being immediately and frequently accosted by Roma (gypsy), possibly an inhabitant of one of those towns, trying to scam me out of money. (Watch out when someone hands you a gold ring she or he presumably found at your feet, or a petition to sign. I noticed that none of them had any connection to their souls, which was rather creepy.)

Yet my first sight of the beautiful limestone buildings of Paris, with their long double windows and intricate wrought iron, was already enchanting me.

The next few days were a combination of walking endless miles on calves that no longer wanted to function, seeing the most beautiful architecture and art, and learning about a new culture, then arriving back at my little cave apartment sick, wrecked and broken.

In the lovely park (Square Guardette) a loving tree overlooking the playground talked to me. I said to the tree:

“I have been nervous here in Paris, since coming in and being accosted by the gypsy with a scam, and being told so many times that it is unsafe. The people are so polite when you meet them, but never catch your eye in the street. It has the feel of a cold place for me as a visitor. I know I am new here, and that so many things are so different in subtle but unusual ways. I find myself stressed out, like my adrenals are on alert and I have not fully relaxed. But it certainly is beautiful. Can you help me calm down?”

I can love it and you, and I want to be able to help. Your mission is known throughout the universe.

How can that be?

It travels — this wild universe has trails along which the messages fly to everywhere.

I had seen those pathways before, even worked with them, so I knew what she was referring to. Her reassurance was soothing to me.

Dani Voirin, whose stunning photography you’ve seen in these pages, was my tireless guide in Paris, showing me a few of the well-known tourist destinations as well as little side streets in fascinating neighborhoods. It became a joke and even slight embarrassment how many times I exclaimed, “I’ve never seen anything like that before! That’s amazing!” It was so much fun to share attunement skills with her, to sense the energy of various trees, people, and places, and practice knowing our ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ to choose restaurants.

Our first workshop, in the Forest of Fontainebleau, was more of the same mixed experience, gratifying and exhausting. Fascinating, beautiful countryside and villages, but an entire day spent in freezing cold wind in a forest that had an energy of devastation from the past as well as being rutted from recent logging. We struggled over old cut logs and through thorny raspberry vines, to finally find a tree we could work with. We began by practicing many spaces, relations, healing constellations, before sharing our picnic and moving on to work with the tree. When I asked the tree, it said to me:

You, little ones, have no idea what you are getting into here. This place has known great sorrow and is in a healing mode.

As you came into my consciousness, I was already feeling your message; it feels like something just getting started after a long time.

It is recovering from many things. When you are looking for healing spaces, there are other beings here that are curious and want to try these things; the ways in which you are interacting. Because healing is needed here, all around and in other places.

So the spaces we are holding are showing trees and other beings how to heal? Are there spirits of people who have died here? I can feel them.

There are many in different realms who are wandering here. They have been wandering for centuries, lost. Build a “stairway to heaven” for them to go, please.

We will. May we work in concert with you?

Of course. But I am tired, too.

Why?

I am the oldest of many who have died and I miss my others in my family.

Can we be of service to you?

Send them on, too, for their presence, half here, is a painful reminder.

Are you unhappy?

No, I’m just working hard.

Has there been battle here?

Yes, and subterfuge and evil deeds. But there is also an evanescent longing for renewal that you can foster.

When I returned to Paris, I wrote:

“Though it might have looked much better on a warm summer day, there was an air of devastation that none of us had expected. I found one large tree functioning at the level spiritually that I like to work with and even it, though powerful, had an air of struggle with it, but we held the workshop there.

We worked with many spaces of healing and taking more freedom in our relationships, and by the end of the workshop, we had formed a team with the tree. The tree appreciated having companions and became stronger and less stressed as we worked with it, and at the end we, as a team, held a space that brought in a beam of Light to the area. The last piece we did formed a constellation to enable the stuck beings there to rise and go on to their next steps. More than 12,000 spirits were released. I asked for a column of Light to be placed there.

I was surprised that despite difficult circumstances and having people in the workshop who had never done anything like this before, we formed a coherent and willing group with some pretty coherent loving forces and all came out glowing.

I’m glad that we all chose to endure this long freezing day. The benefits, to each of those who participated, and to that place, were tremendous. One woman, who had never taken a workshop before, or consciously felt anything energetically or spiritually, said her life would be totally transformed now that she knew about energy!

I noticed small and large differences from my experience of living in the United States. In Paris, I noticed in particular, an emphasis on children and family life. Many young children were accompanied by fathers or grandfathers as well as mothers and nannies.

The parks are beautifully landscaped, with well-equipped playgrounds. At every grand tourist monument (i.e., Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Eiffel Tower and many others), most clad in white or cream-colored or grey stone and metal, quite incongruously, would be placed a colorful carousel for the children. The teens I saw hung out in harmonious groups, eating the ubiquitous baguette sandwiches.

I saw many beautiful old trees in the parks and other places, some working at a high level spiritually, and had a surprising message from and conversation with one. On the other hand, many trees in France (and Amsterdam where I am now) have all of the ends of their branches chopped off and some are cut in squares or even down to the trunk, which was disturbing.

Health food stores in France seem to have little of the foods and supplements I’m accustomed to in the United States and most of the foods people eat at every meal, though delicious, are foods I won’t eat at home. I’ve had to bow to local custom, at some expense to my health, but to the delight of my basic self, and eat almost everything presented.

Smoking cigarettes seems to be more the rule than the exception in young and old. I was somewhat shocked that there was almost no place I went that I was not being asphyxiated by cigarette smoke and there was no awareness whatsoever that one’s neighbor might be disturbed by one’s cloud of smoke.

On a Sunday, when I went out to shop for food, almost every store and restaurant was closed, or would not admit me because it was between lunch and dinner, which is eaten quite late. After a long search, I found one place to eat, and sat inside on a sunny day (almost no one does this) to avoid the cloud of smoke outside the café.

I found it curious, sometimes annoying, but also admirable, that shop owners insisted quite visibly on being addressed immediately upon entering their shops and that despite financial need, did not believe it to be to their advantage to be open on Sunday or any other time they deemed inappropriate to be open and available to customers.

Despite the fact that I’d known there were large demonstrations against gay marriage, (which passed anyway, thankfully), I still found myself surprised that in the “city of love,” I did not see one obviously gay couple.

The energy of Notre Dame was heavy and dark, but when I presented myself for service, I heard a message from the Christ saying:

Don’t worry, I am already working here, slowly and carefully.

I could feel that the heaviness was being dismantled gently and carefully for many reasons…

***

You are welcomed to participate in the Thriving Planet World Tour. To listen to and read past conversations with Elisa Novick on Planet Waves, plus her articles, please use this link. You’re invited to visit her website and Facebook page.

Elisa Novick, MSS does profound work as a healer, teacher, counselor, coach, minister, and facilitator of workshops and trainings in personal, professional, and spiritual development. She can assist you to clear personal, karmic and genetic patterns that have limited you and teach you exquisite attunement skills so you can become the magnificent master of life and Light that all of us are destined to be. Elisa has been assisting people in their growth since 1982 through her counseling practice and in facilitating over 1,000 workshops in holistic health, human development, family constellation, systemic constellation, organizational dynamics, planetary healing and spiritual awareness. You may email her directly at elisanovick [at] thrivingplanet [dot] org.