The call of the path or the call of self?

Jan 26

Written by Céline Anaya Gautier

⚠️⛔️🔥 THOSE ALLERGIC TO SPELLING MISTAKES, PLEASE ABSTAIN... I'M WORKING ON IT, BUT I DO WHAT I CAN AND THAT SHOULDN'T STOP ME FROM EXPRESSING MYSELF!!! ⚠️⛔️🔥

⁉️ Have you ever asked yourself these questions:

🐣 Who am I?

🧘🏻‍♀️ What am I really made for?

🐒 What the heck am I doing here?

🌍 What is my place on earth?

🎭 Our society is structured in such a way that, through the transmission of our parents' values, we are the custodians of our lineage.

But are we really destined to be only that?

⛓ A simple link?

What about our inner being? What about our personal values?

⏳ Do we know them? Have we ever taken the time to ask ourselves the right questions? To go and meet ourselves?

Did we really go through our adolescence?

💥 This rite of passage that leads us to adulthood, thus freeing us from parental control. This ritual which, through various trials, crises and rebellions, shapes both our spaces of freedom and our adult boundaries.

Did we take the time?

🗽 Were we allowed to take that time?

Have we had the experiences necessary for self-knowledge without being held back by those around us or caught up in our obligations?

🔎 Find a job, be the best, find a roof, pay rent, find a partner, get married, have children, provide for their needs, think about retirement...

In short... There are always good reasons to move forward on the path of life without ever walking towards oneself!

📮 So, following the loss of a job, a breakup, a burn-out or a general meltdown, following the loss of a loved one or simply following the assessment of one's thirties, forties, fifties, etc.

⛔️ Our body, our mind, and our soul are telling us to STOP! ⛔️

🌹 STOP! WAKE UP! REDISCOVER YOURSELF! 🌹

That's the call of the path... The call of oneself!

👣 I always thought that Santiago de Compostela had been my first journey, but while preparing my walk to Jerusalem and delving into the depths of my memory, another truth suddenly appeared to me. It was while working as a flight attendant on a flight to Los Angeles that I came across the book « Amkoullel the Peul child » and, right next to it, its second volume « Yes, my commander ».

🏜 It was a revelation for me, who didn't know Africa at all. After devouring them, I decided to take my backpack and follow in the footsteps of their author, the writer Amadou Hampaté Bâ. I crossed the Dogon Country, walked along the Bandiagara cliffs, contemplated the marvelous Baobab landscapes, I went to meet the Peuls, the Dogons, and through them, myself. I searched for each of the cities, villages, nooks and crannies that Amadou Hampaté Bâ had meticulously and lovingly taken the time to describe in these works.

🕳 At the time, I was neither a photographer nor a writer. I hated writing because at school, I had been told hundreds of times that I was hopeless at French, and I had practically never held a camera in my hands.

🛫 The only thing I was sure of was that I was hungry for the world and its different cultures. That's why I had become a flight attendant. When I returned to Paris, I arrived at Orly airport, and it was raining cats and dogs. I wasn't yet aware of the upheaval brewing inside me. Three months of freedom and meeting myself had disturbed me, turned me upside down, so it was impossible for me to go back to work.

🇵🇪 I called my mother from the airport and decided to resign on the spur of the moment. That same evening, I was taking a plane to Peru.

🌀 My family was worried... Of course, I've always been a bit offbeat, but this was the last straw and the height of irresponsibility.

📿 No matter! I felt deep down that I was destined, as my abuelita Bertha so rightly said, for something else, and that I had to search...

🙈 Search for what?

🤷‍♀️ No idea.

🦋 But it was certain that I was on my way to discovering it.

Céline in search of herself...🌹