Guidance in the stars
Being on the boat, when I wasn’t sleeping, I had time to think and to reflect on the shape my life was beginning to take in 2019. This year was the 10th anniversary of Ronald’s death in 2009. Twenty years since we moved into our magical apartment in Thonon-les-Bains overlooking Lac Leman.
In the previous few years, I’d been spending less and less time there. I’d removed much of my personal possessions and it was listed and functioning as an AirBnB. And with the recent resolution in Stanford, I felt that my visits would become fewer and further in between.
I realised that the link with Thonon and my attachment was due to my piano, my beloved 1923 Grand Bechstein. My visits revolved around going and playing my piano. As soon as I climb the three flights of stairs and open the front door into the double volume, our love affair is triggered all over again. Lifting the lid, placing the support, and breathing out. Those first few notes always do it for me!
So, the presence of my piano is in large part the reason for my continued link to Thonon-les-Bains. Each time I considered the increasing difficulty of lack of access parking, climbing three flights with baggage (which with my hernia I’m not supposed to do), I stopped short of seeing myself without the prospect of being greeted by my piano.
But reflecting on things deeply, I sought clarity. The reality is that there has to be a base in Leysin. The north ‘node’ of my life requires a presence in Switzerland where the Amani Harmonic Foundation is registered. Although truth be told, problems with parking and carrying baggage up two flights of stairs are also making themselves felt at the Vagabond.
A couple of days after we arrived back in Leysin, I had a telephonic consultation with Alison Chester-Lambert, a reputed and well-respected astrologer, who’d guided me the year before with very accurate information concerning the delay in the property project in Stanford. Now with this reading, the stars were even more precise.
I had the reading on 26 April 2019 and learnt that the month of May was a hugely important period for me. I needed to make decisions and take steps in relation to my health and my property. Given the configuration in my charts, if I let things carry on as they were, I could expect the strong energy to manifest in deteriorating conditions in the property and ultimately my own physical situation. This resonated. The need for a major overhaul of the plumbing in the ancient building and the increasing need to call in Monsieur Muffat to fix a host of problems connected to the heating system were some of the signs I was aware of.
On my first trip down from Leysin to visit my piano and catch up with Christine who manages the apartment as ‘Lumiére du Lac’ on AirBnB, I found her very excited. Of course we’d been discussing things during my previous visits. Now she had found an incredible arrangement. I listened as she bubbled out her creative solution.
A lovely young woman from Genéve, who had bought a small apartment in the adjoining building for her sculpture studio, had visited the apartment. She was in the process of selling a flat in Paris and wanted to invest the funds in property. She was keen to do this before she and her husband and two small children went off for a two-year contract in Myanmar with the International Red Cross (ICRC). The ICRC had been Ronald’s first professional employment, when at 23 he was sent to Namibia /Angola and made responsible for dealing with the exchange of prisoners.
Meeting Sevérine, I was reminded of Ronald and I twenty years earlier, earnest and determined to do our bit to improve things in the world. I was very drawn to this young family who also loved the piano.
The win-win was that there was no rush for me to move my things out, as she’d like the AirBnB to continue with Christine’s management and I could go and stay any time when there was a lull in the bookings – to play my piano!
In the first week of May it was decided. We set up meetings with notaries and made arrangements for the technical certificates required for the sale.
I then went off to Bosnia to join Judy Satori for a week, a month before she would be returning to Switzerland for our event. 2019 was providing me with another opportunity for closure.
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