The Grace Space: How I Manifested My Dream Home Part 2

Take a deep breath and remember there's a power breathing you.

This is your space of sanity in an evolving world where we learn about spiritual law and how to apply it to our lives in a way that is practical and life-changing.

This is where we remember truth to make the world a better place one person at a time.

I'm Claire Lothier,

Inspirational speaker,

Teacher of the technology of transformation,

And a certified life mastery consultant and spiritual coach.

Welcome to the Grace Space.

This is the second installment in the story of how my dream home here in France was made manifest.

If you haven't heard the first installment yet,

You might want to go back and listen to it so you've got some context for this adventure.

I want to tell you this story because it illustrates so many of the principles that I teach and talk about in this podcast.

And for me,

It's one of the many demonstrations from my own life that we are always held and guided,

Even when our ability to listen and align with the law is imperfect.

The good we receive,

We often receive despite ourselves,

Which shows that even a few moments in our day when we're aligned and in the flow can outweigh a lot of our negativity and resistance.

And it also demonstrates that when we take one step toward God,

God takes as many steps toward us as there are sands in the worlds of time,

As someone once said.

Imagine how much more good we could experience if we would allow more in and trust in the goodness and generosity of the universe and just believe that everything is for us,

Never against us.

Maybe this will become clearer as I continue with the story.

So when we left off last time,

I had arrived in La Grasse and I was sitting on the terrace of a cafe my first morning there.

My only intention in being there was to feel better because I had been staying somewhere about an hour away.

And the energy there just wasn't just wasn't a match for me.

And the reason I was spending a couple of months in the region in the first place was to see whether this feeling that I wanted to have a place in France was aligned,

Something real,

Or just some fantasy.

Up until recently,

I had only looked at land with the idea that I could build something eventually,

I told you about the vision of domes I had had.

But then I decided to open my mind and take the cap off the budget I had given myself,

Which only allowed me to look within a somewhat limited range.

And I also decided to look at houses instead of just land,

Because even if building something ended up being the way to go,

You still need a place to live while you're building.

And because I live by the principles I teach,

I realized I was limiting myself and feeling contracted around what was possible.

Whenever we feel restricted or powerless,

We can be sure we're caught up in identification with our ego and conditioning,

And it's time to shift our perspective.

So in my attempt to realign with the infinite in me,

I had allowed myself to think in unlimited ways so that I could know what I would truly love,

If I could have anything,

Rather than thinking in terms of what I could get in the context of my current circumstances.

So I opened to vision.

It was then that I saw a beautiful property online that took my breath away.

And it was mysterious because I could only see various angles of it in the pictures.

So I didn't actually know what it looked like as a whole.

I also didn't know where it was,

Except that it was in the vicinity of La Grasse,

Where I was now staying.

Nor could I get anyone to return my calls or inquiries about it.

But having arrived in the area now,

I had an intuition that I might just happen upon it.

So that first morning,

Sitting there on the terrace of the cafe on the main promenade of La Grasse,

I hear my name.

And turning around,

I'm amazed to see Philippe.

Philippe is a guy that I know because of other synchronicities.

Several years ago,

The first time I had stayed in Carcassonne,

I found myself literally around the corner from a Kundalini Yoga studio.

Now,

If you and I are just getting to know each other,

You might not know that I am also a teacher of Kundalini Yoga,

And I have been for some years.

And now it turns out that there are several teachers of Kundalini Yoga in and around Carcassonne,

Which is not a huge city.

It's a town,

A good-sized town,

But you know,

It's not a major metropolis or anything.

It's about 40 minutes from where we live now.

And that's unusual because even in North America,

It's mostly in the big cities where you can find a Kundalini Yoga studio or even a yoga studio that offers Kundalini Yoga classes.

So walking through the narrow streets of the medieval part of Carcassonne on my way back to my place those years ago,

You can imagine how surprised and intrigued I was to see the words Kundalini Yoga pop out at me from the windows of this studio and like 50 steps from my front door.

So naturally,

I poked my head in to see what they were up to and entered a lovely space where I met the couple who owned the place and it turns out that Philippe,

Half of the couple,

Trained with my teacher over in the Alps years before I did.

So of course,

We had a lot to talk about.

Thereafter,

Whenever I came to Carcassonne,

I would attend classes at that studio.

So I got to know the people a bit.

Philippe was always really generous with me.

He loaned me books.

He took me out for lunch.

I think he must have realized I was on my own a lot.

And it had been about two years since I'd seen him and there he was chatting with the owner of the cafe where I was enjoying my café crème.

What are you doing here?

I said,

Pleasantly surprised,

And he grinned at me and said,

This is my village.

I'm from here.

What are you doing here?

And I said,

I'm looking for a place that feels good because I want to have a home in France.

And he says,

Look no further.

This is the place.

This is the vortex for you.

And then he began telling me all the reasons why this part of France was the best part of France,

Of course.

How the rivers run all year,

How spiritual the energy is,

That there are a lot of power spots,

How wild and unspoiled the nature is.

Just get into your car and drive right around here,

He said.

You won't believe how beautiful it is.

There are waterfalls and swimming holes that no one knows about,

He said.

There are places here,

He said,

Where you would think you're in Corsica.

Now,

Philippe didn't know it,

But that one word sent a wave through me.

Corsica.

He had no idea what Corsica means to me.

Corsica is one of those magical places for me.

I grew up going there every few years with my cousins because my grandparents lived there for a chunk of time after they were forced to leave Algeria.

There are pictures of me as a baby in Corsica up until I was about 14 years old.

I had some key spiritual experiences there as a child that have always stayed with me.

And even though I haven't been back since I was 14,

My memory of those experiences is like a touchstone.

For me,

Corsica is beauty.

And I told the story once on this podcast about my first conscious awareness of the true self of peace,

Harmony,

Grace,

And love that occurred from witnessing the beauty of a sunset there while floating in the pool as a child.

It was a totally simple and natural moment that I experienced.

But it was awareness becoming aware of itself in that moment.

And even as a child,

I knew that I sensed it.

So the word Corsica for me brings or points to that feeling of stillness and deep tranquility that was brought about by witnessing great beauty.

It was a moment of effortless connection to source.

As Philippe continued to speak,

I could feel the ripple of intuition moving through.

He rattled off the names of a few nearby villages to drive through and one in particular stuck in my mind.

I don't know why,

But it was the only one I retained.

We chatted for a few more minutes and he left to go back to Carcassonne.

And when I went to settle my bill,

I found that he had already done so.

And then the owner of the restaurant gave me a warm smile.

I felt really good.

So I went straight to the car to drive around as he had encouraged me to do.

You can leave La Grasse by three different routes going three different directions,

And I wasn't sure which way to go.

So I chose the one that seemed to go most into the unknown,

Twisting and turning as it followed the river.

Almost right away,

I saw the name of the village that Philippe had mentioned,

And it turned out it was only a few kilometers away.

As I rounded a final bend,

The view opened up to reveal it.

And I involuntarily gasped because it did remind me of Corsica.

The twisting turning road dropped away to pass through craggy stone outcroppings,

And the tiny village rising up in rocky layers seemed to be built out of the same stones almost right into the hill.

There were the ruins of what looked like an old fortress at the highest point,

And then it disappeared as the road descended toward a quaint bridge and curved past a little square with a public water pump and a minuscule 12th century church.

I rolled through a narrow passageway of houses with little roads darting up into the hills on my left and down toward the river on my right.

And then as quickly as it had appeared,

It was behind me again,

And the road continued to snake along the river that had carved the hills,

Which now seemed to be multiplying all around me.

An opening in the trees revealed a lovely valley off to the right and something in the distance caught my eye.

It was a house,

Two buildings tucked around a pool.

And I just,

I just stopped the car right in the roadway to stare across the valley at the property.

There was something about it that seemed familiar,

And I could feel a quiet excitement rising up from my belly.

Could that be that place I wondered?

From what I could discern,

There were elements that matched up with the pictures I had seen online.

I peered at it and stared at it trying to be sure,

But I just couldn't be sure from that distance.

And so I tried to find a way to see it better.

I ended up driving higher up into the but it disappeared maddeningly from view.

I knew that there was a river between me and it,

But I couldn't see how to get across to the other side.

And then I doubted myself.

Come on,

Claire,

I said to myself,

Do you really think you can just drive out on your first day here and find the place as easily as that?

You're making this up.

You're gonna have to do a lot more looking around before you can find it.

Can't be that easy.

Besides,

You can't even figure out how to get over there,

So just drop it.

It's probably a dead end anyway,

So never mind.

And so I drove back to La Grasse.

I gave myself the excuse that I had calls to prepare for and that,

Well,

I needed to keep looking.

And believe it or not,

For the next two weeks,

I did not go back that way.

I drove around.

I explored the area.

I even got hooked up with some cool people who lived in a fabulous chateau with three grand pianos and seven harps and looked at a property that they wanted to sell,

But which ultimately wasn't for me.

I kept thinking about the place that I'd caught a glimpse of,

But in some strange way,

It was like I was afraid to go back and look again.

It was there was some kind of resistance there.

So I worked and I enjoyed my little apartment with its windows that opened out onto the river.

I loved waking up in the morning and opening the bedroom window to hear the river trickling over stones as it meandered under the ancient bridge.

And in October,

There was mist in the morning suspended over the river and the stillness of the abbey with its distant tolling bell brought me back 700 years.

A few weeks before I had come to stay there,

I had spent a day in Cône Minervois,

A good sized town to the north of Carcassonne.

They're best known for yet another beautiful abbey and the characteristic red marble that has been quarried there since the Romans.

There are many nationalities living in Cône and that was interesting to me,

So I wanted to check it out.

The real estate agent who had been kind to me had hooked me up with a friend of hers there,

And the three of us had met for lunch one time and subsequently this friend had invited me to spend the day with her.

I was totally open to having experiences that would point me toward the best place to be.

And that day,

Rowena and I meandered around town on foot.

We toured their abbey and dropped in on a few friends of hers at random.

We ended up in the house of an American lady who had married a Frenchman and their son had grown up in England and married a French woman to come back and settle in Cône Minervois.

And it was this French woman that I ended up chatting with for a while because right away I liked her energy.

Well,

It turned out she was a coach like me,

Which was amazing because the life coach is not such a known quantity in France as it is in North America,

For example.

She winked at me and said,

I call it something else so it doesn't scare people off.

And she then asked me,

So why this region?

Why do you want to live here?

What is it about this region that attracts you?

And I explained about the land and the garrigue and the castles and the abbeys and the feeling of loving this land so much and feeling at home here,

Even though paradoxically,

I often felt alone and often faced great emotional turmoil here.

She was nodding slowly as she listened and a little smile crept across her lips.

There was a pause and then she said cryptically,

Le Pays Qatar rappelle ses oies.

Translation,

The land of the Qatar is calling back its flock.

If you remember from our first installment of this tale,

The region where we live now is called the Pays Qatar,

The land of the Qatar.

The Qatar were a religious sect who were persecuted and massacred by the Catholic Church from the 12th to the 14th century.

It was part of the Inquisition.

And you may remember that I mentioned the last known Qatar leader or perfecty as they were called,

Guilhem Belibast,

Prophesied as he was being led to the stake that the Qatar would return again in 700 years,

Which if you calculate forward from the year he spoke that prophecy makes it 2021.

The land of the Qatar is calling back its flock.

When she said that I felt a chill and a thrill because the way she was looking at me,

I knew she knew there was a connection there for me,

And I hadn't spoken of it,

But she just nodded her head and said,

Me too.

Sidebar,

I have always believed in reincarnation,

Even though I wasn't raised on it.

And actually both my parents were uncomfortable with the notion,

At least back when I was a child.

I remember seeing that movie Audrey Rose with Anthony Hopkins when I was small.

Do you know that movie?

It's about a little girl who dies in a car accident and a car catches on fire and she's beating her hands on the windshield trying to get out.

It's an image that's always stayed with me.

And she dies.

And then she's reborn as another little girl who at the age where she died in the accident,

Begins having terrible nightmares of being trapped in a car that's on fire.

The movie is about the family realizing that their child is having memories of a past life traumatic death experience.

Even though it has the tone of a horror movie,

It was pretty ahead of its time for 1977.

And I remember accepting reincarnation as totally natural and not understanding why the people in the movie thought it was so bizarre.

Anyway,

For some time,

I had intuited that I had past life storylines in the land of the Qatar and that even though my soul has incarnated here on this planet many times since then,

This was the moment karmically designated for the dissolution of things that were set in motion at that time.

When I met my spiritual teacher here in France,

I had the same feeling of knowing him from before.

And in later years,

We spoke of our connection from this same period,

Which we both intuited.

I have had similar conversations spontaneously with several women that I've come to know from spending time at my teacher's ashram.

And we all have intuited a connection to the Qatar history and their land.

It's as if we had all come back together in another configuration for spiritual growth and learning as members of the same flock.

And since I have come to settle here in this part of France,

I've had occasion to meet numbers of women who feel the same strong connection to that period of history,

And who are consciously aware that they have chosen to come back and live here so that they can heal the traumas or balance the scales of what was set in motion that they cannot remember.

And most of these women are healers or energy workers or spiritual mentors of some kind.

So I knew that spiritually speaking,

Coming here for me was about anchoring the light for myself and my own healing and also for all the people I work with to benefit from that reintegration.

Because when we heal ourselves,

When we integrate what has been fragmented in our own psyche,

It affects the whole human population in a beneficial way.

It's because we're all interconnected and ultimately we are all one.

As one person realizes the self,

It makes that much more accessible to all the others who are consciously on the path of self realization,

As well as for those who are not yet on the path consciously.

All are advancing towards the light,

Even those who may seem to be deeply unconscious.

You see,

We never know what the soul needs to experience and what has been set in motion,

Which is why the most intelligent response to chaos,

Confusion,

Upheaval,

War,

And all the human sorrows that currently surround us is a steady focus on love and compassion.

So back to the end of October 2020.

Well,

Back then I wouldn't say that I was very grounded in the conclusions that I've just spoken of.

I was really still questioning and vague about my attraction to this area,

What it all meant.

I just was,

I just was drawn here,

Right?

So there I am having spent about two weeks in La Grasse enjoying myself and I did love being there.

I felt peaceful and productive and comfortable.

And I'd been planning to stay in France until just after my birthday on November 14.

But suddenly,

They started talking about another lockdown.

And from one day to the next,

I had to change my ticket to fly back to Canada within a couple of days.

I was so disappointed not being able to stay for another two weeks.

I really wanted to celebrate my birthday in France.

It was a big birthday.

But I couldn't get caught in a lockdown in France and be unable to get back home to my husband.

The morning after the announcement,

Which was a Friday,

My cousin from Carcassonne drove down to see me before I had to fly out on Sunday.

This same cousin with whom I had first visited La Grasse.

We walked along the river and by the ruined tower,

Just as we had the first time we'd come there together.

We talked about the land and the Qatar and our own connection,

Which has always been beyond words.

And after he left,

I went to have lunch on the promenade.

It was a beautiful day.

And I felt really uplifted.

It just so happened that during lunch,

I received a message from my spirit guides through a channel I know.

He had recorded it and sent it to me by email.

As I listened to it,

I felt a strong pull to drive back to where I had seen the property on my first day in the area two weeks before.

After passing through the little village,

The little Corsican village,

I saw a small road going down toward the river with a little sign marked La Fargo.

Now,

I remembered that I had seen that road the first day,

But it looked private.

So I didn't allow myself to explore the possibility of taking it.

It seemed odd to me that I had written it off and practically blocked it from my awareness.

Well,

This time,

I drove down it to find a very narrow bridge crossing over the river.

I hesitated for a moment wondering if a car was meant to cross such a bridge.

Then I felt a surge of annoyance with myself for being so tentative.

I drove over it without dying and passed through a stand of river reeds.

And then I saw the property up close for the first time,

A small vineyard,

An infinity pool,

And two buildings.

And I was absolutely sure that here it was.

I felt as though I was doing something I shouldn't do,

Something I could potentially get in trouble for,

Like I shouldn't be there.

So I drove further away along a little dirt road and parked my car off to one side in what looked like a little field,

As if I were trying to hide the fact that I was about to snoop.

Then I skulked back over and walked up the hill towards the two buildings,

Getting more excited by the minute as the place came into view.

There was the infinity pool.

There were the travertine steps and the metal gate.

There were the floor-to-ceiling glass doors.

No one seemed to be around,

And in fact the place looked like a shabbier version of what the stellar pictures had shown online,

As if no one had been there for a couple of years.

It felt a little bit abandoned and sad.

I crept up to a little parking area with gravel and down the steps into the overgrown gardens between the two buildings,

Overlooking the pool,

Which was closed off and covered.

All the curtains were drawn and I couldn't see inside,

But I was in love.

The sun was shining at the end of October.

It was warm,

Birds were singing,

And I could hear the sound of the river beyond the small vineyard below.

The same river that delighted me as it passed lazily through La Grasse was in a cheerful and lively mood here.

The smells of rosemary,

Lavender,

And cistus and wild mint were in the air,

And looking off to one side,

I could see the village with its ruined fortress.

Everything was perfectly proportioned and harmonious in the landscape.

My heart was absolutely singing.

I took some pictures and some videos to try to capture the peace and tranquility of the setting,

And I thought,

At least if I had some pictures,

I had something of the place.

It made it real for me and somehow got me closer to,

Well,

It being mine.

I sat on the ground for a while,

Absorbing the beauty of the view,

The sun,

The sound of the river,

The birds,

And the smells.

I admired a giant agave that was as big as me,

The tall cypress trees,

The olive trees,

Laurels,

And the fig trees.

Looking around toward the east,

Between the river and the hillside where I was standing,

I could see a patchwork of orderly gardens that belonged to the people who lived in the village.

Finally,

I had to leave,

And regretfully,

I walked back down the hill toward my car,

But I felt galvanized,

Inspired,

And triumphant.

I had found it.

I had found it.

I had been led there,

Somehow,

Right away.

On my first day in the area,

I had been guided to it.

I had mistrusted myself and avoided coming back,

But now I was here,

And I felt grace acting in my life.

What to do,

Though?

Lockdown was starting in 24 hours.

I was leaving the country in two days,

And who knew when I would return?

How could I get inside the place?

Who could I talk to when no one had replied to my inquiries?

Was it even for sale anymore?

And what about the money?

It was way beyond my realistic budget.

What was the next step?

All these questions were swirling in my mind as I walked back to the car,

But somehow,

I felt that the place was already mine.

When I arrived at the car,

There was a piece of paper fluttering on the windshield.

Someone had left me a note.

I'll tell you what it said,

And what happened in the 24 hours that followed,

In the next installment of the story.

See you soon.

Meanwhile,

Walk in grace.