inspiration//

petra

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Being with Petra is learning to live in radical amazement.

 

She is so much bigger than this place and this time. Yes, she is an eternal, beautiful rose, red like her namesake. Yes, she is as mysterious and seductive as a flamenco dancer. And being in the dance with her has transformed me. Her gift is not the ancestral wisdom born, like her, in Gerona. Nor is it the billion things she knows from her voracious reading and travel. No, she is larger than life. She enlightens. She shines.  She reveals spaces and places where there is no time, where there is only truth. 

 

​All the times we shared in French, Spanish, Italian, English, talking about books, travel, facelifts, love, diets, men, shoes, nuns, yoga, flamenco, opera, paella, turron, the endless charm of Europe, the magnetic pull of the holy land—all of it enchanting, just being with her. 

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Petra loves to tell stories of her captivating Gerona with its postcard-perfect views of the river and Roman walls still intact. She is even more passionate about Gerona's El Call, a labyrinth of streets in one of Europe's best-preserved Jewish quarters which whispers tales of over two thousand years of kabbalistic heritage. I sometimes think Petra believes she is a member of the tribe in spite of her upbringing in a convent.

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By observing Petra describe consciousness, not as the experience of thoughts, emotions, or memories, but seeing and hearing without identifying with any of these events, not as a witness but as an integral part of it all, she has taught me the mother of all lessons: Living in the magic of each moment. 

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