Today is a train day—from Paris to Perpignan in the south of France. We have some time to call in the light in the train station, and then it’s a five-hour ride through beautiful farm country and small villages. It turns into a seven-hour ride when we stop in Béziers because someone got hit by another train, and we have to stop for the investigation and aftermath. In typical MSIA fashion we make the best of it—some people do yoga, and a few line up in a choo-choo train conga line, imitating train sounds in some kind of ridiculous ritual that they say is supposed to get the train going—a train-dance instead of a rain-dance.

At some point during our wait, our guide Corinne tells us in amazement that the place where we’ve stopped, Bezier, is the site of a the first massacre of the Cathars. (On other trips we’ve been stopped like this in spots that need extra light, in odd ways that seem too perfect to be coincidence.) I’m finding out that a lot of this trip is going to relate to the Cathars, a medieval Christian group in the south of France that taught reincarnation of the Soul; a negative power that rules the material world and imprisons Souls in human bodies; a world of Light with a God that is beyond the material world, to which we can return. They allowed women to be spiritual teachers, believed that their practices predated Catholicism and descended directly from the early Church; and they became quite powerful in the south of France, spreading a “heretical” and, in some ways, more modern and gnostic kind of spirituality. There are various legends of their connection to Mary Magdalene, who some say was married to Jesus and escaped to the south of France with their daughter after the crucifixion. The Cathars became a threat to the domination of the north, Paris, and the Roman church. They were eventually persecuted and pretty much wiped out. Now my diatribe yesterday about Paris and Rome is making a lot more sense to me.

These kinds of coincidences are why I love the Traveler trips so much. The coincidences happen with a frequency and precision that’s different from the pace of coincidences that’s normal for me. Everybody has their own “pace of coincidences” that they’re used to, and we notice the smallest increase or decrease in this. In fact, you could say that in part we define ourselves by how fast or slowly or efficiently our coincidences unfold. For example, if you were to wake up and think of having dinner in Morocco, and five minutes later your friend walked in and asked you if you wanted to fly to Morocco for dinner, and this kind of thing happened every 15 minutes, you’d be quite disoriented.

On these trips where the spirit is concentrated, the pace of these coincidences seems to be accelerated markedly, and there’s no way I can prove that to you because each person’s “pace of coincidence” is different. But when you experience it, it will be clear because of the way that pace of coincidence is so carefully calibrated in our consciousness. With it comes an exhilaration, a delight, like when you drive a really good sports car at high speed. J-R called it the “small miracles of perfect timing.” Life is more dance-like and directed. The world seems to loosen its grip. There’s a buoyancy, a feeling of elevation and gratitude, as though nothing in the outer world can “get” to me or affect me, a kind of childlike trust, because the energy of the centers of the body below the eyebrows seems further away, less powerful. My energy feels more concentrated in the third eye and crown chakras.

When we get off the train to get on the bus to our hotel, John walks down the aisle checking on people’s heath. The dedication of this guy is inspiring. He’s involved in everything on the trip, from the highest to the lowest, and he’s built like a giant light column, a tree, a kind of spiritual athlete. J-R called him 16 tons. Some spiritual teacher types stay on the top of a mountain; this guy IS a mountain.

We finally arrive at our hotel on the Mediterranean. It reminds me a bit of the Dead Sea in Israel—it has that European resort type of feeling, with similar modern buildings designed for fun in the sun. The climate and the landscape are a slightly greener version of southern California, we’re right on the beach, the air is fresh and sweet and warm, and Paris is just a distant dream.

Click here to read all of the posts from the J-R Legacy Tour.