Shedding The Gypsy Layer
Well, well, well. 2020 if you haven’t been a call to action, a peeling back of some layers and a deep dive into the waters of my essence then I don’t know what is!
The start of this decade started like every year starts for me - embraced in ceremony. Since 2018 I've listed the things I want to leave in the previous year, write them down and burn the list. Not to remove and forget or to minimise their impact they’ve had, but to lay them to rest once their life has been lived and their lessons delivered. I believe that everything that happens serves as a lesson, delivered with a message. The hurts and the pains, the joys and the brilliant are all here to teach us something. Perhaps to remind us of the wonderful connections we have with friends, maybe of the strength we never realised we had.
The reason I engage in rituals like this on New Years and during New Moon is because I believe in the shedding of one coat, to make way for a new outfit. The Life/Death/Life cycle lives in each of us and in the nature around us. Following a summer comes an autumn, feelings of sadness make way for wide toothy smiles. The most comfortable sleeping position soon causes a dead leg. Everything in this world moves and evolves, and even if you don’t realise it, we do too. When one door closes as painful as it may be, it is simply making room for a new door to open. Every life comes to an end, creating space for a new beginning.
GingerGypsy.ie was a blog I started a number of years ago as I prepared to embark on an epic year long meander through South America. The name felt right in my body and soul - a hat-tip to my hair and head-nod to my lust for adventure. The blog connected me with like-minded humans from all walks of life who accompanied me on my journey. We bonded through words and images, experiences and tales. I lived a life many dreamed of and their lives were the feature of my longing when life on the road got too much for my small baba heart to bear.
The name felt so me that I even called my Yoga business GingerGypsy Yoga for the first few years of its life. A ginger with a gypsy soul who weaved and wandered her way around a yoga mat. Fitting, apt, comfortable.
You’ll know that I discuss identity and labels quite a lot if you’ve been around for a while 🙂 For a girl who once could section herself into tidy boxes, I soon began experimenting with hanging a leg out and dipping my toes into other things. Sometimes they were similar - a vegan yogi. Other times they were polar opposites - a meditator who drops the F bomb with force on the reg. What if I was this AND this. What if I did this AND this. What if I sometimes thought this AND more times thought this.
GingerGypsy was a persona for me, and she was a label. She was as carefree as could be, venturing through life with crystals in her bra and glitter in her hair. She was me, she is me. But me is more than her.
Me, Leonie, is so much more. I am still a yogi + meditator. I remain powered by nature. I will always be a wanderer + adventurer. My being is free + spirited. And still, I am ''settled’’ in Ireland, carving a life for myself from the very stones of my family. I no longer traipse around the world with a childlike sense of curiosity. Instead, I find that curiosity in new places - in myself, in new connections, in my hometown as I view it through a newborns eyes.
GingerGypsy will never leave me. For she was born within and has accompanied me for the last 35 years. Yet just like arms are part of me, they are not all of me. My words are part of me, they are not all of me.
Leonie Keane.
Yogi.
Meditator.
Life coach.
Human.
Being,
I’ve no idea where this adventure will take me, but I am so excited to see. Because, if it’s anything like the joy, chaos and abundance that GingerGypsy brought then friends, we are in for one hell of a ride.
Until next time, thank you for being here.
Love,
Leonie x