Waking up in Lavandou in a little cottage across the path from my friends Kim & Philippe. I hear nothing but the brook rushing behind the building — and birdsong. Breakfast’d on coffee, tea and toast with sweet chestnut cream. The trees here engage in an enchantment, limbs gathering each other into the air, this breath of life an ancient place were people told stories of magic and transformation. I walked down a path the Romans made, to reach the Abby, back when the three daughters of the sea god Stoeches were turned into islands as protection from invaders. All ancient things prosper in Lavandou: the twisted cork oaks, the yellow broom, the large toad disguised here for centuries. A curious wild lavender grows here beside a grape that was forbidden by kings, which caused the Celts to become wizards and magicians by the hallucinogenic quality of the fruit. Pools of water reflect the quarter moon and I am in a place apart—one foot in this world, one foot in another— past and present colliding with the constancy of starts.