If you are new to our blog, welcome. A story is being told here, in serial format. If you have arrived here for the first time, we suggest that you actually begin by reading our “About Us” page, and then start with the post “Playing Catch Up.” then “Remembering Ronda I.—A New Beginning.” To understand the greater context of our story and the world it takes place within, you will find an interview with me, Betsy, imbedded in the post, “Look up the word myth—and advice from Jean Houston.” We are sharing our lives and our journey through the frontiers of consciousness, as it unfolds. Thank you for joining us and sharing your thoughts and insights.
Ronda, Part II.:
Over the first three days of the residency, during the mornings we worked in the small group to which we had been assigned. With the feedback of the advisors, each of us labored to define the salient aspects of the new media companies we were founding. Our objective was to create solid business plan outlines for our new companies. On the final day of the residency we would have the opportunity to pitch our companies to a panel of experts who could potentially help to direct us towards funding sources; assuming our business plans appeared viable.
I wasn’t feeling it… and I had no inkling as I participated in this business residency, that the events that would play out there, were going to dramatically change my life.
I worked on my film company business plan, which included a multimedia project re-envisioning how we think of death, but couldn’t shake the feeling that this wasn’t what I was meant to be doing. This felt like revisiting a life in LA that I had left behind a decade before. I kept reminding myself that I was taking a needed break from the content of Damanhur that I had been working so hard with for so long.
Yet, Damanhur kept coming up again and again during the residency.
On the second morning we went through a round table of introductions. When it was my turn, I shared a bit about where I live. In eight years of bridging my life in Community with my media career, I’ve found few people at media events have ever heard of the spiritual eco-community I call home.
Of the ten other residency participants and the handful of mentors only one person had heard of Damanhur. That person was an Austrian video producer by the name of Edgar Bültemeyer.
When he realized I was from Damanhur, Edgar attached himself to me. He asked me question after question about Damanhur. Strangely, it felt like we had always known one another, though we were only just meeting.
Aside from media events, in my work in the consciousness movement, I often meet people who have an immediate affinity for Damanhur and approach me with great enthusiasm. Yet, even in this first point of contact, the connection with Edgar was different, though I couldn’t articulate for myself how or why. The concept of TRUST seemed present. From our first meeting, there was a trust between us that I had never before experienced, despite a lifetime of deep, close relationships and a long term partnership in marriage to the love of my life. This form of trust had an inexplicable quality to it.
They say the first meeting between Twin Flames is always particular and memorable. Our first meeting was no exception.
Edgar and I spoke nonstop from the time we met, or at least it felt that way.
That evening of our first meeting, we ended up in a group at the hotel bar. As the night wore on, one by one our colleagues left, but Edgar and I remained locked in intimate and transparent conversation.
When we finally acknowledged the hour and headed up to our hotel rooms, we realized our rooms were right next door to one another. We continued to speak outside our doors until finally the inevitable good-nights came and we headed into our respective rooms.
My husband, Eddie had retired early after a long day of sightseeing on his own. I joined him in our room and prepared for bed. At this point it was about two o’clock in the morning. As I was brushing my teeth, the hotel phone rang!
I dived for the phone, so it didn’t wake Eddie. On the other end, was Edgar. He asked if I could come back out and speak for a bit longer.
We passed most of the night that way. I think, in our pajamas, talking together in the hotel hallway.
Yet, the most peculiar aspect of our first meeting was still to come.
On the last day of the residency, the time for us to pitch our new media companies arrived. One by one the other participants made their way to the front of the conference room and shared their dreams and ideas for the companies they hoped to found.
I held back. Despite the days of preparation on the outline for my business plan, I had no idea what I wanted to pitch. All ten participants finished their pitches and I was the last to go.
When I stepped in front of the group, what came out of my mouth, was nothing that I had prepared.
I spoke about my journey from urban Los Angeles to a new life in Damanhur, and my discovery there of the most extraordinary story I have ever been exposed to. A story of humanity that stretches way beyond the bounds of our normal history books and archeological record.
For seven minutes I conveyed my passion for this expansive story and my conviction that it is imperative that this story to be shared with the world. I stated my belief that our world is so fragmented because we have lost the thread to the story of who and what we really are; that we have lost the core story that unites us. This story, I was speaking about, I believe could be a core mythology of humanity that represents Global Consciousness.
My perception was that the room was silent enough to hear a pin drop as I spoke. What struck me most was that at the end of my pitch, the Spanish business man who was on the expert panel, was in tears.
It is all a bit hazy now, but my memory was of the rest of the panel praising the pitch and the project. I remember the applause of the group as I finished.
This is how Edgar remembers the pitch:
The night after the pitches I slept deeply. Sometime, in the middle of the night, I found myself in a dream. In Damanhur, my husband and I own a ruin; a three story 3,500 sq. ft rustic building in the middle of the town of Vidracco. The dream takes place there:
It is two years in the future. I am working with a team of storytellers in our ruin. The top floor, which has floor to ceiling openings for eventual windows and a soaring beamed ceiling, has been turned into a StoryRoom. Giant soft panels line four walls of the ruin and they are covered in index cards, each card represents a key point in this huge missing history of humanity.
The group who are working together, with the exception of one or two Damanhurians, are collaborators from the outside.
I can see a word written in the air, and the sound of it also resonates throughout the dream. The word is INCUBATOR.
I am hosting an Incubator and with this team of collaborators we are working to understand how to put this mythology into the world.
In my dream it is lunchtime. I can see from the top floor of the ruin, looking down onto the street, a car full of people heading out for lunch together. At the same time, I find myself in the car, in the backseat behind the driver. In the middle seat next to me, part of the team working in the Incubator, is EDGAR.
The thing that I didn’t tell him until much later, was that in this dream, we are extremely connected and we are holding hands.
The next morning, everyone was packing and getting ready to depart. Eddie and I had decided to leave ourselves a day to recover and sightsee together so we didn’t rise with any urgency the next morning.
I had no idea that downstairs at breakfast, Edgar was waiting for us.
He met me at the bottom of the stairs. He seemed agitated, clearly shaken by something that happened during the night. In his hands was a sheaf of papers. Five pages in total, filled with a dense message, handwritten in perfect English (not his native Austrian).
“I think this is a message for you…” he said simply.