It’s 2 a.m on Friday. Conference participants have gathered, met and gone to bed. I’m writing on a chair outside my room so as not to wake my roomie.
A retreat center is not like a hotel. There’s no lobby with comfy leather chairs to sink down into at 2 a.m. in the morning.
We have the meeting halls and our cabins and rooms, with more than one person to a room. There isn’t somewhere I can go in the middle of the night to write as I could at Poco Diablo or Los Abrigados.
I’m huddled next to an exterior light, with the moths as my companions. I have my gallon jug of potable water, a chair and my computer on my lap. I can’t use my iPhone unfortunately or I’ll incur ginormous roaming fees.
At home I’m up at all hours of the night, but that isn’t going to be as possible here. But the improvising, as I said yesterday, raises new aspects of oneself to view, and is an indispensable element of the appeal of being here. So I don’t mind the strangeness of it all.
One of the things I need to discuss is the similarities and differences between this conference and Sedona (the 2012 Scenario Conference in Sedona, Oct/Nov of last year).
Hall and reflecting pond
One similarity is that, last year at Sedona, I had intended to follow events and bring readers along on the conference. But I found that matters were so busy that it just wasn’t possible to do so.
As this conference approaches, after our first day of set-up and meeting arriving participants, I get the sense that (1) this conference will be equally busy and (2) that if I want to achieve my purpose of meeting people and getting to know them, just as at Sedona, I again won’t have the time to comment for readers as much as I’d like.
Now the differences. This year at Joshua Tree, a new set of circumstances appear, a little different than Poco Diablo, but equally compelling.
This conference, even though it hasn’t started yet, is perceptibly different in aims, atmosphere, etc., right from the get-go.
Sedona was more informational; this is much more personal-work-oriented. This is like a growth workshop where the other was, coming two months before 21/12/12, almost celebrational.
But that puts an entirely different complexion on my sharing. I’m very much aware that at this conference I have to be very mindful of the personal space of the participants.
Having had a good talking to with myself before resolving to get up and write, I made the decision that I would not write about or mention another conference participant’s experience; only my own.
It’s remarkably beautiful here
But the need for privacy goes even farther than that. I’m an awareness writer and so I’m always watching my own experience minutely. But I resolved that I would not even write about certain aspects of my own experience that could be conceived of as an indirect comment on another conference participant.
If I were to do otherwise, I’d be giving rise to a huge intrusion on the privacy of others and that simply would not work.
I mentioned some time ago being at a meeting of left-wing people in my fourth year of college. (Given that the NSA is probably reading every word I say, I won’t mention the group precisely so as to stay out of their data-gathering net while in the States, as if that were possible.)
I was the head of a committee that served student government (the Canadian Union of Students Committee) and, before the meeting started, the group leader said we have a spy in our midst.
I turned my head around with everyone else to see whom he might be referring to only to find that he was referring to me and, much surprised, I pointed to myself with a quizzical expression, got up and left the meeting. In that case, my mere presence was intrusive.
Likewise here I don’t want my writing to be intrusive to the work of the conference so I’ll be walking a fine line, so to speak.
I don’t think the same rigor need apply to the staff mounting the conference. So I feel it safe to say that I’ve had several delightful surprises there.
Anyone who works with Linda or has personal readings from her will know her cousin Patricia, who does her scheduling. Always Patricia has been a figure in the Skype window who walks by and does not intrude or someone I only know by email who is very civil, etc.
And here I discover she has a bubbly, extroverted personality with a terrific sense of humor that is a joy to connect with. I so much have enjoyed our bantering and working together, having never really known Patricia. The same could be said about Deb, whom I had not met before, and others of Linda’s entourage.
This morning as well I greatly enjoyed listening to Taka explain how he came to play the digeridoo and how he makes the instrument. (How many musicians make their own instruments?)
As with so many things, I greatly suspect that past-life associations were at play here because Taka was interested in the digeridoo from the first time he heard one played (background to a TV show). When he actually saw one he determined right away to go to Australia and learn it from the Aborigines.
Not being able to persuade any of his friends to go with him, he set out alone and penetrated deeper and deeper into Australia until he connected with Aborigines. He then worked further and further into their society until he connected with one who could teach him the instrument.
And there is much more to the story. He explained how Aborigines made their instrument by searching for wood whose interior had been eaten out by termites. They then used hot coals to complete the work of clearing out the interior of the wooden branch.
Taka of course uses more modern tools to make his own digeridoos. And they’re beautifully and carefully painted and laquered.
Of course he gave me the opportunity to make a fool of myself trying to get one to make any noise at all! It’s so much easier to play the fool at my age than it would have been as a young adult. I so don’t miss those years!
Perhaps I can be permitted this one comment, a general comment about the participants. I’m incredibly surprised at the high level of mature endeavor I’m seeing in everyone around me.
Whatever the pursuit or lifestyle, and again I draw the line at giving details so as to protect people’s privacy, the people here have really dug into things and are adepts in their fields. Of course they’re Starseeds here to assist with Ascension so why would this not be the case?
OK, that’s as far as I’ll go. It can be a rude shock to someone to suddenly see themselves being discussed by another and I don’t want to go there,
We had a rollicking dinner at the Joshua Tree Saloon. I even had a Marguerita for maybe the first time in my life (I don’t drink). But what was most startling was that, as we walked back to the car, Linda began to point out the starships in the sky.
There were several rainbow ships. We didn’t have time on that go-round to actually nail down what a rainbow ship was, but they had flashing lights of different colors. That could be the root of the name.
I actually have seen the same kind of ship in Vancouver over the week prior to coming here. It had blinking lights of blue, red and yellow, as they did here. Our own planes have lights of green and red, green for “safe to pass” and red for “not safe to pass” (I think!). I don’t know any airplane that would have blue, red and yellow lights.
Then there were humungous yellow orbs, I mean, really big. Just sitting there in the night sky. Linda explained to me the widespread activity a few miles away from Joshua Tree of extraterrestrials and elements of the U.S. military who were watching them or working with them or who knows what else.
She discussed Howard Hughes’ connection to the ETs. Well, of course, I worked for Hughes Aircraft years ago and know well that they back-engineered the computer from an extraterrestrial silicon chip.
There were actually many people in the saloon who were obviously military – with that buzz cut that only a military man could love (that turns a barber into the Lawnmower Man).
The other thing that was very enjoyable was seeing how many people were invested in the dong/dinar scene. And fluent about it.
I Skyped all day with the Nova Earth Foundation team, keeping abreast of the latest “signals” that the reval was close.
So strong was the wifi signal in Friendship Hall that I could call various team members on Skype and take them on a “tour” of the desert outside, show them a Joshua Tree, and show them the swimming pool (I doubt I’ll have time to use it).
When in the history of humanity could one talk with another thousands of miles away via a common consumer device (a laptop computer) and take them on a tour of far surroundings?
Everyone here is waiting for the reval and everyone has their own plans for afterwards. And for almost everyone there is the tremendous contrast between the hardscrabble life as it is now and the impact that the reval will have on everybody,
OK, it’s probably 3 a.m. now and I’m not sure when I’ll have the time to take up the narrative again. It’s so important, if I want to give my attention to listening to others, to not have a competing agenda, such as needing to steal away to write things up. As unsatisfying as that may be to readers, that connection is my first priority.
But there are always the wee hours of the morning with the local winged residents and me with my jug of potable water.
A loaf of bread, a jug of … water … and thou underneath the tree. Hmmmm, doesn’t quite cut it!