6/The Egypt Chronicles - Embracing The Uncharted Territory of Life: A Journey of Allowing

6.
Conference - Day 2

5th March 2020

PART 3

 

After a while Brigitte comes out of the room where she has just announced she will be organising the first Women Economic Forum Event in France… next year. 

She is shaken by the realisation of the full extent of what she has just declared, and we breathe for a while together, releasing expectations, letting go of all ideas about how it is supposed to be. 

Little did we know that all large gatherings would be suspended in just a week’s time and for who knows how long…

Well, over two hours later than originally scheduled it is my turn to go on the Plenary stage. We are only two speakers on our panel: The Role and Power of Self-Belief and Self-Care.

Didi Wong, who also organised a WEF event, speaks before me. She eventually comes to the point where she shares how she got herself into over 200,000 dollars in debt as a result of organising Women Economic Forum in Las Vegas in December 2018, and allows herself to be vulnerable in front of the whole audience, including Dr Harbeen, founder of WEF but she does not even once accuse anyone else for what happened. She takes full responsibility for what happened and does so with great courage.

Having organised a WEF event in Portugal myself together with a fabulous team,  with a final total budget spent of around 10,000 euros, I cannot envision how the event could require so much money to put together, but I guess the reality in Portugal is very different from that of the USA. Each one to their own reality.

One thing we did make a point of while organising the Conference, was to always go for the simplest options and remove the superfluous, trimming the Event’s organisation down to what was essential in order to pull it through successfully, generously and under a very tight budget.

We did not have a large sum of money from the Registration Fees and the main economic support we got was from our local Municipality, so we were always very aware of the need to keep expenses as low as possible. We relied upon massive cooperation from our local community, involving schools, our local University, Associations and public resources, mainly the human resources that make things happen.

We held a fair amount of meetings, and even managed to connect some local partners who were not on each other’s best books at that time.

I must say many times it worked like pure magic, how doors opened and the people and things we needed came our way in some quite unsolvable situations - so it seemed. Always the simplicity of the heart, was our main and basic focus. 

And we surprised ourselves time and time again as to what really was possible and we were actually capable of. We organised it on a completely voluntary basis, none of us earned a cent from it and we worked for a year and half to get it all in motion but we did so absolutely wholeheartedly and I believe that is part of what made the magic flow with such grace., together with the Breath, of course :)

I usually share that organising WEF Portugal was an initiatic experience. Apparently it is for all of us who choose to organise this event, as Didi is so transparently sharing. We grow through the experience of hosting this very special event and are blessed, irrespective of the challenges we are faced with.

It is my turn now. I have chosen to share a story. My story. Could very well have been yours too.The story of the collective She.

The public becomes very silent. Listening. Feeling. Some have tears in their eyes as She speaks. She is part of each one sitting here, in Her sorrow as well as in Her glory. 

(Here is the Audio version and the Text version) 

Didi and I receive many rounds of applause as well as our gifts of recognition and after I step off stage some amongst the public come and congratulate me and express their gratitude for how this rendition of Shakti has touched them - men and women alike. For She is in all of us.

I receive yet some more gifts. So many gifts. Physical and non-physical. Blessed to be Here.

Now. In these gifted moments that are received with profound Gratitude.

Dr Harbeen Arora, thank you for insisting that I come.

The day is coming to an end. I still have time to get a book to offer Linda’s School. A beautiful book from the children’s book stand. Duaa gives me a generous discount, which I deeply appreciate.

We decide to go to the Hotel for a short while to refresh before boarding the bus that will take us to the Gala Dinner at the… right in front of the Pyramids. Which of course we are absolutely choosing to visit.

It just so happens that as we are leaving, we find Sasa Bozic, from Slovenia, who also chose to organize a WEF Event there, after coming to ours in Portugal. I must say it was a very beautiful, graceful and powerful Event, excellently organised - you may watch it here. Congratulations to the WEF Slovenia team!

Sasa has booked a private chauffeur and guide to go to the pyramids tomorrow morning, since she is leaving for the airport right after lunch. Would we like to join her? Well of course!

So that’s how we end up visiting the Pyramids the following morning. Pretty simple! Thank you very much Sasa.

Now the Gala Dinner. 

The buses take quite a while to fill up and it is considerably late once we get on the road. It is not right around the corner and the bus ride gives us ample opportunity to interact and even do some integration work, which I have shared about already in another chapter of these Chronicles.

We finally get to the Marriot Mena House Hotel at around 9 PM! Wow! It is so beautiful. Everyone is in high spirits, dancing, enjoying, celebrating.

We sit at the table with Abeer, her daughter Jumana, her partner Cecilia and another lady we don't know yet joins us too.  She has an association to raise awareness around domestic violence and is organising a fundraising dinner with a conference part and invites me to speak there. I have to decline because it is in 2 weeks’ time in the US and I am not going to travel again right after arriving from Egypt. 

But of course we now know this event never takes place because all of a sudden Covid-19 enters the scene.

So many plans changed. The world brought to an almost complete halt. Something we could not have imagined even in our wildest dreams.

Here, where we are, sitting beside the pool, enjoying a feast of exquisite tastes, laughter, chatter and connections, we are grateful. Engrossed by the view of the illuminated Pyramids just beyond the palm trees to our left. Enveloped in an exotic landscape of luxurious specialness.

This is all we know now. And it is all that matters at the moment. Absorbing it all.

Some of these photos were taken by Cherie Banks. Thank you Cherie, for your love of photography :)

During the next 3 days there will be guided tours organised by the WEF team in Egypt but Joana and I have decided not to go because we want to remain open to the other potentials we have by now already set in motion.

We also have a limited capacity to be in big crowds for too long. It drains us. We need time alone. Time to retreat and be in silence and we do not want to make this first time in Egypt a tiring experience. As much as we have loved meeting everyone over these last two days, we bid our farewells and wish everyone the most amazing time together.

After large gatherings like these International Conferences are, I always feel drawn to be still, to let it land and settle within me so that I can really receive the magnitude of all that has gone on, both visibly and invisibly. It is so much that if I keep on entertaining myself with more and more interactions I will just lose the core of this experience. So I invariably step back, absorbing the potentials, the energies, the wisdom, the wholeness of my forays into massive interpersonal connections, bringing it all into balance, to the neutral stillness within. This is how I dance with the outside world within me.

I have completely lost the faculty of multitasking! It could be a misfortune but I realise it is a blessing and a direct consequence of my choice to Stay only Here, only Now. A choice that has peculiar side effects… :)

And so it is.

After a good night’s rest tomorrow we will be off for our first touristic explorations in Egypt. 

We are not anxious or expectant about it, as we aren’t about anything really. However we are happy and grateful to finally be here again, after thousands of years away.

💞💞💞

To read the other chapters, click on the links below:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

A Master in the Eden of Chaos / Um Mestre no Éden do Caos

 A Master in the Eden of Chaos

It is such a blessing to be the Master amidst challenging times of massive change.

The Master gets to bask in the free space left vacant by all others who are entertained playing with the drama in chaos. Sit back, sip a warm cup of tea, smile and breathe in, inhaling the bliss of expanded awareness beyond all that seems to be. Exhaling the exquisite sensuality of a Divinely Human existence, laying the ground for the new seeds of ultimate freedom to germinate unencumbered by illusion.

And then, once the entertainment of drama loses steam and the many start turning around to see what’s left of the world, nothing is as it was.

Such is the service of the embodied Master, living in the graceful ease of knowingness, generously enjoying the gift of just being. 

❤❤❤

Just Breathe:

Tomorrow I will be holding the first Live Just Breathe Session, which will be taking place every second Sunday of each month from now on. It will be around and hour of shared wisdom and insight through Compassionate Breath.

It is free but Registration is required: https://www.inpassioncoaching.com/just-breathe-live

Um Mestre no Éden do Caos

Ser o Mestre no seio de tempos desafiantes de mudança massiva é uma bênção extraordinária. 

O Mestre tem enfim oportunidade para deleitar-se no espaço livre, deixado vago por todos os que se entretêm com o caos do drama. Sentar-se confortavelmente enquanto sorve o seu chá, sorrir e respirar, inspirando a beatitude da consciência expandida para além de tudo o que parece ser. Exalando a requintada sensualidade de uma existência Divinamente Humana, preparando o solo para as novas sementes de liberdade plena, para que possam germinar soltas da ilusão.

Depois, quando o entretenimento do drama perde o seu apelo e os demais se começam a voltar para ver o que resta do mundo, nada está como era.

Tal é o serviço do Mestre incorporado, vivendo na graciosa simplicidade do saber, regozijando-se generosamente na dádiva de apenas ser. 

❤❤❤

E já agora, amanhã ocorre o primeiro Simplesmente Respira ao vivo (em inglês) 😊 Cerca de uma hora de partilha de sabedoria com Respiração Compassiva. Podes Registar-te aqui: https://www.inpassioncoaching.com/just-breathe-live

A sessão é gratuita mas carece de Registo.

🌎🧙‍♂️My experience of Clarity and going beyond🧙‍♂️🌗

At the very beginning, back in the times of Lemuria, when I first chose to come into experience on Earth it was a joy. An unlimited exploration of tangible divinity.

We did not know what was coming next. There was no notion of Time and Space. It was all a new discovery. We were untethered by the duality of life and death and we were absolutely available for all.

Accelerating energy, expanding consciousness beyond. Our Yes was absolute. There was no fear or love, no dark and light, no separation between who or what we were and what we perceived ourselves to be.

The sensory abundance of this planet was extraordinary enough to keep us coming and diving deeper and deeper into it, in order to stay, to split from our wholeness, though knowing we could not be but whole.

And thus love was born - a surrender so great that one would lose oneself just to find oneself on the other side of what we now call the illusion of duality. And with it so was fear - an enchanted mirror of reverse perception that was realistic enough to make us believe we were not enough.

Hence the dance of light and dark commenced its expedition into the uncharted territory of life in physical form, an experience of “either or” evolving at such a slowed down frequency that we could actually see, feel and live the result of what came to be known as thought and deed and eventually word.

God happening. That’s all we have always been and are.

Eons of “time” later, after having created and created and created more, we have finally come full circle - touching our initial transparence through the cascading curtains of what seemed to be separation but never really was.

Looking within I can roam freely through the vastness of my Time/Space for there is nothing hiding, no need to hold back from assuming I am a Goddess in Human form.

The clarity of knowing I do not need to understand, frees me to simply allow and in surrendering my illusionary Free Will to the eternal wisdom of my Essence, I have no needs, hopes, dreams or expectations.

There is nothing to be said or done that has not been honoured and in this I could leave physical form right now, completely at Peace. But I am staying for the sheer delight of discovering myself to be a Divine Human living in ultimate freedom.

My inner world feels like a druid’s abode, simple, clean and minimalistic for all that is needed shows up in the moment and then disappears into no-thingness once again.

I no longer experience Light and Dark as separate and I can feel my wings open wide as I fly into any landscape to quantum leap reunion - a Dark Angel of Light, neither one nor the other but One.

The dragon is my best friend and together we ride the winds and oceans of alchemy, joyfully going beyond.

I dwell in the realm of silence and stillness holds me in its warm embrace as Safe Space gains new depth with each breath I receive and share.

I feel at Home wherever I am and whenever the discomforts of however being Human come knocking at my door, I open it and embrace them with a welcoming smile for all is just… that it is.

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich from Pexels

5/The Egypt Chronicles - Embracing The Uncharted Territory of Life: A Journey of Allowing

 

5.
Conference - Days 1&2

4th & 5th March 2020

PART 2

Back to Day 1 just for a very special reference.

Joana, who has strangely been invited to talk on Women in Security - towards safer communities and to receive an award which I nominated her for, has accepted. The theme could have been a good reason to decline, since she has no connection whatsoever with it but no, she is ready to overcome her fear of speaking in public and to receive recognition of her worthiness so she creatively turns the theme around and speaks about living from the Safe Space within and how that actually changes our experiences in any kind of circumstances. An outstanding rendition of honest transparence.

Just a little side note to point out that this was a huge hurdle to overcome, because other than the theme itself being quite strange for Joana, she is also supposed to speak in English, not her mother tongue and on top of that she does not feel very confident in the midst of so many success driven women, who she does not usually interact with. She is also not used to travelling that much and being in a completely new and unknown environment, having to speak a foreign language all the time and standing up for her own wisdom all present an interesting concoction of brewing inner fears. Nevertheless Joana breezes through her talk with ease and grace and brings about a peaceful aura to the room, as everyone hushes to listen and feel this unexpected turn of a theme around Security, which she shows to be an inner circumstance, more so even than any outer one. 

(Watch Joana's Speech HERE.)

We’re now sailing freely on Day 2’s oceans.

My first talk is on Finding Peace and Empowerment through Mindfulness. It equally finds a change of title which I choose to be Allowing Peace by Staying - and becoming Powerless and direction. I start speaking not knowing what is going to be said, as this time I have been invited by my Soul Wisdom to not prepare anything but the new title. And so I myself am witnessing my own voicing of a speech offered to me and all present by the pure expanded consciousness that guides my thoughts, words and deeds, moment to moment, every single day of my life.

It is somewhere within this framework that Abeer and Cécile enter the room and another special connection ensues. 

I have told you about this in the 1st Chapter of these Chronicles but let me expand on the significance of this lady’s name Abeer, meaning scent of a Rose.

Curiously enough, not only does the scent of roses accompany me very often, anywhere, out of the blue it comes to me but also the Rose is representative of blooming into our full potential, radiating all that we are, without holding back any petals of that once encased bud.

So it is surely no coincidence that it is Abeer herself that will be the one to get us to the desert oasis of Siwa through her connections and with Cécile's very precious collaboration also in getting us a very special rate and room at the Hilton Corniche in Alexandria. And this is how our unplanned journey becomes more defined from the second day onwards, only finding its full clarity on the third and 4th days when everything is finally settled. 

Incidentally, it takes about two weeks for a rose bud to bloom - exactly the time we are spending in Egypt. 

But I do have to share how profoundly impactful three of the other ladies’ speeches on the same panel as mine were.

Rabi Atiti, founder of Inspire Networks, recounts how she managed to stand up for her own integrity, facing ostracisation by her family and community as a teenager when she declared she would not have her clitoris cut when she gave birth to her first baby, as is the tradition in Kenya. 

Shaloo Dogra, Yogacharyaa, shares her expansion through Yoga and incidentally offers me her beautiful recently published book Everywhere - Open Eyed Meditations in Free Verse.

Denise Michelle, Transformational Life Coach, has a hugely transformational life story to share and we connect further later on during our bus trip to the Gala Dinner, establishing a deeper bond, whilst together helping Ruqya face and resolve a challenge she was feeling stuck with. In the bus! Who would say. 

And in the end there is this quirky episode where the staff discovers they do not have an Award for me and are so apologetic that they actually have me take a photo with someone else’s Award. The super fun thing is that I do not want or need another Award. I have three already, namely Iconic Women Creating a Better World for All, Exceptional Women of Excellence and Women of The Decade in Social Entrepreneurship, this last one which I unexpectedly received at WEF Perth last year. So I smile and reassure them there is nothing to worry about. This is exactly as it is meant to be.

I am supposed to go on the Plenary stage at 3 PM for my 5 minute speech on The Role and Power of Self-Belief and Self-Care but as I am sitting at one of the round tables in the regal Al-Qahira Ballroom, I realise it is running late. Very very late. So I lose Brigitte’s presentation because it was to be at the same time as mine and I go and sit on the nice soft carpeted floor in a quiet corner, closing my eyes to just enjoy my breath, resting for a short while, letting myself just be with me amongst the hundreds of people coming and going wherever is needed in each one’s sphere of experience. 

So for now I’ll just stay here for a while, breathing serenely… Hummmmmmmmmm

💖💖💖

To be continued.

Previous Posts:

Post 1

Post 2

Post 3

Post 4

4/The Egypt Chronicles - Embracing The Uncharted Territory of Life: A Journey of Allowing

 4.
Conference - Days 1&2

4th & 5th March 2020

PART 1

Day 2 of the Conference is the day we speak. All three of us: Joana, Brigitte and myself.

By now we have realised that the timetables are a little bit mixed up and the organisation staff is running into a few disorganised hiccups but as usual, according to All Ladies League principle of equanimity, no one seems to be very bothered by this. 

Everyone just goes about their own networking endeavours and enjoys the privileges of such an event in the way that serves them best and that’s about all there is to it, really.

 But let me go back to Day 1 to share how we met the ladies that we went on the Nile Cruise with and some more of this first day’s specialness.

One of the sessions I choose to attend - The Extraordinary in Every Woman (I) - brings me towards finally meeting dear Ruqya Khan, co-author of the Breakthrough book we are both part of (Breakthrough - Secrets of growth, happiness and bounceback from women around the world) in person. This book which was put together by Sindu Sreebhavan (founder of As Many Minds) and Anjali Aggarwal, whom I met at the Annual WEF in New Delhi back in 2017 (my first WEF), as well as many of the other authors in this compilation of life-changing stories, this book keeps on giving and giving and giving. Not only literally, as all of its revenue is donated to Educational Projects in India, but also metaphorically as it keeps on inspiring breakthroughs for all of those who dive into it. 

And the connections between the authors keep on expanding. Bhavini has taken care of getting So it’s Simple! into Hindi for distribution in India, as well as got my Be!… Love: Beyond Illusion book into its Kindle format. Together with Anjali Aggarwal and Mansi Mahajan, who is not part of this particular book but whom I also met and bonded with through WEF, we have created The Divine Within You Online Course - 11 Steps to Freedom. I started diving more consistently into my Yoga practice with Mansi too and do Yoga every Saturday morning with Smita Joshi, who lives in England and whom I am in close contact with. Sindu and I get in touch to catch up every so often. I actually visited the Taj Mahal with Lynn Hope Thomas and Michelle Araújo in 2017, before this book even came to be. Maggie Webber from Australia, now lives in Portugal where one of her sons lives too. And so it goes on and on with precious connections that endure and develop as time goes by.

Back to meeting Ruqya Khan (S.M.I.L.E. Strategist ) in person. Boy, was that a Soul to Soul connection! Though we had only read each other’s stories in the book, when we did actually come face to face, that spark of recognition beyond our immediate memory of each other just sparked the flame that lovingly rejoices in kindred spirit encounters and from then on it remains, and even though we do not speak to each other regularly, it is just there, unbreakable. 

Here is the interview I had the privilege of having with Ruqya on her Wise Wednesdays programme a few months later, titled The Grace of Just Being. 

At this same The Extraordinary in Every Woman (I) session I listened to more absolutely amazing stories of breakthroughs that have impacted not only the lives of the ladies that shared them, but that of all of those they have somehow come in touch with, be it personally or through their message. It takes only one. One moment, one human stepping fully into oneself, for the greater love of all to unfold between Human and Divine within, to dissolve the chasm of separation with one’s own Soul… and magic happens for the whole world. Effortlessly and unintentionally. Just with one sweet breath of full surrender. That one special breath accomplishes so much all at once that it would blow our minds if we could grasp the full extent of it. 

Caroline Emile, Sarah Ross, Cherie Banks, were all at this session too, the ladies we ended up going on the Nile Cruise with. So when we came across each other in the Hotel lobby later on that day, it was a natural sequence of our earlier connection. 

It always amazes me, this thing with the beauty of connections. All we need to do is keep on allowing. From this space of allowing we never know how they will develop and what directions they will take, what paths they will show, what trees will bear fruit and flowers will bloom, what doors will open or where we will move apart. All we know is now. And that is all that ever matters.

This particular talk is also where I had the most beautiful encounter with Sandra Deakin, whose story about her special time in the desert I had already read before coming and I really wanted to meet her because I somehow felt connected to her. After her inspiring talk we keep on bumping into each other and we eventually get together for an interview for her podcast show, Brightspots Radio. In the end it turns out to be a most profound conversation about really living from the Essence, the constant flow of Isness. I share how living like this is and Sandra shares her expanding awareness of this in her own life and as we talk, sitting comfortably on a sofa in the bar area, we are gradually encompassed by that aura that switches off everything else around us and creates the haven of peace that comes about when at least two Humans commune in surrender to the Divine.

This happens to me so very often, mostly on a permanent basis, this expanded aura that creates a haven beyond Time and Space where even the air that we breathe seems to change its quality, becoming somehow lighter, the noise dimming down as if there were no one else around, a special quality of sacredness that materializes wherever I am just here, now, flowing fully in God within.

Once this starts happening in our lives, there is nothing else to strive for - actually nothing to strive for at all. This is it. No more, no less. No need for goals, aims and far away dreams. No lack. Nothing to want for, wish or hope to become. No-thing, no-where, just this oneness. All.

Sooner or later our magical conversation has to come to an end but it’s as if it remains in an inter dimensional sphere, both of us still sitting in a silent haze of stillness, in blissful surrender to our Essence.

Throughout the conversation Sandra mentions several times how it actually feels like Harbeen is Present through me, like we are somehow as one and I smile. Is it the dress? The bond of sisterhood which is the strongest WEF principle? Our equal commitment and surrender to each of our Souls’ calling? The passion we exude? All of this, I feel and a very special Soul fusion also, something I have come to know as one of the miraculous ways in which Souls lend themselves to each other’s expansion. Soul fusions happen whenever there is a grander purpose for this, much more than can be explained for sure, but to put into words - it happens when there has been a previous agreement for whenever we encounter each other as humans on Earth to support each other’s evolution by allowing for a Soul merge, where each one still remains unique and sovereign unto oneself, but there are qualities that blend amongst each other. It happens between Souls that have such a loving bond with each other, caused by many lifetimes of shared experiences and many adventures in the greater beyond also, that there is instant recognition. Such is the magic of True Love as we define it in Human form, but which cannot really be grasped completely from this linear, limited perspective we have here. 

However, if you close your eyes and feel, I am sure you can see the radiance of these Soul fusions and connect to your own instances in which this has happened in your life too, taking them even further by your conscious awareness in this moment. 

Under this note of radiant love, let’s rove into Day 2.

It is from the special stillness that I have been sharing with you that the invitation to offer one of the two dresses I have brought with me, these ones that beautiful Harbeen offered me last year, has come.

Ever since I booked I have known that I was to offer one of them to someone at the Conference and today, the second day of the Conference I know who it is. So I go to the children books’ stand and tell Duaa I want to offer her this gift - the dress I was wearing yesterday. 

I am sure you can imagine how surprised she is, but more than that she is incredulous - how can she accept something like this? It is too much. And why her? Soul has its reasons, of course, but for the Human to say Yes there are often no plausible explanations, all Soul requires is a Yes. In the same way as I said my Yes to offering this gift. In the same way as Harbeen said Yes to offering me these gifts in the first place and I said Yes to receiving them. 

But the Human, ah the Human Duaa has so much trouble receiving, honouring herself, feeling worthy. So this dress is creating an earthquake within her that she feels too overwhelmed to face just then and there. The solution? She is sure it is best suited for someone else… And later on I will tell you how this story unfolds.

Back to the Conference itself… which I will expand on in Part 2 fo this Post.

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