Gerard awakening was not so subtle. It was about two and a half years ago when he was living in Lebanon, he’s home town. He was on his laptop studying when his friend Fabian dropped by one evening.
There were having coffee and chit chatting about his girlfriend, his friends and his life in France. He was finishing up on his computer when suddenly, out of absolutely nowhere, a voice popped right into his head and asked, “What are you doing here? What the hell are you doing here?”He sat there casually carrying on his conversation with Fabian as he quietly responded to this fantom voice in his head, he’s about to finish his degree in business and management. He also just finished his studies in psychology and he’s working while preparing to go to the UK for his masters degree… And what the hell?!” But there it was again the same voice, the same question, “What the hell are you doing here?”He had been meditating regularly for about five years at that point so his senses were rather open. His mind silently responded, “Well, what should I be doing?”The voice said, “Get the hell out of here!”Wow! He told Fabian he needed to go to the bathroom. He went to the bathroom in a daze, shut the door and splashed some water on his face. As he slowly raised his head, He caught a reflection of himself in the mirror… and he could not recognize himself. The face staring back at him was a stranger to.He was out of breath. What in the world was happening to him.He went back to the room, downed his coffee, closed his laptop and he said, “Fabian” listen, no more!” He said, “Yeah, funny! What do you mean ‘no more’?”He said, “No, no more! No more study and no more work. He’s traveling! That’s it!” He opened up his to-do list. What was on his list.Yoga and meditation teacher training. Bingo! That’s what he was going to do! What’s the country that it comes from? India!Okay, let’s go to India. Done! He booked everything, saved as much money as much as he could, said goodbye to life as he had known it and the next thing he know, he was in India doing his yoga teacher training. India was a huge culture shock for him but being very adaptable by nature, He was fully open to embracing their ways, immersing himself in their ancient wisdom and living as they did. It was the start of the most amazing life-changing, mind opening experience for him. By the time his training was over, something profound had shifted within him. He always say that his trip to India is the chapter of his life in which he consider himself to have been spiritually reborn.He didn’t want to return to Lebanon, He just couldn’t. He wanted to roam the world teaching yoga and meditation and sharing his story so that people could also open their hearts to their dreams, get out of the system and embrace the world.Georgia came on his radar as they had just relaxed their visa policies towards many nationalities, including Lebanese citizens. This would allow him to stay there visa free for a whole year. He thought it was a great idea—new culture, new food, new language, plus it was very affordable! Great, let’s see what they’ve got!He ended up staying in Georgia for thirteen months, volunteering in eco-villages. His volunteer work allowed him to learn about things that he was passionate about, like natural, sustainable living and permaculture. This eventually also led him to Europe doing the same thing. He was traveling the world, just as he had dreamed of!After experiencing a few countries in Europe, He ended up in Turkey. He explored it quite a bit, volunteering again. One of the eco-villages was up on a mountain and was very basic. It had no electricity and hardly any internet or WiFi. It provided him with complete isolation in all senses. He stayed there for twenty-two days. There drank the water springing from the land and ate the food supplied by mother earth. He felt very deeply connected to everything during his stay there and this allowed for him to dive deeper into histhoughts. As always, He was meditating regularly every morning, every evening, every day, every night. His meditations were revealing to him that he was on the right path. They were also solidifying his vision of what he wanted his future to look like continuing to live a life in accordance to nature, detached from the system. In the picture of his desires was a cob house in the woods, surrounded by the organic food had been growing on his land using permaculture practices… but there was something missing in this picture, it was a blind spot that he hadn’t noticed before but he did now. He was longing for a partner to share this journey with him. He was already fulfilled and happy on his own but he would love to share his presence with someone in a mutually nourishing interaction. He had some girlfriends and various levels of depth in a relationship, as well as one night stands, but they’d all left him feeling unsatisfied. It’s like having your oats in the morning but you’re still yearning for something more, or if you dig deeper, something else. He hated the concept of boyfriend and girlfriend. It had never resonated with him. He wanted something more real, more substantial, someone who was shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand with him, a partner who was the other half to his half.He wouldn’t be leaning on her and she wouldn’t be leaning on him, we would be harmoniously walking along together, side by side. He had a great connection with the universe so He declared this and wished for a partner. This wish did not have a flavor of need or necessity, which he find to be the wrong flavoring for such a wish. It was more along the lines of, “He would love to meet her. The One.” With that unearthed from his psyche and implanted into the universe, He continued his travels.He volunteered in a dog shelter in Turkey for a month and had a short relationship there where he experienced cohabitation for the first time in his life. He’s soul was asking more questions and the universe was giving him the opportunity to discover the answers within himself . He was able to look at things in an unorthodox light and this enabled him to learn a lot from that experience. His time in Turkey was coming to an end and his aim was to do Vipassana, a ten day silent meditation retreat, which was taking place in Armenia in May, about a month later. He actually had many other reasons to go to Armenia besides this retreat. His roots are Armenian and he had been playing with the idea of setting up an eco-village one day which was one of the main reasons that he had started volunteering in eco-villages in the first place and he had people who could help him if he was to do this there. Plus, it’s a great communist country and also very affordable. Anything was possible!Meanw
Cindy meanwhile, was done catching up with her acquaintance and was feeling quite drained. It was now well into the evening and heading home and getting some rest was really enticing. The only thing holding her tired feet back from heading that way was her friend Evelyn’s photo walk event which was taking place that night. She was really not feeling up to going for many reasons: It’d been a really long day, she didn’t have her camera with her, except for the one on her phone, it was already dark, She didn’t feel like walking, and, perhaps more importantly, She wasn’t in the brightest of moods… Should She just go home? Or should She head to the photo walk?Gerard Just around that time, he would have been browsing Facebook. He had already clicked ‘interested’ on Facebook for Evelyn’s photo walk event before so it had popped up again on his notifications. It was around half past eight or a quarter to nine, and he was questioning whether he really wanted to quickly pull himself togethe
Gerard opened up so fully, so deeply that it caught Cindy off guard. She would never have thought someone she just met would open up this way and go this deep.He had told her about his ideals, about living a moneyless life and how he’d sometimes had to sleep in his tent because of his beliefs. That was what floored her the honesty in it, the truthfulness, being so straightforward and not disguising any part of his experience, admitting what he’d been going through, especially the part about having to be without a roof over his head sometimes. Cindy was trying to digest everything.When you take the decision to step away from the system and live moneyless, you have to be ready to walk the talk and accept all the things that might come with that. Life won’t be so kind and easy on you and you need to face reality and accept it. No one will come to you and say here are a hundred bucks, you have to be realistic.Cindy thought to herself It was not just the openness and the story itself, i
It was quite crowded. Most of the people from the crowd were sitting on one table and the rest of the tables were filled with locals. They both found a table for themselves. He took a chair and she automatically sat next to him without question or without him having to ask her. He was being his self, she was being herself, they had found each other and there, they were sitting next to each other very willingly, naturally. No games were played.Then Evelyn came by and told them that the exhibit was starting so they went to look at the pictures.When they came back they ended up having to blend on a table full of Georgians as there was nowhere else to sit by then. Cindy and Gerard now ended up sitting directly opposite each other. It was a huge table and they had a lot of distance between them. It would be very difficult to hear each other so they were having very nice conversations with the people around them.Georgians are very hospitable so they were offering them wine. Both Cind
Cindy was realizing that her attraction towards him was that everything checked out on paper and was picture-perfect—he was very connected to nature, was a responsible person with a stable job, and just fit all the criteria that someone normal would go for. And She didn’t want to admit to herself that She was not looking for something normal.Cindy has been meditating for years and this was something that She held very dear to her. She had never shared this thing that was such an important part of her life with him and he had never cared enough to inquire about things that made her tick. This was already a red flag on both counts but She had completely ignored it. Meanwhile, on the other hand She just couldn’t help but notice how different things were with Gerard. Although they had only just met, everything about him, their connection, their conversations, that surreal click them both felt, everything was so palpable, so incredibly real. It wasn’t just a casual crossing of paths, the
Gerard was wearing your favorite ‘t-shirt.’ his favorite t-shirt is kind of torn. It’s not appropriate for any occasion but he love it. She don’t think it should even be called a t-shirt because it is not. He guess technically it’s not a t-shirt.She has been raised to be respectful towards others, plus who is She to judge someone else’s appearance? If he’s happy, She is happy, so She didn’t comment. She do have to admit though, She is very happy that t-shirt never got to see another summer this year. They both said hello and headed off to the bazaar to this one shop that he had been going to for a year and a half now. The sweet old ladies there knew him very well. For Cindy It was actually a very awkward situation that followed.He has brought his friends there before but this was a different situation and they felt it. They exchanged the usual Russian-Geogian pleasantries then all attention was focused on her.Lamazia gogo they were saying, beautiful girl. Then they said deda mea
They were now back in the city walking towards the busy Pekini street where he was going to see Cindy off to the bus. Just before she got on the bus he said to her, “Cindy, you have asked me many questions and I have given you everything that you have asked for. Do you still have questions?” She said, “No.” He said, “I believe you now know everything you need to know to establish something with me. I’m just waiting for your message to tell me if you are in with me. If it’s a no, the black-and-white applies for me, I don’t do gray.” The black and white is really how he live his life, so give him white smoke or black smoke—done! It was up to her now. She was fascinated when he asked her that, She loved it! But She was also very confused! The fact that he was only going to be here just one more month and She would need to stay a whole year longer was very present in her mind.It was also confusing to her as She was still officially in a relationship. No matter how increasingly un
Something went bang in her mind. I love you! It was just the second time they hung out but there they were, those words. He rubbed her back and said, “Don’t worry, I’m with you.” Her second sentence after that was, “I’ve never said this to anyone.”She hadn’t.So it was a double boom! It was boom and then boom again! “ You are a 26 year old traveling adventurer, and so he is, and she have never said these words to anyone?” She said, “No.” She never felt that there was a person that made the sentiment arise which might have triggered that expression out of her. There had never been an occasion which She felt the words were well-placed and valid in any context so She had never said them to anyone before.Although, he don’t consider himself, a very romantic kind of guy, he, on the other hand, had said those words before to the women in his life. So, he knew the taste of that. But now when he say, “Cindy, I love you,” the taste is completely different—the taste of saying something