I almost didn’t go. I dragged my heels cleaning off my desk. I had no printed materials about the training, had put no money down, and probably wouldn’t know a soul there.
My friend Cynthia invited me to attend the four-day Synergy Leadership Seminar at the Christine Center in Wisconsin. We could hang out together and learn some new skills. Our full schedules made it hard to find time to connect. I was hustling work as a freelance storyteller, single parenting, and maintaining a house. She was running a business and traveling abroad.
The morning we were to leave, Cynthia’s secretary called. Her boss was very ill. She’d picked up a bug in Egypt and needed recovery time before traveling to Italy the following week. But Cynthia was certain that I needed to go to the seminar. I got driving directions over the phone.
Being someone who gets lost driving around the block, I ended up on Country Road G, but in the wrong county. After getting directions from a farmer, I arrived an hour after the seminar started, expecting a tongue lashing. Instead, a gray-haired lady bustled up to my car. Beaming, she gave me a warm hug, saying, “We’re so glad you came!” (Later I learned this was the founder and director of the Center.) She led me into the meeting room and introduced me to Rev. Bill Buehler, the seminar leader from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.
I’d assumed Synergy was a group facilitation process that would help me in the training and teaching I did as part of my storytelling business. I discovered this training was to lead Synergy Group Meditations. Everyone there was very familiar with this talking meditation process. But I had never sat in on one!
At the break, Bill came up to me and asked, “Don’t you recognize me?”
“No,” I replied. “We just met. You live in Michigan and I live in Minneapolis.”
“Don’t you remember your life in Lemuria?”
“What’s Lemuria?” I responded.
I had no conscious memory of that life. Yet, it was as if Bill and I had made lesson plans together. Whenever he got too technical and peoples’ eyes began to glaze over, I’d say, “That reminds me of a song” or “That reminds me of a story,” which would illustrate what Bill was teaching. As we meditated, I felt a strong sense of déjà vu.
There were 34 seminar participants, with just four being males. I ended up spending a lot of time talking to Jerry, a slim, bearded guy wearing blue jeans. We’d walk together during breaks and work side-by-side doing chores. (Back then, to keep costs low guests at the center did “Karma Yoga.”) Jerry listened as I vented the chip on my shoulder against men — my father, former two husbands, former boyfriends, bosses. I felt free to tell him everything, thinking I’d never see him again.
On the last day as we did dishes together, Jerry mentioned his daughter, a senior in high school. I dropped the dish I was washing, turned around, and asked, “How can you have a daughter that age? You’re not old enough!”
I thought Jerry was a lot younger than I. It turned out we were both age 44.
I asked, “Where do you live?'”
He answered “St. Paul.”
I shot back “Are you single?”
When I got home, I wrote Bill that Jerry and I would be doing “Problem Solving” together, which meant collaborating on a course he was teaching at General Mills where he was a computer consultant. I’d recently attended the five-day Creative Problem Solving Institute. Little did I know that “Problem Solving” would turn out to be blending two families with five teenagers!
Bill’s letter to me crossed mine in the mail. He wrote that Divine Guidance had brought me to the seminar and I was welcome to work with him anytime.
Gradually, loving memories of my former life in Lemuria emerged. Simultaneously, my relationship with Jerry blossomed. Psychics confirmed we were Twin Souls. Nine months and three synergy seminars later, Bill married us at The Christine Center. I thought I’d found heaven on earth with a partner who channeled an angel, made a good salary, and had dental insurance!
