New Gaze - New World

Natasha, Nour and Olivia

Day 2At the briefing that morning, everyone had lined up in single file by alphabetical order of first names, it was a fun way for everyone to remember each other's first names. Saïda then formed groups of three people starting from the beginning of the line. She then asked each group to discuss the impact that taking into account a synchronicity they had ignored could have had on their lives. Under Aziz's orders, the caravan had set off and each small group had begun the long walk under a clear blue sky and the sun beginning its day-long journey west. In the groups, the temptation had been strong for everyone to tell their life stories in great detail and to forget the purpose of the exercise. Their teachers, Saïda, Liam and Sophie, went from group to group to make sure that the instructions had been understood and to identify those who would have difficulty.Natasha, Nour and Olivia were one of these groups, brought together by their names for the day. Natasha was Russian. At 35, she was a quality manager at one of WesMart©'s factories in Volgograd in southwest Russia. Nour was a 26 year old Moroccan woman. She had recently joined the management team of the Labranda Targa hotel in the suburbs of Marrakech. Olivia, 29, came from Quebec where she was a manufacturing operator in one of the WesMart© plants. With the introductions made, all three began to search their memories and experiences for synchronicities that they would not have followed up on. As much as it seemed easy to identify synchronicities in retrospect because the events that had followed had illuminated the synchronicity and made it possible to name it, identifying a synchronicity that they had not followed seemed impossible. Nour remembered that as a teenager, when faced with the choice between continuing her studies and entering professional life, she had been persuaded by her family to take a job and start a family, even though she had been admitted to the university she wanted.The studies she had already followed in the field of hotel management had allowed her to enter the service of a tourist hotel in the suburbs of Marrakech. After two years spent in different positions, her hierarchy noticed her and suggested that she complete her training by taking the university course she had rejected two years earlier. She had easily identified this second opportunity as a synchronicity, but she realised at that moment that it had already presented itself two years earlier. The realisation of this opportunity had then opened the doors to greater responsibilities which a few years later led to her joining the hotel's management team. Olivia had asked herself, "Do you think that when we don't see a synchronicity or don't act on it, it comes back to us in another form? This was what Nour's experience seemed to suggest. Natasha too remembered that professional opportunities that they had missed had sometimes presented themselves again in other forms at other times. All three wondered whether it was better not to pursue an opportunity and wait for it to come up again to make sure it was a synchronicity. Nour argued that this was also a waste of time and that, conversely, following what might not be a synchronicity was not very risky, since if it was a bad choice, another event would occur to put us back on track. As for Olivia, she looked for similar elements on her life's path, but found none. She wondered about her ability to recognise and grasp such events. Her two friends reassured her, reminding her that she was here in the middle of the desert and that it could not have been by chance. It was certain that she had a decision to make and she had made it. Olivia smiled, her friends were right, she remembered that day perfectly. She and three friends had decided to apply for the course and she alone had been selected. She had crossed the Atlantic to an unknown destination, been dropped off in the middle of the desert and decided to continue the adventure. She knew that she too had been subjected to a synchronicity and had been able to grasp it.After three hours of walking, Aziz had organised a short break to bring all the groups together and to make sure that none had lost their way. They all agreed that following a synchronicity can be totally life-changing, but they were at a loss to come to a formal conclusion about how to identify a synchronicity and therefore whether or not to follow it.

They hoped to clarify this point at the next talking circle.