A legend about finding the place for a Bridge-House to settle

A Creation with Ecco and legend about finding the house for Art’chiarchy Bridge-House

Painting by ©Gabriel Lechemin

We are all creators. The creators of our own lives, the creators of our problems and solutions, the creators of our love stories and disappointments. We are the architects of the structure of our daily lives.

This seems to be a strong statement, but rather a clear explanation of what happened during the creation and establishment of Bridge-House Art’chiarchy in matter, an Artistic and Personal Development residence that aimed to Create a new culture for striving on planet Earth.

Ecco at work is the manifestation of a clear, simple and genuine desire that is rooted in matter. This is Creation with the universe. It is Innocence at work. A desire is stronger than a need that comes from the past or a wanting that comes from a childish unfulfilled part. A desire comes from getting out of the old map of fear, getting out of being baffled and stunned. A desire comes from a strong wave of energy, alive and pure, sustained by peace and a deep, fresh longing for a result of it with an arousal that naturally comes about the realization. It comes from a true and natural alignment of the 5 bodies (sense of Being).

The very name of desire means ‘de-siderate’, to come out of a stunned, bewildered, dumbfounded or flabbergasted state. It was the moment when the Greek marines saw the sky covered with clouds at night: no longer able to find their bearings, they were lost. When the sky opened up again and the stars shone in their brilliance, the desire could break out again: they would know their direction by looking at the constellations.

When the sky opened up — I’ve shifted my point of origin from ‘Scar-city’ to ‘Synchroni-city’ — in my case the intention was clear, clean, precise and without hesitation. In the process of growing a desire, of passing from a ‘wanting’ to a ‘desire’, there is an emancipation and an evolution that can be called a ripening process. The clouds must be torn away from your sky Thoughtware so that the Synchronicity with Ecco can be created again and originated from Brillant Love.

This ripening process is an initiation in itself. It requires a clear statement, a purpose (a deeper intention) and a settling into the 5 bodies (physical, mental, emotional, energetic and archetypal).

Many steps can be realised. One is to verbalise the dream. Another one is to act on it.

As I verbalised the dream, I had to repeat the intention over and over again, with people 1 on 1 and with larger audiences. I checked and rechecked my dream. Getting feedback at this stage was not an option. We humans are very eager to create fantasy worlds: it is necessary to recognise the false joy, the merchandising, the childish longing for it. To be aware of self-manipulation is part of it, and a clear connection to reality through 5 bodies is at stake: no jokes.

In that case, to really feel the flow of it, it took me quite a few times, like 30 times and sharings to actually be with it fully. Still, a strange and familiar certainty was there with me, believing in my dream as if the dream was already part of the reality, as if the future was already there, like an embodied living vision.

I realize now that this is the spirit of a prayer. Not a twisted incantation of someone playing with reality, not a religious prayer, but rather a wish expressed to the universe with innocence and devotion. There are no words to express the Bright Principles — the Immanent Forces of Nature — that were channeled through my upper heart, right on top of it, in the region of the upper chest, like a blow of grace and blissful hope, played loudly.

I have a contract with my Gremlin, this Archan guardian of my subtle underworld: a set of 3 signs confirms the answer of the universe. In my case, the protocol is quite simple: 3 signs. A protocol is a clear agreement made before the signs actually happen in reality, so there is no cheating or deception possible. Then I check if these 3 signs are in line with my 5 bodies. Is it a clear sign? A 100% “yes” from the universe, Gaïa?

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Since time is circular and not linear, and even more like a spiral, a clear intention set before can influence the future. As physics says, observation already changes the reality I observe. As an ethnologist who goes to a foreign culture, knowing that he will be part of a village and part of its own observation. Or as the aborigines say, the dream merges with reality, there is no separation. The dream is already part of reality, as a anchored desire does.

It is my responsibility to create the connection, the bridge. This protocol I created beforehand is the bridge to the clarity of the manifestation.

We started as a team to which I shared my vision. 5 in the beginning, Isabel, Oliver, Gabriela, Leonhard and myself. The team was deconstructed and reborn through the Laboratories of Possibilities in Poland. Eithne, Daphne, Gabriela, Leonhard and I (Gabriel) came together 2 weeks before the start of the experiment while we were still in the Labs refining the purpose of the experiment. Although we had quite a short time to do it, we decided to go with the flow and be open to all possibilities along the way.

I was worried about the timing.

To make this possible, I remembered the words of Diana Leafe Christian, a great source of inspiration and harvest in the field of Ecovillages (co-housing and communities mainly in the USA and around the world). She used to say that without a clear material place, people don’t commit, they abandon the project. So I knew with certainty that I had to find the place before we actually met in Poland in 2 weeks, otherwise the old map of fear, panic, scarcity, insecurity and the emotional buffer zone of fear would have buried the possibilities. That would have been a team that would have been stunned, flabbergasted, no longer desiring, and the project would have collapsed. I could already see people resigning and signing off one by one.

If the group is not strengthened by a larger vision that encompasses some very deep parts of our souls, it is the job of the instigator (in this case me) to bring forth ways of stabilizing the group and the project. A physical house was a Necessity — tampering with it was not an option.

We have gone through the process of making announcements with Air BnB and other websites [German one+Leboncoin+FB marketplace] to not find the place, unsuccessfully with the first team version.
When the first team disappeared and turned into another, smaller one, I knew it had to happen. That was the momentum. Either I fall into fear scarcity, disaster, a quagmire of resentment-shame-blame-deception, or I succeed. I decided to hold on and put more energy into my dream.

“Don’t give up (…), we are simply challenged now to extend our imaginations beyond solutions that have been tried before.” — Starhawk, the 5th Sacred Thing.

Abandonment is often due to self-abandonment and not wanting to invest more energy when the time is critical. So I decided to take a stand, even though the pressure was knocking at my door and tensions were building up.
I spoke to my friend and lover Ludivine who gave me another pathway.
She said, “What about contacting this website about swapping houses?”
I grumbled and mumbled for a while, saying to myself “well, it’s not what I expected and it won’t work…”, but given that I had the Gremlin distinction within me, I could catch my Gremlin and use this untapped resource that comes from unconscious anger. I used my anger to register. We were 2 days away from leaving for Poland and without a physical house to live in for a month. I was sweating.

If I didn’t have a physical house by the time I went to the labs in two days, I was pretty sure the Bridge-House project would collapse and end soon. Having nothing to chew on in a room where enthusiasm was clearly waning was reckless. So I put my Gremlin back on a leash and asked him for possibilities. He told me to “commit to what your partner is committing to”.
Knowing her and witnessing her blatant enthusiasm for the project gave me another resource. This, plus the revealed anger, helped me get through the doors and the many steps of registration, as there was quite a lot to do before I left. My fingers were sweaty and fidgety, shaking on the plastic keyboard of my computer. I searched for houses to swap near Bagnères de Bigorre.

I would say that having a clear time and place, as precise as possible, stopped the doubts and the unconscious will to destroy the project. It was Bagnères de Bigorre, not Toulouse, and not some remote place in the countryside. It was clearly a month. The intention was fixed and solid. It is also an act of precision and daring to say, arrogantly, simply what I want, no more, no less, this is what I want.
Fear helped me to consolidate my desire.

In spite of my best efforts, and for no reason at all, while I was connecting to the many announces available in the area, the answers began to pour in. “No”, “No”, “No”, they all said. In spite of all these contradictory forces, an unbelievable force drove me to make another announcement in a local Whatsapp group of the town.

Without any expectation, and completely by surprise, someone replied. A house was available. A little smaller than I needed, but as none of the suggestions in the advertisements fitted, I decided to go and see it, 2 hours later on the spot.
On the way I had a clear feeling that this was the house, I didn’t know where this intuition came from and I rode my bike with excitement and awe. When I got there, the house next to it had one of my pseudonym written on the front. Very few people call me this way, only Mexican friends do, and they are the only ones allowed to. One of them, who pronounces this diminutive with this warm singing and distinctive accent, is Allan, a Reality Creator and magician who works on the Reality Creation Processes. I know him well.

This analogy let me smile and I came even more certain that something was currently saying “yes” to the proposal. Before entering the house, I noticed with my curiosity eye that the artistic outfit in the forefront, some details like the ways pebbles were disposed around plants and some messy natural way of putting things around let me think about something sensitive to Arts, I thought “I love that”.

2mn after I was stunned by a second sign. The symbol chosen for my Possibility Team in Bagnères de Bigorre was hanging from the central lamp of the living room. The symbol chosen for my possibility Team in Bagnères de Bigorre, where people meet regularly and commit to extraordinary times of transformation, each time driven by the unknown, was troning in front of my eyes.

In awe of this second clear sign, I continued to talk to the owner of the house. “The house is ready for exchange,” she said. “It is a go for supporting your project of artistic and personal development residence” (as formulated in the announcements). “It is available for the times and dates and proposal of payment you proposed and we are ready to move into your apartment in exchange”. 3rd wave of “yes” and shock, something as unexpected as swapping houses only crossed my mind as a possibility when Ludivine told me with her natural enthusiasm about the Home Exchange website.

My box was totally expanded by this. I was liquid from that 3rd suggestion. I could hear voices shouting at me, “how could you do this?”, “you are taking a family’s house for some money!”, “this is not possible”. I took off my voice blaster from my energetic tool belt and shot them in anger. I was very liquid.

How could I have imagined that in a culture like the French, where the physical house is so important, such a trigger of security and representation of the family, that such a proposal would be possible? Finally it was, and at the very last possible moment, exactly 2 days before my departure. The project was honored and appreciated with this 3rd sign of ECCO.

For me, a sign is not some kind of complicated esoteric symbol or tricky little detail with which I can find nice and fulfilling explanations, like ‘food for thought’. It is a clear, simple, humorous and natural answer from Gaïa. It has an intimate, heart-touching quality, as simple as a child’s connection and as genuine as a kiss of love.

How could Gaïa not give me some clearer signs? Later, when I was in the Bridge House experiment itself, I learnt that the neighborhood was actually called ‘the bridge neighborhood’ because of a footbridge over the Adour river, which flows nearby. I continued to smile.

I showed the pictures of the house to my team and explained the process with ECCO, and the team said yes.

We went to the labs, the team restructured. We arrived at the house one by one, first Leonhard, then Daphne and Gabriela. The owner left the day after we arrived and this allowed us to build connection and trust in an informal way. The space shifted.

Meanwhile, my lover installed 2mn by feet nearby the footbridge as she was looking for a home at this stage of her life and found a one month proposal nearby! As another reverence of life saying “your project is welcome”, my partner Lover lived on the other side of the footbridge and was willing to be part of the experiment as a visitor.

What more perfect organization could I have wished for? Everything was far more perfect than anything I could have expected, wanted or wished for.

Experiments and further inspirations:

Experiment 1: Smelling your dream

There you ask yourself:

-What do I feel? (anger/fear/sadness/joy because… while connecting to my heart)
-What do I smell? (not only from my nose but also from my intuition)
-What do I taste? (is there saliva in my mouth, coming from exitment)
-What do I touch? (is there something I have a grip on)
-What do I see? (also from a bigger and wider perspective, receiving feedbacks)
-What do I hear? (how does my desire sounds to my hears)

• etc.

Experiment 2: Verbalize the dream

Find a team from the beginning to get clarity about your dream. Talk about it with friends. Dreams are made to be woven, to be intertwined with others. We are not meant to be alone. The lone wolf strategy may be a useful Survival Strategy, but it is quite effective for the delusional. Every time I failed with my dream, it was because I failed with my Clarity and was afraid to get feedback! Go find your team. Check it out! Risk your dream. It is worth the reality check.

1. Say it out loud and feel it resonate in the air. What is the quality of the sound you are making? There may be some emotion in your statement, is it 100% anchored in your five bodies? You may feel a flow of Aliveness, Connection, Love and other Natural Forces of Nature flowing through you. If not, go to 2)
2. Pick up the phone or go to your neighbours. Tell them that you have a dream to share. Who are you going to reach out to? Someone you might know. It may already be time to choose your team to make your dream come true! You might have nothing, yet you have a finger with witch you can ring a bell.

Experiment 3: Give your desire a time and a place

What time commitment could you make to realise your dream in the matter? Stick to it no matter what. If you drop your dream, you let it go, it dies. The time commitment solidifies your dream, it gives it a GPS point through time. Be clear about the exact place (e.g. town, mountain, area), the duration (e.g. 1 month, 2 days, forever) and the exact start date and ending.
Why did you choose this particular place?
For example, why I originally decided to go to Bagnères de Bigorre and proposed it to the first group, is because this town is very energetic, at the gates of nature, natural springs, hot water, volcanic activity, a river and its banks surround the town, which is on a human scale, full of resources, 8000 inhabitants plus a super active community of associations, manifestations, spectacles, artists and healers — a remarkable environment with a thermal area dedicated to healing, the place naturally called us.

Experiment 4: Create a valid protocol for receiving clear signs

What turns you on about your desire, your dream?
Make a list of what turns you on.
Click your clicker, go in first position.
Ask your gremlin for possibilities or a friend to double-check.
Write in your Beep Book the protocol you’ve chosen for this reality check.

Aknowledgements :

I am very greatful for the team that gathered for this Bridge-House in french territory. We had a remarquable time together. All was not perfect, yet we did our best and this was perfect. I give huge thanks to Gabriela Fagundes and Leonhard Geupel who asked me dangerous questions and proofread this article. Thank you team! Thanks Daphne Sarpyener to give me the inspiration to be even more simple and precise in the title.