Get to know me
Barbara Dagmar de Roos
I’m a Dutch content professional, with two master degrees (History and MBA in Cross Media), working mainly for leading women’s magazines in the Netherlands for more than 25 years.
I’m also a world citizen at heart, being born in Bogotá, Colombia in 1965, living in four more countries (Netherlands, Spain, Bermuda and Greece), and speaking six languages. I love people and cultures all over the world, I even have a hard time understanding the concept of borders and divisions.
I have so many loves! My husband Ernst, our sons Patrick and Paco, our cat Pip, drinking coffee, spending time with family and friends, dancing, songwriting, swimming with dolphins, praying in my own way, learning new skills, travelling, being a mother, being a mystic and embracing the Bahá’í Faith in such a unique time in history. I have challenges like everyone, yet I truly feel blessed.
Bible Training & Mystic Genes
Although I was brought up in a non-religious way, I had a strong interest in religion and spirituality from an early age, asked my parents if I could attend Sunday school and basically taught myself from a Children’s Bible. At age eleven I tried (and failed) to walk on water quite a few times and at age fifteen I had my first mystical vision after I had challenged God to prove His existence to me. This experience I only confided to my grandmother at the time. To my amazement she told me she had had the exact same experience as a teenager. We both seldom spoke about our visions and mystical feelings, only in our poems and to each other.
Mystical Awakening as a Bahá’í
While I was living in a Greek mountain village on Mount Pilion in 1994 with my husband, I discovered the Bahá’í Faith, the youngest of world religions (1844). After an earnest investigation of several months, I decided to join this worldwide movement of universal peace, love and brotherhood, and have never regretted my decision. Looking back at those 28 years, I can only conclude that it has hugely improved my quality of life.
The Bahá’í practices, like praying and meditating every day, have also contributed to my awakening as a modern-day mystic. During my meditations I would talk to God, ask Him questions, and receive immediate answers, that were a great help to me. A direct communion like this, isn’t particularly encouraged by the Bahá’í teachings, in which God is, in essence, the Unknowable and the best way to know Him is through His Prophets.
A mystical awakening wasn’t something I was actively pursuing, though. It was simply a natural result of all my new insights and practices. I would also cry easily during the recital of Bahá’í Prayers or the reading of certain scriptures, because of their purity. My talks during my meditations with My Big Friend (one of my names for God) were such a sweet gift, healing and cheering me on so many levels, that I didn’t worry about it. I recorded them in a series of little notebooks for twenty years, to serve as my personal memories. On rare occasions I would mention some of my lessons, if I felt that I was talking to the right person at the right time.
It was only when I started writing about it in 2014 for other people to read, that I felt I had to develop ten times extra courage, to claim my birth right to have mystical feelings and experiences, just like any other earthling.
Apprentice of Peruvian Mystics
In March 2015 I became an apprentice in a mystical tradition, that of the Paqo or Pampa Mesayoc. This Peruvian path of energy healers, largely based on the power of love and interaction with high and pure energies in nature, like stones, rivers, animals, and mountains, has been preserved for many centuries by wisdom keepers of the Inka’s, living high in the Andes mountains of Peru and passing it on from Paqo to Paqo. I felt deeply honored and moved to receive this sacred wisdom.
The mission of the Paqo is to preserve the earth, heal the sick and to teach people to treat everything and everyone with Munay, which basically is the energy of Love in Action. In 2016 and 2017 I spent three months in Peru, spending time with my precious teacher and friend Don Hernan Quillahuaman, meditating on ancient power spots and learning more about the mystical tradition of the Paqo’s in Cusco and the Sacred Valley. I also trained with other Paqo’s and Qero Masters from Peru, of which Juan Nuñez del Prado and his son Ivan are most dear to me. All my main teachers know and respect my Bahá’í identity, making it a beautiful exchange of wisdom and friendship.
The power of my seashell
Ever since I could read I wanted to create magic with words. When I was 8 years old I wrote in my diary that I wanted to become a writer. When I was 11 years old and had read almost all the children’s books of my local, Dutch library, I wanted to become a world-famous children’s book writer. My favorite authors were Thea Beckman, Jan Terlouw, Roald Dahl, Annie MG Schmidt, Hotze de Roos, Tonke Dragt, Enid Blyton and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. We moved to Spain and later to Bermuda, where a large seashell became part of our household. When I would put it next to my ear, I could hear the sea.
Back in the Netherlands as a young teenager of 14 years old, I had also read and loved many English books. My dream of becoming a writer was still very alive. So alive, that I wrote little plots for my future short stories and books and hid them in our magic seashell. For me it was like a time capsule for my older self, where I could find them when I would be skilled and confident enough to know what to do with them. I never used the plots, but I deeply appreciated the faith I had in my writer’s future, even though it took me about 22 years of magazine writing and editing before I was brave enough to write and publish my own work.
Listen to my podcast
podcast
(coming soon)
My podcast about mystical matters is coming soon! Stay tuned!
