The photos and video of the devastation in Joplin, Missouri from the powerful tornado that struck on the evening of May 22, seemed eerily similar to the photos and videos of the tornado that swept through parts of Alabama in April. It’s impossible to look at these photos and not feel a deep communion and profound sadness for these people. One moment, life is humming along as usual, the next moment, your world is turned inside out like a filthy sock and you’re in the middle of nature’s washing machine.
The images prompted me to wonder about why these tragedies happen to particular communities. Yes, Missouri and Alabama are prone to tornadoes in the same way that Florida and the Caribbean are prone to hurricanes or that the countries perched on the rim of fire are prone to earthquakes and tsunamis. But why Joplin and not Springfield, Missouri, just 74 miles away?
Why did Hurricane Andrew in 1992 flatten Homestead, Florida and not nearby Miami?
Why did the Indonesian tsunami hit where it did and not some spot two hundred miles away?
Does the mass consciousness in a particular place attract such a disaster for some unknown reason? Do the individuals involved agree at some unconscious level to be involved in something like this? Just how far does free will go? Do we have any free will at all?
Years ago, when I read The Bridge of San Luis Rey, I was struck by the synchronicity of how five people ended up on a rope suspension bridge in Lima, Peru in 1714 that subsequently collapsed, killing the five individuals. The novel, published in 1927, was Thornton Wilder’s second and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1928. The story is told by a Franciscan monk who witnessed the tragedy and investigated the lives of the victims, seeking an answer to why these particular five were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
On a smaller more individual scale, the same question can be asked. Shortly before actor Christopher Reeve was thrown from a horse and became a quadrapalegic, he played a paralyzed police officer in the HBO special Above Suspicion. Was the role a kind of dry run – a synchronicity – for what later happened to him? Reeve ultimately became the spokesman for individuals with spinal cord injuries. Did he agree to that role before he was born? Was free will operating or was this a random event?
Nothing, in my mind, is more heartbreaking than the loss of a child. Personally, I don’t think I would survive it. Yet, people do. Several individuals who frequent our blog have lost children. What I’ve always wondered is whether child and parent agree to the possibility of this event before the child’s birth – or perhaps even farther back – or if it’s just a random tragedy.
The woman who has cut my hair for the last 20 years lost her son several years ago to an oxycontin overdose. She feels it was God’s will. I actually had done her son’s chart a few years earlier and told her he needed to be very careful with drugs, that the possibility of overdose was in his chart.
She reminded me of that not long after her son died and over the years has recounted the ways in which her son’s death forced her to grow, to evolve as a spiritual being.
If we’re born with free will, then perhaps there are experiences we agree to explore in our present lives – our appointments with destiny, an oxymoron in the free will scheme of things. Then the event approaches and maybe we’re allowed to back out, to choose something else, or to go ahead as planned. One of the Weather Channel anchors choked up while viewing the ruin of Joplin, Missouri. Only ten minutes before the tornado struck, he and his crew had to pull off the road into Joplin because of the intense and violent hail. If they hadn’t been held up, they would have been in the middle of the tornado. Or, as another anchor put it, You and your crew might be dead.
If we follow this in a quantum sense, was an alternate reality created when he and his crew got held up? The Many Worlds Theory of quantum physics says that for every decision we make – or don’t make – an alternate path is created.
In the final scenes of Sphere, Michael Crichton explores this idea. The novel Replay, by Ken Grimwood, remains one of my favorites for its exploration of the strange quantum reality of the afterlife. The movies Sliding Doors and The Source Code also explore these concepts. Although we haven’t seen The Adjustment Bureau, I’ve heard this movie explores the idea of free will versus predestination.
What if. Our lives, as lived from day to day, seem to be predicated on these two words. But perhaps the larger world is also built on this same premise. As above, so below.Makes sense. But really, I don’t have any answers on this topic. I’ve just got lot of questions.
Here’s the same post without the typos! Marcus
There is definitely at least some degree of predestination, though I am undecided exactly how much. I work with spiritual energy quite a bit, so I can sense things about the future in various ways. I don’t predict the future though – if people ask and I sense something, I just relate it as a “sense”, not an inevitability. I have often been given numerous hints and warnings about the future, and it seems to me these come from spirit guides. One I relate in my book Discover Your Soul Template was a vision about a visit to a beach, where I was told swimming was unsafe (the vision occurred just before I got a phone call from a friend inviting me to the beach – in winter!). At the beach i made sure I didn’t venture out into deep water! There are numerous other cases I could mention. The point is, why would there be any need for spiritual guidance at all if there was no free will? If there was no choice?
You can get a strong sense of possible futures through accessing intuitive feelings. For example I applied for a job at an Australian university two weeks ago, and two hours later as I was sitting on the subway train on the way home, I projected my feelings into the job and it felt absolutely 100% like an open doorway – like it was just meant to be. I have learned from personal experience that when intuitive feelings are that strong, they are always correct. I’ll let you know what happens with the job! Again, the point is, with so many possible variables with a job application – you can’t possibly know who else will apply or what the people at that workplace will think of your CV, or your interview performance (if you get one) – it suggest that that particular future has already been set.
A few months ago I tested empirically whether intuitive feelings and visions were reliable by using them to predict outcome for a sporting event involving 13 games – the England’s cricket team’s tour of Australia. before each game I projected my feelings into the game, and used a light trance state to select the winner. I got 11/13 correct. What’s more, because I was investing an intention into the outcomes of games, I had numerous dreams about the outcomes of specific games. All turned out to be correct. During the recent cricket world cup, as an Australian i was hoping Australia would win, but right at the beginning of the month long tournament I had a vision that Australia would be eliminated at the quarter final stage, which turned out to be true. In one early game played against Pakistan (not a knock-out game), I had the strongest intuitive feeling that Australia would lose the game. I predicted Pakistan would win. At that point Australia had been undefeated at cricket games at the world cup for 12 years, so it was a big call. Yes, they lost.
I now believe that sports events are predetermined many weeks or months before anyone steps onto the field or court. I thus also conclude that many – perhaps even all – of life’s events are determined well in advance of when they happen. Yet there is free will nonetheless. The more conscious you are of the “energy” that is unfolding from present to future, the more you can shift possible futures.
Thanks, Marcus!
There is definitely at least some degree of predestination, though I am undecided exactly how much. I work with spiritual energy quite a bit, so I can sense things about the future in various ways. I don’t predict the future though – if people ask and I sense something , I just relate it as a “sense”, not an inevitability. I have often been given numerous hints and warnings about the future, and it seems to me these come from spirit guides. One I relate in my book Discover Your Soul Template was a vision about a visit to a beach, where I was told swimming was unsafe (the vision occured just before I got a phone call from a friend inviting me to the beach – in winter!). At the beach i made sure I didn’t venture out into deep water! There are numerous other cases I could mention. The point is, why would there be any need for spiritual guidance at all if there was no free will? If there was no choice?
You can get a strong sense of possible futures through accessing intuitive feelings. For example I applied for a job at an Ausralian university two weeks ago, and two hours later as I was sitting on the subway train on the way home, I projected my feelings into the job and it felt absolutely 100% like an open doorway – like it was just meant to be. I have learned from personal experience that when intuitive feelings are that strong, they are always correct. I’ll let you know what happens with the job! Again, the point is, with so many possible variables with a job application – you can’t possibly know who else will apply or what the people at that workplace will think of your CV, or your interview performace (if you get one) – it sugest that that particular future has already been set.
A few months ago I tested empirically whether intuitive feelings and visions were reliable by using them to predict outcome for a sporting event involving 13 games – the England’s cricket team’s tour of Australia. before each game I projected my feelings into the game, and used a light trance state to select the winner. I got 11/13 correct. What’s more, because I was investing an intention into the outcomes of games, I had numerous dreams about the outcomes of specific games. All turned out to be correct. During the recent cricket world cup, as an Australian i was hoping Australia would win, but right at the beginning of the month long tournament I had a vision that Australia would be eliminated at the quarter final stage, which turned out to be true. In one early game played against Pakinstan (not a knock-out game), I had the strongest intuitive feeling that Australia would lose the game. I predicted Pakistan would win. At that point Australia had been undefeated at cricket games at the world cup for 12 years, so it was a big call. Yes, they lost.
I now believe that sports events are predetermined many weeks or months before anyone steps onto the field or court. I thus also conclude that many – perhaps even all – of life’s events are determined well in advance of when they happen. Yet there is free will nonetheless. The more conscious you are of the “energy” that is unfolding from present to future, the more you can shift possible futures.
My middle son’s wedding was on September 8, 2001. His bride’s family was from the New York area, and two of her bridesmaids worked in the Towers, both on a top floor.
They flew back to New York on Sunday, and both were simply too worn out from the festivities and from the travels to go to work on 9-11. If they had gone to work as scheduled, both of them would have been casualties. They made conscious (?????) decisions to stay home and rest. Destiny? Pre-birth planning? Coincidence?
I cannot think anything but that their souls made the choices on superconscious levels, either prior to birth or in the hours preceding the event, to not transition on that day when the world stopped turning. It’s pretty mind-shattering, these stories that emerged from people who should have been there and were not, for so many different reasons. One woman reported staying home with a sick child; one man missed his bus and took a later one but the towers fell before he reached them. It just goes on and on. More questions than answers, except for me, my faith in the wisdom and awareness of our souls into which we rarely tap.
Also of note is that the number of people in the city on the day of the earthquake was lower than usual, due to a strike by local bus drivers. The earthquake struck in the middle of an interview by local television station NBN with a union representative. Maybe this was a predestined event also in terms of my city? We were later deluged in 2007 by the floods that washed the Pasha Bulka ashore.
It’s like the 9-11 thing. A scarcity of people.
Firstly, I would like to acknowledge all the above comments which were intensely personal ~ thanks to those for sharing your souls with all the readers here.
As I was reading, something that jumped out at me , especially in the bagel story and the hail story, was the vision of guides and unseen helpers yelling in the people’s ears. “Go get a bagel”, “go get a bagel”. It is those seemingly ‘out of nowhere’ urges that so often change the course of our destiny IF WE LISTEN. That would suggest to me that there is some sort of predestination.
In my own life, I was saved from the Newcastle Earthquake in 1989, by my father unusually insisting that I wash my car before I headed into the Newcastle Workers Club to buy concert tickets. As I was only staying with him temporarily and was 24 years old, I was really under no obligation to listen to him boss me around in regard to my car’s cleanliness. As I succumbed and washed the car in dad’s driveway, the earthquake hit the city and the Newcastle Workers Club was destroyed with loss of life to many. I am grateful for being a people pleaser that day. 🙂
What an amazing story, Natalie. There are so many wonderful stories and insights in these comments today. Many thanks to all of you!
Here’s a sychro,for me anyway.
I think the reporter that introduces the tornado story above,is the same reporter in this clip,interviewing SQuire Rushnell on Good Morning America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYJRddhzFG4
about his book “Godwinks”,which I had just finished reading,when I Google-ed this clip,to find out more about the SQuire,himself.
Now,SQuire is the guy (one of them,anyway) who brought “America’s Funniest Home Videos” to the screen (that story is covered in the book,along with many other great synchro stories), and that show was indirectly involved in some incredible syncs for me and my family,which brought tremendous comfort to my Mother-in-Law on one of the worst days of her life (I personally think she would have spiraled into deep depression,without this incredible synchronicity occurring,as she had no real belief in the afterlife,unlike myself)
https://www.synchrosecrets.com/synchrosecrets/?p=794
Also,watching this YouTube introduced me to the wonderful world of
Emmett Kelly,Jr, who I never really knew about,before seeing this clip.
And that in turn has led me to other meaningful syncs,as well.
Having this reporter link the two stories,is to me,like her being on both flip-sides of the one coin.
And to quote Mike,again;
“All we can do is handle what is thrown at us with love, forgiveness and understanding and try to live our lives with goodness in our hearts and to the best of our abilities.”
At the end of the day that’s the only strategy that will get you through life,whether it’s all planned,partly planned,or not.
You’re in a synchro flow, Daz!
Vicki, you know that “break” in the Mississippi may be happening as we speak, with all the massive flooding. Such enormous burdens there, throughout.
Djan, your experiences are beyond expression. Bless you. As the Macs said, I don’t know if I would have had the strength or the faith to keep on keeping on in the face of such tragic losses. There is no language to address those. And yet is is our faith that does keep us going, yes? Especially the faith that to every thing there is a purpose under the heavens, even when we have no idea of the purpose. And Vicki, thank you so, so much for all the love and hugs! I’ve been talking with my sister in MO as often as the calls will go through. The tornadoes literally tangled the communication towers and carried their wires and metal structures far and wide, so the satellite signals from space aren’t at all reliable and of course the landlines are totally out up there. Unfortunately, the national weather folks have them under the gun yet again, with a significant chance of more tornadoes in the forecast for the next 24 hours, some going directly over Joplin again. When I speak with my sister, off and on I hear the town air raid sirens going through the phone. There’s such a sense of desperation in that sound. Where do you go? What do you do?
DJan is my hero. She has lived through unspeakable tragedy, yet sees the beauty in each day.
Ditto, Nancy.
yes, ditto!
I am one of your readers who lost both of her children. First, my second son Stephen died of spinal meningitis at the age of 13 months. It completely changed the course of my life. The moment he was born, I felt like I was in the presence of a very special being, and we had a wonderful relationship. When he died I was completely devastated, since I was only 22 and had never lost anyone, much less my favorite person.
I have no doubt now, after all these years, that he was sent to me as a spiritual teacher. We all have hard lessons to learn, and my ability to empathize with others who have been through similar trials was forged in that fire. And then my first-born son, Chris, died of a heart attack at the age of forty. Although that still reverberates through my life, I know he lived a good life and was happy and content when he died. Not every mother can say that.
Now I have moved away from motherhood, but I will always be a mother. The children I had died before me, but I truly believe that we made a pact to help each other to learn the secrets of being a mortal creature on this planet. Hopes for the day we will all meet again shines in my heart like a beacon, and I believe we will walk together in the light.
Wow, DJan, I felt choked up reading this. I can’t imagine such loss and yet, you seem to understand exactly what the dynamics were. I have no doubt that you’ll walk with them in the light.
Carthage Senior Class of 2011 donates 15k in food & cash that had been raised for their project graduation for Joplin Tornado Relief.
I always think back to 9/11 to the many people, some we knew, who for ” some reason” decided to get a bagel and thus were a few minutes late and lived.
The company of oil traders who worked with my husbands company, for the first time ever, insisted that everyone be in,that fateful morning , for a meeting, including secretaries. They all died. They had never had to all be there before. I am sure that those people had all agreed to be there together on that day.
The subject of parallel lives is always intriguing.
All of these storms though feel to me like something more is going on. Even in my backyard which has amazing energy, I have been feeling stress. When the wind blows it feels like it is full of emotion and I have to really focus to quiet my mind. I have been feeling increasingly uneasy.
My husband keeps saying that somethings coming and I agree but I don’t know what.
Although, I do think all of these violent storms in the Midwest and Mississippi areas could be precursor to an earthquake in that area, I “saw” many years ago in a meditation a “break” along the Mississippi.
I don’t know but am glad Ive got all of you to share my thoughts with!
I’m grateful that all of you come here to share your wisdom. Vicki – can you explain what you mean about “a break” in the Mississippi?
A ripping apart of the land.
Gulp
i’ve not read cayce in a while but i think i remember his discussing this, as well –
That does sound familiar…the Cayce thing
Acer, please know that no one is intimating that the tornado business is “OK”. All of us are impacted and affected by these unspeakable tragedies, the loss of life, the injuries, the devastation, and I have no doubt I speak for all of us when I say we have everyone of them in our hearts and souls. My sister and her family live in Missouri. She was Director of Nursing at St. Johns Hospital..the medical facility that was decimated and where patients were lost. My niece, her daughter, was a grad student in Joplin. My sister and her hubby have spent these past several days living in and out of the storm shelter in their basement because the city air raid sirens continue to blast. The storms keep coming, more on the way. They aren’t out of danger. They’re both retired. He was a fire fighter and paramedic and is going to assist in the rescue efforts against his doctor’s advice. My family lived in Montgomery through all my growing-up years, and I had many many friends in Tuscaloosa, which was ripped to shreds a few days ago. Please know that none of us is unaffected in some way by these cataclysmic events, and by trying to understand them, we are trying to make that which is unacceptable more acceptable.
Perfectly expressed, math.
ditto cj!
Wow cj I had no idea you had family there. I send you love and hugs and will also send the same to your family there.
This tornado business is not okay. Everyone pray for the families in Missouri and all the other states effected by these disasters.
When I was robbed in Johannesburg, South Africa as a young man in 1994, I believed that event was destined. If it hadn’t happened to me in Johannesburg, it likely would have happened to me somewhere else around that time, perhaps Naples, Italy. I learned so much from that experience that I hold no ill will towards the young men who treated me like a blue light special at K-Mart. It was one of those “markers” in my life…a test of what I’m truly made of.
These markers are so vital to our evolution as spiritual beings.
as always, such a thoughtful posting. I appreciate that you close by saying that you have no answers, just questions ultimately. Perhaps, we have to come to love the questions, let the questions, and the shimmering energy of the questions, inform our lives. I thought as I read of so many people who have turned tragedy into life work – I think about the writer who started “Americas Most Wanted” after his son was murdered, all the lives he no doubt saved by turning his tragedy into that show.
I’ve often noticed that my art process seems to predict later events, as well as integrating past events…….the creative process, i sense, takes us outside of the linearity of time, touches us into the creative place of spirit. thanks again for much to think on.
John Walsh. I was sorry to see his show cancelled after 24 years!
Lauren – can you give specifics on your art process? Gypsywoman and others have talked about this, art predicting the future.
If we could answer these questions we would most likely understand life. As I see it there seems to be at last two things going on: karma and also decisions agreed about our present life before birth. These must become interlinked. But there’s not just individual karma there is also family, town, country, continent and so on karma all pulling their strings. This means there are all sorts of influences affecting our lives. All we can do is handle what is thrown at us with love, forgiveness and understanding and try to live our lives with goodness in our hearts and to the best of our abilities.
You’re a wise man, Mike! Considering all these influences, the path you lay out seems to be the best way to navigate through life.
I’ll second that, Mike.
I double second Natalie. Nicely stated, Mike.
Today, coincidentally, (?????, Whoot?), is the anniversay of my Dad’s transition into Spirit. He crossed the threshold on May 24th.
Synchro.
A compelling and provocative post, Guys. Something to ponder: When my Dad was diagnosed at the age of 42 with a vicious, aggressive, inoperable brain cancer, the surgeons in Pasadena performed a craniotomy anyway. The surgery required an enormous incision that essentially incorporated the entire left side of his head. During that intensely life-threatening procedure, they (the surgeons) decided to suture his scalp without replacing the bone of his skull which had been removed. They didn’t have his prior consent to do this, not did they obtain my Mother’s consent.
They simply made the decision to leave the skull bone out so they could “observe and learn” from the process and progress of my Dad’s disease. Had they replaced the bone, he would have passed away suddenly and mercifully within a matter of a few days or weeks due to the pressure in his brain from the rapidly advancing cancer. Instead, he died an agonizing death, lasting seven months, during which time the functions of his body declined by degrees, although he never lost his ability to THINK, to BE AWARE. I hated those surgeons. I absolutely hated them, for the suffering that I knew could have been prevented had they made a different decision. After his death, at the post mortem, (autopsy), it was discovered that the cancer had metastasized from his brain to the interior of his heart. This metastasis of cancer from a brain to a heart was the first in recorded clinical history. It was unprecedented. No one on the planet had ever seen it prior to my Dad’s case, which of course was written up in medical journals all over the world. The bottom line is that my Dad’s suffering was not in vain. It was a sacrificial service that has subsequently saved the lives of countless patients with similar situations, rare though they are, because oncologists learned, from my Dad’s case, to not ignore the organ of the heart when following a cancer patient. In my soul, I sense that my Dad absolutely made this decision on some higher level of his Beingness, and that he did it willingly and with complete knowledge of the experiences that would be entailed. The fact that it was his HEART never fails to inspire me, and it goes without saying that ultimately I recognized his free will was in tandem with the decision of those surgeons, for the better good. I apologize for the length of this comment, but there was no way to make it brief. It speaks to the possibilities of soul choices, of free will, and of the intertwined journeys we each take for reasons unknown when they are being taken.
Wow, math. Nicely put.
beautiful story, cj!
oh, gee – i left out the comment about what a neat synchro, my conversation at the dinner table and the last words i said, and coming here to find your post this morning – got carried away on the possibilities of the choice i didn’t make! 😉
well, yes, so many questions, aren’t there – so few answers – a great thought-provoking commentary here, trish – now, for me, even more thought-provoking, or perhaps not at all, is that last night, what began as just a light conversation of synchronicities in general ended in a conversation of parallel universes and free choice, and i read aloud to my sister and daughter as we sat around the dinner table after dessert – the last non-goodnight-see you tomorrow, words i spoke last night were these, – reading from kaehr’s beyond reality:
one of the main types of parallel universes according to modern physicists deals with the power of choice – each time you choose to do something – no matter how inconsequential it may seem at the time, you are creating an alternative reality of parallel universes – and what’s more, the thing that you did not choose is also happening on some other plane of existence –
for me, the thing with which i am most smitten is the concept of that other plane of existence where those things we did not choose are happening – i mean, consider it – just think about it – more than mind-boggling and thrilling isn’t it!!! so, trish, just think! the thing that i did not choose that day that i walked away – the thing where i stayed is happening on some other plane right this minute! isn’t it? or not?
I’m not familiar with Kaehr. He/she sounds like michio kaku! I always get carried away with the choice I didn’t make.