The e-mail read: “The reason I am writing you is because you wrote to me in a cryptic statement and said: “I am surprised he is alive…” and 2 minutes later I learn that he isn’t.“
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That was from Adele Aldridge, who had given us the peculiar Billboard Man tale about a love/hate relationship with a man on a billboard, who she eventually met nine years later and 3,000 miles away. She continued:
“When you posted my experience on your blog I responded saying that was not the right image of him, and sent you the real one….After scanning the picture, my mind naturally drifted back in time and I was startled by the intensity of energy, as if time was telescoping.”
Not long after that, Adele found a message on her answering machine from a friend in Berkeley telling her that Mr. Billboard Man’s obituary was in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Stunned, she immediately called her friend to learn more. Simultaneously, she signed on to her computer and before she could look up the obituary there was an email from another acquaintance with a link to the same obituary.
“Do you think that some synchronicities are a tad perverse? Just asking.”
There was more from Adele, and for the first time she revealed that she had not only met the Billboard Man, but they became lovers and lived together off and on for a year and a half.
“I went to bed last night unable to process this information. The bottom line, it is impossible to think of him as dead. I never knew anyone who radiated so much much raw energy, so totally alive.
“I wondered at this business of being entangled in a Karass of synchronicites that echo on and on. Now your book has become a new antenna picking up the echos.”
Before falling asleep, I prayed that I would please, please have a dream to help me. I even asked the Billboard Man to talk to me in my dream since he had reached across time and space and dreams before. I would like to know something now. Anything.
“This is what I dreamed:
“I’m talking to a therapist who looks like Anderson Cooper about my issues and upsets with J and that now he is dead.
The therapist indulged me by allowing me to talk for an hour and 30 minutes, extending the time by half an hour. He then suggested we go outside and have some coffee. He handed me a sweater to wear in case I needed it. I went to the ladies room and looking in the mirror saw that I was wearing a beautiful red velvet suit dress with attractive patterns on it. My hair was long and curly, looking more like me 25 years ago.
“Obviously I need to write my book about this experience. I already know its title: ‘Out of Sausalito.’
“So since you included the story in your book, I’m thinking you must be the therapist. I know you don’t look anything like Anderson Cooper but Anderson Cooper is on CNN – world coverage. And your blog attracts readers from around the world.
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The reason I told Adele that I was surprised he was still alive is because two other Winston men, who appeared on billboards advertising the brand of cigarettes, died of lung cancer. Now a third has joined them. – Rob
Very interesting story! I find it remarkable that she actually found him, and that they became lovers for years. I would definitely buy that book.
The trickster aspect of the synchronicity phenomena is always the most difficult to understand… if there IS any understanding it.
Very uncanny story.
wv= ionstion
R&T: Page 212, huh? I bet I'll find that story interesting–in fact, I can almost guarantee I'll be able to relate to it without having any idea what it's about yet. I KNEW that number sounded familiar, but it still took me a minute or so to make the connection. DUH!
Check out my e-mail address. Would you call that one of those Trickster synchronicities?
–Linda
Raksha, when you get the book, there's a story that begins on page 212 that you'll find interesting. Your story is different, but I sense similar emotional connections.
Rob: I have never heard of Adele Aldridge before, and somehow I missed your earlier Billboard Man post, which I just read a little while ago. I also don't have your book so I haven't read the story there either. It's not that I don't desperately WANT your book and it's on my Amazon wish list–I just can't afford to order it yet.
And yet there are so many parallels and points of similarity between what you wrote here about Adele's relationship with the Billboard Man and a longstanding karmic relationship of my own that I can't resist commenting on a couple of them.
"A love/hate relationship…" That's the first and most obvious one. You may recall that in my poem "Gevurah" I used the phrase "a twofold love and hate" which is self-explanatory in context. I wanted to believe that after all these years and so many personal transformations, something should have have happened to our unique ability to evoke both the best AND the worst in each other…often at the same time! I didn't expect that love/hate, attraction/repulsion dynamic to simply disappear, but I had hoped it had undergone a kind of alchemical process of transmutation to a higher plane. If so, that transmutation has not yet become manifest, although that could be happening right now.
I understand that Uranus made conjunction with Jupiter in Aries on June 8th. The date of my very unfortunate e-mail was June 9th. It was brought on by fatigue and stress over the Mavi Marmara flotilla incident (May 31st). That was a crossroads moment whose implications for Israel/Palestine and the world have not yet manifested. But those of us who are sensitive and attuned to the soul of Israel understand that Judaism itself is at a crossroads. And all of this was playing out against a background of unresolved personal issues. The combination of personal and transpersonal stresses was causing increasing tension between us, so I guess what happened next was ineviable.
Volatile relationship + volatile topic = explosion. I only hope the damage is limited even if it can't be undone. I have already apologized for the e-mail I sent him on June 9th as well as the previous one, so all I can do now is hope for the best.
I may write more on this theme later, but just a few minutes ago I was brought up short by yet ANOTHER synchronicity.
While I was writing this comment, I received an automated e-mail from my spiritual teacher Rabbi Jonathan Omer-Man, to whom the poem "Gevurah" is dedicated. He never sends me personal e-mails although he is one of my Facebook friends. I also subscribe to his blog, so I receive e-mail notifications whenever he has put up a new blog entry. He hasn't had a new blog entry since December, shortly before or after I posted "Gevurah."
The e-mail I just received has the subject line "New Entry." Except that there ISN'T a new entry! The body of the e-mail says:
Under construction again!
Something seriously wrong!
Hope to be back soon!
Very soon!
That means he is trying to post a new blog entry and to send out notifications of it to his e-mail list, but he's running into technical difficulties getting it posted. The really strange thing is that this isn't the first but the SECOND such e-mail I have received from Jonathan this past week. The first one was on June 9th, a few hours after I sent that very unfortunate e-mail to my soulmate, who I often think of as my karmic twin.
I knew the timing of that first e-mail from Jonathan was significant, and now I have just received a second one. Neither of the e-mails conveyed any new information. They simply just reminded me of his presence, which to me is a sign of the presence of Spirit.
I am almost afraid to find out what it all means.
Love and Light,
Linda
I don't know how we missed the threes!
a very poignantly sad and beautiful multi-layered story – and then, there's the thing of the threes – great post!
Sure is a 'peculiar' story – and another case of 'things' happening in threes (the Winston men)