Welcome to The Mystical Underground

  Megan and her dog, Nika, came home for the holidays, much to our delight, but Noah was particularly pleased. It meant he could run on the wild side again, that he could indulge in his wildest fantasies – squirrel! – with his sister and best bud, Nika. It meant he and Nika could spend a few hours on the porch at night when Rob fell asleep on the hammock and the door would be propped open for them just in case squirrels dared to scramble through the mango and avocado trees.

Their days usually begin on that porch if Rob is out there or on the family room couch, where they sleep butt to butt, or in our bedroom, where they sleep cupped like spoons in a drawer. They often wake up Rob before the sun rises, nudging him with their cool, moist noses, asking if the porch is an option, please oh please.

Once Rob gets up, they prowl around the kitchen, hoping some morsel of his breakfast drops on the floor. Or they head out into the backyard to chase each other, hunt lizards and squirrels and then run into the house with old bones they’ve dug up. They don’t worry about paying bills, when they will eat, or about much of anything else except – where’s Rob? He’s the Preferred Human for them, the guy who tosses the Frisbee or a ball. When he does this in the front yard, it’s a special treat –   because our neighbors’ dog, Fergie, might magically appear, wriggling and racing and ready to romp and play!

When we go to the gym, they go along for the ride and spend a restful hour in the backseat of our car. We usually park in the shade of a tree, so perhaps they watch for birds and squirrels. Maybe they sleep and dream. I don’t know because I’ve never hung around to observe them.

But when Rob and I return an hour later, they are happy to see us  and Nika perches on the console between the two front seats and helps Rob drive.  And yes, this is pretty shameless for a synchronicity blog, but hey, sometimes we detour.

Noah often tries to nudge himself into this same space, but he’s such a large dog (100 pounds plus) that he usually manages to maneuver just his big  head on the console, below Nika’s belly.  On the days that Rob goes biking with a friend, I walk out into the kitchen and see the dogs curled up together on the couch. As soon as Nika sees me, she tears into Rob’s office and leaps, barking, at the door, to be let out.

In this way, she is very much a focused border collie. She nearly always follows the same path out that door, curling behind some bushes that parallel the fence, her path now so worn into the ground there’s an actual groove. She leaps up at a nearby tree where once upon a time she saw a cat, hiding, and at this point, Noah will often join her. From the mysterious tree that once harbored a squirrel, the two of them sniff their way through the jungle of our yard, and finally return inside the house for another nap.

These two always know when it’s time to go to the park. Between 3 and 4 p.m., they get antsy, and Noah leads the way by coming into my room and nudging me with his big snout. Pay attention, Trish. It’s time.   When I say that word, park, it’s as if I’ve actually uttered the truly magical word squirrel. Noah howls, Nika barks, out come the leashes, and suddenly, we are all there, pulling into a parking space at the dog park.

Nika often whimpers and barks before we even open the doors. I grip her leash so tightly my hand aches.  Noah often gets away from Rob and tears across the parking lot – then stops and looks back at  Nika. Well, you coming or not, slow poke? Meanwhile, Rob is telling Noah to come over to him, his voice stern and loud, and Nika is practically pulling my shoulder out of joint. Quite often, I just let go of her leash and she races after Noah.

And always, it’s a moment to savor – even though it violates all the dog park rules. They move with the wind, these two. They try to climb trees that hold squirrel scents. Their leashes flap along the ground as they race each other from one tree to the next and finally to the dog park gate.

In the holding area between the free world and the fenced dog park, we remove their leashes. Nika, whimpering and barking and chafing at the bit, is trying to dig her through the gate. Noah is howling. Then I throw open the gate…

… and they are gone, already at the far end of the park, where the trees are known to harbor squirrels. Symmetry and grace are their hallmarks, they are fully immersed in the moment, in the omnipotent now, and Rob and I are merely caretakers. But in the end, isn’t that what we actually are for our animal companions? And for each other?

In the end, dot; we all end up like this, eager to seize – well, if not squirrels, then something else.My new year’s resolution for 2014 is taken from the lives of dogs: I am determined to live more in the moment, the eternal NOW, and to have goals that prompt me to seize that moment.

And I also resolve to give gratitude about the parts of my like that work beautifully:

Happy 2014 to everyone!

Recently, our friend Carol Bowman, author and researcher of past lives (Children’s Past Lives, Return from Heaven) , was hired by a couple in Jacksonville, Florida, to regress them. They flew her to their hometown, and she regressed the husband on Saturday afternoon. Then they suggested they all drive to Cassadaga,  a Spiritualist community just north of Orlando that we’ve written about before, and made the trip.

Usually after Carol does a regression she takes a brisk three-mile walk or takes a nap to rid herself of the client’s energy. But this time, she didn’t do either. She went straight from the regression to Cassadaga.  It turned out that the couple had been to Cassadaga on numerous occasions and directed Carol to Kathy Adams, with whom they’d had great success over the years.

This referral in itself is a synchro. There are dozens of psychics in Cassadaga, both within the Spiritualist camp and outside of it. We found it intriguing that the couple she regressed referred her to Kathy, from whom they’d gotten readings on numerous occasions and about whom we’ve gotten readings and have written about.

Carol was surprised that her clients directed her to Kathy Adams.  So Carol went into Kathy’s room for a reading.  “Her session began with some general thing that could have been true. But then her reading veered off and I felt that the things she said didn‘t apply to me. I told her that I thought what she was saying applied to my client, who was waiting outside, not to me. She was as perplexed as I was.”

When Carol went outside, she told J and M what Kathy had said and J exclaimed, “Those things pertain to me, Carol!”

Since she hadn’t taken her customary walk or nap after the regression, she was still imbued with J’s energy – which Kathy had read. “It was a lesson for me in disengaging myself from a client’s energy,” Carol said.

 Before the reading, when J, M, and Carol were having lunch, she had jokingly mentioned to J that she wanted a ghostwriter for her next book book.  “After all, we were in Cassadaga, surrounded by spooks just waiting in line to come through all the mediums there.  Well, J, who is a writer, took it literally.  After I emerged from my reading he went in to talk to Kathy.  Then, about a minute later he came out and said he asked Kathy if he should ghostwrite my book.  Kathy came running out and said, “Wait, I know a ghostwriter for you.”  

 She went to her car, grabbed a book and handed it to Carol. “This lady can write your book.”

 The book was Aliens in the Backyard. “Kathy said Trish could ghostwrite it for me.  She had no idea that I knew Trish!   The trip was worth that moment. “ 

This is the sort of synchro that defies the odds. First, there’s the fact that the couple who had hired her for a weekend of family regressions decided to drive her to Cassadaga for a reading with our favorite psychic. We had told Carol about our readings with Kathy. Then there’s the book, Aliens in the Backyard. We had given Kathy a copy because she’s in the book.

Awhile back, we wrote about the Kardashians and their interest in UFOs and Area 51. Their interest seemed like a publicity ploy. But Alejandro Rojas of Open Minds TV (and magazine) recently traveled to Area 51 with the Ks, and shares the experience via You Tube. His take on it is interesting.

Here’s another story from the journals of ‘Sandy,’ a retired veterinarian, who has experienced decades of encounters with a variety of seemingly benevolent alien beings. Synchronicity has played a large role in her life and this story highlights one such event. This story dates back to 1996, the year she began her journaling.

“I had a wonderful massage at the health fair and afterward I was just wandering around, looking at the alternative medicine displays, when a woman sitting in the corner of the room caught my eye. Her table was set up for Egyptian Oracle readings and I felt very drawn to her. She introduced herself as Geralyn and I sat down and immediately began telling her about Gabriel and the ETs working with me who claim to be from Sirius. She smiled and said Gabriel works with her often and is the Angel of Courage.

“I told her about the meditation vision I recently had where I was standing beside the great pyramid looking down, knowing there was something I needed to read there, and when I looked up and to my left, there was a large UFO hovering in the sky at the level of the top of the pyramid. Geralyn smiled at me, and then picked up her book on the Egyptian Oracle; this is a book explaining the metaphysical meanings of the hieroglyphs of the Egyptian-style runes she uses for readings. She opened to a chapter and covered the title with her hand and turned the page towards me to show me the picture of a rune hieroglyph and asked “Sandy, what do you see here….?”

“It was a rune hieroglyph of a triangle with a small star or stick-like figure drawing of a person next to it, and above it was a half-circle disk I was absolutely stunned! ‘That’s me,’ I said. She nodded and removed her hand from the chapter title, which read: “Sirius the Dog Star.”

The rune signified change that one may greatly benefit from, a new cycle as the appearance of the dog star indicated for the ancient Egyptians. She said, “You have important work to do. ”  Then she started the reading and said that I needed to talk more openly about the ETs.

“She laid out some cards and the first words out of her mouth were “Beware of false prophets.” She said there is someone around me whom I have instilled great trust but that they do not walk their talk and are very destructive, and that I will be quite disappointed to learn this. She also said to be careful in Florida, not to get distracted from my mission or everything will be chaos.  She also said I have gone beyond the veil.

“As she spoke I constantly saw orbs of soft light hovering around her. She said I have a lot of work ahead of me and she smiled warmly at me. She also said that I need patience, that I want everything all at once, patience. We hugged and I know we will be in touch.

“Years later, I bought the Egyptian Oracle runes that Geralyn used so I could copy the chapter title page mentioned above for my journal entry. Below is the scanned page that she showed me:”

This video was sent to us by Judi Hertling, our friend from British Colombia. It’s a winner!

To all of you from the MacGregors, Merry Christmas!

 Last month, Daz reviewed a book by Stanislav Grof, When the Impossible Happens: Adventures in Non-Ordinary Reality. I went over to Amazon, read the free excerpt of the book, bought it and have been reading it on the treadmill at the gym.

Part I is about synchronicity and what’s particularly intriguing about this part – and the entire book – is that Grof – like Carl Jung, like Bernard Beitman, is a psychiatrist. A shrink. A physician who studies the human psyche. Whenever shrinks write about synchronicity, I feel that the entire concept is somehow bolstered. These people, after all, are the ones who help to define the medical paradigm about what’s normal – and what isn’t.

When Grof worked at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, his personal friend, mythologist and author Joseph Campbell, was a speaker at one of the institute’s many workshops. On one particular occasion, Campbell was talking about his favorite subject – Carl Jung’s contributions to the understanding of mythology and psychology. He made a brief reference to synchronicity and one of the participants, who wasn’t familiar with the term, interrupted and asked Campbell to explain what synchronicity was.

As Grof writes,  Campbell gave a practical example. But instead of retelling Jung’s scarab story he gave an example from his own life  – about a preying mantis that appeared outside his 14^th story New York apartment while he was writing about African Bushmen. Campbell wrote that the creature’s face looked like that of a Bushman. This is the first time I have run across this synchro told by someone who actually heard Campbell tell it.

The book is filled with stories like this – first-hand accounts of Grof’s friendships with people like Campbell, Michael Harner (the most famous western shaman) and British biologist Rupert Sheldrake. Campbell officiated at Grof’s wedding in Iceland, an event reconstructed from an ancient Viking wedding ritual that hadn’t been performed in Iceland since the Christians had arrived – i.e. , deeply archetypal and filled with synchros.

“The Icelandic adventure was a fascinating experience of archetypal energies breaking into everyday life and creating astonishing synchronicities,” Grof wrote. “However, it taught me an important lesson. I learned not to trust unconditionally the seductive power of such experiences and the enchantment and ego inflation that they engender. The ecstatic feelings associated with emergence of archetypal forces do not guarantee a positive outcome.”

That marriage, in fact, didn’t work out.  We’ve probably all had synchros like this – where all the signs look so promising, but whatever it is doesn’t work out the way we thought it would.

Grof also has a fascinating story about working as a special consultant on the science fiction film Brainstorm, starring Natalie Woods and Christopher Walken.  I remember seeing it in 1983.  The movie is about a pair of scientists who develop a helmet that can record and transmit human experiences. When the scientist played by Louise Fletcher suffers a heart attack and knows she’s dying, she dons the helmet so that her death experience will be recorded. 

Grof and his wife at the time, Christina, spent time on the set with Natalie and her husband, Robert Wagner, and talked about the yacht that Natalie and her husband owned.  It turned out that they knew many of the friends of Christina’s stepfather, who was also a sailor. The discussion of the yacht, Grof writes, “in retrospect, seems uncanny and foreboding in view of the tragic events that followed.” Not long afterward, Natalie, her husband, and Christopher Walken were sailing on the yacht, apparently had too much to drink, and at one point Natalie left them alone, boarded a dingy and tries to reach nearby Catalina Island. She never made it.

The book is an intriguing journey through synchronicity, memories of prenatal life, past lives, the paranormal, shamanism, encounters, and tapping into the collective unconscious. It’s like an old friend with whom you sit at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and telling tales.

              Nika and Noah inspecting Murphy the pup

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Our daughter, Megan, recently moved into a new apartment in the same building in Orlando where she has lived for the last two years, and we drove up there  to help her out. She doesn’t own a lot of stuff – bed, dresser, desk, chair- and she and a friend were able to move the large items before we got there. We were left with the minutia – everything else!

While we were there, Megan had to tend to her dog-walking business, and many of her clients are either in her building or nearby. The concierges at the front desk are continually handing out her card, touting her as the best dog walker in downtown Orlando, with the best prices. Only this morning, one of the concierges told Megan she has been able to convince nearly everyone who asks about dog walkers to contact her, except for the owner of a small terrier who uses Megan’s competition. Megan has never met her competition, but knows of her. She’s more expensive, doesn’t live in the building, doesn’t even live downtown.

So this morning we left her building with Noah and Nika on leashes and walked across the street so Megan could pick up Murphy, a golden retriever/gold lab mix pup. While she was picking up Murphy, Rob and I walked Noah and Nika up the street, to a patch of grass shrouded in magnificent oaks with Spanish moss flowing from them. Both dogs found a spot near the base of a tree that probably smelled of squirrels, and were busy sniffing when Nika’s head suddenly snapped up. Her tail started wagging. A little terrier pup hurried up the sidewalk, yapping noisily, while its walker struggled to contain it.

I let Nika move toward the dog, to sniff and do whatever it is dogs do that constitutes a greeting. The terrier was beside himself with joy, greeting Nika, then Noah, whose head is the size of the terrier’s body.

“How old is your dog?” I asked the young woman, a brunette wearing a jacket and boots because yes, winter has come to Orlando.

“We think he’s a year old, but I’m not sure. I’m the dog walker.” Then she rocked onto the balls of her feet and brought her hands up as high as her head, fingers hooked like claws. “He’s like a frickin’ squirrel,” she laughed. “I’m gonna climb your legs and head and make you crazy.”

After she moved on down the street with the terrier, Rob remarked that he saw her in the lobby of Megan’s building earlier that morning and we realized she is Megan’s  competition.

The odds on this one aren’t impressive until you factor in the timing. Megan had just told us the story about her competition – and about five minutes later we met the  woman. The meaning? No clue. But when Megan emerged from the building awhile later with Murphy, Rob said, “Synchro, Megan, and listen to this.”

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Happy Winter Solstice to everyone

In Aliens in the Backyard, we focused on four cases involving alien abductions. For the most part, they were scary stories, not the sort of encounters anyone would find beneficial. The sense was that we would not want to encounter any aliens in our backyard…or at the front door.

We noted in the book that others have had alien encounters that they consider positive experiences, and wrote more about such experiencers – as they call themselves – in The Synchronicity Highway.

In recent months, we’ve met one such experiencer whose encounters began in the early 1990s and continue to this day. Interestingly, she comes from a science background. Sandy is a retired veterinarian and was involved in animal research for years. Her ex-husband, Jay, who shared many of her other-worldly experiences, as well as many of his own, is also a veterinarian. In a previous post, we wrote about meeting her.

Since Sandy is an astute observer, she has kept detailed journals of her encounters. As we gather these stories, we’re going to post some of them from time to time. We start today with one that seemingly doesn’t involve aliens, but shows how synchronicity comes into play in Sandy’s life.

Aug. 13, 1996

“There has been a man on the morning train from time to time who I have felt very drawn to. He is an older orthodox Jewish man and I like to sit behind him and quietly observe him doing some sort of morning prayer. He places a black box on his forehead and a strap around his arm and stands, reciting his prayers in Hebrew as the sun rises. He knows that I’ve been watching him and yesterday we finally met. His name is Moshe and he is the most wonderful person! Very warm and friendly.

“I was very nervous about approaching him at first, since I’m not Jewish, but I’m so glad I did. When I got to the lab, I told Randi about meeting this man named Moshe and she suddenly blurted out: “Ask him about the Dead Sea Scrolls…”

“I just looked at her, very surprised. I never expected her to say something like that. I asked her what about the Sea Scrolls. (I’ve heard of them, but don’t know a thing about them.) She explained to me that they were discovered almost 50 years ago and have not been released to the public yet and she wants to know what they’re hiding.

“Then, that evening, Jay came home and had a present for me. It was a CD-Rom of……the Dead Sea Scrolls! Hmmmmm, something is emerging. I have never even mentioned the Scrolls to him or expressed an interest in them. He said it caught his eye and was on sale so he bought it for me.”

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Move ahead to the present. We asked Sandy what if anything has resulted from that synchronicity. Since her world revolves around alien contact, which we’ll discuss in other posts, it’s not surprising that these entities enter the picture. Here is what she told us.

“There seems to be an interesting correlation between the alien contacts and religious mysticism. Randi, the woman at the lab who became excited about the Dead Sea Scrolls, later had contact with similar beings, even though I never told her about my contacts.

“The Dead Sea Scrolls also tie into the Book of Enoch and the textbook, The Keys of Enoch, was given to me by a Reiki master that I went to after the beings told be that I needed 3 Reiki sessions. Then, in November of ’96, I had a synchronicity that involved a vision related to Sirius, the Dog Star, that was followed shortly by contact with a woman who had an illustration that referenced Sirius, the Dog Star.

“The Dead Sea Scroll CD that Jay gave to me helped us to connect with Moshe, who later had mystical experiences that opened up his mind and heart. By the way, Moshe is also a doctor, so there is scientific as well as religious connections going on in his contact experiences.

“That was a long time ago and the experience continues to evolve. This is a process without an end point. There is a stillness in the question and experience that commands full attention. I think this is the new science.”

“When we are young, magic surrounds us—life is the biggest trip ever! Sadly, as we become adults, we lose that awe for the mysterious and start putting things down to chance or luck and we start to give rather cynical meaning to a beautiful word: co-incidence.”  – Cherie Roe Dirksen, author of Redefining Low in the New Earth

“Coincidence is the word we use when we can’t see the lever and pulleys.” –   Emma Bull,  The War for the Oaks

“All of us, whether or not we are warriors, have a cubic centimeter of chance that pops out in front of our eyes from time to time. The difference between anaverage man and a warrior is that the warrior is aware of this, and one of his tasks is to be alert, deliberately waiting, so that when his cubic centimeter pops out he as the necessary speed, the prowess, to pick it up.” – Carlos Castanada, Journey to Ixtlan

“According to Vedanta, there are only two symptoms of enlightenment, just two indications that a transformation is taking place within you toward a higher consciousness. The first symptom is that you top worry. Things don’t bother you anymore. You become light-hearted and full of joy. The second symptom is that you encounter more and more meaningful conicidences in your life, more and more synchronicities. And this accelerates to the point where you actually experience the miraculous.”  -Deepak Chopra, Synchrodestiny: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence to Create Miracles

“Synchronicity exists along the border between the seen and the unseen, the known and the unknown, life and death. It can be that twilight zone Rod Serling brought to us in the 1960s or the archetypal place George Lucas brought us to with the Star Wars sagas and Indiana Jones. It seems to be an intricate component of human consciousness and yet it may also be the bridge to a greater consciousness….a direct route to understanding that an underlying web of reality exists where everything and everyone is connected. Synchronicity is the most conscious aspect of this web, the glue that binds, linking our everyday reality with a deeper reality.”

Trish & Rob MacGregor –  The Synchronicity Highway: Exploring Coincidence, the Paranormal & Alien Contact