The Power of Metaphor

Posted on December 5, 2010 by Trish and Rob

On November 26, President Obama received 12 stitches to his upper lip after being elbowed in the mouth during a basketball game. At the time, we figure there was a synchro in this episode. The Republicans had just taken back Congress and Obama was perhaps trying to keep a “stiff upper lip” about it. But that didn’t seem quite good enough to write up. Then this morning, there was an excellent opinion piece in our newpaper written by Margaret Carlson, a columnist for Bloomberg News that really pegged the synchro – and the power of metaphor.

The headline? Bruised Obama still unaware that he’s in a fight. Republicans, says Carlson, are “wilier” than Obama. Just a day after the big bipartisan meeting at the White House, all 42 Republican senators pledged in a letter to block all legislation until the president and Congress agree to extend tax cuts for everyone – including the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. In other words, nothing is going to get done. Nothing, zip, nada. Meanwhile, unemployment benefits have expired for 4 million people – Merry Christmas! – and the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and immigration legislation  languish in congressional limbo.

“His recent busted lip, the result of a sharp elbow on the basketball court, seemed an apt status report on his presidency,” wrote Carlson.

OK, so she doesn’t call it a synchro, but it sure looks like one to us.

The entire piece is here.

Posted in congress, global, obama, politics | 15 Comments

More Phoenix and Spirit Contact

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Trish and Rob




We’ve done two posts on the phoenix recently. The first was on the Republican win in Congress, the way the party rose from the ashes. The second post was about the numbers of hits we’ve been getting where the search term is phoenix or phoenix picture. Rob even posted a comment asking people who found our blog through this search term to let us know why they were searching for that word. That question still hasn’t been answered, but a couple of days ago, we received a moving comment by Bee, who lost her daughter two

years ago to a type of cancer that invades an area of the brain stem that controls basic vital function, such as breathing and heart beat.
Bee wrote that she has experienced  repeated appearances of the word – Phoenix – that seem related to her daughter.  Here’s her story.

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My daughter, Meghan, was diagnosed in 9/2007 with Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma, a malignant cancer of the pons of the brainstem. She died about 9 months later 7/2008, in Phoenix, Arizona. She was 13 years old. Since her passing, we have been blessed with MANY synchronicities.

In September 2010, I was in Barnes and Nobles and came across your book “The 7 Secrets of Synchronicity”, and quickly read through some of the events.  That same night, I googled your names and was led to this incredible blog. I would have been happy to remain a silent reader, but your “Phoenix” entry electrified me. I have been away a couple of weeks, and just read the “Phoenix” entry late last night, and debated today whether I should write about my “Phoenix” synchros.

On 08/04/2010, the word Phoenix appeared 7 times to me between 9:45am and 1:04 pm. At the seventh appearance, I started to cry because I felt something elusive was being communicated to me.

Phoenix, Arizona is where Meghan died. Phoenix is the bird that symbolizes rebirth from death in many cultural mythologies. I wrote in my personal journal, “OK, I know this is not a coincidence. I’m paying attention. Phoenix. PHOENIX. Just thinking about this word is making me tear up again. God is speaking to my heart. And always Meghan. Birth, Death, Re-birth. Phoenix. THE PHOENIX. It will resonate again, I’m sure.”

The next day, I was at my EFT therapist. I said, “By the way, I wrote in my journal yesterday that the word Phoenix has appeared 7 times to me within 4 hours. I printed it out to show you, but forgot it at home”. He looked at me with a glint in his eyes and said, “My dog is named Phoenix”.

Since then, Phoenix has appeared to me at least once a day in many forms. “Joaquin Phoenix”; banner ads for the “University of Phoenix”; in the form of a movie, “Flight of the Phoenix”; in the form of a newspaper, “Boston Phoenix,” when we were in Marlborough, Massachusetts. However, it will not appear if I purposefully go on the lookout for it.

One day I set out to find it, but it didn’t show up and I finally gave up on it and took my shower. My husband was watching Seinfeld on TV and George Costanza said, “Phoenix”, just as I was getting in bed at 11:58 pm. I said, “Thank you Meghan”, and went to sleep with a smile on my face.

On 10/13/2010, at Camp Esperanza, 33 Chilean miners were carried up from the depths of the earth by a capsule named “Phoenix”. On that same day, I had the honor of being a sponsor to Meghan’s best friend, Christa, as she received the sacrament of confirmation. With my right hand on her right shoulder, I proudly gave the bishop Christa’s confirmation name, Meghan.

On 10/19/2010, we attended the 2nd annual Cristian Rivera Foundation Gala. On the drive into NYC, we passed a New Jersey car advertising “Phoenix Diversified Holdings”. The Gala was very well attended, practically standing room only. John Rivera was happy to see us there, supporting him. Highlight of the night came when John Rivera presented Dr. Mark Souweidane with a check specifically for Pontine Glioma.

And of course, leaving the city, on 34th street, we passed a store, Phoenix Scaffolding …
B
(proud mother of DIPG angel Meghan)


Posted in clusters, phoenix, spirit contact | 20 Comments

Cheney, Assange, and Global Synchros

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Trish and Rob
In case you haven’t watched the news lately, Julian Assange of Wikileaks is responsible for the release of 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables. Among those cables are many truly disturbing details about how politics really works in diplomatic circles. But the detail I found most troubling is that the Obama administration worked closely with Republicans to convince Spain’s courts to drop their investigation of war crimes in the Bush administration – i.e. torture. Remember water boarding?  Remember how Bush’s counsel John Yoo said that water boarding was just fine and legal even though it went against the Geneva Convention? Water boarding makes you feel as though you’re drowning. We prosecuted Nazi war criminals for this form of torture. So Spain dropped their investigation. Putting pressure on foreign courts – threatening a foreign court to do it our way – is against the law.
Now here’s the interesting twist and a global synchro. Nigeria, with whom we have an extradition treaty, is about to charge ex-VP Cheney in connection with a bribery scandal in that country. The case allegedly involves a cash for contract deal that Halliburton was involved in when Cheney was its chief executive officer. Nigeria would issue this warrant through Interpol. At the same time, the Department of Justice plans to enlist the aid of Interpol in finding Assange and having him extradited to the U.S.
So how is this going to work, exactly? Will the Obama administration ignore Interpol’s request to extradite Cheney, but urge them to arrest Assange? Hello? What’s wrong with this picture?
What happened to that soaring rhetoric we heard during the presidential campaign about how terrible and horrifying torture is? What about  that soaring rhetoric about closing Gitmo? About never making health insurance mandatory? About getting out of Iraq? What happened to all those other promises Obama made that have turned out to be just cheap talk?
The fact that the Obama administration feels compelled to protect men who condoned torture, a fact that Bush admitted in his book, ended my love affair with him and his soaring rhetoric. Personally, I hope that
Assange keeps leaking his documents. It’s one way to make transparency in government a reality, rather than a phony pledge. 
Posted in assange, bush, cheney, global | 55 Comments

Synchronicity trains, hidden agendas (and Neem Cream)

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Trish and Rob

Jim Francis, writing for Mind Power News, has this to say about synchronicity.

“What I have discovered over the past 4 years is that if I call up a dream program to “induce” synchronistic events in my waking life ….then instruct my mind to consciously recognize these events as a synchronistic train….I can usually recognize where they are leading to and be there at the right time and place to take advantage of them.

“I have personally had at least a dozen of these recognizable synchronicity trains in the past 3 years and each one has bought me sometimes quite incredible luck. So much so that friends here in Vanuatu keep telling me how lucky I am!!”

Jim defines synchronicity as a series of seemingly unrelated events which are connected via a hidden agenda. He also ties super string theory to synchronicity. Not being quantum physicists, we’ll have to take his word for it. I guess what annoys me a bit about the article is that in spite of telling us how he has created ‘a dozen recognizable synchronicity trains’ (toot! toot!), Jim doesn’t provide us with any of them. (Don’t just tell us about it; show it!)

Fortunately, Jane Clifford, who sent us the article, isn’t shy about describing her synchronicities.  After thanking us for posting her Owl Medicine story, she told us that she just experienced another synchro. Here it is:

“Just had another big one. My daughter is here and I have been having deep conversations with her about my perception of life the universe etc in some detail. I also recommended Neem Cream to her, explaining it was a tree in India used to cure all skin afflictions.

I then begin a novel lent to me be a friend. In chapter one, one of the characters talks about the neem tree and in ensuing chapters a character in the novel is teaching someone else her world view and, almost word for word, it is the same as I discussed with my daughter the day before. I have also been working with Sachamama or Great Serpent energy recently and  the same novel has a character who worships a serpent god. It’s a big part of the plot.”

Thanks, Jane. Talk about a synchro train!

***
We have to say that while the theorizing about synchronicity can be  interesting and worthwhile, it’s stories  that bring the phenomenon alive. But then we’re writers. What else would we say!

Posted in Neem cream, synchronicity | 14 Comments

A Dog Named Blue and Gold Rush

Posted on December 1, 2010 by Trish and Rob

We love it when we receive an email with a synchronicity like this one. This story is from Sherry Meinberg and it’s about a dog named Blue (rather than a blue dog!) and a new reality show on the Discovery channel called GOLD RUSH that premieres on December 3.
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  There is a new reality TV series, GOLD RUSH, that debuts this Friday, December 3rd, at 10:00 PM (on the west coast, at least). It is about four guys that take off for Alaska, to look for gold. Whether it is good, bad, or somewhere in between, the concept precipitated a bidding war between the major channels, and finally came down to the Discovery channel vs. the History channel. The DISCOVERY channel won, and without viewing the four episodes in the can, and without a pilot review, they ordered a whole season’s worth of shows. As such, it sounds promising.

At any rate, the story behind the story is about my brother’s dog, an Australian Shepherd, named Blue. Terry owns 80 acres on top of a mountain in Oregon, which includes a tree farm. Blue had the run of the property, and was constantly chasing off the wild animals that lived in the area. He had no fear whatsoever.

 Being a globe trotter, Terry was constantly away for long periods of time, and one of his daughters was left to live on the property, and run the tree farm. Then she got married, and for several reasons, decided that she couldn’t oversee the farm anymore, so she closed up shop, and gave Blue away. She placed Blue with a man who was a sometime actor, who owned property with an airstrip, so Blue would have plenty of room to run and play and chase other wild animals.

When Terry returned home, he was devastated by the news, of course, but what was done, was done . . .       Fast forward several years, and the actor got a part in the new GOLD RUSH series, and took Blue with him to Alaska. During a two-week period prior to filming, the cast and crew needed to get to know each other, as well as get acquainted with the conditions and terrain. During this period, another of Terry’s daughters flew to the camp site, as her husband had a client who was one of the actors. Can you guess which one?

When she got to the camp site, and was talking with some of the people—all strangers—she saw Blue in the
distance, loping towards them, and they recognized each other. Hence, the classic scene of them running towards each other, with her shouting and crying, and Blue barking joyfully, as they collided in a big hug, and rolled around in the grass together, as a camera recorded this unexpected event.

  Later on, one night, as the men had retired in their tents, and were deep asleep, they heard crashing, barking, and growling sounds, and when they finally staggered out of their tents, they saw Blue chasing off a huge bear. They all realized that if Blue hadn’t been there to watch over them, they might not be living to tell about it.

The four men bonded so thoroughly with Blue, that they insisted that Blue be in the show. And he is. Apparently, Blue has become a favorite of all involved in the production, and there are rumors that he is getting his own show. How fun is that?
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We think Blue probably has excellent karma!
Here’s a trailer:

Posted in dogs, reality TV, TV | 23 Comments

Mercury Retrograde Alert

Posted on November 30, 2010 by Trish and Rob

Think of Mercury as the trickster. This little planet rules travel, conscious thought, communication, books, writing,  computers, facts, education, and a whole host of other things – lungs, liars, nerves, language, even keys. Three times a year, it turns retrograde – when it appears to be moving backward through the zodiac – but in 2010, we’ll have four retros for Mercury. The next one begins on December 10, just in time for holidays shopping, and doesn’t end until December 30.
Usually during these retro periods, it’s wise not to buy big ticket items – you know, like that plasma TV, that newest iPad, that wonderful laptop you’ve been eyeing. In other words, do your holiday shipping before December 10, at least for the big stuff. Otherwise, you may be in that return line on December 26. It’s also smart to avoid travel. It’s the holidays, of course, which makes not traveling unlikely. If you must travel, be sure to buy your ticket before December 10. Be prepared for snafus. Your flight gets delayed, your flight is cancelled, a snowstorm shuts down your airport, you arrive at your destination but your luggage doesn’t.  Best to nurture a sense of adventure before you get anywhere near the airport.
With the TSA situation in mind, this Mercury retro may prove problematic. It won’t be smooth sailing as it apparently was during the Thanksgiving travel. More people may be opting out of those body scanners or the pat downs by opting out of flying altogether.
Mercury rules Gemini and Virgo, so these retros can be particularly annoying for those two signs. On 12/10, it turns retro in Capricorn, then moves back into Sagittarius, so those two signs will be impacted as well. These retro periods are great for reflection, rewriting, re-thinking, re-evaluating.  Finish off old projects, try not to start something new.Be sure to communicate clearly and succinctly. Take nothing for granted.
Old friends sometimes surface. Issues you thought were resolved may crop up and you have to re-visit them. Capricorn rules government, so it’s probably not a stretch to predict rehashing of old issues, general chaos and confusion.
If you’re mailing holiday packages to friends and families, be sure the stuff is mailed before 12/10. Otherwise, the presents may not arrive until 2011!
Skeptics hear about Mercury retro and laugh – until they experience this trickster’s antics up close and very personally.  
Posted in astrology, mercury retro | 25 Comments

Forgiveness and synchonicity

Posted on November 29, 2010 by Trish and Rob

I was walking our dog Noah around the neighborhood the other day when I turned the corner to find a neighbor heading my way with her little Jack Russell terrier that always barks and snaps at Noah.  I groaned silently because I knew she would stop me and carry on about whatever was on her mind today.

I don’t mind talking to neighbors, but this one is particularly annoying because she bad-mouths people and their children while interjecting comments about God or Jesus, who she says guides her life. Once, I asked her if she thought Jesus channeled God when he was alive and that stumped her, at first. Finally, she replied. “Well, I’m not sure what you mean by channeling, but Jesus is God. Everyone knows that.”

So, here she was again. I couldn’t help smiling because a moment before I’d been studying the sky as a skywriting pilot finished one word and started on a second word. That first word was Jesus. As expected, Gloria stopped and told me she was glad to see me, because she had to tell somebody about ‘our crazy court system.’ She had just been dismissed from jury duty after two days and she was relieved, but also upset. “God did not want me serving on that jury, and I’m glad. I couldn’t believe those other people on the jury. So many of them were willing to act neutral and there was a child involved.”

By this time, she had me hooked. So I asked what it was about. “It was a terrible murder case. This guy shot his wife and six-year-old daughter, then tried to run away. Just terrible. The judge asked me if I could be fair and I told him the truth. Not for something like that. He killed a child. I told him I had five kids and what that man did was unforgivable. They sent me home after I said that. Thank God.”

I nodded.  “But don’t you think he deserved a fair trial?”

“No. What if he got off? They should put him in jail and throw away the key.”

Whew. While she had been talking, I watched the skywriter  finish the second word. I interrupted as she carried on, and pointed skyward. “Can you read it?” She stared up and read the two-word sentence. If she saw any connection between her story and what was written in the sky, she didn’t show it. The skywriting read: JESUS FORGIVES.

Trish loved this story when I told it to her, because she knows this woman all too well. Then she kept asking me when I was going to write it for the blog. I’d hesitated for a number of days, not knowing quite why. But now, as I read over what I wrote, it’s all too obvious. I’m acting just like Gloria: gossiping and talking about Jesus!
R

Posted in Jesus, Jury duty, skywriting | 23 Comments

Boomerang returns…after long trip

Posted on November 28, 2010 by Trish and Rob

This synchro story appeared on the web site of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Thanks to Gabe Carlson for alerting us to it.

MARYSVILLE, Wash.—Eleven-year-old Brenden Hale was playing with a boomerang along the Skagit River in Mount Vernon last June when it landed in the water and floated away. He thought it was gone forever, until he went duck hunting with his grandfather last month on family property at Skagit Bay. 

Brenden was taking a break on the beach when he saw a crusty-looking piece of wood that looked familiar. It was a boomerang. It was his boomerang —identified by a notch on the back. The Daily Herald of Everett reported it had floated 10 miles down the river and wound up on a beach at his family’s property. Brenden told his mom, “Boomerangs really do come back!” 

Posted in boomerang | 18 Comments

The Boss

Posted on November 27, 2010 by Trish and Rob

This synchro is small, one of those you experience in the course of a given day. But since I haven’t had a synchro for awhile, I was delighted  to experience it!
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 Last March, we had several Bruce Springsteen synchros. He has a home here and usually comes down in the winter because his daughter is involved in equestrian sports. So today I was at the gym and thinking, Well, it’s November, shouldn’t the Boss be back in town soon?  The radio was on in the gym, and suddenly the DJ says, “And that’s a cut from Bruce Springsteen’s new album.”

Synchro! I figure Bruce must be on his way back to South Florida.

Posted in Bruce Springsteen, music | 14 Comments

The Japanese Do TSA

Posted on November 27, 2010 by Trish and Rob

This one is just too funny to resist!

Posted in JAPANESE, TSA | 4 Comments