Florence

Posted on September 11, 2018 by Trish and Rob

So far in this hurricane season, the Atlantic basin has been lucky. It’s been quiet. Maybe that’s the way nature balances itself after a horrendous hurricane season in 2017 that set records. That flooded Houston. Destroyed Puerto Rico’s infrastructure. Did some major damage to our house. The damage to our place is now in the process of repair – new roof, new dry board, new paint job. But Puerto Rico is still suffering and the death toll there has been adjusted – from 64 to nearly 3,000.

Synchronistically, September 10 was the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Irma and  a new hurricane dominated  the news – Florence. As of tonight (9-10)  at 11 p.m., Florence is a cat 4 – which can have winds up to 155 m.p.h., and looks to be on track for North Carolina. She leaped from a cat 2 to a cat 4 in just a matter of hours. In satellite photos, her eye is perfectly formed and she’s big. The governor of South Carolina ordered the evacuation of that state’s 187-mile long coast and the Outer Banks of North Carolina are also being evacuated.

Since my family first moved to Florida in the early sixties, hurricanes have fascinated me. They seem like sentient beings, particularly now, when satellite imagery captures their spinning ferocity, their weird and sometimes perfect eyes. Hurricanes proved to be central characters in several of my novels –Storm Surge and Category 5 – and the novels ended up being prescient, so I no longer use them in novels.

From the National Hurricane Center’s 11 p.m. bulletin: “ The new intensity forecast calls for continued strengthening to near category 5 strength, although at a slower rate than what occurred during the last 30 h. Florence is expected to encounter southwesterly shear near the 72 h point, which could cause slight weakening before landfall. However, there remains high confidence that Florence will be a large and extremely dangerous hurricane, regardless of its exact intensity.”

One of the possibilities as Florence moves inland is buckets of rains, as much as several feet in some areas. There’s also a possibility that the storm may stall, like Harvey did in Texas last summer, and dump even more rain, creating catastrophic flooding.

There does seem to be a ray of hope in this, at least as of tonight. A system in the northwestern Caribbean, which could become a tropical storm by Thursday, may nudge Florence farther north along the coast.

To our friends and colleagues in North Carolina: stay safe!

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New Moon in Virgo

Posted on September 8, 2018 by Trish and Rob

September 9,  at 2:01 p.m. EDT, there’s a new moon in Virgo and there’s a lot to love about this moon.

New moons are times to anticipate. They bring new opportunities, new relationships, new insights. Doors open, things we thought were stalled suddenly take off. They also bring good news. This moon in earth sign Virgo will be especially good for Virgos, of course, but also for fellow earth signs Capricorn and Taurus.

Pluto, the planet of transformation and power, forms a beautiful angle to the sun and moon, enhancing personal magnetism and empowering emotions and intuition. Jupiter, the planet of luck and synchronicity, is shaking hands with this new moon, bringing expansion to some area of your life.

If you work in publishing or higher education, areas that Jupiter rules, you might land a raise or promotion. It’s an excellent time to submit manuscripts, screenplays, and any artistic endeavors. If you’re traveling overseas today, your trip should be smooth and between no wand the full moon in two weeks, pleasant surprises fall at your feet.

In addition, the new moon chart features a grand earth trine – when three planets in the same element are 120 degrees apart from each other. This trine involves Mercury (communication, travel) at 6 degrees Virgo, Saturn (responsibility, discipline, physical reality( at 2 degrees Capricorn, and Uranus (sudden, unexpected events) at 2 degrees Taurus. This grand trine suggests unexpected surprises that seem to come out of nowhere – a job offer, a chance to do something on your bucket list, a new opportunity that thrills you. Because Saturn is involved, whatever it is has long-term benefits. With Mercury involved, the news comes through a call, email, text message.

Neptune at 15 degrees Pisces forms a trine to Jupiter, so creativity and artistic endeavors are highlighted. Your intuition will be deepened as well. There’s something positive here for everyone!

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Incredible

Posted on September 7, 2018 by Trish and Rob

This video shows synchronicity in action!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgMEaXJBvio&feature=youtu.be

 

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Sleeper Cell in the White House

Posted on September 5, 2018 by Trish and Rob

All the President’s Men…Robert Redford depicting Bob Woodward

As excerpts from Bob Woodward’s book, Fear: Trump in the White House, were released yesterday and today (September 4-5), it dominated the news cycle, even overpowering the Senate judiciary committee’s hearing on Trump’s nomination  of Bret Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Then, today, the insider gossip of madness in the White House peaked with an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times by a senior  White House official who confirmed just about everything that has leaked about the chaos in the Trump administration. This is the first time someone high in the administration has said publicly—though unfortunately anonymously—that Trump is unfit to be president. Essentially, this high ranking administration official is saying that the president is nuts.

If you haven’t read about it already, here it is.

Here’s a brief excerpt from the op-ed titled: “I am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration. “The dilemma — which [Trump] does not fully grasp — is that many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations,” the author wrote. “I would know. I am one of them.”

He goes on: “Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over.

“The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.”

Here’s the synchronicity. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were given information by an anonymous source within the Nixon administration about the Watergate scandal that ultimately exposed Nixon’s crimes. It led to Nixon’s resignation and to prison terms for H.R. Haldeman, G. Gordon Liddy, John Dean, and several others. Now, 44 years later, excerpts from Woodward’s book, which will be published on 9-11, sets off a firestorm of news coverage and denials from POTUS and his administration. Within a few hours, the New York Times releases the anonymous op-ed, and it’s  a confirmation of the material in Woodward’s book.

In both scandals, Woodward’s role was pivotal. Both times the truth teller was anonymous—Deep Throat and now ‘Deep State.’ The revelations in the Times op-ed make Trump’s earlier accusation that Woodward’s book is fiction sound like a toothless defense that even his gung ho supporters would have a hard time accepting. But you never know.

The question with this ‘Deep Throat’ source is why he/she didn’t identify him/herself and use the op-ed as a resignation letter, and send a copy to the appropriate congressional committees. Surely, the person’s ID will come out eventually. But ultimately that’s a secondary matter to the startling and scary assertions presented in the op-ed.  In retrospect, on the book yet to be published, Woodward’s title, FEAR, is certainly sounding applicable. He/she assures us there are others who are also working to protect the country from acts of madness being generated by a mentally unstable occupant of the Oval Office.

All of this reminds us of a now prophetic novel from the 1950s—Night of Camp David—that posed the same question that many are considering today.

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The Dead Battery SynchroS

Posted on September 5, 2018 by Trish and Rob

Precognition often comes through signs and symbols—a particular song we hear, a book that falls at our feet, an animal that crosses our path, a sequence of numbers or a name that crops up repeatedly, an event or incident that hits us viscerally, and yes, even through billboards. Synchronicity is often a component.

We live in a collective sea of these signs and symbols. Nature, the universe, Source, God, whatever you want to call it, constantly chatters to us. But we’re so mired in the business of physical life that we don’t always hear that voice. Or we hear it and ignore it. Or we hear it and think, Yeah, sure, I’m kinda losing it here.

You’re in your car. Maybe you’re on a road trip. Or picking up your son or daughter from school. Or maybe you’re about to back out of your garage to head off to the grocery store, the park, a friend’s house. Your car dies. You turn the key and nothing happens. On one level, it’s an annoying and inconvenient event from our everyday world. But on another level, the abrupt and unexpected nature of the event could serve as a sign or symbol of something that’s about to happen.

When our daughter was in elementary school, Rob would take her to school and I would pick her up. On one particular day, I was in the pickup line – longer than the one in the photo – and my  car suddenly went dead. There I was, the car refusing to start, cars behind me honking because hey, why wasn’t that car moving forward?

Rob drove over and jumped the battery and followed Megan and me home. Once in the driveway, the battery died again.  Clearly, a new battery was in order. But was there something more, an underlying message?

When we’re in the midst of such events in our daily lives, it’s easy to overlook them as possibly symbolic. But sometimes the meaning pops right out at you. I was about to call AAA when I noticed a message on our answering machine from a writer friend. Diane Cleaver, the woman who had been our literary agent for 15 years, who had jump started our careers, had died suddenly of a heart attack.

Standstill. The battery dies. The car has to be jumped started.

If there are no accidents, as Robert Hopke theorizes in his book by the same name, then the death of the car coinciding with our hearing about Diane’s death wasn’t random. Just how are all of us, the dead and the living, connected, anyway? How are we connected to the larger world beyond us?

We think of it as synchronicity. It exists in the space between what we see and what we sense, that border between what quantum physicist David Bohm called the implicate (enfolded) order—the underlying reality—and the explicate (unfolded) order—the physical world and everyday reality. The inner, the outer. The non-local and the local mind.

Ever since, I’ve paid close attention to events like this. Especially those involving car batteries.

UPDATE: September 2018

On the morning of 9/1, I drove Megan over to an apartment building where she had to walk a dog. We were going to meet Rob in Cassadaga, then head out to look at some homes in possible areas for our move. Nika, Megan’s dog, and I waited in the car outside the building while she went in to get the dog.

15 minutes later, Megan hops into the car. I turn the key in the ignition. Oops. No go. Megan goes inside the building to see if she can get jumper cables, Rob drives over, we jump the battery and make it back to her house. The battery dies again. We head off for our day and when we get back that evening call AAA. The battery was less than 3 years old, so they install a new one.

Not sure what this incident was about on a synchro level. But  it’s also a synchro that it happened within 72 hours of my writing this post about the dead battery more than 20 years ago. That capitalized S in the post title is what I added with my update.

 

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Florence?

Posted on September 3, 2018 by Trish and Rob

So far in this hurricane season, the Atlantic basin has been lucky. It’s been quiet. Maybe that’s the way nature balances itself after a horrendous hurricane season in 2017 that set records. That flooded Houston. Destroyed Puerto Rico’s infrastructure. Did some major damage to our house. The damage to our place is now in the process of repair – new roof, new dry board, new paint job. But Puerto Rico is still suffering and the death toll there has been adjusted – from 64 to nearly 3,000.

But here we are in early September, when the hurricane season tends to ramp up, and we have a potential cyclone coming off the coast of Africa. Notice the terminology. Potential. The National Hurricane Center predicts that at day 5 (today) there’s a 90 percent chance of development. But notice that in the graphic, the system begins turning toward the west northwest, but is still well away from the U.S. mainland. If it remains on that course shown in the graphic, it looks like it might hit North Carolina.

I’m writing this on August 30. Today, September 5, how do things look? Well, somewhat better in terms of forecast:

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Social Media

Posted on September 1, 2018 by Trish and Rob

One day, I posted the cover of Aliens in the Backyard on Instagram. It was next to some photos of Golden Retrievers, covers from other books, an astrological chart of the solar eclipse on August 11. So some guy comments on the picture: Your IG (Instagram) is dope. What’s your story?

HIS story is – no kidding – “Just trying to play a super hero in a movie.”

But his remark made me think of an episode in Black Mirror, where everything in your life – from getting a job to obtaining a mortgage to leasing an apartment and eating at a restaurant – depends on your social standing. Your brand. Your story. In the episode, your social standing was, well, everything.  

Today on Sirius radio, I heard an MSNBC host talking about how Don Trump Jr’s brand went over well with his dad’s base. His brand, as defined through the number of his Twitter and Instagram followers, connected with people in that base. I was struck by how this all smacked of high school popularity contests or sororities and fraternities when I was in college. But with an important difference. With social media, you can buy followers. Doing so is supposedly against Instagram’s policies, but I frequently get messages about increasing “my profile” by buying followers.

Who are these bought followers? I Googled the question, but the only links that came up were for places where I could buy followers and why I should or should not do it. But if I do buy, then I should buy active Instagram accounts not inactive.  Huh? Under the why I should buy was a link about how increased Instagram followers meant you were an “influencer” – someone other people should pay attention to  because of… well, the number of your followers. Surely, that number must mean something, right?

Recently, I wrote a post about a woman with 12 million Instagram followers – enough to deem her an Instagram celebrity – who made a stink on a commercial flight. Her Instagram profile says she’s a fitness instructor, but most of the photos seem to be of her prominent butt. I get that Stephen King and J.K. Rowling have zillions of followers. They actually have accomplished something – great books!

But I don’t understand the big butt having 12 million followers or why Don Jr – a guy who hunts big game for pleasure and fun – has so many followers that he’s considered an “influencer.”

All of this brought me back to the question by the Instagram guy who’s “just trying to play a super hero in a movie.”  What’s my story? What’s your story? Don’t most of us have more than a single story?

That typewriter at the top of the post belonged to my dad. It’s a Hermes 2000, where he typed his impressions as an American living in Venezuela in the mid-20th century. Like you and me, his story is multifaceted and that, I think, is where most social media falls short. No one has just a single story, a single brand, a single passion. Our personal stories change as we evolve, as our insights deepen over time, and our passions expand.

No one’s identity is defined by Instagram or Twitter, Facebook or Snapchat or any other app. All are useful in one way or another for creative self-expression, business, public relations. But once we believe that any of them embody everything we are as spiritual beings in a physical universe, then we’re in deep trouble. And if we, as a society, allow social media to define who we are, that trouble gets ugly. We become sycophants just as shallow as those old high school yearbooks that declared so and so as “most likely to succeed,” or “most popular.”

So I think about that guy’s question: What’s your story? My response was writer of fiction and non-fiction.  That doesn’t even scratch the surface but Instagram doesn’t care. Give me a photo, words of wisdom, advice, Instagram says, and I’ll make you famous.

 

 

 

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Astrological Archetypes

Posted on August 30, 2018 by Trish and Rob

Aries: I’m the Star Trek motto, going where no one else has gone before. Cross me and I’ll mow you down. I don’t give a shit.

Taurus: I cultivate and civilize what Aries discovers. I’ve also got some secrets that no one will uncover.  I’m vying with Scorpio for the most stubborn sign. Give me a plot of land and I’ll bring you food, sustenance.

Gemini: I collect information and then disseminate it, far and wide. I’m the messenger who takes what Aries discovers and what Taurus cultivates, and hand it off to Cancer. Ha. But hey, I also seduce you with my words and my stories.

Cancer: Ha? Bro, you need therapy, honest introspection. I embrace Aries, Taurus, even you, Gemini. Let me help you. I am MOM. I am TRUST.  I am NURTURING LOVE

Leo: Seriously? This is a real conversation? C’mon, you guys. Let’s go party with Sadge. Let me lead you. Let me show you how.

Virgo: Details, folks, details. How does  the mosaic fit together? How do all these intricate pieces create a whole? Why do I feel like I’m out here on a limb by myself? Huh?

Libra:  Banging my gavel, listen up. Each of you has a piece of the cosmic puzzle, okay? Now, can we all be friends? Please? Can we go find something to do that we all love?

Scorpio: OMG. They’re all missing the point, the absolute bottom line. It’s mythological, you idiots. Profound. Wake up! We’re trapped in the matrix. Who’s leading us out of this weirdness?

Sagittarius: I’ve got tickets to a vision quest on the island of Mykonos in Greece. Give me mushrooms and let’s  go find the truth. All of you are my friends  until you prove to be otherwise and then, oh yeah, dudes, bye-bye.

Capricorn:  I’m scaling mountains one painful step at a time and you guys want to trip  in Greece? Why? Convince me that I should go.  Explain it. Lay out your case. How does this enhance my resume?

Aquarius: Cappy, c’mon,  You have ambition but lack vision. You have goals but don’t understand your personal quest. Your endurance is unsurpassed but…where’s your passion? Me, I’m into the family of man. Give me your visionaries…

Pisces:  C’mon, you guys. All of you. Let’s go dance with the collective. Let’s be visionaries and optimists. Let’s go find a woods or an ocean and meditate and dream  and visualize what we desire. A planet united.

 

 

 

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Shady side of the Sunshine State

Posted on August 28, 2018 by Trish and Rob

 

Nobody can go swimming on the Gold Coast of South Florida. All the beaches in Martin County are closed due to an invasion of dangerous blue-green algae. Unlike red tide, which is a natural phenomenon, the blue-green algae bloom is a man-made problem.

Where does it come from? Primarily, Big Sugar, which ironically is federally subsidized. Sugar cane fields proliferate in western Palm Beach County on the south side of Lake Okeechobee. The economy of towns such as Belle Glade, South Bay, Canal Point, Pohokee, and Clewiston are all about sugar. In fact, Clewiston, home of U.S. Sugar, is nicknamed Sugar Town.

Interestingly, subsidies for the sugar industry are opposed by diverse voices including environmentalists, who decry the polluting of Lake Okeechobee, as well as free-market conservatives, who for years have lambasted sugar subsidies, as well as limits on domestic production and caps on imports, as a boondoggle that jacks up sugar costs for consumers and protects Big Sugar.

Beyond conservative economic theory and environmentalism, there’s also the sweet tooth perspective. High sugar prices are driving candy makers out of business. The Hersey company opposed the recent subsidies for Big Sugar approved by Congress in June. The company notes that as many as 600,000 jobs in baking and related industries dependent on sugar are threatened by the high cost of sugar, while the sugar industry employs less than 25,000 people. “We believe leaving these subsidies in place causes more job risk to the U.S. economy than removing them,” said Jeff Beckman, a spokesman for the Hershey Co., based in Hershey, Pa.

On the environmental side: “Sugar needs to be a good neighbor, and the fact is the federal sugar program is directly responsible for taking a massive environmental toll in Florida,” said Cris Costello, an organizing manager for the Sierra Club.

Here’s what happens. Phosphorus runoff from chemical fertilizers pollute Lake Okeechobee, resulting in massive algae blooms, then water is released from the lake and flows into the St. Lucie River and from there into the ocean. In some areas, the water turns murky green, other areas it’s coffee-colored.

While Congress voted to continue subsidizing Big Sugar in June, Florida state government shares the blame. “I think it’s irresponsible to point the finger at the federal government,” said Eric Draper, executive director of Audubon of Florida. “The question of who let the all that pollution into Lake Okeechobee is not a federal responsibility, that’s a state responsibility. Florida allowed three million acres that drain into Lake Okeechobee to become overdrained and overdeveloped.”

While Governor Scott talks about the importance of preserving the environment, his actions show another side. Scott is running for the Senate this year, and U.S. Sugar is a major contributor to his campaign. His appointees at the water management district recently rejected a deal to buy U.S. Sugar land south of the lake for water storage. That could have eventually reduced the need for discharges to the ocean.

In 2017, the state Legislature passed a bill favored by Big Sugar that allowed polluters to continue discharging phosphorus as long as they complied with best management practices, such as not fertilizing when the weather forecast calls for heavy rain. I wonder how that’s working out, considering that the run off this year appears on track to exceed that of last year, which was four times above the approved standard. Meanwhile, the Florida Environmental Protection Agency on Aug. 2 reported that the blue-green algae in the St. Lucie River was ten times too toxic to touch. That’s because blue-green algae is actually a bacteria called cyanobacteria.

Synchronistically, we were in Clewiston to meet friends just a couple of days before the beaches were closed. (It’s a place we rarely go.) Lake Okeechobee is huge, but the dike along the south shore keeps the lake and the pollution out of sight as you drive along the shore road. But, as the beach closing reveal, you can’t keep the damage out of sight forever. Now people on the coast are feeling the effects of environmental decay. Meanwhile, the federal and state governments largely stands with the polluters, even subsidizing  them as in the case of Big Sugar.

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A Political Synchro

Posted on August 26, 2018 by Trish and Rob

In global events, the synchronicities are often so glaring that even journalists note the “coincidence.”

On August 25, John McCain’s family announced that the 81-year-old senator died at 4:28 p.m., of glioblastoma, a rare form of brain cancer. When I heard about his death, I mentioned to Rob that Ted Kennedy probably greeted him on the other side because they’d been friends and had died of the same type of cancer. What I didn’t know – and that was announced a few minutes later – was that Kennedy died 9 years ago on this same day, August 25, 2009.

After a journalist mentioned the coincidence, Rob asked me why I’d made that remark about McCain and Kennedy. I don’t know why. It was just something that popped into my head.

So, what are the odds on this one? Two senators, of different political parties, died 9 years apart to the day from the same type of brain cancer. Even though McCain, a former POW in Vietnam, was a war hawk who voted for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I respected for his thumbs down last summer, at 1 a.m., to save Obama Care.

RIP, McCain. I hope you and Kennedy are commiserating already on how to get trump out of office.

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