The Empress

Some years ago when we lived in Boynton Beach, Florida, a group of us were sitting around the kitchen table, pulling tarot cards at random. A neighbor, Jeri, stopped by with her five-year-old son, saw the cards, and immediately pulled a chair up to the table.

“Will the cards tell me if I’m pregnant?” she asked.

“Possibly,” I replied, and handed her the deck. “Shuffle with your question in mind, fan the deck out face down, and pull three cards.”

In the tarot, there are two cards that nearly always mean pregnancy if that’s what you’re asking about: the page of cups and The Empress. Jeri didn’t pull either one. She didn’t even pull one of the backups – the Ace of Cups. “There’s nothing about pregnancy here,” I told her.

“Let me pull a card,” her son piped up.

So we reshuffled the deck, fanned out the cards, and her son approached the table, his expression very focused. Then he picked his card: The Empress.

“You’re pregnant,” I blurted.

A week later, the pregnancy was verified by her doctor.

This is synchronicity in action. For that single moment when her son picked his card, the Empress was the one in 78 that could give her the definitive answer she asked for and her son chose it.

Posted in c7, divination, pregnancy, tarot | Leave a comment

Yoga synchronicity

Last week, I took two yoga classes from different teachers in different cities. During the Wednesday class, the teacher led the students (or some of us) in an advanced two-posture sequence. The first posture was a variation of the side incline (Vasisthasana) in which the big toe is held and the leg raised high, as in the above photo. While not an uncommon posture or variation, what happened next surprised me. She asked us to swing the leg forward and sink into a front split.

I’ve taught yoga for fifteen years and taken classes for close to two decades, but I’d never seen that particular sequence in any of the various yoga styles. En route to an out-of-town yoga class on Friday evening, I explained the posture to a friend who was riding with me. She’s also a yoga teacher and had never seen the sequence, either. So, we were both startled when the teacher, who we’d known for years, did the exact same sequence.

After class, I thought it would be a good synchronicity for the blog, but I realized that there might be a cause-and-effect factor involved. The Wednesday teacher had once told me that she’d taken a few classes from the Friday teacher years ago. Maybe she’d gone back recently and picked up the sequence from him.

So I waited until this Wednesday and asked if she’d visited Yoga South lately. She hadn’t and when I mentioned the unusual sequence, she couldn’t remember where she’d learned it. But it wasn’t from the other teacher.

So there it is, a yoga synchronicity. Nothing earth-shaking about it, just a curiosity. If you want to read a much deeper and life-shaping synchronicity, go to Max Action’s site and read Sweet Tea(pots), Synchronicity, & Multiple Sclerosis

Rob

Posted in sports, yoga | 1 Comment

The I Ching meets e-mail

Here’s another I Ching synchronicity from Adele. She has contributed several synchronicities to this blog.
***

This is an I Ching and Internet experience of Synchronicity.

About two years ago I was in the process of writing a book proposal for, I Ching Meditations with the hope of finding an agent and publisher. Placed on the corner of my desk was Katya Walter’s book, “The Tao of Chaos” which I had in my possession since it’s publication in 1994. Katya Walter’s book is about the I Ching and the genetic code and I pounced on it as soon as it was published.

I had placed the book on the corner of my desk to remind me to write to Katya to see if she would write a forward to my proposed book. I kept putting that task off, not only because I was immersed in writing the proposal, but I felt shy about approaching such a knowledgeable author.

Meanwhile, I had an I Ching font I had created for sale on my web page. Very few people order the font and I had considered taking the link off my page.

While I was struggling with a letter to Ms. Walter, *BAM!* I received an email from none other than Dr. Katya Walter. She had ordered my I Ching font and for some reason had not received it. I immediately wrote to her and sent her the font. Katya was so pleased to hear from me directly that she called me up. For me, this was an I Ching synchronicity at its best. We have been friends every since.
https://www.ichingmeditations.com

Dr. Katya Walter has since posted a web page https://www.doublebubbleuniverse.com/ and has a number of free eBooks available.

Update: There’s another posting on March 7 involving the I Ching called The Number 33.

Posted in divination, dreams, I Ching | 1 Comment

World on Fire


Aztec greenstone mask of Quetzalcoatl

We recently bought Daniel Pinchbeck’s book, 2012, The Return of Quetzalcoatl. We both had read his previous book, Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism. Rob read the 2012 book first, then passed it on.

I have a problem with Pinchbeck’s ideas about women and relationships and the fact that he’s trying to fill Terrence McKenna’s shoes – i.e., hallucinogenic drugs, shamanism, the ultimate meaning of life. Who else but McKenna could talk to mushrooms and prove that the ultimate riddle of life was contained within the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching?

But Pinchbeck is a fantastic writer, his grasp of language is stunning, and he’s able to couch complex ideas in terms of daily life. As a writer, he reminds me of Michael Talbot – The Holographic Universe – and he quotes some of my favorite authors to support his theories. He also understands synchronicity.
– Trish
+++
In September of 2001, Pinchbeck was editing a friend’s “poetic manifesto,” a kind of diatribe against corporatism and globalization. His partner, he writes, was in the bedroom, feeding their infant daughter, and he was in the living room, the pages of the poet’s manuscript spread out on a table in front of him.

“Outside, we heard the roar of a low-flying airplane and then a loud metallic crunch.” He and his partner opened the blinds and “saw a flaming crater in one of the World Trade towers…” The title of his friend’s manuscript was “World on Fire.”

Posted in 911, c2, global, writers | 7 Comments

Message in a bottle

Jim Banholzer sent this synchronicity to us. It arrived by e-mail within seconds. Some messages take a lot longer, but eventually find their way. Jim’s previous synchronicities were anagrams and a big league omen.
***
Chunosuke Matsuyama, a Japanese seaman, was wrecked with 44 shipmates in 1784. Shortly before he and his companions died of starvation on a Pacific coral reef, Matsuyama carved a brief account of their tragedy on a piece of wood, sealed it in a bottle, and then threw it into the sea. It was washed up 150 years later in 1935 at the very seaside village where Matsuyama had been born.

Reader’s Digest Strange Stories, Amazing Facts, printed by the Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., Pleasantville, New York in 1976.
***
These old Reader’s Digest stories keep washing up, too. Thanks, Jim.

Posted in historical, objects | 1 Comment

#11

On bat night at Yankee Stadium last month, Yankee Brett Gardener swung at a pitch, and his bat slipped from his hands. It flew into the stands, and struck a boy named Jacob Smith. Bat night indeed. Smith is the nephew of MSNBC newscaster Keith Olbermann.

Nine years earlier, Yankee second baseman Chuck Knoblauch threw wildly to first base. The ball bounced off the roof of the dugout and struck Marie Olbermann in the face. She was the mother of Keith Olbermann, who was a Fox News sportcaster at the time.

Knoblauch and Gardener both wore #11.

Posted in 11, celebrities, keith olbermann, Numbers, sports | 2 Comments

Saint Augustine


In yesterday’s post, we mentioned that Petrarch was astonished by what he read from Saint Augustine’s Confessions after he reached the summit of Mont Ventoux. He recognized the coincidence as part of a larger pattern, a transformative moment. In awe, he descended the mountain in silence. (He’d climbed with his brother.)

“I could not believe that it was as mere accident that I happened upon them. What I had there read I believed to be addressed to me and to no other, remembering that Saint Augustine had once suspected the same thing in his own case.”

In fact, Saint Augustine had undergone a nearly identical experience in the garden of Milan in 386 as he confronted a spiritual crisis in his life. He heard a child’s voice from a nearby house mysteriously repeating the words, Tolle, lege,” (“Pick up and read.”)

Baffled, he finally opened a copy of Saint Paul’s epistles read what amounted to a direct response to his lifelong conflict and addressed its resolution. “The light of certainty flooded my heart and all dark shadows of doubt fled away,” he later wrote.

So just as Augustine’s words randomly read by Petrarch a thousand years later led to the Renaissance, Augustine’s own experience gave rise to the birth of the Christian era. Until his time, Christianity had been a minor sect. So one synchronicity heralded Christianity, the other the Renaissance.

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Petrarch’s view


Here’s a synchronicity that was a key factor in the life of an important figure who played a starring role in history at the outset of the Renaissance. Petrarch 1304-1374, an Italian scholar and poet, is known as the father of humanism. He was also one of the first to label the Middle Ages as the Dark Ages. Readers will find some similarity in this one with a recent post from Adele Aldridge, The I Ching Meets a Dream
In both cases, the synchronicity was tapped when a book was opened.
***
For many years, Petrarch thought about climbing Mont Ventoux for a panoramic view of the region. Mountain climbing was rarely done, especially to obtain a better view, in his time. But in April 1336, Petrarch began the ascent that scholars would later regard as the event that symbolized the onset of the Renaissance.

When he reached the summit, with clouds below his feet, wind in his face, he was astonished by the view of French Provence, the Alps, and the Mediterranean. In his exhilarated state, he opened his pocket copy of Augustine’s Confessions. Turning at random to book X,8, he read: “And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty billows of the sea, the broad tide of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuit of the stars, and pass themselves by…”

Writes James Hillman in Re-visioning Psychology, “Petrarch was stunned at the coincidence between Augustine’s words and the time and place they were read. His emotions both announced the revelation of his personal vocation and heralded the new attitude of the Renaissance…Petrarch draws this crucial conclusion from the Mont Ventoux event: ‘Nothing is admirable but the soul.'”
***
Tomorrow we’ll post another historical synchronicity, this one by Saint Augustine, the author of the book Petrarch was reading.

Posted in books, divination, historical, Petrach | 2 Comments

Update Underwater Area 51


Another view of AUTEC

A week or ten days ago, we got a Google alert for AUTEC that led to a blog by an intern at the facility. The young woman, a college student from a university in Florida, had just arrived on Andros with another woman, who also was going to be interning there. The first blog entry was upbeat, excited, she was really anticipating getting into life on the base.

The second entry was dated on Mother’s Day, May 10. She was talking about how friendly everyone was and how she and her roommate were going to sell flowers in celebration of Mother’s Day. She went on about the fantastic food and how other women on the base jokingly warned her and the roommate “about the guys.”

The entries were innocuous, really, just the excited ramblings of a young college student who apparently was thrilled to be in the Bahamas. At the time, given AUTEC’s secrecy, I thought it was somewhat odd that the woman was allowed to blog about her internship.

After last night’s episode on UFO Hunters, I clicked on her blog and discovered:
Bahamas Internship

It’s no longer there.
Coincidence?
– Trish

Posted in AUTEC, bermuda triangle, blogs | 11 Comments

Jack the Ripper


Marcus Anthony is an intuitive analyst who coaches individuals and organizations how to use intuitive intelligence to create ideal futures. He published his synchronicity elsewhere as part of a longer article. He’s the author of Sage of Synchronicity. His web site is https://www.mindfutures.com

One day more than a decade ago I had a dream that the police were on the lookout for Jack the Ripper. He was lurking about, but he was being rather stealthy in his ways. I awoke with the dream fresh in my mind.

It wasn’t the kind of storyline that makes for a good start to your day. Still, it seemed to fit in with some of the self analysis I’d been doing on myself, related to my issues with women. Was there a part of me that contained the rapacious rage of Jack the Ripper? It wasn’t something I cared to dwell on. I shuddered and pushed the dream aside.

Later, I jumped in my car and drove towards the international boys school where I was working. As I was on the road I pulled up behind another vehicle. My eyes were suddenly drawn to a sticker on the back of the car in front of me. It read Jack’s Back! (an advertisement for whiskey). A shiver went down my spine. At school I entered my first class, a vibrant lot of rambunctious fourteen year olds. The previous night I had asked them to write the opening line of a mystery story. The first thing I was going to do was get some students to read that sentence aloud to the class. The boys shuffled in and I readied myself for the first task of the day. For me, this was in part, intuitive. I stood before the boys, looked around the class and sensed where the energy was coming from. This was a process I had learned from my spiritual teachers. When my eyes came to rest on James, a jovial, freckle faced fellow, I got the deep knowing that I was looking for.

James, can you read us what you have written?

James stood up happily and began to read. However he had done much more than what I had asked. He had not only written the opening sentence, but had also gone on and written the entire story. And he continued reading beyond the first sentence. I decided to go with the flow and let him continue.

James began to tell the story of a woman who had been brutally murdered and raped. My ears picked up. This was a bit too much of a coincidence to ignore. The story continued. The police went on a hunt for the man responsible. They found him and tried to arrest him, but he fought back.

The man turned and faced them like a wild animal, James spoke out. The policeman fired, and the man fell to the ground screaming. As he fell silent and death overtook him, a dark and horrible shadow rose out of the dead man’s body. It was the spirit of Jack the Ripper!

I gulped. OK, thanks for that James, I said. That was great. But I could not help myself. James, where did you get the idea for that story?

I dunno, he chirped back with typical teenage nonchalance.

Now skeptical readers might think I am not telling the truth in what I just wrote. Maybe I collapsed some things which happened at different times into one anecdote. But I have not. Those synchronous events: the Jack the Ripper Dream, the Jack’s Back sticker, and James’ Jack the Ripper story all happened within the space of about two to three hours.

Note though, that the final part emerged from my allowing the process to unfold in a way I had not expected, by releasing control and permitting intuitive intelligence to take over. If I had told James to stop reading after the first sentence, the synchronicity would not have reached its crescendo.

That synchronicity invited me to face something within myself, the part that had been deeply hurt by certain female figures from my childhood. It was related to sexual energy and what it means to be male. The universe spoke. It had something unpleasant to tell me, but I put aside my ego, my fear of my own shadow side. I listened and took the necessary action I was being asked to take.

This was very much part of my calling. At the beginning of my spiritual journey, I had asked Spirit that I might learn to love. A very simple request, but one which I felt was the essence of life s journey. At the time I put out that message I did not realize that this would require years of inner work. Four years later Spirit was continuing to answer the call through the medium of a freckle faced schoolboy. James did not say it, but his words contained the energy of a hidden meaning; love requires that we allow the light to penetrate our darkness, right to the core.

If I had known what was required for a guy like me to learn about love, I would have changed the order and put in a request for pizza instead! Spirit is a bit sneaky at times. It only gives us as much knowledge as we can handle at any given time.

Once you begin to work with Spirit, Spirit begins to work with you. The world is not a giant machine as western science would have us believe. In a sense the universe is more like a giant story, with you as a player in the story.

Synchronicity weaves together your vision, your mind, and the world. The messages are often profound. But sometimes they are a bit blunt, and the implicit meaning of the coincidence may be something that we’d prefer not to know!

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