Mercury Retro and the Debt Ceiling

Posted on July 31, 2011 by Trish and Rob

 

 

It’s that time of year again. Mercury, the planet of communication, is due to turn retrograde on August 2. Unfortunately, this is the same day that the deadline looms for raising the debt ceiling of the U.S. For a bit of perspective on the kind of havoc that can ensue in this kind of situation, let’s look back eleven years.

On election night in 2000, Mercury was retrograde  in Scorpio when Tom Brokaw announced that Florida had gone to Al Gore. But at 9:20 EST, Mercury turned direct and moments later, Brokaw announced that Florida’s vote was undecided. The rest, as they say, is history.  There were ballot disputes in Palm Beach County due to the “hanging chads” and eventually the issue went to the supreme court, where Sandra Day O’Connor cast the deciding vote that Bush had won the presidency. O’Connor did a lot of good things when on the supreme court, but this decision was NOT one of those good things.

This kind of crazy back and forth is typical for a Mercury retrograde. Confusion, reversals in decisions.

So let’s take a look at August 2, 2011.  On that night, at 11:49 PM, Mercury turns retrograde in Virgo, a sign that is all about precision, details, perfection. At 12:01 AM on August 3, a mere 12 minutes later, the U.S. is officially in default unless the dysfunctional politicians raise the debt limit.

Our apologies to readers in other countries for whom this isn’t an issue.  But if the U.S. defaults on its debt, it could quickly become your issue. Presently, countries in the EU aren’t doing so great. Greece is in dire straits. Its credit rating has been cut out of fear that default is looming in that country. According to this excellent summary twenty-one countries may be facing default. It’s as if the global financial structure is having a nervous breakdown.

The breakdown won’t just affect “the markets” that so many political pundits refer to. Investors are nervous, investors are uncertain… as though we’re all investors in stocks and companies. Well, suppose you don’t have anything in the stock market? Then you’ll be okay, right?

Probably not. If the U. S. defaults, interests rates will skyrocket. The interest rates on your home mortgage, car loans, and student loans will go through the roof.  Food prices will soar and so will the cost of gasoline. And that’s just for starters. Nobel economist Paul Krugman has some insightful info on the subject.

On August 3, 54 million Americans are supposed to receive Social Security checks. For many of these people, the checks are their only source of income. Suppose those checks don’t arrive? It means these individuals can’t pay their bills. It means they may have to choose between putting food on the table and buying prescriptions drugs that keep their bodies stable and functional. It means they eventually may default on their mortgage payments and their homes could eventually go into foreclosure. It means the economic crisis triggered by Bush’s economic policies and perpetuated during Obama’s three years in office may deepen into an outright depression. Check out this article. Or this one.

The debt ceiling was raised numerous times under Reagan, Clinton, both Bushes. So why has it become such an issue now? Because a radical right wing faction of the Republican party – the Tea Party zombies – have a stranglehold on Republican politicians.

I would love to say, Well, I’m going to ignore it. I’m going to turn off my TV, my radio, and not read any Internet news. If I pay no attention to it, then it’ll go away. But I have a feeling that it may not be that easy to make stuff go away. Even if we create our reality from the inside out, we share the planet with six or seven billion others who are living out their individual scripts.We share a mass consciousness precisely because we all live on the same planet. I believe  we can mitigate our personal circumstances through mindful living, but ultimately what affects one, affects all.

Yes, the endless debates may  all be political theater, but the idea that any political party would bring this issue right down to the wire is unconscionable.   And it may well go beyond the wire.

As of Sunday evening, an agreement had supposedly been reached – although the votes in the house and senate won’t be taken until Monday. On Monday, Mercury the trickster will be stationary, preparing to turn retrograde.

Listening to the pundits this evening as they discussed what this so-called agreement entails, it looks as if entitlements programs, the safety nets for the most vulnerable in our society, may be going the way of the dodo bird. The wealthy will NOT lose their Bush-era tax breaks, the ones that Obama renewed through 2013. Corporations, of course, will continue to enjoy their many tax loopholes that have allowed companies like GE to not pay any taxes at all. So, once again, this “deal” seems to be made on the backs of the rapidly shrinking middle class, the sick, the elderly, and the poor. Once again, the Dems caved, just as they did during the health care debate.

We need a third party in this country.

Whatever is decided in the 11th hour on August 2 will probably be reversed once Mercury turns retrograde at 11:49 EST.   Stay tuned. We don’t just live in interesting times, we’re living a paradigm shift, and it’s huge.

– Trish

 

PS Paul Krugman says this deal signals that Obama caved and the U.S. may descend into banana repubic status.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in merc retro, mercury retro, politics, synchronicity | 38 Comments

Bringing darkness into the light

Posted on July 30, 2011 by Trish and Rob

One of the oddities of America’s generally left-leaning cable news channel, MSNBC, is the occasional appearances of far-right icon Pat Buchanan who ran for president  in 2000 as an independent to the right of the Republican Party. He’s not just a guest, he’s a paid analyst who represents the dark side of conservatism. He’s often regarded as racist, especially in the way he opposes immigration and supports the rights of ‘beleagured’ white men.

Now the grandfatherly pundit  is defending the Norwegian bomber saying that he may have been right. As a result, many liberals are calling for MSNBC to fire Buchanan. But should we really silence him?

Sure, he has a right to express his opinions, distasteful as many find them. But beyond the free speech issue is a deeper issue. Burying the darkness won’t make it go away. The views of Buchanan and others like him need to be exposed to the light of day, to the scrutiny of the world. Otherwise, when the dark beliefs are covered over, such people only talk among themselves. The hate and disenchantment grows and finally boils over into violence, or into actions that threaten many.

We see that now with the Tea Party congressmen doing all they can to crash our economy to prove that they are right. Originally, they were ignored and dismissed as nut cases. That ended with the 2010 congressional election.  They are no longer meeting with their own kind and plotting the take-over of America. They are doing it, and yes, they are nut cases.

One good thing about the election of so many of the Tea Party candidates is that now the American people, and the world, sees just how crazy and serious they are. They’ve been exposed. Their irrational views are publicized every day, and they are falling out of favor – not that they ever were ‘in favor’ – with the vast majority of Americans. In all likelihood, many of them will be kicked out of office next year when voters return to the polls.

That said, we need to hear Pat Buchanan and his brethren so we can expose the darkness to the light. But we can’t just point fingers. We all need to bring our own darkness to the light. It’s true for individuals and for society, and that’s the way we evolve as individuals, as a race.

– Rob

Here are some related headlines:

“Pat Buchanan: ‘Breivik May Be Right’,” Media Matters, July 26, 2011

2. “Phil Griffin: ‘MSNBC Stands For Something …Is Really The Place To Go For Progressives’,” Mediaite, June 20, 2011
3. “Buchanan: ‘What is happening now to white men right now is exactly what was done to black folks for years.’,” Think Progress, May 6, 2009
4. “Buchanan Argues For Immigration Moratorium To Preserve White Dominance,” Think Progress, August 22, 2006
5. “Buchanan complains that with Kagan, Supreme Court will have too many Jews,” Media Matters, May 14, 2010
6. “MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan defends Hitler. Again.,” Media Matters, September 2, 2009
7. “Breivik Was Influenced By American Islamophobes Behind ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ Hysteria,” ThinkProgress, July 25, 2011
8. “Discussing Ground Zero mosque, Buchanan invokes Nazis attempting to march in Skokie, IL,” Media Matters, August 4, 2010

Posted in politics, synchronicity | 10 Comments

6 Challenges to Mainstream Science

Posted on July 29, 2011 by Trish and Rob

Marcus Anthony, our Australian friend, futurist, psychologist, and prolific author has provided a list of beliefs that he has come to accept as truths. He has done so not only from research and reading, but primarily from deep exploration.

In the first of the 2-part article, Marcus’ list includes seven statements. Of the seven, mainstream science rejects six of them. The one item on the list that would be accepted by the current scientific paradigm would be Marcus’ contention that when we die, we don’t go to heaven.

So where do you stand on this list? We basically accept all the items on Marcus’ list as part of what we see as reality. Of course, we would extend it somewhat farther. We would add: Coincidence, in general, are meaningful. If you pay attention to these often startling events, you become more aware and in tune with  a deeper level of reality that exists outside of everyday cause and effect.

Here’s Marcus’ list, but we recommend reading his entire post for more clarity.

1)      Mind extends beyond the brain. True
I still find it almost incredible that this most obvious fact is still denied in mainstream science and education (I have to remind myself that science is still in its infancy). The mind exists in a sea of information, entangled with other minds and consciousness fields. The brain mediates consciousness, but does not generate it. I am not sure how consciousness expresses itself without the brain (see point 2), since the brain so clearly has an enormous effect on the way consciousness expresses itself. It seems likely to me that the etheric body (see point 6) has an etheric brain, and that this etheric brain survives death. But thyis may not be the full explanation.
2)      There is life after death. True Beyond Reasonable Doubt
I have had numerous instances of communication with relatives who have passed on. Sometimes they come to me and say things. Other times I find my mind and theirs entangled, because of some unresolved issues between us. Or often I just see them in a dream or a vision, and this is usually because there is some relevance in the connection for me. For example, one time I simply witnessed a deceased male relative of mine in a state of extreme emotional distress. He was basically experiencing extreme guilt at having sexually molested two female relatives of mine. He told me their names. Later one of those female relatives made claims about sexual abuse – but she would not name the person. Other encounters are more casual. Much of the time the dead are attempting to seek power or control over the living, where the minds remain entangled with the living, which is true in almost every case. However keep in mind that this is precisely the same as when they were “alive.” Nothing changes in this respect. People still play games with each other at a psychic level.
3)      When you die you go to Heaven. False
When you die your mind is not transformed or elevated into a new level of consciousness. It may well be true that departed souls are greeted by “the light” and spiritual guides soon after death. However the dead retain their scars and psychological issues. These are recorded in the Soul Template. The essence of life after death is that your mind plays out dramas, and attracts to itself situations which reflect its belief structures, and the overall “vibration” of its resonance. So a mind full of fear and self-loathing will recreate an afterlife where it will experience persecution and denial. A more “enlightened” mind will attract more joyful experience.
4)      People can see the future. True
I have had too many premonitions over the years to see this as anything but certain. The only question for me is whether I am seeing the one set future, or a possible future which could be changed. For example, before the recent cricket world cup I had a vision that the Australian cricket team would be eliminated from the tournament at the quarter-final stage (Australia had won the previous three World Cups, and were undefeated for 12 years). A month later they were eliminated in the quarter-finals, as I’d seen.
5)      People can read each other’s minds. True
… with some qualification. It is possible for a person to read another’s emotional energy and attitudes, and the psychic projections of the ego can be read. I have seen many people do this, and just quietly I am pretty good at this myself. Jessica, who ran the spiritual group in New Zealand, was terrifyingly good at this. She could basically see straight through you. The first time I ever met her, I had had a disturbing vision while meditating that morning. In the vision I found myself looking down at my hands, and they were covered in blood. Later that day when I met Jessica, the first thing she said to me, before she even said hello was “I can see your hands covered in blood.” I am not making this up.
Mind reading can be learned. It is an innate human ability because the capacity for empathy is wired into our brains (mirror neurons), and our minds are not confined to our brains.
6)      The soul can travel out of the body. True
… again, with some qualification. The mind is not localised to the body, so some apparent out of body experiences do not actually involve the etheric body leaving the physical body. They are actually the mind perceiving information at a distance (ESP). Other out of body experiences involve the etheric body detaching and moving out into the world, or alternatively, into another astral dimension. I have had both kinds of out of body experiences. One time I found myself travelling out of my body, and riding along some power lines above a road (for some reason the etheric body is attracted to electricity). But I have also travelled out of the body into black, empty voids.
I do not consider out of body experiences to be desirable. They are typically caused by adissociation between mind and body, and a subconscious desire to escape this world.
7)      There is an etheric body. True
This is correct. I have not played around with this too much (I don’t see the point), but I have had several experiences where I have been able to manipulate the etheric body. This has occurred in the hypnogogic state between waking and sleeping, and independent of my will 9or at least started out independent of my will). Basically, the etheric body is a subtle body double, and looks just like your actual body under normal circumstances. For example, sometimes I am able to move my etheric arms out in front of my chest, even though my physical arms are still by my side.  When I touch my etheric fingers together, I can feel them just like my real fingers. So they are connected to the nervous system somehow. I have also often had the bizarre experience of finding the etheric body of someone else lying beside me as I sleep. One time I awoke in the middle of the night to find my older brothers etheric hands resting on my chest. I grabbed them, got out of bed, threw them out the door and closed it. Another time an etheric baby attached itself to my back as I was sleeping on my stomach. I reached around with my etheric hands and touched it. It felt very real. I then told it that it could not stay, and it went away. To this day I don’t know if the baby was living or deceased.
Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Talking Synchros

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Trish and Rob

Here’s a new radio interview that can be found through Mike Clelland’s Hidden Experience blog. You might not want to listen to the entire 95-minute rambling saga, but the three of us had plenty of stories to relate.  Mike seemed quite pleased that we tied some of our synchro experiences with the UFO scenario…including our one Men in Black story. Enjoy.

 

 

Posted in synchronicity | 17 Comments

Tribe meets first white man

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Trish and Rob

Here’s a very interesting video of a tribe in New Guinea upon first contact with the outer world. Notice the wonder and fear in their eyes and movements. It was filmed in 1966.

Are there more such tribes still hidden? Notice the cowls that some of them wear over their shoulders and heads. Finally, where are these children now? Did this alien contact change their lives? Are they living in a slum, wearing second-hand jeans and t-shirts, and praying to Jesus?

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

A sign from the other side

Posted on July 27, 2011 by Trish and Rob

Here’s our last winning synchro, this one from Lizzy Miles of Waterville, Ohio, whose blog, follow the signs, is exactly what it sounds like. This one is interesting for us because it was entered the day after we received our copies of Synchronicity and the Other Side. This one, as you might guess, is a synchronicity linked to the other side.

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I am a hospice social worker, so it is expected that all of my
patients will die eventually. Yesterday, however, a 31-year old
patient of mine died suddenly and without much warning. I was supposed to visit him yesterday and the last two times I saw him he reminded me of his 32nd birthday coming up in less than a week and that I better not forget it. He had been sick for a long time and was so excited to make it to 32.

I was scheduled to see him on the day he happened to die and so it was a bit of a shock that I’ve been processing over the past two hours. I have been thinking about him a lot. On my way home from work, I said his name out loud and asked him for a sign that he was ok. I don’t know what I expected, but I was looking for something… a license plate…something.

I turned on the radio and strangely enough, it was a classical music piano piece. (My alternative rock station had apparently converted to classical the day before). He had sung hymns for me 2 weeks ago and I thought maybe it would be a hymn, but it wasn’t. If it was a sign, I thought, it wasn’t a strong enough one for me to feel the connection. I don’t listen to classical and I was confused, but the piece was calming and so I left it on.

Then I felt cold air and I could not seem to get the heater high
enough. Still, I was thinking that would be silly to think that it was
his presence. I thought about him the whole time I while I was
listening to the piano music and I chided myself for expecting him to respond to my request for a sign. He’s new to heaven, I told myself. He wouldn’t even know how to send a sign. I’m just his social worker… if he is watching from heaven he would be looking after his family, not me.

Then the song ended. The DJ said something along the lines of:

“We were just listening to Klavierstucke No. 2 in E-flat, D. 946 by
Franz Schubert. Franz wrote that song when he was 31 about 6 months before he died. He never did make it to his 32nd birthday.”

Wow. I got my sign.

RIP and Happy Birthday buddy.

Posted in contest winners, spirt communication | 10 Comments

The amber talisman

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Trish and Rob

Here’s another winning synchro in our Golden Scarab contest, this one from Andrew Hicks, a musician who lives near Portland, Oregon. By the end of the story, you’ll know who is pictured above with Andrew.

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“Back in the late 90’s, I met a guy named Steve. He was my first roommate away from home, and we established a solid friendship. Through Steve, I met a guy named Aaron who was married to a woman named Marcela. Marcela and I became quick friends, but Aaron was really jealous and protective, so he forbid me from having anything to do with her. That happened in summer of 2000.

“By 2002, I lost touch with Steve and frequently wondered what became of him. I would occasionally wonder about Marcela too, and felt like I had missed out on what could have been one of my greatest friendships. Lots of time passed. I had a lot of dreams about reuniting with Steve over the years, and some part of me knew I’d see him again (although the rest of me had its doubts).

“In mid-2009, I attended a “full moon ceremony” at a local new age bookstore in Michigan, where the participants were given amber talismans. I left the ceremony feeling rather euphoric and lighthearted. On the drive home, I noticed that I desperately needed gas, but something inside told me not to go to nearest gas station. The next station was across town, but I went with it. On the radio was a college station’s program that was referring to synchronicity, a topic that I’ve found compelling for many years. When I reached the next gas station, I sort of checked in with my intuition, and an alert went off inside of me, telling me: “Stop here! THIS is the one!”. I laughed at myself, but complied, not really expecting anything in particular.

“Inside of the gas station was a woman named Amy; Steve’s Aunt. We were incredibly excited to see each other; I was sure she would know where Steve was. However, it turned out that she hadn’t seen him for even longer than I had, and she was hoping *I* would know where he was. We had ourselves quite a mystery. We exchanged phone numbers and I went on my way. I was shaken to the core by how awesome it was that I followed my intuition to that place. It felt like a genuinely fateful experience.

“In September of 2009, I was headed out somewhere, when I had the sudden urge to pick up the amber talisman I’d received a couple months prior and put it in my pocket. “Well, why not?” – I pocketed it and went out to do whatever I was doing. That very same day, I received a text message: ‘Hey man, its steve.’

“So, I received a talisman on the night I ran into Amy. The talisman laid neglected on a shelf until the very day that Steve texted me. My mind reeled with gratitude that I was a spectator to such awesome events.

“Steve and I met up that night, and it turned out he was homeless; had just moved back to Michigan from Florida. I let him stay with me for a while, and forced him to get a Facebook account so that we wouldn’t lose touch again.

“Then around rolled 2010, and I received a Facebook friends request from Marcela. I didn’t remember her last name, nor did she remember mine, which is why we didn’t get in touch online sooner. However, she knew Steve’s last name so she found him on Facebook, which led her to me. If all of those events hadn’t brought Steve back into my life and I hadn’t hooked him up with a FB account, Marcela wouldn’t have found me.

“It also just so happened that Marcela was about to visit Michigan (she lives in the Pacific Northwest) in close time-proximity to her finding me online, so we arranged a visit on August 21. During the visit, I found out that she had gotten a divorce almost right after we lost touch, but she was never able to locate my contact information. Like me, she felt like we had a really special friendship and she wondered about me over the years.

“I also realized that her birthday is January 3rd, a date that is hugely significant to me for personal reasons. Furthermore, I’ve been wanting to move to the Pacific Northwest for over ten years, for it is a very special place to me and my heart has felt called there more than once.

“Now Marcela and I are living together near Portland, Oregon; exploring the potential of our friendship and seeing where the universe leads us from here.

“I forgot to mention how Steve got my number. Right after coming back to MI, he went to the hospital for some reason and ran into his Aunt Amy, who was also in the hospital. If they hadn’t been in the hospital at the same time, they would have had no idea how to find each other. Amy gave him my number, and he texted me the next day.

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You can find out more about Andrew at his blog here and his band, Anorkai, here.

 

 

Posted in contest winners, talisman | 22 Comments

Shocking synchros from Wales

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Trish and Rob

This winning entry  comes from Jane Clifford of Wales and is quite shocking. It involves  a murder in the village, missing jewels, and an assortment of omens. It sounds like the making of a mystery novel!

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“Not long ago, I ran over a squirrel, which upset me and is a bad omen. But I took comfort in the fact that it died instantly, not a long malingering death. A few days later, a woman was murdered in our village. It happened very close by and I actually felt it as it happened. I comforted myself that she died instantly. 

“Now this week I heard about jewels valued at half a million pounds that disappeared from a friend’s safe. A few hours later, I begin to read a short story. Astonishingly, it involved missing jewels valued at the exact same sum of money — half a million pounds!

“I was telling a friend about these two dramatic incidents in my life and I wondered if there would be a third incident. Ten minutes later, a blackbird hit my car,went straight up in the air and dropped like a stone! Yet another warning of challenges to come!”

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These are not cheery, light-heated tales. Jane had already told us about the murder, that she had felt a crushing blow to her head and later confirmed that she felt it at the time of  the murder. She later told a detective about it and soon started feeling pain in her head again. She thought it was a result of the re-telling. But she found out soon after that her mother had fallen and struck her head.
Posted in contest winners, murder | 16 Comments

An eye-opening synchro

Posted on July 24, 2011 by Trish and Rob
Here’s Nicholas Carroll’s winning entry from his days on the U.S. Navy ship anchored near Naples. The casual reader will find it interesting, if not astonishing. But to Nicholas it was a life-changing event in that in the aftermath he shifted his view of reality from a rational, materialistic perspective to being more open to the possibility that forces exist in the universe that are outside the everyday world of cause and effect.
We realized that this story must be one of the winners when we searched Google for ‘Naples, Italy images’ and immediately spotted among thumbnails of a dozen photos an image of an American navy ship anchored off Naples. That, in itself, is an illustration of an illustration of synchronicity!
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I was a young man in the Navy, stationed in Sardinia when I had my most profound coincidence. It began in January 1993 when I woke up with one of my eyes bloodshot red. It wouldn’t go away after a couple days. A month passed with my eye still bloodshot red. So I saw the doctor assigned to my squadron about it. He didn’t know what was wrong with my eye and recommended that I see an eye specialist at the U.S. Naval hospital in Naples.
Because the USS Orion was set to be decommissioned, with the USS Simon Lake sailing from Holy Loch, Scotland to replace it in La Maddalena, Sardinia, we had a lot of work to do in getting ready for the cross-decking (transferring everything from our office to the other ship). Besides, the Yeoman I worked for kept teasing me that going to Naples would be seen as a boondoggle and wouldn’t look good on my record. So, I kept resisting. The squadron doctor looked at my eye again and was alarmed when he saw some cells break apart. He didn’t know what it meant and he insisted that I had to go to Naples if I cared about my eye. He raised the spectre of possible blindness if I didn’t get it treated.
For not, I finally relented and got orders. I flew to the airport in Rome and had to rush to catch the last train to Naples before a strike went into effect. This was a common occurrence in socialist Italy. Unions would go on strikes all the time, shutting down the transportation and inconveniencing travel for everyone who didn’t have a private automobile…just for the hell of it. I did make the train, though. Otherwise I would’ve been stuck in Rome for however long the strike lasted (anywhere from 24 to 48 hours).
When I arrived at the Naval Hospital in Naples in the evening, a female officer on duty checked me in and set up an appointment with the eye specialist the next day. She even made sure I got a meal, bringing it to me like a concerned mother. I was impressed by her maternal instinct (it is unusual for an officer to serve an enlisted person, which is what she was doing by delivering a tray of food at the closed hospital dining facility).

I checked into the barracks at Capodichino (one of the sites that the U.S. Navy leases from the Italian government in the Naples metropolitan area). The next day, I went to my eye appointment at the Naples Hospital. The doctor looked at my eye and said that he had never seen anything like that before. He gave me some kind of ointment to put on my eye each night. When the appointment was finished, I boarded the shuttle bus to take me back to Capodichino barracks.

At the bottom of the hill, the bus came to a jerky stop. I stared out the window and saw two guys in suits on bicycles. One waved nervously to the bus driver. The bus drove and as we passed the guys on bicycles, I was shocked to see that one of the guys on the bicycle looked like my old friend from 7th grade, John Adams. He never kept in touch after I moved away from Nebraska in 1985, but I always remembered him. He was a Mormon and these two guys on bicycles were definitely Mormon missionaries. Back at the barracks, I looked up information about the Mormon church. I learned that one of the Navy Chaplains on the base was a Mormon, so I called him and told him about that coincidence in coming across this possible old friend of mine. He investigated for me and got back with me.

What I learned was that the missionary was indeed John Adams, but he was not assigned to a mission in the Naples area. He was in a Rome mission and I was able to get the address. After I received the confirmation of my hunches, I was shocked by the meaning of it all. I had not seen or heard from this guy in eight years. What was the likelihood that his path and my path would intersect on the road leading up to the U.S. Naval hospital in Naples, Italy in an afternoon in the spring of 1993?

As the Navy Chaplain told me, Elder Adams had to come to the American hospital to get new contact lenses. So, we both had an eye problem. And this chance meeting could have been missed if I had taken a later bus that day, or if I had gone to Naples weeks earlier as my squadron doctor recommended. It was a coincidence that depended on both of us being at that exact spot at that exact time and day. It also required that I had the ability to recognize an old friend (for John had no way of seeing who was on the bus or might not even remember me).

This coincidence opened the way for a new understanding. It was the one event I needed to shatter the logic-based view of atheism forever. I know that atheists and agnostics dismiss coincidences as “just a coincidence” but when I think about how improbable that situation was, I knew that there was an unseen force in our world that works in a mysterious way that defies any sense of logic or mathematical probabilities.

When I was released from the doctor’s care, I dealt with another of the Navy’s bureaucracy…getting back to my command in La Maddalena. I had to wait on a MAC flight, with no guarantees that I would get on a specific flight. MAC flights were twice a week, if I remember correctly. I kept my command up to date on my status. The Yeoman I worked for kept referring to my stay in Naples as a boondoggle, which annoyed me. The Navy was keeping me in Naples. True, I took advantage of being in Naples by shopping in the Navy Exchange and buying the latest paperback novels in the Stars and Stripes Bookstore (which La Maddalena did not have) and eating at Wendy’s (no American fast food restaurants in La Madd either).

But I decided that rather than wait for a MAC flight, I would return on my own dime and get reimbursed. Talk about initiative! The Navy was giving me an extended “vacation” in Naples by delaying my MAC flight spot, but I used my own travel abilities to get back to my command.

In Rome, I stopped by the Mormon mission office to talk with John Adams, who didn’t remember me as much as I remembered him. Everyone was curious about this coincidence story and I got to see how a mission office operated. They even gave me an Italian language Book of Mormon. Normally, American missionaries aren’t permitted to use a military hospital, but since Adams was an Air Force dependent, he had an I.D. card that allowed him use of the hospital. Back in the seventh grade, my circle of friends were all sons of Air Force personnel, since our junior high school was near Offutt Air Force Base.

After the short visit, I made my way to Civitavecchia to catch the overnight ferry to Olbia, Sardinia. The next day, I caught the bus from Olbia to La Maddalena, and my trip was completed. Did I receive thanks from my Yeoman supervisor? Hell, no. He was a complete dick. He thought the whole thing was a scam to get a free vacation to Naples, even though I had medical documentation. I think in retrospect that he was jealous that I got to go to Naples while he had to work for two of us. Besides, it seemed like the universe conspired a way to get me to that place of having an amazing coincidence.

What does that coincidence mean? To be honest, even eighteen years later, I still haven’t a clue to the meaning. I did get a letter or two from John Adams after our meeting, but no friendship sustained itself, so that’s another dead end. The best answer I could come up with is that this coincidence was a wake up call. The kind that God knew I needed to experience for proof of the spiritual force that operates in our world. It was the coincidence that began a series of coincidences.

My eye returned to normal. I think my red eye lasted for three or four months. I still don’t know what was wrong with it. Its one of those spiritual mysteries, I suppose, whose sole purpose was to get me to Naples to be in the precise location to experience that coincidental meeting. I consider the coincidence in Naples to be the biggest one of my life.

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The 27 Club

Posted on July 23, 2011 by Trish and Rob

Singer Amy Winehouse, found dead in her London apartment, now joins the ranks of Kurt Corbain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Brian Jones – musicians who all died at the age of 27.


Kurt Corbain

 

 

Janis joplin

Jimi Hendrix

 

Jim Morrison

 

We wrote about The 27 Club in 7 Secrets, in the chapter on clusters, and here  on the blog. Charles R. Cross, who wrote biographies of both Cobain and Hendrix, wrote that the number of musicians who die at this age is “truly remarkable by any standard.”  Brian Jones and Jim Morrison actually died on the same date two years apart.

There’s quite a lot of information about this club on the internet. One website lists 34 musicians who died at the age of 27, dating back as far as 1892.

This website includes a partial list of names with dates, causes of death, and “claim to notability.”  And contrary to what you might assume based on the deaths of the more prominent members of this club, drug overdoses aren’t always the cause:

Roger Lee Durham, with Bloodstone, died in 1973 when he fell off a horse.

Arlester Christian 3/13/71 Shot. Vocalist of Dyke & the Blazers, was shot in 1971.

Linda Jones, an R&B singer, died while in a diabetic coma in 1972.

Alexander Bashlachev, a  Russian poet, rock musician and songwriter, committed suicide in 1988 by “jumping.”

So what’s the deeper message with The 27 Club?

 

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