The Curse of a Lost City

Posted on March 14, 2018 by Trish and Rob

“Deep in Honduras, in a region called La Mosquitia, lie some of the last unexplored places on earth.” That’s the first line of a non-fiction book, The Lost City of the Monkey God. It’s written by Douglas Preston, who is best known for his thrillers co-authored with Lincoln Child. Preston has also written several other non-fiction books, including The Monster of Florence.

Mosquitia covers 32,000 square miles of mostly dense jungle and is considered one of the most dangerous places in the world to travel. It’s also the home of a fascinating legend of a lost city called Ciudad Blanca or the “White City,” which is sometimes referred to as the Lost City of the Monkey God. The legend of a magnificent city, built by an unknown civilization, includes a curse. Those who enter the city and taste its “forbidden fruit” will be struck down, and possibly that is one reason that has kept treasure hunters from finding the ruins.

In 2015, Preston joined a team of archaeologists and other scientists to explore a site that had been discovered through satellite images and lidar, a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to detect hidden structures. Amazingly,  two lost cities were found in a hidden valley in Mosquitia, both built by an unknown culture that lived near and traded with the Mayan civilization to the north. Preston and the others arrived by helicopter to spend a week exploring the hidden ruins that were buried in a pristine rain forest untouched by humans for hundreds of years.

Two thirds of the book is a fascinating description of the adventure and the discovery of a cache of astonishing artifacts that is combined with tales of previous attempts to find the White City. The rest of the book is about what happened after the expedition. That’s when the ‘curse’ took effect and half of the members of the expedition, including Preston came away with a deadly disease with no cure called leishmaniasis. There are three strains of leish, the worst being one that can eat away at a person’s lips and nose and  palate ultimately causing the face to collapse if the disease goes untreated. Preston and the expedition were infected with this most serious strain.

Never heard of leishmania? Neither had I. This disease, though almost unknown in the western world, has been around for centuries, predominantly in the Third World. Its transmitted to humans by a sand flea that has bitten an infected rodent or other animal. The reason no cure has been found is that nearly all of those infected are poor. In other words, there’s no money to be made in a cure. Fortunately, there are treatments to slow the progress of the disease and send it into remission. That is what happened to Preston. He is cured, but uncertain whether or not the nasty lesion on his arm will reappear. It’s a continuing story.

Anyone care to take an adventure tour to Mosquitia?

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Howling at the Moon

Posted on March 12, 2018 by Trish and Rob

In our book 7 Secrets of Synchronicity, the fourth secret is The Creative: that creativity lies at the heart of synchronicity.

Creativity is like a wolf, howling at the moon. It surges up from somewhere deep within, you throw your head back, and this incredible sound rushes out into the world, transforming everything in its path.

It’s usually defined by four words that begin with “i:” imagination, inventiveness, inspiration, ingenuity. Synchronicity is rarely mentioned. And yet, creativity and synchronicity are like twins conjoined at the hip. They share organs, skin, blood, the life force. They complement and nurture each other. In fact, without meaningful coincidence, our creative endeavors often fall flat. We’re able to take an idea just so far and can’t make that final leap into something larger than ourselves that speaks to the human collective.

Creativity is the way your consciousness interacts with your physical environment to usher something new into the world. It’s a way of being, a lifestyle, a state of mind. It’s at work in every facet of your waking, conscious life and hums along while you sleep and dream. It’s your companion when you travel, when you undertake something new, when you fall in love. It’s the force behind everything you do.

Synchronicity is a jolt of energy that springs from a source underlying our daily world of cause and effect. When we’re in the midst of creative endeavors, startling and unlikely coincidences can occur with such frequency that our lives shift into a higher vibrational level where creative breakthroughs occur. When creativity and synchronicity are combined, your life becomes a journey toward greater happiness and profound emotional and spiritual fulfillment.

But what does it mean, really, to be creative? It’s not just writing or painting or taking photos or inventing a new way to power cars.  Creativity is also expressed by the small child when she discovers that her legs actually have a function and eagerly crawls around exploring the boundaries of her world.

It finds expression in a grandmother who creates elaborate collages from photos in the family album, or in the computer programmer who designs new software or a new app. The teacher who triggers excitement and curiosity in his students is just as creative as the shaman who makes it rain, the parent who finds a new way to communicate with a child, or as the adventurer who climbs Kilimanjaro just for the experience of doing so.

In Western society, we tend to believe that creativity is the exclusive domain of the Lennons, Spielbergs, Rowlings, Kings, Picassos, Streeps, Oprahs, and Harrison Fords of the world. We forget that we are all born creative, that if it weren’t for creativity, we would still be living in caves. At every step in our creative expression, synchronicity is there to guide us, inform us, and remind us that we are here to create and to do so joyfully.

Sure, there have been and are plenty of dysfunctional creative people – Nicola Tesla, despite his brilliance and creativity, battled constantly against poverty and emotional pain. Van Gogh chopped off his own ear and never made a penny from his art. F. Scott Fitzgerald drank himself into an early grave, Hemingway shot himself, and Sylvia Plath put her head in an oven and turned on the gas.

But for every creative misfit, there are countless other individuals who have the creative equivalent of the Midas touch, a magical something that transforms the mundane, the utterly ordinary, into something unique. When we enter their homes or workplaces, that magic is evident everywhere, an ineffable quality that’s hard to pin down. It touches something in that deeper part of ourselves, speaks to us at an intuitive level. We immediately sense they are connected to something larger than themselves, that that have tapped into a creative flow that spills over into every area of their lives.

Creativity is our birthright regardless of our culture, skin color, religious or political beliefs, the stuff that so often divides us. It is endemic to our humanity. It’s the grease in the cogs, the driving force of life, the very thing that makes us what we are. And synchronicity is its voice.

How do creativity and synchronicity work together in your life?

 

 

 

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Stormy Weather Indeed

Posted on March 10, 2018 by Trish and Rob

We don’t think we’ve ever written about synchronicity that combines the weather, politics and sex. But now we’ve got one. Starting with the weather, the week of March 5 has been a stormy one on the East Coast with the second Nor’easter hitting the region since the start of the month. The same region that was hit hard by Winter Storm Riley was pounded by Winter Storm Quinn this week, which brought heavy wet snow and power outages. Many households that had lost power from Riley lost it again this week.

Meanwhile, if you’ve been paying attention to the news this week, you’ve heard the whirlwind of stories about Stormy Daniels and her alleged affair with Donald Trump that took place the shortly after Melania gave birth to Baron, who is now twelve. One firm fact is that Donald Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen paid Stephanie Clifford (Stormy’s real name) was paid $130,000 during the presidential campaign in 2016 to keep her quiet. Apparently, it didn’t work. Although the story received little media attention in recent months, this week it finally broke out when Clifford’s lawyer filed a civil suit. It’s the same tactic that Trump often has used to draw attention to his issues.

Media headlines on more than one broadcast late this week were  saying that it “was a stormy week.” It was unclear whether they were referring to the Stormy Daniels fiasco and chaos in the White House, the Nor’easter, or all of the above!

Interestingly, it looks like we can expect more of the same next week as weather forecasts are predicting a third Nor’easter. The Stormy sex and politics scenario will probably continue into next week as well as the law suit against Trump will get more attention with hints by her lawyer that there are photos still to come out of the two together. A stormy time, indeed.

This week Trump raised tariffs on foreign governments igniting an economic war, and Thursday said he would meet with the North Korea’s Dictator Kim. Some talking heads are saying the abrupt moves were intended to shift the news cycle away from Stormy and the White House chaos and back to Trump. We just hope he doesn’t start a real war, if things get worse.  But ominously, as Bob Dylan once wrote and sang: “You don’t need a weatherman to tell which way the wind is blowing.”

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A Cluster Synchronicity

Posted on March 7, 2018 by Trish and Rob

You can listen here to our lively discussion with Bernard Beitman, MD, on his radio show Connecting with Coincidence.

We recently experienced a cluster synchronicity involving Bernard Beitman, a visiting psychiatrist at the University of Virginia and author of Connecting with Coincidence. He’s the first psychiatrist since Jung to undertake a serious study of coincidence/synchronicity. We got to know Bernard when he was writing his book and looking for an agent. Once the book found a home, Bernard landed his own radio show on synchronicity and we’ve been guests several times. His knowledge on the topic is vast and profound.

Here’s the cluster. On February 5, Trish emailed Bernard about a reference to him she had run across on an Australian friend’s blog – Brizzdaz – who also writes about synchronicity.

Hi Bernard,

Happy new year! Hope all is well with you!

Your name came up twice today – an Aussie friend mentioned a listening binge to all 48 of your broadcasts and loved them. Then I was looking at our stat counter and found that the DOD information network went to a post about you. Info listed below. The post they went to is here.

The DOD has come to our blog before, but usually related to posts on UFOs, aliens etc. Anyway, you’re now on their radar!

 Best,

Trish

 This email led to an invitation to appear on Bernard’s radio show. I should have known then that something more would develop from this. When we correspond with others who research synchronicity, there’s often a cluster involved.

On February 22, Rob wrote a post on a New York Times piece entitled The ‘Simpson’s’ Have Predicted a Lot. Most of It Can Be Explained. The title alone gives you an idea about the perspective they took on the subject.

As Rob notes in his post, “To balance the brilliant minds and large numbers explainations the article quoted our friend and author Bernard Beitman, who said: ‘Under the right conditions, we can know things that we don’t know we know, and we can sometimes predict events or attract what we are thinking.’”

The night before, Trish started teaching an astrology workshop in a closed Facebook group and on February 26, one of the women in the workshop, Stephanie, left the following comment on the post:

I have a synchro that just happened with this post! I just received an email from the Rhine Research Center telling me about Dr. Bernard Beitman (who I’d never heard of until now) about an upcoming event he’s holding on coincidence. This made me think of you guys, so I popped over to your website and you mentioned the same Dr. Bernard Beitman. I can’t make this stuff up…

The next day, February 27, Rob suddenly called out from his office, “Hey, a Facebook things just came up. Today is Bernard’s birthday.”

We’ll be on his show tomorrow, March 8. So far, I think the cluster has 7 synchros involved  since February 5. Will they continue?

 

 

 

 

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Unusual Name Synchro

Posted on March 6, 2018 by Trish and Rob

Name synchros are fun and usually grab our attention, particularly when the name is unusual. A little background on this one.

Megan’s friend, Chelsea, is getting married in April. This weekend, she and her bridal party got together for a bridal shower on Friday night and on Saturday, boarded a cruise ship for the Bahamas. The theme of Friday night’s shower was a British tea party (Chelsea’s mom is British), and Megan decided to have an alter ego, a British woman.

She asked Chelsea’s mom what would be a good British name for her. They decided on the name Gemma. Ever heard it? I hadn’t.

They drove to the port of Palm Beach Saturday morning. The cruise didn’t leave until evening, but passengers were allowed to board by 11 a.m. Saturday afternoon, we got a text from her with the above photo and a note:

Synchronicity!

My alter ego name last night was Gemma

We ended at a wine tasting here on the ship. The name of the woman serving us Gemma! She let me wear her name tag and pour the wine!

 So, what are the odds on that one? And was there an element of precognition in the choice of names for her alter ego?

 

 

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Unusual Flash Mob

Posted on March 4, 2018 by Trish and Rob

Thanks to Sheila Joshi for sending this!

 

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2 Paranormal Thrillers

Posted on March 3, 2018 by Trish and Rob

                  

We have a new novel out – The Fifth Essence – and a novel, U R miNe, now in trade paperback. Both novels reflect our interests in synchronicity and in the paranormal and what fun they were to write!

 The Fifth Essence. The core of this story is about alchemy. It’s set on Miami Beach in the early 1990s:

Why did a chemistry professor write a text on a medieval practice from the viewpoint of a practitioner? And why would a chemist for a suntan lotion company take such an interest in that professor and her hobby three and half decades later? Finally, and most important, why did they both vanish and where did they go? That was what Miami Beach private detective Nicholas Pierce was trying to figure out when he realized that it was no coincidence that two police detectives investigating the case had been found dead.

 U R miNe is a paranormal thriller:

A serial killer is stalking blondes in the central Florida city of Oxford and his MO is eerily consistent. On a new or full moon, he sends his target a stalker letter that implies he has been watching her, that he knows her schedule, that she is his. Two weeks later, on a new or full moon, the woman becomes his “lunar kill,” a sacrifice to the Roman goddess Diana that satisfies the dark urge that drives him. When 27-year-old Laurie Brautigan, a blonde artist and dog walker, receives a stalker letter on the day of a new moon, she initially thinks it’s a cruel joke perpetrated by someone she knows. But Detective Nick Finley, who has been investigating these murders for months, convinces her otherwise, and Laurie’s life is turned inside out by terror and suspicion.

What the killer doesn’t know is that both Laurie and Nick possess rare talents that they struggle to keep secret. She’s a psychic whose specialty is animal communication and Nick, the son of two mediums, talks to the dead. When Laurie reads the only witness to the murders, a dog that belonged to one of the victims, the dead begin talking to Nick. Racing against time to find the killer before the full moon, the very talents Laurie and Nick have tried to keep secret not only draw them together, but become their greatest allies.

A huge thank you to David Dodd, the illustrator for Crossroad Press, for the fantastic covers.

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Full Moon in Virgo

Posted on March 1, 2018 by Trish and Rob

 

Each month, there are two lunar events worth noting in astrology– new moons and full moons. New moons – next one is in Pisces on March 17 – are times when new opportunities manifest themselves. Doors open. New chapters begin. New energy is born.

Full moons – today – generally mean harvest and also illuminate parts of our lives we don’t usually see – good parts, not so good parts, the moon doesn’t care. Sometimes people go a little nuts on full moons, which is why emergency rooms are generally so busy on these nights. But when a full moon spells harvest, there’s usually positive news of some kind.

So tonight, March 1, at 7:51 p.m. eastern, there will be a full moon in earth sign Virgo. As a sign, Virgo is a master of details with perfectionist tendencies, often sees nuances that others miss, can be very self-critical and overly analytical. But the sign also possesses such precision that when these qualities are applies to an artistic/creative venture, the results can be astonishing.

These qualities also make it easier to manifest your desires during a full moon in Virgo. Especially during this one. It forms a beneficial angle – trine, 120 degrees- to Saturn in Capricorn. Saturn doesn’t have the greatest reputation in astrology, but when you consider that it rules the physical world, we wouldn’t be here without it. It also rules foundations, tangible reality, responsibility, discipline, endurance. And, it helps to solidify your dreams. So, March 1 is a great for manifestation! Just be very clear in your own mind, within your owns emotions, what you hope to create.

This full moon is also opposed to Neptune in Pisces, so there can be emotional confusion or lack of information in a relationship or surrounding an event. So step out into nature with some good music on your phone and start walking! If the weather where you live isn’t conducive to being outside, then find a spot inside where you can curl up. Or go to a museum, a movie, get lost in a good book.

This full moon should be especially good for anyone with a Virgo sun, moon, or rising, and for Capricorns, Tauruses, and the water signs… possible exception there is Pisces. You air and fire signs – the rest of the zodiac – have Virgo somewhere in your charts. If you don’t have a birth chart, you can get one free here.

Take note of where Virgo – falls in your chart. The house where you find it will be impacted by this full moon.

 

 

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Animals sensing the future

Posted on February 28, 2018 by Trish and Rob

Powder cat, figuring how to get off the couch

+++

Animals  live in a universe of synchronicity. They are so fully present in the moment that they seem to swim in the flow of time, regardless of where they are or what they’re doing. With dogs, you watch them playing and you see it. You watch them sniffing, hunting, racing across a lawn, a dog park, barking and jumping at squirrels, or just lying in full contentment after a full day and that now presence is obvious. And within that presence, they sometimes sense the future.

On Sunday, February 11, after returning from Orlando, it was obvious that our cat, Powder, at least 18, perhaps as old as 19, was dying. She’d been ailing for 4 or 5 years with thyroid problems, was nearly blind, and didn’t do much of anything except sleep and eat. I considered taking her to the vet to be put to sleep, but felt this would traumatize her. So I brought her outside with me and we sat in the sun, beneath a cloudless blue sky, with Powder in my lap for a long time. I talked to her, loved on her, asked her to return to us.

At one point, she squirmed to be let down, so I set her on the ground by the patio table and went inside for some water. When I came back out, she was gone. I couldn’t imagine how she’d moved anywhere so quickly, but figured she’d headed for the nearby bushes and shrubs. I found her deep in the greenery. She’d crawled into a deep hole the dogs had dug under the house, lying in the cool dirt, breathing hard.

That was when I knew for sure she was ready to move on – and that the dogs had known this before me and maybe before Powder herself had known. I picked her up and carried her back onto the porch and set her on a cushion where the dogs sometimes sleep. And then I broke down, sobbing, and Nika, Noah, and Nigel came over, licking me, licking Powder, saying good-bye to her.

In all the years we’d had her, she was the most tolerant animal in our household. Bring in a dog, a bird, another cat, a hamster, fish, a guinea pig, that was fine with Powder. She welcomed them into the fold. In 2007, the night before we had to put down our Golden Retriever Jessie, Powder knew. She curled up next to Jessie and spent the entire night with her. When our black and white tuxedo cat, Whiskers, and later, our orange tabby Simba joined the clan, Powder welcomed them. When we got Noah, then Nika, then Nigel, Powder was the welcoming committee.

After she died, I wrapped her up and buried her in the hole under the house that the dogs had already dug for her. Rob had to cover it with bricks so the dogs or other animals can’t dig into it, and I’m on a hunt for the right potted flower for that spot.

This happened 4 days before the solar eclipse on Feb 15, an event often preceded by or coinciding with external events that force us to release something so that new opportunities can be ushered into our lives.

The day before the solar eclipse, the Parkland mass murder of 17 people happened, and perhaps, finally, this horror will result in tighter gun control laws. The day after the eclipse, today, Mueller indicted 13 Russians for interfering in the 2016 election and those indictments pretty much put an end to trump’s endless tweets about how this Russia stuff is all a witch hunt.

The personal, the global.

RIP, Powder. We hope you’ll be around soon!

 

 

 

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Really? You’ll shoot my dog?!

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Trish and Rob

 

Around 9 p.m. on Friday, February 23, we were working in our respective offices and Rob suddenly said, “Hey, there’s someone out in the yard.”

Our yard is completely fenced, and to get into you either have to jump the fence or open the gate next to the garage. As soon as Rob said this, I noticed flashlights outside my window.

We both shot toward the closest outside door – to the porch and to the pool area, with the dogs right behind us. Nigel saw the men first and raced outside, barking ferociously, with Nika and Noah right behind him, howling up a storm. A porch light was on, but it was dark beyond it and all we saw were two figures with guns. Then we realized they were cops and those guns were out, ready to shoot.

One of them said, “Ma’am, restrain your dog or I’m going to shoot it.”

Huh? Really, you asshole?

I hurried over to Nigel, grabbed his collar and tried to pull him back onto the porch. Rob was herd in Nika and Noah away from the cops. “What’s going on?” I asked.

“I apologize for snapping at you like that, ma’am, but there’s been a robbery nearby and the suspect ran through your yard. Please go inside and lock your doors and don’t come out.”

Well, he apologized, but the bottom line is that if we owned a gun, Rob would have grabbed it and headed out onto the porch with it and probably gotten shot. As we stayed inside, watching the cops through the windows, we saw their German shepherd, on a scent that led them the length of our pool and then into the jungle of plants beyond it.

They stayed out in the yard for 10 or 15 minutes, combing through the jungle of plants, our dogs barking fiercely inside the house, then heard a chopper circling overhead. It circled for a long time and the cops eventually left. No explanation about who had been robbed or where this robbery had taken place.

Our daughter, Megan, posted the incident on her Facebook page. She knows attorneys and asked for their take. Ross Berlin, whom she has known since high school and who we consider to be a kind of son, is now an attorney in Minnesota. Here’s his take:

I’m not barred in Florida, but generally speaking, your parents have a right to privacy in the curtilage of their home. The curtilage includes a porch and a patio, but the law is more forgiving to police officers when it comes to yards, even when there is a fence, although your parents’ yard is quite small and therefore all of that may be curtilage, but the only near-guarantee I can make is that the screened-in portion of the back patio is the curtilage.

Add to this the fact that the officers were searching for someone I’m 99% sure they would claim to be dangerous. That means the “exigent circumstances” exception to the warrant requirement kicks in, which allows police to be basically wherever if they have probable cause to believe that danger is imminent. And even if your parents’ rights were violated in this situation, the police are largely immune from civil suit if they violate your rights but do so in the performance of their official duties, which this situation seems to fall into.

Your parents will likely not be able to recover compensation simply because the police frightened them and threatened the dog. So, in sum, it was probably legal under the exigent circumstances exception, and if it wasn’t, there is likely no remedy. This was clearly traumatizing and scary, and I’m sure they feel awful about it. Unfortunately, the best we can do if the police show up at our door is tell them they may not enter the home without a warrant.

So, in other words, if the cops are chasing a suspect they consider to be dangerous, it doesn’t matter if they trespass onto your property and threaten to shoot your dog because…well, that’s how they protect you.

Really? To me, this felt like a police state.

 

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