Synchronicities pop up for readers

Posted on May 27, 2010 by Trish and Rob

When you’re aware of synchronicity, those meaningful coincidences seem to materialize more often. That in a nutshell is the first secret from The 7 Secrets of Synchronicity. So now we’re getting reports of people experiencing synchronicity while actually reading the book. Here are two such stories we received Wednesday, and oddly enough they are even synchronistically connected. I’ll explain that part at the end.

The first one comes from Adele Aldridge.
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Holy Moley! Another mini synchronicity to report to you about 7 Secrets. 

I’ve been in a funk.  I have a million things to do. I don’t feel like doing any of them and have had this feeling for a few days now – not rational. I didn’t even go to a new yoga group I scheduled on my calendar for this morning.

So in despair I decided to take a break and read some more of 7 Secrets and ignore my long ToDo list. At least I would be doing something. I even thought to myself, “Am I depressed? I feel numb – not attached to any feeling – just not feeling like doing.

So I took myself outside with your book – reading all the many varieties of synchronicities. I came to the part about unlocking one’s creativity when one has a block. You say, ” . . . move away from your workplace and listen to what other people are saying . . . catch a few phrases . . . look for hidden hints. . .”

I read on a little more and thought, “Well that isn’t going to work for me right now because I’m not going to be seeing anyone and blah blah blah.” I decided I would just have to accept this revolting state of ennui. For a Leo with Aries rising, ennui feels like sickness.

It was getting hot so after reading on a bit more, and thinking that while I experience a ton of synchronicities all the time, today can’t be one of them no matter what Rob and Trish advise.

I went straight to my computer and looked at my Facebook page which was on the screen. Staring at me was a message, written just about the time I was reading your book. It read:

“Emily Cordes okay, so this is for those who’ve seen Indiana Jones 4: Do you think I look like (older) Marion? Because I got cast as her stand-infor a movie being shot here in Pittsburgh! I’m thrilled to get thispart, but is it good that they’re using me to stand in for a middle-aged lady?”

Well I have no idea who Emily Cordes is. She’s recently in my “friend’s” list to do with the arts. I have never seen a message from her before, I don’t know her or have any personal connection with her.

But I thought it damn strange that the first thing my eyes floated to after putting your book down was someone talking about Indiana Jones.  And if I had not been reading your book and grumbling to myself about myself, I would have dismissed this message.  I think the message is from you saying – “O.K. if you don’t feel like doing anything, it is just fine to read my book and report on it. You are doing what you are supposed to be doing” 🙂
***
So that rang a bell for Adele. As she said, if she wasn’t reading the book, the message from mysterious Emily would have been meaningless.

Later in the day, an e-mail arrived from Dale Dassel. Here’s what he had to say.
***
I received Seven Secrets today from Amazon.com, and have been reading it non-stop since I got home from work. Excellent stuff! Just a minute ago, while reading the page about numerical Attunement, I happened to glance at the page number (which I never do), and laughed when I saw that it was page 111. Thanks for that!
 Strange universe we live in, eh? 🙂
***
The story that Dale is referring to is one from Jenean Gilstrap (Gypsy Woman) that involves the following sets of numbers: 222, 444, 666, and 888. If you want to know the whole story, you’ll have to look it up. It’s on page – ah -111.

So how are these two stories linked besides being about the book? At the heart of Adele’s story is a reference to Indiana Jones, and Dale Dassel, without a doubt, is the most hard-core Indiana Jones fan
I’ve ever encountered, and believe me, I’ve met a bunch of them. That’s Dale in the photo above.

To top it off, while writing this post, someone named Dave put up a comment on a post dated May 30, 2009–almost a year ago. The name of that post: Indiana Jones and the Last Synchronicity. Yikes!
 – R




ADDENUDM
After writing that post last night, I went to bed and picked up a novel I’d started recently called Radix by Brett King. I opened it, and noticed I was coming up to part 2 in a few pages. The name of part 2: Synchronicity.

Posted in 7 Secrets, Indiana Jones, readers | 15 Comments

Lost, the Finale

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Trish and Rob

When the TV show, Lost, started six years ago, Megan was 14. The three of us were diehard fans, tuning in each week to find out what the survivors of Oceanic flight 813 were going to do next.

As the series progressed, synchronicities among the characters proliferated. We understood they were all connected in some way. But by season two, Rob and I were kind of annoyed by the show. It was obvious the writers had, well, LOST their way, that although the concept had been cool, its execution just didn’t cut it. There were too many reruns.

My editor at the time, Kate Duffy, was also a fan of Lost. We used to touch base after various episodes and speculate about what it all meant. The last time I saw her before she passed away, at a romance writers’ conference in Daytona, we watched one of the episodes together and talked about a lot of weird stuff. That was the thing about Lost. You couldn’t watch it without talking about the weirdness, without speculating about the nature of reality. She and I agreed that it was all an afterlife scenario, that the characters had died in the crash, and that their issues and concerns kept them where they were until they could figure it out.

Rob and I have bee faithful, but critical fans. This last season has been sort of like the last season of X-Files, disjointed, floundering,  as if the writers didn’t really grasp the larger picture. But we loved the idea of Lost, the characters, the strangeness. So we kept watching.Tonight, when Rob, Megan, and one of her friends and I watched the finale of Lost, I felt that Kate was there, too. I felt she was in the room, munching on strawberries dipped in honey, sipping wine, enthralled.

Even though her interest in the show waned when the writers were trying to figure out where they were taking these characters, I knew she would want to know how it ended. Kate was always keen on endings, how the loose ends were tied up, how stuff came together.  And I think she would be pleased with how the writers pulled all the threads together – maybe not surprised, not shocked, but pleased. And for Kate, that’s saying something.

And for us in our living room tonight, the Lost finale delivered.  The story came full circle, myth and reality melted together in a way that the X-Files never did. I’m sorry to see this series end. And I can hear Kate, wherever she is, thinking, “Next?”

Posted in afterlife, Kate Duffy, lost, story, TV | Leave a comment

The Tarot Speaks

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Trish and Rob

Technically, this post is synchronicity because Jung considered divination to fall under it. I don’t know if he was thinking specifically about the tarot when he made that decision, but since he wrote the intro to Wilhelm’s edition to the I Ching, an ancient Chinese divination system, I don’t think he’s turning in his grave about this post!

Curious about the top kill procedure that BP is planning to use today to stop the gushing geyser in the gulf, I found two interest sites – here, where Jacques Cousteu’s grandson take a dive into the muck – and this explanation from CNN.  

Please click both links before you read on. Once I watched the CNN video, I decided to do a tarot reading on it. I don’t ordinarily like to do this kind of thing because my emotional investment in the outcome may influence the cards I select. This is why it’s so difficult to read for yourself or for people you love. But oh well, I did it. My question was: Will the top kill procedure work?

This spread is called the ladle spread and is from the book I co-authored with Phyllis Vega, Power Tarot. The position meanings are, from the left: 1) the issue 2) hidden potential 3) what’s emerging 4) what’s visible 5) what you pull out; 6) resolution

1) So let’s start with the issue. The 10 of wands.  A burden. Well, that’s a no-brainer. This burden is so huge that  it’s costing BP zillions. So the issue card fits.

2) Hidden potential, The Hermit: Okay, if it doesn’t work, then BP becomes Diogenes, searching the world for a truth- i.e.,  WHAT MAY WORK.

3) What’s emerging: The Star. This card is right up there with the wish card, the 9 of cups. The solution looks good, positive, amazing. Careers are saved. The environment is salvaged. It looks as if it stops the leak. (Then again, this could be my desire my speaking, that’s what’s tricky here) It may stop the leak long enough so that planetary healing begins.

4) Ace of Wands. What’s visible. What’s visible is that most of the damage isn’t visible. It looks like a walk in the park, a new beginning, hopeful. But is it?

5) 2 cups. I love this card. In this position, what you scoop out, the most important card in the spread. 2 cups, to me, is about unions, marriage, coming together. This is positive, folks. It looks like it’s the solution.

6) 8 pentacles. Resolution. They (BP, the engineers working on this) are novices at this solution stuff, grappling in the dark, it unsettles me. I would prefer to see something a lot more uplifting here. Since this card left me so uneasy, I drew another card to open up the 8 of pentacles. It was The Fool. I’d post it, but my BlackBerry took an awful, washed out photo.

The Fool is the beginning of the tarot, card zero, the new journey. Usually, to me, it’s a positive card, indicative of a new journey, new horizons (no pun intended) though somewhat naive, innocent. Everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief.

But the fact  that the photo was washed out bothers me. I think the BP solutions works – for awhile. Maybe it buys us some time to do cleanup, to tend to the wildlife, the marshes, the beaches, the damage. But then it’s a washout. I hope I’m wrong about that last part. I hope other people have greater, more positive insights that reassure us the gulf won’t end up as a dead sea, that we’ll get a second chance.

Posted in divination, oil spill, tarot | 28 Comments

Magic Child

Posted on May 25, 2010 by Trish and Rob

from soul cards
 

This synchro-tale was a comment under our recent post God’s Eye. It comes from Debra Page at mythic musing and refers to her daughter Laryssa, the magical child in the title, who died when she was barely two years old.
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 Though I am now Vjrayana Buddhist, I have always viewed life as a spiritual quest. Trish and Rob told a story on this site of synchronicities that happened after my baby daughter Laryssa had died.

Her (almost) 2 years on this Earth were filled with synchros. My husband and I kept her at home with us as much as possible. Caring for her was difficult. There was no medical protocol for her rare condition. One of those very long, grueling days, there was a knock at the front door.This was unusual because we had a security gate and a doorbell. I opened the door and a short, older man stood there. He said “I know it’s hard to tell right now, but God really loves you.” I cried. He left. I never saw him again.
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We asked Debra if she ever found out who he was. Her response:

“I never found out. We lived in that neighborhood for 11 years. Never saw him. I secretly imagined he worked at the hospice, or some other agency, because the OTHER idea was so fantastic. But Laryssa’s life was full of these mysteries, for everyone involved.”

Posted in children, laryssa, parents | 12 Comments

Death of the Gulf?

Posted on May 24, 2010 by Trish and Rob

The geyser of oil gushing from 5,000 feet beneath the gulf appears to be getting worse by the day. According to an article in the Times Online UK, there’s far more oil spewing into the gulf than BP has admitted.

Reporter Frank Pope took a sports fishing boat out into the gulf to take a closer look. On board with him was  a marine toxicologist from the Marine Environmental Research Institute, Susan Shaw. They traveled 18 miles out into the gulf, into a restricted zone. Pope says they saw only two cleanup vessels out of the 1,150 that are supposedly on site – one was broken down and the other boat was towing it. Overhead was a dispersant-spraying aircraft. The stink, even 18 miles out, was horrendous.

“Oil has been prevented from reaching the surface by dispersants injected into the flow some 5,000 ft below,” Pope wrote, “but is spreading through the midwater in vast, dilute plumes.”

Pope and Dr. Shaw donned wet suits and snorkels, coated their exposed skin in Vaseline, and slipped into the water. They went down 12 meters – about 36 feet. Among the specks of sludge, Pope wrote, “…are those of a different hue. These are wisps of drifting plankton, the eggs and larvae of fish and the microscopic plants and animals that form the base of almost all marine food webs. Any plankton-eating fish would now have trouble distinguishing food from poison, let alone the larger filter-feeders…  Here, just a few feet beneath the surface, a much bigger disaster is unfolding in slow motion.”

Pope’s companion, Dr. Shaw, summed up this unimaginable catastrophe: “The situation in the water column is horrible all the way down. Combined with the dispersants, the toxic effects of the oil will be far worse for sea life. It’s death in the ocean from the top to the bottom.”

 So far, BP is still in charge of the cleanup. As one commentator said, that’s like putting the murderer in charge of the investigation.
 ***
Sadly, all the scientific forecasts and psychic predictions that we’ve heard over the past 25-30 years are coming true. Both natural and man-made disasters  are taking their tolls. Now, if a hurricane sweeps through the Gulf of Mexico, of course the disaster will be compounded. Astonishingly, there was only enough oil in the Gulf for one year of consumption in the U.S., and no guarantee that it would be sold here. Yet, we were willing to take the chance of destroying an ocean.

 There are better and cleaner sources of energy available that need to be developed. The universe is abundant, and off course, so is energy. But we are focused on one particular dwindling resource. It’s mankind’s limited thinking that keeps us addicted to oil as the major energy source and not the lack of possibilities to fuel the world, and do it cleanly…and greenly.

Posted in oil spill | 40 Comments

Billboard Man

Posted on May 24, 2010 by Trish and Rob

Over the past year, Adele Aldridge has sent us several interesting synchronicities that we’ve posted. However, one of the best, a very personal tale, that we call Billboard Man, was saved for the book. We’d told Adele that a couple of her stories had made it into the book, but didn’t tell her which ones. So it was interesting what happened the day her copy of the book arrived. We’ll let her tell the story.
***

A rushed note to tell you that my copy of The 7 Secrets of Synchronicity just landed in my mail box. I will review it on my blog as soon as I get a chance to read it.

Of course I immediately had to skip to the parts where my synchronicity stories are mentioned to see what you used.

So now, in the short while that I have your book in my hands, I have to report another possible synchronicity. The day is cloudy and a bit muggy here, making me sleepy after doing a lot of work. This afternoon, before the book arrived, I was compelled to lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 

Whenever that kind of sleep overtakes me in the daytime, my sleep is deeper than when I sleep at night. I came out of it not knowing where I was for a moment and recalling that I was dreaming about J—–, a man I have not laid eyes on for twenty years. I thought, “Uuuummmm, WHAT?!” I don’t even remember the content, just the presence. A little later I got my mail and your book and read the part about how I spit at the man on the billboard and then met nine years later. Same man from this afternoon’s dream!

So, perhaps this is not a synchronicity but merely my unconscious realizing that your book was in the mail to me and that story might be in it. Still . . . interesting. And weird.

The other thing that struck me in just reading that section about me and Mr. Billboard is that I have a different take on my own synchronicity than you do, in terms of the feelings involved. I don’t know if I should write about that as part of the review or make it a separate discussion. Maybe making it separate would be better because that way I can write about your book twice.

My take on my Billboard man has to do with my experience with dreams. I am reluctant to go into that on my I Ching Meditations blog because dreams are a big subject in themselves, and one of my top interests along with the I Ching and art. 
***
Well, we think it’s a synchronicity, especially since we never posted that story. We would tell the whole story here–it’s quite startling–but no…we’ll just say you can find this one on pages 35-37 of the book. 😉
***
ADDENDUM
Adele tells me that I posted the wrong Winston Man. Here’s the poster of the man who affected her so strongly…and the man she later met…and much more. From our perspective, he looks like a typical polo player and winter resident of our village.


Posted in Adele aldridge, Billboard man, dreams | 3 Comments

Copp’s Hill Burial Ground

Posted on May 23, 2010 by Trish and Rob

One of the best things about blogging is the comments people make.  On this blog, it usually means the comment is a synchronicity story. I enjoyed this story from glimmer . The players are: incredible odds, a graveyard, a name.

The graveyard is  known as the Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, and as glimmer pointed out in her synchronicity, it’s the second oldest in Boston. It dates back to 1659 and is named after William Copp, who once owned the land. Thousands of artisans, crafts people and merchants are buried here.

On the Snowhill Street side of this cemetery are thousands of unmarked graves of African Americans who lived in the “New Guinea” area at the base of the hill. The most interesting residents, at least to me, are the Mather family of ministers – you know, the guys involved in the Salem witch trials, the inquisitors who believed in employing various torture techniques to determine whether you were a witch.At any rate, the synchro makes you wonder how often these kinds of things happen in old graveyards.
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I was in Boston, being given a tour by my husband’s good friend. I was telling him about my ancestors, saying “we’re mostly southerners, but a ship was blown off course in a storm during the colonial days and a bunch of C’s ended up in this area.” Something like that.

I had never been to Boston. We were in the second oldest graveyard there, the one overlooking the harbor. As I told him this story, I looked down to see a small gravestone with the words “Elijah C…. 1800 and something” the C was my last name. Not a usual last name, at all. This was obviously an ancestor.

We could not believe it. My husband’s friend has added this story and the grave to his little tour!
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This could be one of those trickster synchros – a bit bizarre, but trickster nonetheless!

Posted in graveyards, names, odds | 12 Comments

The Man in Her Bedroom

Posted on May 22, 2010 by Trish and Rob

Lisa Pembleton is a horse person who spent the past winter living in her camper, about a mile from us, parked next to the barn where her horse was stabled. She’s in her early 20s and hopes to be an Olympic equestrian.

She drove to Wellington, Florida in her camper with her cat Sylvester. Behind her, she pulled a trailer with her two horses, Jubal and Geno. Like a lot of these wealthy kids, who hang out here in the winter, she spent her days riding and her nights with friends or in her camper, checking on her horses from time to time.

In early February, Lisa had a dream of a guy coming into her camper in the middle of the night, waking her and saying he was in an accident and needed a phone. Instead of her cell phone, she reached for her mace and told the man to get out.

One week later, it happened. When she awoke to find the man in her bedroom, he said he’d just been in an ‘end of the world’ accident and needed to use her phone. But Lisa didn’t mace him. She handed him her cell and he called his girlfriend, then 911 to report the accident. Lisa, who seems very religious, and writes about going to church on her blog, was glad it didn’t happen exactly like the dream. “By God’s grace my response was different.” She added: “The only thing I regret is while I was with him for about half hour, before the authorities came, I never prayed with him.”

Now when I explain who the man is and what he did, you might think, “The hell with praying with him. You should’ve maced him like you did in the dream.” You be the judge.

The man who came into her bedroom that night is Wellington polo mongul John Goodman. He was very drunk and had just killed a new college graduate coming home from Orlando for his sister’s birthday. Goodman drove his Bentley through a stop sign, slammed into Scott Wilson’s Honda, flipping it over and over and into a canal where Wilson drowned.

Apparently, too inebriated to try to save Wilson, Goodman fled the scene and found Lisa Pendleton. He told authorities that Lisa gave him an alcoholic beverage to calm his nerves. But Lisa doesn’t drink.

So you would expect that Goodman would’ve been arrested on the spot like any other person who commits vehicular homicide while intoxicated. Nope. Goodman, a billionaire from Texas, kept walking.  You see, he has some influence around here. He owns the Palm Beach International Polo Club, –a state-of-the-art facility and the world center of winter polo. His adjacent estate is so large that people sometimes mistakenly drive into it looking for the polo stadium.

The polo facility and the estate are located about a mile from the site of the accident. Over the past weeks, we’ve driven numerous times past the crash site and always noticed the stand of wreaths and flowered crosses near the canal where Scott Wilson died, a reminder of not only the accident but that Goodman was still free.

The Palm Beach Post published regular updates on the case and questioned why Goodman hadn’t been charged. But Goodman’s luck ran out this week. On May 20, more than three months after the accident, he was arrested and charged with DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide. He walked a few hours later on a $100,000 bond.

More details have emerged. Before the 1:30 a.m. accident, Goodman reportedly had been drinking at a restaurant called the Player’s Club.We know the place. It’s located less than half a mile from our house, closer than any restaurant. But Trish and I have only been there two or three time in ten years. It’s very expensive, very exclusive. How exclusive? You have to pay $10,000 a year for a good table in the upstairs dining and disco area. Lesser tables cost two grand a year. Peons can stand up for free and listen to the music. We’ve never gone to the disco, standing or sitting. We’ve eaten lunch there once, dinner another time. The food was excellent. The prices were eye-popping.

But back to Lisa Pendleton. She recently wrote on her blog: “By the way, I did not get scared at all, that is God’s peace.”

A friend responded, “Wow! I am so excited about all the doors God is opening for you!…Obviously God thinks it is very important. How awesome that He prepared you.”

We wonder what Scott Wilson’s mom thinks about  that. She sees doors closing, the sky falling, and her son, who was about Lisa’s age, in a grave.

Is there a disparity in this country about how justice is administered? You bet. If your son or daughter or you yourself had slammed into Scott’s car, causing it to plunge into a canal, causing Scott to drown, and your blood alcohol level was through the roof and you fled the scene, where would you be tonight? Not out on a six-figure bond. You’d be sitting in a jail cell, bond denied, awaiting trial.

Posted in around town, dreams, polo | 13 Comments

First comments on the book!

Posted on May 21, 2010 by Trish and Rob

Even though the official pub date for The 7 Secrets of Synchronicity is  June 1, some readers are already finding copies from both Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble. Robert Larson, who has a story in chapter one, called The Three Roberts, is anxious to get the book, but said he’s determined to wait until it is available from Garrison Keillor’s Common Good Books. (I think it’s already there.)

Meanwhile, here are the first comments we’ve received. One from author Teri Patrick, the other from NYT best-selling novelist Nancy Pickard. Thanks!


A fresh and fascinating expedition into the most provocative and hopeful possibilities of consciousness.  I couldn’t put it down or stop thinking about it.  Written in clear, lucid, and entertaining style, it’s a great companion to take along on the trail where magic morphs into meaning.

– Nancy Pickard

More than Secrets!, May 20, 2010

This review is from: The 7 Secrets of Synchronicity: Your Guide to Finding Meaning in Signs Big and Small (Hardcover)

What is synchronicity?
It can work for you to help you create a life full of wonder and personal power.
Start with:
THE 7 SECRETS OF SYNCHRONICITY
– your guide to finding Meaning in Signs, Big and Small

Trish and Rob MacGregor have collected rich stories from people in all walks of life who pay attention to signs and coincidences that matter to them. The book is informative and personable as it weaves many stories with philosophies and practical steps to enhance synchronicity in our days. To do so makes living life so much more fun and poignant.

What’s awesome about this book is how it includes history, literature, science, technology, nature, and politics with stories of bicycles, t-shirts, jams, pets and TV shows. All these connect through synchronicity to reveal a greater connection in our world that is often unnoticed. This books shows the reader how to notice, and why it truly matters.
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Okay, enough self-promotion. It’s word-of-mouth from here on, guys.

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

The uncanny 11:11

Posted on May 21, 2010 by Trish and Rob

We thought we’d posted enough 11:11 synchronicities  and wouldn’t be going there for awhile, but then along came a startling story by Jane Clifford of Wales. So here we are taking exit 11 again on The Synchronicity Highway. (That’s the working title of our second synchronicity book, BTW.)
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When my Dad was dying we met as a family in a cottage on a beach so he could be by the sea for the last time. I spent 3 days there. The morning I was leaving my departure was delayed waiting for my niece so I could say goodbye. Finally I jumped in my car to leave,glanced at the clock as I started the engine and it was 11:11. I stayed with a friend that night to break my journey home,he delayed my departure the next morning,as I started the car it was 11:11.

I was fairly weary when I got home after my journey,in bed that night glanced at the clock,yep 11:11 again! Next morning slept in late,woke with a start looked at the clock & yep 11:11 again!  I have heard among other things that an awareness of 11:11 precedes a shift in consciousness; certainly as Dad approached his death I was  undergoing a shift in my understanding and consciousness.The 11:11 thing has happened intermittently since then. Also,  10:10 and sometimes 01.01.

Just a quick clock story too. I have had a modern battery driven wall clock a fake antique look with a pendulum below which has never worked in the 23 years I have had this clock. Twice a year the clock is removed from the wall for the equinox time change and put back, the pendulum never worked. In March it was lifted down to change the time to GMT, the pendulum has been going ever since! I think it’s my Dad who died last October, he liked things to work properly. Yesterday my son and I were talking about him and the ticking of this clock got so loud we could hear it in the next room! Later we went to a spiritualist meeting and he gave us messages through the medium. He didn’t  say anything about the clock but I have a feeling he might when he gets a chance. The extra loud ticking lasted a couple of hours, but it back to  normal today, and the pendulum is still working.

Does anyone out there have stories of clocks stopping or starting connected with deaths in the family?

Posted in 11s, death | 21 Comments