Trickster and the Burning House

Posted on November 12, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Trickster synchronicities are usually ironic in some way. But sometimes  they seem to be unnecessarily cruel, too, as in this next story, which came from MSNBC.
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Last month, at 10:45 on a Friday night, Mike Bowes, a Massachusetts 911 operator, took a call about a blazing house fire in Quincy.  It turned out to be his home that was burning.

“It’s surreal,” the 11-year-veteran told Amy Robach on TODAY Thursday. “First you don’t believe it. You hear it, but it’s not registering. Then you see it on the screen and you realize … ‘It’s MY house!’ ”

According to neighbors, the house where Bowes has lived with his parents for  more than 20 years looked like it had been in an explosion. When the 911  switchboard lit up with calls about the inferno after the blaze ignited, one of those calls came from his own mother.“I didn’t take that call,” Bowes told Robach. “There were five of us working. Another dispatcher turned around and said: Your mother’s on the phone … it IS your house.”
Bowes’ first concern was for his parents’ safety, but he also was committed to doing his job.“You can’t just run out,” he said. “You can’t leave everybody else and leave the city shorthanded and without help.”

One of the other dispatchers took the call – and Mike’s first concern was for  for his parents’ safety, but he also was committed to doing his job.

“You can’t just run out,” he said. “You can’t leave everybody else and leave the city shorthanded and without help.”

Putting things into their proper perspective, Mike’s sergeant immediately stepped in and told him to go the scene and see to his family’s safety. The dispatcher who had spent his career helping people in distress suddenly needed help himself. “Within seconds, my sergeant said, ‘Go! We’ll take care of everything here.’ ”

The second layer of this synchronicity occurred as Bowes was rushed to the blaze in a police car, arriving in just 3 minutes.“You could actually see the orange glow coming from a distance,” he said.  “My main concern was my parents. As I came around the corner I saw my father standing out on the street and my mother was right behind him.”

In fact, everyone in the house had escaped unharmed. Relieved at finding his mother and father safe, Bowes was met with yet another incredible coincidence when he arrived at the scene. His cousin Tom Bowes is a Quincy firefighter.. “He was the first firefighter on the scene. He could see the fire as he left the station. As he came down the hill … he knew it was our house.”

Bowes and his family are left with the sobering realization that the house was totally destroyed by the fire; in fact, Bowes appeared on TODAY in the only clothes he has left.

Still, he says that his training and familiarity with similar disasters have helped him cope with the loss. “It’s embarrassing, because I didn’t have time to run and get anything to wear,” he said. “But everyone got out. We can rebuild. As long as I know everyone is safe … that’s my main concern.”

Early reports from the State Fire Marshall’s office said the fire may have been caused by an unattended outdoor fireplace that belonged to one of Bowes’ neighbors. “We don’t know what started the fire, but the arson investigation is going on,” Bowes said. “They’re investigating several different leads.”

** I’d like to know what else was going on in his life at the time.

Posted in fire, serial trickster | 2 Comments

11-11-2009 = 11-11-11

Posted on November 11, 2009 by Trish and Rob

We don’t often put up two posts the same day, but we can’t overlook the fact that today is 11/11. Of course, it’s 2009, which adds up to 11. So we’re re-posting our 11:11 post from June 22.

Also, you might take a look at Blayne’s blog, which is called ‘1111 and Synchronicity.’ Blayne recently lost his job and could use some cheering up.
Rob
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In researching cluster synchronicities involving the numbers 11, 111, and 11:11, I came across some intriguing information. First, if you Google 11:11, more than 203 million hits come up. Yeah, that’s 203 million. That number falls between the populations of Indonesia at 237,512,352 and of Brazil, at 196,342,592. A whole bunch of websites, in other words.

The phenomenon of 11:11 appears to be huge, but there are so many theories – and some of them are so far out there – that it’s anyone’s guess what any of it means. But here are some of the best examples of 11, 111, or 11:11:

The WWI armistice was signed at 11:11 AM on 11/11/18.

World War II ended on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

Yasser Arafat died on 11/11/04.

JFK was assassinated on 11/22.

Supposedly the Mayan calendar end year 2012 is timed at 11:11 Universal time.

The U.S. Navy lists the 2012 solstice for 12/21/12 at 11:11 Universal time.

Israeli psychic Uri Geller has an entire section on his website devoted to 11:11.

And that’s just for starters.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Any synchronicities involving these numbers that you would like to share?


Posted in 11, 111, 11:11 | 15 Comments

The Black Bird and Jim’s Ear

Posted on November 11, 2009 by Trish and Rob

 

This one comes from Jim Banholzer, whose synchronicities have appeared here before. This one is somewhat similar to a post we put up in August, in which a bird acts as a messenger.
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Five summers ago, at the little Idaho hideaway cabin where I lived, I pruned back a sugar maple branch, to affix a small suet feeder, six feet off the ground. The maple was adjacent to some cottonwoods by a trickling creek. The brook was a lifeline for birds, especially magpies, kingfishers and the occasional mysterious owl. After attaching the bird feeder, I found that we needed to refresh the suet, around twice a month.

I usually remembered to do this on time. However, toward the end of summer, I realized that I had forgotten to check it for a while, walked over and found it full of some unidentifiable black goo. At first, I thought that the suet had turned rancid, but then, while prying the object out, I realized there were black feathers attached and something sadder had happened – a poor blackbird had become stuck inside the feeder and was unable to extract itself, leading to its untimely death.

I shuddered slightly and immediately looked at it as a bad omen. To me the bird augury was powerful enough that I decided to keep it a secret from my housemate, so as not to frighten her. I didn’t think much more about the matter, until a few weeks later: While winterizing the grounds, I placed a large tarp over a tent next to the maple.

As I made a broad swooping motion with the tarp, the same sharp branch I had pruned earlier, speared through my ear and into the side of my head. It was a Tuesday afternoon and almost five o-clock. After standing there stunned for a few seconds, trying to figure out what had hit me, I realized the severity of the situation. I was alone and bleeding profusely from the left side of my head. Hastily, I rounded up the dog, grabbed a small towel, to press against the wound and drove 2 & 1/2 miles to our local emergency room.

It’s a small hospital, but well-staffed. As I arrived, something deep inside, switched my gears into survival mode, and helped to rally me through the surgery. I cracked a few jokes about my dilemma to the physician and his assistant, hoping this would put all three of us more at ease. (I truly believe that there are cases where if you act like a jerk, your level of quality service is apt to diminish.) This seemed to help, but while examining the complexity of damage, the young doctor expressed hesitation as to whether he could stitch my ear back together properly, and suggested that I may need to transfer to a Boise hospital. That was going to be a long expensive haul and I was not looking forward to seeing a specialist three hours away.

However, right then, a visiting plastic surgeon “just happened by” our emergency room to see the problem. He encouraged the attending physician to try a specific stitching method and even made some animated motions of how to do this. After the physician made a few careful stitches with the newly suggested method, he soon gained more confidence. The visiting plastic surgeon saw the doctor was getting it right, so he left us alone. Soon all was well and I was back at work the next afternoon. However, a few weeks later, my housemate broke me the bad news that the developer, who bought our tiny tumbledown shack, would soon be smashing it to smithereens and we would have to move.

One of the new property owners speculated that they would try to save the maple, because such trees are rare in this climate and its vibrancy would enhance the property. However, the maple is gone and we’re not sure what happened.

Meanwhile, the Near Death Experience trauma from the sweet sugar maple seeded something new into me. It forced me to reflect hard about the haphazard direction of my life and slowed me down enough to dedicate some quiet time to writing. In the five years since the incident, I’ve had a small measure of success at this. I feel strongly that writing about items of a meaningful nature is something I should be dedicated to for several hours each week.

Until now, I have shared this personal tale with only a handful of friends. Yesterday evening I recounted it to a new friend. She is a professional Hypnotherapist, recently transplanted to Idaho from Africa, and I am helping her with her Bio. While getting to know her, she has earned my trust in her powers of intuition and yesterday she expressed a new viewpoint of what happened that evening in the emergency room.

When I told her that I never caught the name of the professional plastic surgeon that walked by at that synchronistic moment, she suggested that I have not yet fathomed the extent of what actually occurred. She claims that even if I tried hard, I would not be able to discover the Good Samaritan’s name, because he is not a human being. Rather she believes he is a guardian angel, who sensed that my time here on earth five years ago, was not yet finished, and that I still had some good work to give.

Posted in accidents, birds as messengers | 6 Comments

Word Verification Synchronicities

Posted on November 10, 2009 by Trish and Rob

The word verifications required to post on many blogs are often synchronicities unto themselves.  Many of them seem to be trickster synchronicities. It’s as if we’re being urged to pay closer attention to our posts – the context of what we’re writing as well as the context of what we’re commenting on. Several people have remarked about these little oddities, but we weren’t collecting them then. Now we are!

Gypsywoman sent us two of them, with screen shots, musing egret had a good one without a screen shot, and Trish learned to capture a screen shot when posting on buttternut squash’s blog. If anyone else has experiences like this with screen shots, please send them along.There may be something we can all learn from these little blips in our daily blogging experience.
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Gypsy was posting on making/drinking tea and her last line in the post was: “I salute her and her cup of tea.” The verification? FOOD U

In the next one, she was commenting on our post about kissing the limitless. She wrote: “….FEEL it….” Her verification word was EMPIN = PIN ME. “I guess that would be “feeling” it, alright!”

musingegret mentioned in a comment to the post about Soupy Sales that she was making a grocery list for ingredients to make sausage/shrimp gumbo for supper. The verification word was ‘beria’ and Iberia is Spain – where ‘sopa de ajo’ originated.

 In a comment under this post, Jenean speculated that it would be fun to try to make word verification synchronicities happen. The word she had to type in? Chalk!

I (Trish) was posting to butternut squash’s blog, about some cute pictures of her kids in Halloween costumes and remarked that some of my fondest memories of our daughter’s childhood centered around Halloween. The word verification made me laugh – materr – matter! Pumpkins and kids and Halloween matter.

Posted in serial trickster, word verifications | 17 Comments

UPDATE: ST GERMAIN

Posted on November 9, 2009 by Trish and Rob
Meg Brookman went to work on the St. Germain post and has provided readers, who were baffled by its grammatical contortions, with a concise summary. So here’s the Readers Digest version:
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Synchronicity is one of the most powerful aspects of intuition. Intuition brings forth a way to find an unexplainable road or to journey along a pathway you don’t yet understand. In the moment you do what you are led to do in joy, you will be enabled to reach your destination and new energy is created. 

Synchronicity can transmute fear and guilt and the ever-present questioning you feel. If you pay attention, you’ll see that the information coming to you, from both known and unknown sources, is meant to diffuse fear and release guilt.
Synchronicity is the energy you must be alert to wherever you go. You will soon find that those previously opposed or incapable of conversing with you about beliefs and understandings will come forward to share their experiences of synchronicity. 
Love is a very powerful energy. It conquers all fears and attachments to fear and it is for this reason many prefer to think of the opposite of love as fear or hate. But, as you know, love has no opposites. No thing – nothing – can come against it.
We must love, explore, read, think positive thoughts, and indulge in creativity in order that new energy can manifest itself. That is when we will reclaim our birthright as powerful creators. To help those who remain fearful and unmoving in old thoughts, they will be given the gift of synchronicity. So when your friend or neighbor is excited to share with you a synchronous experience, be filled with joy – for the new energy is here!
Answer ’I AM’ to this new energy.
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Thank you, Meg.
Posted in intuition, love | 2 Comments

St. Germain speaks

Posted on November 9, 2009 by Trish and Rob


Here’s something a little different. It’s part of a channeled transcript, supposed from St.Germain, through someone named Chanel Lingenfelder. This segment is about synchronicity. It appears on a blog called Palm Tree Lifestyle that features “teachings and information from Ascended Masters, Arch Angels, and other Great Light Beings.”

We usually avoid stuff from so-called enlightened masters, because they are often preachy with a holier-than-thou mentality, but this is interesting – in spite of the stream-of-consciousness, eye-crossing run-on sentences. See what you think.
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Synchronicity is one of the most powerful aspects of intuition. Intuition brings forth a way for you to find an unexplainable road or journey along a pathway that you don’t quite understand yet once you are there, are able to realize when back tracking your thoughts, that the awareness of the moment on the journey that you did or were supposed to take is what enables you to reach your destination. Now synchronicity is one of the most powerful energies that can transmute the lower thought forms of fear and guilt and the forever questioning that’s currently playing out (quite predominantly on the earth plane) therefore for you will find that a lot of the information coming through not only through known but also unknown avenues is to diffuse fear and to finally release guilt from the clutches of the inner darkness afraid to truly face the self as an extension of light.

Therefore synchronicity is the energy that you must watch out for everywhere you go, you will find that those previously opposed or unable to converse with you in some way about beliefs and understandings will come forward and now unmistakably share with you their experiences of synchronicity out of the blue. (Well, that seems true! – R)

This is one of the subtle ways in which we bring energy through as we awaken new energies stirring the pots of divinity until such time that each is ready to come forward magically taking a sip from the potion of love called Creation for that is when humanity will be able to claim themselves as powerful creators and instead of many of the thought-waves or religions or institutions or teachings keeping their followers thinking along a one track mind of fear rendering themselves unable to embrace their right as powerful creators they will be served with the horse-d’-oeuvre of synchronicity, which is one of the tools through which we are directing much of the new thought waves. So when your friend or neighbor is excited to share with you their experience of this to their own shock, then get excited with joy for the new energy is here.

It is part of the tools of the new world, all part of the ingredients as we brew a magnificent broth stirring the pots of divinity and when the time is right whomever is ready to move on steps forward to share in the joy. So there is no need for you to go out to create wars of light, with the new energy you allow energy to unfold and you do this best by shining your light, lighting up your own wisdom, sharing your own inner self in such a way that every one of your friends and family knows of your shift. They may not be able to place their finger on it, but they will know the shift in the look in your eye and the smile on your lips, the look of insight, the smile of knowing, this is the energy that is now unfolding, gently, for you see the forces of light is without pressure, the only force that is possible is love.

Love is an energy very powerful, so powerful it’s best you don’t oppose it. It conquers all releasing all fears and attachments to fear and it is for this very reason many like to prefer to think of the opposite of love as fear or hate, but in fact as you know love has no opposites for nothing, no thing can come against it.

So what you are now beginning to work with, and to face in your personal life on a daily basis is the questions of the mind that dares to ask you within each minute of the day who you are. If you have thought previously this to be intimidating and boggling then you better think again for in time to come this energy shall increase tenfold. And each of you that has an idea of your existence, each of you that has some understanding of your background you will not be hammered and dampened by that question at all, for all you will answer is ‘I AM’ and the new energy that now extends from this asks you that each time you have the power within your heart and mind to actually expel from your lungs the oxygenated ‘I AM!” to have some compassion by allowing some of this energy for your neighbor so that they, your brother or sister that feels round in darkness for their history and existence will benefit from your wisdom allowing them to embrace who they are, God Beings, Christed Beings, Light Beings, beautiful beings, no matter the expression of the preference of your current life experiences, everyone is beautiful, everyone is special. Of course then there are those that may feel themselves not to be beautiful and special in another’s eyes, but the key to this is what brings me to my next point.

This is the other energy that you now need to actively work with and I know that you have been presented with these energies previously but because I have come to give it to you today I want you to take in seriously! (Laughter), and this is forgiveness. Forgiveness is the key that will unlock every unconditional aspect you could ever need to transcend yourself from this universe into any other in any way you wish. No longer are you able to walk about judging another no matter what they have done in your eyes for it is not up to you, it is not your business to say what another has done or not and favor your likes or love accordingly. So forgiveness is another powerful aspect of the new energy force of light that is beamed towards the planet and how is this done, through light rays. Are you with me?
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Love that line about the ‘horse-d’-oeuvre of synchronicity.’ Guess I should have fixed the typo, but living in a horse community it sort of makes sense.

Here’s some extreme speculation about Saint Germain, courtesy of Crystalinks.com.

It is believed that Saint Germain was born in 1561. As he grew into adulthood he mastered all of the European languages. He was one of the best swordsmen of his day. He was a master violinist.
He was a personal friend of Voltaire, Rousseau, and a great many other distinguished philosophers. He knew many European heads of state. He was known as “the man who never dies and knows everything.”

He was very wealthy, but no one knew how he had accumulated his great wealth. He was a great painter and musical conductor. He had an extensive knowledge of herbalism. Some feel that this attributed to his long life. He was a master alchemist. It is said that he could turn base metals into gold.

He founded Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry in England. He did this under the name Francis Bacon. It was his dream to create in America a new country free of corruption, greed, and dictatorial monarchies. He was instrumental in formulating the Declaration of Independence and the constitution of the United States as they were being written by his Masonic followers who founded this nation. Their Masonic symbols can be seen on the dollar bill.

He spent eighty five years with the Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood which was made up of El Moyra, Kuthumi, Djwhal Khul, and others.He lived for over 350 years, staging his death between lifetimes. As a writer he used the names Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, Montaigne, Robert Burton, Cervantes, Valentine Andraes, and Comte de Gabalis.In other words, he made Da Vinci look like a slacker!

Posted in ascended masters, St Germain | 9 Comments

Lost and Found

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Astronomical odds are often evident in synchronicities that involve the ways in which lost or stolen objects return to their owners. Jung related one such story that came to him through writer Wilhelm von Stultz, about a mother who took a photo of her young son while they were in the Black Forest. After dropping it off in Strassburg to be developed, she never had a chance to pick it up again because WWI broke out.  Then in 1916, she purchased film in Frankfort to take a photo of her daughter. When that film was developed, it turned out to be doubly exposed. Beneath the picture of her daughter was the photo of her son taken two years earlier. The old film apparently hadn’t been developed and had somehow made its way back into circulation.

It’s one thing to read about a story like this that happened to someone else a long time ago. It’s something else to experience it yourself. We’ve all done it – misplaced or lost something practical or valuable (keys come quickly to mind!) and then we tear through our homes, cars and lives, looking for the object. Sometimes, that object returns in ways that are every bit as strange as the mother’s photo of her son.

Ten or eleven years ago, Rob was windsurfing on a lake near the house where we lived at the time and lost his wallet. He hoped he had lost it before going windsurfing, but he couldn’t find it on the shore where he’d rigged his sail. He knew if he had accidentally taken it with him and lost it in the lake, chances of recovering it were nil.

But when he got home, he didn’t do any of the things people normally do when they lost their wallets-no calls to credit card companies, no application for a new driver’s license, no contact with the auto insurance company. Instead, he visualize the wallet returning to him, felt it in his hand, his back pocket.

A lawn man stopped by our house that same week, soliciting business. We already had someone taking care of the yard, but Rob and the man chatted, then the guy left. A few days later, this  same man was fishing with a net in the lake where  Rob had been windsurfing and dredged up Rob’s wallet. He returned it, complete with all the cards and water-soaked cash, and said he was relieved Rob was alive and not on the bottom of that lake.

What were the chances of that happening? Not only was the wallet recovered from the lake where we’d never seen anyone fishing with a net, but the man had met Rob a few days earlier. Skeptics say this stuff is bound to happen from time to time. Mere coincidence. Not in a million years, we say. Synchronicity. The subconscious mind or higher mind affects matter, alters reality. In this case, Rob was convinced from the beginning that the wallet would be found.
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UPDATE
So with the wind gusting over 20 mph this morning, we checked the blog to see if the windsurfing post came up as scheduled, then looked at the e-mail. There we found the following note from Nicholas Pasztor. Something is blowing in the wind. 

“I was surfing the web on my laptop at home on Thursday the 5th November 2009 looking at BitTorrent movie links and saw a link to “Gone With The Wind”. My TV was on in the background and at that exact moment as I read this someone on a TV talk show said Gone With The Wind. It sent shivers down my spine.”

Posted in lost objects, photos, wallets, windsurfing | 11 Comments

Laryssa

Posted on November 7, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Sometimes, synchronicities bring events full circle. Debra Page posted this on her blog and gave us permission to repost it.
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In 1993, our second daughter, Laryssa, was born with a rare, spontaneous genetic mutation. (The probable cause of her condition was my own illness.) She was given 12 days to live, but she had other plans. She lived 1 year and 10 months. During our time with her, many wonderful people from the local hospice came to our home to help with her care. She died on 10/09/1995. And life went on…

Two years ago, my husband & I were trying to locate a doctor (under new health plan), who could treat my disorder. After a few false starts, I consulted with a neighbor (who is now my good friend) who worked in the administration of the largest hospital system in San Diego. She came to my home and made a phone call,asking one of the top people at the hospital “If you were very ill with a chronic immune dysfunction, who would you want to be your doctor?”. A name was given to us.

The Doctor’s office was less that a mile from our home, and she was taking new patients. I set up an appointment. My husband accompanied me to the appointment, and sat with me in the office. When the doctor came in, she sat down reading my history. Then she stared to cry.

She looked at us and said “I know you both. I worked with Laryssa as a volunteer.” Suddenly I remembered her too, a young sweet woman who had lost her mother to cancer. We all cried and hugged. Then she said that she has a daughter now. I asked when she was born, and the doctor replied 10/09/1995. The very day Laryssa died! We were all amazed at the coincidences. What a beautiful gift from the past!

Posted in children, death, illness, numbers dates | 8 Comments

Dante’s Inferno

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Here’s a synchronicity related to a book group. It comes from jau, who has a blog called Still Muttering. Jau is not only an avid reader, but a very competent writer as well. We did not make a single edit to this post.
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For background, I should mention that I am in a book group that is reading/studying Dante’s Inferno. This week we are reading Cantos IV through VIII.

With that in mind, consider the following that happened today.

In the early afternoon, I was driving 30-40 miles to meet a friend whom I have not seen for several billion years – decades – since we were in college together and once or twice in the few years thereafter. (I would be acknowledging my age if I said exactly how long ago that was, and denial is more than a river in Egypt, believe me.) Anyway, there I was, riding along on a nice sunny day on a pretty country road. Nothing amiss or odd. I checked the classical music stations and nothing particularly excited me that they were playing so I put the radio on “scan” for background accompaniment.

As the sound passed one station and started toward another, I realized I had heard phrases like “and my teacher – that good man” and “she made license licit in her laws to free her from the scandal she had caused.”

I very nearly slammed on the brakes. Could it be?? But what else could it be? I turned back to the station and recognized the ideas and images that I had just been reading in Cantos IV and then V. It was amazing to hear what had just been inside my head a few hours earlier. But without any doubt, those were the words.

I never did find out what the reading was about because I lost reception soon thereafter but I looked it up and it was Felicia Rashad reading Canto IV and Canto V. I have no idea why just those two, other than to surprise me, but on the assumption that I am not the actual center of the universe, that seems unlikely. I still think I may have been hallucinating – and what better to hallucinate than Dante? – but even the website says that’s what it was.

Yes, I am familiar with Jung’s theories about synchronicity and how we draw the universe to us at times. My father was a Dante aficionado and WQXR was even playing his all-time favorite Beethoven’s 4th piano concerto in the evening as I drove home, so some might say that I was actually pulling or even tugging, but I suspect it’s more about how we all see purple cows when we think about them and see pregnant women when we are pregnant, and so on and so on.

In any case, whatever it was, it was astonishing and wonderful.
***
Nice story, very thoughtful. Now here is a synchronicity upon a synchronicity. After jau gave me the go-ahead to post his story, I randomly selected a date on the dashboard, not knowing whether or not another post was already set for that date. As I was describing the story to Trish, she said, “Hey, I put up a post about Dante and food.”

I checked and the two Dantes were listed next to each other and for the identical date.

Posted in Canto IV, Canto V, dante | 7 Comments

More Dante

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Musingegret brought our attention to a food synchronicity. We realized we didn’t have any stories involving food. This one involves sopa de ajo (garlic soup) and Dante! The story is from here.
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Today, I was going to put up a post about sopa de ajo or garlic soup from the Spanish Pyrenees. I was excited to share my own home-tested recipe for this beautiful bowl of golden soup, but I was distracted by something else.

Could you call a chain of coincidences synchronicity? You know when you think of something in passing, then someone mentions it, then it’s referenced on a subway ad, and finally Tina Fey makes a crack about it on 30 Rock and you’re all, “WEIRD”? Well, for whatever reason, Dante keeps showing up for me this week.

Consider this. First, my mother returned a book to me that she swears I left at the house called, Dante’s Path: A Practical Approach to Achieving Inner Wisdom. (I have no recollection of ever reading it.) Then a colleague suggested I re-read Dante to get me past a hurdle in the research I’m currently doing. While procrastinating that task I googled Joe Girardi, just because he’s awesome, and read that he has a son named Dante. Finally, The City Cook’s newsletter showed up in my inbox with a recipe for uova al purgatorio, eggs in purgatory. I had to make this immediately!

Eggs in purgatory are simple–two eggs poached in tomato sauce, red pepper, pancetta, oregano, and dusted with parmigiano cheese. You cook them until the whites are white and the center remains yolky for dipping into with toasted bread. I was still planning on making the garlic soup, but I know myself well enough not to cook anything blog-worthy while starving. The eggs would be my quick dinner and the soup, after a photo shoot, would be enjoyed at lunch tomorrow.
I got the sauce going, and started thinking about Dario Cecchini, the famous Tuscan butcher who regularly quotes full passages of Dante’s Purgatorio while working in his shop. Bill Buford wrote about his apprenticeship with Dario in Heat. (If you haven’t already read it, you really should.)

In a separate pan, I started my pancetta and the kitchen started getting smokey. With a quick succession of movements, I opened a window, sliced some bread which I put in the toaster oven, and picked up my ringing phone. It was Lara–not quite a Dante coincidence–but we did become friends while living in Florence so that sorta counts. We got to chatting about the balloon boy and our usual topics, food and boys, when I felt my eyes burning. Even Rocco, my ever hungry jack russell with a weight problem, had abandoned the kitchen.
I relayed to Lara that the pancetta seemed exceptionally and strangely smokey, but went on to describe my simmering eggs.

“Lars. I forget. How do you say hell in Italian?”
“Inferno, silly,” she said.
It was then that I realized my toast was burning. Charred. Black. Catching fire.
I ran around to open all the windows, disabled the smoke alarm, and put Rocco in the well-ventilated bathroom. In the process, I overcooked my eggs and totally forgot to add the cheese.

Posted in dante, food | 4 Comments