Racism in Sanford, Florida

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Trish and Rob

Sanford, Florida, a town near Orlando and Disney World, is not a place you would want to visit, particularly if you’re a minority. Racism is alive and well here.

On February 26, an unarmed black teenager – Trayvon Martin – was shot and killed by a self-appointed neighborhood “watch captain,” a white man, George Zimmerman, in a gated community.  Trayvon was visiting his father, who lived in the community, and was returning from a convenience store where he’d bought some Skittles and an iced tea, and had taken refuge from the rain in one of the apartment buildings.

While walking through the community, Trayvon was talking to his girlfriend in Miami, and told her he was being followed. She told him to run, but Trayvon said he would just walk fast.

According to police dispatcher records, Zimmerman had called the police department because he considered the kid “suspicious.”  In the transcripts of the 911 call, Zimmerman says,   “This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something. It’s raining and he’s just walking around looking about.” Oddly, the dispatcher asked if the kid was white, Hispanic or black.

Zimmerman replied that he looked black and the dispatcher asked if Zimmerman was following him. He said that he was and the dispatcher told him not to do that.

Meanwhile, Trayvon’s girlfriend, still on the phone with him, heard him say, “Why’re you following me?”

And a male asked, “What are you doing around here?”

Then the girlfriend thought she heard a scuffle, then gunshots.

The last call was at 7:12 p.m. Police arrived at 7:17 p.m. to find Trayvon lying face down on the ground. Zimmerman claims he shot Trayvon in self-defense.  Zimmerman has still not been arrested.

This case didn’t attract national attention for at least three weeks, until one of the MSNBC broadcasters picked up on it. And suddenly, the story became huge.  Now the U.S. Justice Department and the FBI are investigating and a grand jury will be convened by the state prosecutor to determine whether Zimmerman would face charges in the teenager’s death. The grand jury will be called into session on April 10.

Apparently Zimmerman had made 46 similar calls to the Sanford Police Department in the last 13 months. He had a permit to carry a concealed weapon and thanks to Florida’s horrid gun laws, his claim of self-defense may make it difficult to prosecute him.

Quoting from Bloomberg News: “Florida’s “Stand your Ground” law allows people to use deadly force — even before an unarmed person — provided they “reasonably believe” it’s necessary to defend themselves. It’s a shockingly low standard, but it’s not inconsistent with the highest law of the land.”

Meanwhile, a family has lost their son, racial tensions are running high in a community of 53,000, and Zimmerman, the white guy who shot the unarmed black kid, is still free.

If this had been a case of a black man shooting an unarmed white kid, the black guy would be in jail.

U.S. Representative Corrine Brown of Florida’s 3rd Congressional District, the district where the shooting occurred, spoke on NPR about it.   She believes this was a hate crime and has serious questions about how the Sanford Police Department handled the whole thing.

Here we are in 2012, and this entire tragedy smacks of something from an era where the Klu Klux Klan skulked around in white sheets, burning crosses on people’s lawns, setting homes on fire in black neighborhoods, and hanging blacks just because they were black.

Fortunately, information now travels at the speed of light. A petition I received in an email this morning from change.org, urging local authorities to prosecute Zimmerman, now has more than half a million signatures. A group of protestors  filled the lobby in the Florida governor’s office on Tuesday to deliver a letter seeking an independent investigation and a task force to study racial profiling.

Governor Scott came out to talk to them. “I will make sure justice prevails,” Scott said. “I’m very comfortable that (state law enforcement) is going to do the right thing. They’re not going to let somebody do something wrong and get away with it.”

Somehow, this statement does nothing for me. Governor Scott, before his foray into the governor’s mansion, was CEO of Colombia/HCA, one of the largest for profit private hospital chains. He was  forced to resign as CEO when an FBI investigation turned  up massive Medicare fraud.  Colombia/HCA pled guilty to 14 felonies. In settlements reached in 2000 and 2002, Columbia/HCA agreed to a $600 million + fine in the largest fraud settlement in US history.” In short, Governor Scott himself belongs in prison.

On a deeper level, these types of tragedies seem to be addressing the dark underbelly  of life in America – racism, corporate greed, powerful gun lobbies, attacks on women’s health and on contraception, the rise of religious extremists. In short, it’s  an archetype  screaming for change.

 

Posted in politics, synchronicity | 19 Comments

That Ole Shadow Trickster

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Trish and Rob

See that guy in the picture? This is how I visualize the shadow trickster. He’s doing a yoga posture that looks relatively easy. You just extend a leg and grab your toes and voila. You’ve got it.  Try it now. The leg must be straight.  Not so simple, right? You must  have limber ham strings (I don’t). In retrospect, I’m beginning to think the shadow trickster may be more prevalent than I initially believed.

Back in 2009, we attended a Scottish festival in Orlando  and came across a shirt with a tag inside of it that struck me as a synchronicity – and a confirmation to combine a time travel idea from one novel into a new novel.  I was struck by the fact that the tag in the shirt told me it had been made in Ecuador, the location of Esperanza, and the company was called Time Travelers, which was the theme in two earlier novels, Kill Time and Running Time. Wow, I thought. I’m on the right track.

So I wrote the novel, The Gorge, turned it into my editor, who had major revisions notes, and sent it to my agent who hated it.  The upshot? I spent another seven months revising the novel, removing the time travel element, and relocating the book to Cedar Key, a charming island in northwest Florida. I called it Ghost Key and that book worked and is coming out in August 2012.

So, in retrospect,  I have to look at the shadow trickster in a whole new light.  I wanted that time travel element to work, wanted it so badly I pushed my characters into a situation that just didn’t work, that didn’t feel intuitively right.  It’s difficult to express what I mean by this. But the external ramifications are clear: when it’s not working, I’m a bear to be around. Don’t talk to me.  Feed me coffee, mangos, tuna. Leave me alone.  Oh, there were some good scenes, but in the bigger picture, the story didn’t work and I knew it, knew it at that intuitive level where all writers know whether a story  works –or not.

So what was that moment at the Scottish festival really about? I was excited about my discovery at that festival, it seemed to be the confirmation I needed. But even though need and desire may attract what you want, it doesn’t necessarily reflect the true situation.

I remembered years ago when a cousin asked me why I wrote commercial fiction instead of literary fiction, I didn’t even understand the question. Now, many years later, my only answer is that all  writers write from their own experiences and it’s the reviewers who say, This is literary, this is commercial. But so far, I haven’t found any reviewers who say, wow, this is synchronicity. Or, even more to the point, why what appeared to be a solid confirmation synchro – the shirt, the country, the name of the company – turned out to be a major detour.

I blame the shadow trickster, who always seems to remark, “Uh-huh,  okay, you think you’ve got it, but you don’t. Dig more deeply.” And even though you’re tired and are digging more deeply  and are trying  to read the signs, the question is,  Are you there yet? Do you get it?

That’s the process, the ultimate joke of the shadow trickster. I may dig and plunder and run into a dozen synchros, but if the trickster is part of my experience, I know now to pull back and question. The trickster always says, Really? You sure about that? Think again. Dig some more.

Here’s the cover. I’m not sure that it reflects the story, but I didn’t have any say in the design.

Posted in synchronicity, trickster, writers | 10 Comments

Synchrotrick-Synchrotreat

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Trish and Rob

 

When people leave messages on our answering machine, we often don’t notice the blinking light right away. Sometimes, days pass. This happened a couple of weeks ago and I was shocked to hear a message from a friend I hadn’t heard from in  nearly 40 years.  Bob Preston.

Preston and I hung around with the same group during college in the 60s in Utica, New York. We went to anti-war protests, concerts, and explored the kinds of phenomena that we talk about on this blog. He was as interested in the I Ching as I was (a rare breed in those days), and I remember we used to sit around tossing the coins on all sort of questions. Our biggest question, though, usually seemed to come back to: What is the nature of reality?

“Hi, Trish, this Bob Preston. Would love to reconnect. I was reading this book called Kill Time and got to the part about Utica, New York, and suddenly realized T.J. MacGregor was you. Call if you’re so inclined.” That was his message.

I poured myself some coffee, called him, and we spent nearly two hours on the phone, pretty much picking up our conversation where we’d left it somewhere back in the 70s. It turns out that Bob now lives in Wisconsin and quit teaching some years ago to do what he loves most – play music, sculpture, and write. That’s a photo of one of his wood sculptures at the top of the post.

Preston, as I have always called him,   is no stranger to synchronicity. Here’s a layered one that he sent us.

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In the fall of 1978 I was living in an old house across from an equally old cemetery in the city of Whitewater, Wisconsin. On Halloween night of  that year I decided to walk across the street and play banjo to the unasembled masses. The thought had come to me that music was something that happened rarely  in such  a setting , that the deceased were lonely, that it would be time well spent.  With this in mind I  walked to the cemetery, and began the impromptu concert.

My banjo style is somewhat old-timey, often in mountain minor keys, with an emphasis on multi-step strum styles. It seemed the perfect evening, light winds, a plethora of autumn  smells, sounds and aura.

As I walked and played, I attempted to become one with the instant, in essence, strumming in time to the moment. I continued this way for twenty minutes or so, walking in a haphazard  pattern between plots and rows. At one point, I stumbled into what felt like a partially sunken grave site. There was enough of a jolt to my senses that it felt like missing the last step on a stairway. It caused my head to jerk upward, and focus on the constellation Orion.

At exactly the same instant, I felt a weight,  not unlike a hand,  on my left shoulder. This caused me to feel a little disoriented, a bit confused with a tinge of eerie unease. I stepped out of the depression and immediately walked back to the house across the street. I entered the house through the back door, stepped into the kitchen, closed the door and stood there with my heart pounding and my breathing shallow.

Then the back door knob began to slowly turn. My dog, Sociology, began barking and the cats scurried in every direction. The door opened a bit, then  closed gently. My dog started whimpering, cats were frozen in place, and I felt that weight again  on my shoulder. Immediately, the phone rang, in essence breaking the silence. At this instant, the door once again opened, then slammed shut with  a resounding echo. All animals became calm.

I answered the phone, still feeling somewhat confused. It was my girlfriend, just checking in. I muttered something along the line of…’you’ve just saved me’.

The following morning I walked across the street to examine the area of the cemetery where I had been the night before. I couldn’t locate the grave that I had ‘stepped into’. After a while I returned to the house, filing the whole episode under the general category of ‘interesting’.

Within a month or so, I decided to move to Colorado, simply because the opportunity arose. I was gone for nearly a year. In this time the cemetery incident had evaporated into the past. I had never shared the  story with anyone.

I returned  to Wisconsin in May of 1979, got a job teaching, and happily went about the business of living. At some point, within a few weeks, I traveled to Madison. While picking up some things at a mall, I decided to stop and see a friend that I had not had any contact with in a long time. As I drove past her house, I noticed that she was outside, raking her front yard. I pulled into her front yard, got out of my car to give a hug and exchange pleasantries. After a few minutes she indicated that she had an appointment and asked if I would like to go along. We left right away, from the yard to my car and on to the appointment.

We arrived at my friend’s destination and as she was getting out, she asked if I wanted to come along to her meeting with a tea-leaf reader.  Having always been interested in such things, I gratefully accepted the invite and followed her to the front door of the reader’s home. As soon as we entered the home, the reader stared at me and asked my friend if it would be possible  for her to have a few minutes with me before starting the appointed meeting.

I followed her into the ‘reading’ area, where she  asked me to sit. She picked up my left hand,  all the while looking deeply into my eyes. She indicated that there was an existing issue that she needed to discuss with me. At this time she prepared a cup of tea for reading and after a few moments said, “Do you recall the evening in the cemetery?”

Believe me, that got my attention. There was absolutely no way she could have been aware of the incident, now over a year in the past. I had not discussed this with anyone, I had never met this person, no contact could have been made before we met and my friend was totally unaware of my story. She then began to relate the entire event to me and started by calling me Robert – even though we hadn’t been introduced.

She related the entire cemetery incident, down to detail, adding at the end that the reason I had not found the grave the following day was because it had not been a depression in the ground but, rather, a raised mound on an unmarked grave. I was told that a young girl was buried at that spot, that she had been the daughter of a founding father of Whitewater and had died in the 1850’s,  the victim of a train accident.

The tea-leaf reader went on to relate that I had drawn this young girl to me with music and happenstance. Evidently, she had lived in the same house that I had been staying in, so I had provided the opportunity for her to gain entry into the dwelling. She said the  girl had been frightened by the noise, level of reaction and the phone call.

At this point the tea leaf reader indicated that the cemetery story wasn’t the message she had for me.  She got very serious and talked about all of the incidents relating to the supernatural that I had been involved  in over the years. She brought up Utica, by name. She talked about the I Ching and  my fascination with witchcraft. She went on to caution me about the effects of the unknown with people who don’t possess the necessary skills to successfully delve into the  subject.

Her advice was simple: gather the appropriate knowledge or steer clear of the subject. There comes a time in the study of the occult that preparation cannot be over-emphasized. With that, our meeting was over. My friend met with her and  later, I took her back home. I did not discuss this with her.

The following day I visited the local historical society. Everything the reader had told me about the house and the young girl  was confirmed by the records! From that day until now  I have kept my own council.

Posted in Preston, spirt communication, synchronicity | 17 Comments

The Stone Forest of Markawasi

Posted on March 18, 2012 by Trish and Rob

We’ve written about Markawasi, Peru before. The stone forest is as great a mystery as Machu Pichu and virtually unknown.  Thanks to Kathy Doore’s  gorgeous book,  Markawasi: Peru’s Inexplicable Stone Forest, the place is a bit less unknown now.

Kathy and I recently had lunch and she described the five-day Markawasi trip that she leads. It’s part of a longer trek that includes Machu Pichu, Lake Titicaca, and some other sacred spots in Peru. By  the end of the lunch, I was ready to take out a second mortgage on my house and follow her. This place is definitely on our bucket list: UFO sightings are frequent on the plateau and just the mystery and awe of these giant stone figures, at nearly 13,000 feet above sea level, is enough to inspire books and novels for years.

There is nothing on this plateau except the stones  and the spirit of the place and stars, close enough to touch. This means: no hotels, restaurants, bathrooms, convenience stores, cars, scooters, bicycles. Nada. All camping gear, water, food, firewood, is brought up to the plateau by horseback and porters from the town at the foot of the mountain. That said, Kathy makes sure that you’re comfortable up there – the cook and dining tent, pads for sleeping bags, tents etc accompany  the group. And yes, a Peruvian shaman tags along, too.

I’m not big on camping,  although Rob  and Megan are, but I will bend a lot of my silly rules for a mystical experience.

We won’t be able to make her June trip, but we’ve got our sights on a September journey.

Now, from Kathy:

June 12-16, 2012

Giant Rock figures reach across rocky escarpment in a land where the Gods have turned into stone, and siblings of the Sun dance for days on end . . . the LEGEND comes alive.
This place exists!

Rising majestically 12,800 feet above the world on the western Andean ridge, the Markawasi stone forest crowns the Pacific coastline; sprawling below this enigma lies the city of Lima, Peru. This three-mile long tabletop mountain landscape is punctuated with massive carved effigies, including curious replicas of unknown human races and long-extinct animals. Among the effigies may be found mind-boggling images of winged sphinxes, elephants, camels and animals unknown to this Age and continent. With its sixteen carved faces of the Races of Man, the massive Monument to Humanity distinguishes itself as the most spectacular and prominent structure dominating this ancient scene.

Considered to be one of Peru’s little known treasures among passionate travelers to the Andes, Markawasi provides a superb introduction to a poignant mystery. Following the route presented by author Kathy Doore in her book, “Markawasi: Peru’s Inexplicable Stone Forest”, our expedition begins with an ascent from the village of San Pedro by foot and horseback along winding trails through diverse ecosystems to the high plateau. Dazzling summits and sacred peaks greet visitors at the tented village, where they are confronted by the heart of a Mystery–the colossal 80-foot Peca Gasha with it sixteen carved faces!

Three days of hands-on access to the striking stone monuments, which lie upon converging earth energy vortices, allows for intimate investigation at an easy stride. At the end of each day, surrounded by soaring peaks under the Andean night sky, guests are nestled in the womb of a granite cathedral, where sumptuous dining and graceful slumber occur under a canopy of stars: the mind is invigorated, the body is rejuvenated, and the soul is revitalized.

Providing unfettered and private access to the Sanctuary grounds, our experienced mountain crew, who are dedicated to the conservation and spiritual maintenance of this impressive site, shares their genuine hospitality and intrinsic knowledge of this magnificent stone forest:  Markawasi!

Come explore!

5-Day Markawasi Expedition June 12-16, 2012

2 nights in Markawasi Stone Forest (tented village)
1 night San Pedro folkloric community
1 night Miraflores/Lima, Peru

Double Occupancy (per person) $795.00.  Single Supplement $995.00

This Tour Includes:
Hotel accommodations in Lima (1 night)
Overnight in San Pedro (1 night)
Overnight Markawasi (2 nights)
Full camp facilities including tents, pads, sleeping bags (or bring your own)
Tented lavatories and washing facilities, Tented dining and chairs, lanterns, firewood
Meals: (5) breakfasts (4) lunches (3) dinners
All ground Transportation to and from Lima/Markawasi
Admission entrance to Markawasi
Bilingual Mountain Guide,Camp Supervisor, Chef, Porters, Horses, Burros
A personally endorsed, signed copy of “Markawasi: Peru’s Inexplicable Stone Forest” is included with your tour.

Not Included:
Items of a personal nature
Customary Trip Gratuities ($22/pp/per day)
Anything not specifically mentioned in above program

Activity Levels

5-Day Markawasi June 12-16, 2012: typically  5-8 hours of activity per day, with hikes on mostly flat exposed rocky terrain with some uneven trails at 12,000 feet. Prior experience hiking at high elevation such as can be found in the Colorado Rockies, Aspen, etc. This trip is not recommended for those with heart and/or vascular disease.

11-Day Machu Picchu & the Andes June 2-12, 2012: Activity includes 1-5 hours of activity per day with gentle walks less than 3 miles on mostly flat terrain with some stone staircases in temple sites and city sidewalks in Cusco at altitudes of up to 11,000 feet.

*For high altitude touring on the 5-day Markawasi trek, it is suggested to first prepare by joining our 11-day trip allowing gentle acclimation to high-altitude before continuing on to Markawasi.  Elevations include Machu Picchu (8,000 feet), Sacred Valley (9,000 feet), Cusco (11,000 feet), Lake Titicaca and Markawasi (12,000 feet). Participants should be physically fit for day walking in Cusco and Lake Titicaca, and in excellent physical condition with strong legs, ankles, and knees for walking and hiking in Markawasi.

For more information or to make a reservation, please visit Markawasi.

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At the end of our lunch, Kathy handed me two little figures from Peru – one of these guys is in the photo below. This guy is Ekeko,  “God of Abundance and Wealth”. These clay dolls are packed with items representing abundance and are intended to bring their keeper’s good fortune. Various colors.  Hand made by master ekeko doll maker in the Sacred Valley of the Incas, Peru.

He brings prosperity – see that $100 bill on his chest? So we have our little guys where we can see them constantly – and talk to them about making the September trip possible.

 

 

Posted in markawasi, synchronicity | 12 Comments

A Sobering Synchro

Posted on March 17, 2012 by Trish and Rob

 

John Goodman

 

Car bomb. That’s the name of a drink.

I found that out the other day while reading an article about the trial of one of our wealthy citizens here in the Village of Wellington, Florida. John Goodman is a polo mogul who is on trial in a DUI (driving under the influence) manslaughter case in which he rammed his Bentley into a Hyundai Sonata driven by 23-year-old engineering grad Scott Wilson. The $200,000 Bentley weighed 2,000 pounds more than the Hyundai and nearly cut through it. Wilson’s mangled car flipped over and landed in a canal, where he drowned.

Whenever we go out for a cafe con leche at the local Cuban bakery, we pass by the intersection where the accident occurred and are reminded of it by an extensive flower memorial that has graced the site since Feb. 12, 2010.

Goodman suffered a broken wrist and a fractured sternum. He walked away from the accident and, amazingly, according to his defense, started drinking at a friend’s barn in order to deal with the pain. Others, however, say he was drinking at a party and later at the Player’s Club, a polo hangout around the corner from us. According to one tally, he consumed 16-18 drinks, plus he had taken pain medication that served as an additive to the alcohol.  Three hours after the accident, when his blood was tested, it contained twice the legal limit of alcohol.

Since Goodman is a multi-millionaire, he was able to hire Roy Black, one of the top defense lawyers. Black is putting forward the idea that Goodman started drinking after the accident, which Black says was the result of a computer failure in the Bentley.

However, a bartender at the Player’s Club recalls making drinks for Goodman. And a friend of Goodman recalls ordering  the polo mogul a nightcap with a twist. He gave Goodman a car bomb – a blast of a drink consisting of Bailey’s Irish Cream and  a shot of whiskey dropped into a glass of Guinness. Chug and be on your way. In Goodman’s case, he headed into infamy and a trial in which he faces up to 30 years in prison.

If ever there was a warning label on a container of alcohol, it was the name of the that drink handed to Goodman. You can almost hear the dark Trickster chuckling in the background, watching to see if the man who made Wellington into the winter polo capital of the world would play the fool and slide behind the wheel of his car bomb.

Yesterday, the prosecution rested its case. Next week, the defense will present several witnesses. Then it goes to the jury.

Posted in synchronicity, trickster | 15 Comments

Rob and Trish on Dreamland

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Trish and Rob

 

 

 

 

 

Our interview  on Dreamland is going up today. We discuss Synchronicity and the Other Side with Marie D. Jones. It’s free to non subscribers for a week. Hope you’ll tune in!

Also available is the interview Rob and Trish did with Whitley Strieber on the connection between the dead – and the visitors. This one is riveting!

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An update. The mystery about the “Ecuadorian Alien” has been solved. We heard from Guayasamin Foundation. Here was their comment, with links:

Fundación Guayasamin says:

Cordial regards, we are of the Foundation Guayasamín of Quito – Ecuador.
The work that you bought in our country, is a homage of an artist of Imbabura, realized with petals of roses, based on Oswaldo Guayasamín’s paintings.
We share to you the links of our web sites, where you will be able to see more on Oswaldo Guayasamín’s work:
https://www.guayasamin.org
https://www.guayasamin.org/images/4_ov_18.jpg
https://www.capilladelhombre.com
https://www.qpqweb.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=69&Itemid=179

 

 

Posted in synchronicity | 13 Comments

Something brewing?

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Trish and Rob

A brewer’s blackbird

 

Several times a day we let the dogs out into the backyard to snoop around the landscape and do their business. If there’s   a neighborhood cat silly enough to climb the fence for a peek around, the dogs quickly dart after it, sending the offending feline back over the fence.

On this particular afternoon, Noah and Nica trotted over to the pool and stared down into it. That’s something they never do unless one of them has dropped a ball into the water. We took a look, but there was no ball, nothing but a few stray leaves that had blown into the unscreened pool. A few minutes later, I noticed the dogs were still studying the pool intently as if they were about to take a dive – something neither of them ever do.

I went outside, picked up our long pole with the leaf basket at the end and began casually scooping out the leaves. While working my way around the pool, I was thinking about contacting someone on Facebook who had just read Romancing the Raven and left a complimentary message. I thought I would ask her if she would put up a review on Amazon.

I set down the pole down and lifted the cover of the circular strainer at the edge of the pool and discovered that it was full of leaves. I reached in for the strainer basket, and suddenly there was a flutter of black wings in the pool right next to me.  My first impression was that a bird had crashed into the pool.

I jumped up, grabbed the pole and scooped up a black bird. I carefully directed the net to a nearby tree and the soaking bird latched onto a branch. I was not only startled by the sudden appearance of the bird so close to me, but the fact that I’d been thinking about Raven at the time.

It took me a few moments to realize what had happened. The bird probably had been  standing on the submerged ledge between the pool and the strainer basket. The ledge was covered with a couple inches of water, but the bird could rest, breathe….and hide from the snoopy dogs.

Who knows how long it had been in the pool. We had just returned from a trip to Orlando a couple of hours earlier. I studied the bird closely on its partially shrouded perch and realized that ‘blackbird’ is a generic term that covers a variety of species. Back in the house, I Googled blackbird and this Birds of North America site came up. Interestingly, the description of black birds mentions ravens in the second paragraph.

I knew my blackbird wasn’t  a raven, so I looked at several choices and finally recognized it as a brewer’s blackbird, like the one pictured above. For me, the synchro suggested that something was brewing with the book. If nothing else, a kind lady, Kathleen Ryan, from Lafayette, Louisiana, had read it and enjoyed.

Noah and Nica, chilling when she was just a tiny pup:

Posted in synchronicity | 6 Comments

My Ecuadorian Alien

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Trish and Rob

 

During one of our trips to Ecuador, I remember that we walked through an outdoor arts and crafts exhibit. Everything I saw – from jewelry to paintings – was vibrant, alive, mystical, strange, and just staggering in terms of  creative talent. But the piece pictured above is what I bought, for about $15, if I remember correctly. It’s made of rose petals. I think of it as the Ecuador alien, and it hangs in our living room.

Tonight, I was rewriting a chapter from the third book in my hungry ghost  series, which takes place, like the first book, in Esperanza, Ecuador. This city, which lies at more than 13,000 feet in the Andes – and is totally fictional, okay?- was once a nonphysical place where the souls of the dying – transitionals – went. Here, they decided if they wanted to continue in physical life or move on. These transitionals were preyed upon by brujos – hungry ghosts who seized them, healed them, and then lived out their mortal lives in order to experience the pleasures of physical existence.

The light chasers, evolved souls who have overseen affairs in Esperanza for millennia, decided that the only way to get rid of the brujos was to bring Esperanza into the physical world, which they did 500 years ago.  Esperanza now, in the 21st century, retains the magic from when it was a nonphysical location. The veil between the living and the dead is so thin that both chasers and brujos can assume virtual forms and communicate with the living. There’s a community of shape shifters. There are human tensions and needs. But here’s the synchro:

Wayra, the dog/wolf shape shifter who appeared in the first two books, now lives just outside the city, in a home that overlooks Esperanza. As a being that has been alive in one form or another since the late twelfth century, he has quite a collection of art.  Charlie, a chaser, drops in to see Wayra…and I immediately wondered how the shifter’s house was decorated. So I Googled Ecuadorian artists and this is what came up first:


 

 

 

 

The similarities between the Ecuadorian alien piece I bought eight or ten years ago and this piece by Oswaldo Guayasamín floored me.  Guayasamin, born in Quito  in 1919, is apparently famous for his paintings depicting Andean people. According to this website, “He exposed racism, poverty, political oppression, and class division; common themes throughout the Andes. His work reflected the misery and pain that many people around the world had to experience in the 20th century. He spoke out often against the US and other governments. His work was exhibited around the world. A day of national strikes occurred at his death by indigenous people, who he spent his life supporting.”

Until now, I’d never heard of this artist. I haven’t been able to find out what this particular painting is called, but it’s so strikingly similar to the Ecuadorian alien that I suspect the artist whose work I bought was mimicking Guayasamín.  

I poked around on this website for awhile and on this one and honestly wondered if Guayasamin was an abductee or if his creativity, his art, had enabled him to tune into something beyond his own experiences.This synchro is one of those that leaves me completely clueless about the meaning.  Maybe it’s just an answer to the question I ask every time I pass my Ecuadorian alien en route from my office to the bedroom or back: What are you? Where did you come from? Why did I buy you and what can you teach me?  Until tonight, I’d never heard of Guayasamin. Now he’s on my radar. I have no idea what that means, but I’m hopeful that something more  will be revealed.

 

Posted in synchronicity | 25 Comments

Intuition and the Military

Posted on March 13, 2012 by Trish and Rob

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently the U.S. military has discovered that intuition may be a valuable tool in combat.  According to Live Science,  soldiers sometimes show a “battlefield sixth sense” that has saved lives in Afghanistan and Iraq. So now the military, of course, hopes to better understand this sixth sense and to train troops to tap into it.

The military has been doing its homework on this topic. The Office of Naval Research  (ONR) points to sixth-sense research about how “humans can detect and act on unique patters without consciously and intentionally analyzing them. The military also pointed to studies suggesting a sixth sense can arise from ‘implicit learning’ – absorbing information without being aware of the learning process – rather than building up expertise through years of practice.”

The ONR plans to measure how both intuition and implicit learning work, then they would create a model of this type of thinking. This model would reflect individual differences among soldiers, how they adapt to new situations, and would take into account the influence of battle fatigue.

It’s terrific that the military recognizes that intuition can save lives. But can intuition be broken down into components that comprise a “working model” of intuitive thinking?  Can intuition be taught? Or is it more a matter of awareness? Most of us have hunches from time to time, gut feelings,  that sense of certainty that we should do or not do something.  And we either act on the hunches or ignore them.

The dictionary defines intuition as: direct perception of truth, fact, etc independent  of any reasoning process; immediate apprehension. In the Western world, we are taught to distrust such perceptions. The emphasis is on left-brain thinking, reason, facts,  proof. And yet, in a time when everything is in flux, when institutions we took for granted are crumbling, when we are surrounded by uncertainty and have almost instantaneous access to news and information, our intuition may be our strongest ally. It enables us to make immediate decisions based on nothing more than a feeling.

We do seem to be in the midst of an emerging paradigm that is much more heart-centered and right brain than the existing worldview. And in this new paradigm, intuition and synchronicity are like conjoined twins.  It’s impossible to get to know one without the other.

So it’s very likely that as the military creates its intuitive thinking model, they will come face to face with synchronicity. Perhaps   Bernard Beitman’s Coincidence Studies would be of great interest to them!

 

Posted in intuition, synchronicity | 25 Comments

Paradigms and Neptune

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Trish and Rob

A woman believes that people are stealing her clothes, her jewelry, her money. She holds conversations with her mother, dead now for 30 years, and sometimes thinks that her son is a distant cousin and that  her husband is her father. She hears voices and sees things and people that aren’t there.

Another woman holds conversations with the dead, hears voices, sees things that aren’t there, and knows that her son was her husband in a previous life. People seek her out for precisely these reasons and pay her handsomely for the messages she brings from the dead.

The first woman is an Alzheimer’s patient; the second woman is a psychic medium. Both illustrate the elusive nature of Neptune, its ethereal veil, the way it dissolves barriers between realities. Think of Neptune as a tuning fork. Tap it. It hums. But no two people hear the hum in exactly the same way. Neptune transported Edgar Cayce into other realms and swept Einstein into the heart of scientific truth. It gave diarist Anais Nin penetrating insight into other people. But it can also lead into the basest escapism through alcohol, drugs, sex, addictions of all kinds, the darker side of the occult. It can lead to religious fervor, religious wars, extreme religious views and beliefs.

Neptune also rules compassion, the higher self, inspired art, escapism, addiction,  everything psychic, spirit communication, imagination, connection to something larger than ourselves. It dissolves the boundary between ego and others, so there’s often an element of confusion involved in any Neptune transit, but particularly with this one.

Neptune dipped into Pisces briefly in 2011, then retrograded back into Aquarius. On February 3, 2012, it entered Pisces again and will be there for the  next 14 years.  We can already see its influence being played out on the global stage.

In American politics, particularly in the Republican party, the religious fervor has reached frenzied proportions. For example, Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker  write of the e-mails she receives, including one “about why women have been saddled with the monthly inconvenience and painful childbirth – for tempting men to do evil and failing to recognize their roles as ‘helpmeets’ for men.”

She quotes one e-mail: “Pagan women like yourself have no regard for the natural order of God’s plan and shamelessly promulgate the ‘we are goddesses’ bile that has infected the entire country and pretty much stopped it in its tracks from incurring God’s blessings.” And Parker is a moderate Republican, who is anti-abortion, not a leftist feminist.

But beneath this frenzy is another current – a burgeoning interest in the nature of reality and of consciousness, in how we are all connected, and in how we can live more compassionately. In other words, we are witnessing the war between paradigms – the old and the new.

This struggle between the old paradigm and the one that is evolving, emerging, is sometimes so glaringly evident that it’s shocking. Here’s the old paradigm:

  • Mostly male white politicians talk about legislation to ban contraception and to require transvaginal ultrasound – medical rape – before a woman can have an abortion.
  • Scrap social safety net  programs – Medicaid, Medicare – and privatize Social Security.
  • The real extremists in the old paradigm consider college “elitist” and advocate doing away with public education and having every kid in America home schooled.
  • Never allow gay and lesbian couples to get married.
  • Stoke the war machine; it’s great for the economy.
  • If you’re poor, elderly, you’re on your own. If you’re sick and don’t have health insurance, well, too bad.
  • No tax hikes on the wealthy, keep the burden on the poor and the middle class.
  • We live in a mechanistic universe, where everything is cause and effect.
  • Holistic health and medicine, ie. the mind-body-spirit connections, is  just New Age silliness.
  • UFOs/ETs are nonexistent. We humans reign supreme in the universe.
  • We have the best medical system in the world and we’re working on drugs that can cure anything.
  •  Climate change/global warming is a myth.

This list is long and depressing, so I’ll stop here. Just tune in the evening news for more.

Here’s what is so far apparent in the new paradigm:

  • What affects you affects me. We are connected.  We are all a part of Indra’s net.
  • If you can imagine it, it’s possible.
  • We create our realities from the inside out, based on our beliefs, emotions,  and thoughts.
  • Compassion, forgiveness, love, and diplomacy are more powerful than war.
  • Regardless of differences in ethnicity, culture, religious beliefs, gender, belief systems, we are equal.
  • Intuition and synchronicity are recognized as essential tools.
  • The universe – or Source, God, the higher self, whatever you want to call it – communicates with us constantly.
  • We are the change we can believe in.
  • Now, this instant, is the only moment that counts.
  • Each of us has a purpose on the planet and every purpose is equally important.
  • Keep an open mind even when the idea seems preposterous. After all, it was once widely believed that the world was flat, that electricity wasn’t feasible,  that travel to other planets was possible only in science fiction.
  • We share the planet with wildlife that is probably as intelligent or more intelligent  than we are.
  • We live many lives.
  • Confront your fears and move on.
  • Be forever curious, honor your own wisdom, never lose sight of your dreams.
  • Indulge your innate creativity.
  • And okay, I don’t know if this is really part of the new paradigm, but I hope it is: if ET knocks at your door, cautiously invite him/her in with the understanding that you will not be manipulated or controlled in any way, that contact will be only beneficial.

I’m sure I’ve left stuff off this list. But you get the idea. The new paradigm is Neptune’s domain. And we’ve got the next 14 years to perfect it.

Posted in astrology, Neptune, paradigms, synchronicity | 25 Comments