Apophenia anyone?

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Trish and Rob

Recently, I wandered into the skeptic’s dictionary out of curiosity to see what they had to say about synchronicity. Basically, folks, they’re telling those of us who accept and pursue meaningful coincidences in our lives that we’re deluded or crazy. Let me quote from the dictionary.

“What reasons are there for accepting synchronicity as an explanation for anything in the real world? What it explains is more simply and elegantly explained by the ability of the human mind to find meaning and significance where there is none (apophenia).

“Jung’s defense of acausal connections is so inane I hesitate to repeat it. He argues that “acausal phenomena must exist…since statistics are only possible anyway if there are also exceptions” (1973, Letters, 2:426).

“He asserts that “…improbable facts exist–otherwise there would be no statistical mean…”  (ibid.: 2:374). Finally, he claims that “the premise of probability simultaneously postulates the existence of the improbable” (ibid. : 2:540). However, if you think of all the pairs of things that can happen in a person’s lifetime, and add to that our very versatile ability of finding meaningful connections between things, it then seems likely that most of us will experience many meaningful coincidences. The coincidences are predictable but we are the ones who give them meaning.”
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I love that last line. Should someone else apply meaning or no meaning to our coincidences? Are we not worthy of making decisions about our own experiences? The message is that we should not trust our own thoughts or perceptions if we find meaning in coincidental or mysterious happenings in our lives. In other words, the proper and scientific thing to do is to ignore and dismiss coincidences.  The inverse, of course, is that it’s okay to apply no meaning.

The writer continues:

“Even if there were a synchronicity between the mind and the world such that certain coincidences resonate with transcendental truth, there would still be the problem of figuring out those truths. What guide could one possibly use to determine the correctness of an interpretation? There is none except intuition and insight, the same guides that led Jung’s teacher, Sigmund Freud, in his interpretation of dreams. The concept of synchronicity is but an expression of apophenia.”

The Skeptic’s  Dictionary concludes with a comment that Jung went through a period of mental illness when he was exploring these concepts. The implication: he was crazy and so are we!

Posted in Jung, skeptics | 52 Comments

A Heart with Wings

Posted on February 14, 2011 by Trish and Rob

Here’s an interesting synchro tale about a symbol of spiritual ascension. It was written by Patricia Gibson, director of the Epilepsy Information Service at Wake Forest School of Medicine. It appeared as a guest column in the Winston-Salem Journal of North Carolina on January 13.
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Synchronicity has been described as the coincidence of a thought with an outside event. Many of us have had these moments that surprise us and make us wonder. Some of these moments we forget, while others keep resurfacing, causing us to ponder on the mysteries of life.

Last August, I was leaving a local restaurant with my sister when we decided to stop by a craft store next door to look around. We passed some beautiful molded art squares hanging on the wall; one depicted a heart with wings.

“I have always loved that symbol — a heart with wings,” my sister said, almost to herself. “Do you remember that pillow you made me one Christmas when I was 14?”

“Oh, yeah, the purple heart with the red wings,” I said, surprised that it was that same symbol. She had seen a picture of the pillow in a teen magazine and thought it was so cool. I later cut it out and went to a fabric shop looking for purple and red satin. Pretty tacky, I had thought, but then surprised myself by coming up with a fairly good replica of the pillow. I smiled, remembering how excited she had been when she opened the present.

“What does that symbol mean?” I asked.

“It means a spiritual ascension, evolving to a higher level,” she said, “To me it just means hope.” I made a mental note to return to the store later and buy that art square for her next birthday.

Two years ago, my sister was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, a deadly sneaky cancer with a high mortality rate. She has won that battle so far, but not without the price of severe nerve damage from the chemotherapy.

As I recently passed the craft store on my way to work, I again thought of the heart with wings and said to myself, “Don’t forget to go get that art piece,” trying to underline this in my brain, forgetful person that I am. I pulled up to the stoplight at Five Points and sat idling behind a truck, waiting for the light to change. As I sat staring absentmindedly ahead, it suddenly hit me that there in front of my eyes, hanging on the back of the truck, was a beautifully hand-carved heart with wings. I could not believe it.

The light changed and the truck turned right and so did I. The truck turned right into a lot and parked. A man got out and headed toward the building. I jumped out, running behind him.

“Sir, excuse me, sir,” I called. He turned and I explained that I had seen his sign and wondered where he bought it. “It is so beautiful, and I want one for my sister, that symbol means so much to her.”

He explained that he had carved it himself, but he was having some medical problems now and couldn’t do that work at this time. I gave him my card and asked, should he ever be interested in selling the heart with wings, to please let me know.

I never heard from him, though I would think of him from time to time and wonder if he might have lost my card, something I would likely do. I regretted that I had not gotten his name and number.

On Dec. 21, a particularly discouraging day, I unlocked my office door, tossed my coat on the nearby chair, looked at my overflowing desk with a sigh, and then did a double take. To my utter amazement, there amid the stacks of paper lay the beautiful hand-carved heart with wings. Attached was a note that said, “Happy Holidays — May your spirit soar and that of your loved ones always soar,” and just below that, “free.”

I ran to my coworkers, but they could offer no information. I went to the security guard at the front desk.

“Mary, tell me, there was something left in my office.” Her eyes told me she knew something.

“I can’t say,” she said, and looked away. “I promised not to tell anything.”

“You don’t understand,” I said, “this is just a miracle.” But she wasn’t budging.

The power of a simple act of kindness is impressive. I wanted so to thank that man for his generosity and kindness. And I so hoped and prayed that whatever medical problem he was having was better. So, sir, all I can do is write this to say thank you and to say that people like you give me hope for our world. May your spirit also soar.

Posted in heart with wings | 11 Comments

Antarctica – The 170th ‘country’ to visit our blog!

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Trish and Rob

Our flag counter says Antarctica is the latest country to visit our blog. Well, it’s a continent, if not really a country. (Show me your passport Antarcticans!)

If you’re reading this from Antarctica, greetings and welcome from Florida!  Are there synchronicities in Antarctica? If there are people, there must be synchronicities. Here’s a bit of info from way down under.
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Speculation over the existence of a “southern land” was not confirmed until the early 1820s when British and American commercial operators and British and Russian national expeditions began exploring the Antarctic Peninsula region and other areas south of the Antarctic Circle. Not until 1840 was it established that Antarctica was indeed a continent and not just a group of islands. Several exploration “firsts” were achieved in the early 20th century. Following World War II, there was an upsurge in scientific research on the continent. A number of countries have set up a range of year-round and seasonal stations, camps, and refuges to support scientific research in Antarctica. Seven have made territorial claims, but not all countries recognize these claims. In order to form a legal framework for the activities of nations on the continent, an Antarctic Treaty was negotiated that neither denies nor gives recognition to existing territorial claims; signed in 1959, it entered into force in 1961.

Synchro penquins…what a coincidence meeting you here.

 


Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

On the Road with Gypsy

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Trish and Rob
Travel often creates an atmosphere that’s fertile for synchronicity – and for sightings. This story comes from Gypsy, who recently drove from Louisiana to Delaware.
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Since leaving Louisiana, I’d been “asking” to see something, anything unusual. On the first day,at two different times, I saw a white object in the sky that disappeared within a minute or so. I remember thinking it was weird because I could see planes in the sky far away and they hadn’t disappeared when the sun shone on them in certain ways. What had initially caught my eye both times with these two things was the fact that, unlike the contrails and planes which I could tell were moving, these objects didn’t seem to move. Just one instant they were there, the next instant I couldn’t see them anywhere in the sky. I dismissed them as just flukes of the sunlight.
On the second day of my trip, the weather was bright and sunny, just like the day before. Not a cloud in the sky. I was on Interstate 40E around  Whytheville, Virginia, when out of nowhere a white ball appeared in the sky. I didn’t see it approach from any direction, didn’t see it moving across the sky like a plane would. It just appeared in the sky overhead,  low enough so I could see the dimensional shape of it – circular, pure white, the color of fresh snow. It wasn’t shiny, just a pure white.
The dimensional aspect was the most interesting. It seemed to be  covered in pyramid shapes. I’ve looked and looked for something online that might be similar, but the closest image I found was that of an origami ball. If you went from point to point on this image, in a circular line, connecting the points, so to speak, this is what the object looked like, except that it was solid white and there were no appendages extending in any direction other than those of the pyramid shaped things.
I was so taken aback with watching it, I weaved into the other lane of traffic. In the meantime, I had a sandwich in one hand, was holding onto the steering wheel with my other hand, and was trying to figure out how to take a photo of the object with my broken cell phone. When I say broken, I mean that the two halves of the phone are literally broken apart and have to be held together for the phone to work.  So I dropped my sandwich and reached down for my phone and was trying to open it without hitting another car or getting hit.
As I look up from grabbing my phone, the ball just disappears. It didn’t fade, didn’t speed away, or anything else. It just disappeared, evaporated.  I could still a plane on the far horizon and its contrails, but the white ball was just gone. I looked around and up through my sun roof, but never saw the object again.
The size of this thing was difficult to determine. It was certainly close enough and/or large enough that I could see these pyramid-shaped protrusions on it. But from my visual perspective it didn’t seem to be nearly as large as the other UFOs I’ve seen.
Posted in gypsy, local travel, sightings | 13 Comments

Cop catches same speeder in two countries

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Trish and Rob

This one comes from a blog appropriately named confused.com. It’s a story that was originally in the New Zealand Herald.

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A former London traffic police officer has caught a man speeding in the UK, then after he moved to New Zealand caught the same man speeding again – two years later.

Andy Flitton is now with the New Zealand traffic police and said he had forgotten about the first speeding ticket until the man brought it up.

A speeding offense in two hemispheres may see the driver’s car insurance premiums rise. Mr. Flitton said: “He asked if I used live in London and operate the laser gun on the A5 in North London. When Fltton said yes, the man replied: “I thought it was you. You gave me my last speeding ticket there, the only two tickets I’ve ever gotten.”

The motorist had moved to New Zealand just two weeks before the latest speeding offense.”We must have some sort of connection,” Flitton said. “Both times he broke the law I was the one to give him a ticket.
“It just shows what a small world it really is.”
***
Love the line, “We must have some sort of connection.” Yes, the guy speeds and Flitton gives him tickets halfway around the world. Sounds like the traveling trickster! What are the chances?

Posted in dark trickster | 12 Comments

Egypt, Global Events, and Synchros

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Trish and Rob
As the peaceful, grassroots revolution has unfolded in Egypt, we’ve been looking for synchronicities. Every global event seems to have its share. So today when we heard that Mubarak had fled Cairo and the VP had turned power over to the military, we rushed home to watch the news coverage.
During President Obama’s statement concerning the events in Egypt, he mentioned that Tahrir, the name of the square the protesters have occupied for the last 18 days, means freedom. Throughout the  media coverage, reporters have referred to it as Liberation Square. Either way, this synchro is certainly fitting.

Update: 21 years ago today, Nelson Mandela was freed from prison in South Africa. And we all know what unfolded after that!

Posted in Egypt, global synchro | 7 Comments

What’s REALLY Going On?

Posted on February 11, 2011 by Trish and Rob

 Labrador is a northerly region within the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the  largest and most northern geographical region on the Atlantic Ocean in Canada. It’s about the size of Colorado.

 According to this article, hundreds of dead seals have washed ashore since early December between Hopedale and Makkovick this winter. “Usually at this time of year, the seals are on sea ice south of Hpedale, but there’s very little ice there now,” says Ian Winters, a Nunatsiavut conservation officer.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is testing carcasses. The DFO received several reports of seals giving birth on the coast of Labrador in December – two to three months ahead of schedule for nomadic sea mammals. These early births are happening on land rather than on ice floes, which means the pups probably won’t survive.

Now let’s backtrack to the thousands of dead birds that fell out of the sky over Arkansas on New Year’s Eve. We now know they supposedly died of blunt force trauma, but here’s an addition piece of information. According to this article (be sure to play the video to see what’s mentioned here),  the national Weather Service radar in North Little Rock picked up a speck on the radar that showed up at about the same time the birds started falling.

The spot is estimated to be about 1,300 to 1,400 feet in the air. As Science and Operations Officer Chris Buonanno at the National Weather Service said, the speck is NOT precipitation. It doesn’t move like a cloud or rainstorm cloud. So: what is it?

A theory about what’s actually going on, comes from natural news.com, which speculates that a pole shift is already underway. Russia’s Ministry for Extraordinary Situations (MCHS) – and no, that’s not Wolf Blitzer’s CNN Situation Room! –  apparently issued a warning last week that the weakening in the planet’s magnetosphere “was allowing poisonous space clouds to enter deep into Earth’s atmosphere where it is coming into contact with birds.”  So if these dead space clouds are reaching into the lower atmosphere and killed the birds while in flight, what’s in these clouds?
Well, nothing good, that’s for sure. Hydrogen cyanide. We all know about cyanide from movies, right? It’s the pill the spies pop when they’re caught and as soon as they bite down on it, the poisonous gas kills them. It’s recognized as a chemical weapon. It’s used on the tips of harpoons to kill whales. Here’s what Wikipedia says about it:
A hydrogen cyanide concentration of 300 mg/m3 in air will kill a human within about 10 minutes. It is estimated that hydrogen cyanide at a concentration of 3500 ppm (about 3200 mg/m3) will kill a human in about 1 minute. The toxicity is caused by the cyanide ion, which halts cellular respiration by inhibiting an enzyme in mitochondria called cytochrome c oxidase.

So, the next question: is this the result of a weapons test or attack? Or are the poles actually shifting?
The geomagnetic reversals happen over thousands of years. But in between the flips, “the magnetic field can become quite weak and chaotic, causing turbulence  in the field, which can effectively cause weaker gaps in the magnetosphere. These magnetic gaps or weaknesses can allow outside influences that normally would not penetrate the magnetosphere to reach deep into that magnetosphere, theoretically all the way down to where birds fly at very low altitude.”
The media keeps marching out doctors and researchers who give perfectly plausible explanations for the deaths, but not for mass deaths. If the pole shift is underway, we wouldn’t be told about it until after the fact.
Years ago when I first read about the pole shift, I barely slept for days. Back then, I used to fret a lot about stuff that might happen – what if, oh my god, where would we go, what would we do, what would we eat…It’s that primitive part of the brain that borrows trouble and spins fantastic fictions.

Since then, I’ve realized that when I worry about what might happen, it robs my capacity for feeling joy about what is happening in the moment, this instant. Just the same, it behooves us to stay informed. Information is power. And with Google at our fingertips, our personal fetch expert for anything in the known universe that we can imagine, our personal detective and researcher, answers are rarely farther than a few keystrokes away. We just need to connect the dots.

Posted in mass animal deaths, pole shift | 29 Comments

The Travel Groove

Posted on February 10, 2011 by Trish and Rob
Travel and synchronicity are two peas in a pod. Regardless of the method of travel, you’re removed from your normal routine, your senses are sharper, and the environment is ripe for  synchronicity. This travel synchro comes from Gypsy, during her recent car trip from Louisiana to Delaware.
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I managed to leave Louisiana without a single CD to listen to on my trip. I always keep my multi-CD track full of my faves. But my grandson and his little groupies had been using my car so much  I had taken all my CDs out of my car to keep them from being damaged, then forgot to grab them before I left.
So I get on the road – and have NO music. OK, so there was the radio, but I’m not into it, I like music of my own choosing. Then I arrive in Delaware and I’m lamenting to my daughter that I have to go out and pick up a some CDs before I leave so I’ll have music on my return trip. She says, “Oh, by the way, you have some mail here that just came.”
It was a large envelope from someone I haven’t heard from in over a year – and hadn’t expected to be hearing from at all. I’d never even discussed music with this person. But inside the envelope is a CD and a note from this woman saying she thought I might like the music!
It was just one of those moments, you know? I can’t tell you the last time anyone sent me a CD gift –  years!
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This kind of experience means you’re in the travel groove!
Posted in cds, gypsy, local travel, music | 15 Comments

Dolphin Art

Posted on February 9, 2011 by Trish and Rob

Take a close look at the painting above and use your imaginations. Maybe you can see a person in pink at left with outstretched arms, possibly giving signals. Imagine this person is standing at the edge of a pool. In the water, surfacing, painted in green, is a dolphin. Then look to the top of the page. There’s a large dolphin leaping out of the water.

Okay, now look below. The painting was actually made by a dolphin as our daughter Megan held the paper.  It was one of the last training project with the dolphins during her month-long internship at Dolphin’s Plus in Key Largo. The dolphin’s name is Elvis.

Is it a synchronicity, just imagination, or dolphin’s mysterious mental powers? I’m not sure I could paint this well while staying afloat in a pool with a paint brush in my mouth.

Posted in dolphins | 22 Comments

The 13th Sign, Part 2

Posted on February 8, 2011 by Trish and Rob

 Okay, so who is this figure Ophiuchus?

 Well, it’s the only astrological sign based on a real person – Asclepius. To the ancient Greeks in 27 BC, he was regarded as a healer, and in the Roman pantheon, he was a son of Apollo. He supposedly learned the secrets of preventing death when he observed one serpent bringing another healing herbs. He raised the dead using this herb. In order to prevent the entire human race from becoming immortal under his care, Zeus supposedly killed him with a bolt of lightning, then later suffered a pang of conscience and placed his image in the heavens to honor his good works.

Ophiuchus is usually depicted as grasping a snake – thus his name as Serpent Bearer – and has one foot resting firmly against Scorpius (the scorpion).  In honor of Asclepius, snakes were often used in healing rituals and non-venomous snakes were allowed to crawl on the floor in dormitories where the sick and injured slept. Cults grew up around Asclepius and pilgrims supposedly flocked to his healing temples from 300 BC onward. Ritual purification would be followed by offerings or sacrifices to the god, and by spending the night in the holiest part of the sanctuary so that dreams would occur. Any dreams or visions were reported to a priest who would prescribe the appropriate therapy by interpreting what the dreams meant.

Just from the mythology, we can glimpse some of the components of the archetype: healer, alternative medicine, the power of groups (pilgrims flocking to the temples), magic (raising the dead), dream interpretation, cult mentality, violence and violent deaths, sudden unexpected events (thunderbolts), resisting and questioning authority, pushing against the status quo, a greater independence from authoritarian rule (sounds like what’s going on in Egypt) and greater dependence on the self and the local community. 
Other components of this archetype include what author and physician Dean Radin calls “the global mind.”  We posted about Princeton’s Global Consciousness Project, and it’s real time color coded “dot” that  shows the data analysis of these random number generators, so that anyone with a computer and an Internet connection can see changes in the global mind as they occur.

Magnetic fluctuation doesn’t just affect wildlife. It impacts human beings, too. And it may be creating a sensitivity in certain types of individuals that is part of this emerging paradigm. Planetary empaths are individuals who seem to be so intimately connected to fluctuations in the earth that they experience physical symptoms for days and sometimes weeks before a natural disaster occurs. Their “symptoms” are astonishingly similar and often coincide with the change in colors in the GCP Dot.

Then there’s the hoopla surrounding 2012 and the end of the Mayan calendar. This idea started with Jose Arguelles in The Mayan Factor. That calendar ends on  December 21, 2012. But the date simply  marks the end of a 26,000 year astrological cycle. As the date nears, the doomsayers are out in full force, predicting the end times – the end of the world through massive earth changes that might include a pole shift, and the deaths of millions. When you Google December 21, 2012, more than 7 million links come up. These websites and blogs cover the spectrum of speculation – from the ludicrous to the more sobering assessment of science to urban survivalists eager to sell you equipment and freeze-dried food to get you through this global Armageddon.
While the end of the world scenario is fodder for dramatic entertainment in movies, television and novels, a more likely outcome to all this is a paradigm shift, a shift in mass consciousness that  the rediscovery of Ophiuchus presages. 
That said, there are troubling facts emerging that suggest this paradigm shift may occur as a result of global warming, an increase in natural disasters, a widening disparity between rich and poor, increased political and religious strife worldwide. We’ve covered some of the facts in other posts – about the massive deaths of birds and other wildlife, for instance. Here are some additional facts:
In 2010, natural disasters killed more than a quarter of a million people and displaced millions. According to Swiss Re, the largest reinsurer in the world, the financial losses from these natural disasters exceeded  $222 billion.
Greenland’s ice sheet melted at a record rate in 2010.
2010 and 2005 tie for the warmest years on record. 
The last pole shift occurred nearly 800,000 years ago. Some scientists believe we’re overdue. Others believe a pole shift is already underway.

So, this rediscovery of Ophiuchus may be a warning, may be prompting us to really examine our collective beliefs and desires. What do we want not only for ourselves and our loved ones, but for the planet?

Posted in 13th Sign, astrology, Ophiuchus | 24 Comments