Welcome to The Mystical Underground

That was the theme of a meditation class I taught recently and it was accompanied by synchronicity before class even began. I arrived about 15 minutes early to open the yoga studio and found one of my students sitting by the door. She said she was glad I arrived early because she had a question. She seemed anxious and said she was worried about going too deep into meditation.

I asked why. It seemed an odd question for a beginning meditation class, since most of the students were having a difficult time quieting their minds and getting into a meditative state. She spoke rapidly in a quiet, accented voice and told me that when she was 16 she was put into a deep trance by a man who did something to her. She didn’t say what, but said that maybe she would tell me later. I think she was waiting for me to ask, but I didn’t. She repeatedly said that she was worried about going too deep because she might re-live the experience. I thought that was what she was already doing.

I told her that the class was going to focus on overcoming worries and anxieties and it should help her overcome her fears. A couple of minutes later, another student arrived and the first thing she said was that she was worried about something. I can’t recall what it was – something about her teenage son -because I was too amazed that people were not only bringing their worries to class, but were talking about them. I hadn’t begun the class or told them that we would focus on dealing with worries and anxiety.

I’d brought a book along called, Matrix Meditations, and had marked a couple of passages in a chapter called Worry – Uncertainty and Anxiety. What I’d noticed about both the worries presented to me before class was that they probably weren’t worth worrying about. Certainly, the first woman had experienced something traumatic 25 or 30 years earlier, but if was so worried about reliving it, why had she signed up for the class?

The very first lines of what I read to the group actually reflected my thoughts. “Worry and anxiety sometimes reflect inner conflicts that need resolution, but many times they have little basis, and can waste a great deal of time and energy. Mark Twain remarked, “I’ve seen many troubles in my time, only half of which ever came true.” Worrying can be purposeful, but often it is not. Psychologist Fritz Perls called anxiety “the gap between the now and the later.”

I like that line. “The gap between the now and the latter.”

I had decided to make use of whatever the students were worrying about by turning it into a visualization for something better, what Maxwell Maltz, author of Psycho-Cybernetics, called constructive worry. Maltz recommends that you imagine the possibility of a positive event that you would like to see happen “so clearly that it becomes real to your brain and nervous system.”

So I told the class to create an intention – something that they wanted to see happen that would overcome any  worry or anxiety. (Worry is a mental process while anxiety is a whole body process. When you’re anxious, you muscles tighten, your breathing changes, a furrow forms on your brow.) The second step is to give it attention. Not the worry, but the positive resolution. Create the details of what you want to see. Then, no tension – release it, let it go.

So the mantra for that particular meditation was intention – attention – no tension. Over and over.

Hopefully, the meditations helped. But I had feeling that I was going to hear more about the woman’s trance  experience before the course was over. That last part – release it, let it go – can be the most challenging aspect of overcoming a negative experience.

After class, she approached and I was hoping that she would say something about how the exercise relieved her worry. Instead, she said something odd. “I’ve been in your house.”

Huh?

“Did you write a book about the Bermuda Triangle?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what I thought. I remember my client talking to you about it. That was years ago. I’m a realtor and he was interested in your house.” Apparently, he was more interested in the Bermuda Triangle, because we’re still living here.

We were treated this evening to a 90-minute debate in the dog park called American presidential politics. We had Republican candidate Mitt Romney, a Rotweiller, and we had President Barack Obama, a Greyhound.

Rotweiller came lumbering into the park, a large, slobbering dog that glanced eagerly around because, finally, he was in a debate with the sitting president, a Greyhound, one of the fastest dogs in the world. But before Rotweiller got to the stage, he rolled over a couple of times for a tummy scratch, looking for supporters, friends, licking any dog around him that was open to being licked. Play with  me, play with me, Rotweiller’s body language said.

Greyhound, however, strolled into the park with a quiet confidence, muscles rippling, prepared. And Greyhound was smiling. Greyhound didn’t slobber, didn’t pause for distractions – tummy scratches, licks, none of that. Greyhound strolled to the center of the park where the podiums were. And he looked across the park to his wife, another sleek and gorgeous Greyhound, and wished her happy anniversary.

Greyhound ran circles around Rotweiller from the moment the bell rang. Greyhound looked presidential, spoke like the king of the dog park,  spoke like a dog who understands what his accomplishments are and how they are radically different from Rotweiller’s.  In fact, Rotweiller flipped on everything he has proposed for the last 15 months.

So let’s get specific, something Rotweiller is incapable of doing. On health care:

Romney, gritting his sharp, pretty white teeth, said that individuals who are 54 years of age and older, won’t have any changes in their Medicare coverage. But hey, those of you under that age? Get ready for a voucher system.

The government will send you a voucher for several thousand bucks and, with that, you will go shopping for health care on the private market. But hey, guess what? If you have preexisting conditions, you can be denied under the Romney plan. You will pay a much higher premium, particularly if you’re a dog whose has been torn apart several times by a pitt bull.

Rotweiller lacks specifics about everything. He can’t articulate where the jobs he promises will come from, says he will repeal Obamacare, but can’t define how his program will be different, other than extolling the virtues of the “private market.” Yeah, you know, that private market that has worked so great in the past

Let me tell you about the private market. When our daughter was born 23 years ago, we had health insurance – and discovered that it didn’t cover maternity care. Megan cost us more than $8,000 just to be born.  There were no complications in the delivery, I spent just one night in the hospital. Two days after I was released, we cancelled our health insurance and spent the next 23 years without insurance. As self-employed individuals, health insurance would have cost us somewhere around $12,000  a year for each of us  by the time we reached out mid-50s.

In June, I became eligible for Medicare, the program that Romney/Rotweiller  would turn into a voucher system. I pay $299 for three months of care. My entry into Medicare was effortless, the system is efficient, I have zero complaints. The program works.

Trickle down economics, which Naomi Klein addresses brilliantly in The Shock Doctrine, is what we had under eight years of Bush and we all know where that ended – 2008, a financial meltdown for the U.S and the rest of the world. It’s the same plan under Romney Rotweiller, even though he refuses to admit it, refuses to address specifics. And he refuses to address specifics because he knows that if does, he will lose.

Earlier today, I had my own dog park drama. It’s called a hair salon. The woman who cuts and colors my hair, Lynn, is the sister of the woman who retired after cutting my hair for 20 years. She said something about how confused everyone is about who to vote for.

“I’m not confused,” I say. “I’m voting for Obama. You vote for Romney/Ryan, and women’s rights will revert to the dark ages.”

“Oh, Trish,” she says with a small laugh. “That’ll never happen.”

When I was younger, I used to let remarks like this pass. I don’t do that anymore. “Lynn, Romney/Ryan don’t give a shit about you and me, okay? They DO NOT CARE.  You’re looking at abortions with hangars in back alleys. You’re looking at a country where there’s no middle class, where it’s rich , poor, and indentured servitude.”

She doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. Then: “Did you see Obama 2016, Trish?”

She’s referring to the anti-Obama film that is being touted as the right wing equivalent to Michael Moore’s Farenheit 9-11.

“No,” I reply. “I didn’t see it.”

“Well, we’re going to have an Islamic state by 2016.”

Oh, okay. I get it now. This is about the fact that Obama is black and she is not. This is about narrative, about the story, about perjury. So  I turn the story around for her. “Lynn, are we a country, a people,  who ignore the sick, the poor, the elderly, the vulnerable? We call ourselves a Christian nation, and if that’s true, how can we not take care of the most vulnerable in our society?”

Silence. Then: “Well, yeah, I see what you mean.”

Do you? Really?

“Lynn, have you read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale?”

“No.”

“Well, you should read it before the election. Because that’s what you’re ultimately looking at under Romney/Ryan.”

I have a nephew who despises Obama. He thinks Obamacare will put him out of business because he works in the health industry, But actually, Obamacare will probably increase his business – and therefore his profit- because health insurance by 2014 will be mandatory.

Okay, so back to the dog park. The Rotweiller is trotting out of the park, confident that he has won. En route, he flops to the ground several times, slobbering and submissive to the larger dogs. They sniff, he licks and whimpers and begs to be their friends.

The Greyhound races past all of them, already priming himself for the next debate, the next race, the next round of drama that is American politics. And he’s moving faster that every other dog in the park. Ask any dog owner. What dog can outrun a Greyhound?

illustration from center for touch drawing

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This synchro comes from a long-time friend who asked that we not use her real name. It’s one of those stories that illustrates the law of attraction – focused concentration – and  how synchronicity plays out in our lives, often in unexpected ways.

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A few months ago we were looking online for something and came across a particular production company based in NYC, so we started reading the website.  I can’t remember if we were trying to find someone on Facebook to see a picture and it led us to the website or if we were looking for something else and just came across it.  Anyway, on the biography page, there was a very familiar name – to me.

This guy was someone I went to college with and wasn’t quite involved with but there definitely a connection. He moved away (had a sick mother and also went to join his brother in making a film) and I continued with my life.  We just fell out of touch, mostly because both of us were nervously shy around each other in a weird way.  Never left my mind, really.  This was a person I have pages and pages about in my journals. Husband even teases me about it sometimes.

Once I learned he was in the same city, I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a little while, so I looked at the website again and then found some pictures of the production.  Pretty sure it was him.  That was months ago.  Then last week, my husband and I were in a restaurant for our anniversary (the day after) and who walks in?  That person. I was so shocked I told husband we had to just get going to the theater to make the show and left.

This guy and I did see each other. I am pretty sure he knew exactly who I was.

Ikea. Great concept, but in the pursuit of the almighty buck, they have landed in the kind of climate that invites massive boycotts. Their recent expansion into a potentially lucrative market – Saudi Arabia – has resulted in a catalogue where women are airbrushed away. away, as in the above photo. Presto, change, ladies, you no longer exist!

We received two references to this travesty today, the start of a cluster synchro. One came from a woman in Malibu, California, who has bought a lot of Ikea merchandise, and the other email came from a man in Australia who worked for them for 24 years and was recently “rendered redundant” – fired.

The story:

A local version of Ikea’s yearly catalogue, published on its Saudi website, shows images that are identical to those in other editions save for one detail: the women are gone. “We are looking into the issue and holding a dialogue with our Saudi franchise holder,” said Ulrika Englesson Sandman, a spokeswoman for Inter IKEA Systems, which owns the Ikea trademark and concept.

When entering a new market the company always takes into account the ability to balance local culture and legislation with its own values, she added.

The removal of women from the pages of the Saudi edition, including a young girl who was pictured studying at her desk, has prompted a strong response from Swedes, who pride themselves on egalitarian policies and a narrow gender gap.

“You can’t remove or airbrush women out of reality. If Saudi Arabia does not allow women to be seen or heard, or to work, they are letting half their intellectual capital go to waste,” Trade Minister Ewa Bjoerling said in a statement. Her sentiment was echoed by Swedish European Union Minister Birgitta Ohlsson, who branded the incident “medieval” on social networking site Twitter.

Saudi Arabia applies strict rules of gender segregation, banning women from driving and requiring them to have permission from a male guardian before travelling or receiving medical care. Ikea’s Saudi franchise partner currently operates three stores in the country, where it has seen ‘double digit’ yearly growth over the past five years, according to its webs.

Our Aussie friend was going to do a post about this,  but he figured that since he had an axe to grind, it might not mean much. But the bottom line is how can a country like Sweden do business with a country like Saudi Arabia, where women are rendered completely irrelevant? Saudi women can’t even leave their homes without the permission and accompaniment of a male relative. They must cover themselves completely. Why? Is the female body oh so tempting to Saudi men that it might incite unprecedented lust?  Might it lead to the collapse of marriages?

I’ve never understood Saudi Arabia, never understood their attitude toward women, have never understood why these women don’t rise up in some huge rebellion and take this ridiculous monarchy down. But I do know one thing: I will never buy anything made by IKEA, just as I will never step foot inside a Walmart.

These companies are soulless scourges, after profit at any price, sacrificing the very individuals who do the shopping. I mean, seriously? You airbrush women out of the catalogue and really think they are going to buy your products? How about keeping them in your  catalogue? Maybe it would help to change hearts and minds, IKEA. Maybe you could sweep into this market as agents of CHANGE rather than business as usual.

You think this guy would save your life?

The headline on the article sent to me by Jim Banholzer read: Shark Rescues Man Adrift in Pacific Ocean.  That I’ve got to read, I thought. Of all the large creatures on the planet, it seems that sharks along with alligators are the least likely to be performing any humanitarian deeds.

So here’s what happened to Toakai Teitoi of Kiribati, a Micronesian island nation 2,500 miles southwest of Hawaii. He took a two-hour boat ride with his brother-in-law from the capital of Tarawa, where Teitoi had flown to be sworn in as a policeman, to his home in Maiana. But it didn’t work out that way. He and Ielu Falaile stopped to fish en route, and lost track of time. They ran out of gas, and were set adrift on the 15-foot boat with very little water.

They were apparently able to catch fish, but suffered from severe dehydration and Ielu died after a few weeks. Toakai was finally saved after 105 days. He was laying in the boat with his head covered to protect him from the sun when a six-foot shark bumped against the boat, circled it, and swam away. Toakai sat up and saw a ship coming his way with crew members peering at him through binoculars. If he hadn’t sat up, the crew might’ve thought it was an abandoned boat and ship might’ve continued on.

Did the shark intentionally save Toakai? If it were a dolphin, I might say yes. But a shark? I would say it’s more likely a life-saving synchronicity. The shark probably was interested in eating Toakai, not rescuing him. But its actions inadvertently saved his life. Then again, maybe there was an invisible force involved, a non-physical entity who came to the man’s rescue by nudging the shark into action.

one of the most famous Jacquelines!

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In 7 Secrets of Synchronicity, the fifth secret is called Clusters. This happens when synchronicity manifests itself in clusters of numbers, names, objects, events, words, symbols. It’s one of the most intriguing aspects of synchronicity and when it happens to you, you sit up and take notice.

Back in February, Adele Aldridge, who has a great blog on the I Ching,   sent us a terrific cluster synchro involving the name Jacqueline.   The other day, she sent us another Jacqueline cluster that also involves the iPad and birthdays.

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The 4 Jacquelines involved in this cluster are:

#1 – Jacqueline T. – my sister who lives in Manhattan.

#2 – Jacqueline B. – my friend for 35 years who lives in San Francisco Bay area.

#3 – Jacqueline K. – is a neighbor/friend/acquaintance and lives in my apartment complex in a separate building.

#4 – Jacqueline C. lives in Phoenix Arizona and is Jacqueline Ceballos, a former president of the New York Chapter of N.O.W. and founder of Veteran Feminists of America, a group I am a member of, having participated in the early feminist movement days of the second wave of feminism. I receive email notices from Jacqui when one of those pioneers either dies or is having an art show in the New York Area.

Background on my synchro: On Monday, September 17th, I received in the mail a gift of an iPad. I had been lusting for an iPad because I am about to publish volume 1 of my ongoing project of I Ching Meditations and want to have it available for the iPad. I need an iPad to be able to proof the document.

So when a friend offered to give me her “old” iPad because she got the latest version, I was more than thrilled. And while I have been using a MAC since it was born in 1984, I quickly discovered that using the iPad has a different set of things to learn. I managed to set up the WIFI, enter passwords, but what I really was a person with an iPad sitting next to me and showing me how to take advantage of all the goodies available. Being shown how to do anything saves untold hours of time and time for me now is the most valuable commodity.

Now to the Jacqueline synchros for September 19th.

1. When I opened my morning email there was a message from Jacqueline B. in California. I hadn’t heard from her in several weeks. I had told her how Katya Walter was sending me her iPad and she was eager to know if I’d received it yet.

2. September 19th was my sister’s birthday – Jacqueline T. I decided to get some fresh air and call her from my cell phone while sitting outside on a bench near the driveway that goes to the other building in back of mine. I told my sister Jackie how frustrated I was because I had this new wonderful tech toy and wished I knew someone nearby who had one so they could give me a quick lesson on using some of the functions. Jackie suggested going to an Apple store but there isn’t one nearby. A big part of our talk was about the continual learning curve of the tech world and my latest toy and the help I needed with it.

3. As I was chatting away with my sister Jackie, a car pulled up, rolled down the window and I saw that it was Jacqueline K. from nearby. I haven’t seen her since early spring. Jacqueline K. leaned out of her car window and waved me over to talk. I remained where I was sitting and pointed to my cell phone, indicating that I was busy on the phone. I didn’t  want to interrupt my birthday call to the other Jacqueline, my sister.

4. When I went inside and checked my email there was a message from Jacqueline C., informing me of the death of Bettye Lane, a feminist photographer of the feminist movement who had died on this day, September 19, which was also Bettye Lane’s birthday. The message informed us that there will be a memorial in NYC and hopefully a mention in the New York Times Obituaries.

I began musing about the significance of hearing from those 4 Jacquelines within hours of each other and that I had not been in recent communication with 3 out of the 4 and how come they all happened at one time? I may not have thought about it at all if I had not written about my 3 Jacqueline synchros previously.

Pow! It hit me. I remembered that Jacqueline K. has an iPad. I called her immediately, made a date for some wine, and she will run me through the iPad this afternoon. Since I haven’t talked to or seen her for months, I had completely forgotten that she has an iPad. And there she was wanting to talk just as I was talking to my sister Jacqueline about needing to see someone with an iPad. I thought that pretty nifty timing. So while only 3 of the Jacquelines in this synchro had to do with the iPad, the other Jacqueline was announcing the birth and the death of someone with the same birthday as my sister.

The entire experience left me with the sense that there are invisible threads in our lives, much like the weaving of a cloth. Some threads are visible but there are others that are mysteriously strong and hold the whole cloth of our lives together. In this set of Jacqueline synchros the difference is that besides hearing from 4 Jacquelines within hours of each other (and none of them knows the other) the thread of my need for help with my new iPad gift ended with a very useful “reason” for the connections. The birthday/death Jacqueline connection had nothing to do with my iPad wish but all things considered, was a part of this synchro package.

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Any ideas from anyone about the possible meaning of this cluster?

Nika, Noah. See the devil in Nika’s eyes? She’s ready to rock  roll.

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Our daughter, Megan, came home for a visit recently and brought Nika, the dog she adopted when Nika was 6 weeks old. Nika lived with us for about a year and became quite attached to our golden retriever, Noah, who is a couple of years older that she is. They became inseparable. They played together, ate together, slept curled up next to each other,  chased Frisbes together. Nika became the sister Noah didn’t have. At the dog park, Noah often defended Nika against other larger dogs.

Nika loves everyone – human or animal, she’s your friend. And she had a lot of friends at our dog park. There was Thunder, a 12-year-old grumpy German shepherd mix who cuddled with her, barked at her when she was out of line, licked her when needed loving. There was Cody the trickster huskie, who chased off bigger dogs when she was a puppy and always made sure she had an ally. But Noah is definitely her bro and her protector and Megan is certainly her human.

During the time that Megan worked at her internship at Disney, we would get together once a month or so and Nika would go nuts when she saw Megan and would seem sort of sad and depressed once we all separated again.  One night here at the house, Nika cornered a possum in our backyard and the possum was as freaked out as Nika – hissing, baring its teeth. Noah came to Nika’s rescue and the possum – wisely – took off.

In June, Megan’s internship at Disney ended and Nika moved to Orlando with her. During these past months, we’ve gotten together fairly regularly. Nika and Noah are so overjoyed to see each other that at one reunion, Nika leaped out the passenger window of Megan’s car just to get to Noah.  During their most recent reunion, they headed to the dog park together and Nika reconnected with her buddies there, then she and Noah headed out into the park on their own, commiserating, exploring, connected at the heart.

While they were visiting, I woke in the middle of the night and saw Nika and Noah cuddled together on the quilt where he usually sleeps alone.  All was well. I instantly fell back asleep. They looked like this, but on a quilt:

Dogs remember. They form bonds as intricate and intimate as those among humans. Their emotions are as real to them as our emotions are to us. Yes, I’ve been accused before of anthropomorphizing, but my response to those critics is that there’s no such thing. All animals feel and with dogs, perhaps because of their long history with humans, it’s easier to recognize these emotional connections, these memories.

There’s something here for us humans to keep in mind: if we treated each other as Nika and Noah treat each other,  wouldn’t the world be a better place? We would have each other’s backs, we would remember the early love and the forever love and would give each other space to explore the world independently. We would honor each other’s differences and honor the myriad ways we are the same. We would honor the fact that we have come together in the same space and time. We would grasp the spiritual underpinnings.

I’m telling you, my next political vote will be for an individual who loves and understands dogs.  It won’t be Mitt Romney, who  put his dog Shamus on a roof rack  during a trip to Canada.  Really? A roof rack?? In the U.S, alone, there are nearly 80 million dog owners. Why would a single one of them vote for Romney? If a man can’t treat his dog right, what makes you think he would do right by you?

Years ago, one of the things my dad advised was pretty simple and straightforward, as I look at it in hindsight: You want a quick way to see who someone else actually is? Look at how they treat their family – and their pets. And then look at how they act when money is the bottom line. Those things will tell you what you need to know about that person.

I am buoyed at the dog park. Yeah, I know how that sounds. But it happens to be true. Dogs are genuine,we humans are often anything but. We’re trying, though. We’re learning, we’re evolving. Really, we are.