Happy B-Day, Mom!

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Trish and Rob


As an author, Trish MacGregor has had many aliases over the years, Trish Janeshutz, T.J. MacGregor, Alison Drake, but her most famous alias, the one that only I can call her, is Mom. Growing up as an only child in a family of two authors who work at home, my relationship with my parents has always been close. Each night as I was going to bed, my dad would tell me some story, usually his own version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and my mom would be by his side, tickling my face with her long nails as I fell asleep. Some nights, I’d lie on a makeshift bed in my mother’s office listening to the melodic rhythm of her typing away at the computer into the early hours of the morning. If I awoke from a bad dream, she was there with open arms to welcome me into her bed.

As a child, my love for animals was expansive; my mother was the only other person I had met who shared my deep obsession and affection for animals. When our neighbors called Animal Control to come capture the ducks by the lake in our backyard, it was my mom and I who herded ten of them into our atrium so they wouldn’t be killed. When a skinny white cat appeared at the library near our home, it was my mom and I who named her Powder and adopted her into the family. When a golden dog failed a test that would have made her a police K9, it was my mom and I who convinced my dad that Jessie needed a home, and ours was perfect.

As a teenager, while dealing with the pressures of friends and school and trying to figure out who I was, it was my mom who stood constant in her knowledge that I was perfect. It was my mom who loved me not for the way I looked or how funny I was, but just because I was me, her daughter. It was my mom who was there to hug me when a guy told me he didn’t like me anymore; she was the one who got me a gym membership when I told her I felt fat, and it was my mom who listened to my story ideas and my rough drafts when I told her that I too wanted to be a writer.

As a college student, I began to witness the sometimes difficult relationships my friends had with their parents, and I started to see how good I had it. My parents had built the kind of relationship with me where we pretty much talked about everything. When I failed a class, they helped me figure out what to do; when my roommates got on my nerves, I vented to them. When I was hung over, we made jokes about it.

During my first year of college, I must have driven across the state at least a dozen times just to spend the weekend with them, and each time I’d get back in the car to head back to school, my mother would embrace me. She’d say she had to get the mail, or find one of our cats: any excuse to walk me out to the car. She’d stand by my window making sure I had everything I needed, and as I backed out, she and my dad would wave goodbye and my mom would break out into a little farewell dance.

Now that I’ve graduated college, I may not be my parent’s little girl anymore, but I will always be my mother’s daughter, a little kooky and a little clumsy (especially with my broken foot) but one hundred percent happy that I have the family that I do.

I’ll never forget two years ago when I was home visiting from school and my mom and I stayed up late one night. We were talking about her current novel and writing in general and she smiled to me and said “you’re dad and I have created many things, many characters and many stories, but you are by far our greatest creation.”

Thanks Mom, for deciding that you wanted to add another critter to your family. I love you. Happy Birthday!

Megan

 

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The 11:11 Sunday Service

Posted on June 5, 2011 by Trish and Rob

We’ve done a number of  posts on number cluster synchros and several on 11:11. But this sign outside a church is a first: Sunday service at 11:11. Gypsy woman sent the photo, with some info:

“The King’s Highway Christian church sits on a busy street through Shreveport. It’s been there for years, is on the historical registry. Just thought it’s so interesting that a very large affluent church has scheduled their Sunday morning worship to this particular time AND put up a sign about it.”

Makes me wonder if the church officials are onto the meaning of 11:11!

Of course, they could be referring to scripture…as in Revelations 11:11.

“But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them.”

The reference is to two prophets or witnesses with enormous powers. Could they be unfriendly other worldly visitors?

“These witnesses have authority to close the heavens in order to keep rain from falling while they are prophesying. They also have authority to turn bodies of water into blood and to strike the earth with any plague, as often as they desire.”

Revelations 11:6

I prefer Henry Miller’s prophecy.

“If men cease to believe that they will one day become gods then they will surely become worms.” – The Colossus of Maroussi

 

 

 

 

 


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Star of the Bards

Posted on June 4, 2011 by Trish and Rob

Some interesting material here related to story-telling and mythology, courtesy of Kathy Pagano, a Jungian psychotherapist. It’s a good site to explore whenever you’ve hit a creative block.

In fact, Kathy also refers to  herself as a creativity coach and a mythologist, and she dabbles in astrology.

 

 

 

 

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Underwater Synchro

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Trish and Rob

John Krayeski, pictured above at right, speared a synchro in 90 feet of water off Palm Beach, Florida on Mother’s Day. John was diving on an artificial reef made of a sunken freighter and Rolls Royce (well, it is Palm Beach) when he noticed something sticking up out of the sand.

“I pull it out and it’s a JC Penny credit card,” Krayeski told a Palm Beach Post reporter. “I knew it was an old one because of the design. When he climbed back aboard his boat, he took a closer look and recognized the name of the card holder. It was a man he’d recently worked for in his job as a contractor.

“I said to my friend, ‘We did an addition to this guy’s house.” At his office, he compared signatures on the card with a contract in his files. They looked very much alike, so he called Jack Jacobs. His wife answered and said they didn’t have any J.C. Penny credit cards. But ten minutes later, Jacobs called back and said  he’d lost that card 25 years ago before he was married.

“The befuddling thing is, how did it get a mile offshore on some reef?” Jacobs wonders. And what are the chances that a friend would find his lost card in the vast ocean a quarter of a century later?

“I told John I’m going to drop another card in the ocean and he has 25 years to find it.”

***

This story reminds me of how a man fishing with a net caught my wallet a week after I lost it while windsurfing. He returned it with all the cards and cash. Amazingly, I’d met the man a week before losing the wallet when he came to our house soliciting business for his landscaping company. Here’s that story.

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Feed and Plant

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Trish and Rob

Lauren Raine’s blog, Threads of the Spiderwoman, is always a visual feast and a verbal delight. The illustration is an example of her art. She delves into the mythic, the archetypal, the feminine. She certainly uses synchronicity in her work, experiences it in her travels, and writes about it beautifully. When I read this post on her blog, I asked if we could use it. We also used one of her stories in Synchronicity and the Other Side.

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I’ve been having tantrums lately, about feeling isolated and alienated and unsure of where to go or what to do.  I share these feelings, with an increased intensity and frequency, with many others these days.  The river is running very fast now.  The river is running like a torrent now.

I also tend to feel that tantrums, as long as they don’t hurt anyone or become collectively a war or a riot………….can be very useful.  Children have tantrums;  eventually they exhaust themselves, and sometimes the tantrum’s end is about learning new boundaries and maturity.  Tantrums for grownups can also not only vent, but reveal.  We spend so much time in our heads, in the “should be, used to be, would be, could be” realm of experience, which seems real at the time but usually isn’t even mildly useful to the what is…… and meanwhile, as a wise angel who briefly turned up recently to set me straight said – “There’s the NOW, patiently watching, saying ‘well, are you done yet?”

Change is the only certainty.  The NOW is.

So I had something happen magically, that was profound for me.  Sometimes when these things happen, it’s easy to say to yourself, “well, that’s silly”, but as that Angel (“Angelos”, from the Greek, originally meant “messenger”) reminded me, “you listen, so you noticed.”

I was facing a three day weekend at the Renfair in Los Angeles, selling my masks alone now, and early in the morning went to my car to open the door and hit the freeway, costume and lunch in hand.  Tucked into the handle of the door was a piece of dirty white paper.   When I pulled it out, I saw that it was folded into one of those paper airplanes that children make.  And when I unfolded it, I saw that it had two words, block printed in pencil in a childish hand, one on each side of the paper.  On one side it said “FEED”, on the other “PLANT”.

“Wow, that’s really strange” I thought, and tossed it aside.  Why would some kid put it there?  And on I went to the Faire.

As I was setting up in the blissful quiet before the stampede of merrymakers,  a participant, dressed in a nobleman’s costume, with a great burgundy  hat against and a white head of hair, came by and we had one of those brief conversations that can seem divinely channelled.  He affirmed the value of my work,  and the continuity we participate in as creators, whether we remember that or not.   All the people who interact with my masks, all the people who now make masks and wear them.   I needed to hear that.  And   he also reminded me of the inevitability of change, the suffering that comes from not accepting the “what is” of the moment.  Tantrums we can have, or very real grief – but we still have to get up, open up, learn,  grow, and deal.

I have a wrapped quartz crystal – on the first day I gave an extra mask to a man who didn’t have much money and wanted one for his partner.  He came back later and presented me with the crystal, which he had mined himself in Arkansas. What a splendid gift!  My angelic friend (I don’t know his name) immediately noticed my crystal, and said it was to help me.  So the conversation led into the morning’s synchronicity, my little “paper airplane”.  I think, had I not encountered this person, I would have completely forgotten about it.

He commented that it was “Written in the hand of a child learning his or her letters, in pencil.  Basic.  Not like the abstractions we “adults” make.  Like the work of real farmers is basic, the ground that supports us.  Without their labor, without the alchemy and generosity of the land and the farmers, none of this” (he made an expansive gesture indicating the vast urban complex called Los Angeles we were standing more or less in the center of) “none of this would exist.  The farmers and land sustain it all.  All the “higher” sophistication of our civilization falls apart when the land fails to care for us, and the true farmers, not those chemical factories, but true farmers……….aren’t understood.”

I might add that I thought it was Earth Day, and I’d somehow forgotten. I was wrong, but I think that gives further weight to his observation. “Feed and Plant is a profound message for all of us.  Especially now.” And then we shook hands, wished each other a great day, and parted ways.  My energy had completely changed, and I stood there with my mouth open.

“FEED” and “PLANT”.   All of my  alienation, loneliness, lack of purpose, all those grand complexities…… if Angels deliver the occasional message in the form of  grubby paper planes, and then send an occasional human representative just to make sure attention is paid – well. that’s otherwise called Grace.   I may not be a farmer, but we can all be farmers, literally by planting and growing even if it’s a window box, getting our hands in the Earth, connecting with the alchemy and gift of the Earth.  As a universal message, it should be Earth Day everyday.

We all can, and do, “plant”.  As an artist, I can plant beauty, inspiration, I can encourage others to do the same.  I can recognize the “trees” I’m planting, and have planted,  in my life.  Feed yourself and others with what sustains and nourishes.  Plant seeds that will feed the future, plant seeds that will grow into trees.  It doesn’t need to be complicated at all.  Even sparrows do it.

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It sounds like her muse rose up and grasped her hand.

Posted in artists, muse | 9 Comments

The Muse

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Trish and Rob

Back in the mid-1970s, I worked as a librarian and Spanish teacher at a juvenile detention facility – that’s a sanitized phrase for a prison. It was supposed to be a place for male juvenile offenders, but we had a lot of men who were well beyond juvenile. I spent three years there, setting up the library, getting it functional. By my last year, I was beginning to feel like an inmate and was eager to get out.

During the Christmas holidays of what would be my last year there, I went shopping for a special gift for my mother. There was an art store in downtown Vero Beach that sold original Edna Hibel paintings, lithographs and figurines. My mother loved Hibel’s art in every form. She collected the figurines – many of them mother/daughter motifs so perfectly sculpted they captured the essence of that particular relationship. But on a back wall, I found an artist proof of a little Dutch girl that captured me.

It was well beyond what I could afford, so I called my dad and asked if he would split it with me. He did, of course, and on Christmas morning, my mother opened her gift,  her eyes wide with astonishment.  The little Dutch graced the living room wall in my parents’ home for many years. She witnessed disputes and triumphs, a flood, hurricanes, weddings. When Rob and I got married in my parents’ living room, the little Dutch girl gazed down serenely. When our first novels were published, she celebrated with us. She witnessed my mother’s descent into the black hole of Alzheimer’s, my father’s diagnosis of Parkinson’s, and the eventual sale of their home.

When my parents moved into an independent living facility, the Dutch girl hung in their living room, watching over them. When we had to put my mother in an Alzheimer’s facility, my dad and the little Dutch girl moved into our home. Over the years, she not only became the family guardian and historian, but my muse.

While my dad was living with us, a terrific synchro occurred with the Dutch girl. I was asked to speak at an event at the Hibel Museum. So the Dutch girl was removed from the wall and I took her with me and talked about what she had become for me and my family. Edna Hibel was in the audience and came up to me afterward and signed her lovely piece of art.

Not  long after that, my mother died in a nursing home of pneumonia. Two years later, my father’s Parkinson’s had progressed to the point where we couldn’t care for him anymore. We moved him to an assisted living facility in Georgia where my sister was head of nursing. The Dutch girl graced one of the walls and looked after him. Every time I visited, I felt that my mother was peering out through the Dutch girl’s eyes.

Two years after my dad moved into the assisted living facility, he was at lunch one day, appeared to have a stroke, and lapsed into a coma. My sister called me and I flew up to Atlanta the next day. The little Dutch girl, my sister, and I remained with my dad for the next two days. We made sure his favorite music was playing and at one point, I remember, I felt my mother’s presence quite strongly and sensed she and my dad were dancing, something they enjoyed when they were younger. I also knew she had come to be with him as he passed on.

Shortly before 11 that night, the facility called us and said his death was imminent. We drove back and were with him when he died at 11 PM.  The Dutch girl witnessed this, too. By then, she’d been in our family for 27 years.

My sister and I boxed up my father’s belongings the next day and divided everything. She said she felt I should have the Dutch girl, since I had brought her into our lives. She has moved around in our house – from the living room, to my dad’s former room, to our bedroom. She’s been with us 33 years now and more than 50 books. She has watched our daughter grow into a young woman of 21. But she’s just as cute as the day I bought her. Her eyes, though, do seem sadder and, somehow, wiser.

 

 

Posted in creativity, Edna Hibel, muse, parents | Tagged , | 13 Comments

Fox News Hacked?

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Trish and Rob

This is an interesting video. It’s supposedly real. Maybe  Salandar – the protagonist of Steig Larrson’s trilogy – is alive and well in NYC.

 

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Daz and Signs

Posted on May 31, 2011 by Trish and Rob

The next synchro appeared as a comment under Graduation Signs, from Aussie Darren B, whom we know as Brizdaz.

In the post, Rob had mentioned “signs,” and this led to Brizdaz’s very cool synchro:

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Talking about the movie “Signs”, I was like you. When I saw it at the cinema the first time I wasn’t that impressed, as far as the alien story went, anyway. But when it came out on to DVD, a national magazine in Australia was having a competition where one winner would get a “Signs” wristwatch and a copy of the movie on DVD. Ten runners up would receive a DVD, but no watch.

Like you, I felt for some reason that I should watch the movie again, so I entered the competition thinking that if the Universe really wanted me to watch this film, then it should let me win the watch…as a sign, so to speak. I thought, What are the odds of just winning a copy of the DVD, never mind the watch, as well?

Well you probably guessed it. I did win the watch. And I still wear it to this day.
It’s gone through a few batteries and a wristband, but every time I put it on, I never forget that it was my sign from the Universe. And I’ve watched that movie countless times and never get sick of it.

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Then Brizdaz sent us a photo of the watch!

 

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Five Alive

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Trish and Rob

Here’s a number cluster from the world of baseball that occurred on Sunday May 8. The writer of the article below calls it a  ‘meaningless  serendipity.’  Well, besides confusing synchronicity with serendipity, he created an oxymoron since by definition serendipity – like synchronicity – is meaningful. So he should stuck with coincidence. But then he’s a sports writer and they like to add some flare to their prose.

If you look at the sign, you can see that every score contains the number 5–the first time that has happened in a zillion games, or something like that. Some 5’s were winners, others losers.

Here’s the article, and more commentary to follow it.

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Warning: If you’re not into the ultimately meaningless serendipity that baseball numbers can often provide, this post isn’t for you. But if you love those days on the schedule when everything aligns for no reason whatsoever, well, please read on.

On Sunday, each of the seven games on the American League schedule featured a team that scored exactly five runs — four winners and three losers. The rarity almost didn’t happen either as the last game of the day featured the Chicago White Sox needing to score three runs off the Seattle Mariners in the 10th inning of their 5-2 win.

From the Associated Press:

It was the first time in 18 years that such a quirky thing happened with a full schedule. On Aug. 10, 1993, all seven NL games featured one team scoring precisely two runs, STATS LLC said.

The last time it occurred with five or more runs was July 20, 1955, when all four AL games had at least one team score exactly six, STATS LLC said.

To channel Mr. Double Rainbow: What does this all mean?

The answer, of course, is absolutely nothing, though it did make me think of that old “Five Alive” drink and marvel at how awesome that orchard runoff tasted when I was a kid. Mmmmm, sugar.

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Okay, Mr. Sportswriter, you did find some personal meaning to the number 5 with your  Five Alive, though in the same breath you say those 5’s mean ‘absolutely nothing.’

But why not take another look. For the fun of it, let’s interpret this cluster of 5’s as a message to Major League Baseball. Here is what 5 means in numerology, courtesy of Sidney Omarr, the late-great numerologist and astrologer, whom we have been ‘channeling’ for eight years.

Freedom of thought and action are key. But so is moderation; avoid excess in whatever you’re doing. It’s time to promote new ideas, follow your curiosity. Be versatile and changeable, but be careful not to diversify too much.

Get ready for change. It’s time to seek new horizons. Release old structures and get a new point of view. Be courageous and adaptable. Approach the day (the game) with an unconventional mindset.

A change of scenery works to your advantage. You (a team) could be moving to a new location. Finally, think outside the box. In baseball, that could include the batter’s box (the players), the box seats (the fans).

Not being an ‘inside baseball’ guy, I don’t know how much of what I wrote applies. But there might be some nuggets there…or an overall picture.

Play ball.

 

 

 

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Odd Search Terms

Posted on May 29, 2011 by Trish and Rob

 

Do you ever wonder how people find your blog? What search terms lead them there? This area intrigues us, so we looked back through the last 2,000 hits or so on our sitemeter and made a list of the oddest search terms. We laughed about some of these, scratched our heads about others. But in very instance, it’s as if these search terms provide a window into humanity’s collective psyche.

1. Quack watch kapi’olani maternity & gynecological hospital. Huh? We googled this one. It’s connected to the silly fracas about Obama’s birth certificate. But on which side does the “quack watch” fall?

2. I dreamt I had a husband parallel universe. And? What happened?

3. how to keep centipedes out of bed. LOL. Do centipedes have beds?

4. Lynne forget and synchro. What did Lynne forget?

5. past life and facial. Did a facial trigger a past life memory?

6. yelling kid flipping. Wow, okay. And then what happened?

7. women on the morgue table. Uh-oh. Something creepy here.

8. what does being stuck in a domed city in a dream mean? This one is interesting, considering the work that Helen Wambaugh and Chet Snow did when they progressed 2,500 people to the future.

9. talking to yourself imagining you’re talking to yourself doppelganger. Google obviously picked this up from the word doppelganger; we’ve done some posts on this. But this person has some issues to work out!

10. son finds fathers apartment years later in paris npr synchronicity. We’ll have to Google this one. Sounds like a genuine synchro.

11. what is retro positive. This search term came from India. We’re assuming the individual is asking about Mercury retrograde, but maybe not!

12. squirrel exploding transformer. Poor squirrel. And what was transformed in this person’s life?

13. if US troops aren’t on the ground in Libya, where are they? Interesting question. Makes it sound as if the troops have been abducted by aliens possibly taken to another dimension.

14. mama Ouija. Who is she, this mama??

15. new update from the other side. This phrase on our blog referred to the next synchro book. But when you read this, it sounds like a query about what’s going on in the afterworld!

16. autec white rabbit. Autec refers to the (not so) secret base on Andros Island in the Bahamas, which we wrote about here. But the white rabbit? If this refers to the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, then there may be a clue here about what’s actually going on at Autec.

17. If Mercury was not resurfaced, how old would it be? Was the planet Mercury paved over into a huge parking lot when we weren’t looking? We’re clueless about this query.

18. I’ve had an adjustment bureau experience. Another uh-oh. The movie was about whether we have free will.

19. Two empaths that visit each other’s dreams. We’d like to hear more from this individual!

And finally…

20. What is smarter than the average bear? Apparently, not the person making the inquiry!

If you’ve got Site Meter, take a look at the search words people used to find your blog. What are your strangest ones?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in blogging, search terms | 18 Comments