Lost and Found

Posted on November 8, 2009 by Trish and Rob

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Laryssa

Posted on November 7, 2009 by Trish and Rob

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

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

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

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

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

Dante’s Inferno

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Here’s a synchronicity related to a book group. It comes from jau, who has a blog called Still Muttering. Jau is not only an avid reader, but a very competent writer as well. We did not make a single edit to this post.
***

For background, I should mention that I am in a book group that is reading/studying Dante’s Inferno. This week we are reading Cantos IV through VIII.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More Dante

Posted on November 6, 2009 by Trish and Rob

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted in dante, food | 4 Comments

Magnetic Shift

Posted on November 5, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Last night, I was clicking around on the photos of people who follow our blog and happened to click on two that didn’t have blogs of their own. So I clicked on the blogs they followed and one of them led to a site I’d never heard of called Red Ice Creations.

Here, I found a fascinating article about how Russian Air Force commanders have issued a warning and ordered changes in flight routes after “massive magnetic shifts downed two airliners.” The  reason for this warning “are the rapid formations of geomagnetic storms emanating from the boundaries of the African Tectonic Plate that due to their intensity have caused the loss of two major passenger aircraft leaving nearly 300 men, women and children dead.”

The flights referred to are the Air France Fight 447, which broke apart in flight and plunged into the Atlantic on June 1, near the boundary of the African Tectonic Plate.  216 passengers and 12 crew members perished.  The second flight was a Yemeni Airways flight to the Island Nation of Comoros in the Indian Ocean, which went down on the eastern boundary of the African Tectonic Plate. More than 150 people died and one “miracle child” survived.

The geomagnetic storms are supposedly caused by the forming of a “new ocean” in Ethiopia. According to Nature News Service, “The African continent is literally unstitching itself just like the sleeve of an old shirt, along the area known as the East African Rift, which traverses it, beginning with the southern end of the Red Sea, going through Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique. The molten lava beneath the Earth’s surface makes it thin by constantly pushing against it, and eventually breaks it and tears it apart.”

While Western scientists believe this new ocean won’t be completed for millions of years, Russian scientists have a different take. They say that “due to the sun’s Deep Solar Minimum, our Earth is in danger of being, literally, “ripped apart”, at the worst, or nearing a “total pole reversal…”

I alerted Rob to this striking story, and after he read it, he forwarded the link to our friend Peter Levenda. It’s the kind of story that Peter investigates and he might have contacts who could either confirm or dismiss its accuracy.

So Peter wrote back a few minutes later and said, “How weird. I just did an interview with Red Ice. It should be up tomorrow (Thursday)!

So here we’d stumbled upon an obscure Swedish web site and then contacted someone who not only knew of it, but was about to appear on it! On top of that, Peter’s interview, which is about China (Part 1) and Freemasonary (Part 2), will include comments on synchronicity!

Since Peter didn’t offer any new information on the ‘massive magnetic shift’ in Africa, we contacted author Whitley Streiber, whose Unknown Country site often focuses on earth changes, and asked him what he knew about this dramatic report. Here’s what Whitley said:

“We can’t find out anything much about the magnetic storm aspect. The Yemeni crash was barely reported in the western media, which is very odd, given the way crashes are usually big news, especially with such a horrific loss of life. There is indeed a rift in Ethiopia that has widened suddenly. But we have no source that can corroborate the magnetic effects being claimed in this story. We know that it’s gathering a lot of interest, and we are working on it.”

Posted in magnetic shifts, Peter Levenda | 19 Comments

Cartoons and Synchronicity

Posted on November 4, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Periodically, we peruse the Internet for interesting synchronicities. This one came from here.

It seems to support the contention that in creative venues, scientific research, and inventions, people dip into the same collective soup at the same time and come up with the same ideas.

In 1951 in the month of March, Dennis the Menace was born… twice. With only three days apart (but an identical debut day), both Hank Ketcham (US) and David Law (UK) created their first comics containing a character with an identical name. The two men were unaware of each others cartoons but when the coincidence was made known to them, they agreed to simply both continue writing their strips without interfering with the other. Even more coincidental was the fact that both Dennis the Menace characters wore striped jerseys (as is evident in the comparison picture above.)

***

After re-reading the above story today, I remembered that my friend Ed Gorman and I both published novels called HAWK MOON in 1996. Neither of us were aware of the other’s Hawk Moon until the books were published. Other than the title, they had nothing in common, except that both books appeared to be ‘published in secret,’ meaning that they didn’t sell very well.
Rob

Posted in creativity, dennis the menace | 8 Comments

A Nuclear Family?

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Trish and Rob



Earlier, we pointed out synchronicities between the lives of Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama. Now, Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth sends us the curious parallels between two men, who one the surface seem quite different. Italian-American Nuclear Physicist Enrico Fermi is credited as the creator of the nuclear bomb, President Obama has urged the elimination of nuclear weapons.

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Both men were born in the Year of the Iron Ox, which comes up once in 60 years in the Chinese calendar: Fermi in 1901, Obama in 1961.

Fermi won the Nobel Prize for physics. Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Fermi and Obama both attended Columbia University and the University of Chicago.

Fermi and Obama were both professors.

Fermi invented the nuclear reactor and was credited with helping the U.S. win World War II. Obama is trying to influence the dismantling of nuclear weapons around the world. (Also, some people in the U.S. have gone ‘nuclear’ over his winning the presidency. – R.M.)

Fermi tested the first nuclear reactor on December 2 1942, three days after Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was born.

Fermi was born on Saint Michael’s Day (September 29 1901). The feminine form of the name Michael is Michelle, the name of Obama’s wife.
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While these connections are interesting, I’m still more impressed by the Obama-Lincoln synchronicities.

I think the Obama-Fermi connection is more of an example of how we are all linked together as this YouTube video testifies.

Posted in enrico fermi, obama, parallels | 10 Comments

Men Who Stare at Goats

Posted on November 2, 2009 by Trish and Rob

One recent evening, I was exchanging Facebook comments with Tamra Temple, who is deeply involved in the field of Noetic Science, and very knowledgeable about remote viewing and psychic spies. So she was talking about the new movie, Men Who Stare at Goats, and how she was looking forward to seeing it.

I mentioned that the promos were linking Project Stargate, the CIA’s former remote viewing program, to Earth One Battalion and the goat-staring scenario. But Remote Viewer #001 Joe McMoneagle had told me recently that the goat staring stuff had nothing to do with Stargate.

That led to a discussion of where the truth lay, and Tamra concluded in a Zen-like manner that the truth actually was within, and it was best not to look outside to authority figures for what is true. So she was turning the exchange into a larger scenario about truth.

Now here come the synchronicities: I made the mistake once or twice of calling her Tamara, rather than Tamra. During that same evening, Trish and I watched an episode of The Fringe, and at the end of it the name Tamara appeared at the beginning of the credits. That was interesting, but just a nudge toward synchronicity. It got better.

I had also mentioned to Tamra that I’d written two novels with RV as the theme, PSI/NET and JUST/IN TIME, and asked if she knew of them. She said she didn’t, but wanted to read them and asked if I would sign copies for her. I agreed, and she sent me her address, but at first I couldn’t figure out the name of the city. She’d written it as: T or C, NM. Was it a typo? I looked it up and found out that T or C was a common way of addressing Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. I’d heard of it, but never been there. What struck me as synchronistic was that we had been discussing truth, and here the word showed up in her address.

Finally, the next morning after I’d told Trish about the synchroncity with Tamra, she randomly clicked a blog on our list, and what name appeared at the top? Tamara.

Posted in names, noetic sciences, remote viewing | 11 Comments

18th Century Door and Brass Knocker

Posted on November 1, 2009 by Trish and Rob

When we first started this blog, we created a Google alert for the term synchronicity. Every day, dozens of alerts pile up in our inbox related to this word. Most of them don’t seem to have much to do with synchronicity. But this next story, which came through one of the alerts,  fits the ticket. It’s from artist Paul Brown, who is from Liverpool and now lives in France.
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Four weeks ago,  I took  my father for a minor operation to the suburb of a city 40 miles away. While I was waiting for him to come out of surgery, I took a drive into the historical town centre to walk around and take some photos. I saw this 18th century door and brass knocker and thought it would make a nice composition.

The square, the circle and the shadow nearly forming a triangle. I left the knocker at an angle on purpose so that it wasn’t too symmetrical.

Last week, I had to take dad for an eye examination to the same city – but not in the centre this time. We didn’t know where the clinic was, so we printed a map from Google maps.  When we found the road we were looking for, we counted the doors down to number 9 – and guess which door we were standing outside of?

Yes, this one, the same door. What drew me to that door four weeks ago in a city with thousands of ancient and small streets..I have no idea!  The chances must be millions to one of this happening…


Posted in artists, doors, paul brown | 10 Comments

Riddle House

Posted on October 31, 2009 by Trish and Rob




We don’t hear too many ghost stories under the palm trees here in sunny West Palm Beach, but here’s one courtesy of the Travel Channel. Thanks to Peter Levenda for forwarding it our way.
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Death has been in and around the Riddle House since it was built in the early 1900s. First used as a funeral parlor, and later as a private residence, the home has seen its share of tragedy.But what makes this haunt even more perplexing? In the 1980s, the house was moved across town and from many modern-day reports, the angry ghosts who dwelled there went with it.

In 1905, a Victorian “Painted Lady” house was constructed at 327 Acacia Street in downtown West Palm Beach. Originally called the Gatekeeper’s Cottage, the building served as a home to the overseers of the Woodlawn Cemetery across the street.A century ago, it wasn’t uncommon for families to bury their loved ones with the expensive jewelry they owned in life. Grave robbing was an ongoing problem, and those who lived in the Gatekeeper’s Cottage were expected to keep an eye out for would-be criminals.
 
Dark History and Ghostly Lore
The first ghostly legend attached to this seemingly-normal house is that of a big man named “Buck” who once worked for the cemetery. The local legend states that Buck was killed in town after an argument spun out of control. Buck’s ghost has been seen walking the grounds around the house and on the porch of the Cottage where cemetery workers would often take their meals.
 
In the 1920s, Karl Riddle became the first City Manager and Superintendent of Public Works. The city of West Palm Beach offered the former Gatekeeper’s Cottage as a residence for Riddle. In addition to his duties as City Manager, Riddle also had to oversee the cemetery.During his tenure at the house, one of Riddle’s employees encountered financial difficulties. He became despondent and withdrawn from his family. Seeing no other way out, Riddle’s employee hung himself from the rafters of the attic. After the tragedy, the beam used to hold the rope was permanently removed from the top story of the house.

The suicide was a catalyst for the darker haunting that followed. Karl Riddle’s personal diary recounts how the family had trouble keeping help in the home. The staff reported hearing chains rattling on the stairs and murmuring voices. Many quit, never to return.

Riddle House in Recent Years

After Riddle and his family moved out, several businesses came and went before the building was finally used by Palm Beach Atlantic College as a girl’s dormitory. By 1980, the building was abandoned, fell into disrepair and was scheduled to be demolished by the city.

But fate had other plans for the house. The city donated the building to John Riddle, the nephew of Karl, and he donated the building for preservation. The house at 327 Acacia Street was dismantled and moved to Yesteryear Village to go on permanent display.

Paranormal Activity Reported
During the reassembling of the Riddle House, the dark haunting inside reared its head again. When returning to work in the mornings, carpenters would find their tools thrown from the attic and on the ground below. Third-floor windows would also be found mysteriously broken. At one point, reconstruction had to stop for six months because the workers were so shaken up by what they had experienced inside.

During the private unveiling of the Riddle House in Yesteryear Village, two unexpected guests showed up to the reception. Dressed in early twentieth century garb, many commented on how dashing the pair looked. Those in attendance assumed the couple to be actors. When an old photo showing the original Riddle House was unveiled, attendees were shocked to see the couple in the photo. The out-of-place guests could not be found.

The Riddle House is one of the most active haunts in southern Florida. One visitor who had arranged for a private tour was struck in the head by a piece of wood in the staircase. The wood seemed to appear from nowhere. A maintenance worker was attacked while cleaning the building and refuses to enter the house again. Other witnesses have spotted a hanging torso in the attic window but later learned that no such mannequin exists in the attic. Security personnel have seen lights going on and off in the building, and many avoid the house altogether.

Places can hold memories long after the inhabitants have moved on. Even when relocated entirely, some entities are bound to the structures around them. The reasons why may forever remain a riddle.

Our Halloween pooch, IggyJack, has his own website. Thank you, Madison.


Posted in ghosts, haunted houses, historic homes, WPB | 13 Comments