Welcome to The Mystical Underground

I knew that Whitley Strieber and his wife, Anne, were working on a book together that involved her near-death experience in 2004 from a brain bleed. When I received an email the other day that the book was now available as an ebook from Crossroad Press,  I immediately downloaded it.

Miraculous Journey is a miraculous read. There are chapters in this book that brought me to tears, that made me laugh out loud, that prompted me to close down my iPad and take a long walk to simply appreciate my own life and surroundings.

I enjoyed the structure  – alternating chapters by Anne and Whitley. You get both sides of the story –of her illness, their marriage, their creative partnership, of who they are as partners, but also of who they are as individuals. It’s a memoir in the best sense of the word. It tackles the BIG questions – what is the nature of reality? What is death? Does consciousness survive? Are our lives predestined? Where does free will enter the picture?

Honesty and raw emotion run throughout this book. Yet, there is never a point where any of it descends into self-pity or victimization or “Oh poor me.” If anything, it’s the complete opposite, a kind of victory call, a challenge, a gauntlet hurled at our collective feet that asks: Who are we? As a species? A collective? As individuals? Where do we fit in the grander scheme of things?

Anne writes movingly of living  in Whitley’s shadow, of his encounter experiences and their repercussions for her when Communion was published.  And he writes movingly of how he could never have written anything without her. I, as a writer married to a writer, understand this dynamic. Your partner is your first editor, your first reader, your first critic. If he or she dislikes what you have written, you hope they will be honest with you about that, but despair when you hear the words, This doesn’t work. And you are beside yourself with joy when your partner says, Wow, I love it.

As writers who have followed Strieber’s career since we first ran across Communion more than 25 years ago, Rob and I have admired his steadfast belief that he, an ordinary man, experienced something so extraordinary that it altered the trajectory of his life. He was reviled and ridiculed after Communion was published and skeptics had a field day. Ha-ha, this silly man… But he kept moving forward – and so did Anne.

In Miraculous Journey, we find out that Anne had a difficult childhood. Well, difficult may not be the right adjective. Nightmare is better. Her mother committed suicide when she was seven. Her father remarried and she, the stepdaughter, was the handmaid, the servant who was emotionally abused, beaten down, and ultimately driven from the home.

In a sense, when she and Whitley met, destiny seemed to become part of the equation – yet they each had the free will to bow out and look elsewhere. But that isn’t what happened. They got married, had a son, settled in to a creative partnership. 

Now Anne has a brain tumor.

This book works on so many levels- collectively, personally- that I am left almost speechless. In the final chapter, Whitley writes:

A marriage as close and deep and happy as ours is a truly wonderful blessing, but facing being the  one left behind is, I suspect, in many ways as hard as the one who must move on. I do hope that if she is to go to her dying, she finds beyond the veil love even better than what I have been able to give her, an embrace absolute with joy…

This book is one to savor – and remember, always.

All too often, insightful comments are lost in the scroll of information and may not be seen. So we’ve brought forward a conversation with Sheila Joshi, a clinical psychologist who is recovering from severe neurological damage from prescription antidepressants.

“Withdrawing from the medications propelled me into a Kundalini awakening and/or shamanic initiatory illness, which included lots of extreme symptoms and some psychic experiences.”

One of Sheila’s  was about Omega3 increasing the frequency of synchronicity.

“…more and more research comes out about Omega-3 every day, and it’s a very promising thing for a vast array of health problems. Plus, when I increased my dose in the past, I started to have more synchros.

If anyone decides to increase their Omega-3, please let me know what you experience. I’m thinking of doing some research on Omega-3 and psi.

I asked Sheila how Omega 3s increase the incidents of synchronicity. Here was her response:

Well, we know that Omega-3 increases alpha and theta brainwaves, which have been correlated with psi. And my hypothesis is that there are several other mechanisms by which Omega-3 may facilitate psi – improving brain and whole body functioning, increasing quantum entanglement, and — using Sheldrake’s theory — consuming Omega-3 from algae, may connect us physically and through morphic resonance to an ancient, foundational organism and molecule that are pervasive on our planet, and that we are highly dependent on, and which are part of many morphic fields.

I’ve thought about this in relation to synchros – not Omega3 in particular but about how diet and nutrition fit into synchros. There’s anecdotal evidence that certain drugs facilitate synchros; that certain states of mind, attitude, beliefs also facilitate them. But suppose you could consume a certain food or vitamin each day that would increase your chances of experiencing a synchronicity? Pretty cool, right?

So if Sheila is right about omega 3s it’s up to the rest of us to test and discover it. Right now, we eat a lot of salmon – but according to this website  the best are wild Alaskan salmon, Arctic char, Atlantic mackerel, sardines…well, you can click through the website and see what is recommended.

But suppose you’re a vegan, a real vegan who doesn’t even eat fish? Can you take/tolerate the supplement of fish oils? Of Omega3 vitamins? Right now, as of this second, that’s a genuine unknown. We’ll see. I’m upgrading my intake of Omega 3s tonight.

Here’s Sheila’s essay on this intriguing topic.

 I found this on Whitley Strieber’s Unknown Country website. It may be one of the most clever ads yet, and made me laugh. I asked Whitley if we could post it and he said sure.

Here’s the ad:

SINGLE BLACK FEMALE seeks male companionship, ethnicity unimportant. I’m a very good girl who LOVES to play. I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting, camping and fishing trips, cozy winter nights lying by the fire. Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand. I’ll be at the front door when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me…. Call(404) 875-6420 and ask for Annie, I’ll be waiting…..

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 If you’re a guy, this sounds pretty good, right?

 Well, imagine the astonishment of the more than 150 men who found themselves talking to the Atlanta Humane Society, about this little beauty:

Have you heard of this herb? It’s widely used by men for prostate health. I took it daily for years in the hopes of forestalling the growth of my prostate, a condition faced by more than half of men over 50. Unfortunately, in that battle, the prostate won, and I had to seek other remedies—first, medications to relax the muscles around the prostate and supposedly to shrink it. Again, unfortunately, the prostate won.

Last September, I resorted to surgery, and it was a success. The prostate, which had grown nearly three-times its normal size, was trimmed down and all the annoying symptoms – along with the temporary catheters – vanished. I no longer needed any medications or saw palmetto – though I guess it wouldn’t hurt to continue taking it. But I wasn’t too happy with saw palmetto, and admit that I had bad-mouthed the natural remedy as bogus. Even a scam. I figured I was done with it.

But not so fast. Last week, my friend Don and I went on an early morning off-road bike ride on a trail an hour north of here. I’d only ridden it once and that was years ago. The trail was relatively easy, especially compared to our local technical trail with numerous log piles, criss-crossing root pattern, steep drops and sharp turns along tight trails through heavy woods.

We’d been riding nearly an hour when we crossed a narrow wooden bridge over a creek. Don was ahead of me and had disappeared around a bend as I came off the bridge. I swerved to avoid a mud puddle and paid for the move. I was slammed down into something sharp and prickly. As I slowly got to my feet, I looked back and saw that I’d crashed into a patch of saw palmetto.

I didn’t see the irony, though, until a few days later when a friend, upon hearing the story, replied, “I thought saw palmetto was good for men.” Maybe for some, but not for me. A broken stem about the size of six toothpicks had pierced through the top of my ear. Don, a retired paramedic/fire fighter, pulled it out and I stopped the bleeding with a kerchief. We continued on, but I knew I’d bruised a rib or two and that I would feel it more after we finished.

Back at home, I cleaned the ear and found another splinter, shaped like an arrowhead, wedged into the top of the ear. I couldn’t get it out, neither could Trish, so I ended up at a walk-in clinic. I’d been there before, back when I was realizing the saw palmetto formula wasn’t working for me.

So much for my encounters with this prickly plant. I don’t know if I’ll take any more of the herb, but I will definitely respect it when I encounter it again along the trail.

This You Tube video is intriguing. It’s from NASA footage of the space station.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT9j1nm6Y6s

 Our dog park is across the street from the Aero Club, a suburban community where many houses have hangars and the private airstrip is now paved. The flight path to that runway brings many types of planes directly over the dog park.

On February 17, when Rob and I were at the park, an experimental plane – like the one depicted above –  came in very low over the park and dog owners peered upward or ducked. Yeah, ducked. It was that close. Rob said to some people nearby, “Did you hear about the plane that crashed here?”

“What?” I asked. “When?”

“Oh, you know, that plane that crashed four or five years ago. But it’s going to happen again.”

Two people had died in that crash, a man and a woman who had left behind two small children. But I was struck that Rob initially referred to it in a way that led me to believe there had been a recent crash.                

The next  morning, the 18th, I dreamed that the Palm Beech International Airport had changed its flight paths so that planes now came directly over our house. In the dream, I saw a twin engine plane plane  lying perilously low and headed straight for our house. I could hear its noisy engines and thought, My God it may hit us.

It didn’t, though, and I woke up and walked out into the kitchen, eager for coffee and food. Rob eventually joined me and I told him about my dream. Then forgot it.

At nearly one this afternoon, Rob and I were waiting for a call from Whitley Streiber. We were going to be doing an interview with him about The Synchronicity Highway.  Our windows were open, the air here has been cool, and I heard this shrieking chorus of police alarms and commented on it to Rob.

Then we did our interview and I forgot about it until I received a text message from a Karin, a woman I know from the dog park. She asked if I’d heard about the plane that had crashed across the street from the dog park. The pilot, she said, was killed. It was the experimental plane that had flown in so low the other day. The pilot flew for American Airlines and was a friend of our neighbor, who is also a pilot for American.

Precognitive?

They call it murmuration. It begins about 30 seconds into the video and it’s astonishing. It’s truly an example of a collective self in action.

they-went-for-a-canoe-ride-to-the-island-what-they-saw-on-the-way-back-was-unimaginable

Some things in life manage to come full circle. Author and past-life researcher and regression therapist Carol Bowman sent us this story that seems to illustrate that adage “one good turn deserves another.” It’s also a good synchro!

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On Valentine’s Day, Carol and her husband, Steve, went out to dinner. They had hoped their daughter would be able to join them, but the northeast has gotten so much snow this winter that she wasn’t able to get out of Manhattan, where she lives. Carol and Steve had been cooped up in their house for several days because of snow storms, so it was nice to get out and do something.

“We were in the middle of dinner and the owner stopped by our table and asked

where we had parked.  Apparently, someone had hit our car-Steve’s beloved cream puffy ’93 Camry – and we confirmed that that’s where we had parked.  

“The couple who hit the car had come in trying to find the owner. How often does that happen???  Steve went out with them to look at the damage and thanked them for telling us.  They wanted to pay for the damage and not go through the insurance company.  

“The woman told Steve she was a therapist, and Steve told her I was too. (I was still in the restaurant and missed this exchange.)  It turns out that she had come  to me some years ago, asking for help for her daughter!

“Is that karma?  Or CARMA?”

In 1959, Mike Wallace interviewed Rod Serling (Twilight Zone) about censorship. What he says is eerily relevant today:

 Most of us have experienced what I call the mystery of the  lost sock in the dryer. It’s not always a sock, of course, and it’s not always in the dryer.  Over the years, a number of objects have vanished in our house: a $100 bill, shoes, keys, flash drives. Sometimes the objects have reappeared in a place where we’ve already looked for it.

 But the experience Anne of Tennessee had  is a new twist!

 I had a leak in my bathroom sink 10 days ago and had to call the plumbers.  Twice, in fact.  This left water running across my bathroom floor.  I had my mop in the bathroom, mopping up water as needed.  After the plumbers left the second time, I left the mop in my bathroom in case there was still another leak. 

 My daughter called me at work, yesterday, looking for the mop, and I told her it was in my bathroom.  She couldn’t find it.  When I got home from work, we both looked for the mop.  In closets. Under beds.  In the garage.  It’s gone.  Disappeared. I am on my way to Walmart to buy another one. Strange.

 Two days later, I received an update from Anne on the missing mop:

 I am almost totally unnerved.  That mop that totally disappeared a few days ago?  It showed up sometime yesterday.  When I got home from work around 7:30, I found it leaning against my bathroom door.  My daughter didn’t believe me until I showed it to her.  And my granddaughter is now spooked as she says something is really off here.

 Yep, my old mop is back and for how long, I don’t know.  And I am really rattled about this.  Just makes me wish some of the other things I have lost/misplaced would return.

 Don’t know what to think of this.

 I asked Anne if she thought there might be a poltergeist or some other phenomenon at work in her house or some other trickster:

 I have wondered if i have something around that would do a stunt like that mop thing.  Laura and I searched the house completely twice for that mop, each time starting in my bathroom.  It was not in the house.  

Since it has reappeared, that leaves a lot of options open…like tricksters.  Just what we might have, I don’t know. I don’t even have an idea about how to figure out what is doing what.

 A mop is larger than a sock, keys, a bill. Is it possible that a person could disappear like the mop did?

Perhaps. In November 1878, 16-year-old Charles Ashmore of Quincy, Illinois went out into the night with a water bucket. When he didn’t return after several minutes, his father and sister went out to look for him. They found his footprints clear in fresh snow, leading hallway to the well, where the footprints suddenly stopped.

 In July 1854, Orion Williamson, a farmer near Selma, Alabama, supposedly got up from his porch chair and stated out across a field to bring in his horses from the pasture. His wife and child watched from the porch and on the far side of the field a couple of neighbors on horseback waved at him. Right then, Williamson vanished.

 Witnesses searched the field but found no trace of Williamson. Journalists flocked to the property to investigate. One of them, Ambrose Bierce, wrote about the incident in a story called, The Difficulty of Crossing a Field.

 Author Paul Begg, in his anthology of strange disappearance Into Thin Air, concluded that all these stories about disappearance are probably duplicates of the same story.  But when you experience one of these mysterious disappearance, it’s not as easy to dismiss.

 I’ve often wondered if these missing objects somehow slip into another dimension or something. Do our homes have vortices that act as portals between dimensions? If so, what activates them?  

And, totally off topic,  Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone!