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I recently encountered a surprising, and unlikely, synchronicity  related to the chakras.

I was preparing for a meditation workshop that I lead at the yoga studio where I teach. I use a lot of guided meditations, and one of them focuses on the chakras—the invisible energy field that surrounds the body from the tailbone to the crown of the head. Chakras have been part of  yoga theory and Eastern philosophy for a couple of thousand years or more, and have become recognized and studied in the West in recent decades.

Each chakra is related to a bija, or seed sound, which we chant softly while focusing on the chakra in question. Here are a few examples of bijas: YAM, RAM, HAM, AUM. Each chakra is also related to a geometric shape. For example, a crescent shape is the focus of the throat chakra – or ajna chakra.

Finally, each chakra is also associated with a mudra or hand gesture…and that’s where my synchronicity manifested. I was focused on the mudra for the heart chakra because I had two versions of it in my notes. I was trying to remember which one I used in the previous course, and which one was the appropriate one. I finally realized both were correct, but one of them improved the description by providing more detail.

I’d been thoroughly focusing on the mudra for about five minutes when I was interrupted by a buzz from my phone. I’d been playing Words with Friends with David, our publisher at Crossroad Books. He’d just made a move and it was my turn. I clicked onto it and was startled to see that his word was ‘mudra.’

Wow! That really surprised me…and of course when I mentioned it to Trish, she said: “That’s a good one. Write it up for the blog.” And so I did.

Seven years ago, on February 4, 2009, Rob and I published our first post on synchro secrets.

This happened, as so many things do, through another writer, Nancy Pickard. She mentioned back in January of that year that she’d just started a blog and I’d never heard the word and asked her what it was. Wow, I thought, your own writing platform?

When I remarked to Rob that we should start a blog, he looked at me like I was unhinged. “What’re we going to write about?” he asked.

“Synchronicity.”

His expression said, Yeah, sure. He’s a triple earth sign – double Taurus with a Virgo moon. Translated, that means: Prove it. Show me how this could be viable. Show me why I should bother. So I created the blog on blogger and wrote the first post and published it.

Two years later, we had published 7 Secrets of Synchronicity, were working on a second synchronicity book, and were hacked by a computer dude who subscribed to Amazing Randi’s tenets that all facets of the paranormal were bogus BS. We lost three computers, the hacker took over the blog for several hours. When we gained control of the blog again I moved it to WordPress and reported the hack to the FBI, who did nothing.

What I’ve learned in these seven years about how synchronicity functions in our lives is that it isn’t paranormal at all. It’s natural. It’s how the universe functions, how it endows us with those magical, aha! moments that leave us in a state of wonder, awe, and bliss. As author Elizabeth Gilbert says it’s big magic. And it enables us to move forward through this mysterious labyrinth of life with guidelines, sign posts, affirmations, warnings, confirmations.

Sometimes it manifests as the trickster and laughs at us. Other times, it’s as familiar and comforting as the cat that sleeps next to us at night, purring with contentment. There’s no second-guessing synchronicity. You can’t make this stuff happen, but you can create an inner environment that ‘s conducive to it, an openness that whispers, Yes, okay, show me. By acknowledging its reality, you surrender to it.

I’ve lost friends over my beliefs – i.e. skeptical friends. I know people whose marriages have collapsed over this issue of how mankind is interconnected. They won’t say that in court, of course, but that lies at the heart of it. One partner is open, the other partner is closed off. Whether it’s a business or personal partnership, a friendship, a relationship with a sibling, parent, or boss, the impasse is often insurmountable. But for every friend I have lost because of my beliefs, I have gained numerous more. Those who believe are rapidly surpassing the skeptics.

Google synchronicity. Tonight when I did this, I saw nearly 7 million links. Back in 2009 when I did the same thing the total was just a fraction of that amount. Academics like Bernard Beitman,  a visiting professor of psychiatry at the University of Virginia, are writing about it.

Even arch skeptic Michael Shermer experienced synchronicity  when he got married. And honestly, if this guy can admit to the experience, then it’s okay for the rest of you skeptics to do so, too. Come out of the closet. We believers are out here, cheering before you even make your admission.

And so, on our 7^th anniversary, many thanks to all of you whose knowledge and experiences have enhanced and expanded our collective awareness of synchronicity. And thank you, Nancy, for telling me about blogs!

A few weeks ago, we covered the well known story of the breaking point between Jung and Freud that involved two mysterious and startling cracks in the bookcase in Freud’s study. Like the well known scarab dream story, it was a significant point in Jung’s life that affected his future, which ultimately affected many of us who have an interest in signs and symbols and mysteries of the unknown. We posted that story here.

I was reading over the story which we include in our upcoming book, Sensing the Future when it occurred to me how strange Jung’s immediate response was to the incident. He was feeling very angry about Freud’s dismissal of the paranormal and Jung’s interest in pursuing it and holding back his feelings when the first loud explosion erupted from the bookcase.

Both men bolted to their feet, alarmed that the bookcase was about to topple over on them. Jung exclaimed, “There, that is an example of a so-called catalytic exteriorization phenomenon.”

Did he really say that? If it happened to me (Rob), I probably would’ve jumped up and shouted, “What the f*ck was that?” But that was another era, and maybe he did exclaim, “Aha, catalytic exteriorization phenomenon, Dr. Freud.” Hm, maybe I’ll try that next something goes bump in the night!

 Amazingly, Jung went on to say that it would happen again…and it did! Was that synchronicity or precognition, psychokinesis? Maybe all three.

 If one of us experienced something like this and wrote about it, it wouldn’t make the impact that it did when Jung related it. What makes it notable is that Freud is considered to be the father of modern psychology and that Jung, whose name is often preceded by the great Swiss psychologist, devoted his career and, ultimately, his entire adult life, to “what Heraclitus called the ‘boundaries of the soul,’” writes Robert Hopcke in There Are No Accidents. “He consistently applied scientific methods to examine so-called ‘irrational’ phenomena and to elucidate the psychological meaning and function of such experiences in human life – paranormal experiences, extrasensory perception, UFOs, psychokinesis and the like.”

I was going to stop there, but it’s worth pointing out that while Freud dissed the paranormal, he certainly thought about what happened that day in his parlor and tried hard to rationalize it. In fact, he wrote Jung a letter in which he attempts to de-mystify the experience. Here it is in part:

“I do not deny that your comments and your experiment made a powerful impression upon me. After your departure I determined to make some observations, and here are the results. In my front room there are continual creaking noises, from where the two heavy Egyptian steles rest on the oak boards of the bookcase, so that’s obvious. In the second room, where we heard the crash, such noises are very rare.

“At first I was inclined to ascribe some meaning to it if the noise we heard so frequently when you were here were never heard again after your departure. But since then it has happened over and over again, yet never in connection with my thoughts and never when I was considering you or your special problem. (Not now, either, I add by way of challenge.) The phenomenon was soon deprived of all significance for me by something else. My credulity, or at least my readiness to believe, vanished along with the spell of your personal presence; once again, for various inner reasons, it seems to me wholly implausible that anything of the sort should occur. The furniture stands before me spiritless and dead, like nature silent and godless before the poet after the passing of the gods of Greece.”

Maybe Freud continued to experience the reverberation of Jung’s pent up anger that exploded on the scene. Maybe that’s what the cracks he heard later were about.  Notice that he didn’t say that these cracking sounds were something he had been familiar with prior to his meeting with Jung. If you would like to read the complete letter from Freud to Jung on the issue, here it is.

With the Iowa caucus still too close to call at 11:43 pm on February 1, I decided to run this post on socialism. As of this time, Hillary Clinton has given her victory speech but not a single network has called her the projected winner. Bernie Sanders, wisely, hasn’t spoken yet. This race is so close that even if he comes in a close second, he has basically won because no one expected outlier Sanders to take on the Clinton machine. Google Bernie’s fundraising just for the onth of January – no corporate sponsors. These donations are all from people like us, 3 bucks here, 50 bucks there. So here’ s the post:

Recently on Facebook, I saw a comment from a young man about socialism. He was responding to a woman’s remark that she liked what Bernie Sanders had to say. I rarely comment on stuff like this on Facebook or anywhere else, but his remarks reflected a common ignorance about what socialism is – and isn’t.

I understand the need to believe in free stuff. However, let’s just take a look at a few current socialist countries who are failing all around the world. Venezuela, Greece, the UK is not doing so well, Switzerland Sweden, it goes on and on and on. At some point in time, socialism fails, because you run out of other people’s money.

Or this, from the same guy:

By the way, we have free education now through high school. Look at Americas outcomes. We fail compared to the rest of the world. Free stuff is not appreciated. You relish what you work for. Socialism makes you work for nothing. That’s why in the end, it’s a failed prospect.

And this:

No one can argue that the top 1% have all the wealth or not. They do. But they would have it anyway. The smartest people always do the best. Trying to equate the finances across various levels of intellectual ability is sheer stupidity. Let the people who can prosper prosper and let the rest of us do the best we can. You can’t make everyone equal. It just can’t work that way.

I think the big problem in America is we can’t appreciate what true poverty is. If any American went to a country where real poverty was on display they would come back and worship the ground we live on. Instead, we have a bunch of whiners, lazy people, and beggars, who think everything should come to them for free. Because “they are so deserving” by virtue of being born in this country. It’s all a bunch of BS. You earn your way in the world. That’s the only way that makes sense. Getting things for free only breeds mediocrity.

He’s missing the point. Socialism isn’t about “free stuff.” It’s about a more equitable system, where corporations and the super wealthy pay their fair share. In a country as rich as the U.S. why should CEOs pay fewer taxes than their secretaries? Why do we have socialism for corporations and the super rich through tax loopholes? When did socialism become a dirty word?

Here are some facts. The top 10 most socialist countries in the world are:

China

Denmark

Finland

Netherlands

Canada

Sweden

Norway

Ireland

New Zealand

Belgium

Let’s take a closer look at some of these countries. From Peer Forum:

“Despite popular myths, there is very little connection between economic performance and welfare expenditure. Many of the countries on this list are proof of that, such as Denmark and Finland. Even though both countries are more socialistic than America, the workforce remains stronger.”

China: The government manages and controls the economy. It is becoming more of a hybrid economy, however, in that it is gearing more toward capitalism. As of 2012, about 95 percent of their population of nearly a billion and a half people have health insurance.

Denmark: It has the highest taxes in the world – about 70 percent. Health care is free to all citizens – nearly 6 million people. Equality is valued. Small businesses thrive.

Finland: It has one of the world’s best education systems,- no tuition, free meals to students. The literacy rate in the country is 100 percent and the country has one of the highest standards of living in the world. Finland has one of the highest standards of living in the world. Like Denmark and other European countries, equality is considered one of the most important values in society.

Canada: Like the Netherlands, Canada also has mostly a free market economy, but has a very extensive welfare system that includes free health and medical care. Canada is ranked as one of the best top five countries to live in by the United Nations and the Human Development Index (HDI) rankings.

The UK: Health care is universal and there are other pension and retirement benefits.Interestingly, it appears that as result of the financial meltdown of 2007-2008, welfare benefits were dispensed to the banks in the UK, not to the people, similar to what happened in the U.S.

In the U.S., the richest one percent hold about 38 percent of all privately held wealth. The bottom ninety percent the bottom hold seventy-three of all debt. According to the New York Times, the “richest 1 percent in the United States now own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent”. This disparity is the one that Bernie Sanders, the only “socialist” in Congress, intends to change is he’s elected president.

In late July 2015, Bernie Sanders spoke in Madison, Wisconsin to a crowd of ten thousand about this inequality. So did filmmaker Michael Moore, who said 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined. According to Politifact, which fact checks these statements, it’s true. As of 2010, the net worth of the Forbes 400 — $1.37 trillion — exceeded that of the poorest 60 percent of U.S. households.

“As of 2010, the net worth of the Forbes 400 — $1.37 trillion — exceeded that of the poorest 60 percent of U.S. households.” And that was five years ago. The disparity has only grown greater.

Capitalism isn’t a bad system – until it collapses into unbridled greed.

Facebook dude: In a country as large and abundant as the U.S., why should any child go hungry? Why should any college student graduate with a debt so huge it will take decades to repay? Why should anyone be homeless? If we took all the money we have spent on wars just in the last fifteen years, it would pay for universal health care and all the rest of it.

We talked about seven ‘secrets’ of synchronicity in our first book on the subject.

Robert Moss, in The Three Only Things, meanwhile, came up with nine categories for coincidence:

• There are things that like to happen together (clusters, seriality).
• Thoughts are actions and produce effects.
• Coincidence multiples when we are in motion (physical or metaphorical travel).
• Life rhymes (like clusters that involve similar words or names)
• The world is a forest of symbols.
• Every setback offers an opportunity.
• To find our way we may need to get lost.
• Look for the hidden hand.
• The passions of the soul work magic (similar to engaging the divine).

One of these categories, the hidden hand, particularly caught our attention. It sounded like another secret of synchronicity.  Moss is referring to the nature of coincidences, how they seem to be orchestrated by a hidden order. “…events that manifest at discrete points in space and time…are the result of a single movement on another plane. Coincidences are homing beacons. They are secret handshakes from the universe.”

That’s a bit mysterious sounding, but we love the idea of synchronicity as a secret handshake from the universe!

This story illustrates, I think, the interconnection we often experience even with people we ‘know’ but never meet.

We started this blog nearly seven years ago – in February 2009. Over the course of these years, we have come to know some wonderfully enlightened human beings whom we’ve never met in person. Renee Prince was one of these individuals.

I first connected with her when I found her blog in 2009, I think it was, where she described her experiences working with dolphins at one at one of the big theme parks. She had a Master’s degree in experimental psychology and her dream was to work with dolphins in intraspecies communication. She became so disenchanted with the quality of their lives that she switched careers and became a set designer for movies. One of her greatest animal experiences and friendships was with a hawk she called Tennerin,

Renee was a Scorpio, the most mysterious and psychic sign in the zodiac, and her abilities shone when it came to animals – especially the animals she loved most, like dolphins and that hawk, Tennerin.  She wrote movingly of her relationships with these animals and shared some of the synchronicities she experienced concerning them.

We exchanged emails periodically. Renee felt things profoundly, at every level of her being, and when Tennerin failed to appear one spring, she was anxious and worried that something had happened to him. She also expressed her frustration about her private life – that although she loved working on movies, the hours were long and the conditions were often brutal. Her stepfather developed Alzheimer’s, her mother’s health was failing. She had written a book about her dolphin experiences and I referred her to my agent and later on, to another agent I knew personally. Nothing happened with the book, another frustration.

In late August 2014, I got an alarming email from her. She had discovered that she had a mass in her left lung:

Hi Trish,

The Pet scan showed an 8 centimeter mass in my left lung. They biopsy it tomorrow. Everything I’ve read today on what this means is not good. Not good. I’m beginning to wonder if anything I’ve ever done is going be finished and out there. I was born on 4:42 am in Pasadena, California.(I had asked for her birth data so I could look at her natal chart) I won’t hear the results until sometime next week. I honestly don’t know how I can get through this. Or if I’ll get through this. I need to turn down a TV pilot tomorrow—there goes my income for I don’t know how long—I have to have it removed at the very least and then…???  Without union work I will soon lose my coverage. I can’t even pet my parrot because my fear will translate to her and even with the Ativan they gave me today, I am drowning in near panic.

In September, I received another email from her. She said she had mesothelioma, and was waiting on the results of a CT scan that would tell her if the cancer had metastasized. Her agent had called to let her know her book proposal was being submitted to new editors and she seemed more hopeful.

If the cancer hasn’t metastasized, then I face an operation to cut it out of me and then do chemo to make sure it’s all out. The thoracic surgeon here in Salem has already said it’s too big for him but now the oncologist is referring me to a specialist surgeon in Portland. However, I am writing my affirmations every day and feeling Tennerin as he comes sweeping into my lung and shrinking the thing.

Renee, by her own admission,  had a deeply held belief that she wasn’t good enough, that she couldn’t ever complete something she had started. I  really didn’t understood her belief because, to me,it looked as if she had lived according to her own code. But she felt like this belief had contributed to her health challenge.

My least email from Renee was in April 2015. She was in an airport in San Jose – but I don’t know if that was San Jose, California or Costa Rica or some other San Jose. She was in a holding period, waiting for her insurance company to stop denying her coverage to get two spots of cancer “frozen to death by needle, like my doctor does for all his patients that have survived years past the six months to twenty-two month survival time. I am a great believer (I hope) in the individuality of my own recovery and of not relying on estimates and what has gone before. In choosing the doctor that I did, I think I made the first great decision away from that depressing survival range. Also, every other doctor would have taken the lung out and expected no more than that average survival time range.”

In the email she described her chemo treatment, how awful it was, and how, ultimately, it didn’t work. And then this:

I don’t believe I did anything “wrong” to get this cancer. What happened is that my mother married an alcoholic child-molesting psychopath who was a plasterer and he stored joint compound that contained asbestos and contaminated the entire family. Only 15% of people exposed to asbestos get it, probably because of a gene combination related to—get this—getting certain batches of the polio vaccine which contained simian virus 40, a leftover contaminant from working with monkeys to manufacture it.

If I planned this in some other portion of my existence then what a fucking asshole I was, to cut short my life, which is only now beginning to finally blossom. Thanks, in part, to getting mesothelioma. So maybe I planned to get it, then to get cured. But if I die before I get the things done that I need to do—that I believe I was sent here to do, I’m coming up to the afterlife with a raging anger that they had better watch out for. They don’t want me up there with this kind of seething resentment. They do not.

This evening I was writing up one of Renee’s stories and realized I hadn’t heard from her in months. I Googled her and found this, her obituary.

Renee died at the end of June 2015.

My hope is that she is flying through the skies with Tennerin and diving into the depths with dolphins, and brainstorming with John Lily about intraspecies communication. My hope is that she has found in death what eluded her in life. Peace, my friend. You lived and died according to your own code, and that is a huge triumph. Thank you for sharing the most sacred parts of your life with us and expanding our knowledge and driving home the point that we are all in this together.

Back in the summer of 2009, Rob went trail biking – the kind of biking where you slam over obstacles like fallen trees. It had rained that day, which broke the stifling Florida heat and usually meant the trail was well packed. I reminded him to take his cell phone since we’d had some car issues, but he couldn’t find it.

Around 8 PM, I heard the front door open, shut, which was odd. He usually came in through the garage. I went out into the living room and he was sprawled on the couch, eyes squeezed shut. “I think I sprained my ankle,” he said, and lifted his injured foot onto the edge of the coffee table.

I took one look at his foot and knew this wasn’t a sprain. A bone on the outside of his foot was about the size of an apricot. “Uh, I think this is a fracture or a break. I’ll get some ice.”

So I got a bucket of ice, then headed to the internet to look for information on the bones in the feet. I figured the bone that was fractured or broken was the cuboid, on the forefoot, as it’s called. I wondered if there was a synchronicity connected to any of this.

Later on, I stacked up a bunch of books we’d been using as references and put them on Rob’s desk. A few minutes later, he called out: “You aren’t going to believe this. You know those books you just put on my desk? I picked up Jung’s autobiography, turned to chapter 10, and here’s how it starts: ‘In the beginning of 1944, I broke my foot…’”

Skip ahead seven years. On January 7, 2016, my friend Millie Gemondo and I traded readings, as we frequently do. The exchange really isn’t fair because I simply read the tarot cards and Millie is a psychic who has made a number of correct predictions for us over the year. During the exchange, Millie told me to warn Rob to be careful when he went biking. She saw him falling off the bike and said it could be serious. I remembered the broken foot from 2009, so I passed on her message to Rob.

“A synchro,” he said, and reminded me that six years ago, he had a vivid dream that on January 7 (no year given in the dream), he would fall from his mountain bike and die. A few days after that dream, he’d related it to a friend with intuitive abilities who told him he wouldn’t die, but would be paralyzed, and for him that would be like death.

Needless to say, Rob avoids mountain biking every January 7, even though it’s prime riding time in South Florida. He has continued that tradition ever since he had the dream. Several times, he has remembered his dream date with death at the last hour. His regular riding partner, worried that the dream might have been about him, now also avoids riding on January 7.

That story might sound silly to a non-believer, but why challenge such a dream? Instead, Rob acted on it. As he puts it, “I honor that day for life rather than death.”

This is how precognition works in its purest form, I think. A possible future is glimpsed and we can take action to change it.

Is there any question that this young woman won the audition or whatever this was?

Here’s a short excerpt from our upcoming book (Jan. ’17) Sensing the Future.
We include considerably more on Nostradamus, but this is an interesting and humorous tale.

One of the world’s most famous seers, Nostradamus was born Micel de Nostredame on December 14, 1503. His life story, as well as his prophecies, have been passed down over the centuries, and numerous books have been written about him. He was born into a prosperous family in St. Rémy, Provence in southern France, where his father was a notary. The family was originally Jewish, but converted to Catholicism to avoid persecution that was rampant in Europe in the 15^th and 16^th centuries. The French king Louis XII had ordered all Jews to be baptized or face dreadful consequences.

His ancestors were merchants and doctors, and a similar future awaited him. He excelled in his studies and after he received his doctorate at the Montpellier University, he changed his name to the Latin version, Nostradamus.  However, an incident from his youth foretold of the real direction Nostradamus’ life would take.

While attending a Catholic school in Avignon, he made his first prediction. Having seen two young pigs at the barnyard, a black and a white one, he said the white pig would be killed by a wolf, and the black one served for dinner. After the rector found out about the prediction, he ordered to have the black pig slaughtered and buried, and to serve the white pig for dinner immediately. The cook rushed to fulfill the order, but was told at the barnyard that the white pig had been snatched by a wolf that had entered the barn through the roof, and only the black pig was left. Unsure of what to do, the cook served the black pig for dinner.

While we were in Orlando recently, our daughter decided to put her GoPro to good use. She put the camera’s harness on her dog, Nika, then attached the GoPro to the harness. For five or ten minutes, Nika and Noah ran around the yard playing like they usually do. Noah outweighs Nika by more than sixty pounds and invariably takes her down. She then leaps up, boxing at him, and they tear around the yard some more. While they were doing this, we were watching it on Megan’s phone and cracking up.

Curious about the range of the wireless signal, Rob went inside the house with Nika following him, and Megan and I watched her journey outside, on her phone. Then a cool thing happened. As Nika trotted back through the kitchen, she paused in the doorway, peering out into the yard, and one of us yelled, “Squirrel!”

Later that evening, while Megan and Rob were trying to figure out the right music for this video, I was sitting outside with the dogs and suddenly thought, Born to be Wild. I ran inside and blurted the title. Megan and Rob looked up, surprised. “That’s exactly what I just said to dad!”

So, there’s a bit of a synchro here, after all!