Room With a View

Posted on August 4, 2009 by Trish and Rob

This story first appeared in the Sunday Times in May 1974. It’s another one of the stories which makes you wonder who’s really running the universe!
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During WWI, Arthur Butterworth from Yorkshire was stationed at an army camp on the grounds of Taverham Hall, near Norwich. He’d ordered a secondhand book on music from a London bookseller and when the parcel arrived, he opened it while standing at the window in his hut. A postcard fell out of the book, apparently placed there by the previous owner. The card had been written on August 4, 1913. Butterworth turned it over to see the picture. The photograph was exactly what he could see from his window – Taversham Hall.

Army camps during the war were signified only by a post code, not a name, so the bookseller couldn’t have known where the book was being sent, which makes it unlikely that the seller just slipped the postcard into the book.
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Another level to this story is that as I was writing it up to post on August 4, I realized that August 4 is the date on the postcard.

I Googled Taverham Hall and discovered that it’s a British preparatory and nursery school. From their website:

“Augustin Sotherton, from Ludham, was offered the three thousand acre estate in 1623. It remained within the family for three hundred years, and the Revd. John Nathaniel Micklethwait, a retired parson, inherited the estate through the female side of the family in about 1850. He decided to demolish the existing substantial hall and engaged an architect, David Brandon, to design a country house of stature befitting a Norfolk gentleman. Today’s hall is a typical example of the time with its high Tudor chimneys, stone mullioned windows and gables. Brandon’s drawings also displayed a substantial tower, but fortunately good sense prevailed and the tower was never built.”

“During the war the army moved in and evidence of their presence can still be seen today with soldiers names scratched into the brickwork and bullet holes in the weather vanes. After the war the school returned to the hall and prospered under the headship of John Peel. Since then it has taken on charitable trust status, grown considerably and is now fully co-educational with modern facilities.”

UPDATE

Gypsywoman had an odd experience with the house on the postcard – or, rather, with one that looked just like it. Here’s her comment. Her photo is below her comment:

After i read your story and sent the comment, my curiosity got the better of me so i pulled up a photo of the building across from my place – and posted it just now, along with a little blurp – while i can see now that they are not so totally similar, in that fleeting moment, i was taken back to the building here – in any event, another little fun oddity is that the name of the building here is the PARSON-THORNE MANSION – and i noticed that the building in your story was at one point purchased by a retired PARSON –

Posted in history, time and space | 7 Comments

Australian Sojourn

Posted on August 3, 2009 by Trish and Rob

During a trip to Australia, Jane Clifford (Between the Lines), had plenty of time for daily meditations with the intent of bringing into her life everything she needed. She said the results were immediate and astonished her.

One day, while in Sydney she decided she wanted some decorative baskets for storage. “On the day I set out to buy some I stepped out of the house and there on the pavement next door were lovely baskets of the type and size I needed. In Australia, whatever is put out to be collected can be taken away and used by anyone who wants it. A wonderful form of instant re- cycling.” And wonderful synchroncity.

She continued her meditative work and it wasn’t long before more magic was forthcoming. “I had set off to explore Manley Island without shorts or swimwear or beach towel. Walking towards the beach I stopped and asked a stranger if there was a charity shop nearby. She just happened to be British and from the same area I had been born.”

Even though the woman didn’t know of any such shops, Jane fell into step beside her. The woman was going to the post office and there, right next to it, was a huge charity shop. “She was astonished because she had never seen it before. It turned out the shop had just opened two days before. If I had not walked with her for a few hundred yards I wouldn’t have found it.”

After enjoying the beach she stepped into an ethnic gift shop looking for something with a lizard on it to give her son. Not able to find anything, she asked the young man who was reading a book behind the counter.

He looked up from the book, an astonished expression on his face. “He said, ‘I don’t believe it!’ and went on to explain that she had spoken the very words he had just read. He showed me the sentence in which an older woman turned her head and said to a young man the exact same words.” She noted that it was a synchronicity and mentioned a book by Deepak Chopra that is subtitled, Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence. The man nodded and said that he had met Deepak.

Posted in Australia, travel | 10 Comments

The Girl from Petrovka

Posted on August 2, 2009 by Trish and Rob


This is one that we’ve known about since before starting the blog, but somehow we forgot to post it. It’s a good one…and even comes with a celebrity.
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When Anthony Hopkins was researching his part for the film of George Feifer’s The Girl from Petrovka, he searched London bookshops for a copy of the novel. Unable to find one, he went into Leicester Square subway station to catch a train home. Lying on a bench in the station was the book, evidently left behind by a fellow traveler.

That in itself is astounding, but two years later, while in the midst of filming in Vienna, Hopkins was greeted on the set by Feifer. The author mentioned that he no longer had a copy of his own book, and told Hopkins how he had lent his last copy to a friend who had mislaid it somewhere in London. Feifer added that it had especially annoyed him because he had annotated that particular copy. Scarcely believing that such a coincidence could be possible, Hopkins handed Feifer the copy he’d found at the subway station. “Is this the one?” he asked. “With the notes scribbled in the margins? It was indeed the book Feifer’s friend had lost.

The odds? Astronomical.

Posted in actors, Anthony Hopkins, books, movies, writers | 8 Comments

Animals as Oracles of Global Events

Posted on August 1, 2009 by Trish and Rob


On December 26, 2004, an undersea earthquake erupted in the Indian Ocean. The violent upheaval of the tectonic plates displaced an enormous amount of water and within a few hours, waves as high as a hundred feet radiated outward from the epicenter. A tsunami crashed into the coastline of eleven Indian Ocean countries, killing near 250,000 people. The wave that spread out across the Bay of Bengal was visible from space, and scientists were able to precisely measure the size of the quake and the resulting tsunami. However, they weren’t able to predict it. What has become apparent in the five years since is that animals were aware of what was coming hours, even days, in advance.

In Sri Lanka’s largest wildlife reserve, there wasn’t a single report about dead animals. According to the deputy director of the National Wildlife Department, elephants, wild boar, monkeys, and deer moved inland to avoid the killer waves. Along India’s Cuddalore coast, where thousands of people died, the Indo-Asian News service reported that buffaloes, goats, and dogs were found unharmed. Bats were seen frantically flying away just before the tsunami struck.

“Imagine what could happen in California and other parts of the Western world if, instead of ignoring the warnings given by animals, people took them seriously,” wrote British biologist Rupert Sheldrake in Dogs that Know When Their Owners are Coming Home.

There have been examples where authorities successfully forecast a major earthquake, based in part on the observation of the strange antics of animals. National Geographic reported that in 1975, Chinese officials ordered the evacuation of Haicheng, a city with one million people, just days before a 7.3-magnitude quake. Only a small portion of the population was hurt or killed. If the city officials had ignored the odd animal behavior, it’s estimated that the number of fatalities and injuries could have exceeded 150,000.

Sheldrake theorizes that “animals may sense what is about to happen in a way that lies beyond our current scientific understanding. In other words, they may be prescient, having a feeling that something is about to happen, or precognitive, knowing in advance what is going to happen.”

Over our years here in hurricane country, we’ve found animals to be a more reliable indicator than the National Hurricane Center about where a storm is headed.What are your experiences with pets/animals about weather-related events?

Posted in animals, precognition, Sheldrake | 9 Comments

Bearly yoga

Posted on July 31, 2009 by Trish and Rob



We’ve been waiting for a chance to post this little bear photo for some time. It seems appropriate after the little ditty about Simba the cat. Keeping in line with the Simba post, we should ask: Do little bears normally do yoga postures? If so, how often do they do it in someone’s backyard and pose for a neighbor’s camera?

That’s what happened to photographer Fay Atwater. She gave the photo to our friend Nancy McMoneagle, who sent it to us. The little bear was posing on Nancy’s back porch outside of Charlottesville, VA. They have a couple bears living in the woods behind their house. They live in a magical area not far from the Monroe Institute. Nancy is the stepdaughter of Robert Monroe, author of Journeys Out of Body. Her husband, Joe, was a member of the Stargate remote viewers (or psychics) who worked for the Army and CIA during the 80s to the early 90s.

When we visited them several years ago, we took a number of photos of their beautiful property. When we brought the photos up on our computers, two of them showed a misty effect. One is of a Buddha statue, the other of the forest where the bears live. Ghosts? In the photo of the woods, you can see what looks like three tall ghostly figures at the edge of the forest. None of the other photos taken there that day showed the same effect, and there was no visible mist.

The yoga bear isn’t really a synchronicity, but it’s a cute photo. And the other two pictures are puzzling. Is is possible to capture spirits on digital cameras?
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UPDATE
Jim Banholzer has had more time than anyone else here to study the two misty photos and below he gives his personal interpretation. For some spooky reason, when I changed the color of Jim’s comments, it wouldn’t go up. So you need to highlight it. Somehow, that’s sort of fitting.

UPDATE 2

Okay, now it’s legible. But it took some fiddling!
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After seeing the photos from the McMoneagle’s property posted on your blog, I went back to January 2007 and reread my original interpretation:

“This second (now first) photo is very Lords of Ringish. There is a very wise man in the forest. He is a second sniffer for the primary spirit. The primary spirit contains double anguishes. The first wise man is an Elder Statesman, with lion-like qualities and he is an owl. His beard looks like the United States with more enlightened parts of the country swelling larger. Another man there is another owl (night-eagle). MON-EAGLE – Midnight Over Noon eagle?”

Looking at this a second time, I saw two more men on the left of the elder statesman. Now a wolverine demon towards the right center. In addition, a twenty-two foot tall man –reminds me of Lawrence Ferlinghetti, donning a large green acorn cap.

Also reminds me of my repeated childhood dreams of flying outward from our Towering Oak Tree on Columbus Street, starting in 1966. Only a few weeks ago did I ever consider that I was turning into a bird at night, seeing brighter clarity in the dark. In addition, I only recently learned that owls have the disability of not being able to move their eyes. Gives them the ability to think ahead more, before they crane their necks.

There is another spiritman behind the two most powerful; I’m not sure who he is, near him a possible alien with Spiderman like eyes. One man standing at the front edge of the forests dons a long dark robe. He has a green head and is spraying some contagion. A larger face overlapping that one is saucer-like, levitating sideways. This one looks to be expelling some type of exhaust into the ether. Two logs at the edge of the wavy forest floor attract spirits to this off beam sphere. Humans like us have had extensive tranquil visits upon these same seats.

A face towards the left of the photo seems to be feline-like, but has some wolf in it too. The blue smokespirit towards the middle right, looks like he could be pointing a finger down at you, using the same tree a Ring-Wraith is holding. I just started hearing Jim Morrison’s song in my head about Texas Radio and the Big Beat.

The clay face about thirteen feet off the forest floor is expelling some steam from its mouth. Its head looks like a sound machine, and a hand vise grip –or anvil –or TV or computer monitor. Maybe, it’s shouting for me to buy that Annotated Thoreau book, and get off the computer.Iron man is in a tree thirty feet up, left of center. He is from a war. Could be from years ago. His iron has rusted through to a point that he now sees that there is much uncertainly in being a civilized iron-man. Much more disturbing than what they pledged him to believe in boot camp. He is just beginning to realize –maybe a little too late, that it is even more disturbing to not be greatly troubled by man’s inhumanity to man, perpetually losing battles. I believe there is much more, but that is the gist of it for today

Posted in bears, ghosts, yoga | 4 Comments

Intelligence vs. synchronicity

Posted on July 30, 2009 by Trish and Rob


Cats respond to humans through their intelligence. But how much do they know and how much of what might be perceived as intelligence is actually synchronicity? This story looks at that question.
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I’d just awakened and was sitting on the edge of the bed when I noticed Simba, our one-year-old orange male cat watching me from the doorway to the bedroom. I looked from him into the bathroom where the window was open several inches. He goes in and out early in the morning. I usually open it for him at 5:30. Somehow, he knows when it’s 5:30 and it’s always within a few minutes either way when he lets me know.

Simba has a little friend, a younger black male cat from next door, who follows him faithfully around when he’s outside. The cat likes Simba a lot. He might be gay. Simba is very gentle, a peace-loving cat, and quite a bit larger than his buddy Shadow. He tolerates Shadow, allows him to sit or lie next to him. But like most cats, Simba has his limits when it comes to friendship. He gets annoyed with the ever-present Shadow and sometimes growls at him to stay back. When he’s had enough of him, he comes in.

Once in a while Shadow will follow Simba through the window into the house. That’s when Simba gets upset and chases him out. He needs his space.

So, on this morning, I looked back at Simba and in a soft voice said. “Here comes Shadow. Get him out of here.”

I didn’t really expect a response. But suddenly Simba crouched, crept forward the way cats do when they’re outside, in the grass,, and peered to his right into the bathroom toward the open window. He took a long look, then relaxed, realizing that Shadow wasn’t there.

Trish thinks he’s smart and knows Shadow’s name, and knows that we don’t want that cat in the house any more than he does. But I think, in that instance, it might’ve been synchronicity. In other words, as I spoke to him, he acted on his own, moving forward to check the window. So it appeared he was responding to my words. Is intelligence or synchronicity at work here? I’m leaning toward synchronicity or telepathy, a form of synchronicity.

As I write this, the cat in question is staring at me from the doorway of my office. Maybe I should ask him.
Rob

Posted in animals, cat, Intelligence, telepathy | 6 Comments

Baby Ka-boom

Posted on July 29, 2009 by Trish and Rob


The Associated Press in an article a couple of months ago asked: Did America’s moms and dads and potential parents see the meltdown coming before the economists?

According to census figures, just before the earliest stages of the recession, there was a steep decline in the population growth of children less than a year old. The mystery is that the downturn in pregnancies began before the Wall Street crash in September.

The number of babies increased only 0.9 percent between July 2007 and July 2008, a sharp drop from the record-setting 2.7 percent growth for the preceding year. So maybe America’s family planners outperformed financial planners in predicting the rough economic times.

If true, it would indicate an example of collective family planning at the unconscious level. A message rippled along the invisible web warning of economic troubles and a noticable number reacted by deciding to put off having children.

Posted in drop in births, economy, global | 15 Comments

Between the lines

Posted on July 28, 2009 by Trish and Rob


About 20 years ago, Jane Clifford of Wales started noticing astonishing synchronicities, usually related to books. She sent us a long list of them. Here are a few.
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1) At a dinner party my host told me I must accompany him the next day to see a Dickensian cobblers shop in his local town. Two days later I randomly bought a modern novel in which one character took another to a “Dickensian cobblers shop”.

2) A few months later I was reading a book at home and had just read that the people in it found shelter in a seaman’s mission. At that precise moment the phone rang and an unknown lady asked me if I would like to collect for a charity “The seaman’s mission.” I had never heard of it until that moment and had no connection with the charity.

3) I was going on a trip to Ireland so I bought a novel by JP. Donleavy to read on the trip. Through a series of random events I was introduced to him and invited to tea. My Irish friends tell me he is the most famous recluse in Ireland so invitations are rare. I went and had a delightful day.

4) Whilst in Ireland I bought a novel by an Irish writer. Spookily, as the novel unfolded I was visiting each of the places described in the novel. My itinerary was randomly decided by someone else who never read novels and had not had access to the one I was reading.

5) I was looking for a birthday gift for a friend. I selected a book of stories. I opened the book randomly and there was a story written by her grandfather. I bought the book.

6) I was meeting a friend in Wales for lunch before taking her to the Irish Ferry. She gave me an autobiography. On the way to the ferry she invited me to travel with her to her house, so I impulsively jumped on the ferry. Even though she had a large house, it was full of guests. So I was allocated the only room left vacant. I’d never stayed in this small room on previous visits, but I discovered there was something special about it. I began the gifted autobiography in the room where the woman who had written it had once lived, and her photo looked at me from the bedside table.

7) I was introduced by a mutual friend to a famous British playwright, and he told me he had an autobiography coming out. Some weeks later I saw a huge display of his book at the entrance of a book shop. I randomly opened it and there on the page was the name of the friend who had introduced us, and a story they had both related to me the day we had met. I bought the book.

8) I was flying to Norfolk, Virginia and randomly selected a book in a charity shop to read on the flight. On the plane I began reading and the story was set in Norfolk Virginia. I was still reading the book in Virginia when my host said we would be going to Carolina the next day. The story in the book changed to Carolina.
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She also sent a good one about a rat that we might put in the book.

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

What would Galileo think?

Posted on July 27, 2009 by Trish and Rob


Here’s a true cosmic encounter from astrologer Lynn Hayes.
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Jupiter and Chiron reached their exact conjunction on Wednesday (July 23) for their second time in this cycle, just as it was discovered that a huge body in space slammed into Jupiter, giving it a bruise “as big as the Pacific ocean.” Chiron of course is known as the “Wounded Healer,” and the synchronicity of the wound to Jupiter becoming known to us here on Earth as Jupiter conjoined Chiron is an interesting one. Those two are within a degree of an exact conjunction to Neptune as well, and the Triple Conjunction is still very much in force.

In another striking coincidence, it was fifteen years ago to the day that the comet Shoemaker-Levy collided with Jupiter. At the time, Uranus and Neptune were conjunct in the sky, combining the radical new ideas of Uranus with the spiritual inspiration of Neptune. This was the best and the worst of times for the New Age movement – there were brilliant new insights flooding the airwaves, as well as the most stupid of deceptions and illusions.

Jupiter in astrological symbolism represents the field of unlimited possibilities, but it also has to do with our formulation of a sense of meaning in life. If we look back to the 1994 collision of the comet with Jupiter, we can see that this time period created drastic changes in the way we constructed our belief of the meaning of reality. Perhaps we are on the verge now of another big breakthrough of consciousness. Or perhaps it was just another space collision.

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Woman Haunts Disasters

Posted on July 26, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Some of these close calls are a stretch, but interesting.

By JENNIFER COPELAND / NewsChannel 36
E-mail Jennifer: JCopeland@WCNC.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — We all know the miraculous story of Flight 1549 — 155 people made it out alive when the US Airways jet made its splash landing into New York’s Hudson River on its way to Charlotte in January.
But for one local woman on board, that survival story is just another notch in her belt. She’s cheated death seven times. She’ survived an avalanche, an earthquake, tsunami warnings even 9-11.
Is it a curse? Not if you ask Maryann Bruce.
Her story goes back to the early 1980s when she was on vacation with her husband. They were newlyweds at the time on a trip to Hawaii.
She remembers swimming in a pool and hearing sirens. It was a tsunami warning that forced everyone at the hotel to evacuate for higher ground. By the time the waves made it to the islands, the storm had weakened.
In 1985, she survived Hurricane Gloria flying through the storm as it made landfall.
In the late 1980s, she came extremely close to an avalanche. Bruce was skiing in Colorado, on the very same slopes where an avalanche happened within minutes of her being there.
“I don’t know why these things happen to me, but I’m just happy that I survive,” Bruce said.
She has survived one historical disaster after another.
“That’s when I started to realize that this is not normal,” Bruce said.
In 1993, she escaped the World Trade Center bombing.
“It was in the middle of the day and all the sudden the building shook,” Bruce said.
She remembers running down 34 flights of stairs in total darkness covered in soot.
On Sept. 11, 2001, she dodged another terrorist attack. She was actually in the air flying from Charlotte to the same airport in Boston where two of the planes were hijacked.
“It was just a recognition that wow, I’ve been around a lot of these,” Bruce said.
Her most recent brush was disaster: the miracle on the Hudson.
Bruce was a passenger on that flight and remembers calling her husband using her cell phone in a raft as the plane sank beside her.
“It just makes you realize how lucky you are,” Bruce said.
And to Bruce, that’s all it is.
“I like to think I have a guardian angel,” Bruce said.
To her, it’s not a curse or a jinx. Just luck.
“We just shake our heads,” Bruce said. “What can you do? I certainly don’t want to live my life in fear.”

Posted in airplanes, avoiding death, disasters, travel | 6 Comments