Seeing Double

Posted on August 22, 2009 by Trish and Rob

So we’ve been focusing on numbers lately. Three days ago it was threes (as in deaths), then came 11s, followed by 88. Today we go to twos, specifically twins. And tomorrow we’ll look at four of a kind.

This one is definitely a cluster phenomena, if not exactly a synchronicity. But what are the chances?

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KODINJI, India (Reuters Life!) – Walk around Kodinji village and you’ll think that you have double vision.

The village is home to as many as 230 sets of twins. Nobody knows why there are so many twins in the village of 15,000 people, although one local doctor suspects it might be due to the water.

In fact with about 35-45 twins per live birth, this village in North Kerala, India, has four times more twins than normal. Not surprisingly, the village has been dubbed “the twin village.”

The latest official estimates by the Kodinji’s Twins and Kins Association (TAKA), which conducted door-to-door surveys at the start of the year, found that there were 204 sets of twins.

Based on births since the survey was conducted, there are probably now around 230 sets of twins in the village, locals said. That number is set to rise as there are five women pregnant with twins.

“It’s an amazing phenomenon to see a medical marvel occurring in such a localized place where the people are not exposed to any kinds of harmful drugs or harmful chemicals. It’s a virgin village,” said Dr Sribiju, a researcher.

Pathummakutty and Kunhipathutty, 65, are the oldest surviving twins in the village. The youngest are Rifa Ayesha and Ritha Ayesha, born on June 10. Their proud parents already see a slight difference between them as one lies fast asleep, while the other kicks away with a mischievous grin on her face.

Being a twin is not always easy. Pathummakutty, who like many in the village have a single name, recalls how her family struggled financially when she was a child. But she also remember good times such as laughter after yet another mix up with her twin sister.

It is not uncommon to run into an identical twin while walking down the hilly roads of Kodinji and there are many tales of teachers getting mixed up between twin students.

At the local school, 15-year-old Salmabi said teachers often confused her for her twin sister and she was once reprimanded for something that her twin did.

“It happens all the time,” the students pipe in a chorus.

Scientists are still trying to uncover the mystery of why there are so many twins in the village.

“Based on scientific facts, we feel something in the environment is causing this. It could be something in the water,” said a local doctor, M.K. Sribiju.

“All the world over the cause of twins is mainly because of drugs. Everywhere in the Western world, people are exposed to fertility drugs, their food habits, they consume more dairy products. Everywhere the age of marriage is increasing. There are late marriages predisposed to occurrence of twins,” he said.

However in Kodinji, most marriages are between people aged 18 to 20 years old.

“All the factors leading to the occurrence of twinning world wide, we cannot see it here. There is something unknown that is causing this phenomenon,” he said.

The locals also believe it has to do with the water. Kodinji is surrounded by water in the fields and during the monsoon season it becomes inaccessible from heavy rains.

As scientists try to find the reason for the large numbers of twins in the village, the parents are busy trying to tell their children apart. It doesn’t help that many of the twins have similar names and often wear similar clothes.

While parents light-heartedly point out that their twins even seem to fall sick together, not all traits are shared. Identical twins Anu and Abhi prefer different film stars and one of the boys likes to play cricket, while the other prefers kicking a soccer ball.

With all the attention being showered on the twins of Kodinji, Ajmer, a 12-year-old school boy, feels like the odd one out in a village where being a twin is trendy.

Posted in 2s, twins | 14 Comments

Believed 88

Posted on August 21, 2009 by Trish and Rob

This synchronicity needs a a little background. We took our daughter, Megan, back to college Wednesday to begin her junior year. There was some uncertainty here because of a relationship that ended last year and she was feeling somewhat at odds with herself. She’s a proponent of the law of attraction – aka Esther and Jerry Hicks and the Abraham material – so she realized the importance of moving into a “better feeling place.” She was looking for confirmation that she could do this. Her favorite number, by the way, is 8.

So this evening she went over to the bay to watch the sun set. Her touch-screen phone was in her pocket, the keyboard NOT locked, which means that your body’s movements can sometimes cause the phone to call random numbers, to type random text messages. The usual result is gibberish. But as Megan tells it:

“So I’m sitting there and it’s all just a perfect moment. The sun setting, people swimming and splashing in the bay, and I’m feeling really good, optimistic. And suddenly I feel my phone vibrating in my pocket, and I slip it out, expecting to see the number of an incoming call. Instead, there’s a text message that says BELIEVED 88. I didn’t type this message. No one sent it to me. The message was created by my body’s movements because the keypad wasn’t locked. Even the word BELIEVED was spelled right! And 8 is my favorite number and this was double 8s. You guys call this synchronicity. To me, it means I was coming into alignment with Source. It was an affirmation.”
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8 is, among other things, the symbol for infinity. And if the quantum physics guys are right, if our intentions can effect matter, then Megan’s experience seems to suggest that sometimes that effect can be stunningly literal.

As a parent, this story is both humbling and exhilarating. And this photo is of Megan on birthday 19, to be repeated on birthday 20. It’s that sort of risk and rush that characterizes her intellectually, emotionally, spiritually. It leaves me standing on the ground, peering upward, breathless.

– Trish

Posted in beliefs, law of attraction, Megan, Numbers, phones | 7 Comments

11s, Again!

Posted on August 20, 2009 by Trish and Rob


While we were writing a chapter in the book about cluster synchronicities involving numbers – specifically the number 11 – we received a cleaning bill from Megan’s college. This was the move out of the dorm, cleanup bill. The charge? $111 and loose change.

That same day, we took a break so we could pick up our Mazda, which had just received its second alternator in two weeks. As Rob drove away from the garage at 3:17 PM, he looked down at the clock. Since the battery had been disconnected, the clock had stopped. It now read: 11:11.

Law of attraction?

Posted in 11:11, 11s, Numbers | 17 Comments

Fatal Attraction

Posted on August 19, 2009 by Trish and Rob


We’ve talked about deaths coming in threes, and here’s another example. This time though it’s not celebrities, but employees of Disney World, and one of them played Indiana Jones.
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ORLANDO, Fla. — A 30-year-old performer at Disney World is dead after rehearsing for a stunt show, the third worker to die in seven weeks at the Orlando, Fla., park.

Anislav Varbanov was pronounced dead late Monday at a hospital after injuring his head while rehearsing a tumbling roll for the “Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular.”

A Disney spokeswoman said the company mourned Varbanov’s death. The stunt show was canceled Tuesday in his memory.

The death comes a week after a 47-year-old performer died following an on-stage fall during another show, “Captain Jack’s Pirate Tutorial.” And on July 5, a 21-year-old monorail driver died when another train crashed into his own.

Posted in #3, death, disney world | 6 Comments

What We Attract

Posted on August 18, 2009 by Trish and Rob

We’re always on the prowl for new synchronicities. So this evening, I ran across this headline: Actor in Ad Battling Swine Flu Comes Down with Swine Flu, a story that reminds me of several earlier posts, like this one, where actors play certain parts and then their lives become a reflection of that part.

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David McCusker, a 30-year-old from Sutton, Surrey, is featured in a UK ad about how to prevent swine flu, and was interviewed by the Daily Mail after his symptoms were confirmed as swine flu. “I was supposed to Catch It, Bin It, Kill It. But instead, I’ve been shivering, shaking, and spreading it.”

Here’s the swine flu ad on youtube:

– Trish

Posted in illness, law of attraction, swine flu | 6 Comments

Earth Day Revisited

Posted on August 17, 2009 by Trish and Rob


Jenean’s post yesterday reminded me of something that happened to me a couple years ago on Earth Day. A friend, also named Rob, and I decided to join a group on a hike across one of the last wilderness areas in south Florida. The hike was several hours through some challenging territory – as I was to find out – and the organizer, David, was concerned that some of the people didn’t look very well prepared. He wanted everyone to understand that that it was not an easy walk.

He saw that I was wearing a hydration pack, figured I was experienced on such treks, and asked me to help him keep track of the others. I readily agreed, but then found out that meant I had to walk in the rear, so no one got left behind.

That wasn’t a good thing to request of me, because I tend to walk fast and pull ahead, rather than hang behind. But I agreed and kept pace with the slower walkers – or so I thought.

After an hour, we took a break. David counted heads and realized there was one person missing. We narrowed it to a woman visiting from Hawaii, a New Age-type who had been talking about her power animals before we started out. She’d also pointed out that a preying mantis had alighted on my shoulder, and told me that meant I would have an interesting hike.

I was sent back to look for her. I trotted more than a mile, didn’t see her, and figured she must’ve turned back. David wasn’t pleased that I’d let her slip away, and I couldn’t figure out how she’d gotten behind me. We waited a few more minutes, then moved on.

After awhile we came to a wide, shallow stream and searched for signs of the trail. We walked up and down the bank, but had trouble seeing any marker on the other side of the stream.

Just as I spotted what appeared to be an orange X on a tree across the stream, I turned to see the Hawaiian woman. I asked her where she’d been, and she said she’d been talking to a guy she met on the trail. That sounded strange, because we hadn’t passed anyone walking in the other direction. But maybe someone had caught up to her from behind.

I was ready to move on and didn’t bother asking her anything more about it. Instead, I waded across the stream and a couple of college girls, who figured I knew what I was doing, followed. I got within ten feet of the far shore when I saw the so-called marker was just a natural formation on the tree, probably lichen – a combination of algae and fungus. I took another step and started to sink. Within a few seconds I was up to my hips in mud. The girls screamed, turned, and hurried away.

I tried to move forward and mud came up to my waist and I was still sinking. Finally, I lunged, grabbed a tree root dangling from the bank and pulled myself out. By then, the others had found the trail and everyone had crossed the stream at the proper place without incident. I joined them wet and muddy to my chest.

My friend Rob greeted me with a bottle of water, and wondered aloud if I was better at the holding the rear or trailblazing. “Maybe you should stay in the middle.”

While none of the preceding sounds much like Jenean’s story, it’s actually a long introduction to what came next. After another hour or so of hiking through mostly dense forest, we took a twenty-minute break. The path had merged with a horse trail and, as I sat in the shade of a large live oak tree, several riders passed. A few minutes later, a solo rider came along, stopped, got off his horse, and stretched. He was Native American, reminded me of Graham Greene, who played one of the lead roles in Dances with Wolves. He had long silver-streaked hair and wore a straw hat.

He looked at my muddy clothes, and when I told him what happened, he said he knew the place and said that his horse had nearly gotten stuck in that muddy stream a couple of weeks earlier. We talked for a few minutes about the area and he rode off. I joined the others, as we gathered to set off again, and I mentioned to several people that I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten caught in that mud. I related the story and added, “And he’s an Indian,” as if that somehow lessened my mistake.

David said, “What Indian?”

“The guy I was talking to on the horse with the straw hat.”

Everyone looked mystified. Except the Hawaiian woman. “That’s the guy I was talking to, way back there. He’s a very interesting man.”

With that, we moved on and I had the feeling that David now figured there were two crazies in the group. I joined my friend, Rob, and said, “You saw him, right?”

“How do you know he was an Indian?”

Not exactly the confirmation I wanted to hear.

We continued on and finally came to a paved road and walked the last mile to a park where there was food and a variety of Earth Day activities.

While I eating at a picnic table with several from our group, I spotted the horseman walking through the crowd. No sign of his horse. I got up and went after him, but couldn’t find him. I went back to the table, glad that I hadn’t said anything about who I’d seen.

Rob and I hung around awhile, then caught a bus that was headed back to the park entrance where we’d left our car. After about half a mile or so, the bus stopped and picked up someone standing on the side of the road. To my amazement, it was HIM. No horse and taking the bus. He sat right across from Rob and I, and I greeted him like a long lost friend. He started talking about composting, going into details on the proper way to make compost from vegetable matter. It was like he was offering an Earth Day lesson.

As we got off the bus, it occurred to me that Rob hadn’t said a word while I was talking to the man. He’d just stared ahead. We walked to the car, and I was about to say something about composting, referencing the conversation, but I stopped short. I decided I wanted to keep the incident somewhat mysterious. Or maybe I was concerned that Rob would say there was no Indian on the bus. I’ve never asked him about it. I think the man was real, flesh and blood, but that there was also something mysterious going on that day.

As we drove away, I looked in the rear view mirror. I saw the horseman looking my way and to my surprise he was standing next to the Hawaiian woman.
– Rob
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Posted in earth day, Indian | 10 Comments

Dream Warrior

Posted on August 16, 2009 by Trish and Rob

This one comes from Jenean, Gypsy Woman, whose synchronicities we’ve posted here before. It’s an example of how the people we meet first in dreams sometimes enter our physical lives as well. We’re convinced that Gypsy Woman lives in two worlds!
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In 1995, Jenean had a vivid, intense lucid dream in which she found herself in a completely pure white room. The white was “so bright as to be unimaginable, a pure unadulterated radiant white. In this room were several older women who were seated and although no words were spoken, I knew they were there to help me somehow. I can still see the cluster of them today, sitting with their long black hair the only real color in the room.”

The women told Jenean there was someone she needed to meet and they were sending him to her. “And through an opening in the room walked a very tall muscular man in Native American regalia.” He wore a large plumed headband and was dressed in solid white. He didn’t say anything as he walked toward her and Jenean remembers observing herself from behind. Then she woke up.

“The dream was one of those that leaves you overwhelmed with its intensity and feeling as if it were an actual experience rather than just a dream.” She told a friend about it and they laughed about the tall, dark Indian warrior coming to her in her dreams.

Two days later, Jenean went to the Twin Eagles pow-wow in Shreveport, the first she’d ever attended. She and a friend attended for the opening day and took Jenean’s twin granddaughters with them. The pow-wow was held at the Shreveport fair grounds, inside a huge arena. Even though the crowd was enormous, they managed to get seats in a front row.

The grand parade began with the marching out of different tribal representatives in full regalia, drummers chanted, the air was electrified. “I heard nothing but the drums and the chants and the rhythm of it all, and a feeling of coming home swept over me, a feeling of pure love, and of absolute and total grief. I began to sob as if there had been a death.” Jenean was aware that others in the crowd were turning to look at her, some of them smiling knowingly.

When she finally controlled her sobbing, she knew something inexplicable had happened to her. “And then a single dancer – a Kiowa – was announced – and out onto the dirt floor walked the native man who had come to me in my dream, the man in the white regalia with the beautiful headpiece. He danced toward me, looking at me as his feet struck the sand with each beat. I was transfixed in that moment and could do nothing but absorb the totality of those moments in time.”

After the pow wow was over, they tried to find the dream warrior, but he was nowhere around. Jenean was mystified and several days later, contacted someone she knew of – but had never met – who was associated with the Shreveport Twin Eagles group. They met for lunch the next day and she told him what had happened.

“He listened to me, his eyes never leaving my face, his long silver hair flowing over his shoulders. He told me that the man in my dreams was Dennis Zotigh, a Kiowa from Oklahoma and that he, himself, had personally chosen Dennis to dance at this pow wow.Dennis was apparently a “messenger” and Jenean had been chosen to receive the message this time. There was something for her to learn, a journey to be taken. He asked Jenean to join the Twin Eagles group and she was a member for several years.

Posted in dreams, Jenean, people met in dreams | 16 Comments

Tied Together

Posted on August 16, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Here’s a short one about a couple of guys who couldn’t seem to keep track of their stuff. Instead, they…well, read it and see what they found in their hotel rooms.
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In 1953, television reporter Irv Kupcinet was in London to cover the coronation of Elizabeth II. In one of the drawers in his room at the Savoy he found some items that, by their identification, belonged to a man named Harry Hannin. Coincidentally, Harry Hannin – a basketball star with the famed Harlem Globetrotters – was a good friend of Kupcinet’s.

But the story has yet another twist. Just two days later, and before he could tell Hannin of his lucky discovery, Kupcinet received a letter from Hannin. In the letter, Hannin told Kucinet that while staying at the Hotel Meurice in Paris, he found in a drawer a tie – with Kupcinet’s name on it.
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Again, the odds on this one seem outrageous.But that seems to be business as usual for some types of synchronicities.

Posted in names, objects | 3 Comments

Clinton’s eerie prediction

Posted on August 15, 2009 by Trish and Rob

Frank Joseph in Synchronicity & You relates a synchronicity that happened to Bill Clinton. One day in 1995 he met with a handful of Democratic political figures and started talking about his commerce secretary, Ron Brown, extolling the man’s virtues and hard work. Clinton called him “the best commerce secretary in the history of the republic,” and went on to talk about his life. To the people present, it sounded as if Clinton was delivering a eulogy.

Shortly after the conference adjourned, Clinton was informed that his commerce secretary had been killed in a plane crash. Democrat Party Chair Mark Andrew was at the conference and remarked that while Clinton had been speaking about Brown, there was something almost prescient about it that made it very eerie.”

Posted in clinton, precognition, prediction, presidents | 17 Comments

Dowsing for Answers

Posted on August 14, 2009 by Trish and Rob

In western Zambia, a team of technicians is working with the local people to give them access to a precious commodity: water. These experts aren’t scientists or linguists. They’re dowsers.

David Dixon and his team have been traveling to Zambia for the last five years, at their own expense, to dowse for water in the arid area near Angola. Using dowsing rods and other tools, the team helps the local people locate underground streams and when they sense that the water is high enough, they instruct the locals where to install a pump. The team claims they have brought water to dozens of communities and more than ten thousand villagers. But, to quote the article where I found this information, their claims “leave scientists cold. For how on earth can dowsing work?”

I found this article, cited at the end of this post, because I picked out one of most interesting books in our library – about Earth mysteries. I was reading a section on dowsing this evening and the obvious struck me – that it’s a form of divination. And since Jung considered all types of divination to be based on synchronicity, it’s worth a deeper look.

In a nutshell, dowsing is the ability to locate something that’s usually beneath the surface of water or earth, using a hand-held tool – normally a wooden rod shaped like a Y. Dowsers watch for and interpret their body’s involuntary movements. It’s not the rod that moves on its own – but the dowser’s hands that twitch seemingly through unconscious signals. So when the rod tips downward or to the right or left or does nothing at all, the dowser has to be able to interpret what it means. In this way, it’s similar to the I Ching, the tarot, astrology – you have to interpret the pattern.

Guy Underwood, a leading British dowser in the 1950s and author of The Pattern of the Past, identified three “dowseable patterns” of underground water lines: aquastats, geostats, and tracklines. He claimed that many of them coincided with ancient sites like Stonehenge, Salisbury cathedral, and some of the ancient roadways. Many of them apparently follow the earth’s ley lines – the supposed lines of energy that form a grid across the planet.

The only dowsing rod I’ve ever used was a metal clothes hanger that I twisted into a Y to look for a missing wallet or keys or something. But I’ve used a pendulum, another form of dowsing, with some success from time to time, usually to answer yes or no questions.

Dowsing is probably the manifestation of psychic ability and has been used at archaeological sites with some success, with diagnosis and healing, as well as locating water and oil. There’s plenty on the Internet about this ancient technique. But I found two really intriguing articles about it.

Check out the New Scientist on this topic and here for a story about using dowsing in Africa to find water. The Africa story appears to be a translation from a language I don’t recognize.
– Trish

Posted in divination, dowsing | 11 Comments