NASA, coincidence, and the total lunar eclipse

Posted on December 20, 2010 by Trish and Rob

On December 21, 2010, a total lunar eclipse in Gemini will begin at 1:33 AM EST. According to the NASA website, totality begins at 2:41 AM and  last for 72 minutes. NASA recommends that if you want to take a look, head outside at 3:17 AM, when the moon will be in deepest shadow.

I was intrigued that NASA has a little addendum to their info about this eclipse. It’s called coincidences and reads: “A lunar eclipse smack-dab on the date of the solstice, however, is unusual. Using NASA’s 5000 year catalog of lunar eclipses and JPL’s HORIZONS ephemeris to match eclipses and solstices, author Dr. Tony Phillips had to go back to the year 1378 to find a similar “winter solstice lunar eclipse.”

1378? That’s impressive. I fished around on the Internet, looking for world events for that year, thinking it might provide clues about what this lunar eclipse portends for life in 2010/2011. The big news seemed to be something called “The Great Schism.” It seems to go something like this: in 1378, the papal court was based in Rome and an Italian was elected pope as Pope Urban VI. But the French cardinals refused to acknowledge him as the pope, declared his election void, called his election void, and named Clement VII as pope.   Clement went to Avignon, Urban remained in Rome. This threw a major wrench into western Christianity. Who were they supposed to follow? This schism lasted for about 40 years.

So, could this lunar eclipse possibly portend some schism in the Catholic church as it exists now? Or maybe it’s a different sort of schism. Let’s take a closer look at those times.

There were some minor rebellions that year – textile workers in Italy rebelled against a town government controlled by the guilds. Between 1378 and 1382, peasant revolts in England and France were cruelly suppressed. The peasants, naturally, didn’t have money for weapons. There was a great disparity between the rich and the poor. The rich, of course, generally lived longer and the poor lived in miserable conditions. Most of the poor lived in small communities of 20-40 families and their lives were about toil. Sounds like fun, huh?

Between  1377 and 1399, considered the late Middle Ages, Chaucer began to write The Canterbury Tales (1380); there was a peasant revolt in England in 1381 and 10,000 rebels plundered and burned London over a period of two days.

It seems another possible theme that could emerge from this lunar eclipse and the solar eclipse on January 4, 2011: a growing disparity between the  rich and the poor. Given the current trends, including the U.S. Congress cutting taxes for the richest Americans, it seems likely. The same politicians on the right, who promoted the tax break for the wealthy, are calling  for deep cuts in domestic spending–possibly affecting medicare and social security–which will undoubtedly hurt all but the rich. So it goes.Could this unusual cosmic phenomenon result in some minor rebellions? In the U.S., we mean real rebellion, not the corporate-funded reactionary protests of the Tea Party. We’ll see.

But, the future aside, I plan to head outside around 3 AM tomorrow morning, and am hoping for clear skies! And I love it that NASA at least recognizes coincidences!

Posted in lunar eclipse | 22 Comments

More synchros from Nigeria

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Trish and Rob

In the wake of the news that the corporate giant Haliburton has negotiated an agreement to pay Nigeria $250 million if the country drops the bribery charges against its former CEO Dick Cheney, it seems time for another synchro from Augustine who relentlessly links his country synchronicistically with the U.S. or Great Britain. But first we can’t pass on commenting that the deal struck by Haliburton sounds like another bribe! So it goes.

Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth this time links Steve Jobs with a Nigerian entrepreneur…and there’s more, including my own American-Nigerian connection tale. But first, let’s see what’s on Augustine’s mind.
***
“In California, Steve Jobs was born February 24, 1955. The much talked about business mogul
rose from grass to grace. He was known to walk long distances for free meals provided  by the adherents of Hare Krishna. Born of a Muslim Father, he has an aversion for television and has ben described as a technology evangelist.
 
“In Lagos. we have Jimoh Ibrahim born February 24 1967. Known for his phenomenal rise in the business world, he was known for eating on credit as an undergraduate.Also born of a Muslim father, he has an aversion for video films and has been described as a motivational speaker

Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College, which has the only nuclear facility operated by students, whereas Jimoh Ibrahim finished at the Obfemi Awolowo University, which has Nigeria’s only program in nuclear engineering.

“Also in California, you had Leland Stanford, born March 9 1824. A pioneering business man, lawyer and philanthropist, he lost a son. Stanford kept dogs, bred award-winning horses and had a deep interest in farm machinery.

“Relatedly, in Lagos we have Subomi Balogun, born March 9 1934, a lawyer, pioneering banker, and  philanthropist. He also lost a son. Like Stanford, Balogun loves animal life and agriculture. Balogun keeps ostriches, rabbits, goats and grasscutters. He also loves cultivating food crops.

Stanford was governor of California and Baloguns influence looms large over Lagos State. Most of the managing directors and senior managers of  banks in Nigeria once worked under him.”
 

***
Okay, now for my Nigerian-American link. It’s not from industry, commerce, or politics…but rather from the trickster.

There is a long history of trickster deities throughout the cultures of the world and the image of those gods are reflected today by folks who are not exactly deities. In America, we have comedians, such as David Letterman, Chris Rock, Dave Chapelle, and Kathy Griffin.

They have much in common with an ancient Nigerian trickster god, known as Eshu.

Eshu provoked humans to argue among themselves. He wore a tall hat that was red on one side and white on the other. He walked between friends, who later got into an argument about the color of the hat.  The two friends came to blows, and Eshu walked over, laughing at the bloodied and angry men and showed them his hat.

The hat trick was a way of getting get people to understand that everything is not always black and white, that sometimes there can be two perfectly valid perspectives. 

So, if you think Nigeria has nothing to do with the U.S., make sure that you’ve seen both sides of the ‘hat.’

Posted in synchros between nigerian figures and american figures | 7 Comments

Charlie, Rumi, and Judgment Reversed

Posted on December 18, 2010 by Trish and Rob

This synchronicity came from Trevor Simpson, an author and spiritual coach. Trevor recently lost a good friend, Charlie, and as with any major passage in our lives, there were some synchros involved.

This week I received the shocking news that my dear friend Charlie Richardson has passed away unexpectedly in Mexico from a heart attack. At first it seemed incomprehensible that vibrant, ever cheerful, good-hearted Charlie could have “shuffled off this mortal coil.” Yet gradually as I conversed with friends and we shared our stories it began to slowly register, Charlie became passive tense rather than present, as reality sank in.

The night before I heard the news I had an experience that in hindsight seemed particularly meaningful. A friend and I were meeting for our weekly meditation; at the close of the evening we draw a Tarot card which usually throws uncanny insight on some pertinent issue; I had purchased a new Tarot based on the poems and teachings of Rumi that I was anxious to test out. She went first and initially expressed some discomfort at working with this new deck. Finally she drew a card; it was No 20, Judgment reversed. As I read the interpretation I could sense that she was not finding it particularly significant. Somewhat disappointed I shuffled the 74 cards and drew…. the same card. What were the odds of that?

I put it down to new shiny cards and discarded the experience as meaningless, dismissing her suggestion to read it again. The next day after hearing the news of Charlie’s death, I felt drawn to look at the cards again. The poem on the front of the card by Rumi read, “By love, the dead are made living.” Spooky – I think Charlie made one last appearance! A couple of days later I reflected on this synchronicity and decided that one of the ways I could show this kind of love was by reflecting on positive memories of Charlie. In this way he would indeed be brought alive.

Posted in spirit contact, tarot | 8 Comments

What IS this?

Posted on December 17, 2010 by Trish and Rob

We ran across this video on Whitley Strieber’s site.  These images are from cameras at a volcano in Sakurajima, Japan. The squares to watch are the upper left square and the lower right.Anyone have any ideas what this might be? The narrator gives us his opinion.

Posted in UFOs | 20 Comments

The Mysterious Connection with Christy Luna

Posted on December 16, 2010 by Trish and Rob

In 7 Secrets of Synchronicity, we wrote about an empath and friend, Renie Wiley, who sometimes worked with police on various cases, using her empathic abilities to provide information that the police couldn’t obtain any other way.  One night in later 1984, we accompanied Renie to a police station to observe her working on a missing child case, which we also wrote about in the book. But there were parts of the story that we didn’t include in the book because the section was on empaths and synchros and not on spirit contact. So here’s the full story:
On May 24, 1984, eight-year-old Christy Luna had walked to a store near her her home in Green Acres, Florida, to buy some cat food and never returned. The police suspected foul play and Renie confirmed as much when she used Christy’s stuffed toys to tune in on the girl. In the book, we describe this in some detail. As an empath, she felt what Christy felt when her mother’s boyfriend used to beat up on her and reported the girl was deaf in one ear because of the beatings. Christy’s mother later confirmed this fact.   
Later that night, we left the station with Renie and one of the police officers and drove around, following Renie’s directions until we arrived at a wooden area surrounded by a high barbed wire fence. Renie felt that Christy’s body was buried somewhere in the woods and that the mother’s boyfriend has killed her.
Skip ahead twenty-four years, to 2008. Los Angeles psychic Dennie Gooding called to tell us she would be visiting South Florida in March,  that she would be working on a missing person case and was there any chance we could all get together? It turned out she would be town over the same weekend that other friends involved in the MU (mystical underground) would be visiting from around the country, so everyone agreed to meet at our place.
The day before the festivities, we were going through some old books, weeding out what we no longer needed. A check fell out of one of the books. It was dated 1986, made out to us for $50, repayment on a loan, and was signed Renie Wiley. We exclaimed about how strange it was, that the check had been inside the book all these years, and we wondered if Renie was trying to contact us and we just hadn’t been aware of it. In all the years since she had passed away, we’d never experienced any contact with her.
The night of the festivities (as we gathered with psychics, mediums, a past life therapist, a writer for the Simpsons), Dennie told us she’d been hired by  a police officer at the Palm Beach County sheriff’s department who worked in the cold cases division. When she began describing the case, Trish suddenly interrupted her.
“Is this the Christy Luna case?”
Dennie’s eyes widened with shock. “Yes.”
“You’re not going to believe this,” Rob said, and walked over to the drawer where we’d put Renie’s check, and brought it out. “Here’s how we know.”
It was as if Renie had reached out from the afterlife through the unsolved disappearance of Christy Luna and the psychic who had been hired to delve into it nearly a quarter of a century later. The synchronicities were remarkably layered and the contact occurred in an unusual way. Here are the facts:
Renie and Dennie didn’t know each other. Renie had long since passed away by the time we met Dennie through a Canadian astrologer who touted her psychic ability and gave us her contact information. If Trish hadn’t left a comment on his blog about his post on Mercury’s retrograde during the 2000 presidential election, they probably wouldn’t have communicated at all and we never would have met Dennie.
Rob had a reading with Dennie around 2002 or so. We gave her name to another friend, Nancy, who recommended Dennie to the wife of the police officer who eventually hired her to delve into the Christy Luna case.
Neither of us remember sticking Renie’s check inside a book. In fact, in 1986,  we were just starting out as writers, money was tight, and it’s likely we would have cashed the check as soon as we’d gotten it.
The cluster in this instance revolved around the unsolved disappearance of Christy Luna and the two psychics who, separated by nearly twenty-five years, worked on the case. 
At any point in the past, different decisions might have been made and none of the events described here would have happened. So who was orchestrating all this, anyway? And that’s always the bottom line, isn’t it?
Posted in christie luna, clusters, dennie, psychics, renie, spirit contact | 19 Comments

Sylvester, Darren, and Peter Gabriel

Posted on December 15, 2010 by Trish and Rob

 On November 22, we posted a story called Doolittle, that got some great comments. One of them came from Darren, who comments as Brizdaz. The cat in the story is a black and white cat; we didn’t have a picture of Sylvester, so we used this photo of our black and white cat, Whiskers, who died in 2006.
++

I had a black and white cat named Sylvester,who was killed on the road outside my house about fifteen years ago.He always liked to sleep on the road,so it wasn’t that much of a surprise that he would meet his fate that way. Here’s the strange part of the story though.The lady who hit him was rather distraught and had placed his body on the footpath,as we were out grocery shopping that evening,and weren’t home and since it was rather late when we came home,I decided to put his body in a box and bury him the next day. Next morning I got my shovel out and began to dig in my back yard,but the ground was so solid that I couldn’t dig anymore than about 6 inches before hitting rock,so I gathered up his body,put it in my car and headed for the forest a few miles from where I lived at the time. I was digging a pretty deep hole so wild animals wouldn’t dig him up and had the local radio station playing in my car,so I would have some music going while I dug the hole. When I completed the hole I placed him in the bottom of the hole and he looked like he was just sleeping,as the car had only run over his head,but not split it open,so it wasn’t a mess like a normal roadkill. Then I said “good-bye old buddy,you dumb cat” or something like that and started shoveling the dirt back over him. The radio started playing Peter Gabriel’s “Digging in the Dirt” and I was beside myself thinking of all the songs that could possibly come on the radio how appropriate was that one.Whenever I here that song I always think back to that day of digging in the dirt and saying farewell to my little pal. Here’s the clip here on YouTube.
Posted in cats, pets, spirit contact | 12 Comments

The Morgue, the Doc, the Pics

Posted on December 14, 2010 by Trish and Rob

Paul Klee

One of the attributes of writing is how it demands that you become an archeologist of your own life. Excavate, unearth, go deeper into the layers of who you are, were, and may become. In this sense, memory is a writer’s greatest asset and no telling what may boot it up – a casual remark or action, a particular scent or taste.
This evening, I went into Rob’s office to answer a question he had about one of my chapters in the new book. While I was leaning over his shoulder, looking at the section in the chapter, he asked if I could rub his neck. He remarked that he would be really happy to sit around all day and have someone massage his neck.
“Then your next wife should be Asian,” I said, and went off to find some cream for the massage.
I wondered why I’d said what I had and suddenly recalled Dr. Stowens, a pathologist I had worked for during my freshman or sophomore year in college. He was the lead pathologist in the hospital across the street from my college, and had hired me to develop and print photos of DNA, chromosomes and other microscopic stuff that was harvested during autopsies. My darkroom, in fact, was in the basement of the hospital, right alongside the morgue.
Many days when I walked into the morgue, a body would be on the table, awaiting autopsy. Sometimes it was covered, most of the time it was not. It invariably freaked me out to walk into that room and see someone on the table, a man or woman whose life had reached the end and whose body would now be carved up in the name of science. It wasn’t the physical body that disturbed me – the bloating, the strange pastiness of the skin, the total lack of expression, animation, life –  but that the spirit had no home now. So one afternoon when I was in the darkroom and only a door stood between me and a body awaiting its autopsy, I silently asked the spirit of the body in the other room to communicate with me.
This was in the years way before digital photography, the Internet, home computers. It meant negatives, an enlarger, and certain types of high contrast photography paper, three or four trays filled with various chemicals, crucial timing for a piece of paper in each tray. The dark room was sealed against light leaks. The only lights were safe lights that didn’t register on the paper. Dr. Stowens’ morgue and dark room were impeccable. The dark room was well sealed, the high contrast paper and chemical were new. So as I proceeded developing the negatives, I kept thinking about the soul of the body in the other room and made my enlargements and placed them into the appropriate trays.
First sheet, first tray. I remember being bored and hungry and grateful that I had a part-time job. When I glanced at the paper in the first tray, I thought something was wrong with it. The paper was black except in the middle, where the word HI leaped out in pale, foggy letters. I removed the sheet from  the tray, held it up to the safe light, recall being totally freaked out and dropping it into the solution that stopped the image from developing any further. From here, it went into the fix solution that stabilized the image.
When I removed it from that solution, when I turned on the overhead light, I just stood there staring at a print with the word  HI scrawled across the center of it. I left the dark room and drove to a photo store and bought new chemicals, new photo paper, and went through the same process with the same negative. The results were the same. HI.
I went to Dr. Stowens with my silly proof of spirit communication. He was an interesting guy,  this Stowens, who employed several of us from the college. If memory serves, he studied my multiple images. I sensed that his medical training battled his intuitive knowledge as a healer, a pathologist and as a man who dealt daily with the dead. “It’s a light leak,” he said.
“C’mon,” I said. “Since when do light leaks spell words?”
He just looked at me then with his wide, dark eyes. “Go back to work, Trish. Get me some good prints of those hose chromosomes.”

We both knew what was what. But he took the stance that he did because in those days, physicians who ventured into woo-woo land ended up unemployed.
Many years later, I was in town and found Dr. Stowens in the phone book and called him. He had retired, his wife had passed on, he had remarried. I thanked him for hiring me when I really needed a job. I could feel that HI incident between us, a third presence. But we talked around it. He asked what I was doing – I was working on my first novel then-  and I asked about his second wife.
“She’s wonderful,” he said. “She’s Asian. She massages my neck and you know what? At this point in my life, I love it when my neck is massaged.”
I left it at that. We never spoke again. The photographic images of HI were lost in my numerous moves. But if I am pressed to name a mentor, it’s Dr. Stowens, the guy who got it but couldn’t admit it because of the times in which he lived. His offering me that job launched my search for what happens when we die and everything else that surrounds that question.
Posted in spirit communication | 23 Comments

Mercury Retrograde Update

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Trish and Rob

Trish in her
 yoga prime…

I decided to test Mercury Retrograde, and waited to shop for gifts until Dec. 10, the first day of MR. My plan was to go to World Market, a import store similar to Pier One, but larger.

I wanted to buy cushions for our kitchen chairs. The present ones are old, stained, or ripped. I knew World Market stocked them, because that’s where I bought the ones I wanted to replace. So this would be a MR challenge. According to MR, expect glitches, delays, miscommunication, confusion. If they didn’t have any cushions in stock or not the right colors or style, I would concede that the experience fit the MR conditions.

But not everything goes wrong in MR. This morning, in fact, we heard from a writer friend you just received a $25K check from her publisher, but doesn’t know what it’s for, since there was no paperwork accompanying it, and the sum was exactly $25K. So it didn’t look like a handsome royalty check, which might be $25, 312.33. Well, since there’s some confusion around the check, it is a MR experience–but a positive one.

But back to the World Market and those cushions. I parked in the lot and walked past Best Buy and a couple other large box stores en route to my destination. I noticed workmen huddled around the door and figured they were making repairs. As I approached, I saw that they had chiseled a three-foot deep hole right at the entrance, which was strange. Then I looked past them and….what? The building was vacant. The World Market had disappeared. I backed off and saw the shadow of the old sign. Yes, I had the right location. But I thought I’d seen the sign last week from the road. Yeah, last week when Trish said it was a good time for shopping before Mercury Retrograde set in.

So there it is. No cushions…no store!

P.S. Here’s an interesting article detailing a scientific study in support of astrology. Thanks Jane C.
 – R

Posted in mercury retro | 27 Comments

The Synchro Summit

Posted on December 12, 2010 by Trish and Rob

Earlier this year, we were invited to participate in a synchronicity summit at Yale University’s Divinity School.
It sounded interesting, but ultimately we chose not to attend for a couple of reasons. First, we were told it would be closed to the public and there would be no book signing event associated with the symposium. Not a good sign. We were also told that it would consist of 12 hours sitting around a table with academics talking about synchronicity over the weekend event. Sorry, but YUCK!

We’re not from the academic world, and we didn’t really fit in the professorial crowd–although Rob would’ve been happy to lead the group in a yoga class and group meditation–no talking, no thinking! Actually, though, we are happiest sitting at home writing our books, blogging, and going to the gym where we covertly keep an eye out for a Bruce Springsteen appearance.

So now an article has been published about the October synchro summit, and it sounds as if it was a quite a success. A documentary is being made and they are even developing an iPhone synchro app – whatever that is. Dr. Lesley Roy, who is the powerhouse behind the event, has also created an interesting website. We like the home page title, a quote about synchronicity by Carl Jung: “surpasses our power of comprehension…” and wish Lesley and the others well in their endeavors exploring the synchro world.

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

More 11s

Posted on December 11, 2010 by Trish and Rob

M.C. Escher woodcut

We’ve done quite a few posts on the synchronicity of numbers, particularly on 11, 111, and 11:11. I don’t know what it is about these numbers, but sometimes when I’m writing about them, they appear in my own life and I get a kick out of it.

So today, I’m working on my section of the Sydney Omarr astrology books that Rob and I write. This material is for 2013. There are 13 books in this series – one for each sign for each year, plus an annual that combines all 12 signs. Since it’s physically impossible to write 13  books a year, the books for each sign contain common material – general stuff about the particular year and each sign; unique material specific to a particular sign; and then the daily predictions tailored specifically to each sign.

I was working on the common material, where there’s a section on synchronicity, and was writing about clusters and 11s. I took a short break to check the counter on our blog to see where our hits were for the day – and burst out laughing: 111.

Granted, this is no earth-shattering synchro. But I love it when these things occur in the course of a day.

Posted in 11, 111, 11:11, Numbers | 25 Comments