The Alternative Universe Called Instagram

Posted on July 30, 2018 by Trish and Rob

I came across this headline one day this summer, about Instgram “star” Jen Selter being removed from an American Airlines flight.  and thought, Huh? What’s an Instagram star?

As someone old enough to remember when cell phones didn’t exist, computers were in their infancy,  and network TV went off the air at 1 a.m., this headline struck me as REALLY odd. I can understand being an Instagram star if you’ve excelled at something –  you’re an incredible artist or an inventor who has brought us zero point energy. Or  you’ve built a community on Mars, ended poverty and hunger, or have written a mind-blowing book.

But I don’t understand why an apparent narcissist who calls herself a fitness guru is considered an Instagram star for flaunting her big butt in various yoga poses. It seems to be the number of followers that makes the star – almost 12 million for her.

Instagram is a weird world. Mostly images. The idea is to get as many followers as possible  and thousands of likes on any single image you post. There are groups, of course – dogs, cats, aliens, writers, artists, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs, life coaches, psychics, and any other category you can imagine.

If you can’t amass followers quickly enough, you can buy them. I’ve gotten several solicitations for follower buys in the year or so I’ve been posting. But that’s nothing new. You can also buy Twitter followers, You Tube followers,  and reviews for your book on Amazon. There’s no end in social media for buying followers. What’s kind of sad about this is that money still talks, profit remains the bottom line.

However you gather your Instagram  followers, you may have 11,000 followers one day and 10,500 the next because people have UNfollowed you.   Why? This aspect of Instagram reduces it to the level of a high school popularity contest.

I’m convinced there are people who live on Instagram, who eat their three meals a day while scrolling through likes and comments on their own posts and on other people’s posts. They track the numbers of their followers closely and openly state, “If you follow me, I’ll follow you. If you unfollow me, I’ll unfollow you.”

Then there are Instagram people who pretend to be celebrities just to get followers, which has prompted some of the real celebrities to add “official” before their names. The other day, I ran across an Instagram account called fox mulder ties. Yeah, you read that correctly. And the only photos on his site are ties, men wearing ties that Fox Mulder from X-Files may or may not have worn.

I love Stephen King’s Instagram. He has a million followers and follows just one Instagram account – for IT, the movie. I used to be able to find JK Rowling’s Instagram page, but no more. Look at all the wannabe Rowlings…some of them even claim to be “official”.

I enjoy Instagram accounts that aren’t pretentious – Whitley Strieber’s is great, Grimerica Podcast is quirky and fun, we love aliens has wonderful photos and depictions of UFOs and aliens and who knows if any of them are real. I enjoy accounts that tell stories about the lives of the people who post – their creative talents, the animals and people they love,  the places they travel, the books they read.

Instagram is an alternative universe  that reminds me how diverse , strange, and mysterious physical life is. It’s also social media’s ultimate popularity contest, even when you haven’t done much of anything to warrant the attention. Go figure.

 

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A Visual and Political Synchro

Posted on July 28, 2018 by Trish and Rob

See that guy in the aqua-colored polo shirt with the cell phone on his ear and cap on his head? That’s Donald Trump Jr., son of POTUS Don. He’s standing in line at Gate 35X at Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia. Seated at left about 15 feet away from Don Jr. is Robert Mueller, head of the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. Don Jr. is one of the Americans being investigated by Mueller for possible collusion with the Russians.

The picture was taken Friday, July 27, exactly two years to the day from when then-presidential candidate Donald Trump said in a rally: “Russia, if you are listening, find Hillary Clinton’s missing 33,000 e-mails. You’ll be greatly rewarded by the press.” The next day, Russians hacked into the Democratic National Committee’s computer.

The day this photo was taken Donald Jr. was in the news again related to the meeting in Trump Tower with several Russians linked to the Russian government. Don Jr. had arranged the meeting, and now Trump Sr.’s former ‘fixer’ Michael Cohen reportedly said that Trump knew about the meeting in advance of it, something he has previously denied.

Interestingly, Gate 35X is one that requires passengers to take a bus from the terminal to the gate. So it’s possible that Mueller and Don Jr. were riding on the same bus to the gate.

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A Dental Synchro

Posted on July 27, 2018 by Trish and Rob

I usually don’t think about synchronicity when I’m at the dentist. I just want to get through whatever procedure is underway and get out of there. But today one hit me in the face or maybe I should say jaw, since that’s where my teeth are.

I was in the chair getting a filling, a simple procedure. I had gotten a root canal in the same tooth, a do-over because of an infection had caused a fistula on my gum. But my crown was still good. I just needed a second root canal on that tooth—pricey but necessary—and the filling. It only took about 10 minutes, but while I sat there, my phone was blowing up in my pocket, fortunately on vibrate. I figured it was text messages from a group of anti-trumpsters.

After the procedure was over I went to the front desk, expecting to pay $5, my usual co-pay. But I was told it cost $70. “Seventy?” I said. “You mean my insurance doesn’t cover it?” The response was that the insurance did cover most of it, that it would’ve cost $375 if I didn’t have insurance. “Fillings cost that much now?” I exclaimed. And was told that this one required something extra, can’t remember what she called it. Whatever, the whole thing, as I said, took ten minutes. No novacaine required, because the nerves had been removed with the first root canal.

Grumbling a bit to myself as I left, I took out my phone to see what the text messages were about and the first thing I read was: “70?!!” I just double-checked to make sure I had that exactly right, and that was it. Of course, the person was not complaining about the cost of my filling. She knew nothing about it. Instead, she was responding to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that someone else had texted that found 70 percent of Republicans approve of Trump’s handling of Russia at the Helsinki summit. In other words, the base remains fully in support of Trump. Astonishingly, the poll also found that only 32% of Republicans believe that the Russians hacked the 2016 election.

So my dental bill tuned into the GOP base’s support of their leader in action at Helsinki. We could call them the Helsinki Republicans, and the event…Helsinki-Stinky…or Stink in Helsink.”

 

PS From Trish – As far as I know, this is the first tooth synchro we’ve ever experienced.  Anyone else have synchros that involve weird things?!

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Mercury Retro & a Lunar Eclipse

Posted on July 25, 2018 by Trish and Rob

 

On July 26, at 1:02 a.m. EDT, the second Mercury retrograde of the year begins at 32 degrees Leo and ends on August 19 at 12:25 a.m. EDT at 11 degrees Leo. If you live in the Pacific time zone, the retro begins at 10:02 PM on July 25.

On July 27, at 4:20 p.m., there’s a lunar eclipse at 4 degrees 45 minutes Aquarius.

Let’s take a look at these events separately. Mercury retrograde occurs 3 times a year when the planet of communication and travel appears to be moving backward relative to earth. Rather than starting new ventures, it’s a great time to revise, review, reconsider. During this retrograde period, life is easier if you adhere to a list of DO NOTs.

Don’t sign contracts unless you don’t mind revisiting the terms at a later date. We did this for one of our Omar astrology contracts and things were messed up right from the start.

If you make travel plans during a Merc retro, you may experience unexpected changes in your itinerary – your flight is delayed or canceled, your baggage is lost, you miss your connection, irritating stuff. But on the plus side, a place you travel to during a retrograde is a spot to which you may  return at some point.

Don’t buy a car, printer or a computer during a Merc retro. You may regret it. I’ve done all 3 and had to return the computer and the printer and the car gave us trouble and we sold it less than a year later.

Miscommunication is rampant during these retrograde periods, so be sure to communicate clearly. Double check appointments and deadlines. Take nothing for granted.

You may hear from people who haven’t been a part of your life for years and that can be good or not, depending on who the person is!

The Lunar Eclipse

Lunar eclipses tend to trigger emotional responses. Uranus, the planet of unexpected events – surprises!- forms a hard angle to the eclipse degree. Notice that the moon is in the 2nd house of the eclipse chart, the house that rules finances, earned income, your personal values. The moon shares this house with Pluto, Mars, and the South Node – the horseshoe symbol.

Typically, when an eclipse degree is conjunct the South Node, as this one is, the eclipse can be challenging. An authority figure may do or say something that presses your buttons. It would be best to avoid any confrontation. With Mars – our physicality, capacity for aggression – tempers may be heightened. Toss in the Merc retro and the potential for miscommunication is heightened.

Saturn in Capricorn in the 1st house and Uranus in Taurus in the 5th are in a great aspect to each other – a trine, 120 degrees. This suggests an easy flow of energy. Any  unforeseen events, sudden insights, and aha! moments you experience can be put to use in a practical way.

One thing that may transpire on or around this eclipse is more revelations about the Mueller investigation and trump. For the prez, this eclipse occurs in his 6th house of health and daily work. We can expect more tweet storms about witch hunts and fake news, and given his allegedly awful diet and the emotional chaos with which trump lives, there may be repercussions for his health.

Best advice for this eclipse: lay low, don’t engage in arguments. If you’re dissatisfied with some aspect of your life, this eclipse may bring that feeling to the front of your awareness. Then it’s up to you to do something about it.

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Karma?

Posted on July 24, 2018 by Trish and Rob

Remember the trump rallies where his supporters shouted, LOCK HER UP?

Well, here’s the other side. Karma.

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Number Cluster Synchros

Posted on July 22, 2018 by Trish and Rob

Most of us experience numerical synchronicities at some point in our lives – repetitive numbers that represent, as Carl Jung believed, an archetype that is becoming conscious. 11, 111, 1111, or 11111 are among the most common. But recently, I’ve been experiencing some outliers.

On June 30, we attended the rally and march to trump’s place in Palm Beach with our friends Estis and Marcio. Afterward, we found a restaurant in downtown West Palm Beach for lunch. We settled on Field of Greens, a salad place where the reasonably priced food was fresh, heavily vegan, but also offered chicken and fish wraps. Our bill was $25 and change. Rob gave the cashier $26, then the cashier handed him his change and order number: 26.

I didn’t think much of it at the time. It wasn’t exactly a cluster – just two instances – but I snapped a photo of the order number.

Two days later, I went to Target to buy a pair of sandals because our dog, Nigel, had enjoyed a chew fest on my favorite sandals. En route, I filled up my car with gas. The bill? $15.15. I thought back to the two instances of 26 and realized some interesting number stuff might be unfolding, and kept the receipt.

Tonight, while watching Rachel Maddow, I was finishing a game of solitaire on my phone that I’d started this afternoon at the dog park. This game always displayed the time it took you to complete the game. The time? 37 minutes, 37 seconds. Here’s a screen shot:

So here I have a cluster of numbers that occurred in varied ways. Even though the 26 isn’t a repeat of the same number, it happened twice in the space of about 5 minutes. The other two clusters are repeats of the same number and happened just once for each.

I have no idea what these numbers mean, if anything. 2+6 =8; 15+15=30 – or 3; and 37+37=74 or 7+4=11. So, 8, 3, 11. When I broke it down like this, I realized I had two 11s – 8+3, and the 11 from the two 37s. So that brings me to the ever powerful number 11 or, when I add the 11s together, to #22.

For stuff like this, I go first to the I Ching, 5000-year-old Chinese divination system based on 64 hexagrams. Interestingly, Hexagrams 11 and 22 are among my favorites. Hexagram 11 is called Peace and Hexagram 22 is called Grace.

For Hexagram 11: “This hexagram denotes a time when heaven seems to be on earth. Heaven has placed itself beneath the earth, and so their powers unite in deep harmony. Then peace and blessings descent upon all living things.”

For Hexagram 22: “Grace brings success. However, it is not the essential or fundamental thing; it is only the ornament and must therefore be used sparingly and only in small things.Grace – beauty of form – is necessary in any union if it is to be well ordered and pleasing other than disordered and chaotic.”

Number clusters can happen at any time, but seem to be most common when we’re under stress or have a lot going on in our lives. Right now, we’re talking to contractors about estimates on the damages to our house from Hurricane Irma. This process is lengthy and labyrinthine if you’re complete neophytes like us. So these two hexagrams indicate that we’ll be satisfied with the results (Hexagram 11) and that it’s necessary that we go about this in an orderly way Hexagram 22) and choose the right people for these jobs.

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Ghost Key loglines, trump, and dystopia

Posted on July 20, 2018 by Trish and Rob

Amazon

In 2013, my Gemini buddy  Hilary Hemingway and I spent a week together, writing the first draft of a script for my novel, Ghost Key, initially published by TOR/Forge Books.  She’s am author and  screenwriter and was teaching me the fundamentals. Eight drafts and months later, we felt we had a completed script.  She added an entire new layer to the story – a medical mystery angle – that enhanced the original idea in the novel.

The script didn’t go anywhere, Ghost Key went out of print and is now available as an ebook. Through a sequence of odd events, I recently decided to take another look at the script – only to discover that my Final Draft software didn’t work on my new computer. I downloaded an updated version, to Final Draft 10, and ran across something called Ink Tip, which partners with Final Draft.

The idea with Ink Tip is that you can submit a script, logline, and synopsis and for $60, it remains on the Ink Tip site for 4 months, where it’s supposedly seen by producers etc. There’s also a site called Blacklist which does the same thing, for less $ per month. This lengthy explanation brings me to the point of all this: the logline.

A logline is the pitch for the idea. After endless rewrites, here’s the logline I used for Ghost Key:  A government biologist uncovers the shocking truth behind the quarantine of a Florida island, where inhabitants are being seized by ancient ghosts.

And this led me to wonder if we’re living primarily  in loglines. In this trump era of lies and more lies, of hourly scandals, where every media outlet is fake news and the Dystopian prez speaks to the country through his Twitter madness, who has the time or inclination to absorb anything else?

A special prosecutor closes in on the Dystopian prez who reveres his Russian handler.

Russia has dirt on the U.S. prez.

The mad hatter laughs wickedly whenever a young child is torn away from his parents at the border.

An obese, 71-year-old, whining  dictator with orange hair makes fun of overweight women, older women, women of color, women who are smarter than he is, all women. He boasts that if Oprah runs against him, he’ll win.

I think my favorite logline, though, hasn’t fully happened yet:

Fat Boy, the 71-year old mental case, wanna be dictator, and illegitimate prez is exposed as a pauper, racist, misogynist, criminal, and traitor. He’s now doing 20 years to life with most of the republican members of congress who were complicit in his attempted  heist of democracy.

Now: back to Ghost Key. Somehow, being seized by ancient, malevolent ghosts seems far preferable to a world in which the republicans hold onto congress in 2018 and Fat Boy wins in 2020. By then, we may well be living in a Dystopian universe of blatant racism and hatred toward “other,” with Roe v. Wade a footnote in history, breathing toxic air and fleeing  inland from the coasts, with corporate giants and banks reigning as the true kings.

Yeah, give me evil ancient ghosts any day.

 

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“I don’t believe in coincidence”

Posted on July 18, 2018 by Trish and Rob

We’ve all probably heard someone say that he or she doesn’t believe in coincidences. Every time I hear that I find it annoying because it’s a stupid comment.

I just heard it again recently when Jeremy Bash, a former CIA chief of staff, was asked about the Russians hacking the Democratic National Committee’s e-mail a day after Donald Trump said, “Russia, if you are listening, find Hillary Clinton’s missing 30,000 e-mails.” Bash responded, “I don’t believe in coincidences.”

What he’s saying is that what might appear to some as a coincidence of events was really a matter of cause and effect. But does that mean Bash thinks there is no such thing as coincidence? That’s a good question, and I think if he would really think about it, he would concede that there is indeed such a thing as coincidence.

For example, the same day Bash made that comment Trump spoke to the press to clarify his comments in Helsinki that appeared to favor Putin’s words over that of all the U.S. intelligence agencies. During his comments, which he read from a prepared statement, the lights suddenly went out for a few seconds, causing Trump to stop reading his text. An interesting coincidence…unless someone intentionally turned off the lights. But no one did. There was a powerful thunderstorm taking place in Washington D.C. while Trump spoke and the storm caused the temporary blackout.

If Bash really believes that there are no coincidences, then he would see the blackout as a random event and would overlook the interesting coincidence. Lights out, Trump! That was another lie!  Meanwhile, many of us would consider it meaningful coincidence or synchronicity.

But I suspect that Bash has a sense of humor and probably found the blackout a humorous coincidence. Nature strikes at an appropriate moment.

Those who say: “I don’t believe in coincidence,” might turn to a more accurate commentary say: “I don’t believe that was a coincidence.” So the next time you hear someone say they don’t  believe in coincidence, you might send them this little ditty. Maybe he or she will realize that the comment really doesn’t make any sense.

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But Something Is There

Posted on July 17, 2018 by Trish and Rob

This trailer is eerie, remarkable, and worth two minutes of your time. Whitley Strieber interviewed this man on Dreamland.  His story feels real.

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A Busman’s Holiday Synchro

Posted on July 15, 2018 by Trish and Rob

I call this post a busman’s holiday because I’m reading a book on the same topic as a book that Trish and I have coming out in August called, Secrets of Spirit Communication: Techniques for Tuning In and Making Contact. Our book won’t be out for another month, but Leslie Kean’s wonderful tome, SURVIVNG DEATH is out now, and I’m greatly enjoying it. It differs from our book in that she focuses strongly on the science related to the controversial subject—at least controversial in mainstream science—whereas our books focuses on stories, both personal and from many others, and emphasizes the how-to aspect. In other words, how to contact your own deceased loved ones.

Maybe I should’ve put our book at the top and Kean’s at the bottom of the post, but right now I’m writing about hers and my contact experience with it, as I’ll explain. Each night before I go to sleep I read a few pages or a chapter, depending how tired I am. Several of her chapters are actually written by scientists researching some aspect of the subject. Some read very well, others a bit dry. Kean’s own writing is always on point and revealing her deep research on the subject.

What I discovered in reading about life after death and possible contact with the dead (who it seems are NOT very dead at all) is that simply reading about the subject at bedtime is another way of making contact. It’s one method that didn’t occur to us while writing our book.

Case in point, last night as I was reading a chapter about research on mediums—those who portend to connect with the other side and bring back messages—I clearly heard my name and it was my mother’s voice. She died June 15, 2017 and a psychic/medium friend of ours told me recently that she’s been trying to contact me. Up to that point, I hadn’t experienced any sense of contact, even though I’d tried. But then last night merely by reading about the subject, not thinking about my mother at all, she came through. Besides recognizing her voice, she also used the nickname that only my parents and sister called me by: Robbie.

This story, of course, is an anecdote, not proof of anything. However, with spirit contact, as we emphasize in our book, the most important means of coming to terms with life after death and accepting it is through such personal experience. Contact.

We hope you read our book when it comes out and learn some of these techniques for making contact and read some of the fantastic stories that we’ve gathered,  but I also recommend Kean’s book if you want to learn the latest on research on the subject and some very significant cases that she documents.

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