An interesting phenomenon has been observed recently ...there are so-called "coincidences" between movies, conversations, and stumbles onto just the right websites that are all lining up in relation to Y2K.

For example, last night, my husband and I saw the film, "What Dreams May Come"... and it seemed to speak to what is required from our inner reserves to meet the challenges ahead with Y2K. At one point in the movie, when the character played by Robin Williams said to his wife, "Never Give Up!" , I felt the message take root in my heart.

We all have an opportunity to create a grand context for life in the coming years, one that requires the kind of character and heart you mostly read about in great books and see in great films.

It might strange to see the impending disaster that is possible as an "opportunity", but isn't life really all about CONTEXT anyway? Isn't it really just a choice HOW we decide to play it, no matter what game piece we have and what is brought by the roll of the dice?

I'm trying to give myself a pep talk every day, along with my daily preparations and plans.

"Play big. Play with heart. Play with integrity. Never give up!"

Thank you all for providing a forum where this context takes on more meaning for me.

-- Sara Nealy (keithn@ptd.net), October 04, 1998

Answers

Sara:

I know there is a term for this, but it's similar to 'seeing' shapes in clouds. Our minds interpret things in light of our experience. Who knows, maybe this is a survival technique, or a method of learning. As you said CONTEXT. We notice this much more when we are somewhat preoccupied with one thing. Everything seems to relate back to it.

-- Mike (gartner@execpc.com), October 04, 1998.

I can't think of the term either, but have you ever noticed that when you buy a new car all of a sudden you see the same model you just bought everywhere? You have pulled off the blinders on a particular subject, and can see it anew.

"You can observe a lot by watching."

Yogi Berra

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), October 04, 1998.

I'm not sure this is "the" word but it's one I like and fits a lot lately....synchronicity, all of almost everything pointing in the same direction, related to the same thing. Synchronicities are blowing my mind lately,...Like just now...looking out the window a yellow tiger swallowtail swooped into view through the trees. They have been all over my yard all summer...and it's really the first time I've noticed. Are there more of them now? Did I just not notice before? They've become my Life Icon...and seems like everytime I'm in the yard now, thinking of the world we are making..specifics,...a swallowtail appears. Actually I'm convinced that these synchronicities abound around us, and that heightened awareness makes it possible for humans to see things they do not ordinarily see...we have so darn many distractions...loud speakers real and symbolic blaring away at us constantly..many urging us to "stay unaware".

I agree with Sara and others talking of Context....In my life, and don't get me wrong here, I am not implying others must do likewise, but in my life Context and Perception are everything!

I want to get my friend Faith in here, to talk about something she thinks about from a book by Robert Anton Wilson,...the 4C. Cosmic Coincidence Control Center. I'm gonna try to get her here to explain...cos I think it fits nicely in this discussion; and "coincidentally"/"synchronistically" is something we have talked about in the last few days. When I was a much younger woman, (I'm 46 BTW), my sister and I used to get into some heated discussions about my "bent" views..."No" she would say..."Yes" I would reply...everything is connected to everything!

Thank you for starting this thread Sara.

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), October 04, 1998.

Donna's right. I have had several interesting conversations lately about the relationships between core intentions/perceptions/expectations and emerging realities. And I have been studying the phenomenon of synchronicity for some time. Expectations and beliefs do, of course, produce selective perception, filtering out from the vast web of sensory data those things that interest us most. And it's true, too, that we project our own interpretations onto amorphous shapes and undefined patterns like those we find in clouds, wood grain, clumps of tea leaves, ink blots. But the meaningful coincidences we call synchronicity fall outside the ranges of selective perception and projection and hint that there may be much more to the relationship of mind and matter than our current science can explain. Speculation on this realm of meta-physical stuff runs the gamut from superstition to folklore to cutting edge physics. It's all theory; some good, some quaint, some patently absurd. But we mess with it because something in us, in our experiencing of the world, leads us to strongly suspect there's more to know.

One thread that runs through this body of speculation says that somehow thought and emotion play a causal role in shaping reality. (Serious recent research has demonstrated that thought can influence the direction of random numbers generated by a computer.) Playing with this theme, author Robert Anton Wilson developed the fictional existence of a universe function he called the Cosmic Coincidence Control Center (to which I have given the pet name "C-4). It absorbs everyone's innermost wishes and fears, then arranges events to reflect and fulfill them. Sara's innermost wish, in relation to Y2K, is that we'll find the courage, imagination, heroism and spirit to meet it with the best in us. So C-4 sends her to a movie where her wishes can be given words. A lot of us wish the same thing, so C-4 has her bring the words here for us to share, too. "C-4" is just a handy way to talk about some of the mysterious Whys of the world's working. Something like C-4 does exist. That's why we laughingly caution each other to be careful what wishes we make. Whatever runs C-4 seems to possess a sometimes-ironic sense of humor!

At any rate, the world often does function as a mirror, regardless of the process involved. And I am often deeply moved at the reflections reported here. Thank you, Sara, for sharing yours. To the extent that thought is, in fact, creative, the more we can replace our visions of fear with visions of heroism, imagination, spirit, and courage, the better off we'll all be. May Sara's mantra in-spirit us all.

-- Faith (faith-weaver@usa.net), October 04, 1998.

Sara,

One thing I have been struck by is how many people found out about y2k by stumbling onto it while doing some other research on the web. From that moment on there is an amazing shift in conciousness.

I absolutely believe that y2k is the end of the world as we know it. I also believe that it is not the end of the world.

One paticular thought struck me as I thought about the implications that y2k would have on me as a self-employed graphic artist who relies heavily on technology every day. In that moment of clarity it struck me that it isn't the interconnectness of our computers in society. What is most important is our interconnectedness as human spirits.

I look forward to raising my son in a new world where priorities are shaken and eyes open to see that which is truly important.

My best wishes.

M

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), October 05, 1998.

We're in deep waters on this topic. I've been getting a lot of help and guidance in my Y2k preparation from what I provisionally identify as a discarnate entity or entities. I have reason to believe that these are, or want me to believe they are, ancestors and deceased friends. It would seem that there are dimensions of existence parallel to our own, and that "solid" material events are more malleable than they appear to be. Experimentation with lucid dreaming will provide the diligent practitioner with, arguably, the single best metaphor for these seeming violations of the internal consistency of our world, which we call "synchronicity" or meaningful coincidence. From this perspective, all the characters and even objects in the dream are facets of a single being - some active, some passive, some hidden, some overt. My ancestors are "only in my mind" but are the imagined boundaries of my ego the boundaries of "my" mind? Read Gregory Bateson's book "Mind and Nature," for an analytical approach to this mind-blowing view, the view that what we call "mind" is not an epiphenomenon of the brain, but that "mind" is coterminous with all natural phenomena, brain included. Ego is an illusion. As any neurologist will tell you, most of the brain works to screen out a profusion information, not gather it; the ego, the sense of self-as-separate-from-nature, is likewise a kind of "imaginary line," drawn for the purpose of defining and embelleshing a greater whole, setting the game-rules for the human game at this stage of our development. "I" am merely a permutation, a temporary confluence of forces, a momentary permutation of timeless universal principles. I think the -unmistakable and truly "uncanny"- guidance I've received is perhaps partially the result of living by this view. If I were to refuse to admit the possibility of such a living, "mindful" universe, then I suspect I would stop seeing (and shortly thereafter stop receiving) guidance as such from a/the larger mind. But the more I admit, rationally and provisionally, the possibility of mind-in-nature, the more intense and intimate my experience of the order/chaos dance becomes; the more I am able to acknowledge that I am dancing with Someone, rather than merely strutting to the beat of life. It isn't just a dualistic question of either projecting one's imagination onto reality or there actually being a message there for you; when you use your imagination to see something in a cloud, an image that "isn't really there," you are inviting the universe to dance (or rather, you are joining the dance already in progress). The next cloud may actually have something to say to you. This is why certain religions that profess to offer an intermediary office between the individual and the divine are threatened by the individual human imagination. I include the currently predominant religious faiths of rationalism and scientism in this category. Like the brain in the organism, and the ego in the human being, these institutions (which ironically profess to dispense ultimate knowledge) serve to limit information to that which furthers suvival. Truth, such as the truth about Y2k, will be found elsewhere.

E.

-- E. Coli (nunayo@beeswax.com), October 05, 1998.

OK

So, E, how do I do that? I hear the wee voice in my mind sometimes, it is never wrong, and I've ignored it (or did not hear it loudly enough) at my own peril in the past, usually with painful results.

Tell me, what's the key?

-- Uncle Deedah (oncebitten@twiceshy.com), October 05, 1998.

Ah, Unc,...don't ignore it any more. Simple but not easy.

We are all so conditioned to be exterally-referenced..to discount our inner knowing.

Stop, Look and Listen. Trust. I have a hunch you do it a lot.

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), October 05, 1998.

My Uncle,

Just taking time out to be still and listen is helpful to me. Listening on the inside and the outside, and letting go of the mental chatter for a while. I am constantly suffering, too, because I lose track of this inner compass. Feelings of embarrasment and humility are good, if we can be compassionate with ourselves also, and have a sense of humor about our failings. Humility can be very powerful; it's not an engine-revving monster-truck-rally kind of power. It's a solid, quiet power, that grows the more you use it for other's benefit. The alternative is to be proud and ambitious and grasping about our imagined "virtues," which is a recipe for suffering. If you are aware that you have stepped off the path, you are halfway back on the path, "IMHO."

And working for other's benefit is always good way to forget yourself and your worries for awhile, if that's your trouble - it's usually mine...

E.

-- E. Coli (nunayo@beeswax.com), October 06, 1998.

Oh Sara,...I saw "What Dreams May Come" last night. It feels like a great coalescing inside my head/heart.

There is this great contented sighing combined with great excitement within me and around me. This is all I have been talking about since long before seeing the film last night.

Thank you for posting your experience of Uni Verse-Universe-One Song/Y2K/What Dreams.

Oh,...there is an independent website that is awesome...www.whatdreamsmaycome.com

There are movie spoilers there so, don't go there if you want to see the film first.

Please visit us at Beyond 2000 Discussion Board: www.InsideTheWeb.com/mbs.cgi/mb134913

Now off to call my children and family and suggest a trip to the theater very soon.

Synergy/Synchronicity/Creativity.....One Song

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), October 11, 1998.

Ack...goofed on the URL. It is:

http://www.whatdreamsmay.com

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), October 11, 1998.