How To Train Your Dragon?

Is the universe trying to tell me something here?
I had only just posted the story below  
(The Cosmic Egg and the Dragon) 
about a day ago, I go down the road to buy a paper ... and I only buy the Wednesday paper to get the match lists for the

National Rugby League teams playing on the weekend.
And I'm greeted by this front page below.

You might be thinking, "big deal, so what?"
Well, Sarah's mum Kim,  just happens to be ... well maybe not my 'best' mate, but at least my workmate ... which reminds me that I have to get my DVD of The Way back off her;-)
I remember Kim telling me a the beginning of the year how her daughter had been selected to tour with some Disney production about a dragon, but I had forgotten about that until I saw this front page story in the Brisbane newspaper,
Brisbane's Sarah McCreanor gets fired up for role in arena spectacular How To Train Your Dragon

Sarah plays Astrid in the show, which is hardly the bit part that I thought Kim was talking about to me at the beginning of the year.
Not that she said bit part ... but she didn't say starring role, either.

Now, I've never met Sarah before, or seen her dance, except for some obscure Tim Minchin clip on You Tube a few years ago. 
So, I Googled her name to see if she had any dancing clips and found this one below of her dancing to a cover version of  
The Cranberries Zombie.

Which I found synchronious as I had just seen The Cranberries perform this song last Saturday night between Wolfmother's and the Lenny Kravitz set.
In fact, it was one of my main motivations for going Saturday, to see them perform this song live in front of me ... and I was not one bit disappointed, either.  

Oh ... and who should the local NRL side the Brisbane Broncos be taking on Friday night?

The Saint George Dragons!?!
I live in Brisbane, but I can't stand the Broncos (even though I have to feel guilty about that because it's my dead father-in-law's favourite team ... and he had their flag draped over his coffin ... and I mean their actual flag, that the club let them have for the day ... but sorry John, you know as well as I, that I still don't like them ... although probably not as much as I once did), so I'll be going for the Dragons on Friday night ... not that I like them much better.

The Cranberries at Riverstage March 24th, 2012

 

The Cosmic Egg and the Dragon

I bought this statue of a dragon bursting out of what I saw as a cosmic egg at the Crystal Castle in the Byron Bay hinterland last year, as I thought it was a good representation of the year that was approaching 2012: The Year of the Dragon.
I guess it reminded me of Wolfmother's album Cosmic Egg, which I was fond of at the time.

Looking at the above album cover reminded me of the drive from Byron Bay to Mullumbimby (the crystal castle) where I saw the first double rainbow that I ever recall seeing in my life.
I tried to take a picture of it, but I could never get a good enough view from the car as we were driving and the conditions made it too dangerous to pull over to the side of the busy winding road.

Mullumbimby straight ahead, and the
  rainbow was back far right off screen.

By the time I could get a clear shot the rainbow had disappeared.
I had never heard Wolfmother play live before, so I was pleased when I heard earlier in the year that they would be playing Riverstage in Brisbane on March 24th, 2012, supporting  
The Cranberries and Lenny Kravitz. (March 24th just happens to be my brother's birthday, as well. That's his hand on the wheel in the photo above.).

March 24th also fell pretty much on the New Moon, which was a bit of a coincidence, as my favourite song on the album is 
New Moon Rising, which was one of their opening songs on the night.

Wolfmother playing Riversatge March 24th, 2012

My view of the stage area on the night

Now, here's where the cosmic egg of synchronicity cracks wide open in my world.
The next day I was going to write up my night out at the  
Lenny Kravitz, Cranberries, Wolfmother concert on this blog ... but first I popped in to have a read at Mike Perry's blog and found this post that he had just put up that day;
Attracting Birds Coincidence
which helped me to chose one of about ten books I had on my desk to start reading, as I had asked for a guiding sync from the universe to help me decide which one would be the right one to start reading.

 

I had just finished reading Daniel Pinchbeck's book  
2012:The Return of Quetzalcoatl, which had as one of it's main themes, the adoption of a lunar calendar to replace the current solar based calendar.
New Moon Rising? 

Pinchbeck also wrote an earlier book called  
Breaking Open the Head, which I found quite interesting, too. 
And if you look at the two pictures above of the  
Cosmic Egg you might notice it looks a bit like the top of the skull viewed from above?  
Breaking open the head?

The title of the album comes from a position in yoga described by frontman Andrew Stockdale as "like the fetal pose".

I have only recently received a Skull/Fetus necklace from

Alex Grey's New York shop in the mail ... not that I  will wear it, I just like admiring it as a work of art.

It reminds me of Kubrick's Starchild from 2001.

Now, time for some sync weaving.
As I said, I chose to read the book The Healing Wisdom of Birds by Lesley Morrison because of Mike's bird post.

The second chapter in this book starts on page 23 (my birth-date) and is titled The Cosmic Egg!?!

But get this, Mike ... chapter 5 starts on page 67 and is titled,

Soul Alchemy and the Flight of Birds.
Mike's main blog is titled 67 Not Out, by the way.

Also, Andrew Stockdale, the lead singer of Wolfmother was born on 20 July, 1976.
Mike also wrote about the numbers 67 and 76 in this post,
The Coincidence of Numbers  
Where he says, "so 67 and 76 referrals when the name Perry is mentioned - coincidence? 
Or is there something more meaningful about numbers and how they appear in our lives?"

Wolfmother also have a song on Cosmic Egg titled White Feather, which I always thought was called, Dancing Feet, because those seem to be the main words in the song, but it turns out it is called White Feather, something which Mike writes a lot about on his blogs.
White Feathers Comfort The Bereaved

If you can't understand the words Andrew is singing, here are the lyrics to
White Feather
You wanted love, you wanted love but its not what she was thinking of.
You step to the left, you step to the the left on your dancing feet, now.
Dancing feet, I cant compete now with with your dancing feet.

Somebody gotta try and to get to know you,
Somebody gottsa try and say its all right now, said its all right now.

Dancing feet, I compete now with your dancing feet now.
Some people say, they cant compare, when your not over here your there.
You see coz girl, she say oh no, another boy would you like to know

Somebody gotta try and to get to know now,
Somebody gottsa try and say its all right now, that its all right now.

She got the white feather,
To get you through the night.
He got the white feather,
To make you feel alright.

Dancing feet.

Somebody gotta try and to get to know now,
Somebody gottsa try and say its all right now, that its all right now.
The first new original material, since the release of 
Pleased to Meet You in 2007, appeared during the band's first performance in nine months at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art (QGMA) on 12 April 2008 in the form of four new songs: Back Round, The Violence of the Sun, Monolith and Inside the Mountain. 
With increasing discussion of Wolfmother's second album, rumours began to emerge in August 2008 that the band was due to split up.

On Saturday night I had parked my car virtually under the  
Queensland Gallery of Modern Art and walked to Riverstage from there. 
It took nine months for them to release new material 
(some which would appear on Cosmic Egg), nine months being the gestation of a fetus and they birthed a song called  
Monolith (2001:A Space Odyssey?) Skull/Fetus?

My very first post on this blog,

BRISBANE (Sign Outside of the Gallery of Mordern Art, Southbank [the BEST ] side of the River)
was about a sign outside the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art, which I was going to use as my blog avatar, but you couldn't make out what it was when it was icon size, so I didn't use it.

Since I bought the dragon coming out of the Cosmic Egg at the Crystal Castle, I thought it was funny that there was also a song called In The Castle on Cosmic Egg, as well.

 After a number of rumours regarding new members, Wolfmother re-appeared in February 2009, performing under the alias  
White Feather with new musicians accompanying Stockdale.

A new song called Pilgrim was mentioned. 
Other songs debuted at the two low-key comeback performances included 
White Feather, Phoenix, Far Away and 10,000 Ft., complemented by the previously performed Back Round and The Violence of the Sun.

Transmissions From The COSMIC EGG - Episode , revealed to be,  
"The first of a series of behind-the-scenes looks at the forthcoming Wolfmother opus" in which "Episode 1 travels the open high-way to Byron Bay where much of the record was born and pre-production took place".

I also just recently purchased a secondhand edition of 

Lyall Watson's book Supernature after reading about him and the book in 
The Holographic Universe. 
I did a post about the book here,
Supernature Syncs 
On the front cover is an orchid bursting out of an egg (Cosmic Egg?) with the catchphrase,
"An unprecedented look at strange phenomena and their place in nature."
(my cover is a slightly different one to the one pictured above, which doesn't carry that catchphrase)

 And on the back cover says, "... living things are involved in an open dialogue with the universe, a free exchange of information and influence that unites all life into one vast organism that is itself part of an even larger dynamic structure."

The Cranberries playing Riverstage
  March 24th, 2012

Just to hit home Mike's Mother/Bird visitation theme,  
The Cranberries were the next band on stage after Wolfmother and they played most of their big hits like Zombie, Linger and 
Ode to My Family.

Page 76 of The Healing Wisdom of Birds mentions a pelican meditation where the pelican

"offers you a tiny embryo that glistens like the brightest star in the universe.

The embryo is your soul in it's purest state.
It is what you truly are when illusion collapses and the real Self emerges."
Page 76 also mentions the phoenix, 
"The goal of the spiritual pilgrimage is the phoenix, the feathers of which constitute a cure for anger and grief, a sort of universal medicine which constitutes bitterness and suffering in the beginning, but at it's end awaits a heavenly joy. 
The mythical bird represents immortality and rebirth, and was adopted by the alchemists as a symbol of the final stage of the Great Work, whose end resulted in complete illumination and spiritual awareness.
In mythology, the phoenix was said to have arisen from it's own ashes after burning in the flames of the funeral pyre.
This is the classic symbol of rebirth around the world, and of coming forth renewed after death."
 Regarding, "The goal of the spiritual pilgrimage is the phoenix."
There are also songs on the Cosmic Egg album titled Phoenix and Pilgrim.

Cosmic Egg  1. "California Queen" 3:55 2. "New Moon Rising" 3:46 3. "White Feather" 3:04 4. "Sundial" 3:48 5. "In the Morning" 5:40 6. "10,000 Feet" 4:09 7. "Cosmic Egg" 4:04 8. "Far Away" 4:00 9. "Pilgrim" 4:50 10. "In the Castle" 5:42 11. "Phoenix" 4:45 12. "Violence of the Sun" 6:02 Total length: 53:40

St.Patrick's Day Miracle?

White Hart (Heart?) Lane?

On March 17th this year at White Hart (Heart?) Lane, my favourite English football club, Tottenham Hotspur  were playing an FA Cup tie at home against Bolton Wanderers.

"23-year-old Bolton Wanderers footballer Fabrice Muamba collapsed on field from a cardiac arrest and the game was abandoned while medical staff tried desperately to revive him.
It was said he was "effectively dead" for 78 minutes while taken to the nearby London Chest Hospital.
As of this posting Fabrice Muamba remains in intensive care at the London Chest Hospital, where his condition is serious but stable. 
He continues to make encouraging progress in his recovery. 
Over the weekend, he has been able to sit out of bed for a short time, watch television and has begun to eat.
However, he will need to continue to be closely monitored by the medical team at the London Chest for some time."

It will be interesting to see if Fabrice has any NDE stories to tell at a later date.
The re-arranged FA Cup tie will take place at White Hart Lane on Tuesday.
And while I am sure all Spurs fans wish Fabrice a speedy recovery, we apologize in advance for knocking Bolton out of the FA Cup on Tuesday;-)

Go ye Spurs!!!

Feeding The Right Wolf

Rufino Tamayo's Animals

I was reading the first chapter of Pema Chodron's book  
Taking the Leap today called Feeding the Right Wolf and the story reminded me of the painting above called Animals, which I used in this post on the movie The Grey.
The Grey/The Grays and the Triad

I couldn't find Pema on a You Tube reading it, but I found this  
You Tube called Two Wolves, which is pretty much the same story.

But here is another interesting clip with Pema giving a teaching.

This Might Just Be the Worst Piece of Advice You Could Hear in Your Life

I was reading an article in the latest edition of Nexus magazine about sunscreens and cancer, from a lady who wrote a book called Sunscreens - Bio-hazard and I would have to say, take my advice and don't take this guy's advice in the above You Tube on the sunscreen.
His other advice is not bad though, but do your homework ... and don't trust him on the sunscreen.

Although, if you do find the 'scientific' advice on the sunscreen in the sunscreen song compelling, you might find this piece of medical advice from the late forties worth following as well?-)

"Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who
supply it. 
Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of
fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen…"             
Lyrics from The Sunscreen Song

Update: March 25th, 2012

There is a radio interview at this link;

http://radiooutthere.com/blog/2012/03/15/program-377/
about the dangers of sunscreens ... along with a few other topics, which might, or might not be interesting to readers of this post ... with the editor of Nexus magazine, Duncan Roads.

The Girl Who Swims With Sharks...or One Reason I Don't Swim at Byron Bay

.

My favourite football team is the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks, my favourite beach is Byron Bay and even my youngest son's girlfriend is named Maddie.
But you can throw all the syncs you want my way about this clip and now that I know these things aren't far from the beach, I definitely won't be going into the water, no matter how many dolphins and whales are swimming out there as well.
I'll be quite happy to watch them swim from the overlooking cliff at the lighthouse, thank you.

The Chili Dude (My Supplier)

The Dude abides at Byron Bay:-)

.

Meet two of the greatest loves of my life, Byron Bay and chili sauce.

They are both so breathtakingly beautiful that they both bring me to tears at times ... especially the chili sauce;-)

The Ripple of Connection

I wrote about seeing The Church (the band's DVD is pictured above) play the Brisbane Powerhouse on Christmas eve in this post;

"The Church" on Christmas Eve ... The Band That Is

There was a table full of merchandise for sale at the concert and I bought their CD's Untitled 23 and Priest = Aura, but I didn't see the Goldfish DVD there among the merch.

There were also tour T-shirts for sale for $20, but I decided I had bought enough stuff anyway so didn't bother to buy one.
A few days after the concert I regretted that I hadn't bought a t-shirt on the night, so headed to their website to see if they had any for sale on there ... and yes they did, so I ordered one.
There was also a DVD (Goldfish) of the video clips for their most popular songs, plus a few extra songs included, such as  
Ripple (one of my favourites).

I liked how they had named the DVD Goldfish, a gold fish being the mascot of my blog (the top right-hand corner of this blog) and that there was a picture of a banana as well.

Bananas are grown in Queensland and often Queenslanders are called Banana Benders by people from other Australian states. 
The Brisbane Powerhouse is in Queensland, where I live and where they played the Christmas eve concert that I went to. 
The banana wasn't on the DVD cover to represent Queensland though, it was on the cover to represent the word next to it on the cover - "Joke", as in slipping on a banana skin.

Ripple is a song off their album Priest = Aura, which is their 8th studio album. 
It's one of the three albums that they played in it's entirety on the night.
I was watching the DVD for the first time this morning before work, while eating breakfast. 
I had never seen the video clip for Ripple before this (see You Tube clip above).
I loved the clip with all it kaleidoscopic fractaling ripples and it struck me why I love ripple symbology so much, because to me it represents connections and how everything is separate, but effects everything else in the universe by the rippling energy it sends out.

The idea entered my mind to do a post about this song for some reason, but I thought how could I just do a post about a Ripple song? 
And besides, I'm getting sick of blogging on the net all of the time, even though at times I feel compelled to share a sync with the world, or record it as a personal diary entry to read later on.

Then tonight I opened an old e-mail about the Byron Film Festival and saw this film advertised (clip below).

http://www.echonetdaily.net.au/?iid=60431&sr=0#folio=9

I had missed my chance to see it though, because it had already screened on March 11th.

A day I could have gotten down there to see it.
The irony is that if I had of kept up with the Echo's daily e-mails I would have easily been able to go there and see it, but I missed out because I wasn't keeping up with the e-mails, which is sort of opposite to the film trailer's synopsis.

So, I haven't seen it, and can't yet recommend it, but it looks very promising to me.
Here is another clip by the same director of the above film (clip below).

Oddly enough the symbol these guys are using to declare "interdependence" above is a sideways 8.
Ripple is off The Church's 8th album.
Under the Milky Way was off their Starfish album, which was released in 1988.
And when I think off being under the Milky Way, I feel a cosmic connection every-time.

Sandy MacGregor's "Journey of Proof to Learn about the Subconscious Mind"

Sandy MacGregor is one of my heroes.

Here is a man who had three daughters murdered in their own home with a shotgun and went to his daughter's killer's prison cell to tell him that he forgave him,a son who was told he would have to lose his leg after being involved in a motorbike crash.
Plus, being a soldier who fought in Vietnam and returning to that country to meet soldiers he fought against to make a gesture of reconciliation. 
Not only that, he has helped many, many people through his talks and meditation techniques.
Do yourself a favour and give this man a listen. 

Update: March 18th
These clips will fill you in on Sandy's background story and give you a better idea of what this man has been through in life.

Flow

 

What a powerful image this is with arms outstretched to the world and going with the flow.

To me it is the body language of balance, of being in the flow. 

I can relate much more to this Christ than one nailed to a cross.

I don't think Rio would give you the same feeling if you saw 

a giant Christ suffering on the cross as you arrived in Rio.

 

I guess it is fitting then that Christ is overlooking not just the city of Rio de Janeiro, but the ocean as well.

Rio is the Greek word for flow and  the city's name, Portuguese for River of January, reflects the fact that the first European explorers to visit the bay, in January 1502, believed it was the mouth of a river. 

I found this poster on a Google search  

(just going with the flow, I was;-) 

and it sums up a lot of the feelings I get when I see 

"Christ the Redeemer" looking out over Rio.

But that's not all the feelings I get when I see this statue.

Lucky for me there were more posters which could express more of the feelings I get when seeing the photos of Rio from the behind the Christ with the outstretched arms.

I like the pine cones down the bottom of that poster.

Anyone reading some of my older posts would know what I think of pine cones.

And what about being in Rio at night?

And speaking of Rio, who could forget the Samba.

The samba is most frequently identified as a musical expression of urban Rio de Janeiro, where it was born and developed between the end of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century. 

It was in Rio that the dance practiced by former slaves who migrated from Bahia came into contact with and incorporated other genres played in the city  

(such as the polka, the maxixe, the lundu, and the xote), 

acquiring a completely unique character and creating the samba carioca urbana 

 (samba school).

 

Our Lady of Victories Catholic Church,
Brisbane, Australia.

Just about every time I see the blue cross on the church 

in the photo above, I connect it in my mind with the statue of  

Christ the Redeemer in Rio.

Probably because I saw it most from the stands of Perry Park when I was growing up watching soccer games, and Brazil was the team on everybody's mind when they thought of the highest standards of the game from a skill point of view.

No team earned the honour of "going with the flow" more than Brazil.

And maybe no better player than Paolo Rossi 

(born 23 September 1956)  

has demonstrated that go with the flow philosophy in a big game like in the clip above.

Sorry about bringing up Rossi to my Brazilian readers.

The blue cross on that church has always represented a living energy to me,

much like the feeling I get when I see the statue of  

Christ the Redeemer in Rio.

That's why I picked up these items at the Woodford Folkfest last year.

The blue cross reminds me of the blue cross on the church and the blue that the Native Americans use so much in their art and jewelry.

To me it is a living energy like the neon blue cross seen at night on the church in Brisbane, as well as the blue on the Australian Aboriginal rock I picked up at Woodford also.

St. Gabriel medal

The bracelet/medallion above was hanging near the blue cross at the stall at the Woodford Folk-fest and since I've had so many syncs with Gabriel, I just felt I had to buy it.

I will write another post about the Gabriel syncs later, but just to let you know how weird these Gabriel syncs are, that Gabriel card above the photo of the bracelet uploaded itself along with the bracelet photo.

I was going to delete it, but then I thought I would just leave it there.

Nothing like this has ever happened to me when uploading photos to this blog.

And it's not as if the photos were next to each other when I up loaded them, so it's a mystery to me.

But I don't expect anyone but me to believe that happened, so it's more there for me than for you who might be reading this post.

If you want to know what site I copied the posters from, here's the link here;

http://www.reflectionsgallery2.com/Advice-from-a-River-Poster-p/padvriv1.htm

I've not bought anything from this site, so I can't recommend buying anything from it.

Buy at your own risk!

But ...

GO WITH THE FLOW!