Ripples from the Wave?

Today is the 14th anniversary of the Boxing Day tsunami, as it is known in Australia, with today being Boxing Day (December 26th).
This video below gives an idea of the horror and disbelief that a freak wave can generate and the hopelessness in trying to keep your head above water in such an impossible circumstance ... and please ignore the crass subtitles in the You Tube below.

I had never heard of the Gold Coast woman Sandra Sweeney and her story before the night of November 30th, 2018, and I live just up the freeway outside of Brisbane.
Back in 2004 I never took a lot of notice of the news.
I knew about the tsunami and of Australians and people from my home-state of Queensland getting killed, but I didn't dwell on or pay much attention to the details of those stories at the time.
And even on the November night I went to the 'Avid Reader' bookstore I was just looking for an excuse to spend an evening at West End so I could check out the newly opened artwork of Dave Bromley.

 Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit ... Hole?

I had bought a bottle of South Australian sparkling wine to toast the New Year of 2018 off with an intention of traveling to South Australia in 2018.
I had never been to South Australia in all my time of living in Australia and thought I should check it out before I get too old and while I'm in good health and have the time and money.
I had no idea who the artist was who had painted the butterflies on the label of my New Year's Eve wine, but throughout 2017 butterflies had become a meaningful personal sign for me -
A Butterfly That I Felt Was Worth Crowing About

I was in a lot of doubt about the purchase I had made back in 2017 and whether I had done the right thing or not by buying a townhouse.
But when I observed the butterfly outside my kitchen window, I couldn't help think that butterfly was a message from my late father telling me to go with the flow.
Not that I believed he was the butterfly on the windowsill, but I couldn't help wondering if his spirit was using the butterfly somehow temporarily or guiding it to send me a message.
You just had to be there I guess ... and I was:-)

Butterfly synchronicities were bombarding me towards the end of 2017 and I'm not a butterfly sort of guy.
So, when I was looking for a South Australian wine for New Year's Eve 2018 and saw the butterfly label, I took this as a sign that I should be traveling to South Australia in 2018.
But as the start of 2018 took off my plans fell apart and the messages seemed to tell me that 2018 was about staying home in my unit to study, read and transform like a caterpillar in a chrysalis.
Something I did not want to do but found life leaving me with little choice.
In hindsight looking back over the year, it was probably the right choice for me.

Although, it was hard at times to figure out just what these butterfly signs I was chasing truly signified at the time in my life.
Whatever Happened to Doreen Virtue?
And while these butterfly signs didn't lead me down the path I was expecting, they probably led me down the path I needed to travel.

While I wanted to be on the road traveling throughout 2018 it was like the universe wanted me to stay cocooned and to transform myself in some way.
So, it was a surprise to me in September that I read about the artist who was responsible for the butterfly label, having an art gallery in the suburb that my late father and late ex-father-in-law grew up in, West End.

I wanted to go visit the art gallery at West End, but didn't want to drive all the way over there just to take a peek in an art gallery, so I looked up the 'Avid Reader''s site to see if there was an interesting talk I could attend to give me an excuse to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak ... even three maybe.

Sandra Sweeney at the Avid Reader bookstore Nov. 30th, 2018

Sinks in the Bromley art gallery at West End

That Friday turned out to be a synch-storm of events for me, with more posts to come about that day later, but for this post I'm writing about a book that I probably never would have read in the "normal" course of my life, 'Ripples from the Wave'.

I had written at the beginning of the year how I had bought this 2018 calendar above with a sense of dread about the year and a sinking feeling I had about that year -
2018 and that Sinking/Synching Feeling?

Turns out now that I was right on many levels, but as I sat there on the Friday night listening to Sandra tell her story about the events that she had been through writing the book since the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami I had a feeling that this book of Sandra's was what the calendar had been guiding me to read from way back in 2017 somehow.

I remember getting home from the talk and tossing the book into my "to read" pile of books (which is huge) and thinking (not that it was me that seemed to be thinking) no, you have to read this book before the New Year.
I thought why should I have to read it now, as that tsunami is old news and some of these books in the pile I'm just dying to read first.
But I had this feeling that I had to have this book read before New Year's for some reason.
So, I did.
And as I'm reading through the book, I started thinking of all of the connections with my trip to West End that night and the ironies Sandra maybe knew she was hinting at, but that I didn't at the time of the talk in Brisbane.

I was amused when Sandra picked a few paragraphs to read from her book and described the house in Udon Thani that Wan and Craig had purchased by reading the line from the book, "it was a two- storey house, a creamy pink colour, which was in vogue at the time" and I thought to myself, like the creamy pink coloured wall that you are standing in front of now Sandra?

Creamy pink?

 And like the colour of the book written by the lady who introduced Sandra's talk?

But every now and then as I read Sandra's book something would pop up from the night of my visit to West End, like the elephant statue I took a picture of in the new park and the elephant Sandra mentioned seeing on the way to her son's wedding on a Thai street, which was thought to be the good luck antidote to counter the Thai superstition of being late to the wedding.

The elephant in West End near the Bromley gallery

The elephant in the Bromley gallery room at West End

After The Wave Featurette - Sandra & Wan Baxter

I hadn't read Sandra's book when I took those pictures of the elephants in West End.
I took them because I had read the book 'Elephants on Acid', which I bought in Byron Bay along with Bri Lee's book 'Eggshell Skull' (which I'm yet to read).
The Elephants in the Room 2?

The books I bought on the Thursday at
Byron Bay in August, 2018

In that same chapter of her book Sandra mentions watching a number of her favoutite TV shows on DVD that Sandra had with her in Thailand, one being the John Cleese show 'Fawlty Towers'.

But apart from this "faulty tower" in Sydney in the news at Christmastime -
Sydney Opal Tower crack photos emerge as NSW Government launches investigation

I had also watched a video featuring John Cleese moderating a talk about life after death, which I wrote about in this post -
'Is There Life After Death?' Moderated by John Cleese?

And I've got to say I had chills reading Sandra had hugged her son for the last time in the street outside of a Starbuck's in Thailand -
Coffee and the Siren's Song

The name of the Thai islands Craig and Wan were holidaying on the day of the tsunami, Phi Phi (even though the Thais pronouce it pee-pee) struck me as the symbol phi that Chis Mackey writes about in his book that I wrote about in this post -

The symbol of phi 

"Synchronicity is the face of a deeper level of inter-connectivity" Tony Vigorito

The sculpture in the garden of
Chris Mackey's practice with phi 

On page 50 of her book Sandra mentions some owls she once rescued one Christmas day.

November 30th, 2018, the night of Sandra's talk in Brisbane also happened to be on a boxing day.
Sandra mentioned the sporting event happening just across the river that night and alluding to grown men belting each other, but I didn't realize that boxing match was on that night until after the talk and listening to my car radio on the way home.
At first I thought Sandra was talking about some football game that I didn't know was being played.

Boxing day in Brisbane, November 30th, 2018?

In that same November 30th newspaper was a full-page advert congratulating Stephanie Gilmore from the Gold Coast on becoming the world champion women's surfer for the 7th time.

Also in that November 30th newspaper was the obituary for the director of the Sponge Bob Square-pants movie who had passed away on November 26th, 2018.
And as we all know by now, on December 23rd, 2018 a second tsunami for 2018 hit killing hundreds.

Our Secret Powers - Telepathy, Clairvoyance and Precognition?

Oddly enough, Sandra writes in the book about choosing the name Demi for her granddaughter and in the December 23rd, 2018 newspaper was a story about pop-singer Demi Lovato telling about her stint in rehab after recovering from an overdose.
This newspaper was printed before the wave of December 23rd, 2018 struck.

And in the December 24th, 2018 newspaper was the story of pop band 'Seventeen' being swept off stage with some of the members being killed.
As of today, December 26th, 2018 (Boxing Day), the death toll was 429, so far.

So, reading Sandra's book just as this latest tsunami was hitting was definitely a chilling experience, especially hitting three days before Boxing Day.

And I should add that I picked up a free magazine named 'Holistic Bliss' on the night of Sandra's talk and in it was a column written by Leslie Fieger titled 'Crisis or Opportunity?' about the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly.

So, I guess 2018 has been a trans-formative year for me on a lot of levels and the signs were there to tell me about the journey.