A close friend of mine, O.L. Houston has been a top performing salesperson for the better part of his life. The central theme that connected O.L. and I from the beginning was our common belief in the way that God works through synchronicity or time and timing to unfold the events that guide our life purpose.

O.L. has over the course of his career, perfected a blend of selling and psychology to more effectively close sales without persuasion. He achieved this through his study of the four basic common human temperament types and how they relate to the organization of the buying process in the customer’s mind.

When I first met O.L. we had a long conversation about this subject and he talked about a component of the subconscious mind he called the decision funnel. This agreed with my training in Hypnosis by the late Dr. Kappas who referred to this same mechanism as the critical mind. More recently the Whalen Lab, located in Moore Hall at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, NH, which has been at the forefront of American higher education since 1769, has made recent scientific discoveries that confirm what O.L. Houston has long said and written about the human decision making patterning process. The Whalen Lab has confirmed the existence of this decision funnel (which they describe as a sort of ‘moat’) and its location in the brain (specifically in the Amygdala).

I find this interesting because so many people have arrived at the same conclusion.

You can find out more about O.L. Houston’s sales training method at http://www.howtosellbetter.com

I’ve given quite a few posts to various animals and the symbolic significance as well as the medicine they provide. Recently I was asked about my take on discovering your power animal/s.

There are many who would tell you to think back to the animals you were fondest of in childhood, or the animals you collected growing up. There are those who would tell you to look at your own nature and compare it to equivalents in the animal kindgdom.

While there may be some sympathy between these animals and you, and you may in fact have quite a long list if you love animals the way I do, I have to say that in my experience, you don’t choose your power animals, they choose you.

When I first discovered that the crow was one of my power animals, I was just 15 years old. My life in many ways was pretty fantastic, not in a monetary sense, but in the experiences I had starting at infancy and continuuing throughout my life. It was my work with a psychic as a young teen that led me to meet a man who held medicine gatherings back in 1984 that ultimately introduced me to crow.

I went to investigate the man’s house, as it was claimed that it was haunted. We did in fact explore it and had some sense that there was an old man who lingered there. He told of a leather bag with some coins in it that he buried out back by a tree. We didn’t get any visual confirmation on this entity, but a trance medium we brought with us did allow this entity to speak.

That was the foreshadowing thoguh, and we won’t linger there. During this investigation, I learned that the man had co-authored a book with a medicine man by the name of SunBear and that he held medicine weekends doing sweat lodge ceremonies and medicine wheels. He invited me to go to one, and since I’d always had an interest in Native American culture I agreed to go. (No, to my recollection, I was never an American Indian in a past life.)

During this first weekend, I arrived at the camp and met with Barry, who told me to take a walk in the woods with him. He explained that he saw crow in the woods earlier that day and he felt I should take the name Billy WhiteCrow.

Truthfully it sounded a bit silly to me, but I agreed to go along with it, as it wasn’t a big stretch for me to go from Bill White, to Billy WhiteCrow. But what later revealed this to be accurate was when about a week later I arrived home from school with my Mother. We both got out of the car and heard a tremendous ruckus going on in the back yard. We both walked up the driveway to see what was going on.

In the back yard, in a 76 foot Black Walnut tree, was a whole murder (or flock) of crows. In the center, was a true, albino crow. I was glad my Mother was there to witness it with me. It validated the experience for me.

As we watched the flock flew up out of the tree and circled overhead. Then the black crows took off but the white crow stayed and circled right over me.

I think this is often how we meet our power animals. When we least expect it, they show up and they claim us.

As I sit here writing this post, the Dow is at 6,859.91. That is actually up from yesterday and the undulations of the market of late seem to be a spiraling snake headed back to its hole. People everywhere are uneasy. Questions are being raised. Challenges to authority are being made. Yes, a lot of activity much of it archetypal, is becoming apparent.

There has been much speculation on what caused the current financial crisis and the fingers point in all directions. The answer seems quite clear to me. For several decades now we have usurped the place of the hero in our culture and replaced it with the villain. From people on talk shows justifying their derelict actions with stories of poor upbringing to gangster rap to corporate scandals and pedophile priests, we have propped the idea that cheating is the way to win. We have glorified money and self indulgence and now we are getting the bill.

Now we usher in the archetype of the victim or orphan, crying out save us. We are asking to be saved from ourselves, and at this time many believe that cry for help is being answered by wolves who intend on stripping away the last of our liberties. We arrive the the state of the victim because we have looked outside of ourselves for the responsible parties and believed the world has owed us something. Our values were based on fiat currency and the end result could very well be another dark ages.

It is now that we must resurrect the hero/heroine, finding the strength and self determination within ourselves and rise up to meet the challenges of the day. We must slay the dragons of greed before they rob not only our coffers of gold but also the freedom of our children.

We must return now to a greater self control that builds value from responsible action and answers only to the internal conscience of the warrior spirit. Waiting will only lend the dragon more strength.

I admit, I tread on dangerous ground talking physics, as my education is armchair at best in this particular subject. Oddly enough, I think that sometimes that gives one an advantage of posing questions that may never occur to someone deeply entrenched in a particular discipline. If you doubt me on that, consider how many “inventions” have been created by taking a working model or idea in one discipline and applying it to another.

I’ve been extraordinarily fascinated with physics of late, and the whole idea that anything in the universe could be both a particle and a wave staggers my imagination. As I have come to understand it, what we used to think as primary components, electrons, protons, neutrons…(yes I’m old school), are really two identical spherical waves to a nominal location which we perceive as a “Particle” but is basically just the wave center. So you have two waves one traveling in towards the center (an In-Wave) and one traveling outward (an Out-Wave). Now it gets really odd, as I’m told even though you can locate this center and see it as a particle (of course with super powerful equipment to do so, not the naked eye!) that it has presence everywhere in Space because the charge extends out to the whole Universe.

Now we’re talking about some really strange stuff huh?

Now here is where my mind goes with this, you have two waves coinciding to a center, that center becomes what we recognize as a particle. So I guess a group of particles could be say a couch or even a person. Philosophically we talk about living in a dualistic world. We have night and day, male and female, good and evil. Does this not create an interesting thing to ponder that duality could be in fact created as a matter of these dual and opposite waves converging to create what we experience as the “real” world?

I’ve already mentioned my thoughts about the power of the spoken word and how we hear in Genesis that God “Said” things to create them. Sound is certainly carried in waves.

Could we see science ultimately performing wave synchrony therapy to heal disease? Rejuvenate organs? I would think there would be a decay rate on the waves, so you would first diagnose which wave or both that were decaying, add in a complimentary wave to revive the frequency and an outward “particle” effect should be noted?

So how does this tie in with synchronicity? Well if we are in a Universe of interacting waves, then the idea that waves interacting could produce ripple effects around us isn’t at all surprising is it? If you find this hard to believe go toss a stone into a lake.

There are those who claim Superstring theory can explain synchronicity. While the idea that there exist many more dimensions than our familiar x,y,x plus time could infer that there is an order beyond what we can visibly understand, I have to take you back to the current status of Superstring theory and its current limitations.

Understand that I think Superstring theory holds potential to explaining a great number of things and that yes one of them could be in fact synchronicity, however, Superstring theory has yet to prove anything outside of Quantum mechanics.

The inherent limitations we have with our current methods of particle smashing are such that we cannot observe anything at the Planck length these strings are supposed to be measurable at. A Planck length is supposed to be about a hundred billion billion (10 to the 20th power) times smaller than an atomic nucleus.

To even be able to see something at a Planck length would require us shooting something smaller than it to measure the deflections and create a rendering. I know this is hard to visualize, so let me use an analogy here. You may have seen these desk top toys where there are plastic or metal nails inside an acrylic frame. You press an object into these nails and you get a rendering of the object. Now if you could imagine one of these toys with nails 2 inches in diameter, you could imagine that the detail of this impression would not reveal much of any object unless it was extraordinarily large. By contrast if you had the same toy but with nails the diameter of say the finest acupuncture needles, you would get a much more detailed rendering. We are talking about a very similar process here.

What is exciting about string theory is the idea that matter is composed of both wave and particle. This means that physical objects are not defined purely by their particle composition but also by the frequency at which they vibrate. Now what do we think of as vibration? Sound? And in the Bible is says that God used words to bring about existence, aka. “Let their be light, and their was light.” If vibration and particle are dimensional, then the vibrational frequencies of different masses could affect the interactions between them. This could get pretty complex, and so we could in fact have synchronistic outcomes caused by multiple forces set into vibration by external forces.

Whatever the cause of synchronicity, it remains a mysterious and yet, exciting phenomena.

While I’m not one who can claim a profound love for spiders, in fact having one on me will make me scream, I do appreciate the power of the arachnid family.

Spider is perhaps best known for its web. There are many legends about a Grandmother spider weaving together the earth and bringing fire to the people in a basket she wove on her back.

In Norse mythology the 3 Narns, weaved together the strands of destiny, much like a web, connecting people by fate.

Spider reminds us that we are constantly weaving together the pieces of our lives and also to pay attention to the fact that we are connected to all things in subtle ways we might not always be aware of.

Spiders have just a few more eyes than we do, and teach us to look more carefully or from different perspectives to see how things connect. Spider teaches us the power of integration.

Spiders don’t stick to their own webs and teach us that we need not get tangled up in life.

The spider’s body is shaped much like a figure 8 and reminds us of the infinity symbol. It’s web is the spiral which is a symbol of the universe and universal energy. Spider reminds us to live in the eternal now, not dwelling in the past or the future.

Spider’s weave in a pattern and remind us to live according to the laws of creation. Spider says that symmetry is the natural order of things.

If you encounter a spider web unexpectedly take it as a sign that you are currently weaving your own destiny. The spider teaches us the meaning of destiny, as a woven tapestry of past, present and future.

Spider beckons us to choose our path wisely, knowing that all things are interrelated. Just as a spider’s bite can be venomous, taking the wrong path can be as well.

Squirrel teaches us the power of preparation. The squirrel can be seen storing nuts for the winter every autumn. It knows to prepare for the coming cold season. How many times in our own lives would we have fared better with a little advance planning?

If you’ve ever seen a squirrel run into traffic, you know another of its talents, and I’m not talking about being road kill. Squirrel can turn on a dime, quickly averting disaster. Squirrel tells us when you see a truck coming right at you, move out of the way quickly!

Squirrels often break for play or rest during their nut gathering. You can see them chasing each other over tree limbs and rooftops or parking it for a nice rest across a branch, legs dangling with the breeze. Squirrel tells us there is time for everything, work and play and rest all in proper measure.

While the squirrel stores food, it doesn’t store more than it needs, so the stress on taking what you need and not being greedy or a glutten is another of its lessons.

People chosen by squirrel run the risk of being to active or not letting things go enough, remember to pace yourself and to take only what you need. Don’t cling to things which no longer serve you.

Squirrel reminds us to slow down enough to remember where we put things. It urges us to not scatter ourselves in too many directions at once.

Another lesson squirrel brings is a lesson of trust. When I was a young boy, my neighbor would feed the squirrels right from her hand. At one time she took an orphaned baby squirrel in and cared for it. As it grew up, she would leave the kitchen window open for him. He would go out and run with the other squirrels but always come back to the house, crawling back into the window and into the house. Squirrels teach us that we will always be taken care of, finding what we need when we need it.

On occassion I’m asked about reptiles as power animals. Today we’ll look at the lizard. While there are certainly many species of lizard, over 5000 at last count, the general meaning of the lizard can be known. Lizards are keenly aware at very subtle levels. They notice movement even at its slightest and also have extraordinary hearing. Most lizards lie motionless and quiet unless they have a reason to move.

Lizards, as they lay still, appear to be sleeping, yet can detect predator or prey and react quickly.

Many lizards possess a removable tail. When a predator grabs it, they leave it behind and escape.

Fortunately for the lizard, not only does it escape with its life, but grows a new tail as well.

Lizards use intuition and an almost psychic sensitivity for survival. They encourage us to live on the right side of the brain, leaving logic and reason as our sole source of problem solving. Because of this, lizards represent the power of dreams. Lizard medicine tells us to work to remember our dreams and incorporate their meanings into our lives. Dreams can be a source of deep wisdom and can often tell us the proper course to take in our waking world.

Because lizard deals with dreams, it brings to light our subconscious and reveals our hopes and fears.

If you have been chosen by lizard, you simply must keep a dream journal to record your dreams and monitor their messages. Lizard says, “Listen to the quiet voice within.”

Lizard’s tail dropping ability teaches us to leave the past where it belongs and move forward. It tells us that what we give up will be replaced. Lizard says, “change is good, don’t resist it. Let the old ways fall off and begin anew.”

Lizards like most reptiles also shed their skin, which again reinforces the shedding of the old and the bringing in of the new.

In December of 1999 I had an experience that radically changed my life. Many will think I had a momentary psychosis, some will claim it was my higher self. A few will take it in the same light that I did when it occurred.

On Dec. 16th, 1999 I woke up to hear an audible voice tell me, “Pack your bags, your moving to Dallas.” Truly, I believed I had finally cracked up. I was the only one home. There was no one else who could have said it. It made me sit right up in bed from a dead sleep. In just the week prior, I’d had my girlfriend move out unexpectedly and with not so much as a Dear John letter. A few days before that, my van threw a rod. A few days after my boss told me I was no longer needed. It was the 6th time the same scenario of events had happened.

I was shaken. Reaching out to a voice of reason, I went quickly to my parent’s house and sat with my Mother for coffee. Relaying the experience to her, completely expecting her practical, motherly advice, I was shocked when she looked blankly at me and told me she thought I should go.

There was no logical reason for me to make this jump. I had $176 in my bank account, so I wasn’t even sure I could pay for the gas it would take me to drive across country. A friend had given me his wife’s old car just a few days earlier, and I had just titled it in my name. I knew only one person in Texas, a woman I’d just met on the internet. Certainly not a very solid plan in action was it?

Despite this, I felt compelled to obey this voice. I called the woman in Texas and asked her what she thought of me coming out. She asked, “When?” and I replied, “Right now.” Taken a bit aback, as I’m sure most would be, she asked for 10 minutes to think about it while she took her dogs out. She called back and said, “Yes, come on.” I did.

Within 6 months, my failing life had completely turned around. I had a great career in play, making more income than I ever had before. I was married, expecting a child and building a new home. One bold move on the chessboard of life had turned my entire experience around. I was certain this voice was the voice of God. Who else could have so magically and instantly changed my life in one single move, with one single statement?

Fast forward to just a two year ago. My life had again taken many turns. Divorce dealt its hand and I whipped back and forth across country to lick my wounds and refocus. My business had transformed and I began focusing on this whole obsession with synchronicity that has driven me for the last 30 years as an actual platform for writing, speaking and coaching. I had an opportunity to work with an agent who claimed I could take my podcast radio show to one of the big satellite networks. He filled my head with visions of speaking on cruise lines and getting a book deal with an advance. I went into debt to pay his $25k fee for 6 months only to find my self in the same position only $25k further in debt. What did I get for this effort? Focus. Wisdom. Most importantly, I got a phrase, “What’s the use?”
You see, I’ve pondered the big questions we all ask ourselves at one point or another most of my life. I’ve searched every “ism” out there looking for the nuggets of gold, that truth that is absolute. I wanted to know the answers to the big questions like, “Why are we here?”

If you remember 1999, there was an underlying apprehension. Many people said the computers would all crash. Some foretold apocalyptic events. It was the end of the century and many thought, the end of the world. Most people have heard the rumors of the end times coming in 2012 with most cultures pointing to dramatic events unfolding. I would be lying if I said I haven’t pondered the possibility that it may be true. We’ve seen tsunamis, wars and many other major upheavals. And now, I find myself asking this $25k question. What’s the use?

You see we can easily believe that we shouldn’t plan for a future that isn’t going to happen. We can base our plans on possible events. But how often do we actually plan for the worst then act surprised when it comes true? How many times do we drag our insecurities that developed in our past, right into our present moment and even into our future?

Synchronicity happens in the now. It comes about when we are fully engaged in the moment.

In my studies of many doctrines, there has always been a predominant theme to the new aspirant. This requirement is the need to purify yourself prior to the pursuit of spiritual matters.

It is easy to talk yourself out of doing this, with time constraints being what they are, life moving at a fast clip, not to mention the shrugging of of many of the formalities of the ancient doctrines in favor of the “new” and I use the term lightly, age way of thinking.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness. Have you ever heard that? The fourteenth edition of ‘Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,’ attributes it as an old Hebrew proverb used in the late 2nd century by Rabbi Phinehas ben-Yair. So often we hear these proverbs and never stop to consider their meaning.

Why is it that we are instructed to purify ourselves? Certainly on the physical level this encourages better health, but what does it do for us mentally, emotionally and spiritually?

When we have an impure mind, cluttered with ominous news stories, the provocation of sex, money and power from the multitude of advertising and television programming broadcasts or simply the looming pressures and demands of the fast paced life of the 21st century, how can we stay centered and focused on a higher level of integrity and a greater degree of fulfillment? Psychologists have demonstrably shown that the human mind suffers from a problem called attention inertia. We have difficulty shifting gears when we attempt to focus or multitask. The area of the frontal lobes of the brain, called the dorso-ventral prefrontal cortex, are responsible for performing these tasks. In an age when “multi-tasking” is the order of the day, the idea of occupying our minds with one thought at a time may seem extravagant but is well worth considering. Our ability to give undivided attention to the positive aspects of our lives can certainly contribute to a greater sense of well being, a deepening of the meaningful relationships we have and an overall more effective strategy towards success in all aspects of our lives. I am often reminded of the cliché where we have an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other when I consider the division of thought. It is this division of thinking that often leads us to make poor choices.

If cluttered thinking isn’t enough of a problem, let’s take a look at how the same tactic confounds our emotional well-being. It is very common to hear talk of emotional baggage. This is the equivalent of not taking out the garbage on an emotional level. While the detrimental effects of this should be clearly obvious, the trend of dragging our emotional past into our decision-making and our relationships should not be underestimated. How often do we begin new relationships on the wrong foot by bringing along the old fears, pain and despair we never had the good sense to let go of? When we fail to purify our emotions we punish ourselves and others to repeat the same old patterns of failure that have already robbed us of the fruits of past relationships. We limit our choices and opportunities to those that don’t trip our radar of impending doom. This creates a cage around us emotionally that prevents us from fully engaging in the emotional richness that life has to offer.

Spiritually, we all live in a constant struggle between light and dark as a result of living in a dualistic reality. This filters down into our thoughts, emotions and actions and can be thought of as the root of all we experience. In most doctrines we are told to purify ourselves before we approach divinity. This opens the lines of communication between ourselves and God or the Universe and prevents us from getting communications from the wrong sources. When we indulge in negative activities we muddy the waters and open ourselves to more negative influences. By doing so, we often find ourselves compromising our values and taking actions that do not honor our spirits. In many doctrines we are urged to test spiritual communications by applying dogmatic yardsticks or guideposts. Sadly, this is something I feel is often overlooked in modern times. We don’t find it unreasonable to check references in our hiring, dating or purchasing decisions, so it isn’t a huge leap to do so when we consider the sources of our spiritual nourishment.

Implementing purification techniques on all levels of awareness need not be difficult or complicated. Borrowing from several doctrines, I’ll give you some practical ways to do so:

Soak in a warm bath with sea salt and/or herbs suited for purification

Burn frankincense, myrrh or other incenses considered to be sacred

Immerse yourself in a smoke bath of herbs considered sacred such as sage, sweet grass and copal (This process is called smudging in native American cultures.)

Performing “mitzvot” or any act of human kindness

Deep stomach breathing can be extremely purifying and assist in purging negative thoughts and emotions.

Confession of your transgressions. Certainly the Christian faith has largely esteemed the value and necessity of confessing your “sins” and asking forgiveness. In Islam, it is said, “Indeed Allah loves those who continually seek repentance and those who purify themselves.” [Surah al-Baqarah (2):222]

Forgiving others would seem to benefit the “forgiven” however it is truly empowering because it releases the anger and sadness you are holding inside of yourself.

Visualize yourself surrounded by white light

Commit to positive thinking

Choose the method or methods you feel aligned with and be sure to do them. I feel confident you’ll notice positive effects in your life.