More surprises, more twists and turns.

I had originally planned to go to the Tri-State MUFON meeting - until one of the other MUFON members told me that it probably wouldn't be worthwhile. She told me that attendance would be pretty light, and built a good case for staying home. So I did. I made the right decision.

This was an interesting weekend - capped by my niece's hockey team, the Junior Badgers winning the championship. Gwyn's sister and brother-in-law were here with our star player, Nicole. The tournament was local, and so Gwyn and I went to the final game this evening. I have never really been into sports - even/especially hockey. However the game was interesting, neat to watch. And these kids are good.

This tournament is part of a hockey program that was by invite, a special program for really good players - and results in a lot of good games, a lot of great learning, and a lot of really tired kids.

Yesterday (Saturday), I ended up getting up late - I needed sleep since, as usual, I have been burning the candle at both ends. Gwyn went to Nicole's early game (which they won handily) and by the time Gwyn got home, I was finally up. My intention was to go into to work to catch up on some stuff that I didn't get to during the late week. More on that later.

On Thursday and Friday, I was in a workshop, studying the Agile software development methodology. This was the first time I have really looked at this methodology, and I can really see why there are religious wars between structured and agile software development. I have seen debates between proponents of each, and there seems to be alot of purists on either side.

Basically, Agile advocates say that is best to throw out the bureaucracy. What counts is working software. Any documents produced along with the working code are actually non-value-added. There are other items in what is called the Agile Manifesto, but this is, in my view, the core of the philosophy.

There are a few things that we could probably adopt in our workplace, however the overall philosophy doesn't fit with our work. In high-reliability medical devices, and a heavilly regulated industry, the argument that documentation isn't a value-added result is probably not accurate. However, the ideas in Agile on how to structure a project, how to deliver product, etc. can help alot in many situations -in my company, for any programming in my business, and in just about any other circumstance.

While I was sitting there in that workshop, the person next to me was grousing about the fact that he had heard all of this before. In sort, there was nothing new there. In a way, he might have had a point. For better or for worse, it did seem to examine the same thing in new ways. Whether that's useful, or if it's redundant, or both - that's a question for each individual. Still, I was surprised at how it seemed useful - and how it did not. More twists and turns...

Friday afternoon, when I got back to my desk after the workshop, I found a note that Wenjie, my partner on the original project I had been working on in my new group, found an error in a bug fix I thought I had finished earlier in the week. Best laid plans of mice and men... I decided that I would need to come in on Saturday to finish up this work. Unfortunately, the whole network was down for maintenance on Saturday. So, the changes never got done - something to greet me on Monday. More twists and turns....

Then, in the hypnotherapy area, I have suddenly gotten several new client bookings. It was a little gift from the Universe - something I hadn't expected right then. One of them was the friend of the hypnotherapy client I had been originally working with, something I wrote about earlier. Then another couple of bookings - unanticipated positive events, occuring in an unexpected way.

All of that was another time and place, though, as I sat on the bleechers and watched my niece's team scoring another goal. It was a weekend of unpredictable events - work undone and unexpected success - twists and turns, and finally of goals and championships.

Sometimes, we find success in ways very different from what we expect. And to day was one of those days - big time...

The project I started working on, today, was supposed to actually be a return to what I had been intending to work on for several months. Today was the day when I was really gonna buckle down and get to it. Well,the Universe had other ideas, I think. I ended up getting calls from people I hadn't even known existed - all wanting help with the old stuff, the project I'm supposed to be weaning off of.

After a short phone conversation, I ended up getting the first person's issue resolved quite quickly. Again, it was in a way he never anticipated. Then the second call - a quick discussion and I was able to resolve that person's issue, too. Finally, the two of us on the team were able to resolve a longer-standing issue, one that had been on my plate for quite a few days - growing mold, I think...:-) I hadn't expected to get to it today, but it turned out that we needed to adress it pronto. And looking at it now was the right thing to do - circumstances were such that that was the key to solving the problem. None of these had I anticipated working on today, and walking into work this morning, I would have never imagined finding the solution to so many issues.

Then, this evening, I ended up having quite a surprise. While I can't say anything about the particulars, I will say that a hypnosis client I was supposed to be working with didn't show up. Instead he gave his session time to a friend who needed work as well. I had earlier talked with both of them, and was working with both. Thus, it turned out to be just fine. In fact, this switch turned out to be a nearly perfect solution, indirectly helping to solve problems in the lives of several people. And at least from my perspective, the success was all pretty much by accident. Some times great results come when we least expect it, synchronicity in action.

I remember after the last Minnesota MUFON meeting, several of us were sitting in a restaurant, batting the breeze and muching on the usual pizza dinner. I got to talking with another of the MUFON regulars who made a fascinating observation. I was doing a slight bit of kvetching about being stuck between careers, to which he replied that doors open when we least expect them to do so. He was in somewhat similar circumstances and we both speculated that at some point, each ofus would probably find the 'gridlock' in our lives resolved in an unexpected ly positive way. In the several days since then, I have noticed that being the case. Now, as I see several new clients, build up my website and activate my on-line session-booking feature, I find that unexpected opportunities are becoming more frequent.

Perhaps, it is best to simply keep one's eyes open and, in the words of James Redfield, 'trust synchronicity'. Then, on some days, it can be possible to be delightfully surprised by success.

Last night I sent out this month's copy of News from the Bridge. I was quite surprised by the immediacy with which I got comments back. The strongest commentary was about some introductory notes I added at the last minute - comments about Whitley Strieber's article "A new world if we can take it."

I have crossed verbal sabers before with the person who sent me the most powerful reply. He tends to be quite a believer in the evil-alien viewpoint (and for all I know, he might be right). However, unless he has come up with some scientific/evidential breakthrough that the UFO community has not yet heard of, I really doubt that he can make any truth claim with much certainty. The only thing I can say for certain is that I don't know the truth about the UFO/CE4 phenomenon. And I suspect that neither does he....

In News from the Bridge, I cited Whitley's claim that the air forces of the world have had standing shoot-em-down orders for many years. I agree with Whitley that this is unfortunate. We are assuming hostility on the part of whoever the visitors may be - while in fact, we don't really know what their agenda truly is (in spite of what my friend claims). The only effect this could possibly have is to limit the interaction between humans and visitors to one of covertness - the realm of alien abduction and world of coverup/conspiracy theorists.

Official hostility to the visitors does nothing to keep our world secure, as in any military confrontation, our technology would be vastly inferior to theirs. I tend to subscribe to the idea that if they were out to destroy us, we would already be destroyed. Clearly (at least to me), the visitor agenda, whatever it is, is not a purely military one.

In The Cosmic Bridge, I offer speculation on what such an agenda might be. I include the Deardorff and the Nature Preserve models of alien contact. Both theories describe how the visitors may be covertly interacting with humanity. Ultimately, the hypothesis I propose is something I call the Indigo Hypothesis - that the visitors are somehow influencing the generational lines of experiencer families. In recent generations, this appears to be resulting in "advanced" children, what some refer to as the Indigo Children.

I speculate that the Indigo phenomenon might be the end-product of - perhaps even the purpose for - the abduction and genetics/hybridization process described in much of the UFO abduction literature. Or it may not; I theorize that it is, but I could be wrong. I have observed that in families of abductees, the psychic emergence phenomenon seems to pass from generation to generation. Unlike David Jacobs, I have noted that it seems to run down the maternal family line, but I don't have hard data to (dis)prove this hypothesis.

All I can say to my friend is that he is probably partially right. The aliens may be part evil, and they may also be part good. I suspect that they have a very different view of reality than we do, much as you have a different reality paradigm from your dog (to the dog, is the vet good or evil?). Similarly, to the visitors, good vs evil may have a very different meaning, and what we might consider such could be simply standard operating procedure for them.

Getting back to my friend's comments on Whitley Strieber's article, I might take more stock in what my friend said if he could actually point to references that proved Whitley wrong. My friend only said that what Whitley wrote was BS. He further stated that Whitley does not offer evidence to back his claim. Well actually, neither did my friend. In fact, there have been a significant number of articles out there describing such shoot-down orders. A quick Google search or a visit to www.exopolitics.org will confirm that in an instant.

Whatever human government actions may be with respect to the visitors, I suspect that they will, ultimately, be irrelevant. Much like ants trying to defend their ant hill, our forces may heroically defend our nation ( or eventually, our world), but the visitors would probably brush past them without batting an eyelash - or, well, whatever an alien visitor might bat.

In addition, arguing as we are is also pretty much irrelevant as well. The visitors will do what they do, and the best we can do in response is to try and understand more clearly just what that is. To be useful, actions of the UFO/CE4 research community must result in a solid evidential understanding of the visitors' nature and agenda. Without substantial progress in this area, anything one says about any given hypothesis, either in agreement or disagreement, is really nothing more than whistling in the dark, and some interesting and entertaining correspondence.

This week, things sorta got back to normal - both fortunately and unfortunately.

On one side of the coin, I have gotten some interesting new hypnotherapy cases. That's the 'fortunately' part. The work has been both challenging and heartwarming. It brings with it some more valuable experiences and brings wonderful new people into my world. It gets my name out there with more great healing work. Oh yes, and it's always good to bring in customers - and money - when running a business.

Also back to normal is the regular job. That's the 'unfortunately' part. I mentioned this in an earlier post and I don't want to spend a lot of time grousing about my day job here (going back only a few posts will see that I do enough of that anyhow). But it just goes to emphasize the need to keep a balance between the (day) job, other endeavors - in this case a business that I am ever in the process of expanding, family, keeping rested and exercised, having a social life, and any other activities. Just the job and the business all add up to well over 60-plus hours per week, and those are just the hours I'm counting. Having a few more speed bumps in the day job arena tends to make things more adventurous each day.

So, while I was totally focused on the regular job as an engineer for several months, I have now pulled that focus back and started to focus on the next step in building my business. In the near future, that will probably include something like adding on-line session booking/scheduling to my website, so clients can schedule sessions with me on-line. I also want to look into how I can accept credit/debit cards, along with other aspects of becoming a real business.

All of this is in preparation for the day when I grow my business beyond the current scope of being a side endeavor in addition to my regular job. Looking ahead, this looks more promising, and I have ever greater hope that I can advance down the path toward my life as a healer, researcher, writer, teacher and speaker.

Still, as I look down the road, I also see that same dynamic balance (I often call it gridlock) between life as an engineer and life as a hypnotherapist and entrepreneur. It seems that whenever I get to far in one direction or the other, something happens - some speed bump pushes me back onto that knife edge perch between the two. For better or for worse, the status quo is restored. It tells me that the road has many twists and turns yet to come, and for me, probably lots more bumps along the way.

So once again, I find that in just about every arena in life, the more things change the more they stay the same.