How I Met My Publisher, Etc.

One day several years ago I received a note from a stranger, asking if he might learn about my work with sound and healing. He arrived for the session with an armload of papers for me, on the subject of sound, which had, among them, a few articles from the Princeton Energy Anomalies Research group, PEAR. As I have a son who teaches at Princeton, I brought those papers along the next time I visited. I contacted the PEAR research group when I was there, met the folks, and made a strong connection with Brenda Dunne, who shared the running of the organization. We looked alike, thought alike, and became good friends, eventually working together within the publishing arm, ICRL (Institute for Consciousness Research), which brought out two of my books. We named ourselves the Eastern Witch and the Western Witch, as I lived in California when we met, and magic always seemed to happen around us.

But the coincidences do not stop there, as Brenda died this year before my third book came out, and her son Jeff Dunne took over the press and ICRL. He recently offered a talk on Zoom to members that featured a marvelous speaker from India, Rahul Gotswami, who talked about the indigenous mind and the importance of embracing indigenous ways of thinking and living, something I wholeheartedly embrace.

I have, in the past, lived in India, so I asked him where he lived and taught–and it was the same place I had lived and my husband taught at! A campus in the Ganges Plain most people have never heard of (IIT Kanpur). Adding one more synchronicity to that, I met here in Vermont a woman, Lakshmi, who had grown up on the IIT campus, right next door to us! She was my 5-year-old daughter’s best friend! (They finally met again here, mature and beautiful women, just a few weeks ago, and it was a joyous reunion!)

Her mother came to visit shortly after that. We recognized each other immediately even though it had been 60 years since we’d last seen each other, and many happy tears were shed. I would not be surprised if someone in the Coincidence Project may also be part of this story!

One more thing: The books of mine published by ICRL may be of interest to this group:

In the Beginning: Creation Myths from Around the World

Worldshift Happens: Facing Down the Fear, Waking Up the Mind

Freeflow Stories: Musings on the Passing Scene