On September 8, 2001, I traveled from Washington DC to NYC by train.
In 2001, I was a Software Engineer and Architect for Advent Software. The product I worked on was called Geneva, a portfolio accounting system. We hosted two user conferences each year: one typically at HQ in SF, and one on the east coast.
The week prior to 9/8/2001 was our east coast conference. Oddly, I can hardly remember being in DC.
On the 8th, as my train traveled north through New Jersey, I had an experience that really caught my attention. I was sitting on the right side of the train next to the window. The train had been traveling above ground and began descending. As a result, the entire skyline of NYC moved out of view except two buildings tall enough to still see: the twin towers.
I grew up in Danbury, CT, about 60 or so miles from NYC. All of our TV was NYC stations. Channel 11 used the twin towers as their logo. Even though I didn’t visit Manhattan that much as a kid, I grew up seeing it on TV. I had family in the Bronx, and when I was young, we visited that part of NYC intermittently.
Back to 9/8: My train ride terminated at Penn Station on 31st Street. My DC trip was over. My plan was to spend one more night in NYC, then fly back to San Diego on the 9th. [This plan was not interrupted.]
I exited Penn station dragging my rollerboard behind me. I traveled north on I’m guess 8th Avenue to check into my hotel. It was at that time that something odd occurred. As I walked, I could feel something pulling back on me, akin to invisible hands grabbing my shoulders. I distinctly felt like someone wanted me to stop walking and turn around.
At this point in my life, I was already having psychic, metaphysical, clairvoyant, and prescient experiences. I knew it wasn’t a person calling to me. I knew it was something else. So I stopped walking, I turned around, and I uttered—out loud—“What!”
When I turned around, there stood the twin towers rising above the far end of 8th Avenue.
I knew it was the towers asking for my attention. So I gave them that. I stood there for a bit and enjoyed the view, wondering what the fuss was all about. I questioned, but received no answer.
Three days later, I understood. I came to realize that they were saying to me this: “Have a good look, because you’ll never see us again.”
I still think, even now, it was, in fact, the buildings themselves talking to me that day. Not the steel and concrete, but the Higher Self or the Inner Being of them. I do think consciousness exists within things we deem inert or non-living.
One day, maybe three years earlier, my roommate’s cat telepathically told me she was going to die soon. She wasn’t even sick, so I completely dismissed the thought. Telepathy was fairly new to me then (at least the receiving side of it). I dismissed the thought well enough to not remember it…until the day when we were sitting at the veterinary clinic. My roommate said to me, “Bonnie told me she was going to die a couple of weeks ago,” and that’s when I remembered that she had told me too.
When you have life experiences as profound as these, you can’t just ignore them. These weren’t the start of the new life that was still years in the future from 2001, but they were significant.
Did you know that the World Trade Center was actually designed and constructed to withstand planes crashing into it?
I never stepped foot into those buildings. I don’t think I’ve even stood at the bottom of them. But I have been inside of a building near by. One of my clients back then had offices maybe a block away and situated in such a way that one tower was hidden behind the other. That is another memory etched in my brain.
Since I’ve been in Austin, more than 13 years now, I have watch high-rise after high-rise ascend. Even where I am now, I am seeing houses being built from the ground up. All of this fascinates me. As fast as they go up, it is still hard to comprehend how something so massive can be destroyed so quickly.
I am pretty sure I don’t know anyone who died in that event…at least not in that lifetime of theirs. I am absolutely convinced I have met one after he returned as a baby boy, who is now an amazing young man.
A Fool's Inclination 