I was driving this morning to an appointment, listening to an interview on National Public Radio of a horror story…with a good ending, and a couple of interesting synchros to boot.

It’s the story about Kirk Noble Bloodsworth, 53, the first American sentenced to death row, who was exonerated by DNA evidence. Bloodsworth spent eight years in prison, two of them on death row after falsely being convicted of sexual assault, rape and premeditated first-degree murder of a nine-year-old girl in 1985. At the time of his arrest, Bloodsworth, a former Marine with an honorable discharge, had never been arrested.

Even though five eyewitnesses had placed him with the victim, he continued to maintain his innocence throughout his trial and subsequent incarceration. In 1992, while in jail, Bloodsworth read an account of how DNA fingerprinting had led to the conviction of Colin Pitchfork in the killings of Dawn Ashworth and Lynda Mann. Hoping to prove his innocence, he pushed to have the evidence against him tested by the then-novel method.

Initially, it was thought that DNA evidence- traces of semen in the victim’s underwear – had been destroyed. However, Bloodsworth kept pursuing the issue and finally the evidence was located in a paper bag in the judge’s chambers. Testing proved that the semen didn’t match Bloodsworth’s DNA. He was released from prison in 1993.

Bloodsworth was on the radio today in the aftermath of the State of Maryland’s decision to abolish the death penalty, the eighth state to do so. Bloodsworth’s case was cited as a major impetus for abolishing the law.

When asked in the NPR interviewer about his thoughts on the justice system, Bloodsworth said that initially he was confident he would be found not guilty because he didn’t do it. He gave his alibi, but five witnesses proceeded to misidentify him as the perpetrator. He also said it was his pursuit of justice that eventually set him free, not the workings of the justice system.

He told a story of his attorney coming to visit him in jail while he was on trial. They sat in chairs facing each other with a glass partition between them. Behind the lawyer was a brick wall. Bloodsworth recalls the lawyer saying: “You’re in a heap of trouble Kirk, but I’ll do all I can to help you.”

The lawyer finished the conversation repeating, “I’ll do all I can to help you.” He then placed his hand on the glass in front of Kirk, in lieu of a handshake. “Then he stood up, turned, and walked right into the brick wall,” Bloodsworth recalls.

That turned out to be a fitting symbol, a synchronicity for the conviction that was to follow. Another synchro is his name. DNA from his blood proved he was innocent and freed him. Bloodsworth, indeed. A book (pictured above) called BLOODSWORTH was written about his case.

Today, Bloodsworth is a program officer for the Justice Project, and he has been an ardent supporter of the Innocence Protection Act (IPA) since its introduction in Congress in February 2000. The IPA establishes the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program, a program that will help states defray the costs of post-conviction DNA testing.

Though released from prison, Bloodsworth was not formally exonerated. In 2003, nearly a decade after his release, prison DNA evidence added to state and federal databases identified the real killer, Kimberly Shay Ruffner. A month after the 1984 murder, Ruffner had been sentenced to 45 years for an unrelated burglary, attempted rape and assault with intent to murder, and ironically had been incarcerated in a cell one floor below Bloodsworth’s own cell. In 2004 Ruffner pled guilty to the 1984 murder.

Traveling is a great time to experience synchronicities.

When you venture forth on a journey, a trek that takes you out of your normal routines and concerns, your consciousness has greater freedom to explore. Your comfort zones are gone, your kitchen, your bed and your pillow are memories. You’re in new, unfamiliar territory and must confront who you are.

Jane Clifford recently returned from a remote valley in Shropshire, Wales, where she has visited for 20 years. Her friend’s cottage is just below Offas dyke path, a Bronze Age construction that meanders for 177 miles. While driving there, still half an hour away, a radio program came on about Offas dyke and its significance. It’s considered an incredible feat of engineering from pre-8^th century Britain. The path atop the dyke was called one the ten best wall walks in the world, ranking up there with the Great Wall of China.

When Jane travels, it seems that mysterious things happen and synchronicity flourishes. Her recent trip was no different. She had dinner one night with a family she had visited many times. The man of the house is a self-made multimillionaire, and she has always found him kind, thoughtful and generous. We’ll call him Clifford, since Jane prefers not to use his real name.

“He has had healing with me and a clairvoyant reading, which accurately predicted that he would marry and have two children, which he now has.” Jane notes that she predicted the wife would not be the woman he was dating at the time, and she was right.

“He turned up with a bottle of wine and sat down next to me. Whilst he was actually greeting me, I was wondering if he had remembered the predictions. He leaned toward me, his face close to mine, and asked how I was. To my astonishment, his features shape-shifted and staring at me was the devil, red eyes and horns. The entity bared its teeth, as if guarding some hidden knowledge and denying access, even though I wasn’t seeking such access.

“There were no drugs or alcohol involved. This entity held my gaze quite steadily. I was shocked, taken by surprise, but not afraid. It was shocking to me because I thought the man was a regular nice guy. However, maybe to make so much money so fast, one’s shadow has to be ruthless. Yet, when chatting about business I have known him to be quite kind, so I had not seen this ruthlessness. I remain puzzled by the experience.”

Jane said she wasn’t afraid because she realized it was just a movie, an altered reality, an expression of the man’s shadow. “It was also like a kind of test to see if I would steadily hold the light and not give way to fear. The experience was very strange indeed and I shall keep my psychic protection up whenever I meet him again.”

The synchronicity here is that twice earlier in her life she had demonic-type encounters with two other men, both named ‘Clifford.’ Not only was that a meaningful coincidence for her, but that same name pops up regularly on her cell phone screen and she can’t remove it. “It has been stuck there for years and I never call him and I can’t seem to get the name off the screen. Neither can my technologically savvy children.”

Jane wrote back later and said that after writing the e-mail about ‘Clifford,’ she tried to remove the name again from her phone…and this time, to her amazement, it disappeared. Maybe she just needed to release the energy by writing about it.

A mangled vehicle outside of Moore, Ok

Whenever there is a major catastrophic event that catches our collective attention, synchronicity seems to follow. We’ve reported on such global synchros in the past, the most recent was the Boston bombing in which most victims literally had their legs cut out from underneath them. Among them were brothers and newly weds. Legs, of course, are what power the marathon runners.

So what about this new disaster, which at this writing is still in its early stages. We don’t know yet what the death and injury total will be or the extent of property damage.  But the Moore, Oklahoma storm is already being called the biggest tornado to ever hit the United States.

At this point, the most obvious synchronicity is a political one…an ironic trickster synchro. That’s because both Oklahoma senators – Jim Inhofe and Tom Colburn – are fiscal hawks who have repeatedly railed against federal spending for disasters…in other areas of the country.

Both backed a plan to slash disaster relief to victims of Hurricane Sandy. In a December press release, Colburn complained that the Sandy Relief bill contained “wasteful spending,” and identified a series of items he objected to, including “$12.9 billion for future disaster mitigation activities and studies.”

In 2011, both senators opposed legislation that would have granted necessary funding for FEMA when the agency was set to run out of money. Sending the funds to FEMA would have been “unconscionable,” Coburn said at the time.

Now they are both in an awkward position – as contorted as the vehicle above. But that hasn’t deterred them in the past when both rallied for federal funds for Oklahoma. The Huffington Post notes that in January of 2007, Coburn urged federal officials to speed disaster relief aid after the state faced a major ice storm.

A year later, in 2008, Inhofe praised emergency funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development would be given to 24 Oklahoma counties. “The impact of severe weather has been truly devastating to many Oklahoma communities across the state. I am pleased that the people whose lives have been affected by disastrous weather are getting much-needed federal assistance,” he said.

So watch these senators call for immediate federal aid to Oklahoma tornado victims – which they deserve – but then add that the aid should be paid for by slashes in the federal budget in other areas. Such as…aid to disaster victims in other parts of the country? And watch how their fellow fiscal hawk Republicans, who voted against aid for Hurricane Sandy victims, react now. Will they hold firm against federal aid when two of the own party call for help?

The trickster strikes again.

The massive two-mile wide tornado that tore through Moore, Oklahoma is being called, at the very least, an EF4, with winds between 166 and 200 mph. It devastated  entire neighborhoods, homes, and at least one elementary school, where 75 people had taken refuge in a hallway, most of them third graders.

The geography in the videos resembles a war zone of twisted metal and rubble.

This storm is being compared to the May 3, 1999 tornado that also hit this area and was determined to be the most intense tornado on record. Here and here for other stories on this tragedy.

Here is a comparison between the two tornados, compiled by the National Weather Service.

It’s difficult to imagine this kind of devastation, much less to be in the midst of it.