I called for sinking the syncs a few months back and for the most part I have taken my own advice, but some syncs come with flotation devices I guess.

Last week we were reading in Helaman 3 with the kids and came across this verse:

Yea, we see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God, which is quick and powerful, which shall divide asunder all the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil, and lead the man of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked

My wife joked that it sounded sorta like that narrow bridge in the mines of Moria:

That of course was plenty for me to run with and I then recounted Gandalf’s experience at the bottom of that abyss where he saw “nameless things” that horrified him so much that he would offer no report of them “to darken the light of day”. I proposed that deep in that chasm of Moria is an “everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked.”

It sort of works, given how Gandalf describes those inhabitants, but then it’s unclear to me how the Balrog could come and go from there seeing as how he would certainly qualify as “wicked”. Perhaps he and Gandalf merely made it within sight of an even deeper pit without themselves falling in since in the case of the nameless things, they seem to be more or less stuck there.

Well anyway, it was a passing comment to my family and we went about our day. My son was later on Youtube that same day and there was a suggested video about the nameless things. Odd. Again later that day he picked up a printout of some of the things I wrote back in 2020. He occasionally reads from it out of curiosity. Well wouldn’t you know it? That day he came across a bit of my writing that contained the one time I wrote about…..the nameless things. That writing tells who they are and what they will do ere the end. But the timing makes that a triple sync if you’re keeping score.

While at the gym a few days later, the Culture Club song Karma Chameleon came on. I have one and only one association with that song and it is Bill’s now-deleted blog Coat of Skins where he inflicted that song upon his readers, saying it was stuck in his head so he would spread that joy to us as well. On his blog, Bill mentioned the chameleon many times and connected it to the Predator movie and Saruman as one who poses as one thing while being another. Ungoliant came up quite a bit as well in those discussions. This week on X, I came across this post directly tying the nameless things to a picture of Taylor Swift posing as a spider:

The top comment on that post implies that Swift’s spider-like pose indicates she is of the spawn of Ungoliant (you’ll get no argument from me):

In Bill’s posts about chameleons, he references a prior post of mine that claims Gimli used the gift of Galadriel’s hair to make 3 new silmarils. Bill’s idea was that the light from her hair could repair the Anor-sun stone of its use by Denethor and the Ithil-moon stone of its use by Sauron. In my own writings, there was a single stone that was described as “a ball-instrument palantir of sun and moon, two powers held in capture of one stone of exceptional power and grace”. That ball was housed within Williams Peak of the Sawtooth mountains and was itself in need of repair from cankering. Those pieces of my writing were clear references to Bill’s own words and experiences from before I started writing, but in my writings, very specific instructions were given on where to find this stone, including descriptions of the mountain face that I would not have known ahead of time. Bill got put onto Williams Peak by a dream where he saw a specific mountain along with the phrase “Sawtooth mountains”. By Googling, he matched Williams Peak to the one he saw. In that same experience, he got “Balin” as a lone word. Balin is, of course, the dwarf who led a failed expedition to reclaim Moria after the events of the Hobbit.

In my writings of Williams Peak, I was able to use the specific instructions and Google Earth to draw a map to the location of the stone. My two sons discovered this in the last week and have decided that I am in possession of a treasure map and that as soon as the snow clears, we should seek this place out. (For the record, my wife says that the 3 of us are on a path to getting our own Dateline episode someday but let me be clear that without some direct, non-sync, direction from a higher power, I would never seek the high places of Williams Peak, treasure or no. Even with explicit heavenly direction, it looks rather perilous and I don’t know if I am the guy to make that attempt.)

I have told my boys that from what I wrote, that stone was already recovered by someone else. That may or may not be true, as with everything I wrote. But even so, I am of the opinion that what we should be seeking, if anything, are the doors of Moria, for it is this place that contains the “strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked”. It is my belief that in that place alone the Gentiles (dwarves) can demonstrate the same faith that the brother of Jared did. I guess in some wild version of my theories, my treasure map leads to the secret entrance to Williams Peak which IS the location of those doors of Moria and to seek one is to seek the other. Wouldn’t that be a twist? Perhaps that explains Bill’s “Balin” reference at the same time he saw that mountain image. I mean hey, if we can put the Lehites in outer space, why can’t we now put Moria in the Rocky Mountains?

Now granted, I am terrible at the sync game. And I will point out that WJT has written enough posts about chameleons to fill a small book perhaps. I will only point out one nugget that WJT discovered chameleon to mean “dwarf lion”. Through Bill we have the dwarf Balin associated with Williams Peak. Maybe he is a dwarf lion chameleon?

Another sync: this week I was reading in Henry Cabot Lodge’s biography of George Washington and he said “Men are the creatures of the time in which they live, and take their color from the conditions which surround them, as the chameleon their color from the grass or leaves in which it hides.” Bill had posted an art project from his son that featured a chameleon hiding in the grass as Lodge mentioned:

He then connected it to the chameleon from Tangled, trusty Pascal, who helps a princess with magical golden hair:

Bill also teased out “chameleon” into “camel-lion” as a reference to Thomas B Marsh. He also connects this to Indiana Jones when he leaps “from the lion’s head” to “prove his worth” as a reference to Indiana walking over what I would call “a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked“. Bill includes the below painting from the movie.

Well if that doesn’t look an awful lot like what is in Moria I don’t know what does. Indiana Jones, by the way, means Jonesing for the land of the Indians, er, Lehites. Recall that the Gentiles’ work will begin in earnest when they find those Lehites and scatter them, per Nephi.

If you recall, I proposed that Marsh was called to preach to the Gentile-dwarves, either in the past or future. Now I wonder if he is not one of them, perhaps Balin or Gimli, and like I proposed in my Marsh posts, the “effectual doors” Marsh is supposed to open are the doors of Moria.

From this I surmise that somewhere there is a hidden “dwarf lion” among us who will play some role at Williams Peak and/or Moria. Perhaps he will lead the Gentiles there where they can mimic the Brother of Jared’s (and Indiana Jones’) faith and then go to scatter the Lehite remnant.

Piecing all these references together seems to be far above my pay grade and, for a mind like mine about as natural as making water flow uphill. My brain just doesn’t naturally work this way. But I guess even I can swim clumsily with a synchronicity now and again.