A grumpy old curmudgeon with the kindest of hearts
 
    I have been fascinated by archaeology since I was a child, visiting the Roman Fort at Housesteads near my home, and learning about Howard Carter’s discovery of the tomb of King Tutankhamen.
    Archaeology is a wonderful metaphor for a lot of the work that I do: looking below the surface; synthesizing a whole from fragments and parts.
    Perhaps it is this affinity that made me a fan of the television reality program Time Team, where a crew of archaeologists would embark on a project with ‘just three days’ to answer the question of the moment.
    Time Team was first imagined by Professor Michael Antony Aston, and it went on the air on the BBC4 network in 1994. Time Team went on to change the relationship that the British public had with their ruins and wasteland and the metal detectorists who roamed them.
    Although I have lived away from the UK for more than four decades, I remain culturally connected with Britain, and I have been a fan of Time Team’s 19 seasons ever since I discovered it.
    When I heard that Professor Aston had made his transition out of physical life this week, I was deeply saddened, and rather taken aback at the immediacy of my tears as they flowed.
    The depth of my response made me stop and reflect. Why would I weep for a stranger? To what is my heart reacting?
    I did not know Professor Aston; I was never in a room with him. He had no knowledge of my existence, I never even wrote a fan letter. Yet I felt and feel an emotional intimacy and when I learnt that I face life without his presence, I was instantly immersed in a sense of great loss.
    As happens so often when I hear of a death, what I process is my own loss. The question arises: “what about me?” I want my life to stay the same. I want my world to include this person.
    As a Numerologist I have written often about the societal shift that is connected to the end of the last millennium and the beginning of this. The ever-present Two in modern dates underlines the age of connectivity and relationship into which we have been immersed.
    What I had not realized was the ‘advance work’ that was done by entities who entered the human plane during the last eight or nine decades. The unifying force of the Nine inevitably informed the preparations for the 2000s.
    The revolution which is broadcasting in all its forms needed the infrastructure to be in place before the Ones of the last thousand years disappeared from date-related frequencies.
    Our interconnected world required scouting parties and pioneers to ease us into the new paradigm, and the generation now leaving were the leaders in that work.
    Mick Aston is a wonderful illustration of how Two energy has bridged time and space and generations, and opened the way for a new way of being.
    His Numerological birth-chart suggests he was a sensitive boy and empathetic man. I have no way of know whether this was true, although the phrase “grumpy old curmudgeon with the kindest of hearts” uttered by Sir Tony Robinson, his long time Time Team co-host, would seem to fit the generalities of it.
    As far as I can tell, Mick’s life was intended to promote individual development – in himself and in others. He initiated new ideas and original projects. The Number One vibrates strongly, both in his birth-date and in his personality. He was one of a kind.
    He was a teacher throughout his life, and I find I am learning more as I process his death. His work connected us to the past. He demonstrated the importance of looking below the surface, and he warned – often – against jumping to easy conclusions or spinning theories without evidence. These are all lessons that serve well, in my industry and in others.
    Thank you, Michael Antony Aston for touching my life. I will miss your presence.