Belize is a great place for property investment, with no capital gains tax to pay on any profits you make, and property prices increasing year on year. If you’re interested in buying a piece of land or a property in this beautiful country, there are some hoops you’ll need to jump through, as well as some regulations and costs that you should be aware of. But, overall, the process is reassuringly simple.

Here are the main aspects of buying real estate in Belize that you’ll want to consider.

What is the cost of property in Belize?

Property prices vary in Belize. You’ll notice that modern apartment developments can cost the same as something similar in the States, whereas buying up plots of land can yield a bargain. Property on the waterfront and in areas that are popular with tourists will usually make for the best investment and are likely to rent out quickly if you decide to go that route.

How can I find a property in Belize?

When you’re looking for property, it’s easy to be swept up in the excitement of a prospective new home or investment. But be sure to check the credentials of your real estate agent. They are probably legit, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, because – like everywhere – there are scammers operating.

The best ways to search for your dream property are:

– Check with reputable real estate agents about properties they currently have available.

– Use online property sites.

– Ask around – word of mouth can be a great way to learn about properties that are on the market.

Although you don’t need to be in Belize to close on a property, it’s recommended that you view it at least once before proceeding with the purchase.

What are the legal considerations of buying property in Belize?

There’s plenty of great news about buying property in Belize, and these are some of the reasons why Belize property is so popular with ex-pats.

For instance:

– As a foreigner, you’ll have the same rights to own property as a native Belizean.

– Purchasing property doesn’t require any complicated additional steps – it’s just as easy as buying property in the States.

– The documentation will all be in English because that’s Belize’s primary language.

– The land tax is only 1-1.5% of the property’s value, a bargain compared to many other countries.

However, you should make sure, before you complete the purchase of any property, that you:

– Budget for the Government Land Transfer Tax of 5% to 8% of the property’s value.

– Check that the person selling the property is the legal owner – otherwise, this can cause big problems down the line.

– Check the regulations on the development of any land you intend to purchase because Belize has very strict environmental laws.

– Pay for a property title check, to make sure there aren’t any legal disputes attached to it. This shouldn’t cost any more than USD$250.

– If you’re purchasing a condo, it will be subject to strata titling principles. This gives each unit a freehold title, which is purchased along with the condo.

– Although it will cost extra dollars, do use an accredited attorney and real estate agent to process your transaction, as they will be able to check all the documentation is legally watertight.

How long does it take to purchase property in Belize?

Once you’ve found your property and have instructed an attorney and real estate agent, the purchasing process shouldn’t take too long. Usually, 30 to 90 days is a good ballpark estimate.

And then – the job is done – welcome to property ownership in Belize!

You may have heard the overly optimistic catchphrase from the Deep South, “The South shall rise again.” There is no doubt about the fact that the South fell with the defeat of the Confederacy in the Civil War. But some of the Confederates did not surrender and were not defeated, and in fact never fell. Instead they redeployed to Brazil.

In the waning days of the Civil War a good number of Confederates sought to relocate overseas. The two countries most favored for relocation were Mexico and Brazil. Brazil actively encouraged Confederate immigration before the end of the war with offers of financial assistance in transportation, land ownership, and settlement to come and establish new homes in a country that needed their expertise.

After the defeat of the South, much of the culture of the Confederacy was swept away during the “Reconstruction.” Those who stayed in the South were forced to assimilate into the USA. Those who fled to Brazil were not forced to assimilate into Brazil and still to this day keep the traditions and culture of the Old South alive.

Some Southerners were fervently opposed to the idea of leaving the South. Among those dissenting was Robert E. Lee. In spite of Robert E. Lee’s protests, there was an exodus from the South near the end of the Civil War and tapering off during the Reconstruction Period.

Several Confederate settlements sprang up in Brazil in the 1860’s. There was Gaston’s colony at Xiririca near Iguape, The Norris colony at Santa Barbara D’Oeste, “Lizzieland” on the Rio Doce at Linhares, the Hastings settlement on the Amazon River at Santarem, and other lesser known Confederate settlements throughout Brazil. The Norris colony became the biggest and most successful of them all.

These new settlers were the cream of the crop from the Old South. Among them were probably the best cotton experts in the world at that time. Their superior skills and knowledge of cotton paid off. The transplanted Confederates were largely responsible for the sudden rise in the production of cotton in Brazil. They brought wealth and prosperity to the regions they settled in.

These settlers did not want to assimilate into the Brazilian culture. Many of the first generation refused to even try to learn the language. They hired teachers from the USA to teach their children. They attempted to change Brazil to suit them, and were partially successful in that effort. Their educational methods were so efficient that eventually they were adopted by the official Brazilian system.

In 1875, an important boost came to the area near the Norris colony with the opening of a train station, which permitted easier transportation of the cotton to the markets. In 1878, an association of Brazilian and American entrepreneurs started up a cotton fabric factory near the train station. This cotton fabric factory became known as the “American Village.” It became larger and more prosperous and is now the city of Americana, the name means “American” in Portuguese. Americana is now a modern Brazilian city of about 150,000 in the State of Sao Paulo, about 83 miles from the state capital. Textiles are still the biggest industry in the city today.

Today the descendants of Confederate immigrants are scattered throughout Brazil but have banded together into a brotherhood, Fraternidade Descendencia Americana, which meets periodically. They have done a good job of retaining the culture and traditions of the deep South. Brazilian youths, some of them descendants of American settlers, still practice period dances to prepare for an annual celebration of Confederate heritage in Americana, Brazil. Their costumes look like they came straight from the set of “Gone with the Wind.” The “Stars and Bars” Confederate battle flag was removed from the Americana city crest in 1999. Nowadays in Americana it is considered highly prestigious to have descended from Confederate settlers. Some people there still proudly boast of the fact that their ancestors never learned to speak Portuguese. In fact, there are a handful of hold-outs in Americana who still speak English as their first language today. In a strange twist, English is now becoming a chic second language for some of the more affluent and well-educated Brazilians.

Starting with the individual, we should note that albeit a relative few number of people vanish every year as if they had teleported to Mars, though that number still amounts to a significant workload for authorities; a significant degree of heartache for friends and relatives. One can divide missing persons into two categories; those who go walkabout involuntarily vs. those who of their own accord want to drop out and disappear from society at large.

1) People Who Go Missing Involuntarily

You can be kidnapped/abducted; sold into slavery; murdered and disposed of; die a natural, but unexpected death in an isolated place; or suffer an unnatural death by misadventure (swept out to sea; consumed by a man-eating tiger; fall into an icy crevasse).

‘Death by misadventure’ that results in missing person cases are those unfortunate individuals caught up involuntarily due to circumstances beyond their control. Someone can suffer a ‘death by misadventure’ where their remains are likely to be, if not inaccessible, at least unlikely to be found, far less recovered. These are cases of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The presumed death by drowning of then current Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt is a case in point; another famous case is that of polar explorer Roald Amundsen or jungle explorer Percy Fawcett; Australian baby Azaria Chamberlain was allegedly snatched by a wild dog (dingo) – her body was never found. However, there is a certain percentage of missing person cases that, in all honesty, are truly baffling as we shall see.

2) People Who Go Missing Voluntarily

These include refugees who wish to escape from political, environmental, economic and other unpleasant circumstances; domestic runaways trying to escape an unpleasant home life or other personal unpleasant situations; fugitives on the lam; suicides who would rather not burden loved ones with their choice and dealing with the aftermath; those with mental illness who really aren’t accountable for their actions; those who want to change lifestyles (i.e. join cults) without letting others know;

By far and away, the vast majority of missing person reports involves those under 20. By far and away, those reported missing turn up again. Some don’t. At least if Australia is any guide, 95% of missing persons turn up again or are found within less than six months. But there are long-term missing persons, persons missing greater than six months. Overall, in Australia, about 0.17% of the populace go walkabout annually, but most resurface within a week. Other regions, like say the U.K., the percentage jumps to 0.36%. Socioeconomic and cultural factors probably have a lot to do with differing statistics between countries.

Another significant category is those running from the law. Again, most are found and caught – sooner or later. But not all are of course.

3) Vanishing Transport (Ships and Aircraft)

There has been a massive number of ships, and more recently (in historical terms) aircraft that have seemingly vanished off the face of the planet taking all and sundry with them. Many of the specifics are known to more than just aviation, maritime and history buffs – the roll call features individual personalities like Glenn Miller, Charles Kingsford Smith, Amelia Earhart, and Frederick Valentich; ships like the USS Cyclops, Mary Celeste and Joyita; collective names like Flight 19.

In fact, vanishing plans and ships have spawned an entire paranormal subgenre – the Bermuda Triangle (also called The Devil’s Triangle) and the Dragon’s Triangle and the Great Lakes Triangle (or Vortex) and on and on it goes. It’s a pity all of these ‘triangles’ are water ones. What would really be mysterious to the extent of being really paranormal would be having a Central Australia Triangle, or an American Great Plains States Triangle or a Heart of Africa Triangle. Alas, mysterious disappearances tend to happen over water. Of course there are exceptions to that rule, but even when that’s not the case it doesn’t mean that Sherlock Holmes shouldn’t be called in to investigate! There are those cases which can appear at first glance to be straightforward but which will eventually prove to be anything but routine cases.

On the other hand, you don’t normally tend to hear about trains and buses and other obviously land forms of transport that disappear without trace, which is also anomalous. Why should an aircraft vanish but not an 18-wheeler?

4) Civilizations Gone Walkabout

Over recorded history there have been hundreds, probably thousands of small settlements that have been abandoned (ghost towns), like The Lost Colony of Roanoke (Roanoke Island, North Carolina). In many cases we have a good reason(s) why – war, environment, natural disasters, etc. However, in many cases the written (if any) and archaeological record leaves no or relatively little clues. The abandonment may or may not be anomalous, but given the large percentage of explained cases it’s probably unwise to read too much into these.

But it’s quite a different kettle of fish when the population of an entire metropolis, even an entire empire, goes walkabout and there’s little to no clue that provides a ‘why’ explanation.

*The Anasazi: In the four corners area of the USA (where Utah, Arizona, Colorado & New Mexico touch), the Anasazi (synonymous with the Ancient Pueblos) thrived from about 400 to 1300 AD. Then they abandoned their traditional homeland (Mesa Verde) by roughly 1400 AD. Why? Drought and other environmental conditions are suspected, but not proved.

*The Olmecs: The Olmecs were probably the first great Mesoamerican civilization and thrived from about 1200 to 400 BC. Alas, virtually nothing is known of their origins, appearance, language or ultimate fate.

*Teotihuacan: Teotihuacan was a vast city metropolis in ancient Mexico that thrived over 2000 years ago – well actually from the first to the eighth century AD. It was one of the largest settlements of the ancient world, home to an estimated 200,000 inhabitants; it was ancient and mysterious even to the nearby Aztecs when they existed in their prime in a much later time period. Alas, Teotihuacan was just abandoned; no writings, no sculptures, no real clues at all as to who, what, when and the why of things, though that hasn’t stopped speculations about external invasions or internal uprisings. It’s famous for its massive Pyramid of the Sun; Pyramid of the Moon; Avenue of the Dead; and the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, showing that the origins of the god Quetzalcoatl go way, way back.

*The Maya: The Maya had abandoned their classical period cities of Copan, Tikal and Palenque long before the Spanish arrived to deliver the final blow to a race already down and out. The exact cause(s) is still being debated today.

5) Extraterrestrial Stuff

It’s not just terrestrial stuff that goes walkabout. Once upon a time astronomers had detected the innermost planet of our solar system – Vulcan (unrelated to Mr. Spock’s home world). Alas, it disappeared. Astronomers also detected a ‘natural’ satellite around our ‘sister’ planet Venus. The satellite was even named – Neith. Alas, that too disappeared, and today Venus is naked when it comes to natural satellites. Maybe Vulcan and Neith weren’t natural. It’s either that or else they never were at all since natural planets and satellites don’t do their own thing and wander about willy-nilly. The ‘canals’ and the ‘face’ on Mars have also vanished, but at least we can be fairly confident, damned confident in fact, that they never existed in the first place. Oh well we all make mistakes. Now back to all things terrestrial.

6) What’s Relatively Explainable

Barring highly unusual circumstances, and there are always exceptions to the rule, anytime the ocean is involved, an obvious explanation is at hand. The seas are vast and deep and currents run swiftly and fish are hungry and there are dozens of reasons why a ship will sink or vanish – mines to freak ocean waves to pirates. That’s not to say there aren’t lots of highly mysterious vanishings that involve ships, their passengers and crew, and the ocean. Anytime you have a large ship and crew vanish without any distress call(s), without any wreckage, survivors or bodies, flotsam, oil slicks, and the like without any obvious or ready explanation at hand, it’s damned mysterious. It’s just that if you want to hide something, deliberately or otherwise, the seafloor or ocean bottom is a damn good hiding place; any evidence often consumed by natural forces and processes.

Vanishing aircraft over bodies of water are similar non-issues, even if highly unusual or downright mysterious, such as no mayday call; no extreme weather conditions forecast; no debris. There are all manner of reasons why an aircraft can be smacked out of the sky, sinking and on the ocean bottom within minutes. There’s invisible wind sheer (macro-bursts and micro-burst downdrafts); equally invisible clear air turbulence (CAT); lightning can and does strike aircraft, usually without incident, but not always; finally planes are mechanical objects with lots of moving parts, and so it’s not unexpected from time to time to have a sudden catastrophic failure in a vital system.

Lone individuals who go missing aren’t usually cause for invoking the paranormal, the supernatural, even nuts-and-bolts UFOs. If it involves bodies of water, well, prosaic explanations abound from being washed overboard to being carried out to sea in a rip to a shark attack, etc. The bottom line tends to be: the body is very small; bodies of water are usually very large and very deep and contain lots of critters than can feed on and digest or decompose human flesh.

Groups of individuals that vanish on the other hand are more mysterious, but they are usually associated with an aircraft or ship that goes missing, but not always. Derelicts are not that unusual, like the Joyita and Mary Celeste. The vessel isn’t missing, only the people on board. However, since the majority of these larger collectives of missing persons have gone missing again within the boundaries of large bodies of water where any number of natural explanations can in theory account for the disappearance of the human component, even if some do strain credibility, such appeals to otherworldly explanations while popular, are often even more incredible.

What’s Relatively Unexplainable: It’s those ‘missing’ where solid ground is the only geographical medium that’s involved and which involves objects of some significant size that are of real interest. I mean a human body can be buried, or I guess given cement shoes and moved to a wetter location or tossed into a cave or abandoned mine. What that unexplainable residue really boils down to are 1) aircraft that vanish over land and stay forever vanished; 2) large numbers of individuals who vanish on land at the same time and place; and 3) those collective cities, cultures even civilizations that have been abandoned or vanished without obvious explanation. Translated, what we really need, if ‘mysterious’ is the goal, is some sot of large object or placement on or over land that vanishes.

There’s at least one missing-over-land case, a combo of an aircraft and people which might be of more than passing interest. It involved two American federal politicians, the Federal House of Representatives Majority Leader and Democrat Hale Boggs of Louisiana, along with Nick Begich, a Democrat Representative from the state of Alaska, an aide to Mr. Begich (Russell Brown), and the pilot (Don Jonz). The four were on a flight from Anchorage to Juneau, Alaska in a twin-engine Cessna 310C – the date was the 16th of October 1972, just weeks ahead of the November 1972 general election, for which Begich was campaigning, Boggs lending support for a political colleague. The purpose of the flight to Juneau was fundraising. On balance, there was nothing overall unusual about that, strictly political business as usual. Unfortunately, the plane never reached its destination, but vanished without trace somewhere between the port of origin and Juneau, no mayday, no nothing.

Now of course there’s going to be a massive search and rescue effort mounted no matter what, but all such efforts will be doubled and no stone left uncovered when federal politicians are among the missing. And so the combined efforts of the Coast Guard, Air Force and Navy, plus civilians (over 60 aircraft in all) searched high and low for 39 days, until the 24th of November 1972, before the search was abandoned. Neither the wreckage of the plane nor the pilot’s and passengers’ remains were ever found. All were declared dead on December 29, 1972. We note that the plane they were in was a twin-engine aircraft, so the failure of say one engine should not have been an issue as would have been the case with a single engine aircraft.

Apart from the above incident featuring Hale Boggs et al. what are my own picks of just a few of the top mysterious disappearances? While I’m sure everybody has their own list, here is mine.

*Enoch (Roughly 4000 years BC): According to Genesis 5:24 (King James Version): “And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.”

According to Hebrews 11:5 (King James Version): “By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.”

So what are we to make of this? No matter which way you slice and dice this, Mr. Enoch “was not” and “God took him” and “was not found” and therefore he was a long-term missing person, at least as far as his peers were concerned.

Now since IMHO there is no such animal as a supernatural deity, God is nothing but an ordinary run-of-the-mill flesh-and-blood extraterrestrial (which is still pretty extraordinary by our standards I have to add). So, is this a case of abduction by a UFO, and if so probably the first abduction case on record, even if the victim, Enoch, was a willing abductee? Apparently Enoch, in his trilogy the “Books of Enoch” (not part of the Bible I must add and text which didn’t surface until around the 300 BC to 500 AD transition period – long after Enoch went away) routinely took trips up to Heaven (God’s starship).

What’s unusual about all of this is that of all of Adam’s descendents (those Generations so listed in Genesis), even though they lived extremely long lives (by our standards anyway, like Methuselah) only Enoch avoided mortal death that the others eventually succumbed to. That’s not to say Enoch didn’t live a very long life (365 years before God kidnapped him), it’s just relative to others of his ilk, like Methuselah, Enoch departed this terrestrial abode still relatively wet behind the ears – except, if Enoch didn’t kick-the-bucket as the Bible alleges, because God wouldn’t allow it, then Enoch must still be alive somewhere. And if that’s the case, the “Guinness Book of Records” will have to depose Methuselah from top spot on the longevity list. I mean Enoch has to be over 6000 years old now (if Genesis can be dated to roughly 4000 BC). I bet he must use a lot of wrinkle cream! So in the case of Enoch, he’s missing but NOT presumed dead.

The point is, we have a major mystery as to why Enoch, and Enoch alone, was abducted in the Biblical Book of Genesis!

Actually I really shouldn’t count Enoch as missing in action as an explanation was given, but can you trust it – the explanation that is. I mean it came from the ultimate science fantasy anthology of tall tales – the Bible. IMHO the Bible is as reliable as a ‘reliable’ politician. I mean read my lips of this election promise: “There will be no carbon tax under my government”. Post election, what do we get under “my government”? You guessed it, a carbon tax! While Australians will identify with this example, I’m sure nearly any citizen of any country can identify with unreliable political (ultimately broken) promises.

*The Lost Army of Cambyses (roughly 525 BC): Now if you think a missing army of 6,000 men is anomalous (see immediately below), try one of 50,000 men!

According to the ancient Greek historian, the “Father of History”, Herodotus, King Cambyses II sent an army to threaten the Oracle of Amun at the Siwa Oasis in Egypt since the Oracle predicted some bad things in store for him. His army of 50,000 men was halfway across the Egyptian desert when apparently a massive sandstorm sprang up, burying them all. Although many Egyptologists regard the story as a myth (and you’d of thought there would have been at least one survivor to tell the tale with some greater authority), people and institutions (including Harvard University and the National Geographic Society) have searched for the remains of the soldiers for many years without any definitive results to date. Until such time as the remains are found – assuming they exist – the 50,000 are collectively missing in action.

The Ninth [Roman Spanish] Legion (Second Century AD): The recent films “The Last Legion” (2007) and “Centurion” (2010) had a go at incorporating or exploring one of the more ancient historical mysteries, the fate of the Roman Ninth Legion that invaded Britain. Now it’s one thing for one individual to vanish into thin air, but quite something else for an entire mob of thousands to disappear as if flown to Mars. Since we’re dealing with a Roman Legion here, that equates to about 6000 men. There is no evidence of what actually happened to the famous Ninth Legion, as it simply drops out of records around the early second century AD.

*The Ninth [Roman Spanish] Legion’s disappearance has raised speculations over its fate. There are lots of theories about where and exactly when the Ninth met its collective fate. Some say Scotland around 117 AD. It is often said that the Ninth Legion disappeared in Britain about 117 AD. By far the most plausible answer to the question ‘what happened to the Ninth’ is that they fought and died in Britain, disappearing in the late 110s or early 120s when the province was in disarray.

The Ninth was certainly no longer in existence by the mid 2nd Century as a list of legions compiled during the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius fails to mention it. The last concrete information of its whereabouts is in 107-108 AD, where they are mentioned being stationed to help rebuild the legionary fortress at York (Eboracum).

However, the names of several high-ranking officers of the Ninth are known who probably served with the Legion after roughly 120 AD which suggest that the Legion continued in existence after this date. It has been suggested that the Legion may have been destroyed nowhere near the British Isles say instead during the Bar Kokhba Revolt in Judaea Province [Israel] in 132-136 AD or possibly in the ongoing conflict with the Parthian Empire [Persia], those Roman-Parthian Wars, but there is no firm evidence for this. Rather, it has been also thought that the Legion was destroyed in some unknown war near the Danube frontier or perhaps whilst serving on the Eastern front fighting the Partians, during or before the reign of Marcus Aurelius.

That the fate of the Ninth was settled somewhere in the East, following a strategic transfer, rather than being lost in a British catastrophe, has now become the preferred scenario, although ultimately the evidence for this is rather insubstantial. Just about any scenario is grist for the mill seeing as how anomalous this is. I mean the Roman Empire just doesn’t lose 6,000 soldiers!

But even if the Ninth had gone missing in Britain, it is highly unlikely to have reappeared and continued in existence as a military force for the three centuries between 117 AD and 460 AD, undocumented by the otherwise thorough Roman administration. At any rate by the late fifth century AD Britain had already been abandoned by Rome for many decades.

So, what happened to the Ninth? Maybe they found six thousand British wives and quietly merged into British society. Or maybe they were slaughtered to the last man. Regardless, there’s no actual archaeological evidence to decide the argument and end the controversy over the fate of the Roman Ninth Legion. If the ancient Romans didn’t have a clue as to the fate of their own, what luck scholars in the 21st Century? Maybe they were flown to Mars!

*The Mary Celeste (1872): Everybody knows the story of the Mary Celeste, a seaworthy ship discovered without any crew on board or clue as to why. Despite the explanation provided by the TV show “Doctor Who” – the Daleks so terrified the crew that they all jumped overboard – why should seasoned/experienced crew trade in a perfectly large seaworthy vessel (the Mary Celeste) for a much smaller and therefore less seaworthy vessel (one lifeboat)?

Despite all the speculations, we’ll probably never know the reason for absolute certain, and so the legend of the Mary Celeste will live on and on in the annals of unsolved maritime mysteries. But it’s interesting to speculate that had the Mary Celeste never been found on the high seas, it would have eventually succumbed to the elements and sank. The world would have then assumed that ship and crew were lost together. So how many other lost-at-sea ships may have actually been abandoned first, voluntarily or otherwise?

*Flight 19 (1945): I gather just about everyone knows the story of Flight 19. If not, the basics are that a training flight of five TBM Avengers vanished. A rescue plane sent in search of the original five also vanished. The conclusions reached were that the five planes became disoriented and the search-and-rescue aircraft exploded. All were presumed lost at sea.

Assuming all compasses weren’t working, and all the pilots were disoriented, since the training flight of the five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers took place in the latter afternoon and in December, the Sun should have been visible in the western region of the sky. Since their original course and destinations were to the east of Florida, followed by a leg heading north, then it should have been obvious, if you were lost, to just head in the direction of the Sun – towards the west. No matter where the five planes were (and they should have been somewhere east of Florida’s coast), if they had headed west they would have had to have made landfall. Very mysterious!

In any event, that doesn’t explain the disappearance of the search-and-rescue aircraft (PBM Mariner flying boat) that was sent out to look for the original five planes. It took off to the northeast (off the Florida coast) since that’s the general direction where the missing planes should have been. Alas, the rescue plane vanished too. The PBM Mariner was assumed to have been lost because of a midair explosion, but, like the TBM Avengers, no trace of men or plane was ever found.

*Kinross Incident (1953): [See my previous essay “Pilots and UFOs”.]

*Frederick Valentich (1978): [See my previous essay “Pilots and UFOs”.]

Further readings: Authors note: There have been so many books written on mysteries of the sea and air, some with paranormal emphasis (like the Bermuda Triangle), some without, and many other accounts of specific mysteries like the May Celeste and Amelia Earhart that to list them all would be to have the bibliography way, way longer than the essay! Your local bookstore and/or local library should be able to provide help in obtaining some of this vast literature.

With all of the celebrities breaking up and getting back together lately, it seems like second chances are in the air. There is no question that sometimes couples break up for the wrong reasons, and that the second time around can be the charm. There are also times when a relationship ending is for the best. Learn how to decide when you should give a broken engagement a second chance.

Working in a bridal salon, I witnessed more than one broken engagement. Happily, I also saw a few reconciliations. The best wedding planning advice in those situations is that if the marriage is meant to be, you will work out your differences and re-kindle your romance. If that does not happen, just be glad that you broke up before tying the knot. Better a broken engagement than a divorce or a bad marriage.

The couples who renewed their engagements were typically those who broke up because one of them was not quite ready to commit to marriage. They were often younger people, perhaps engaged just out of college. It is easy enough to get swept up in the excitement of bridal jewelry, wedding gowns, and love and then start to get cold feet as the actual wedding day draws near. Sometimes it is very helpful to back off and gain some perspective on the situation. You might even realize that the relationship is indeed the right one for you, just that things needed to progress a little more slowly. That is a situation where giving a broken engagement a second chance can be a good idea after some time has passed.

Some couples call off an engagement because they are working through things from their past or current traumas. The man who proposes shortly after learning his girlfriend has a serious illness might find that she worries he proposed out of pity. The same is true when a couple becomes engaged shortly after losing a loved one. Those doubts can start to set in, and the person affected by the trauma pulls away. If the proposal was offered in the spirit of true love, not out of sympathy, this is a relationship that stands a decent chance of being saved. Time starts to soften the wounds, and the couple start to realize that they have always belonged together.

There are other relationships that should not be renewed. If you broke off your engagement because your fiance was cheating on you, it is best to make a clean break and move on. There is no point in taking back someone who is not trustworthy, and in doing so you might be sending the message that he can treat you badly and get away with it. Definitely not a good thing for a relationship! Other engagements are broken because the man starts to realize that his fiancee is more interested in the trappings of a wedding like fancy gowns and sparkly bridal jewelry than in being married to him. This again is a sign that the engagement should not be renewed.

Not everything is so clear cut when it comes to relationships. Sometimes a man and a woman are just very different people. They might love each other passionately, but also have a lot of conflict caused by their differences. If you broke up during an argument over something silly, there is a possibility that the relationship can be salvaged. The real thing to decide is if you are happier with the other person, despite your differences, or happier and more relaxed away from him or her. Distance and time will help you figure this out. Ultimately, only the pair of you can decide when it is right to give your broken engagement a second chance, and when it is best to go your separate ways.

The Thief of Bagdad released long back in 1940 is considered to be a very important movie in Hollywood purely because of the fact that the amount of special effects used in the film was by far more than that had so long been seen and the quality of these also made it a very a wonderful experience for both the audience and the critics. A few years back, with the release of Flying down to Rio, there was widespread awe for the special effects that were used in it, but with The Thief of Bagdad, it was whole different thing with a lot more percentage of special effects used in it.

Before the movie was released, the use of special effects was kind of clichéd and mainly the big production houses could afford using the technology required to create a good visual effect. But this film brought it down to the level where every production house in Hollywood could have access to the technology required to create the perfect illusion. Every special effects director in Hollywood would say the same thing, that the inspiration behind them going into that division was the movie The Thief of Bagdad and the brilliance that it achieved with the limited resources that were available back in those days.

The film was nominated for the Academy Awards in the three fields of cinematography, special effects and art direction and it swept all three categories and this bears testimony to the quality it was able to generate through its special effects. Before this film came about, the effects that were used in other films looked very bad and almost like a joke but with the use of the travelling matte technology as well as the newly developed technology of blue screening, The Thief of Bagdad achieved the highest standards at that time and according to many people, even surpassed them with relative ease. Larry Butler, who won the Oscar for his work in this film developed the blue screen from what it used to be and at one point of time, it was what most special effects supervisors swore by.

Technicolor was almost an infant at that time and Larry Butler created a technique that would suit it perfectly using the travelling matte and the blue screen in order to create the perfect illusion for it and hence, changed the face of modern cinema.

It’s a betting obsession that has swept the horse racing world – the almost holy grail like quest to find false favourites that can be layer for profit with very little risk. At one point it would have been easy, back in the days where 99% of punters got all their info from the limited cards in the back of the newspaper.

But times have changed. Now you can examine every race a horse has ever run in great detail via the numerous websites and databases available on the internet. This means that low priced horses who don’t stand a chance don’t stay low priced for very long, as huge amounts of people can now identify them and lay them on the exchanges. This of course makes it a lot harder to find one of these mythical ‘false favourites’

So I’m going to share with you a simple method of profiting from laying very short priced horses. You see – it’s not a case of finding horses that will lose, it’s a case of finding horses who’s odds are shorter than their actual chance of winning. To do this we’re going to be using a simple technique that I like to call ‘Milking the Sunday punters’

The Sunday punters are a formidable force. I’m not referring to the people who happen to place a bet on a Sunday of course; I’m referring to the people that have no real knowledge of horse racing and will normally just bet for fun. You’d think that these people are of no significance – I certainly used to. That was until I had a little think about it…

Did you know that if you had laid £100 on every odds on horse in a Class 1 race over the past 6 years, you would have made a profit of £2,970 to betfair SP? Whilst I wouldn’t advise blindly laying these horses, by simply looking for small things that could cause them to lose and using a staking plan – I personally have made over £4,000 in the last 3 years alone. Of course these aren’t the sort of profits that will buy you a summer house in the Riviera, when you consider the tiny amount of effort required to spot such bets it’s not the sort of money to turn your nose up at.

Now, if you’ve seen some of my other betting material you will know that I’m highly critical of people who use statistics without any logic behind them, so let me explain the logic that causes these horses to be so profitable to lay…

Class 1 races are high profile, they are the ones always featured in the papers, the various racing TV shows and pundits will always spend a long time dissecting them before and after the race. This is why they are such a little gold mine.

The ‘Sunday punters’ are people who don’t bet on a regular basis, they normally bet only at the big racing festivals or high profile racing events (hence, selecting only class 1 races for this study). They aren’t looking to win risk big and win big, they want what they assume to be a safe bet – purely for the enjoyment of it. So they bet on the odds on hot favourites, the horses that already have short prices and receive a lot of attention from the pundits.

The result – hundreds of thousands of pounds (even millions) being bet on already short priced runners. This has the effect of driving the value out of the horse. Whilst a very good horse may have a 60% chance of winning a race, if that very good horse has been backed into 3/10 odds on then in order for that bet to offer any value (ie, when the odds are higher than the chance of winning) and even be considered as a profitable bet – it’s chance of winning would have to be at least 66.6%.

Horses don’t know how much money is being bet on them. Their chance of winning is EXACTLY the same irrelevant of it being priced at evens or 10/1. Backing such bad value horses would be stupid, the numbers are against you and overall you would always show a loss. But if you reverse that statement and lay the horse – you will show a profit.

So to summarize – look for odds on horses in class 1 races, see if there is are any factors (no matter how small) that may hinder them in the race, even if it’s as small as an unfavourable draw and lay them just minutes before the start of the race (as close to the start as possible for best results). Always pay very close attention to the big racing festivals and televised races (on the BBC or C4, where there a lot of people watching) and you will be guaranteed to find bad value horses just prime for the laying.

The first difficult transition that every scholar makes is a transition to high school. They are becoming of age, start expressing themselves in many different ways, going away from home, changing to schools outside their hometowns (villages and townships), start traveling long distances, start feeling the “beauty” of being independent from home control, etc. The parents start becoming jittery about the conduct of the children. If they have never engaged mentors, this is the time to do so. High school education mentors are experienced in dealing with young adults at this level of their education and holistic development.

At this level the children are naive in thinking that they can be independent. It is at this stage that a lot of life mistakes are made. The adolescent stage kicks in, and hormones take control. School work is competing with other emotional interests. The youth have the tendency to start defying their parents at this stage.

The parents, guardians and teachers are advised not to be hard in interacting with the children. Mentors should be the go between and engage them on the experiences they are making, especially the relationships with opposite gender. If not assisted they could be swept away by the craziness of being in love relationships. The aim of the mentorship is to help them enjoy exploring their new self without upsetting their parents (and guardians) and becoming sexually active. They must be encouraged to use their education programmes as a basis of relating to their opposite gender, e.g. encouraging them to do school work together with their fellow opposite gender schoolmates.

You want the children to be crazy about doing well in grade twelve long before they even enter that grade. Early in grade eight (RSA) they must already see grade twelve (RSA) as the milestone to achieve. The mentor is there to make them focus at this milestone. This does not mean that they should be discouraged to have fun, fantasies and other experiences suitable for their ages. That is part of life and belongs especially to their stage in human development. They should be assisted to have space for other serious aspects of life, and be victors of challenges like, drug abuse, adolescent stage, crime, early and unplanned pregnancy, alcohol abuse, etc.

At this stage children are introduced to the understanding that they are part of a collective. There are many stakeholders in their lives who have more vested interest in their future than they may think. Their parents are not the only ones that are important to them. The country as a whole is concerned about their future. Extended family members, peers, friends, and their communities are one way or another affected by their failures and successes. So, you build many reasons why they cannot afford to mess up. You make them understand that the stakes are very high.

The projects that the mentors may keep them preoccupied with could include, among others the following: searching for universities they are going study in the future, identifying various degrees or diplomas they may study toward, sourcing scholarships long in advance, potential overseas institutions they may study at, what it would take for them to be accepted at this institutions, what grades they must achieve to be accepted and be awarded scholarships, the industries and sectors that their line of studies will lead them to, the role models that followed their desired education route and where they landed in life, etc.

The mentors should guide the youth at this stage to take keen interest in extramural activities like sport, art, dance, athletics, music, community clubs, youth clubs, church activities, etc. That is the most effective way to negotiate them away from destructive activities. They must be kept busy together with their peers, including the opposite sex.

In conclusion, this is a partnership between all the stakeholders, with the mentor occupying much prominent slot in the youth’s holistic human capital development journey.

The word universe means the one song or poem: uni-one and verse-sound or poetry. So sound (so music – so poetry) has an inherent capacity to change our mood, and from this our motivational energies. What we listen to, and when, is significant. As Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice, “The man that hath no music in himself, nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils”. So it is that all highly motivated people listen to music often, and should do more so.

Personally I love the music of JS Bach, which I listen to on an almost daily basis, but I also love a small number of great rock/pop stars of the last 40 years. I wonder who your heroes are?

For me Mark Knopfler, erstwhile Dire Straits (with as many great tracks solo as he had in those earlier, halcyon days) is one of the greats. His music is simultaneously melodic, intricate and epic. The epic comes from those great guitar finales he plays – think, ‘Tunnel of Love’. A few years back at the Bournemouth International Centre I had the pleasure of seeing him live. My wife, my son Joe, and I were all swept away with an awesome performance of music that had us spellbound. His live version of ‘Farmer Blues’, for example, was just staggeringly great. I could go on – but you get my drift.

As we walked back to the car, I said to my son: Joe, well, what the three important lessons from Mark Knopfler that anyone could apply to becoming mega-successful and possibly mega-happy? If being a member of a rock and roll band is analogous to running a business, what do you think they might be?

Before sketching the three core lessons we might like to reflect that even doing all the right things does not necessarily lead to success – things go wrong whether you like it or not. As it says in the good book, Time and chance happens to all men. In the case of Mark when I saw him live, he revealed to us why he wasn’t standing up and playing the guitar: he had pulled a nerve in his back and that had plagued him for five weeks. Now that’s what you call irritating – and life!

The lesson from watching Mark is the lesson of creativity: all the songs were his songs, and so everyone followed his tune. Being creative is an essential component of being human: essential – of the essence. Peter Drucker observed that only two things made money for a business: marketing and innovation – everything else was a cost. We need to run businesses where we give full scope to human creativity, especially our own. In the long run it helps make us more stress-resistant.

Second: be an expert at whatever you do! Watch Mark play that guitar – in fact several guitars – and you see an expert at work. Without overdoing it they had cameras which for short periods of time enabled us to see Mark on the stage, and behind him a close up of his fingering and fretwork. And it wasn’t only Mark who was a superb musician – they all were. So, if you are going to be a plumber, nurse, director, manager, shop assistant – be the best. I was amused and impressed recently when the plumber fixing a problem round our house said, “My brother is the best plumber in Dorset”. I said, Well, get him here then – I don’t want the second best!

Finally, get a tight team round you. Towards the end Mark introduced his team and we learnt nearly all of them went back 15 years of playing with him, and one even to the ’80s. He trusted them and they trusted him; the synergy and teamwork were apparent – the great Knopfler could achieve far more leveraging their talent alongside his own. Where are your key team players? Who’s with you on a journey to change the world with your product or service?

Yes, you can learn a lot from watching a rock and roll band. The music’s great as well!

At 26 degrees of Sagittarius, the Galactic Center of the Milky Way is hidden behind a veil of dust and gas. With Pluto, our Solar System’s outermost planet (symbolic of the parts of ourselves we’re least able to access) moving over this same degree, we are experiencing seismic shifts deep in our universal unconscious. The last time this occurred was in 1745, the birth of the industrial revolution. Daily life changed irrevocably as workers moved off the farms to gun production because of the Jacobite rebellion in Britain and textile expansion. The polarity of religious fundamentalism and religious exploration was represented by the birth of Hasidism and of Universalists. Ben Franklin ran with his kite to harness electricity. And of course, the voices of the American and French Revolutions were gaining momentum.

In the 1500s when Pluto was at this degree, the first map of America was published and the Protestant Reformation swept through Europe, laying the seeds for the ground on which the United States was established. Each time Pluto confronts the Galactic Center, we experience a death of the familiar routine of life while we embrace the “new birth”. It becomes impossible for us to go back to the way things were before, while we grapple with changes that we may not be able to cope with in the most progressive way.

When Pluto traveled through this point in the 1250’s, eyeglasses were introduced and Marco Polo headed for China. The illuminating piece about looking at a transit historically is we can see parallels of what occurred in the past with the present. Our medical technology continues to provide options for people, but we must deal with its ramifications. As of today, the wounded US soldiers from Iraq that cannot return to duty totals over 7500. Our technology has altered the potential casualties of this war, but the long-term consequences of maimed survivors with limited services available to them will have a far-reaching impact on our society.

Historically we see how technology has changed how we “see” life. At this time, a spa owner tells me how her clients don’t relax in the massage or treatment. Everyone has her cell phone on or Blackberry lit; we have become “married” to technology and it seems to have the signatures of a codependent relationship at best, or a battered one at worst.

Another theme has been religious expression and fundamentalism. The USA has its roots in this and we continue to struggle with the inherent paradox of giving complete freedom of religion to all. Pluto’s message is always about meeting the Shadow in the mirror. Do we embrace and integrate it or do we try to eradicate it, never meeting its lessons?

As the retrograde Pluto returns to the point of the Galactic Center, we are given the opportunity to choose how we will cope with the Age of Destruction the Mayans foresaw. We can reassess choices made when earlier explorers tried to capture new worlds to make them their own. We are integrating cellular changes caused by the increasing electromagnetic field caused by our technology, which will affect the evolution of all life forms on our planet. We can choose if we will re-visit the Sagittarian celebration of the earth and the inherent information we can glean from it. When we stepped forward into the Industrial Revolution, did it have to be at the expense of an agrarian culture and the solidity of the family? Can we balance the freedom technology should avail us with a sophisticated cooperative of farming and education? We have the power of choosing what will be destroyed and what will be born. But make no mistake about it, the more each individual takes responsibility for our culture’s destiny, the more spiritually evolved our decision will be. We have the opportunity to align our spiritual evolution with our technical evolution and each time we miss the opportunity, it gets more challenging to catch up. The thrust of Pluto’s path is to allow us a chance to go light years in a lifetime.

© copyright 2006 All rights reserved.

Preciousness of moments, sweet cognisance of time,

Holding our angel in my arms, imagine his spirit shine!

Contemplate grace magnified, his little body at rest,

To know our Lord holds him, like my hands are his body’s nest.

Lusciously perfect in our minds, the very substance of our hearts,

The moment he was conceived, our love affair had its best of starts,

Gorgeous little man of ours, who swept us off our feet,

Now he is finally with us, and his race is now run, complete.

Finest little fingers, and toes that show God’s best work,

His ears, his eyes, his tummy, perfection, not one sign of a quirk,

Muscliest little thighs with potential beyond work it seems,

His calves will never burn, his long feet will never realise dreams.

Blessing us only for a few short months, heaven’s best for our display,

Hold him, kiss him, and enjoy him, he’ll lay with us today,

His condition was far too challenging, somehow far too good for Earth,

We find it as we hold him, his life was always of a heavenly birth!

We covet the minute tightly, and defend the hour with might,

His delicate little body is ours, yet his spirit has taken flight,

Bodily comfort is our foil just now, as we take in what can be,

Fleeting moments of sorrow just now, soon he we’ll no longer see.

***

“It is well.” As those words to the song rang out of the obstetrician’s phone in theatre, tears of eternity’s longing streamed down our faces. It is well, because it is not. Because we can’t fix it, only God in his grace can.

We longed to be with our little one – both to become acquainted with his listless body and to know him as God alone now does. What we longed for we received.

Our cherub, Nathanael Marcus, was delivered lifeless, yet he was, in our estimation of things, the essence of God’s work: a gift (Nathanael is Hebrew for ‘given of God’) and always destined an eternal being (Marcus is Hebrew for ‘shining’; of eternal purity).

Washing the vernix caseosa from Nathanael’s hair and skin proved a difficult task, but not one without its purpose. As I gently caressed his skin with soap, God gave me the opportunity of tactile stimulus and response. The longer I washed him, the more I held him, the more I watched my ever-enduring wife – post-Caesarean Section – stroke his head, the more I saw him as God does: a gift to us and the world, but destined always an eternal being, as are we all.

We are so thankful for the opportunity to be Nathanael’s parents. He will always be ours. For those who love us, he will always be yours, too. Most of all, he is God’s now, and we wait for him to finally greet us when we are called home.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.

As I typed the words of the last paragraph I had Nathanael cradled in my left arm.