Early November, I was sitting on a West Village barstool a block from my apartment where I’ve parked a dozen times. Next to me was my newly befriended sweetheart of a neighbor as we sipped into #2 of 501 promised and future mutually contracted cocktails. My conversation suddenly halted as my head jutted toward the speakers, quickly and involuntarily, like a puppy’s face distracted by a dangling slice of salami. Over the sound system in the crowded joint came “Starlight,” a stray 2002 electronica song.
He looked at me quizzically and I explained,
“I’m sorry, that’s so bizarre… I LOVE this song—used to play it all the time and then hadn’t heard it in years. I rediscovered it this week, played it at my workshop and have been jogging to it all week. I can’t believe they’re playing it right now.”
“That’s weird.” He replied.
I think the “weird” might have been a reference to my sudden onset over-enthusiasm for the song, rather than the coincidence.
However, it was not weird or a coincidence, it was synchronicity. That seemingly random song was not random, it was a wink from the world.
I am super into signs. We can dismiss that as yet another quirky trait of the already off-center Margaret, but I posit that when we are open to more, we get more.
Synchronicity. Jung coined the term and defined it as “meaningful coincidences.” He called signs underlying psychic structures, meaning that’s the way our mind organizes them to make sense.
I used to look at synchronicity as a thumbs-up from the world saying: you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. But along that vein of larger theories, if we’re always exactly where we’re supposed to be, then now I prefer to view them as a wink from the universe, telling me, “right on honey, this direction, keep moving this way…”
The more tapped in we are, the more the synchronicities happen. When you’re in a groove, and they come at you like a rush of tennis balls from one of those automatic machines, it’s delightful. The synchronicities start as small little signs, but when they get to be big things—meeting the precise right person at the right time for a next step in your business, getting information you need exactly when you want it, the “meet-cute” that shows up in real life, those are the juicy bits, when you’re in the flow and it’s effortless.
If we pay attention, life will give us these little moments of revelation. A synchronicity is on one level a cellular connection with that thing and therefore it’s a like a peek into a oneness with it.
Think of a conversation with a good friend, an advertising pitch or even a round of great flirting. Aren’t we hooked, enamored when a tidbit is referenced from a previous conversation or experience? We feel a connection when someone pays attention—it shows they care to notice the small stuff. We have the same ability to connect to ourselves this way, and in turn, connect with the larger scope of our lives.
I wrote this all two months ago and never finished my thoughts on this subject. This morning I awoke to an email from my bestie recounting a story to me, and this was the synchronicity it seems I was waiting for in order to complete this post.
This is a word-for-word paste from his email, although the names have been changed, and a friendly warning… this is about as capital “W,” Woo, that we can get with this concept:
The email:
“My cousin told me this story today. (We’ll call him Fred here.)
So, about 21 years ago Fred checked into Betty Ford for severe alcohol and cocaine addiction. By about day two he was in a total spiral. He was withdrawal-ing big time and was in the midst of throes of depression and hopelessness you and I could hardly imagine. (Fred’s coke and booze abuse made me look like a nun.) So, without any idea what to do he walks into the meditation room at Betty Ford.
He's not sure why he led himself there, but that's where he ends up and so he decides to try and meditate. It does not go well. Mind is going a mile a minute. But in a brief and exceedingly desperate moment he prays to God and what he said was a total surprise to him as it came out of his mouth.
He asked God to please show him a sign that everything would be okay. He had never felt that vulnerable and frankly never put enough stock in the idea of God to believe signs were even possible or valid. But sure enough he said it, and about ten minutes later he was struck by an incredible sight.
A little white dove flew down and landed right at the window of the meditation room, sat there for a second, then took off.
Fred had seen his sign.
It was the beacon of light and strength he used the next 28 days to get through rehab, and his talisman for faith the next ten or so years. But as his life went and other factors started to contribute to his new path, he very gently let go of the memory of the dove that day and collected new synchronistic moments that kept his faith strong.
Fast-forward 20 years.
Fred is in Palm Springs at Anthony Robbins newest weeklong seminar. He's sitting in a room with about 200 other people being led by Anthony Robbins in a meditation created by Ananda Giri and given to A.R. The meditation was deep and intense and it took the meditators on a kind of journey.
Fred said after about ten minutes he was in another place all together. He was letting go and just going on the ride. A little ways into the guided med, AR told the participants to feel as if they were flying, and to turn themselves into birds and to fly high and soar.
Fred says the images and sensations he's feeling at this point are completely out of his control. He's doing nothing but Being and he pretty much is the bird. At which point he turns into a dove, a white dove, who then finds himself flying over the desert, then towards a huge white building, where he then flies towards a window, lands on a sill, looks into the window and sees himself 21 years ago in the meditation room at Betty Ford looking haggard and scared, where he tells his 26 year old self that everything is going to be okay.
He was the dove that showed up at the window that day at Betty Ford.
He said he felt like he completely transcended time at that moment. The meditation dove was happening at the exact same time as the real dove, 21 years prior. And he experienced both perspectives. They were both him. He says he feels like he saw the innerworking of a synchronicity.”
I mean, dudes, c’mon… that story is ridic!! When something like that happens it is a giant puzzle piece that can offer us a completeness and connectedness to life that is inexplicably gracious.
Noticing the small synchronicities is the training ground for the big stuff. It’s the countless drills before you step up to the free throw line in the game.
I’m purposely flippant in these posts to underline the fact that there is no separation between anything holy or unholy, big or small, mundane or epic. It’s all the same thing; in these examples, size does not matter. Ok, a house music song on a neighborhood barstool is not as monumental as the two-decade long dove saga, but the attention is the same thing.
The point is, to be open.
To question.
To consider.
Because if a person is not open to having some kind of synchronicity within their lives, then you know what? It won’t happen.
You think that’s dumb and looney or hokey or impossible? Well, then you’re right. That’s not gonna happen for ya. Life reflects to you the way you want it to; the way you look at it is how things show up.
So maybe we won’t have some all-encompassing, blockbuster twenty year dove parallel synchronicity, but do we really want to cut off the possibility that something like that might be able to happen, somehow, someday, if not to us, at least for someone?
Today, keep your ears and eyes open… It doesn’t need to be huge, it can be something seemingly innocuous and simple, but pay attention and follow the thread; you never know what small thing can give you a glimpse into yourself… give it a try; after all, tis the season.
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