doves, they’re not just for Disney princesses anymore: sampling synchronicity

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.

ok, I'm gonna go now... uh... can you come with me?

This go around it's my last day in India and I am walking through Chennai’s largest shopping “mall,” if you can call it that. Alone now, on a trip that was not about shopping, I take a couple hours to browse, barter and buy those pretty, unnecessary souvenirs that will sparkle against my wrist and warm my collarbone when the a/c is too high at the Angelika. I’m pretty much done, a bit tired and food deprived; my “over it” meter is approaching maximum, so when a shopkeeper shouts out to me, “Madam! Madam!” I don’t even glance to see where it’s coming from.

“Madam! Madam!!” He is insistent. I arrive at officially “over it,” and give him the international ‘no thanks/give it a rest’ gesture, walking, my behind to him and the back of my right hand up, as if to say, “enough, dude.”

He is running down the hallway, barefoot. He’s followed me so long that I think, “What’s up with this guy?” and turn to look. As brazenly annoying as some of these merchants can be, no one has yet to be this determined; a pitbull with a tilaka.

“You don’t look, you miss the best ayurvedic natural shop in the plaza! Please, madam, you come, you look.”

Ok, he’s right. I didn’t look and am actually interested in this, so I go to follow him.

When we sit (they always make you sit down in these stores) he looks at my tulsi mala beads, worn as a bracelet, and he pronounces the name of the guy I came to India to hang about, in question format, as if to say, “Your beads, they are from this guy?” I curiously answer, “Yes.” And I see him gesturing to a picture, prominently placed, clearly designating him as that guy’s Guy as well.

“You see, it is meant!” He smiles enthusiastically. The Guy is famous in these parts, but not so famous that everyone around here would know who he is and even a picture of him would be rare. It is the first one I have seen.

“You are supposed to meet me.” He underlines, satisfied. I smirk back at him, thinking the same thing. He knew I would think it.

I know you rationalists are going to surmise this is a little wack, but you know that already, so bear with me.

It’s not just that I literally had asked the big Guy for a way to clear up my “India spots” as my friend so gently coined them. It’s that everything has been so in-the-flow since being here that it’s hard to dismiss these seemingly small synchronicities/signs and ensuing intrinsic insouciance. I asked. I kinda thought I’d miraculously wake up one morning with no pimples. Instead I got a small barefoot Indian man chasing me down a mall hallway. Grace comes in every form.

There are other little incidents. Being the last of a 100 to leave for an outing, unhurriedly, everyone else stressing to scurry early, and then getting the blessing of road-tripping with a female monk. Going to see another holy lady, placidly pushing the minutes to get there to a really small window, and walking in to find the last three perfect spots open in the second row. She daintily shuffles in, petite and seraphic, so right behind us, someone might have thought we all shared a rickshaw. There are larger signs as well, things that have nothing to do with seating for sages, but these examples (For you and I, both) are more easily digestible.

I could interpret this level of ease as a feeling of being guided, or some kind of peace, thinking and knowing that it’s all going to be all right. Being comfortable with what is. That's been present and building for some time, but it's the newfound speed of it that is almost comically quick. A less secular way to describe it could be just following your own intuition, but having an unshakable faith that you know what’s right for yourself and those things popping up. But I’m talking about at every moment. Especially in the "ugly" ones. It’s easy to be grateful when all is well or when we think we've made it through a rough spot. And there is a world of difference between intellectually thinking it and believing that in our core when the sh** hits the fan. But if we're thinking it, the good news is, that means it’s en route to the core.

I’ve had phases, passing fancies and flirtations with this “guidedness.” This time around the bend it might be due to a larger understanding, but I don’t want to get so deep that I lose you just yet. And perhaps this is just still an Indian haze and I will go back to a lower rung of development as soon as I hit Manhattan’s sidewalks? Maybe I think the guidedness is here to settle down, when really he’s just a player, and in the morning I’ll wake up, mascara smeared from the red-eye, walk-of-shaming it from JFK to my apartment. Totally possible.

“Margaret, seriously, I mean move away from the incense and the voodoo and snap back to reality please. I read that facebook post about you eating a papaya like a monkey— time to get out of India and back to the city. In this world it’s every man for himself. Life is what you make of it.” This is the catch 22, that strange juxtaposition, because both are true. How can both be true? How can everything be taken care of and at the same time you need to work for it? Sorry, but I can’t give you a reasonable answer for that. Let's not go there yet. In the hours upon hours of philosophical discourse with my friends, we often wrap up with, “Don’t act like an enlightened person, if you’re not enlightened… Chai?”

What that means is, there are other levels of this universe we are not privy to, and you can call that spiritual or scientific or pure common sense, but I think we can all at least agree to stuff going on that no one can explain. Until we get there, it’s useless to ask why. And we don't need to act all noble, peace-like and selfless along the way, because really, we’re not that way. We’re human. Even enlightened people get pissed, by the way. My own personal big Guy has a rep for being what some have dubbed as ‘too passionate.’

We have to deal with what’s in front of us, and that will always run the whole gamut of emotions, but what happens is we start to let go of the suffering attached to it. There is joy, but no attachment to that joy as “mine.” There are tears, but they do not send us into a 3-day tailspin where the only people we see are the deli and liquor store deliverymen. When we experience what’s in front of us, for reals, that peace descends. Maybe one day (hopefully, fingers crossed, pretty please?) for good.

How does this relate to a barefoot Indian chasing me down in a shopping mall? Did I get absolutely hoodwinked and was my previous wish for an ayurvedic herb to help cleanse my kidney just a total, random coincidence? Have I completely gone over the deep end, and those close to me secretly (or not so secretly) think I’m living with fuscia colored glasses?

Perhaps.

I’m not saying I’m right. I could never know that for sure. But you know what? I’m happy. I’m at peace. And everything is happening with super efficient, effortless ease. If that means I’m out of my mind, I’ll take it.