"Synchronicity means a 'meaningful coincidence' of outer and inner events that are not themselves causally connected. The emphasis lies on the word 'meaningful.'"
~Marie Louise von Franz
"When you stop existing and you start truly living, each moment of the day comes alive with wonder and synchronicity."
~Steve Maraboli
So, I had a funny experience yesterday during my travels to New York—an experience of synchronicity that felt sort of powerful. I've been anticipating this vacation for many weeks, looking forward to visiting my son and his wife and also getting together with dear friends I've known since grade school days. After weeks of careful preparations to make sure things would run smoothly at the office in my absence, I was happy to sit back in my seat in the plane and simply relax. As I began to unwind and relax I found some emotions coming to the surface that took me by surprise. As I watched the in-flight movie Brave, my heart was stirred and the tears began to flow. I felt inexplicably open, tender, a little raw. And this feeling continued for the whole flight.
While at the baggage claim area at JFK Airport, I was contemplating this feeling that somehow something was opening up within me. As I walked toward the ladies' room I was overcome with a feeling that something transformative is going to happen during this trip—although I don't know what it is. Just then I looked up at the wall and saw this sign (the one in the image above), with the "W" missing from the word "Women". I smiled and pulled out my phone to take a picture of it. It felt like a sign...the writing on the wall, so to speak. It felt like a synchronistic punctuation mark to what I was feeling.
Swiss psychologist Carl Jung coined the term 'synchronicity' in the 1920s. I love the story he relates about the inspiration for this concept. He had a patient who was experiencing difficulty making breakthroughs in her therapy. He says:
"I was sitting opposite her one day with my back to the window, listening to her flow of rhetoric. She had an impressive dream the night before in which someone had given her a golden scarab—a costly piece of jewelry. While she was still telling me this dream, I heard something behind me gently tapping on the window. I turned around and saw that it was a fairly large flying insect that was knocking against the windowpane from outside, in the obvious effort to get into the dark room. This seemed to me very strange. I opened the window immediately and caught the insect in the air as it flew in. It was a scarab beetle whose gold-green color resembles that of a golden scarab. I handed the beetle to my patient with the words, 'Here is your scarab.' The experience punctured the desired hole in her rationalism and broke the ice of her intellectual resistance."
Many of us have had some experience with synchronicity...you know, like that book that falls off the shelf which contains exactly the information we need at the moment...or like when we think about an old friend we haven't spoken to for years and how uncanny that they call at precisely that moment! How do we explain these synchronistic experiences? I don't believe we can, but if we are paying attention, they may open our hearts, expand our consciousness, allow us to connect with the realm of mystery, or the mystical if you will. The experience is usually so powerful that it makes a soul impression, touching us at a level that pierces the intellect, the analytical mind, and allows for the possibility of inner transformation.
It feels like being touched by an angel. May our days be alive with wonder and synchronicity.
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