My friend took a 240-mile bike ride a couple of weeks ago. He and his brother rode from Georgetown in Washington D.C. along a mostly paved trail to Pittsburgh. He’s a practical guy, knowledgeable about how things work in the mechanical sense, not a mystical bone in his six-foot frame. He’d come over to look at a leak in our roof when he told us this story.
On the first day, they started early and rode to a restaurant outside of D.C. for breakfast. It was closed. They continued on. No more restaurants. No breakfast, no lunch. They had 60 miles to cover before they reached a bed and breakfast. They figured there would be plenty of time to find a good dinner.
Mid-afternoon my friend gets a flat tire. No problem. He put in a new inner tube. But when he inflated the tire with his hand pump, he realized he was in trouble. The inner tube started to protrude through a three-inch slash in the bottom of the tire. He needed a new tire.
He stayed by the roadside with the swarming mosquitoes while his brother rode off in search of the nearest town and a bike shop. The town wasn’t far away, but there was no bike shop. He was telling a cashier at a food mart about his problem when a woman overheard him and offered to drive him to the next town to a shop. (The woman was in a fight with her boyfriend and he saw her drive off with a strange guy, but that’s not part of this story.)
A couple hours later, the brother returns with the tire and a funny story. He waves a spare t-shirt to keep the mosquitoes off my friend as he changes the tire. Now it’s late afternoon and they have 15 miles to ride to the B&B. They head out and soon the paved road ends and they are on dirt, potholes and roots for a few miles.
Eventually, the road gets better and they’re getting close. But they don’t know exactly where the B&B is located and start to wonder if they’ve missed the turnoff. They come to a huge hill. My friend is tired and can’t make it up the hill. They both get off and walk their bikes.
Halfway up the hill, they hear a voice calling out from the woods. “Do…you…need…any…help?”
They stop and look, but they can’t see anyone. Finally, the brother yells out the name of the B&B and asks where it is.
To their surprise, the voice from the woods shouts out precise directions involving several turns. They yell their thanks and continue on. They follow the directions and find the B&B. They never saw anyone back there. It was just a voice from the woods, and synchronicity.
The B&B is isolated. No restaurants nearby. But there’s a refrigerator and another synchronicity inside it. The last people who stayed there had left behind two hot dogs, two pieces of cake and a pint of ice cream. That was dinner.
My friend laughed at the recollection: “It was like a little kid’s dinner, but it was good. And things got better after that.”
It’s a case where dire circumstances lead to unusual and unexpected solutions to problems. Even my practical friend understood that. But when I pushed him about that voice from the woods, he shrugged and said, “Let’s take a look at the roof.”
***
UPDATE
While on Facebook earlier, someone clicks in with a greeting. It’s my brethren, Rob Roy McGregor, writing from Scotland. We’re Facebook friends, never met each other in person, just through e-mails, mostly years ago. He asks what I’m doing. I mention the synchronicity book, and refer him to the blog. He takes a look while we’re still chatting, and he’s fascinated by this bike trip story. The reason: he’s on a bike trip across the Scottish Highlands, and he knows about synchronicity. “I have synchronicities every day on this trip,” he remarked before signing off, and pedalling away.
Rob
The bike trip reminds me of a synchronicity I had driving through the mountains in Utah on my way from Pensacola FL to my home in Moses Lake WA. I was in a hurry. I had had an accident in Louisianna that took up several hours of my time.
It was night time. I was having a hard time staying awake. As I said I was on a mountainous road. I fell asleep at the wheel and drove off the road. As I was going down I became suddenly alert. I landed on a path at the side of the road that was made by earth movers during construction of the highway. The next several hours I was driving where I would have been killed had I driven off the road.
Ray
An orchestra I play in is going to Scotland in a couple days. I decided not to go this time. My son needs me but my thoughts are on Scotland. ONe of the places that I feel a deep sort of other worldly connection to.
My son this morning was making a helicopter sound and I started to remark on how much like a real helicopter it sounds when suddenly we heard a real helicopter in the sky, not a common occurrence. We both laughed. He 7. Kids know more about this kind of stuff than we do.
I do experience synchronicity frequently and appreciate this blog. Thanks
How cool about your Rob Roy MacGregor friend – has synchronicities every day. So true, many see these miracles as part and parcel of living life. It's those that don't that need your book…
Thanks, Dennis. You live in one of our favorite states! But where is Dorena located? & where's your blog? Clicked on your name….
You folks have a rigirous intuition. Dennis from Oregon
You folks have an intuition that abounds. Dennis
Wiki says this on how the name was chosen for the aerobatic jets:
A contest to give the air demonstration team a formal name was held at the CFB Moose Jaw base elementary school (Bushell Park Elementary) and resulted in the name Snowbirds. The name reflected the aircraft’s distinctive mostly-white paint scheme used at the time, connoted grace and beauty and was clearly linked to its Canadian origins. Coincidentally, “Snowbird” was the name of an Anne Murray hit song that was popular at the time.
Note —“coincidentally”… NOT!! ;-D
oh, the tree spirits spoke! what a neat story!
Living in South Florida, we're very aware of Canadian snowbirds – but another variety. They don't usually arrive here by way of aerobatic military jets. Needless to say, hey are nowhere in sight in July!
Rob
So Cathy is coming around!
Hey Nancy – in the woods, the kitchen, out in the yard!
Sychronicity is all around us, and evidently in the woods, too.
My partner is like your friend Rob, though synchronicities hound her she continually assures me that they mean nothing to her. We talk about synchronicity a fair amount seeing as how this strongly affects my/our life as of late (court case and all). At one point Cathy said to me, “why would you be so ‘out there’ with what you think and believe if it could get you locked up” (as in meaning being diagnosed as delusional/crazy by Judge and Psychiatrist).
Since the hearing with the Appeal Court Judges (which ‘appeared’ favourable to me by the way) and which Cathy attended, I have noticed a distict change in Cathy, Just the other day she revealed an unsettling dream of the previous night, involving the Canadian Snow Birds (aerobatic military jets) because the newspaper we were reading the next morning showed a picture of the jets. For the first time she suggested that this could be a ‘meaningful coincidence’… and even asked my oppinion as to I thought it could mean.