If you liked Sky Nelson’s YouTube synchronicity video from the Obama inauguration, you might get a big kick out of this musical fantasy synchronicity from the Antwerp Central Station.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UE3CNu_rtY
This one is by musician and videographer Sky Nelson, who interviewed people at the Obama inauguration.
“I use my new understanding of synchronicity constantly. Putting it to use, I earned a slot in the Red Gorilla Music Festival this year, won Best Song of the Year in the Sonoma County WCSA competition, and became the music director for Global Heart Center for Spiritual Living last year, a position I truly love.” Sky Nelson
(www.youtube.com/skynelson)
www.expectingsynchronicity.com.
Here’s another one from Max, who gave us the Magic Teapots, Dominoes, and Chicago Breakfast Bum.
***
Late Thursday night I was lying in bed reading with Becky. She was reading a book I’d gotten her earlier that week: Leo Buscaglia’s ‘Living Loving and Learning.’
(I’d ordered a used copy for her after I’d suddenly remembered reading in in junior high after finding a copy at a garage sale and really liked it.)
When she put it aside to go to sleep, I picked it up and paged through, wondering if it would seem terribly cheesy to my older eyes.
I glanced down the list of chapter titles until I saw one called ‘On Becoming You,’ and started at the beginning of it. A quote from the first page stood out to me, “Perhaps love is the process of my leading you gently back to yourself.” The quote was from the book ‘Wind, Sand, and Stars’ by Saint Exupery – a name that rang a bell. Years ago, my grandmother had given me a copy of Expury’s ‘The Little Prince,’ telling me that it had always reminded her of me.
On impulse I looked for that copy of ‘The Little Prince,’ which I thought was in the bedside table drawer. Becky was startled by the burst of activity as I dug through the contents seeking the book, and I explained to her I was looking for ‘The Little Prince.’ I didn’t find it, and went to sleep thinking I’d locate it in the morning.
Friday afternoon my mom came to the house to get some help with her laptop and hang out a bit. As we sat around chatting in my living room, she sorted through the materials she’d brought along, then suddenly asked if I still had the copy of ‘The Little Prince’ that her mother had given me. She had just found a reminder note to herself saying: “Max – read: The Little Prince.”
I told her I had just been looking for that very book the night before. So I went upstairs and there it was on the bedside table, not in the drawer below.
Returning downstairs with the book, I asked her what had made her think of it.
It turned out that 20 or so years ago, her dad (my grandfather and husband of my Little-Prince-giving-grandmother) had given my mother a book which–after all those years–she’d just had an urge to read for the first time. In it, she found a chapter titled “What is Essential is Invisible to the Eye,” based on the philosophy of ‘The Little Prince.’
What was the book my grandfather had given her?
Leo Buscaglia’s ‘Living, Loving, & Learning.’
Needless to say, I’m reading ‘The Little Prince’ now – and paying attention to what it has to say …
Max
“You can see clearly only with your heart. What is truly important is invisible to the eyes.”
– Saint Exupery, ‘The Little Prince’
Years ago, Rob and I ran across a book called Mysteries of the Unexplained. It has a section on synchronicities and that’s where this next story comes from. It’s similar to the synchronicity entitled Annette and the Sweatshirt in that both involve accidents that occurred years apart, but with repetitive themes.
In the 1930s, Allan Falby, captain of the El Paso County Highway Patrol, was pursuing a speeding truck. As the truck unexpectedly slowed to turn, Allan slammed into it and the collision ruptured an artery in his leg. Alfred Smith stopped to give Allan first aid and applied a tourniquet to his leg. It stopped the bleeding long enough for an ambulance to arrive and to get Allan to a hospital. Alfred’s actions saved Allan’s life. He was able to return to his job several months afterward.
Five years later, Allan Falby was working the night shift and received a message to assist at the scene of a terrible accident on U.S. 80. Allan arrived at the scene before the ambulance did. A car had smashed into a tree and the driver was unconscious, an artery in his right leg had been severed, and he was bleeding to death. Allan applied a tourniquet to stem the bleeding. The victim was Alfred Smith.
Saturday I was the fulcrum for a synchronicity between two women in my yoga class. Just before class began, I asked one of them, a snowbird, when she was heading north. She said she was delaying her return because it was snowing in northern Maine and she mentioned that she lived in a small town on the border called Houlton. At the mention of the town, the woman next to her said that was where she lived. They talked briefly and found out they had friends in common, not surprising one said since it was a small town.
But, hey, what were the chances that those two women, who didn’t know each other, would come to a yoga class, find places next to each other, and find out they were from the same town in Maine? What were the chances that I would start a conversation that would result in the name of the town coming up?
What was really astonishing to me though was that the two women didn’t seem very surprised. They quickly accepted the unlikely scenario without even commenting on the oddity. I’ve taught that class for seven years and never met anyone from my original hometown, Minneapolis, or even from Minnesota.
The point here is that synchronicities happen all the time and they’re often shrugged off as nothing unusual, nothing special. It’s when we recognize how special they are that we open up to insight on our existence here and how meaningful this existence really is.
Divination systems – from the I Ching to astrology, from the tarot to the toss of bones -illustrate synchronicity in action. Jung, in his brilliant introduction to the Richard Wilhelm translation of the I Ching,discusses this very phenomenon. Yes, the skeptics abound. Skeptics seem opposed to the very idea of divination – and to synchronicity generally. But this blog isn’t about convincing skeptics of- well, anything. That said, here’s a story about the tarot and synchronicity.
Some years ago, a group of us were sitting around a kitchen table, playing with a deck of tarot cards. One of our neighbors wanted to know if she was pregnant. But when she drew cards, none of the typical pregnancy cards surfaced. Then her young son asked if he could draw cards about this question. His mom sort of laughed, like she wasn’t really convinced it would yield any information, and gave her son permission to pull some cards. Out of 78 cards, he picked the one card whose meaning addresses fertility and pregnancy – The Empress.A week later, a pregnancy test confirmed that his mother was, indeed, pregnant.
The tricky thing with divination systems – whether it’s the I Ching, tarot, or a psychic- is that you must be clear about your question. Am I pregnant? Will I find my soul mate? Will my novel or screenplay sell? All of us want to know what the future holds. But it seems that when dealing with divination systems, the answers may lie in the way we phrase our questions.
This one comes from Judy Hertling of British Colombia. As you read it, it seems like a rather mundane story of using higher or expanded awareness to attract what one is looking for. However, it takes an interesting twist when Judy opens the tape cassette box and finds a note inside. That’s synchronicity!
The words – Ask, and It is Given – took on a whole new synchronistic meaning for me a couple of years ago.
For weeks I had been searching for additional teaching and empowerment tools to help a woman with whom I had been working. Whatever I had looked at previously I sensed, not been right for this particular individual, and I was running out of inspiration Nothing so far had worked.
“Why don’t you ask the Universe for what you need?” a friend suggested had seriously. She had just finished the book The Secret.
“Like ordering from Costco.” I laughed. “Dear Universe, I’d like you to send me the perfect tool for helping someone design a life filled with passion and purpose.”
Two weeks later I read of the annual used book sale in support of the SPCA. It is one of the major book events on Vancouver Island with thousands of books for sale over a two day period so I thought I’d check it out. After three hours of looking through hundreds of books I gave up and decided to end my search and head on home. I was tired and frustrated, but something at the back of my mind kept nagging me to go back, and re-check a table that held self-help and metaphysical books. A table I had already checked three or four times.
This time, I found exactly what I was looking for. However, it wasn’t until I got home and really looked at my purchase, that I realized the true synchronicity behind what I had bought.
A set of 6 cassette tapes titled, Passion, Power and Purpose, sealed and taped closed in a white cassette binder. Nothing unusual until I cut off the tape and opened it.
Inside, staring up at me from atop the cassettes and the workbook was a large purple sticky note, on which was written in beautiful handwriting. “Judith, Thank you for your order. Feel free to order from us again.”
The Universe had indeed provided exactly what I had asked for. Just as if I had ordered it myself.
***
Great story. And we all can order again, as the note says.
Synchronicities can happen in the most ordinary places – the gym, a yoga class, a gas station, a crawl space, a grocery store. These mundane settings suddenly become infused with a thick, rich magic that reminds us we’re in the flow, in our grooves,and all we have to do is embrace whatever comes our way. The following story is from Carol Bowman, writer and past-life researcher. Her blog has riveting stories about reincarnation that she has come across in her regression practice. Her site is listed under our link for “interesting websites.”
On March 24, Carol was visiting her mother in the Hudson Valley, NY area. Small town. Not much there. She had gone to the grocery store for basics – “real basics, this isn’t a Whole Foods.” While waiting in line, she noticed that the Asian woman behind her had a toddler in her cart, a cute little girl. Carol struck up a conversation by asking the woman how old her daughter was.
Asian woman: “She’ll be two next month. She’s an Aries.”
Carol: “My Aries daughter will be 30 next month. Aries kids are a handful, aren’t they?”
Asian woman, laughing: “That’s for sure. And I’m married to an Aries.”
Carol’s antenna went up. “Me, too!”
So we can imagine these two women in line at this dinky store, suddenly aware of some sort of connection, both of them with Aries daughters, both of them married to Aries men. Carol then asks, “What sign are you?”
Asian woman: “I’m a Libra.”
Now Carol’s antenna twitches furiously. The fact that something really odd and fascinating is happening is right in her face. “Wow, I’m a Libra too. What’s your birth date?”
Asian woman” “October 14.”
At this point, Carol nearly swallows her tongue.”That’s, uh, my birth date, too.”
If this scene was in a movie, there might be weird music – Twilight Zone? X-Files?. But Carol brings out her business card. “I’ll be conducting a past-life workshop here in June. I hope you’ll come.”
The Asian woman takes Carol’s card. “I’ll definitely be there. I’m a Buddhist.”
We were thinking late last week that although we were posting lots of synchronicities here, we hadn’t experienced any for a few days. Well, that changed over the weekend. This one isn’t about numbers, it’s about letters, specifically, A-U-T-E-C.
Friday night a couple of friends came over for dinner. They’ve both taken yoga classes from me for years, but I didn’t t know much about their backgrounds. Paul and I were on the porch talking after dinner while Trish and Susan were in the kitchen. Paul asked me what I was working on and the conversation came around to an upcoming trip to Andros Island where I would be interviewed by the History Channel for an episode of UFO Hunter. Andros is the location of a secret navy base called AUTEC–the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center. In some circles, AUTEC is known as the navy’s version of air force’s mysterious Area 51. Rumors about the base related to UFOs, especially underwater ones, known as USOs, will be part of the program.
Trish and I had been looking into getting onto the base during our stay on the island, but you need to know someone who works there in order to qualify for a tour. A peculiar requirement, and one that restricts access to a base that is already quite remote. While Andros is the largest island in the Bahamas, it’s mostly a mountainous wilderness with about 6,000 residents. Not many tourists go there.
So as I’m telling all this to Paul, he interrupts and says, “I used to work at AUTEC as a civilian contractor.” He’d no sooner made the comment when Trish burst onto the porch and said, “Guess what? Susan said Paul used to work at AUTEC.”
The next morning at the gym, I ran into Bruce Gernon, co-author of THE FOG, our book on the Bermuda Triangle. Nothing odd about that. I see him there a few times a week. Bruce is also headed to Andros to be interviewed for the same program in early April. He immediately told me that he was the local Flannigan’s the night before when he noticed that the man seated next to him at the bar was wearing a shirt with an emblem on it that said: AUTEC. He started a conversation and quickly found out that the man knew who he was and about the book. Since Bruce has appeared on many cable TV programs over the years about the Bermuda Triangle, that’s not too surprising. Bruce told him about our plans to go to Andros, and they talked about arranging a tour.
So with Andros on our upcoming itinerary, surprisingly, we both met people associated with AUTEC separately on the same evening.
This story qualifies as a cluster synchronicity. It isn’t mind-blowing, but is one of those curious events that seizes your attention.
Within minutes of publishing Max’s story the other day, The Magic Teapot, a friend send an email about an exhibit in Miami featuring Max, the legendary crystal skull. I remarked to Rob that if we came across another “Max” that day, it would qualify as a synchronicity.
An hour later, at the beginning of Rob’s yoga class, I asked the guy next to me if he ad his wife would be interested in adopting one of the stray cats we were feeding. He sort of chuckled and said, “We can’t do cats. Max would eat it whole.” Max is his dog.
