I understand the mind and body connection only too well and most of the time my mind controls my body. Yesterday my body took charge. My head wanted to shop, I was looking forward to visiting my favourite little fair trade vintage clothes store in Saffron Walden. It was open for the last time yesterday and I dreamed of picking up some bargains, saying farewell to Liz and wishing her all the best for the future, my body however had other plans. I am learning to listen more to my body nowadays and yesterday it was right, I could hardly move from the sofa never mind wander around outside in the cold. So it was back to succumbing again!
I am never alone, besides having my lovely husband for company my imagination is my best friend. I have no need for external stimuli as I can lie for hours thinking and dreaming.
Yesterday I was thinking more about coincidence, well actually synchronicity.
Here’s a quote from The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield
“I don’t think that anything happens by coincidence… No one is here by accident… Everyone who crosses our path has a message for us. Otherwise they would have taken another path, or left earlier or later. The fact that these people are here means that they are here for some reason”…”
The uncanny coincidence, the unlikely conjunction of events, the startling serendipity, who hasn’t had it happen in their life? You think of someone for the first time in years, and run into them a few hours later. An unusual phrase you’d never heard before jumps out at you three times in the same day. On a back street in a foreign country, you bump into an old colleague. A book falls off the shelf at the bookstore and it’s exactly what you need.
Synchronicity is a concept developed by psychologist Carl Jung to describe a perceived meaningful coincidence. Jung described synchronicity as an “a causal connecting principle” in which events, both large and small, in the external world might align to the experience of the individual, perhaps mirroring or echoing personal concerns or thoughts.
Although some scientists see potential evidence of synchronicity in areas of research such as quantum theory and the chaos theory the concept is not testable by any current scientific method. Skeptics, argue that the perception of synchronicity is better explained as apophenia, which is the human tendency to seek and perceive connections between unrelated phenomena.
Our scientific worldview is built on the concept of cause and effect, as a culture we tend to doubt and deny aspects of experience that aren’t measurable and verifiable. So often when events coincide in startling ways, the first words we hear or say are, “Oh, it’s just a coincidence.”
I am not sure I agree, too many examples of coincidences have happened in my life to put it down to pure chance. Many people have come into my life at just the right time. Tske for example the psychologist in my team who turned out to be married to one of the leading experts in a field closely related to Myeloma and who put me in touch with the amazing consultant that I put my ultimate faith in to today.
The concept that everything has a concrete cause is so entrenched in our modern Western mentality that it took considerable courage for Carl Jung to take on the subject of synchronicity. He had been looking for some way to break through to a patient who was very rational and rigid in her thinking and had a stock answer for everything. he was stuck as how to help her move forward. He writes, “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 jewellery. 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 scarabaeid beetle, whose gold-green colour most nearly 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.”
Colin loves Pink Floyd and has spent a lifetime trying to create music that comes close to his idols ( I think he does a pretty good job) but up until now I have never really appreciated their music in the same way. Last night at approx 3.15 I had an awakening, well I was awake but also awakened to the sounds in a different way. In my research into synchronicity. (it’s marvellous what the iPad allows you to do in the early hours), I came across Dark Side of the Rainbow.
Fans of the rock group Pink Floyd have pointed out that their album Dark Side of the Moon (DSotM), can be used as an alternative soundtrack for the MGM motion picture The Wizard of Oz (1939) in a phenomenon generally referred to as Dark Side of the Rainbow. (DSotR) Contrary to the suggestion by some that this sync was done intentionally, there is strong evidence to support the conclusion that Pink Floyd actually synchronized this album to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), which would tend to discount the claim that it was deliberately synchronized to the Oz movie. In an effort to find an alternative explanation, some have dismissed it as mere coincidence; others have tried to explain it as a trick of the mind, as in apophenia; but most interestingly, in 1997, writing for Relix magazine, Dave Kopel suggested the phenomenon was an example of Carl Jung’s synchronicity. Since then, fans of DSotR have been citing the phenomenon as an example of synchronicity, perhaps without truly appreciating what synchronicity really means, or just how closely The Wizard of Oz resembles a parable on Jungian psychology.
Since your consciousness is constantly interacting with all levels of yourself, some synchronicities will have more personal significance than others in your life. You can generally gauge how important a given synchronicity is for you by feeling how you respond emotionally and physically to it.
“When a person really desires something all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.” I read this on page 114 of “The Alchemist.” The story is about pursuing ones personal legend and is a favourite book of mine.
I don’t know how synchronicity works, but I believe our thoughts are energy’s that exist outside of our physical bodies. They somehow connect with another persons thoughts, energy. Therefore we unknowingly and probably someday knowingly bring a person or event into our lives.
An example of this has happened recently. I was looking for a singer for my summer party. I searched YouTube videos and asked around. My lovely secretary at work knew of a guy who might just fit the bill. So I watched his YouTube video and thought yes please he would be ideal. But ohh so much more than that, once we got chatting via email we realised we shared some passions about education, coincidences and the universe.
Have a look at:
http://eduspire.wordpress.com/2009/12/29/introducing-eduspire/
Following up from the interest you showed from yesterday’s blog on education I think you will enjoy it.
The best way to begin attracting meaningful coincidences and synchronicity is to pay attention to when they occur. Don’t dismiss these unusual experiences as “just coincidence.” If you’ve never done this, you might be surprised at the similar themes that occur in both your dreams and the synchronicity’s you experience in real life. These might be important keys calling your attention to opportunities, relationships, and possibilities you weren’t aware of before.
The more attentive you are to coincidences, the more they occur. And it starts to get really fun when you realize that the things in life you are most passionate about tend to be the things that crop up in coincidence over and over. A particular band’s music, a friend’s birthdate, the name of a book you love, and so on. You also will likely find that you’ll be generating coincidences with your closest friends and family members, something you talked about in passing will turn into a recurring theme all day long or even for several days running.
You may begin to notice, if you haven’t already, the way it starts to look like everything is connected. One theme begins and travels along, then connects with another theme and yet another, and creates a roundabout back to where you originally began. Patterns emerge and intersect and the synchronicities become too apparent to be able to dismiss any longer!
When you experience synchronicity in your life, you can sometimes gain deeper insight into what you intuitively know to be true by taking a closer look at the synchronicity in question. Could it be true that the universe is trying to tell you something? To find out if there may be deeper meaning to a given synchronicity, ask yourself:
o What symbols does this synchronicity contain?
o What do these symbols mean for me, personally, at this time?
o How do I feel about this?
Have a go and start to notice what is happening around you, you may be more surprised than you think.
So much for my short Sunday morning ramblings I just couldn’t help myself.
Have a great day of rest.
X
