Sparking synchronicity
Speculations on falling together in time
Greetings from rainy, cold Maryland, and welcome to all new subscribers. I’m grateful for every one of you who’ve put your trust in Homecoming. Happy news here: our son graduated from college yesterday and we were delighted to celebrate his hard-won milestone. I’m still finishing up grading (grrrr) and tomorrow is my school’s graduation, which I wouldn’t miss for the world. Sooooo, chapter 10 of FLUX, will come out a few days late. Meanwhile, please enjoy this piece on courting coincidence.
This wild thing happened to a friend during a period of crisis and change in her life. She was working for an eco-tourism project in Costa Rica. One day, she sat on the beach sketching a logo inspired by an image from a well-known children’s book. Pretty soon, a shadow fell over her to ask what was she thinking, working in this beautiful place. Sure enough, her questioner was the author of the very book she was thinking of, The Giving Tree—Shel Silverstein.
When things like this happen—as they do, to all of us—I’m amazed, amused, bemused. It shakes up my usual concept of time and mocks cause and effect. We call such non-causal events “coincidence” or “synchronicity.”
Synchronicity was coined by the psychologist Carl Jung to describe a unique moment, a “falling together in time,” when nature and psyche align, when outer and inner realities touch. He worked all his life to wrestle what might be called magical thinking into a scientific framework. That work continues today with complexity theory, complex adaptive systems, and emergence, among other fields.
I have come to accept such occurrences as confirmation that I’m on the right track, though I may have no clear sense of where I’m actually going. These events are so singular, an entire exchange with someone well met takes on a heightened quality.
I’ve often wished to court these events more actively, which is pretty much beside the point. An element of allowing, almost of passivity, seems to be required. Jung was profoundly influenced by Eastern thought, for instance, the I Ching, which is full of advice along the lines of waiting and doing nothing:
“The East bases much of its science on this irregularity and considers coincidences as the reliable basis of the world rather than causality. Synchronism is the prejudice of the East; causality is the modern prejudice of the West. The more we busy ourselves with dreams, the more we shall see such coincidences—chances. Remember that the oldest Chinese scientific book [the I Ching] is about the possible chances of life.”1
Steering
In the non-doing, there is still plenty to do. Think of sailing or whitewater kayaking, where you put yourself in the flow of forces far beyond comprehension, let alone control. You have a role, that of steering, operating sails, balancing body weight, judging the course, while also giving over to being carried by the wind and the current.
These occurrences can never be orchestrated or engineered by us alone. All I can do is pose questions, listen for suggestions, act on them, and notice what happens. So far, my experience of synchronicity and coincidence has been delightful, though inconsistent and random, which quite possibly is the nature of it. I have a theory that I notice only a tiny fraction of these events. Here are a few that were too obvious to miss:
2019. One of my favorite poets, Marie Howe, slipped into the very row where I sat during a writing workshop. After the talk, I was able to tell her how much I love her poem, “Annunciation,” and, to my delight, she stayed engaged and asked me why.
1998. Author Paul Hawken closed a transformative speech by reciting Rumi’s poem, “Say Yes Quickly,” which in that moment I knew was written for me. The next morning, he randomly sat right beside me at the conference’s closing breakfast, when there were dozens of other tables to choose from. Following that encounter, he sent me the book of poems.2
1979. A high school junior, I received a letter from Carnegie-Mellon University about their summer “Career Discovery” program in architecture. I’d never been to summer camp and had zero connection to CMU, but I went and the rest is history.
Alignment
The more aligned I am with my deepest desires, with dream work, with spirit / divine source / grace, with gratitude and the reciprocity of relationships, the more frequent these coincidences. Alignment draws a wide circle around my life, rendering ordinary events synchronous. Random fragments and details knit my desires into beautiful, if temporary, wholeness.
Alignment is an ancient technology that you can practice with your own body. In Tantric philosophy, universal knowing resides in the back body, while our unique personality and intelligence is in the front. Think of how easy it is to recognize someone by their face, when you might not spot them from behind. The key to balancing these two energies, universal and particular, is in the alignment of front and back, left and right, along a central channel of energy that runs through the center of your body.
Dynamic balance of opposites, integration of universal intelligence, and intentional alignment to a central purpose sound like a good way to live life, right? In Improv, it’s called group mind when everyone in a sketch begins to act as one, tapping into a greater intelligence flowing between us. My will melts away and I become an instrument of response and offering, part of a whole that is dynamically and continually emerging. It’s a grand synthetic act to plug into this magical weaving of relationship and attunement, and I can’t overstate how fun it is.
Nimbleness
My friend who met the children’s book author confessed doubts about her ability to navigate life any other way, which reminds me of how counter-cultural this is. There are practical considerations to living this way. We must be nimble, able to flit between a state of grace and willful activity, yet without trampling the delicate threads that bind every living being to the world of spirit.
Living from trust, magic and play means stepping out of received ideas and habitual thinking about will and action, goals and results. I think of it as “all-in with a light touch,” which has been my writing mantra for years. Recently, I learned the Sanskrit term, vairagya, which translates as “dispassionate passion,” a quality of fiery dedication married to calm contentment and release of outcome. This is a good frame of mind to court synchronicity, if such a thing is even possible. May we all experience the delight of recognizing when it happens.
Your turn
When have you experienced synchronicity? My dream is for the comments to overflow with wonderful tales of play and magic and delight.
What did you enjoy most about this essay? I’d love to hear from you. Or share it with others by restacking on Notes, via the Substack app. Thanks!
Each season, we donate 30% of paid subscriptions to a worthy environmental cause. This season, it’s Women's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) International. For The Earth And All Generations - Women Are Rising For Climate Justice & Community-Led Solutions. Track past and current recipients here.
Carl Jung, from Dream Analysis, 1928
I’ve been dreaming of a new interactive series based on this poem, “Say Yes Quickly.” It begins in June and I couldn’t be more excited.
I love this Julie! I have been thinking a lot about synchronicity this week. For me, the latest such moment was when I was making an edit to my novel. I was threading a favourite book of one of my characters into the narrative. I wasn't sure whether to make up a book or use a real life one. But when I found a photocopied version of a book from the 1920s online I was like, oh! That is the book. After spending a week or so winding this book into my character's heart and story, I thought I better google the author of the book just in case he was controversial. And then I found out he was some very unknown small-town naturalist who, a century ago, was the vicar at the church I was christened in, in a tiny village in the south of England, and that he lived literally 2 minutes from where I lived as a young child. I really felt it was a sign that this was the right book. And I can't explain why at all, I just feel it in my bones 🤍
I never knew it was Jung who coined synchronicity! And inspired by the I Ching no less. Synchronicity feels like a little hug from the unseen, a reminder that so much more is happening beyond our understanding.
My craziest synchronicity (that still to this day gets me) is that I fell in love with and married David Charles—of course, I always knew he had the same name as my father. But only ten years ago, after a paternity DNA discovery, did I learn that his middle name was my actual biological father’s name, Charles. I mean, what are the chances that my husband would share BOTH names with my two fathers?!!!!