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?!!!!
Love that! “A little hug from the unseen” is exactly it. And what a fabulous story about your husband and dads. In a similar vein, only after we chose a name for our adopted son Tobias Robert the day after his birth, did we learn that his birth father’s dad’s name is Tobias and his birthmother’s dad’s name is Robert.
What a great essay, Julie. I’ve experienced synchronicity a few times. The most striking one was when an answer appeared to a question I’d almost absently asked the Universe.
Synchronicities happen so much it’s hard to track - the most recent is finding your stack! Thank you for this wonderful essay and congrats to your family.
This week, I asked my father on the other side for help with a move and the next day my friend said she could add more days to her trip here (in part to help with the move) and her new departure date is his angel (departure) date - July 1st. I find that really engaging with field and asking for the ripples to be obvious is super helpful! 🙏🏼💚
Thank you for this delightful topic & writing, Julie!
A few years ago, I was texting (on FB messenger) someone I haven’t actually met, a fellow wayfarer. I asked him what his views were on serendipity and synchronicity. His reply felt both profound and poetic:
“All one can find is synchronicity and serendipity. Everything that appears to appear is always right on cue.
Your investigation must eschew the kaleidoscopic inferences of conscious experience to see the nature by which it arises.
Otherwise the majesty and novelty of what effuses from nowhere captivates one's attention and inevitably (with no delay) becomes something.
But this is not a thing, it is the revelation of transcendent magic.”
I notice synchronicity more & more everywhere and definitely here on Substack. What I need to read and hear in a particular moment does seem to appear right on cue.
I've long been interested in synchronicities and your piece reminded me of the work of Vic Mansfield: Synchronicity, Science, and Soulmaking: Understanding Jungian Syncronicity Through Physics, Buddhism, and Philosphy (1998). Vic and his wife Elaine brought the Dalai Lama on his first trip to the US. Physics and metaphysics aren't really contradictory approaches.
Julie, I love your post. I’m only 4 weeks old here and synchronicity has been a major part of my life. My third post was “Synchronicity or Serendipity?” (https://substack.com/@reinventyourlife/p-162423837) and my substack is about embracing change, taking risks, and trusting in synchronicity to help you create a life full of passion and joy at any age. Sometimes the universe speaks to me through dreams, other times it’s just events such as I describe in this post. Finding like thinkers makes me happy!
This is fabulous! I’m tickled that a post about synchronicity itself sparked synchronicity. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. 🥰 Thanks for the link to your post. Looking forward to reading it.
Yes synchronicity is a given in my life, have always trusted it will be there and my questions and questing will find their responses . Having worked with my own and others’ dreams over decades, I have witnessed countless synchronicities as the work of listening to the personal psyche is met by world psyche. So great you wrote this piece Julie, to find our way out of this misguided dominant culture we need to open to this relational way of knowing and being
I loved this essay, Julie. Nice to have been part of your journey. SO many congratulations to your son--a long successful road and a good beginning for whatever comes next. And I honor your devotion to teaching. I guess the serendipities in my life have to do with where I am..if something memorable is happening, I'm usually there. No particular role, just a participant and observer. Like being at the opening of the Fillmore back when there was only one, for the first light shows in the '60's. Who knew? We were as worried then as we are now, but we lived and created it out and changed everything. It was one world, in the fifties, and then in a few years, it wasn't that world, it was another. Like now...and our worries can have a good result if we continue to live authentically, have hope, and have some very concrete but wildly improbable dreams. As you go. By the way, my book has gone to press; I'll have copies in a few weeks.
OMG!!! That's fantastic news!! I'm so excited to hold a copy in my hands. You are an inspiration. I miss our talks. Time for another one soon . . . How's that project in Severna Park?
I absolutely love this essay, Julie!! So rich in thought, so well crafted. I'm definitely keeping this one in my back pocket! I so appreciate the deep reminders. I feel like it's never been more important to be tuning into this level of reality, for all the reasons you stated and more. The magic of the universe is real and always a gift when it is revealed and received. And always a delight to take in one of your watercolors!
So honored to be your "friend", and so excited about Toby!! Congratulations to all around! Wishing him only the best in his next chapter!!
So much lately seems to fall in place, one of those unexpected seasons. That said, an open mind and willingness to wait for the right words helps. The familiar becomes unique and the foreign becomes education. I also think this is a response to a sense of everything my normalcy depends upon is disintegrating I can't depend on normal anymore and that opens many doors.
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 🤍
OMG, that is a fabulous story! That is one of Kimberly‘s hugs from the unseen world. ❤️🌈
Yes, this describes it perfectly! 💫
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?!!!!
Love that! “A little hug from the unseen” is exactly it. And what a fabulous story about your husband and dads. In a similar vein, only after we chose a name for our adopted son Tobias Robert the day after his birth, did we learn that his birth father’s dad’s name is Tobias and his birthmother’s dad’s name is Robert.
Whaaaat?! Amazing!!!!
🥰🌈
A little hug from the unseen!! Yes!
What a great essay, Julie. I’ve experienced synchronicity a few times. The most striking one was when an answer appeared to a question I’d almost absently asked the Universe.
Love it!
Synchronicities happen so much it’s hard to track - the most recent is finding your stack! Thank you for this wonderful essay and congrats to your family.
This week, I asked my father on the other side for help with a move and the next day my friend said she could add more days to her trip here (in part to help with the move) and her new departure date is his angel (departure) date - July 1st. I find that really engaging with field and asking for the ripples to be obvious is super helpful! 🙏🏼💚
Yes!! Beautiful story. Thanks for the reminder about asking! <slaps forehead> DOH! 🤦🏼♀️
Looking forward to the Say Yes Quickly series. :) (Saying yes to it. :)
That was quick. 😉 Thanks for the encouragement.
Thank you for this delightful topic & writing, Julie!
A few years ago, I was texting (on FB messenger) someone I haven’t actually met, a fellow wayfarer. I asked him what his views were on serendipity and synchronicity. His reply felt both profound and poetic:
“All one can find is synchronicity and serendipity. Everything that appears to appear is always right on cue.
Your investigation must eschew the kaleidoscopic inferences of conscious experience to see the nature by which it arises.
Otherwise the majesty and novelty of what effuses from nowhere captivates one's attention and inevitably (with no delay) becomes something.
But this is not a thing, it is the revelation of transcendent magic.”
I notice synchronicity more & more everywhere and definitely here on Substack. What I need to read and hear in a particular moment does seem to appear right on cue.
It’s true! Substack is full of serendipity.
I've long been interested in synchronicities and your piece reminded me of the work of Vic Mansfield: Synchronicity, Science, and Soulmaking: Understanding Jungian Syncronicity Through Physics, Buddhism, and Philosphy (1998). Vic and his wife Elaine brought the Dalai Lama on his first trip to the US. Physics and metaphysics aren't really contradictory approaches.
Ooooo!! That sounds like a great book! Thanks!
Julie, I love your post. I’m only 4 weeks old here and synchronicity has been a major part of my life. My third post was “Synchronicity or Serendipity?” (https://substack.com/@reinventyourlife/p-162423837) and my substack is about embracing change, taking risks, and trusting in synchronicity to help you create a life full of passion and joy at any age. Sometimes the universe speaks to me through dreams, other times it’s just events such as I describe in this post. Finding like thinkers makes me happy!
This is fabulous! I’m tickled that a post about synchronicity itself sparked synchronicity. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. 🥰 Thanks for the link to your post. Looking forward to reading it.
Yes synchronicity is a given in my life, have always trusted it will be there and my questions and questing will find their responses . Having worked with my own and others’ dreams over decades, I have witnessed countless synchronicities as the work of listening to the personal psyche is met by world psyche. So great you wrote this piece Julie, to find our way out of this misguided dominant culture we need to open to this relational way of knowing and being
Well said. To “this relational way of knowing and being,” I say hear hear! ❤️
Every day all the time!
Wow, that's impressive. What's your secret?
Flow. Trusting the magic!!
Love it 💚
I loved this essay, Julie. Nice to have been part of your journey. SO many congratulations to your son--a long successful road and a good beginning for whatever comes next. And I honor your devotion to teaching. I guess the serendipities in my life have to do with where I am..if something memorable is happening, I'm usually there. No particular role, just a participant and observer. Like being at the opening of the Fillmore back when there was only one, for the first light shows in the '60's. Who knew? We were as worried then as we are now, but we lived and created it out and changed everything. It was one world, in the fifties, and then in a few years, it wasn't that world, it was another. Like now...and our worries can have a good result if we continue to live authentically, have hope, and have some very concrete but wildly improbable dreams. As you go. By the way, my book has gone to press; I'll have copies in a few weeks.
OMG!!! That's fantastic news!! I'm so excited to hold a copy in my hands. You are an inspiration. I miss our talks. Time for another one soon . . . How's that project in Severna Park?
I absolutely love this essay, Julie!! So rich in thought, so well crafted. I'm definitely keeping this one in my back pocket! I so appreciate the deep reminders. I feel like it's never been more important to be tuning into this level of reality, for all the reasons you stated and more. The magic of the universe is real and always a gift when it is revealed and received. And always a delight to take in one of your watercolors!
So honored to be your "friend", and so excited about Toby!! Congratulations to all around! Wishing him only the best in his next chapter!!
Thanks so much, Lisa -- for your friendship and encouragement, for reading, and of course, for this amazing story! Can't wait to catch up soon.
So much lately seems to fall in place, one of those unexpected seasons. That said, an open mind and willingness to wait for the right words helps. The familiar becomes unique and the foreign becomes education. I also think this is a response to a sense of everything my normalcy depends upon is disintegrating I can't depend on normal anymore and that opens many doors.
Well said! Great upheavals clear away so much that was distracting.