My Brain on Synchronicity

Synchronicity. Some might call it pure, random coincidence, but I don’t believe in such a thing. I believe in synchronicity -- according to Jung: the experience of two or more events that are unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningful manner. This particular synchronous event calls up for me so many correlations and associations with similar incidents throughout my life. It is so exciting and fascinating to me when these things happen.
I have yet to figure out how to be in the flow, so to speak, to access my subconscious at will. But in times of need, it always presents itself. And sometimes, I think, it does it, not only to impart a bit of needed information, but to amuse me as well. That’s what happened this time.

The Voice (not audible, of course) often directs me to do things. As a young Christian woman, I always attributed it to the Voice of God. Only when I started reading the mystics and metaphysical writers in college did I begin to comprehend my own experience.

Now that I understand that it’s part of me and comes from me, it’s more subtle — most of the time — meaning “more easily ignored.” But it also knows how to grab my attention when it’s urgent.
This wasn’t urgent, but I find it amazing. Night before last, a specific tarot image came to mind. I recognized the theme, and decided to adopt it for a new project that I am working on. All day yesterday, my mind (or The Voice) kept urging me to look up the card on Tarot.com, and, it said, I needed also to look up other images of the same card. The image I had seen in my mind was from the Thoth deck.

The path upon which I embarked to find the information (that I didn’t know I was seeking) was also interesting. I went to Tarot.com and looked up the card that had impressed itself in my mind. I was delighted to find, first of all, that it’s meaning quite poignantly addressed (to the minutest detail) exactly what I had been thinking about when the card came to mind.

Now that, in itself, is not particularly remarkable. When one studies the tarot, the images implant themselves as archetypes in the mind, so the fact that my brain connected that particular card with my idea was understandable, although I may not have consciously made the connection.
But what happened next was the exciting and (I was going to say amusing, but that literally means “not to think”) insightful.

As I was “told,” I looked to see the image from a different deck. The site gives you that option. When you  choose a card, there is a drop-down menu that allows you to see the image of the card in any deck available. There are dozens of choices, the majority of which I’m not familiar. I simply chose the first one that pleased my mind — The Celestial Tarot. Synchronicity ensues.

I was immediately drawn to the image — that of the constellation Boötes. I have heard of Boötes, but it produced no specific knowledge or correlations for me. I looked it up on Wikipedia, and my curiosity was piqued when I saw that the most prominent star in Boötes is Arcturus. The name Arcturus has been floating around in my conscious mind for quite a while now, so I immediately followed the link to Arcturus.
Of course I was particularly pleased that Arcturus is known to the Greeks as the “guardian of the Bear.” That is particularly relevant to me because my Spirit guide and teacher is a great mother bear. But the surprise came when I saw that the culmination of Arcturus, meaning when it is at its zenith and most prominent in the sky is — April 30th. The very day I was “told” to look it up.

I mused, first on the meaning — the omen, so to speak. The message of the tarot card was partially about being guarded and supported. I took it to mean that the Spirit of the “guardian of the Bear” was watching over me. I could explain that more fully, but that gets into magickal names, etc. of which I shall not speak at this moment.

But then I marveled. How was it that this moment in time — April 30th at the culmination of the star — impinged itself on my consciousness? At first I thought it was perhaps a remnant from the collective unconscious, but then I realized that I would have read that article on Arcturus in May of 2006 while making preparations for my MidSummer celebration. But when I read the article, I was looking for lore and metaphor, not facts, so the April 30th date would have been passively asserted into my brain.
I find it exciting, fascinating, a bit frightening, and I find myself full of awe at the capabilities of our brains to arrange things the way they do. My excitement and fascination comes from the fact that if I could be more open to that information all the time, that I could literally accomplish anything I want/desire/will. θέλω.

There.is.no.obstacle.other.than.ourselves. Imagine. Imagine what we can accomplish. But we cannot command it. If we desire it too much, or try to capture it, it retreats. Only when we are in the flow — the flow of God — of the Gods — of the Beloved — of The Universe — in the flow of our own life force. It comes when we recognize that we are truly “a Star in the company of Stars.” Only then do we begin.

True synchronicity.