Crossing Nebraska

Gosh, it’s been almost a year since I began this series of posts recounting some of my recent experiences of synchronicity. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised at it having taken so long, though, given that I knew from the start this installment was coming and would require of me a fair bit of emotional heavy lifting. In fact, this post may well be the most personally revealing one I’ve ever written, dealing as it does with the dysfunction of my family of origin and the karma it has wrought. But to disregard such messy context would be to excise these synchronicities from everything that gives them power and meaning in the first place. Please bear with me then, as I share enough background information to allow you privy to my state of mind at the time of these events. You may read the first two installments here and here . Interior of Liverpool's Bombed-Out Church First of all, I must say that I’m a Zen Buddhist and not particularly invested in any theories about the afterlife, not...

It’s not uncommon for those grieving the loss of a loved one to hope for a sign from them that all is well on the “other side.” Perhaps this is especially so for survivors left without any meaningful sense of closure. My mother, for instance, slipped inexorably into the quicksand of dementia without me being able to say goodbye in any meaningful way. Perhaps that explains my openness to receiving a sign from her, despite my Zen Buddhist leanings leaving me less inclined to believe in heavenly realms of souls and angels. Grief is never easy, but grief without closure is more difficult still. Euonymus, sometimes called Burning Bush In the first installment of Synchronicity and Meaning I described waking from dreamless sleep with an artist’s name on the tip of my tongue. The last name was Bosch. The first name rhymed with anonymous. Euonymus? No, that’s a plant of some kind. With the mystery yet unresolved, I fell asleep again. Upon awakening the next morning, however, I saw that a fri...

“Oh my gosh, I was just thinking of you!” Have you ever been party to a phone conversation in which the person on the receiving end immediately blurted this out? It would seem to be a fairly common occurrence. But does it mean anything? Is it synchronicity, or is it merely coincidence? For if there is no reason for such events, and no meaning for them to accrue, then they result in little more than “gee whiz” wonderment. I’ve been a “student” of synchronicity for many years. By that I mean I give due consideration to apparently synchronistic phenomena whenever I happen to notice them. I appreciate the way they nudge me from my comfort zone in the rational world and open me to thinking about new possibilities for the reality I might otherwise take for granted. That said, I’m no pushover! My rational mind can’t help but analyze these potentially synchronistic occurrences before getting too excited about them. For instance, when those intriguingly timed phone calls come from my spouse, w...

Every once in a while I experience an apparent synchronicity of events that leaves me musing about the possible existence of some greater intelligence acting in our day to day lives. That such God-like intelligence might be tweaking events in our lives is a foregone conclusion for some. Others are inclined to pass off these occurrences as mere coincidence that the perceiving individual chooses to invest with whatever meaning might be appropriate to him or her. I’m fairly agnostic on the matter. However, regardless of how we might think they came to be, such interesting collections of events can serve to focus our attention on lessons that might be worthwhile to learn, or relearn, as the case may be. For instance, here’s a recent occurrence of “synchronicity” in my life: Event #1: I was heading home from work last Friday afternoon when I decided to make a detour for an early dinner. I made a right turn at a busy intersection and then quickly maneuvered into the left lane in order ...