How many times have you had a premonition or gut feeling or a dream, that affected your decisions in life and possibly kept you out of harm’s way?
Who hasn’t experienced the phenomena of thinking about, or mentioning someone that you haven’t been in touch with for a long period of time, and you either run into, or get a phone call from that person?
How many times have you had a premonition or gut feeling or a dream, that affected your decisions in life and possibly kept you out of harm’s way? Newspapers are filled with stories of rescues, someone being in the right place at the right time to save the day and maybe a life, because the rescuer and the person rescued were on paths that converged at exactly the right time.
Carl Jung, the famous Swiss psychiatrist and founder of analytical psychology, coined a word for meaningful coincidences that can’t be explained by cause and effect. The word is "synchronicity."
Joan Morris ReillyThis isn’t a word that we’ve grown up with, so when it happens in our lives, we tend to call it something else. Depending on our belief system, it could be coincidence, luck, fate, destiny, karma, a miracle or angels.
Jung believed that at times, especially when our emotions are heightened by life passages like birth, death, marriage or divorce, stuff happens that can’t be explained.
Once I was getting a haircut, from a well known local stylist. I told him that the reason I came in was that I saw an article in the paper that a famous stylist from New York, Irvine Rusk, visited this very salon, and demonstrated a new haircut which I liked. About a minute after I said this, Irvine Rusk telephoned. The stylist was amazed, and asked me if I was into witchcraft, as he had never received a call from this man!
Another time, my sister stopped by and told me of a book she had just read about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and polygamy, something now prohibited, but once practiced in the church.
Within a half hour after she left, there was a knock on my door from two young missionaries from the Church, recruiting Latter-day converts.
One theory about synchronicity is that things that seem like coincidences are messages that we are still connected to loved ones beyond this life. After a painful few years of losing several loved ones, I really needed to believe this. When you’re immersed in grief, it’s a consoling thought.
The closest I ever came to proving this theory was on a wintry day in March several years ago. It had been a bitterly cold winter that year, but this particular day was very sunny, and the snow was finally melting.
I was hoping the warmth of the sun would ease my winter doldrums, as I sat in my car at a stoplight. I was missing my parents, my brother and a few friends who had passed on, thinking how great it would be if I could somehow hear from them. Just beyond the stoplight, there was a row of old houses. My eyes were drawn to the roof of the first house, where much of the snow had melted off in patches, but had left a perfect letter "H," and a long straight line next to it which spelled out "HI." At the precise moment, that I wished for some form of communication, from departed loved ones, the word "HI" appeared in my range of vision!
There are numerous episodes experienced personally, or told to me by others that can’t be explained. For example, on the first visit to the grave of a recently departed loved one having a beautiful deer appear at the edge of the woods, quietly watching, and never seen again on future visits. In the early 199s, one of the local District Courts began jury sessions, which the late presiding judge had fought for years to avoid. The courtroom has very high small windows, and during the first jury session, a large crow was loudly tapping its beak against the window. The court staff was convinced that it was the late judge protesting the session.
A favorite aunt of mine passed away one September, and the following Christmas, I was hanging some of her handmade ornaments on my Christmas tree. As I was hanging a small felt mitten, I discovered there was a paper folded inside. It was a note from my aunt, wishing all of us a happy holiday. It was very touching to find this message, written before dementia had taken over her persona.
Shortly after my sister-in-law died, her son was visiting with close friends. The friends asked their 7-year-old granddaughter, Zoe to tell Chris about the dream she had about his mother. After much coaxing, she told him that in the dream, his mother was petting the family dog that had passed away years before, and she told Zoe to let everyone know that she was OK.
I’ve always heard that children are more receptive to spirits than adults. I think that animals are on that wave length, also. My daughter is convinced that our cat has “spirit watches” when it fixates on and follows something none of us can see.
Author Carolyn North writes “Synchronicity gives us a sense of hope, and a sense that something bigger is happening out there than what we can see, which is especially important in times like this when there are so many reasons for despair.”
My own personal way of summing up synchronicity can be found in a popular quote which is a favorite of mine --" Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."
Joan Morris Reilly is the author of "A Hungry Hill Trinity," and the recent "Other Voices, Other Times: Hungry Hill Remembered," available on Amazon.com. She was also a contributor to The Republican's "The Irish Legacy: A History of the Irish in Western Massachusetts."