Synchronicity

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychoanalyst, defined his theory of synchronicity as “simultaneous occurrence of two [or more] meaningful but not causally connected events.”  I added “[or more]”, which has sometimes been true in my experience.  Synchronicity can (also according to Jung) “appear as meaningful parallels to the momentary subjective state.”  Basically, synchronicity is a description of this phenomenon: we begin to think about something, and then the world around us, seemingly supernaturally, offers up things that we can’t help but connect to the thing on our minds.  Jung’s beliefs bordered on the supernatural, especially with his ideas of the collective unconscious, but many people can identify with this experience.  I love Jung.  

I have experienced synchronicity many, many times in my life.  Most recently, with undertaking a whole new life path, I’ve stepped into one that supports my decisions.  

Of course, by now, you’ve read the paragraph at the top of the blog that explains the source of the term “the greening.”  

Last week I realized that a friend from my old workplace, and a fellow seeker, is currently using Julia Cameron’s workbook, The Artist’s Way, to structure her transition from 7:30-3:30 teaching to full-time artist.  She has been very inspirational for me.  Just the fact that I’m not alone and can name someone else who is taking personal risks to live a life of her choosing is important for me.  She doesn’t have to do a thing to be a great source of support!  

Two other important things happened last week.  After a couple of weeks of panic and sleepless nights about money and debt, coupled with this new path I’m embarking on, I finally hit a wall and came to a realization.  When it occurred, I actually felt my whole body, mind, and spirit settle and breathe easier.  I realized that I needed to embrace the situation fully, which would require major changes, changes that would make everything work.  I re-committed myself to my budget, to not purchasing books, to not purchasing any clothing at full price-tag value, to live simply, to enjoy simple pleasures.  

I also made the decision to stay where I’m at, instead of moving into housing on campus this fall.  It is more cost-effective for my needs, even if it does mean that I am forced to tell everyone that, yes, I’m 34 and living with my parents.  This decision led to unpacking and re-arranging my bedroom for a more long-term situation.  I unpacked all of my books and discovered my own copy of The Artist’s Way in the bottom of the last box.  

I set it aside.  That night, sitting in my private space with its new arrangements, I opened the book for the first time in at least five years.  I found that I’d agreed to the steps of the workbook twice previously: once in 2000 and again in 2002.  I added a new date: 4 July 2011.  The same day that I had set for the beginning of the 365 photo project!

In the first two pages of the Introduction to the book, I found that Cameron’s description of creativity is intertwined with the concept of a creative force, a “spiritual electricity”, coming from a “Great Creator”, which she calls “God” throughout her book (although she invites the reader to use the term that most fits their beliefs).  This definition of the “creative flow” is exactly what “the greening” is!  This is what I had been feeling and needing to reconnect with in a more intimate and permanent way.  I want to live creatively and spiritually.  I agree with Cameron that the two are connected.  A breath, one an inhale, the other an exhale.  

Cameron peppers her book with inspirational quotes.  Here are some that fit the connection of something divine with creativity:

“The primary imagination I hold to be the Living Power.”  --Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“the force that through the green fuse drives the flower”  --Dylan Thomas

“God must become an activity in our consciousness.”  --Joel E. Goldsmith

I LOVE the concept of God as a verb.  Why would God have stopped creating once he began?  If our experience of the satisfaction and delight in creating is akin to what a force or entity must have experienced, then he/she/it couldn’t have stopped!  

Then on page two of the first chapter, Cameron posits that you can look at it one of two ways or both:  “creativity leading to spirituality or spirituality leading to creativity.”  And she introduces synchronicity into the mix on this page, too!  

I have managed to hold onto this book for 11 years.  It has taken that long for me to actually understand and pursue the creative life that it offers to anyone willing to love themselves enough.  The coincidence (synchronicity, if you will) of unearthing The Artist’s Way with my state of mind following a stressful week and with the day I’d already set for the beginning of another creative project left me with a refreshed sense of beginning this journey.  I feel renewed and recommitted, with new tools to help me remain on my path, where ever it may take me.  

I also found a bit of my younger self, reassuring me that I’ve been hungering for something else, something deviant from the status quo, for a long time.

On a piece of paper found inside The Artist’s Way I found a poem that I’d written long ago.  When I flipped over the paper, I found that it had been written a recycled sheet from a printer, dated 08/17/1999.  I would have been working at my first professional job, as a project editor.  Here’s the poem, with no changes, no editing, no improvement (which is driving my inner editor crazy!):

untitled
Paper cuts and carpel-tunnel

40 hour days and life’s flooding the funnel

my glass wall, tempered weatherproofed and tinted,

doesn’t blind me to season’s changes,

life and existence at odds, hurt hinted

philosophy clogs my brain

semantics, metaphysics, even religion

striving to occupy the brain while the body is on the clock.

Form, frame, for long stares at the screen--

digital and I no longer look to my fingers

interactive and I no long look to my skin

virtual and I no longer read a book

fast and I no longer have to use my legs

winter’s passing only marked by low humidity, dry skin, and dark fashion colors.


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I re-faced a basic, cheap composition book with this collage for writing my "morning pages", one of the tools that Cameron encourages.  It is similar to letting your brain flush itself of all the convoluted stuff so you can get a better start to the day.