Saturday, January 30, 2010

Coincidental Currents

I like to refer to coincidence as synchronicity. For years, I thought I had first learned this concept from the book, "The Celestine Prophecy". Shortly after researching the subject, I remembered where I had actually first heard it. In psychology we studied Carl Jung. The Swiss psychiatrist, first published his theory of 'acausal connecting principal', or synchronicity, in 1951. His theory refers to coinciding experiences that were thought or dreamed about in advance. Receiving a call from a person you have been thinking about, but have not seen in years is an example. It can also refer to a random experience that seems to occur by chance, but also satisfies a need that exists simultaneously. A man was running late to an interview for a sales position. He needed the job even though the available hours were not ideal for him. On his way, he got lost. Frustrated, he saw a competitors store and stopped to ask for directions. He saw a sign for a sales position available for the shift he was wanting. Instead of going to the original interview, he gets hired on the spot. Getting 'lost' seemed inconvenient, but turned out to be a synchronicity.
Jung proposed that these events did not occur by chance alone. He believed that all things are connected. If we can be conscious of our connection to our environment, we notice these events more frequently. They are responses from the universe to scenarios we have consciously or subconsciously created in our minds. Our minds relay these messages to our higher self and it is passed on to the universal network to which all things are connected. Synchronicity is a sign that we are on the right track.
This connection between all things that was introduced in psychology has been studied greatly in quantum physics. Physicists are discovering that the separation of objects is illusionary. For example, when photons are separated, no matter how great a distance, a change in one, creates a simultaneous change in the other. Science is starting to understand that all things truly are connected on a very deep and very real level.



Riding the Coincidental Currents

By dark of night,
or bright daylight,
I thrill to harness life's natural motions
and capture it's devotions.
I ride the flow of my emotions
to carry me to shore;
like a tidal wave which could crush my bones,
or the joy of love which mends my wounds.
They call themselves coincidence,
but we know there is no such thing
as an accidental incidence.