One aspect of my life that really entertains me is seeing the ability of the universe to get a message through. It can be a bit of synchronicity in stumbling upon a word or a picture, or contact with an old friend you have recently mentioned in passing. Sometimes we experience an event or hear news for no apparent reason, only to pass that information along years later.
About twenty-five years ago my mother and I were involved in a metaphysical group in Bakersfield, CA. It was led by several people, including Dixie Yeterian, who has several books about her work and has appeared on Psychic Detectives.
Life took us away from the area and toward Los Angeles. We lost touch with the group. I joined a writer's critique group in Newhall, CA, some ninety miles from Bakersfield. I became good friends with and connected on a spiritual level with one woman, Evelyn. Evelyn had moved to the area from Orange County.
Late one night after the others had gone home, Evelyn and I got to discussing odd things and times of connectedness. I mentioned Dixie in passing.
"Is this the Dixie Yeterian that lives in Alaska?" Evelyn asked.
I answered that I didn't know where Dixie was at that time, and relayed what information I knew pf her. Evelyn told me about a visit with friends in Orange County who were discussing Dixie. Evelyn didn't know Dixie, but sat quietly as her friends talked about how Dixie had been shot by someone who felt she was getting "too close" in an investigation she was doing with some police force. Dixie survived, testified in the trial and was put into protective custody, apparently in Alaska.
Evelyn realized that she had heard all those details a few years before so that she could pass them along to me and my mother when we met.
As good as it was to hear about Dixie and know she was okay, I was also intrigued with the lengths the message had to go to get to us. When I began this article, I also planned to talk about the importance of such events, what they mean. Then I found Dixie's web site and read her messages. She points out that these events really don't mean anything, except to show that you are connected to your higher self, the universal You.
The fact that you are reading this, now, means that you have already connected, or are ready to. Have you run into someone recently after thinking about that person? Had an idea to write about something only to find someone else just did? If not, don't be surprised if it does sometime soon!
In Part II we'll take the next step, an active game you can play with yourself to see just how connected the mind and universe really are!
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Comments: 65
A very similar experience happened to me just three weeks ago. For years I've resisted getting rid of a piano that our son loved and played before he died at age 16. I've gone to extreme lengths to hold onto it through many moves.
But suddenly I decided that it was time to let someone have it -- a child, preferably, who had a special talent but couldn't afford a piano.
I called chapter schools and churches in the poor areas of our city, but no one needed a piano. So I decided to email the choir director our our church.
She responded immediately, saying that she did, indeed, have a 7-year-old boy who sings in the children's choir who has a very special musical talent. Just the day before his mother had asked her how they could encourage and develop that talent, and the choir director had said, "piano lessons."
The mother said they couldn't afford a piano.
So we gave our piano to that little boy, who starts his lessons next week.
I call that God working in peoples' lives. Do you call that being in tune with the universe?
Sunnye, yes, I think that the words we use - God (by any of His names), the Universe, Spirit - all point to a higher power or inner power that we connect to when we pray or meditate. I think it is wonderful that your piano has new life!
Cyndi (my late wife) started attending Lupus support groups. At one group, Cyndi mentioned this article and someone said they knew Mary because they were once in the same hospital room as her in the second bed. They had kept in touch casually over the years. Sadly, Mary had begun to have additional medical problems which ended up being pulmonary hypertension. She had to have an immediate heart/lung transplant or she would die. Due to her fragile health Mary did not take many calls from people or doctors who wanted to talk about her medical journey. Mary was recovering from her heart/lung transplant. The transplant was successful, her body did not reject the new organs, and she began exercising.
Cyndi finally obtained Mary's phone number and called. Although Mary never answered her phone, she had just completed a session on the treadmill and was feeling good. She picked it up. Cyndi and Mary quickly liked each other and discovered they were from the same part of New Jersey originally. Against all odds, they agreed to meet for coffee halfway between San Francisco where Mary lived and San Jose where we lived. They talked for hours and grew fond of each other.
Mary was a unique medical case. She was alive due to the work of a stellar professor of Cariology at University of California San Francisco. This professor was a busy man and didn't take on new patients. He made an exception when he got a call from Mary, whom he had just done a heart/lung transplant on. With the personal plea from Mary, and a review of Cedar Sinai's work, Dr. Kanu Chatterjee, Prof. of Cardiology at UCSF agreed to see Cyndi.
Sure enough, Cyndi's medical condition had taken an odd turn too. She too had developed pulmonary hypertension on top of her autoimmune disorder. She had been on chemotherapy for the autoimmune disorder, and the chemo was working to some extent in that her autoimmune disease was in a small remission. But she was unable to breath. Dr. Chatterjee immediately admitted her to UCSF Hospital in SF.
He sat me down and explain what he thought was going on. Here we were after nearly a decade of struggling with doctors and hospitals to get Cyndi treated and I am sitting face to face with perhaps the best doctor on the planet to be treating her. Dr. Chatterjee needed 3 days with a catheter directly into Cyndi's heart. He very carefully explained to me what he had to do. He explained to me that Cyndi would most likely not live long. She might not survive the tests, but if she did, with her two disorders, she probably had weeks to live. But he felt that a new medication may be able to extend that to as much as 2 years. This busy professor took the time to explain to me exactly what we were going to do to try to save my wife's life.
The tests worked out as he had predicted. She indeed had pulmonary hypertension. She had it bad. She did not respond to the old, traditional medications. Her only chance for survival was this new medicine. It was the Dr.'s opinion that she would not survive a heart/lung transplant, so at best he could buy her some time. The medication he was going to put her on was new. Mary had been one of the longest-living patients on it. Most people survived 2 years. The medicine had only been FDA approved for a couple of years so there was not a lot of clinical data yet. Dr. Chatterjee was hopeful he could give Cyndi 2 years of life.
Dr. Kanu Chatterjee, now probably around 80 years old, is an absolute saint. His work saves lives every day and he is training the next generation of life savers. Mention his name to any cariologist and they bow in respect. Chatterjee is a common name, but they know THIS Dr. Chatterjee, Professor of Cardiology at the mighty UCSF.
When Cyndi passed away last year, she had been on this medicine that Dr. Chatterjee recommended for nearly a DECADE. The two years under his care turned into almost 10 wonderful years. Had Cyndi not gotten to know Mary and had she not brought Cyndi into Dr. Chatterjee's world, she would not have had any time left. There is more to this story, but that is the condensed version.
I will cut this comment out and put it into its own article (hijacking) in case people want to discuss this with me.
To comment,
please see my article
of bobby dylan...."Those not busy being born are busy dying"...........
My response ,Aileen, is a definite yes. In fact, as you know, it has been happening between us on Gather today. I invite all interested Gatherers to puruse my synchronicity group. I feel certain you will enjoy your explorations.
I dated a beautiful girl named Sue in high school for over 3 years. We were together from about age 16-19. After we both had graduated from high school we drifted apart and ended up married to someone else. We both started new families and had kids. I first heard from her when my mom passed away. She sent a condolence letter. We stayed in touch after that, mostly by email. We last saw each other about 1982. I now lived on the west coast; she stayed near where we grew up in Connecticut. Our emails contained news about our families and lots about our kids and spouses. I had always loved and adored her so it was really nice to stay in touch, even though I never expected to see her in person again.
Since we talked by email fairly regularly from afar, we began confiding in each other. She was one of the few people I told my deepest secrets to. Cyndi, my wife who was dying, did not like details of her medical condition discussed with our friends. I felt safe talking to Sue about it since we didn't see each other in person. Cyndi knew I talked to Sue about this stuff and it was OK with her. She thought Sue was a nice person based on the emails and letters she had seen. I told Sue that Cyndi was dying. Sue was very supportive. She sent lots of positive energy. One sad day I said in an email something like "this is it, I don't think she is going to make it past today". I remember Sue's exact response. She said "NO. SHE IS NOT GOING TO DIE" in caps just like that. It was sweet and she gave me hope.
Sadly, Sue was mistaken. Cyndi passed away later that day. My daughter Jackie and I were at Cyndi's side. Cyndi lived a wonderful life of 44 years. She and I had been together about two decades. We had a wonderful daughter together. My life was a mess. Thank goodness I had an email pen pal to confide in.
I was not alone in sharing my secrets. Sue told me one of her own. It was a fact that very few people knew. She and her husband, a man I had met the last time I saw her, were separated and were divorcing. I felt so bad for her. I had always assumed she was very happy. She talked so lovingly about her family. She didn't want to talk about it in detail; she just wanted a little support from an old friend. I asked her some questions but backed off when I sensed she was uncomfortable. We have always been able to communicate volumes with few words.
A strange coincidence, or cosmic connection, or synchronicity event, was that her divorce and my life as a widower started within one month of each other. More connections: I had co-founded a company that was based in Boston so I made frequent trips to the east coast from the Portland, Oregon area where I was living. My surviving family members, my dad and my sister, lived in Connecticut. Sue was living with her mom in the same house I used to pick her up at as teenagers in Connecticut.
As I have shared briefly in other articles, I had been having (sexy) dreams about Sue. Since I was happily married as was she, I didn't think much of them other then that our teenage love had had a profound impact on me. It was my first "real" relationship and we had spent a lot of time and experienced a lot of life together. It was only after my wife passed away and I knew that Sue was about to become single again that I began to really think about the dreams and what they may mean. But I had no concrete plan to take action. The action kind of took itself.
My daughter Jackie decided to return to Connecticut after the funeral service for Cyndi. Jackie went back with my sister. She had never flown alone, so I agreed to pick her up on the east coast. Sue and I were spending a lot of time emailing each other, and we were both in need of a friend, so I asked Sue if she wanted to meet when I was on the east coast. She agreed and suggested she just pick me up from the airport and we hang out together. So she drove about 3 hours to LaGuardia airport to pick me up.
We had not seen each other in about 23 years. We were both a little scared. We both were worried about how we looked; we had been skinny little things in high school. I remember she emailed me and said "don't laugh when you see me, I am a little bigger then I was in high school". I remember my exact response was "I am sure you are adorable". Somehow, I KNEW for SURE that she would be adorable to me. She always was. As a teen it hadn't mattered to me what anybody else in the world thought, when I looked at her I saw what I liked. I saw beauty. I had no doubt whatsoever that she would always be beautiful to me. Here is something very profound to ponder. I told you I had dreams about her. The content of the dreams is too private to discuss, but when they started two decades earlier the girl in the dreams was Sue at age 19. The dreams still came regularly, but the woman in the dreams was all grown up. It was Sue as an adult.
The fateful day came. I had called her from the airport I had a layover in. It was the first time we had heard each other's voices in over two decades. Wow. I had goosebumps after hearing her voice. I knew something big was happening. I felt weird because my wife had died just weeks ago and I still was crying every hour or so. I didn't view this as a "date", this was two old friends commiserating. But the memories started racing through my mind and I couldn't help thinking about the dreams.
When I walked into baggage claim I almost fell over. There is some magic between her and I that always was and always will be. I saw her and my knees went week. Even across the baggage claim area all the way on the other side I could tell the woman there was the same woman in my dream. I had been right. She was adorable. I said before "when I looked at her I saw what I liked". Well, it was still exactly right. What I liked had certainly changed and matured and so had she. She was the mother of 3 (12,15,18). I still can't believe she was worried about me seeing her. I was close to speechless (which is VERY unusual for me). I wanted to kiss her. As the night went on, the desire to kiss her grew stronger and stronger. We had a lovely night. We saw a play on broadway, we ate at a horrible diner at midnight. A little after 1am she headed home (3 hour drive back). I got email from her early in the morning saying she made it home safe and that she had had a wonderful time. I had already written her an email, and secretly had written the lyrics to a song (it was a love poem). Nothing like this night had ever happened to me.
That night may not have been a date in my mind, but it was all very romantic. I gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I had something else in mind but we were both confused and a little scared. So we both knew to take it easy on each other. After all, she was just divorced by a day or so and I was freshly widowed. I was confused on what to do, but there was no doubt in my mind what I wanted. I wanted her. I wanted us. About a month later we made that happen. It is now a year plus a few weeks from that day. She is sound asleep across the hall. I was snuggled with her until I got restless after she fell asleep and I needed a snack. That's all for now, I have to get back to my beautiful fiancé.
lovely and more, more of it !
Magi
I'm not saying you are wrong, just that there is another phenomena associated with this, also.
Kathryn - The psychological phenomenon of which you refer to is selective attention. When the unconscious is being made conscious the new awareness passes through the pre conscious. The best writing arises out of the preconscious experienced as already preformed, flowing, spontaneous script.
I agree that coincidences that are experienced as especially meaningful are not random. We differ as to the explanation of why they are not random meaning caused. MY view of the causality implied in these events is due to the personal meanings that we attribute to these events. One person's synchronicity is another persons ho hum or even passed over non event. My research indicates that if you examine the contexts in which a given coincidence is embedded inevitably you will see that the synchronicity is a marker that a seemingly intractable problem has been resolved. It often feels when we have problems that there are only two pathways. Intractable means that both pathways are no good = quintessential stuckness. What is critical is a persons attitude to the stuckess. Basically there is a passive surrender or an active determination to press on. If there is an active determination to press on it fuels ones personal creative process. The intention to find a good solution becomes a "magnet" in which all of a persons various streams of information {thoughts, feelings, intutions, and sensations} begin what I call a psychological scavenger hunt. All of the attracted information are like pieces in a complicarted jig saw puzzle that when combined eventually result in a creative solution functioning as a created pathway midway between the previously rejected alternative pathways.
To each his own perspective but before my perspective is dismissed I urge you to keep a journal and examine your synchronicities in the light of the various contexts in which they are embedded. I would be happy to hear the results of your research.
How many converts do you think we'd have if we won? No wait, make that "when we win!"
Thanks for this article. I love this stuff! A little over ten years ago, I went through a period of my life where I felt bombarded with synchnronistic experiences and it made a real believer out of me. On to your next segment...
Later, I moved on to a brief but abusive marriage which included a move back to my hometown. Even though that was a horrible time, I know that it was an important lesson for me, in tht I never before had acknowledged that there could be evil people who couldn't change. But that moving to my hometown, brought me into a situation that reintroduced me to a hs. classmate. I believe I was led to this place in my soul's life, to be able to connect and now spend the rest of my life with my now husband of 1 year. At 64, we both marvel every day at what brought us together.
I was reminded as I read your article, about Friends Meeting (Quakers). In that silent Meeting, many of us often are meditating about the same thing. When one person speaks, it usually is something that everyone in the Meeting has been praying about too. It happens almost weekly at Meeting.