Synchronicity

While I was writing my latest book, Returning to the Land of Oz, I was listening to music playing on my jukebox which holds 400 CD’s. I had the machine set on shuffle play, meaning that there were some 5,000 possible selections that the machine could automatically draw from. As I wrote the last sentence of the last chapter of the book, I posed the question out loud, “Is this the end or should I write another chapter?” Within seconds of asking this question, the Doors song, This Is the End, came on with Jim Morrison singing the lyrics, “This is the end, my only friend the end!”

I sat in amazement. This was synchronicity in action! I didn’t write another word.

When we have an inner thought, question, vision or intention and a person or situation appears that mirrors that thought, vision, question, or intention, this is called synchronicity. Synchronicities can be viewed as miracles. We cannot logically explain how or why synchronicities or miracles occur but we can say they happen because of some kind of divine intervention, our mysterious and wondrous connection to the universe, destiny, or because we believe in them and closely pay attention to their occurrence. Life brings us extraordinary experiences and gifts that defy our ability to fully understand how it all works. 

Wikipedia describes synchronicity as the experience of two or more events as meaningfully related, where they are unlikely to be causally related. The concept of synchronicity was first described by Swiss Psychiatrist C.G. Jung in the 1920s. He wrote a book solely dedicated to describing and discussing this phenomenon titled, Synchronicty, an Acausal Connecting Principle.

In his marvelous book Callings, Greg Levoy tells a story of a man who couldn’t decide which of two women to marry. One of the women was named Julie. While he was driving he came to a stop and noticed the license plate on the car in front of him that read JULIE4U. Levoy states that maybe the most important thing synchronicities do is reconnect us to feelings of astonishment and awe.

Synchronicity can be a simple coincidence like a phone call from a friend you are thinking about at that exact moment wherein you excitedly shout out, “I was just thinking of you!” It can be something as profound as seeing a unique object or life-changing book that you just had a dream about the night before.

Synchronicity, then, is a meaningful coincidence which appears at just the right time to remind us to marvel at the wonder and mystery of life. Synchronicity prompts us to pay closer attention to the signs and symbols that are around us and which are potentially guiding us along life’s journey. Synchronicities help us to see that life is bigger than rational thinking and understanding. They help to open our minds to the existence of the inexplicable, the mystifying, and enigmatic elements of life and to celebrate and further explore that which we cannot logically explain.