I’ve lost count of the strange ways that Synchronicity has worked its magic in my life ranging from my ‘knowing’ I’m going to find just the books I need, if I walk into ‘that’ bookstore, to impeccably timed ‘meaningful coincidences.’ Once, in America, five fell out on to my feet while my friend waited patiently in the car park: and all relevant to my enquiry. Haslams, in Florida, has been particularly amazing in how they’ve lured me to their shelves. But the most profound experiences of ‘knowing’ that a higher consciousness is tuned into my personal wavelength, have come when what I’m doing is being monitored by It.
The Ancients knew all about it, this business of Kairos and Chronos, marrying them into both archery and weaving, when an arrow soars at the right moment; or the shuttle is being passed through the threads, to form a design. In some strange way, there’s a correlation when we’ve reached an unbearable low point; and we send up a silent prayer for help. Believe me, They won’t, necessarily,respond if it’s something you can deal with, from your own resources (sometimes we get tested on our strengths, not our weaknesses) but They do, when you’ve either been Cut to the Quick, or there’s a dire need for intervention.
We owe so much to these supremely intelligent Ancients who left their lasting legacies for us to explore, from our own experiences for (so truly said) “Nothing ever happens until it happens to you.”
The Thing is, so many Religions have metamorphosed into ‘control’ systems, abandoning the truly spiritual dimensions as only being available through their auspices. “Not So!” as many a Greek heroine has cried, in their hour of need.
I could fill a book with examples, but here’s just two that, still, have me being astonished by the way they happened. In 1992, as the war in Bosnia accelerated into genocide, a man who owned a bookshop in Cumbria became very frustrated by what was not being done by the United Nations; and the reluctance of both the British and American governments to speak truth to power. So, he got hold of a bus and a driver, and drove all the way to Sarajevo, after finding accommodation for twenty women and their children.
He’d stood for some hours, spreading the word, until the bus was filled; and then he drove all the way back. At that time I was working as a Tutor in Adult Basic Literacy, and felt that our volunteers could help. And so it was, each family was given individual support. In this way I met Zjelka and her sister Sophia. They’d left their husbands, who were now living in an unlit cellar, with no heating and, daily, having to brave the snipers hiding on the roofs.
Zjelka was a computer analyst, and spent a lot of her time, trying to connect with various government departments. Actually, her wish was to go to Canada and, on the day, I visited she had a draft of a letter to the Canadian Ambassador, currently in the beleaguered city. I’d asked her to give me the letter, and the fax number, saying I would find a way of sending it to him; and, as it seemed very important that it should be delivered that day, I didn’t stay too long.
Actually, I wasn’t at all sure that I’d be able to think of who might have a Fax machine, until I suddenly thought of a Rotarian I’d recently met, and who had a small business on the edge of town.I was greeted by his secretary, who said “Bill wasn’t around,” but, when I explained, she said, where he was (or wasn’t) she would see that it was sent. “My father in law is Polish, so I know all about refugees, ” she’d said.”I’m going to get this off, right now.”
I’d suddenly become aware of the clock, and the feeling that it needed to be sent by the time the hands reached the hour of Three: and this was when the secretary came back. “It’s gone,” she’d said, “winging it’s way.”
Two days later, I’d made another visit to Zjelka, to find the kitchen door was open, and the sounds of the voices of men coming from another room. I’d just called out, and sat down to wait, when a tall and bearded man came through. He’d smiled, and nodded, as he walked past. A few seconds later, another man, smaller and clean shaven, came through. I’d stood up, and he had opened his arms, as though this was the most natural thing in the world; and we embraced. It felt as though we had known each other, in another life, and a promise had been kept. This was Dragan, and the bearded man was his brother in law, Josef.
And this is what had happened: the Canadian Ambassador was about to lock the door of his office, when the faxed letter had come through.After reading it, he’d sent two United Nation officers to the cellar, where the men were living. They were taken to Zagreb Airport, where a plane (with just two empty seats) was waiting for the Ambassador; and they had been brought to their wives and children. Both families were granted asylum in Canada, where they still live.
The next bit is very personal: my very own Dark Night of The Soul and oen which i ever, ever want to experience (ever) again. Although I knew it wasn’t going to end well, what I wasn’t prepared for was the utter misery of it, when it did. The worst of it was, apart from being betrayed by someone else, I had betrayed myself, by refusing to listen to my intuition.
I’m not really sure that it would have made much difference, given the inevitability of the experience, when it had been haunting me for a very long time, but nothing really prepares you for the gut wrenching anguish when it does.
“We’re going out for a drink,” said my son, giving me a knowing look, so I’d made an effort to hide my feelings, and to dress myself up to the nines, even though I was feeling that being dead might be better.
I’ve always thought of myself as being a strong person, being able to bend (rather than break) in the winds but, right now, sitting at a table and with my son about to hand me a large glass of wine, for the first time in my life, inside I was silently saying: “Oh God. I can’t do this, on my own.”
We had come to a popular country pub, with a narrow bridge leading from the main road over a winding steam; and the road, itself, forming another one, that was on the route home for a woman called Sue. She was a therapist, and a Reiki healer, and she was running late, when a very loud voice spoke in her ear, and said: “There’s a woman, in the Pub, and she needs your help.”
When the door opened, it was an entrance that would have done justice to one of those movies, when ‘someone comes looking for someone, about something,’ and everyone stops what they’re doing, to stare at the Incomer. I had never met this woman, but she was looking directly at me, as though she knew me. She sat down, behind my daughter-in-law, and waited for something.
And, as though it had been orchestrated, already, Jane had leaned forward, whispering that it was Sue, and she was a healer. Did I want to meet her? The woman had nodded at me, and I found myself saying: “I might.” The woman had nodded again, as Jane made an appointment for the next day, and had then walked out, with no backward glance. I had not thought it possible to have held so much grief within me, that had spilled out on her couch, but the release had given me enough strength to face this, so sneaky, betrayal: just enough, for it was to take a long while to regain my equilibrium, so deep it had gone.
I had thought, in a previous crisis, and being so ‘meaningfully’ offered a place on the First Insight Programme, by Arianna Stassinopolous, that I’d freed myself of such experiences but, as there had, still, been ‘unfinished business’ karma in my records, “What’s for us, will not pass us by.” And, as Nietzsche said, so eloquently: “That which does not kill us, only make us stronger.” I raise my glass to that, and to you!