Synchronicity

12 February 2014 When this card came out of the pack, somehow I thought maybe this week I would notice lots more 'synchronicity' than usual. I wonder if it is any coincidence that I haven't, less than usual if anything. Or do I miss the coincidences and synchronicities? Are some of them 'invisible' ones, things that avoid something happening, such as just missing a bad traffic jam caused by an accident (or even missing being involved in that accident myself)?    After beginning to tie my mind in knots I decided to change tack and refer to the dictionary. Cambridge Dictionaries Online has this: "the happening by chance of two or more related or similar events at the same time."  Then I looked it up again, this time on dictionary.com: "the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection." I feel that '..no discernible causal connection." is helpful. For me, the fact that I cannot 'discern' - know or understand, if there is a connection or not may not be important. Seeing a pattern may help me, whether or not it can be proved one way or another. For example, as I shared with you in an earlier piece, I saw Julia McCutchen's Conscious Writing Retreat advertised just at a time when I was thinking about what to do next when I finish this weekly process of writing about each of the fifty cards in the Dare to Blossom Rediscovery Pack, and the date of the retreat coincides quite closely with that milestone, and that date is almost exactly the twentieth anniversary of my surgery for cancer. There is no causal connection - and there is still great significance for me, there is joy in the 'synchronicity' that makes me laugh. Maybe that is all that matters - if I choose to draw meaning for myself, in my life, from synchronous events, that is up to me. It would not be for me to say to someone else that events occurring together 'should' have any importance to them. Having shared these reflections with you, I am still feeling 'knotted' and vaguely dissatisfied with my writing. Should I delete it all and start again? That would not be authentic though - my aim is to share my real experience, my actual process of rediscovery as I use the cards. So have I rediscovered anything yet? So far it feels a surface exercise: I have 'rediscovered' if that were needed, my tendency to be self-critical, to be afraid of sharing my thoughts and voicing my uncertainty publicly. So, I have just had a thought pop up - ask the question I use with people I work with: "What else?" The colour of the card is the cerise of 'my' passion flower. This picture is the one I took last summer of the first flowers ever to bloom outside of our conservatory (after years of flowering in the shelter and safety of that environment). At the time I wrote about the way this gave me an analogy for the way I am 'daring to blossom' more fully; stepping up and speaking out; being heard. And the outdoor flowering was a synchronous event that helped me in applying my metaphor of the world of living plants to my own personal and professional development. The passionflower continued to blossom outdoors all summer and right through the autumn. I have recently been speaking to a number of people about creative lulls and remembering the need for a dormant period. I find it easy to get frustrated when this happens; sometimes it is enforced by a cold or other illness; sometimes a consequence of having to wait for events to flow, time to pass. Whatever the circumstances there is nothing I can do to speed the process, so all I can do is practise patience; to wait for whatever is germinating quietly out of sight to be ready to emerge. At this time of year in Cornwall the buds are just beginning to swell, not yet ready to break into new spring-green leaves. That process has to develop as and when the time is right; the weather conducive. The same could be said to apply to my work: if I try to force things they will be more tender and may be weak and spindly; they may not be strong enough to survive the ups and downs of the outside world. I think I recognised this when I decided to devote a whole year to this process of my own rediscovery through the cards; even though at times I am impatient to move on to the next thing: a book, a course, a new style of coaching - these things, if and when they emerge, will be all the stronger and more robust and resilient for having had a long germination time. Back to the question: "What else?" The words I hear are "Just be. Just enjoy, relax, slip into the process and allow it to carry you along."  So on this cold and blustery day, I will wrap myself in an imaginary vibrant pink blanket of potential synchronicity and .... just be. And in time, perhaps very soon - new ideas will be bursting out. I've already had some inklings and suggestions of collaborations with others, and whatever comes next is likely to take forms that I have yet to imagine.    As always, please feel free to comment below with your thoughts and comments.  If you would like to own a set of cards to explore their power for yourself please visit the dedicated page. Thank you dear friends for visiting with me again this week and sharing my musings. If you are in an area involved in the current storms and floods, my thoughts are with you. Until next time, with love, Mary *if you have any difficulty accessing the 'blogspot' service, you can also read here on the Daring to Blossom website, or find 'Dare to Blossom Life Coaching' on Facebook.