34 Special Somethings

Well, well, well. I think this blog may turn out to be even more interesting than I thought it might when we began.

. . . It’s actually all so uncanny and overwhelming that I’ve been trying to write this blog for the past hour and have let myself be happily interrupted repeatedly because I feel like there’s so much importance in what I want to say that I won’t be able to adequately convey it . . .

So, I’d like to go back to the concept of coincidence I discussed in my post Seasons Come & Seasons Go. I am currently in the middle of reading Deepak Chopra’s book The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire, with my bookmark right smack in the middle of the segment called Nurturing Coincidence. In this chapter, Chopra writes about how putting attention on coincidences will attract more coincidences and how “In this way coincidences become clues to the will of the universe, providing a way for us to see its synchronicity and take advantage of life’s boundless opportunities.”

I have been focusing a lot of my attention on coincidences lately, but even though I started doing so long before ever reading any Deepak Chopra, I am still amazed by the multitude synchronicities that have prevailed as of late.

Unfortunately or not so unfortunately, you choose, I’ll have to go back a ways to bring us up to date with the events of the past few days. Please amuse yourself by trying to follow the thread of what are [to me] very clearly connected events:

In 2005, I:
1. Encountered yoga
2. Encountered yoga teacher, Dustin
3. Learned about Hellerwork from Dustin
4. Heard about Naropa University for the first time from my godmother Kathleen and for the second time, from Dustin.

Fast-forward to 2008, when I:
5. Graduated from Naropa University with an Interdisciplinary degree in Writing, Music and Yoga
6. Began the Hellerwork series with a practitioner named Kimberly
7. Became the Baker for Village Books, formerly owned by Kathy L.
8. Started my “career” as a friendly neighborhood house/dog-sitter
9. Toyed seriously with the idea of incorporating massage/bodywork into a future–more sustainable–career, partially because of my Hellerwork sessions.

In the spring of 2009, I:
10. Sold ads for a Visitor’s Brochure to be distributed amongst local businesses
11. Called Carl M., founder of the Enneagram Institute of Ashland and husband to Kathy L., to inquire about interest in an ad.
12. Ran into Kimberly at local cafe and had a spontaneous conversation about my new house-sitting occupation
13. Learned about a couple often in need of a house-sitter from Kimberly; the couple was Kathy and Carl

I will pause the timeline here to explain that Carl never returned my call about the ad. He did, however return my e-mail about house-sitting with a phone call, and asked me bluntly, “Do I know you?” I responded that no, he didn’t, and explained about Kimberly and the circumstances. We agreed to meet up for tea the next day to discuss potential employment and then continued talking for a few moments, during which I discovered:

14. Carl was familiar with Naropa (a school known of by a only fairly selected group of people) and
15. Carl graduated from CIIS, the very school I was most interested in applying to in that moment

He and I met the next day and hit it off as I have with very few people, quickly developing an extensive friendly rapport. . .

In the summer of 2009, I:
16. Met some peeps at a potluck and played a game of, “Let me guess your name;” only tried on one person, guessing one boy’s name to be “Tyrone;” his name is Tyson
17. Had a conversation with Tyson in which he told me about Esalen, a retreat and massage training center in Big Sur, CA
18. Quite spontaneously interviewed for a friend’s old position in Santa Barbara, California (did not get said position)
19. Learned that Carl lived his early years in Santa Barbara, and Kathy her middle ones, and they both still visit often.

During the late summer/fall of 2009
20. Began seeing movies with Kathy
21. Was lent Deepak Chopra’s The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire by Kathy
22. Watched Julie and Julia and cried at the end because I don’t know what I’m doing with my life
23. Started a blog shortly thereafter because, well, why the hell not?

Then, in the last two some-odd days, I:
24. Blogged about synchronicity
25. Had a conversation with a girlfriend living in So Cal about moving in together in Santa Barbara come January
26. Learned about balancing relationships with career, etc
27. Blogged about career
28. Became Facebook friends with Tyson through an actual friend’s new girlfriend’s friend list
29. Facebooked Tyson about Esalen
30. Went online to research Esalen and saw on their website “Trigger Point Massage”
31. Googled massage schools in Santa Barbara and came up with the Santa Barbara Body Therapy Institute – A School for Holistic Massage
32. Perused website and immediately saw, “Trigger Point Massage”
33. Discovered that Carl also attended the Santa Barbara Body Therapy Institute
34. Discovered the first comment on my baby blog–thank you Dr. Susan Bernstein!–in which she recommended to me a school in Santa Barbara (a city never previously mentioned in my blog!) . . .

And when I went to the school’s website, almost the first thing I saw was a link to “Esalen.”

. . .

So, there you have it.

Since I don’t know yet what it all means, I’ll leave us both with some final words from Dr. Chopra to consider:

When a coincidence arises, don’t ignore it. Ask yourself, What is the message here? What is the significance of this? Ask the question, and the answers will emerge. . . Perhaps you will meet a person who is somehow related to the coincidence that occurred. An encounter, a relationship, a chance meeting, a situation, a circumstance will immediately give you a clue to its meaning. . .

Chopra, Deepak. The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire. Three Rivers Press, New York, 2003. 301 pages. Quote from page 140.

Seasons Come and Seasons Go

Oh, how I love the fall. Crisp air, turning leaves, the encouragement to stay present because winter is coming. I wonder why I don’t feel the same way about emotional autumns?

“Seasons come, and seasons go” is a favorite quote of mine by the father of another past boyfriend named Peter. Tim said it to me one late summer day in New Hampshire when I was bemoaning the fact we wouldn’t have fresh blueberries to pick for breakfast every morning anymore. A wise man!

I’m lying on the couch currently enjoying an autumn eve as we [speak]. It’s the first truly cool night we’ve had this season. The wind is howling and we had a little rain; Dad is rushing about trying to get adequate cover on our tomato plants lest they freeze. He says tomatoes are very cold sensitive, that in a cold snap the fruit turns to mush and the greens go black. It sounds rather dramatic to me. Maybe tomatoes are ennea-type 2′s of the fruit world?

My boss Lauri told me today she feels the winds of change a blowin’. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I like it . . . Change is exciting to me, especially when I’m in a place in life where I’d like to see some of it come about. Less exciting is that since I interviewed for a job in Santa Barbara it’s been obvious that my time with the Arts Council is truly limited and as a result they may be bumping me out a little sooner than I’d planned. Whoops.

Then again, even that is exciting. I’ve been reading about synchronicity and coincidence, both of which inevitably point to the natural order of the universe, to God’s will. I’ve always been a believer in signs and synchronicities, but during this season I’m bumping it all up a notch by attempting to see (as I will with the 20-20 hindsight I am certain to eventually achieve . . .) the perfection of every aspect, of every encounter of my life. On this topic, Deepak Chopra writes the following:

“In retrospect, the narrative of our lives appears perfectly logical. We can easily follow the thread of continuity upon which we gathered our life’s experience. Even now, at whatever point you are in your life look back and notice how naturally your life flowed from one milestone to the next, from one place or job to another, from one set of circumstances to an entirely different set.”

He goes on to say, “Notice how effortless it all could have been if you had only known where your path was leading.” He asks us to examine (of course, it’s the premise of his book) the endless possibilities that would become available to us if we would begin more actively tuning into what he deems the “nonlocal realm,” what I believe others would call God’s voice.

I’m an enthusiastic advocate of such lofty plans and intentions. But you know, I’m also finally beginning to accept my human status and recognize where I actually am in the scheme of things. So, while I would love to have a mind quiet and pristine enough to see the thread of my life clearly from here to forever, I’m o.k. being realistic and recognizing that I’m not there yet. For now, I will be content if I can actually believe in the continuity of the thread, that there isn’t some drastic cliff-hanging break in it between now and eternity.

And anyway, if this doesn’t work out, there’s always next spring for changing my mind.

Chopra, Deepak. The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire. Three Rivers Press, New York, 2003. 301 pages. Quote from page 120.