| Synchronicity
The first surprise In November, 1996, the Research Vessel Moira returned to Sydney from
her most recent expeditions in the South Pacific. As it happens, we
arrived just in time to meet with my friend Walter Stark who lives in
Northern Queensland. He was flying through Sydney from Queensland on
his way to the States where he will be doing a documentary on the San
Blas Indians of Panama. Freddy and I had not seen Walter (just voice
tapes, phone calls, Email) since 1980. Walter wanted to visit us as
he and his wife passed through. His wife also had two friends she wanted
to visit and they were not going to be in Sydney very long. We were
all surprised to learn that her friends live in the tiny, remote community
of Cottage Point, not 100 meters from where we moor the Moira when we
are in Sydney. This kind of co-incidence, where impossible odds vector
together, is what Jung called synchronicity.
The second surprise On my morning walk, the day Walter was arriving, I got to thinking
about our other mutual friends. The beautiful Debby Brown, in particular.
She had been part of our small team of researchers in the
Solomon Islands in 1976 and I guess she came to mind because the
last time we saw her was the same time we last saw Walter. I wondered
where she might be now, after all these years. Unlike our continuing
correspondence with Walter we had no contact with her over the past
16 years. As Freddy and I returned from our walk, our neighbour, John, said he
was going to drive into Mona Vale to get a few things. Would we like
to go along? Cottage Point is a very isolated little community and we
have no car. Shopping opportunities are always welcome. Walter
was not arriving until late afternoon so we had time to go get a few
things. In Mona Vale, we did most of our shopping, had lunch, then went
to Woolworth’s to load up on food. It was Saturday and very crowded.
About half way through the store a lovely lady wheeled her shopping
cart up to us and said, "Rick, Freddy? Is that you?" It was
Debby Brown. We never would have found her by ordinary means. She had divorced her
husband, moved, and married again. She had lost touch with Walter. As
if stumbling upon us in Woolies wasn't coincidence enough, we told her
Walter was arriving in Sydney later that same day. The odds of all these things happening together in one day are simply
not realistic by chance alone. Of course, there was nothing especially "important" in these amazing synchronicities, but that evening,
after I told him about our fortuitous meeting with Debby, Walter told
me a story about another couple who had an even more amazing brush with
synchronicity on a coral reef in Indonesia; one with really important
consequences. A Meaningful Synchronicity This guy and his wife were SCUBA diving on a lovely coral reef in Indonesia
when a cuttlefish glided up to them. He had his camera and swam slowly
toward the squid-like cephalopod to get a photo of it, but as they approached,
it backed away. So, they went back to looking around the reef. No sooner
did they turn away, the cuttlefish approached them again. Closer. They
looked at it. It backed away. This went on several times until the woman
had a bizarre notion. "Maybe it's trying to get us to follow it," she thought. So she followed the cuttlefish, and her husband tagged
along. The cuttlefish lead them over the reef, across a sand patch, onto an
adjoining reef where they came upon a fish trap. In Indonesia, when
fishermen catch a cuttlefish in their fish traps, they poke a wire through
it and leave it in the cage to act as live fish bait. Their friendly
cuttlefish hovered over the fish trap as the two divers swam closer.
And there, in the fish trap, they saw another cuttlefish with a wire
through it. The man reached in, undid the wire, and eased it out of the cuttlefish.
Immediately, it swam up and joined the first one. The two cuttlefish
swam side by side around the divers, circling them twice, and then,
no doubt feeling enormously lucky, both couples swam off, heading for
a happy new year, full of wonderful coincidences. For a whole lot more about synchronicities, hyperlink over to Log Book
1 of the Voyage of
the Moira.
Go
To |
CD
Ordering Information | Contact
| Definitions
| Site Map | References
and Links |
| This Magic
Sea | Thread
of Awareness | Log
of the Moira |
|
