Sunday, November 1, 2009
Synchronicity or coincidence?
posted at 10:09 PM |
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For background, I should mention that I am in a book group that is reading/studying Dante's Inferno. This week we are reading Cantos IV through VIII.
With that in mind, consider the following that happened today.
In the early afternoon, I was driving 30-40 miles to meet a friend whom I have not seen for several billion years - decades - since we were in college together and once or twice in the few years thereafter. (I would be acknowledging my age if I said exactly how long ago that was, and denial is more than a river in Egypt, believe me.) Anyway, there I was, riding along on a nice sunny day on a pretty country road. Nothing amiss or odd. I checked the classical music stations and nothing particularly excited me that they were playing so I put the radio on "scan" for background accompaniment.
As the sound passed one station and started toward another, I realized I had heard phrases like "and my teacher - that good man" and "she made license licit in her laws to free her from the scandal she had caused."
I very nearly slammed on the brakes. Could it be?? But what else could it be? I turned back to the station and recognized the ideas and images that I had just been reading in Cantos IV and then V. It was amazing to hear what had just been inside my head a few hours earlier. But without any doubt, those were the words.
I never did find out what the reading was about because I lost reception soon thereafter but I looked it up and it was Felicia Rashad reading Canto IV and Canto V. I have no idea why just those two, other than to surprise me, but on the assumption that I am not the actual center of the universe, that seems unlikely. I still think I may have been hallucinating - and what better to hallucinate than Dante? - but even the website says that's what it was.
Yes, I am familiar with Jung's theories about synchronicity and how we draw the universe to us at times. My father was a Dante aficionado and WQXR was even playing his all-time favorite Beethoven's 4th piano concerto in the evening as I drove home, so some might say that I was actually pulling or even tugging, but I suspect it's more about how we all see purple cows when we think about them and see pregnant women when we are pregnant, and so on and so on.
In any case, whatever it was, it was astonishing and wonderful.
With that in mind, consider the following that happened today.
In the early afternoon, I was driving 30-40 miles to meet a friend whom I have not seen for several billion years - decades - since we were in college together and once or twice in the few years thereafter. (I would be acknowledging my age if I said exactly how long ago that was, and denial is more than a river in Egypt, believe me.) Anyway, there I was, riding along on a nice sunny day on a pretty country road. Nothing amiss or odd. I checked the classical music stations and nothing particularly excited me that they were playing so I put the radio on "scan" for background accompaniment.
As the sound passed one station and started toward another, I realized I had heard phrases like "and my teacher - that good man" and "she made license licit in her laws to free her from the scandal she had caused."
I very nearly slammed on the brakes. Could it be?? But what else could it be? I turned back to the station and recognized the ideas and images that I had just been reading in Cantos IV and then V. It was amazing to hear what had just been inside my head a few hours earlier. But without any doubt, those were the words.
I never did find out what the reading was about because I lost reception soon thereafter but I looked it up and it was Felicia Rashad reading Canto IV and Canto V. I have no idea why just those two, other than to surprise me, but on the assumption that I am not the actual center of the universe, that seems unlikely. I still think I may have been hallucinating - and what better to hallucinate than Dante? - but even the website says that's what it was.
Yes, I am familiar with Jung's theories about synchronicity and how we draw the universe to us at times. My father was a Dante aficionado and WQXR was even playing his all-time favorite Beethoven's 4th piano concerto in the evening as I drove home, so some might say that I was actually pulling or even tugging, but I suspect it's more about how we all see purple cows when we think about them and see pregnant women when we are pregnant, and so on and so on.
In any case, whatever it was, it was astonishing and wonderful.
Labels: amazements, books, writing
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Rob MacGregor
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