London
One of my rules for navigating by synchronicity is that we may need to get lost in order to get found. This could be termed the Sindbad Principle. In his sixth voyage, Sindbad the sailor falls off the maps, gets shipwrecked, loses his crew, and is washed up half-drowned on an unknown shore that proves to be the magical kingdom of Serendib, from which we derive the word "serendipity". You can't get there by following a map or a plan.
I became a little lost in my longish walk to a recent workshop in Kensington (London) and this brought me to Thurloe Square, which I would otherwise have missed. In the square is an amazing sculpture showing what looks like a being with multiple faces. This seemed a perfect image for a central theme of the workshop: identifying and integrating multiple versions of the self.
I returned to the square in the rain, after lunch in the cafe at the Victoria & Albert museum across the street, to take a photograph. I then read the inscription that explained that the sculpure honors victims of Soviet terror killed after forced transfer to Soviet-occupied territories at the end of World War II. Synchronicity spoke again: at least 12 members of my workshop were from Eastern Europe, including three Lithuanians and two Russians.
2 comments:
I like this sculpture. It reminds me that as I walk around in waking life I often think I see the faces of people I know in the faces of people passing by me on the street. I think I see for example, my sister-in-law Roxane who doesn't live in the same country as me. Not only do I clearly see her face for a fleeting second in another person, but I quite literally feel her presence with considerable certainty. I might even smell her perfume. This situation always happens when I am in motion, usually in busy-busy-gotta-get-there mode. Over the years I've learned to take it as a sign, or even as a secret "texto" from the universe. In which case I will usually contact the person I've perceived or at least connect to them mentally and ask them if they want to talk.
Irene - This is another example (for me) of "what the bleep we know that we don't know that we know". You remind me of how I used to smell the little-girl cologne of one of my daughters when she was quite young and living on the other side of the Atlantic, while she would pick up cooking smells from my kitchen.
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