Powers of the deeper world move among us. Call them gods or daimons, ancestors or archetypes. Most of the time we are unaware of their presence. When they are in the field - noticed or invisible, invoked or uninvoked - their presence has a shimmer effect on the ordinary world. The fabric of physical reality in their vicinity becomes fluid and unstable. We experience the shift as synchronicity or anomaly. If we become alert to the shimmer effect, and make the right moves in that moment, we can help manifest extraordinary things.
Synchronicity is when the universe gets personal. Though the word “synchronicity” is a modern invention — Jung made it up because he noticed that people have a hard time talking about coincidence — the phenomenon has been recognized, and highly valued, from the most ancient times. The Greek philosopher Heraclitus maintained that the deepest order in our experienced universe is the effect of “a child playing with game pieces” in another reality. As the game pieces fall, we notice the reverberations, in the play of coincidence.
When we pay attention, we find that we are given signs by the world around us every day. Like a street sign, a synchronistic event may seem to say Stop or Go, Dead End or Fast Lane. Beyond these signs, we find ourselves moving in a field of symbolic resonance which not only reflects back our inner themes and preoccupations, but provides confirmation or course correction. A symbol is more than a sign: it brings together what we know with what we do not yet know.
Through the weaving of synchronicity, we are brought awake and alive to a hidden order of events, to the understory of our world and our lives. You do not need to travel far to encounter powers of the deeper world or hear oracles speak. You are at the center of the multidimensional universe right now. The extraordinary lies in plain sight, in the midst of the ordinary, if only you pay attention. The doors to the Otherworld open from wherever you are, and the traffic moves both ways.
Grow your poetic health - learn to read what rhymes in a day, or a life - dream with your eyes wide open and all your senses aquiver, and you may become a kairomancer. I invented this word to describe someone who is forever poised to notice and act in those special moments of synchronicity when the universe gets personal and opportunity strikes. It incorporates the name of Kairos, a Greek god who personifies a kind of time that is altogether different from tedious tick-tock time: that special moment of jump time when more is possible than you imagined before. Kairos is the time you must seize by the forelock before it is gone.
In my book Sidewalk Oracles, I offer the OATH of the Kairomancer. It is not a vow but a mnemonic. To be a kairomancer you must be
Open to the play of signs and symbols around you
Available to the special moment and willing to say
Thank you to the powers in play and take action to
Honor the magic moment
1 comment:
Wonderful, Robert! I love those eyes! Actually, I do sometimes notice messages and signs. For example, on a side road in my neighborhood, there's a big yellow sign a few yards before you come to the entrance of a 65+ Mobile Home Park. It says, "Slow Seniors Ahead". This doesn't make sense to me because... The older folks I know around these parts are all very quick-witted. Hmmm... What were they thinking?
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