There Are Things That Like to Happen Together

 

Jung’s lifelong practice of field perception and observation of special moments of synchronicity is a model of how to navigate with the help of coincidence and let the interweaving of inner and outer experience open a path to “absolute knowledge.”

He had a little garden room on the lake where he would often receive clients and colleagues in his later years. He would receive all the natural phenomena that were buzzing or splashing or sighing within his field of perception — the flight of insects, the wake of a boat, a shift in the wind — as a commentary on whatever was going on in his interaction with his visitor.

Jung’s willingness to trust an unexpected incident — and accept it immediately as guidance for action — is evident in a meeting he had with Henry Fierz, who visited him in hopes of persuading him to support the publication of a manuscript by a recently deceased scientist. Jung had reservations about the book and opposed publication. The conversation became increasingly strained, and Jung looked at his watch, evidently getting ready to tell his guest he was out of time. Jung frowned when he saw the time.

“What time did you come?” he demanded of his visitor.

“At five o’clock, as agreed.”

Jung’s frown deepened. He explained that his watch had just been repaired, and should be keeping impeccable time. But it showed 5:05, and surely Fierz had been with him for much longer. “What time do you have?”

“Five thirty-five,” his visitor told him.

“Since you have the right time and I have the wrong time,” Jung allowed, “I must think again.”

He then changed his mind and supported publication of the book.

Well do well, in our daily practice, if we simply recognize that there are things that like to happen together, and allow those patterns to reveal themselves.

 

Look What’s Going Down the Toilet

Shortly before the stock market crash in 1987, in the restroom on an airplane, I dropped a small wallet containing my credit card and checks from the brokerage account I had at that time — and only just managed to catch it before it vanished down the toilet.

 Had this been a dream, I might have written a one-liner like: “If you’re not very careful, your stock market investments will go down the toilet.” Unfortunately, in 1987, I was not yet fully aware that incidents in waking life speak to us exactly like dream symbols. I failed to harvest the message, neglected to take the appropriate action to limit the risk to my brokerage account — and saw a large percentage of my net worth go down the toilet.

 

Three Geese in Flight

Nearly twenty years later — poorer but hopefully a little wiser — I was at the Iroquois Indian Museum in the rural Schoharie Valley of upstate New York. I was giving an informal talk about my book Dreamways of the Iroquois, and I was gratified that the large audience included many people of the First Nations as well as many descendants of the first European settlers.

Afterward, a long line of people wanted me to sign their books.

A pleasant, mature woman sprang into action, finding seats for the older people and helping others to stay cheerful while they waited.

When things became less busy, she asked if she might sit and talk with me. Of course. She introduced herself with modest dignity. “I’m Freida Jacques.  For twenty-seven years I have served as Mother of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga people.”

I felt honored and humbled to be in her presence.

She said, “I don’t dream in the night so much, or don’t remember. I dream like this. I need to know if I should accept an invitation to go out west, and I look up and there are three geese in flight, flying west like an arrowhead, with a hawk in front of them. Those three geese, the way they were flying, told me to go west.”

A man waiting behind her couldn’t restrain himself. He shoved his business card across the table. The name of his business was Three Geese in Flight, and he specialized in both Celtic and Iroquois books.

“That’s very interesting,” I told him. “Since I started dreaming in the Mohawk language, and studying Aboriginal peoples, some of my fierce Scottish ancestors have started walking through my dreams, basically saying, ‘Look here, laddie. We know a thing also. Don’t forget to talk to us.’ Sometimes they say things in Scots Gaelic. I really don’t know how I’m going to cope with that. Mohawk was bad enough.”

Then a tall, lean, tweedy man waiting behind the bookseller couldn’t hold back.

He pushed forward and gave me his hand.

“I’m a retired English professor,” he told me. “I have devoted the rest of my life to preparing the definitive grammar of Scots Gaelic.” He gave me his card. “If you need help translating those Gaelic words in your dreams, I’m your man, laddie.”

 

 

Text adapted from The Three "Only" Things by Robert Moss. Published by New World Library.