[Shaahayda Rizvi]

Dear Dr. Slattery,

Thank you for your generous response to so many of our questions in this forum, and especially when you have a hundred other commitments. I loved your response on synchronicity to Marianne, and your responses on ‘meaning/experiences’ ‘cooking and stewing’ and other matters to Drewie and Marianne.

In my personal experience, when I cooked and simmered over a chance meeting, and never allowed it to slip away as a mere chance occurrence,  then in considering and caring for it, it became a synchronistic event and gave me wings where I had thorns. Just when I least expected, just when my unconscious nudged more and more, and the universe conspired to let me feel my brave feet and the wind played with my thoughts, it was then that  I was blown away with a chance occurrence that later morphed into a synchronistic event.

You wrote, “Once I begin to hunt down meaning, I, not the experience, is cooked, actually over-cooked. I am continuing to learn to relax into what is in front of me after a lifetime of living in the past or anticipating the future.” Yes, I am beginning to accept what is in front of me rather than sulk over the past and I step on the breaks when I fancifully inflate the future.

But I see living in the moment and taking a break from what is in front of me, goes in cycles. Stories from the deep caves of my heart break through when a  synchronistic event is expounded. And in those times, I wish to be in another geographic place rather than my current abode. I am reminded of Campbell, ” When we are one place in our lives and want to be in another place, there’s an obstacle to be overcome, a threshold to be passed.”   Campbell, Joseph. A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living.

You wrote, “Mythic consciousness is not causal but metaphoric, symbolic and storied. In the myth there is always meaning and that is part of the hero’s adventure to discover it. It takes a lifetime but I would not have it any other way. “ Thank you. Synchronicity  expounded for me is mythic consciousness indeed.

Shaahayda (In gratitude to you and all at jcf.org)