I told a policeman in Grand Central Station Dan Gregory's address. He said it was only eight blocks away, and that I couldn't get lost, since that part of the city was as simple as a checkerboard. The Great Depression was going on, so that the station and the streets teemed with homeless people, just as they do today. The newspapers were full of stories of worker layoffs and farm forclosures and bank failures, just as they are today. All that has changed, in my opinion, is that, thanks to television, we can hide a Great Depression. We may even be hiding a Third World War."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard
I read this yesterday. The book was published for the first time in 1987. I was awe struck at how relevant it is. Then, this morning on the way to work, I was thinking about synchronicity and, as I was getting on the uptown B train, a man with a deep blue (and I'm talking blue blue ocean blue) goatee brushed past me. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to raise the book and show him the cover...
I often experience synchronicity with the books I read. Another example was when I was driving across country last year and reading a book about train riders and vagabonds called HOBO. The night before I was to leave Florida and drive west, I went to the beach for a sunset drum circle. At the drum circle, some shirtless hippy fella with strawberry blond dreads and wooden jewelry kept screaming about the Rainbow Gathering:
"Who wants to go to the Rainbow Gathering with me!? Who has a car!? Let's all go together!"
It was to start the next night in Ocala. I was precisely at the chapter in the HOBO book where an old, weathered tramp leaves his young traveling buddies to head to Ocala for the Rainbow Gathering. I took it as a sign. I might even have offered that silly hippie a ride if he hadn't been so beligerently wasted by the end of the night.
And so I went. Once there, I met a clown--train riders often become clowns and create dusty circuses of impromptu ramshackle glee--who spoke in a jargon utilized prominently in the book. It was amazing.
I have encountered more instances of this lately. Maybe it's a sign of the times; a symptom of the coagulation of the global consciousness. And it's not even specific to books. How many times have you put your mp3 player on shuffle and found that it played songs that related directly to a person you were thinking about? Or you would think that you want to hear a certain song and it would magically come on?
My inner-Hippie is blathering right now:
"Electrical Impulses man! It's all energy transfer! The same impulses in your brain are reaching out and effecting your environment! If you could learn to chanel that power, you could influence all sort of things!"
Chanel your inner hippie for me. Leave some comments of examples of synchronicity in your life. I'd love to hear about other people's experiences with these strange occurrences.
