Signs from the Universe (and other nonsense)

It doesn’t feel quite right to share it here yet, but last week I definitely received something that I can only consider a Cosmic Sign.

A message, in other words, from my dearly departed chocolate lab Belle who left the physical in January.

The sign was very specific and very weird and very funny and––most importantly––completely on brand for her.

(This makes so much sense because, as a Libra, Belle always loved fashion so much.)

My hesitancy is not so much that I feel my readers won’t accept my sharing something like this here.

On the contrary, in the last month I was delighted (and astonished) by the number of sweet souls who wrote to me recommending their favorite animal communicators and pet psychics.

(Several people even offered more than one option, apparently having a rolodex of animal empaths and clairvoyants at the ready.)

It’s just that I feel I need a little more time to process the experience, to digest the message, or else the premature sharing will dilute it. 

Nonetheless, it has gotten me thinking how I feel about “Signs from the Universe” in general.

I’m both an absolute sucker for synchronicity and also its biggest doubter.

For example, every morning I draw an angel card on my iPhone, followed by a Wild Unknown Animal Spirit Card, one from the Tarot, and another from the I Ching. 

This three minute ritual is always fun, often quite helpful and full of insights, and sometimes uncanny.

Anyway, here’s what happened this Thursday.

I woke up and put on my newly arrived shirt I received for donating to the World Wildlife Fund.

(It goes quite well with my Writing Sweater)

I then drew this card from the angel deck.

And from my Animal Spirit and Tarot decks I drew these two.

The whole experience gave me pause. 

In case it’s not totally obvious: I’m wearing my brand new Tiger shirt and I drew cards first with a kitten and then two big cats from the decks.

What are the odds of that synchronicity?

(Note: I may be wrong about the following math––I was an English major, after all, so feel free to correct me––but my greater point still stands).

There are 52 angel cards (only one with a cat), 63 wild Animal Spirit (same: just one tiger), and 78 tarot cards (same).

So the odds of drawing any particular card in each deck is 1/52, 1/63, and 1/78, respectively.

Since these events are independent of each other, the odds against drawing 3 cats is therefore 1/52 X 1/63 X 1/78.

Or 1 in 255,528.

And yet it happened.

Is the question: What does it mean?

Or…Does it mean anything at all?

One of the problems I’m having with the novel I’m writing (more accurately pretending to write) has to do with synchronicity.

Synchronicity is very hard to pull off in fiction.

If in real life a friend tells you they ran into their long lost twin brother at the airport, you exclaim: “Wow––that’s a miracle!”

If you write that same scene in a screenplay, however, a friend responds with: “Wow––that’s really bad writing.”

Perhaps the greatest difference between real life and art––and the reason why I think many people often become artists in the first place––is how much control we have.

In other words, the control equation is basically:

Absolute (Art) vs. Minimal (Life).

Since the writer controls everything on the page, synchronicities have to be handled very carefully.

In some ways, just as they occur in life, they have to be dealt out in small doses and with precise, focused timing.

Otherwise, it just feels like lazy writing.

It’s as if the author made their final scene simply:

“Somehow everything just works out.”

…Fade to Black…

During their recording of “Help Me, Rhonda,” the Beach Boys famously gave their abusive father Murray a dummy mixing console.

The dials on the mixer did absolutely nothing.

He could push levers up and down and adjust switches as much as he wanted but it was meaningless to the final outcome. 

It just kept him occupied and a little less intrusive.

In the same way, is the universe merely humoring me?

Are synchronicities just the illusion of meaningful communication…yet ultimately the song remains the same?

Here’s how Jung defined Synchronicity:

“Synchronicity is the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer.”

As I’ve been working on my new writing, I’ve read that definition a thousand times.

And I now think the most telling part is the final clause: “to the observer.”

A synchronicity is meaningful, in other words, if it’s meaningful to you.

Right now, I’m also reading Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything, the Austrian psychologist and neurologist Viktor Frankl’s recently discovered work.

It first appeared in English last April. 

I am, however, going to quote now from Frankl’s 1946 masterpiece, Man’s Search for Meaning, his chronicle of surviving the Nazi concentration camps:

“Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning.” 

That quest for meaning is why we interpret our dreams and why we draw angel cards and why we’re open to messages from the Beyond.

What’s heartening though is that perhaps, as Jung reminds us, ultimately, we get to choose the meaning.

Namaste for Now,