Synchronicity and the Road

Pre-historic Mississippian culture gorget

West Kennet crop circle, 2009

 'For Jung, Tarnas noted, “all events, inner and outer, whether emanating from the human consciousness or from the larger matrix of the world, were recognized as sources of potential and spiritual significance.”

I thought about that last quote for a while. It seems that once you recognize coincidence as meaningful, once you’re in the flow of it, the inner self and the larger outer matrix whisper constantly to each other. All we need to do is listen."

Trish MacGregor, Synchrosecrets Blog

I love the wonderful blog on synchronicity created by writers Trish and Rob MacGregor, which never fails to give me insight and affirmation of my own experiences of synchronicity.   So I take the liberty of quoting above from that blog.

I will be teaching at Sirius Rising and at Starwood this summer, as well as at the Studio on Broadway in Newburgh, NY (more on that later). I've also been wanting to visit a shamanic healer who has been very influential for me, Jewell, who lives in Shutesbury, Mass., a new friend also in that area, artist Valerianna, and the Sirius Community, also in Shutesbury.   I've been feeling very stale, and have felt more and more strongly that I had to get on the road, to refresh, get into flow, open up, connect.   I have many responsibilities here, so getting things together to leave is no small task, and I was planning on leaving the first of July.  But I've been feeling so strangely agitated that it seemed a long way off.  

Last week I was sitting at a table talking with someone about my Spider Woman project, the meaning of the myth to me.  During a pause in the conversation, I noticed a transparent strand with a tiny spider.............no one had noticed except me as it dropped down to hang right at eye level!   Later that day a little spider was seen hanging right in the middle of my windshield...............The next day I received a phone call from a friend in Sedona, inviting me to come up the following week (now) to see the Grand Canyon, visit Sedona, and possibly attend a Hopi ceremony.   I said yes!

 "I let my life be guided by a strange language that I call “signs”. I know that the world is talking to me, I need to listen to it, and if I do so I shall always be guided towards what is most intense, passionate and beautiful. Of course, it is not always easy.

If you trust life, life will trust you."

          Paolo Coelho



One last amazing synchronicity:  just the day before yesterday I received a order for a large Green Man mask (the Green Man, of course, symbolizes the return of life in the spring).  The mask is to be sent to..................Shutesbury, Massachusetts!    There are hundreds of little towns in Massachusetts – what are the odds!  So, I leave feeling encouraged by the universe. Jewell's  center in Shutesbury is called “The Source”, and all she does is about Earth spirituality.   

Om Tare, Tu Tare, 
From you, the demons of delusion fly
Praise Tara, whose fingers adorn her heart
Light radiates from a wheel in Your hand.

Caroline Myss talks about learning to think in symbolic terms, as did Carl Jung, who coined the term "synchronicity".  If we begin to think of not only our dreams, but also the often amazingly synchronized experiences of our  "awake dreams" in symbolic terms, as Trish commented, "the inner self and the larger outer matrix whisper constantly to each other."    There is a lot for me to ponder in this.  Not the least, that in a sense, the beginning of my fascination with Spider Woman began with Jewel, at her workshop on shamanic theatre, where I first began to "personify" Spider Woman.  It was, in fact, the "Source".  Not only that, but when working with Jewell all those years ago as I recovered from a messy divorce, I had one of the most profound visionary experiences of my life, my "vision of Tara" .  That was a very profound experience that also set me on the path of Compassion, and the Goddess.  Again..........THE SOURCE.



So.  It is time to return again, not only to Vermont and Massachusetts, to New York where I once lived,  not only to see my healer and friend Jewell,  but, to The Source. 
 
 And.............the Greenman, the source as well, the source of renewal of life in the spring.  Here is a poem I wrote about The Greenman, so long ago, and on an enchanting summer day in Vermont:

Remember me, try to remember.
I am that laughing man with eyes like leaves.
When you think that winter will never end, I will come.
You will feel my breath, a vine caressing your foot.
I am the blue eye of a crocus opening in the snow
a trickle of water, a shaft of light among the trees:

You will hear me singing
among the green groves of memory,
and the shining leaves of tomorrow.

I'll come with daisies in my hands,
we'll dance among the sycamores
once more

Lauren Raine 1996

I've been rushing around like crazy trying to get things done, and lo and behold, today is the day, car is packed, and, with Spider Woman as my Co-Pilot, I'm ready to leave for points north, and then points very east, just about as east as I can go until I run into the Hudson River.   May She give us all............a finely tuned Webbed Vision.  Blessings of the Journey to all my friends who read this.

 

Community Clay at the Creative Spirit Center

  

I woke up this morning determined to see if I could pack up my old car and just hit the road to points East ASAP. Actually, I would very much like to see Community Clay, at the Creative Spirit Center in Midland, Michigan, where some of my own work is being exhibited as part of the show. Their castings of community members is a continuation and new exploration of the interconnectedness motif begun with my project, sponsored by the Alden Dow Creativity Center, last summer. I'm so grateful they are doing this, and if I can't make the opening, I'm hoping that soon I'll at least be able to see the show, and see again my collaborator from last year Kathy Space, and Sarah Gorman, of the Creative Spirit Center.

I've applied to numerous places for residencies to continue this project, in new permutations, this winter - among them, the Henry Luce Center at Wesley Seminary in Washington, DC, the Irish Museum, and Raumars in Finland. The Irish Museum, I have to admit, I'm crossing my fingers on. I would dearly love a chance to explore this mythological theme with theological students as well. And Finland in January, well, I guess the project would tend to take on a slightly more "internal" motif. Although who knows. Maybe it's time I learn how to ice skate.

I've recently learned about a way to publish very small editions of art books, ie, highly illustrated with color photos. I'm excited - this would give me a chance to publish a limited edition version of MASKS OF THE GODDESS, as well as the Spider Woman Project.

At any rate, travel is what I need now - this will be the year of my "pilgrimage". Who am I now, and where am I headed? It seems strange, as I touch the fringes of the last year of my '50's, to say that I really don't know. I've spent years now wanting, no not just wanting but needing, to do something wholly new. I've been lingering at a crossroads for so long that even my bags are threadbare.