streetcartWikipedia defines synchronicity as “the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningful manner”. Karl Jung was the psychologist that first gave attention to the phenomena in the 1920’s.

I like the following account of synchronicity for several reasons. Ilene is a friend of mine outside of the paranormal world and though she is a talented musician, in other ways she is simply an everyday person, without any agenda in the area of the anomalous. This true story shows how synchronicities can pop up anywhere, where you least expect them.

Ilene Weiss is a songwriter, performer, and musical clown. During the summer of 1998 she was working for several weeks as a clown at Hole in the Wall Gang Camp in Ashford CT. For those of you who don’t know, it is a no-fee camp for youth, ages 7 to 15, with cancer and serious blood diseases, who reside in New England, New York or New Jersey. It was founded by actor/ philanthropist Paul Newman in 1988. (Please feel free to click on the link and send them money, you really don’t need a new pair of Louboutin spikes especially if you have hair on your chest. 😉 )

Ilene had two days off between camp sessions and decided to go to to Providence, Rhode Island on a day trip. Providence is about an hour’s ride from Ashford and a nice day’s jaunt.

During the 1970’s Ilene spent just over four years in Providence. She went there originally in the fall of 1973 as an freshman art student at Rhode Island School of Design, lived there until Dec 1977, but left RISD in the of spring 1976. So she was going to Providence for a “memory walk” to see how the town had changed in the more than 20 years since she’d left. Additionally she was currently in the midst of a romantic infatuation with a man who had lived in Providence during the same years she had. They did not know each other then.

During her “memory walk” she decided it might be a clever idea to send the man a postcard of the town, a postcard evocative of the era that they’d spent there separately. She walked around town visiting the places she’d frequented when she lived there, checking out the available postcards but they were all too new and shiny, showing more of how the place changed than how it had been when they’d both lived there, not knowing one another.

Finally she came to the College Hill Bookstore. It had been there way back when and was worth a try. She found a rack of postcards in the back of the store and again nothing but the newer cards. As she turned the rack around she glimpsed a few old ones- the color was different. She had found a few small overlooked postcards that seemed to be of the right era. And the neighborhood even looked familiar. Yes! It was a picture of the corner of Thayer and Waterman, near one of the Brown University Quads. Wow! A find! The man had gone to Brown. And, holy cow, there was the Jo-Art Copy Shop! She knew exactly where that was. She had briefly been the proprietor of Kneecap Natural Foods right around the corner from Jo-Art.

She took one of the postcards to the cash register and paid. A few minutes later she had occasion to sit down. She took out the postcard for another look, wondering what she’d write on the back of it. Something funny, yet romantic and appropriate, but not too forward. The horse cart was unusual. The faces on the card looked somehow familiar and the car was just like the one her old friend Michael used to drive. And, the young woman in profile at the cart kind of looked like her. The woman was even dressed as she dressed then. Looking closer she decided she had had the same clothes. Wait a minute, it WAS her in the photo. She was totally in shock, blown away. How could it be? But it was her, standing in profile with a kerchief on her head on the right side of the horse cart.

After regaining her composure she hurried back to the College Hill Book Store and bought their remaining stock of the postcard.

How does one explain a synchronicity such as this? What are the chances of something like this happening? And moreover, what, if anything, does it mean?

I’d love to hear about your own synchronicity, dear reader.

Fahrusha is an intuitive reader and creative visualization coach in New York City. You can reach her at fahrusha@fahrusha.com.