{"id":4849,"date":"2012-06-11T19:08:20","date_gmt":"2012-06-11T23:08:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/dreamgates\/?p=4849"},"modified":"2012-06-11T19:09:40","modified_gmt":"2012-06-11T23:09:40","slug":"footsteps-of-the-synchron-o-city-beast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/06\/footsteps-of-the-synchron-o-city-beast.html","title":{"rendered":"Footsteps of the Synchron-O-city Beast"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nothing happens in which you are not entangled in a secret manner, for everything has ordered itself around you and plays your innermost. Nothing in you is hidden to things\u2026The stars whisper your deepest mysteries to you, and the soft valleys of the earth rescue you in a motherly womb.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014 Carl Jung, The Red Book<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Shhhh.<\/em>\u00a0If you’re quiet for a moment, you’ll hear him snuffling and padding around the room. Most grown-ups can’t hear him or see him because they are too busy. Whatever age you are, you don’t want to miss him. When\u00a0he’s <\/em>around, things happen differently. You can finish something before you started it, which is really cool when it comes to doing chores.<\/p>\n

He is, of course, the Synchron-O-city Beast. I shall tell you exactly how he got his name and his shape. There was once a very clever professor in Switzerland who woke up noticing what you and I know but most grown-ups forget: coincidence\u00a0matters,\u00a0<\/em>terribly. But it was very hard for him to explain this to respectable adults in a country of bankers and cuckoo-clocks, so he made up a word that sounded scientific. The word was \u201csynchronicity\u201d, which he defined as \u201can acausal connecting principle.\u201d He was talking about meaningful coincidence. You and I know that coincidence\u00a0always\u00a0<\/em>means something. It’s through coincidence that we discover that the world inside us and the world outside us aren’t really separate. It’s through coincidence that we discover the secret doors to the world-behind-the-world that open in our dreams but often seem to be bricked over in the daytime, as if they were never there. Through coincidence, we discover that there are players involved in our games of life who live on the other side of the curtain between the worlds, but can reach through that curtain to move a piece on the board, or tickle us, or muss our hair.<\/p>\n

The Swiss professor got serious people \u2014 the sort who would never listen to talk of \u201ccoincidence\u201d \u2014 to sit through his lectures when he substituted the word \u201csynchronicity.\u201d He also go them to listen because he told good stories about how synchronicity worked in his own life, about how a solid cabinet cracked with a loud BANG when he was getting into an argument with his own teacher, or how a fox appeared on a path when he was talking to a lady about a dream of a fox.<\/p>\n

I have never liked the word \u201csynchronicity\u201d as much as that good old word \u201ccoincidence\u201d. But alas, \u201ccoincidence\u201d has been horribly\u00a0ad-justed<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0only-fied\u00a0<\/em>by all the people who have long been in the habit of saying, \u201cjust coincidence\u201d or \u201conly coincidence\u201d. It has even been not-ified\u00a0<\/em>by people who insist \u201cit’s not coincidence\u201d when they really mean that it is, but it’s something real and important and meaningful, and they don’t understand (because of the bad talk they’ve learned) that coincidence is all of those things.<\/p>\n

So I’ve been using the word \u201csynchronicity\u201d in my writings and classes. But in one of those classes, there was a sweet lady artist who could never say it quite right. It always came out \u201csynchron-O-city\u201d with a great big O where an I should be. I thought this was rather cute, and couldn’t bear to correct her. So, month after month, following her homeplay assignments, she would bring us tales of synchron-O-city, to our smiling delight.<\/p>\n

One evening there was a newcomer in the class, a serious person and a stickler for accuracy in everything that can be looked up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have another synchron-O-city to tell,\u201d said the lady artist, eager to share.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean synchon-I-city,\u201d said the newcomer. \u201cYou should get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crestfallen, the artist tried to correct herself, but faltered.<\/p>\n

I quickly intervened. \u201cPlease\u00a0<\/em>don’t ever change the way you say that word,\u201d I implored the artist. \u201cEvery time you say it, I sense a soft snuffly animal \u2014 the Synchron-O-city Beast \u2014 coming into the room.\u201d<\/p>\n

I paused. In that moment, I believe we all heard and sensed something like a plush baby rhino, snuffling and snorting. The first peoples of the country where I grew up, Down Under, say that to name something is to bring it into the world. The Synchron-O-city Beast is now alive and ever so busy in this world.<\/p>\n

I can prove this because soon after this incident a writer called Maureen reported a most delightful dream in which she is one of a team of counselors helping me to run a camp for children where we supervise sleepover parties and dream together. Padding and snuffling all over the magical house in the woods where we are gathered is a creature she describes as a \u201cbaby rhino\u201d, soft and cuddly. I don’t think Maureen ever heard of the Synchron-O-city Beast from me, at least not in an ordinary way. The Synchron-O-city Beast just went ahead and introduced himself. I hope they are feeding him well in Maureen’s dream camp. He thrives on giggles and slips of the tongue. He likes to exercise by shredding the curtain of solemn people’s expectations, and butting holes into Outland and Fairyland and other lands big enough to be doorways for anyone with a child’s sense of wonder.<\/p>\n

~<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Adapted from Active Dreaming: Journeying Beyond Self-Limitation to a Life of Wild Freedom<\/em> by Robert Moss. Published by New World Library.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nothing happens in which you are not entangled in a secret manner, for everything has ordered itself around you and plays your innermost. Nothing in you is hidden to things\u2026The stars whisper your deepest mysteries to you, and the soft valleys of the earth rescue you in a motherly womb.\u00a0 \u2014 Carl Jung, The Red…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,41,25,37,29,8],"tags":[1358],"class_list":["post-4849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-active-dreaming","category-coincidence","category-conscious-living","category-jung","category-story","category-synchronicity","tag-synchron-o-city"],"yoast_head":"\nFootsteps of the Synchron-O-city Beast - Dream Gates<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/2012\/06\/footsteps-of-the-synchron-o-city-beast.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Footsteps of the Synchron-O-city Beast - Dream Gates\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Nothing happens in which you are not entangled in a secret manner, for everything has ordered itself around you and plays your innermost. 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He is the creator of Active Dreaming, an original synthesis of dreamwork and shamanism. Born in Australia, he survived three near-death experiences in childhood. He leads popular seminars all over the world, including a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. A former lecturer in ancient history at the Australian National University, he is a best-selling novelist, journalist and independent scholar. His nine books on dreaming, shamanism and imagination include Conscious Dreaming, Dreamways of the Iroquois, The Dreamer's Book of the Dead, The Three \"\"Only\"\" Things, The Secret History of Dreaming, Dreamgates, Active Dreaming and Dreaming the Soul Back Home: Shamanic Dreaming for Healing and Becoming Whole. His most recent book is The Boy Who Died and Came Back: Adventures of a Dream Archaeologist in the Multiverse. Over the past 20 years, he has led seminars at the Esalen Institute, Kripalu, the Omega Institute, the New York Open Center, Bastyr University, John F. Kennedy University, Meriter Hospital, and many other centers and institutions. He has taught depth workshops in Active Dreaming in the UK, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Brazil and Austria and leads a three-year training for teachers of Active Dreaming. He hosts the \"\"Way of the Dreamer\"\" radio show at www.healthylife.net. He has appeared on many TV and radio shows, ranging from Charlie Rose and the Today show to Coast to Coast and the Diane Rehm show on NPR. His articles on dreaming have been published in media ranging from Parade to Shaman's Drum.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.mossdreams.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/author\/rmoss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4849"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4854,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4849\/revisions\/4854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/dreamgates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}