The Universe sees you!
I’ve written about everything being interconnected here. In all this interconnection, it can seem that we are ‘in it’, but not seen, or recognised by it.
Does the universe really ‘see’ us?
I believe wholeheartedly, that it does!
And at the end of this post I hope you will believe it too.
I will discuss the magic of coincidences and synchronicities later, but first something very special that happened to me.
A very special moment of Interconnection from galaxies far away to a little village in southern Italy.
When I was writing my book ‘Custodians’, I wanted to talk about the different interconnected systems that exist on the earth. For example, dust containing important nutrients from the Bodele Depression in the Sahara being taken on the winds to the Amazon, which due to water leaching, actually needs the Sahara’s nutrients.
One of the things I discovered in my research, which stopped me in tracks, was a photo from a scientist in Santa Cruz University in California, showing that galaxies are actually interconnected! His photo, which was taken in Hawaii, showed filaments of hydrogen gas, connecting galaxies. The name at the bottom of the photo was ‘S. Cantalupo’.
So I tracked him down, and in an email, I told him that his photo had filled me with awe, and that I would love to share it in my book, to demonstrate interconnectedness. I also explained that Custodians was being published by Licosia, a small independent publishers in Ogliastro, in the Cilento region of southern Italy.
I assumed, that as he was based in Santa Cruz University, and because his name was S. Cantalupo, that he might be South American or Mexican and that there was a good chance that someone who was off researching galaxies wasn’t actually going to email me back.
Then, I got a reply! From Sebastiano Cantalupo, Assistant Professor of Astrophysics, now based in Zurich.
He said he was delighted to get my email, and did I understand all the interconnections that were involved in this story?
As it turns out, Sebastiano Cantalupo, the scientist who photographed the connected galaxies, is not from California, or South America, but from Italy. In fact, he was born in the Cilento where I now live, and in the very village (Ogliastro) where ‘Custodians’ was being published. He said he spent the first 18 years of his life there, but his horizons were much bigger than the small village he grew up in, so he went off out into the world, to explore galaxies!
He gave me permission to use his photo in my book, and said that when he was back in Italy to visit his family, we should meet up. And that’s what happened. We met for lunch and chatted about galaxies, science, Socrates, Italian life and food, our daughters and interconnections.
A truly amazing and mind blowing experience, and it’s safe to say I was more than a little awe struck.
The mathematics of Interconnection
What are the mathematical chances of the connection between me and the interconnected galaxies I saw on the internet, being realised in a physical face to face meeting between Sebastiano Cantalupo and I, in southern Italy? This is the way the universe works. It sees us all. It’s not just, ‘it’s all connected’, we are all connected!
The more we feel being seen and interconnected everyday, the more we can relax into ourselves, and know that each of us matters, as an integral part of it all.
With this in mind, how can we feel like spiritual orphans, how can we feel lost, it doesn’t make any sense.
Coincidences and Synchronicities
Many things happen to us that are ‘out of the ordinary’, and it can be easy to write them off as mere ‘coincidences’. There is a key difference between a coincidence and an occurrence that would have the special ingredients that would make it into a synchronicity.
Coincidences happen regularly but for it to be a synchronicity, it needs to have an effect on our psyche, it needs to be a ‘meaningful coincidence’. Carl Jung wrote:
. . . . meaningful coincidences are unthinkable as pure chance - the more they multiply and the greater and more exact the correspondence is . . . they can no longer be regarded as pure chance, but, for the lack of causal explanation, have to be thought of as meaningful-arrangements.1
The quantum physicist, F. David Peat, wrote:
. . . the essence of a synchronicity is the deap meaning it holds for the one who experiences it. And while the conventional laws of physics do not heed human needs or desires, synchronicities act as mirrors to the inner processes of mind and form outer manifestations of interior transformations.2
Synchronicities can have an additional dimension and be seen as spiritual experiences. Peat wrote about it here:
Spirit has a numinous nature, as distinct from matter and psyche, but numinosity is also characteristic of a synchronicity. It is associated with feelings of awe and something that is ‘wholly other’.
A synchronicity is a timeless moment whre we connect to something greater than ourselves, and we feel deeply part of it. It’s not a theory, it’s a felt sense. This is what makes a synchronicity so powerful, the person involved knows that they have been touched and affected by something huge and the feeling is so strong for them, you cannot sway them into thinking it was a mere concidence. It’s personal.
Never feel alone
The cosmos and spirit are interconnected and we are an integral part of that interconnection. Keeping our awareness conscious of the timeless moments that we feel the synchronicities can help them happen more often. This is my own experience. When one happens I make a point of giving a ‘nod’ to the cosmos and saying ‘yes I saw that amazing synchronicity!’ to make it as conscious as possible.
What an amazing world we live in. To be living in a rich interconnected soup that is conscious of our movements and wants to include us so we feel seen as part of a larger story.
And for a lovely poetic way to understand that we are truly always seen by the universe, I want to share a beautiful poem by David Wagoner.
"Lost"
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
Get your copy of Vincent McMahon’s book Custodians - here.
C.G.Jung and W.Pauli, ‘The Interpretation and Nature of the Psyche’. (1955).
F. David Peat. ‘Synchronicity, the marriage of matter and psyche’. (2014)