11.11. Hmmm.
I was used to seeing these numbers show up randomly in my life, and it had just happened again in the coffee shop. As I waited to pay my tab, I had been pondering whether a decision I had recently made was on track for me. Another day, I was considering writing for a magazine but had not even begun the research process to determine what magazine was appropriate. Within days, my sister from South Carolina called up to tell me about a wonderful new magazine called 11:11.
Another time, I went on a spa retreat to rest & rejuvenate. I booked a cabin, asking the receptionist to choose the best one for me. I arrived to cabin #11.
A numerologist once told me my “destiny” number is 11, representing the path of spiritual awakening. Coincidence? Maybe. However, incidences of this kind occur so often for me that I see 11:11’s showing up as confirmation that I am living in alignment with my soul purpose.
Synchronicities appear in many ways in my life, not just in numbers. I have learned to recognize symbols, signals, and messages that flow to me—from people, places, things and animals, in response to my thoughts, desires, and the general body of “energy” information that I convey to the Universe.
For example, while hiking one day, I stopped to rest beneath a tree. I sat there, admiring an inchworm that was busy working its way along a limb. I love inchworms! In the next second, it swung on its tiny thread and landed on my heart!
While driving home one night, I was contemplating making a change in my life that would take me on an entirely new track. A fox darted into the road, an unusual action for this sharp-witted animal. I hit the brakes, but could not avoid running over it. It turned while under my car, and suddenly was running down the road directly in front of my headlights, tail high. At home, I looked up the message of fox in “Animal Speak” by Ted Andrews. It seems the fox is able to make sharp turns and maneuvers easily, using its tail like a rudder. I took this appearance of the fox to indicate that I would navigate this dramatic life change with ease.
Confirmation came a few days later while I was walking along a forest path. I was musing over the new plan, still considering if it was the best choice for me at that time. At that moment, I saw what appeared to be a nickel lying on the path. I picked up what turned out to be a circle of cardboard paper. Written on the back were the words, “Way to go!”
Life gives signals all the time to direct us and interact with us. When so-called coincidences begin flowing at a rapid pace, often with a repeated theme, I think of it as synchronicity and guidance.
I move in the direction of my predominant thoughts/emotions, and feelings. I need not write them out, call them out, or even have conscious awareness of them—something inside directs my course. This “something” urges me forward to my next step.
The next step may be a lovely event or it may come as an unpleasant surprise. As I allow even the awkward and unpleasant to unfold, the broader picture is revealed, showing me the result of my predominant signal to the Universe. Often the unpleasant times serve to purge some aspect of my life that was blocking my forward movement.
I am learning to live in what I think of as “the space between the trapeze bars.” I let go of the bar behind me (the past) and the bar I am reaching for (the future) is not yet in view. In that freefall space, magic happens. Learning to live comfortably in that zone opens up worlds of possibilities because my past perspective does not frame my future — so my forward view is expansive.
Synchronicity serves as guidance in the freefall zone.
A major choice in my life was moving from Aspen, Colorado to San Juan Island, Washington. In Aspen, I was well established in my business and lifestyle. In Friday Harbor, I knew only one person, had no job, and would be starting over.
Still, I felt propelled forward. After a visit to the Islands and flying back to Aspen, I heard an audible voice inside my head but so loud that I turned to see if someone had spoken to me. The voice said, “Sell your business, end your relationship, and move.”
It took six months but I chose to follow that directive from “out of the blue.” I did not know then that was my first conscious experience of clairvoyance and an indication of that quality opening up for me. All I knew for certain was that I must do what I felt directed to do. I also felt compelled to spend as much time as possible on South Beach on San Juan Island---on my first visit there, that beach drew me in a powerful way that I felt throughout my body.
On November 11th of 1993, two weeks after making the move to San Juan Island, I was walking on South Beach when a book washed up directly in front of me, intact except for a missing cover and first pages. The book was “Bringers of the Dawn,” a compilation of information channeled from the Pleiadians through Barbara Marciniak.
After that, it seemed every few days some “unusual coincidence” occurred to direct me. At the time, I knew nothing about “the Law of Attraction” or “manifesting.” My vocabulary did not include words or concepts like paradigms, the other side, the veil, gateway, enlightenment, or synchronicity.
That is, until that book washed up at my feet. It was a full year before I was able to read it because the content was too foreign and uncomfortable for me to digest. Yet one day I picked it up again and read. This time, the words washed over me like a waterfall, I had a strong sense of recognition and familiarity, and a feeling that to this day I can only refer to as “home.” The book called out for “Light Workers” to recognize themselves and step into their roles. Was it coincidence that out of all the millions of books in the world this one washed up at my feet from the ocean? On 11:11?
What followed in the next 11 years (yes! 11 again!) was a most powerful time of upheaval as all the structures I had used to develop my life to that point, fell away. I was so blocked by my old way of thinking that it took implosions in my psyche to open me to new ways of seeing and being.
Whether I am willful or willing, synchronistic events move me along my way. Whether I accept my next step or push against it, expansion still happens. The difference is whether I enjoy or suffer through the process.
In time, I have realized that Source/God has a sense of humor and works with me in baby steps. An example is one day when I went to South Beach to walk and talk with God. I was upset, fuming as I walked along, and I wished I had something to kick. Seconds after that thought, there in front of me on the beach was a soccer ball, still full of air. The beach was empty of people, and in 15 years of combing that beach, I have never seen another ball.
What to do? I kicked the ball!
Sometimes guidance is this obvious, practically jumping up and down to get our attention. Often, I am shown the next 1, 2, 3 steps and then the flow stops, giving me no more information. I step forward with what I know/feel even in the face of rational thought or evidence to indicate a more practical response. Alternately, when there is no indication of the next step—then that is the message! Do nothing, wait, be patient. More information is forthcoming or more events must fall into place.
Also, knowing the bigger picture in advance might freeze me in my tracks, and I would not have the courage to step out at all. This is particularly true when something goes really wrong.
The Swiss Psychologist Carl Gustav Jung first described and coined the meaning for “synchronicity” as “the experience of two or more events that are apparently casually unrelated, occurring together in a meaningful manner, and revealing an underlying pattern. Jung felt this was conclusive evidence of the collective unconscious, descriptive of a governing dynamic that underlies the whole of human experience. He was transfixed by the idea that life is not a series of random events but an expression of a deeper order. (Source: Wikipedia).
Jung does not have to convince me. I became aware of synchronicity long before I had any understanding or concept of the word. One day in March of 1983, I was wife and realtor living a comfortable life in Hilton Head, South Carolina. Three weeks later I was sitting on a bench in Aspen, Colorado, scanning the classifieds ads for a place to rent and a job. My husband had left the house one morning saying, “I love you!” and that night said, “I want a divorce.”
My knee-jerk reaction was to run far away from my life turned upside down. Shock took me out of my old life and landed me in a new one. Sitting next to me on that bench that March morning was another woman reading the rental ads. “Are you looking for a roommate?” I asked.
It turned out she had placed an ad to rent her apartment out because she had just married a man she had met 3 weeks before!
Within one hour of my arrival in Aspen I rented her apartment at a reasonable price with no deposit or lease. The next day I got a job. The day after I met another woman from South Carolina who moved in with me that night, sharing the rent and becoming a friend. I found out later that locating affordable housing and a job that time of year was “impossible.”
It was then that I understood that in the face of what seemed to be the biggest disaster of my life, I was being “taken care of.” My whole known world was laid asunder with “I want a divorce.” Yet, instead of opting for a safer route, something inside urged me to move to a ski town, fulfilling a long-held dream.
In hindsight, I realized that my husband’s choice set me free to pursue a life more in alignment with my essential nature, and Source/God supported my process.
The Universe is impartial to our manifesting and simply serves up what we “ask” for so that we can learn and grow. In those “unconscious” early days, I was too much in shock to even consider consciously manifesting my life. I was already “out of my own way,” and the Universe had plenty of room to maneuver, as I had no roadblocks. Even my last name was suddenly foreign to me. All I knew was “My name is Donna and I need a place to sleep and a job.” I had nothing left to lose so I was open and willing to take the next steps, ignorant at that time that on a deeper level I had asked for the disruption in order to forage a path more in sync with my essential nature.
To step into synchronicity is to accept that the people/places/things that come into my life are a manifestation of my predominant vibration. With that information, I am supported to move forward in a present, conscious, and (if I choose) joyful manner, grateful when surprises show up to move me along.
Soccer, anyone?
11:11 MAGAZINE FEATURE WRITER
THE SPACE BETWEEN THE TRAPEZE BARS
by Donna P. Savage
As published in 11:11 Magazine, March-April 2011
Donna Marie Pritchard | Email: donnapsavage@live.com | 24 Hour Message Center: 803-360-6255
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