Sophia’s Winks! – CREDO CXX

 
Some wise person remarked that there is another world and it’s hidden in this one! This is evident when strange synchronicities occur that seemingly break all the rules of chance. I will give three examples from my own life.

In 1964, we put our small development house in Westbury, Long Island, on the market and made the momentous and disastrous decision to move to Tucson, Arizona. Everything was packed into a truck, and I drove our station wagon hitched to a U-Haul. My son and husband were in the truck and my three daughters and our dog were in the car. I said good-bye to the house and got ready to climb into the car. As I rounded the trailer, there on our back bumper was my grandmother’s golden thimble, marked with her initials and birth date of 1854! We later returned to our empty house, broke and jobless, to start anew.

By 1972, I was divorced and lived now in a garage apartment in Glen Head. My oldest daughter, Abby, and family lived up the country road in a rented house. One afternoon she and her six-year-old son, Jamie, appeared at my home. They had walked across a field way back of my house. Jamie held out his hand and said, “Look, Gaga, what I found!” He opened his hand and in it lay seven old Chinese coins! Those brass ones with a square hole in them.

It so happened that I had long wished for them when consulting my copy of the I Ching. (I had been using three silver quarters.) Well, that was just the beginning. Eight years later, I was to lecture at the Jung Institute of Los Angeles. I had met Walter Andersen on the ship traveling the Mediterranean, and he had invited me to stay with him. As I carried my I Ching and the coins with me, I decided to introduce the oracle to him. I explained that he was to think of a question silently, then toss three coins six times, noting the sequence of heads and tails, and then look up the relevant hexagram in the book. He did as he was told, and when he looked up the advice, he burst out laughing! So now he could share the answer to his question. It was “Marry the maiden!” and so he proposed, and, sharing a hug and a kiss, he then 68 and I at 57 became engaged and were married that same October 25th!

By 1998, I had suffered a debilitating stroke the previous winter, and my darling husband had died on April 1st. Yet, I was to conduct another seminar on the Scottish Isle of Iona. I had been there already 22 times. I left New York in a wheelchair at the airport, kindly propelled by my co-traveling friend, Edith Spenser, but gradually got to walking with my staff Woodstock, very slowly yet gratefully on Iona. The weeklong seminar successfully concluded, Edith and I spent a few days in Oban before flying home. It was always my custom to do last minute shopping in the town of Oban, across the bay from Mull, and this time I had my heart set on buying a white cable knit woolen Aran hat. Each day, we managed to walk a little further down the main street, entering the shops. As it was September by then, no luck! The last day, we managed to get to Mactavish, my favorite restaurant, for a quick lunch, and thus fortified, I suggested that we walk back along the parallel waterfront for a change. So I hobbled around the corner and started back to the hotel. Now, in Oban, wherever there is a street corner, short ornamental green stanchions mark both sides. At the second set, there, on top of one of them, was a white hand knit Aran hat!! Without any hesitation, I knew it was mine for the taking, so I took it and have it yet fondly in my closet awaiting another winter! So, I call such events Sophia’s Winks, because when they happen it is as if at that moment the world perceived by the Ego at the circumference and the Self at the centerpoint of the mandala of the psyche flash as one in a our consciousness and remind us to keep going. They tell us we are on the right track, despite all our challenges and concerns.

At our last monthly Prayer Breakfast, we shared how these unexpected events happen in all our lives and perhaps, indeed, can be called Winks of Sophia or Holy Wisdom encouraging us to persevere. In every case, it seems, there is an element of delight involved.

lovingly,
ao