Author

Subject: Book Travels Two

Jane Anderson

14:40 11/02/2001 

As you'll see from the post below, I'm sharing two synchronicity stories about books and travelling today.

Here's Number Two:

Although I had two other books I was reading, I wandered into my daughter's room to look for something to read from her bookshelves. I picked up a copy of a book I originally read about ten years ago, Scott Peck's "The Road Less Travelled".

I vaguely remembered Rowan (my daughter) telling me that she had lent my original copy to a friend and that the friend had loved it so much that she'd bought a copy for Rowan. I thought, "So that's where my copy went: The road most travelled of the best of books ... away and into other people's hands."

Anyway, I read the first couple of chapters and revelled in the difference between how much of the information was second nature to me and how much was totally new. It's always amazing how different a book is when you revisit it years later with different life experiences.

I got to a point where I was too tired to finish a chapter, so I bookmarked the page and fell asleep. On waking I finished the chapter, specifically noticing where I had trailed off the night before.

THEN ...

This morning I was vaguely looking at the books on my bookshelves when I saw my own copy of the book: though I would have sworn that I no longer had it. I took it out and looked at the inside cover. I had written "February 1991" inside...so here I was re-reading it ten years later to the month.

I saw that I must have started re-reading it before as there was a bookmark someway in. I opened it to the page

AND

it was at the exact page I had bookmarked last night ... a very odd, half-way through a thought kind of page to stop reading in both cases.

Glad to have discovered, after however long I've been freeze-framed on that twice travelled path, that I'm now on my way again.

Jane Anderson

Angela

16:16 11/02/2001 

Jane.

These are both such wonderful synchronicities. I so often wonder the significance of a re-found bookmark. This one seems to hold double the meaning for you. Perhaps present and past? The Hesse connection sets the same points in time too. It really was stunning. Do you think maybe Euan carried the connection all these years from infancy?

Angela.

Jane Anderson

23:19 11/02/2001 

Hi Angela,

Will get back to you on this... still unravelling it. Synchronicities tend to become clearer after a few days as you know...

Certainly it is a layered synchronicity ...:

# Two synchs about books;

# Two synchs about travelling and books (Euan is doing the physical travelling and I'm reading about the road less travelled);

# Two synchs about returning to books read in the past

# Two synchs both involve my children: it was Rowan's copy of the book I found first, and Euan took the Hesse book to my brother's house;

# Two synchs which connected my children's books back to the adults who then revisit the same books .. i.e. Finding Rowan's book led me to re-read my copy; Euan's book led my brother to revisit his memory of the book and to contact his friend from that time.

Any other comments, suggestions or similar stories out there?

Jane Anderson

Belinda

15:04 12/02/2001 

Hi Jane and Angela

What leaps out at me Jane, which is so obvious as the nose on our faces, is that you are an author and we are talking about books here.

So, if the title of the book is relevant, is there any area of your writing that you are currently exploring that you could describe as 'a road less travelled'?

Belinda

Angela

02:23 13/02/2001 

Hi Belinda, Jane, etc...

In fact, isn't this whole concept of dreams, synchronicity, etc. entirely 'a road less travelled'?

I had two conversations recently about how discovery and interest in a world unproven really takes a lot of guts. There is an awful lot of opposition and judgement out there!

???

Angela

Jane Anderson

08:55 13/02/2001 

Hi Belinda, Angela and All,

You bet, Angela! My chosen professional life is certainly a road less travelled and that is compounded both by my individual approach to the subject and to the way in which I choose to communicate it.

Working with dreams, synchronicities and related areas (precognition etc) is one of those 'proof in the pudding' affairs. Once people try it, it works. Once they **suspend judgement** and read (especially, so I am told through feedback, The Shape of Things to Come), the spaces between the lines in the books open hearts and eyes to new experiences of the same world: experiences which carry meaning for the open-minded reader.

So yes, my work is very much a road less travelled and one very easily and judgmentally dismissed by many who prefer to stick to the well-trodden roads which simply reinforce the view of the world handed to us from parents, teachers and forebears.

But much of my life has also been a road less travelled and I wouldn't have missed it for the world ... in fact, I've gained the world by being prepared to lose it!

BUT BACK TO THE QUESTION...

I have been reviewing the last ten years (I was married in late 1991, and we parted last year). The material in the book subsequent to the bookmarked page was extremely relevant in retrospect, enabling me to understand the whole relationship more clearly. So the analogy of having been freeze-framed on that page of the less travelled road and now being freed to move on was apt.

Why did my daughter's copy of the book lead me to my own? Partly because our children teach us more about ourselves and life than our elders do ... and partly because my daughter is out there travelling her own less travelled roads through Morocco, Spain and Italy.

Synchronicities are outer world events which mirror inner world change. What I have understood, through attention to my inner world, has manifested in the outer world as the printed page and the symbolism of being led, by a child, to revist my past and see everything clearly.

And yes, Belinda, I am the author too. While my books refer to other people's experiences (through my research), each carries a thread of my personal story and experience, so that each book I write is, in a sense, a milestone along my own road less travelled. They are my offerings to readers who know there is a less travelled road, whether or not they wish to take it themselves.

The second synchronicity (the Hesse one), was not really mine. The goosebump experience occured for my brother and then for my son. So the synchronicity, and therefore its symbolic resonance and meaning, was theirs.

The overlap for me was seeing that my son and my brother were experiencing book/travel synchronicities, as I was.

Keen to read your further thoughts and ideas as always!!!

Jane Anderson

Angela

09:59 13/02/2001 

Hi.

I seem to have palindrome eyes today.

1991 -- backwards and forwards, 19s both ways.

It may not hold much relevance, but Jane, you had noted on the Member's Forum, the date 10022001 on Saturday...

There is something alluring in low populated areas and less-trodden roads. The quiet and the line of vision go far into the distance with very few things in the way of your thoughts. I believe many of us have found it fun and a pleasure to step in your prints!

Angela.

andrea

19:23 13/02/2001 

Jane I remember, just last month doing a backwards forwards thing with someone. Going into their home (where I had never been before) and discover MY home in a photo, in a book in THEIR up to date home - at the very same period where we had last crossed paths.

What was even more curious was picking this volume out of all possibilities to browse - and opening at just the right page.....

We also discussed a page - from a significant bookish 'chapter' in our life about a school we both knew - I as a pupil and she as a student teacher..

I couldn't help wondering if perhaps the view of that time was 'updated' as a result of meeting it here in the 'future' - seeing it through different eyes as it were.

It certainly made me rethink the whole experience - and bring it 'up to date'in the light of the road I have travelled since then .

Jane Anderson

22:31 14/02/2001 

Hi Angela and Andrea,

Thank you, Angela ...for reminding me of the wonderful spaciousness of the less travelled road and also its fine company. Rethinking, perhaps it's easier to make an impression on the road less travelled as our footprints are not trampled en masse or censored by tarmac.

Andrea... yes. So now I'm thinking of a too well-trodden phrase I often use when talking about dreams in which we go back to the past (to a childhood home, for example), "We go back to go forward", or, "When there are obstacles on our path, our dreams sometimes take us back to the source of the obstacle (the original conditioning, experience, feeling, memory, event) so that we can understand it, release it and move forward."

In rewriting the past through seeing it with the eyes of hindsight wisdom, we then rewrite our patterning (our programming) and are released. We write, right and rewrite our life till we get to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, perhaps.

Our synchroniciites which loop back to encompass the past reveal our waking life recurring dreams ... those cycles of life which we keep repeating, or are in danger of repeating until we see the patterning and break the cycle ... breakthrough ...

A synchronicity is the multiple manifestation of an inner breakthrough, an insight 'bubbling up' from the unconscious, about to burst into consciousness, but always occuring in a heralding fashion: we experience the synchronicities ahead of the breakthrough becoming conscious. (For those of you who cannot fathom this, please read The Shape of Things to Come, where I have expressed this carefully across many chapters instead of tiredly late in the evening!) So, by definition, a synchronicity is a birth of an insight, a change in conditioning, a death of an old way of the past, a breakthrough. The particular past events these time-looping synchronicities highlight, therefore, are perhaps rather more congratulatory. The breakthrough is unstoppable ... all that remains is for the conscious mind to reach its 'aha'! No wonder, then, that in the awe of the synchronous moment, we suddenly DO see the past differently. It shifts. And when it shifts, it comes alive, it is no longer of the past but carries an edit of the present ... and so we glide once again from a linear view of past, present and future into a 'now' which encompasses all.

The ever-lasting now moment in which we write/ right our life.

Jane Anderson

andrea

11:39 15/02/2001 

Ah, I guess that is why Synchronicity never ceases to make me smile... !!!

Changes in 'mind' are such sweet release!!

Lara

16:01 16/02/2001 

My own experience with this relates to the Shape of Things to Come which I first purchased after seeing you speak Jane at the Brisbane Writers Festival in 1998 I think. I naturally enjoyed the book and enjoyed hearing you speak but did not find it life changing at the time. The festival has a particular significance to me as it is related to my work and provided the original inspiration for the thesis I am now writing (about a few particular novelists who I first connected with at the festival in past years). In 1999, I presented at the festival myself and did some author interviews etc so was occupied with many things and taking no time out for self-reflection - which was what my life was like for most of 1999! Last year's festival was strange for me in that I attended it with a very different group of people than previous years and with a different mindset - feeling a lot more comfortable and able to enjoy it, whereas previous years had been about networking and trying to impress. I went along to the panel you did with Jessica Adams (having an interest in her fiction rather than her other talents as she has worked with some of my thesis authors too). One of the first things you did was talk about Pisceans and synchs with fish that the two of you had experienced. I am a Piscean and many of the things you said really held meaning for me. It was amazing, it was like the penny finally dropped or something - I had known about your work for years, but suddenly I knew it was something I just had to explore further - and I did! That's a long winded explanation for my belief that books find us, not the other way around. I really enjoyed your synch stories.

WHAT IS
SYNCHRONICITY?

Jane Teresa's Explanation

Jane Teresa Anderson

WHAT IS SYNCHRONICITY?

________

Synchronicity occurs when you experience a coincidence, or several coincidences, that seem so bizarre that you feel they must be meaningful in some way.

Some people believe that synchronicities are signs to follow, to lead you to where you are 'meant' to be. My understanding, however, is that not all synchronicities are to be followed, because ...

Synchronicities are SYMBOLS of where you're at, not signs to follow.

Synchronicities speak the same symbolic language as dreams.

When you experience a synchronicity, you are witnessing a change within yourself, an insight, a birth of something that has been unconscious bubbling up into consciousness.

At such times of change we see, all around us, symbols that reflect our shift in perception and self-understanding. This is synchronicity.

To understand this fully, and to see why it is not always appropriate to follow synchronicity, you can read my book, THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME. This way you can also discover how to read the synchronicities in your life and how to act on them in positive, life-enhancing ways.

Reality may never feel the same again!

______

P.S.

In Jungian terms all synchronicities begin with a dream.

The dream comes first, then the symbol from the dream appears in waking life in ways that seem incredibly meaningful - though, classically, it is hard to understand, consciously, what that meaning is.

This is because the dream is painted by your unconscious mind in advance of your conscious mind 'catching up'. When the insight (unconscious shift) is big, synchronicities follow.

What happens is that your incredibly powerful unconscious mind (far more powerful than your conscious mind) manifests its insight physically into your waking life. (You have changed - the world, as you experience it, changes in accordance.)

It usually takes up to a couple of weeks before your conscious mind understands the symbolic dream manifesting in your waking life as synchronicity.

Being human, as we all are, we often forget the original dream but still experience the synchronicities.

There are many excellent reference sources on Jungian synchronicity.

My approach is largely Jungian, but slightly shifted.

Again, if you are seriously in-depth interested, I suggest you read my book "THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME" to understand where I am coming from.

Quite simply, synchronicity is a waking dream and interpreting it as such is immensely enriching.

Jane Teresa Anderson