Sunday 21 June 2015

Recent small synchronicities

I have a few more curious coincidences to report. 

Best one first:

I came across a hard-line sect called the Exclusive Brethren one day while doing some research for a client. I had heard of the very similar Plymouth Brethren but not these people. I spent some time reading up on them. 

I decided to take a break from work and have a look at a consumer forum that I am a member of. 

Someone had just started a new thread – about the Exclusive Brethren! 

I searched for other references to the EB on the site, but although the forum has more than 10 million signed-up members and huge numbers of posts and has been running since 2003 this was the very first time these Brethren had been mentioned. 

The synchronicity here is scary.



I arranged to meet someone at an outside event.

I had recently bought two boxes of very good quality flavoured teas, and as a present I took three bags of each for her to try. When we met, she pulled out a present for me: two boxes of the same brand of teas, although different flavours from the ones I had brought for her. This would not be worth mentioning, except that the - unusual - name of one of flavours was the same as that of a charity that I was researching for a client. 

As we were coming away, a young, Middle Eastern looking man coming into the park asked us where the main events were being held. His looks immediately reminded me of an unusual poet whose works this friend had recently introduced me to: Yahya Hassan, a controversial young Danish poet and politician of Palestinian descent. I had never heard of him before she told me that she was reading his poems. I had been thinking about him a lot, then someone who looked very like him, only much better looking, approached us! 

I arranged to meet someone else at another outside event. 

She had given me a black cloth bag in the past, and I apologised to her because I had torn off one of the handles: it had caught on something when I was getting off a bus. At that moment, we walked past someone who was handing out free black velvet cloth bags: they were promotional items. 

I mentioned taking some recycling to the local bins, and my friend told me that she had an idea for making a lot of money by designing a small recycling bin for the home that would be in two sections. I said that someone had almost certainly thought of that one already. When I got back home, I found that a neighbour had put out a lot of rubbish and unwanted items, including a small double recycling bin – the first I had ever seen.

I had been thinking very hard about Groucho Marx for a while in connection with his much paraphrased remark to the effect that he would not want to join any club that would take someone like him as a member. I decided to take a look at the news headlines, and saw that someone with the name of Rob Zombie was going to direct a film about Groucho. This was the first I had heard of it.

All these coincidences happened very close together, at a time when I was feeling very well. 

They are not very significant, but they do make life interesting and remind me that unseen influences are always at work.