April 2017
Double Play
by Dr Elizabeth McCardell, M. Couns., PhD
The doubling up of forms and scents and
sounds in the natural world, like
thyme that smells of oranges and lemons, or chocolate flavoured mint plants, or
lizards that go around looking like pieces of wood, or lyre birds that sing the
song of dogs, is beautiful and intriguing.
Then there is the
phenomenon of simulacra, or pareidolia (when
the mind responds to a stimulus by perceiving a familiar pattern where none
exists) as in, for instance, seeing Jesus in a piece of toast or dragons in
clouds. Again, fascinating, and a tool a sculptor might employ when gazing at a
block of stone. Rodin said he could already see the figure in the stone and his
job was simply to release it.
Then there is
doubling of experience that we call synchronicity.
A term coined by the analytical psychologist, Carl Jung, synchronicity is used
to describe meaningful coincidence; a coincidence that seems to have greater
purpose than some random act.
In recent time I have experienced many instances of
this phenomenon. I shall only mention two here, though.
Last week I attended
a peer group meeting of various kinds of therapists (psychiatrists,
psychologists, psychotherapists/counsellors, social workers and nurse
practitioners), something I regularly do. One of us presented a paper and in it
had named one of the people in her case histories after the Greek goddess,
Artemis (goddess of the moon, of
hunting, mistress of animals and wildthings, childbirth, and the focus of the archer); an intriguing
figure. Just yesterday, one of my clients speaks of Artemis, a goddess she is
close to. How often does this happen? Pretty rarely, in my experience. Artemis
symbolized for both women a longing for focus, for being her own person,
exploring her own purpose, and not compromising herself in any way. This is a
particularly feminine style of focus, not weak, not yielding, but strong and
centred and one I am keen to promote among my female clients.
Of course, in these
conversation, because of the nature of me, my mind also leapt into thinking of
the plant genus Artemesia, of which
the silvery fronds of mugwort,
wormwood and sagebush belong. Mugwort is dried and then burnt in moxa in Traditional Chinese Medicine,
to focus heat on particular parts of the body: an arrow treatment that Artemis
would be proud.
Another piece of
synchronicity happened recently.
Earlier in the year, my brother handed me a pile of stuff for the book
my deceased architect father wanted published on his professional life, a book
largely already written, but needing humanizing a bit. I’d been
procrastinating, hugely, and then, out of the blue, I received an email from a
member of a committee in Canberra responsible for naming streets and public
places wanting permission to use my father’s name for a street in a new
Canberra suburb. It was suggested that I write a summary of my father’s career.
This meant reading his stuff, and doing some of the research I had avoided
doing for ages, and getting it down in print. I might add that my father has been dead 10 years so this
coincidence of events is odd.
The more I read of
the nature of synchronicity the less I understand it. It is tempting to say
that these coincidences are not random, and that they are connected somehow on
some psychic plane, but to do so is to enter very murky waters. I suggest that
our propensity for connecting things and making meaning of them is the key.
They would be random events if we didn’t join the dots, as it were, and make an
account of them that fits our psychological situation. This is a meaning making
process and it is one that enriches our world, bringing understanding of our
own processes, and a certain delight in the interrelatedness of living together
in a world that seems to like double play.
