A word from beyond.

The way the universe comes through in unexpected, but meaningful ways, never ceases to delight and amaze me!  Today granted me the opportunity to appreciate what Carl Jung called “synchronicity.” Synchronicity is defined as the two or more events that seem to be unrelated but that come together - apparently by chance - in an apparently meaningful manner. 

I was working on a simple task. And in the way that always seems to happen in old houses, one thing requires three additional tasks in order to complete the job. I wanted to free the downspout of the gutter that runs down the front of the house. It was clogged and deeply buried under dirt. After digging for twenty minutes, I liberated the downspout.  In doing so, I found a stone that had been placed there at least 75 years ago. It serve to deflect water, but it, too, had been buried under nine inches of dirt. I discovered that, alongside of that stone was a buried brick, then another, then another.  One by one, I dug up antique bricks that had been used to define a garden, years and years ago.  I used the bricks promptly to demarcate an expansion of my mother’s small garden; a legacy of her love for gardening.

As I placed the last brick beside a hydrangea plant. I chuckled with delight.  The word that stood out in relief on the facade of the brick made me feel like my mother, who died two years ago, was sitting in my shoulder, monitoring my progress with my reflections.  Indeed, only synchronicity explains how such a message would appear on a random brick at this moment in time.  

I felt as if my mother had come to sit on my shoulder.  Here I am, wrestling with meaning, wrestling with life. And out of the earth, I dug up a word that serves to remind me that I have all the answers.  I know the truths I need to know. I am sage.   

Beside the cobblestone walk were the vestiges
of a brick walk.  Now there is dirt.
Tomorrow, I hope to place crushed stone.