“Synchronicity” was the term popularized by Carl Jung. He even wrote a book on it and alluded to it in many of his works.  It’s what a skeptic may call a coincidence. Jung believed it was anything but happenstance. He believed events, visions, images, dreams tapped into a language, which when noticed, could live a sort of breadcrumb trail to Truth, one’s own individual truth as well as the collective.

I’m big on synchronicities. I’ve even had “synchronicity friends” who I share these with on a very regular basis, though that hasn’t been entirely successful–yet. They usually give up. I will find one, though. I’m sure of it. Because the more you notice and share synchronicities, the more breadcrumbs you get. And I love breadcrumbs. (If you’re reading this and you feel compelled to be my synchronicity friend, that could be a synchronicity!)

One way a synchronicity chain starts for me (if there is a beginning, because it can feel as if it’s more of a continuum than beginning and end) is in a strong Intuition, a Spirit hit (Spir-hit.) This happened to me when we moved into our current house and I had an impulse to have my teenager and his buddy place rocks into the shape of a circle with a cross in the middle right in our own backyard. The metaphor was not lost on me, just the translation. I recognized it as a Medicine Wheel, but did not know why I wanted to do that or what it meant.

“What is it, Jamie?” my son’s friend asked.

“It’s a Medicine Wheel.”

“Oh. What’s it for?”

“I’m not sure yet,” I told him.

That conversation would repeat for the next 7 years every time a service provider, neighbor, or anybody really walked in our backyard. I started feeling a little self-conscious about it. I kept thinking, I’ve really got to look up Medicine Wheels, or program a dream, or do some sort of investigation as to shed a little light on this circle of stones.

Our previous dog would not walk into it. Our current dog has no problem with that. Just something I noticed.

For the past few weeks, Medicine Wheels have started to come on the scene of my life in rapid synchronicity which means it’s calling out for exploration. Example. Last weekend I took my teen and his buddy to a rap concert in Concord, a dream of his for some time now, for his birthday. The next morning, I was working out in the gym of the hotel and did one of those machines where I went on a hike in New Zealand to the Blue Pools. While looking for something to listen to on my Blue Pool’s hike, I stumbled upon a Medicine Wheel podcast.

The podcast said the Wheel represents all parts of a person with the Soul at the center. It’s a healing tool.

Now it just happens that the book I took with me to the concert weekend was Thomas Moore’s Care of the Soul. (I mean, wouldn’t you, if you were dropping two kids at a Chris Brown/Omarion/Kid Ink/blah blah blah concert?) And, I’d been thinking about what Soul means a lot lately because I’m in my third year of a spiritual practitioner/healer program and we talk about the Soul often.

Additionally, beyond the individual level, I’ve noticed a huge collective shift in self-development and spiritual circles in this direction. In the general public, we are falling away from the conversation of dogma and the old guard rules to more of a direct relationship about the Life that sustains us, give that whichever title you prefer. Even Pope Francis, the Catholic Dalai Lama,  is on board. Nearly every new book on the spiritual bookshelf or workshop given contains the word Soul. There’s a strong focus on waking up, and a recognition that you need to look into that Soul part to start.

As I finished my Soul-focused Medicine Wheel podcast, I took off my headphones and did some free weights. On the TV was a commercial for the sequel (we need a sequel?) to the movie Ted. A scene flashed where the judge is asking the stuffed bear if he thinks he has a soul and he belts out a soul song. The word confusion is supposed to make us laugh (which always works with me, but then I’m quick to laugh), but the serious underlying point is everything has music in it. It’s just a matter of how that will be played out. It makes us think more deeply about what is “Soul.”

When I got back home, I remembered another synchronicity. A dreamer friend, Amy, had posted in-depth information on Medicine Wheels on the Global Dream Initiative, a global collection of dream images and symbols on Facebook originated by Stephen Aizenstat Pacifica University. I jumped in and read. It’s very in depth, but here’s one thing that jumped out from that research:

(Excerpt from Seven Arrows. HYEMEYOHSTS STORM, 1978.)

PREPARATION, BLESSING. AWAKENING AND SACRED MEANING

‘The Medicine Wheel Is the very way of life of the People. It Is an understanding of the Universe. It Is the way given to the Peace Chiefs, our teachers, and by them to us. The Medicine Wheel Is everything of the People. The Medicine Wheel is the Living Flame of the Lodges and the Great Shield of Truth written in the sign of the water. It is the Heart and Mind. It Is the Song of the Earth. It Is the Star-Fire and the Painted Drum seen only In the eyes of the Children.”

I don’t think I’m done with the Big Reveal of the Medicine Wheel. But this is why I love synchronicities. They are like storytellers that you can trust to keep on narrating. They make your life magical, fun, and entertaining. Feel me?

THE SACRED MEDICINE WHEEL