Synchronicity
I witness a lot more car accidents than your average person. No, really. Sure, I can chalk part of that up to the fact that the house I've owned for five years is on an extremely dangerous three-way crossroads. But, really, it has been happening since childhood and has only increased over time. Being an impulsive person, I recently was trained as a hospital chaplain just in time to be the first on the scene of a random fatal accident near my home. I prayed with a surviving woman like I came into her life for that moment. That year was the same year both my karate teacher and my art teacher died of cancer, as if I had formed friendships with them to be the first people they told and the last student they'd have.
You know how television has themes sometimes? Like, the Discovery Channel has "Shark Week" every year. Well, this month for me has seemed to be Mortality Month, and I can't change the channel. I suppose it is still better than having Shark Week happen in real life! So far, my labyrinth of life and death experiences this month has included:
- My best friend gave birth after a labour that made me worry for both their lives.
- I had a birthday.
- I reached six-months of pregnancy, myself.
- My mother got a kidney transplant, a procedure that I too will need someday.
- My dog died.
With my deceased dad's birthday approaching, more meditations on life and death will be forthcoming, I'm certain. And when I heard gunfire in my neighbourhood last night, all I could think of was my own mortality! What a month! I guess what I'm trying to say in this post, is that part of creating your own destiny isn't in trying to force patterns to stop. It is in noticing those patterns, putting yourself present in the moment and learning what you need to learn from them in order to work with them, not against them.