Through a Jungian Lens

People you meet in cyberspace are real people

I am grateful to my son for today’s photo, a photo he took today on Bloor Street in Toronto, Ontario.  The event was my getting to meet one of my readers, Dr. Urspo and his famous “Someone” for a lunch and face-to-face chat.  Dr. Urspo is the first of cyber friends/bloggers that I have had the pleasure to meet face to face.  Because of the use of photography on our blog sites, we both immediately recognized each other making the first meeting less awkward.  I wondered if I was what the good doctor expected and then quickly didn’t care as the conversation seemed to flow from topic to topic.  I would have to say that if anything, the surprise is seeing the two of us together in this photo and seeing how short I really am.  In truth, seeing the photo and remembering the moment has a good feeling attached to it.

The biggest surprise for me was to realise that as I write here, write from my heart with a purpose; there are real people who read, think and sometimes respond.  The distance of time, space and place are banished.  Thanks to the good Doctor Urspo, I feel even more comfortable using this medium.  Blogging now becomes less of a monologue of talking to myself with others perhaps listening.  Rather, it is a real dialogue even when the responses are as small as a silent nod of agreement or doubtful wondering.  As a teacher I learned long ago that silence is not absence, but a respectful response on the part of many who sit silently in a lecture hall or classroom.  As a therapist, I learned that my occasional silence is not viewed as disinterest, but more about authentic and empathetic listening.

My world is now that much larger.  Life exists in the pulsing and invisible world of cyberspace.  Real hearts beat behind words written and words read.  The blinking cursor waiting for the next word to be entered is the collective heartbeat of a larger and fuller consciousness.

Full moon, August 2011

For a change I was able to have clear skies the night of a full moon.  I have to say I am quite pleased at the quality of image and the detail provided by my camera.  As I am writing this, I am in Toronto at my son’s home and everyone is sleeping.  Somehow my internal clock has made the time change and I am up at my typical early hour though it is still “night” back in Saskatchewan.  I have an interesting day ahead of me as I am meeting up with one of my readers, Dr. Urspo, who, as synchronicity would have it, is also going to be in Toronto later this morning.

Synchronicity is real.  I know that many would say that there is no such phenomenon, but merely happy coincidences, random chance.  I planned my trip to Toronto with intentions that had nothing to do with psychology or this blog site.  Dr. Urspo made his plans based on his agenda which had no knowledge of my being in Toronto, nor even the idea of meeting up with a fellow blogger.  The two separate planning events are not connected in terms of cause and effect  or causality.  Dr. Urspo found out about my being in Toronto for these next few days through a different blog site which led to our arrangements to meet later today.

The synchronicity is the acausal arrangement of physical possibilities to provide this opportunities, not the fact of the actual meeting which takes deliberate set of actions on both of our parts.  What makes the arrangement of physical possibilities significant enough to be called synchronistic rather than just chance is the fact that there is an aspect of psychological meaningfulness involved.  For a good definintion (quick) look at the Wikipedia article on synchronicity.  Of course, the essay by Jung is much more interesting if you have that on hand.

How psychologically significant is this to either Dr. Urspo or myself?  I don’t have the answer yet, that will come, either consciously or unconsciously.  What I can say is that there is something moving beneath the surface that is larger than the puny intentions of mere mortals.