I recently posted a story about November 2021, the Scorpio Season (Sun, New Moon, Mercury and Mars in Scorpio) and the emphasis on death, dying, money and property - all classically Scorpio themes. The Tarot card for November 2021 was the Ace of Coins, a strong Scorpio symbol. It’s frequently related to wills and legacies.
A reader nicknamed Wildflower left a message on Substack this week, about her mother passing to spirit recently - and the odd behaviour of a dragonfly.
She wrote, “This afternoon, trying to relax, while reading Anthony Doerr's memoir of his year spent in Rome, I had a long visit with a dragonfly. First it landed on my sleeve, then my hand, and then on the page of my book. When I turned the page it flew to sit on the bench next to me, then came back to my hand. After about fifteen minutes it flew off, and I called out my love as it went.” (You can read the entire post here).
The Dragonfly Matchbox
What is fascinating to me is that I picked up a candle and random box of matches with a dragonfly on the front, on Friday 12th November 2021 at 9.43am in Tasmania, Australia. Miles away from the reader and days away from the event she described. In this post I will look at synchronicity and the spirit world.
Your Stories
I am sure you have your own stories about jaw-dropping coincidences (the definition of synchronicity) and the circumstances around someone dying, or ongoing messages about those who’ve passed years ago. I photographed the dragonfly match box in my study, to show Wildflower and you, what just happened.
Synchronicity On My Bookshelf
The piles of books you see in my study cover all kinds of subjects - astrology, Roman history, Stonehenge, quantum mechanics, Tarot, history - and I have four very good books specifically on synchronicity, which I’ll share here.
Synchronicity, Science and Soul-Making by Professor Victor Mansfield (Open Court, Chicago, 1995) has a glowing review from Fritjof Capra (The Tao of Physics), Associate Professor John R. McRae from Cornell University and Professor E.C.G. Sudarshan from the University of Texas.
He writes about a dragon, not a dragonfly, but it is worth repeating. “To get on with meditation we may have to confront the dragon, not with the sword of beheading, but with our knowledge of depth psychology. Then we might even engage the dragon in a dialogue through active imagination…”
I wonder how many dragons and dragonflies are around you now, or are about to cross your path? Synchronicity tends to happen more when we read about it, or write about it. Perhaps meditation is your story.
Dragons and Dragonflies
A really marvellous synchronicity has followed within minutes of starting this paragraph. I have ‘randomly’ opened Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, which is a huge tome, assuming I’d start somewhere in the middle and flick back to D. I actually landed on page 350: Thus, “Dragon, Dragon’s Blood, A Flying Dragon, The Chinese Dragon, The Dragon of Wantley, To Sow Dragon’s Teeth, Dragon’s Hill, Dragon Mountains.”
The rule of quantum physics and synchronicity is - you are part of the experiment. You cannot observe from a detached distance; just by looking, you become part of the story. So is there anything here for me as well as you? No, disappointingly. But I expect there soon will be.
Writing in On Divination and Synchronicity (Inner City Books, 1980, Toronto), Marie-Louise Von Franz and now fully engaged with synchronicity (apparent random choice) I find a page that states, “The Chinese ask: “What likes to happen together? Then they explore inner and outer events - separate events grouped around a certain moment in time.”
This takes us back to The Chinese Dragon from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase & Fable. You might say, China is a late entry. Again, for me or for you? And now, or a little later today? This week?
C.G. Jung - Synchronicity: An Acasual Connecting Principle
From the translation by R.F.C.Hull, published by Princeton University Press (1969, New Jersey). “Jung was intrigued by from early in his career with coincidences, especially those surprising juxtapositions that scientific rationality could not adequately explain. He discussed these ideas with Albert Einstein before World War I, but first used the term “synchronicity” in a 1930 lecture in reference to the unusual psychological insights generated from consulting the I Ching. A long correspondence and friendship with the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Wolfang Pauli stimulated a final, mature statement of Jung’s thinking on synchronicity.”
For Jung, it was the sympathy of all things. Dragonflies, dragons, China. Writing in his book about the same subject, Joseph Cambray (Synchronicity, Texas A&M University Press) goes into detail about the I Ching. It’s similar to Tarot, of course, in that it is about the ‘random’ thrown or turned object with meaning, which just happens to accurately describe the present. Or predict the future. Or nail the past. There’s nothing random about it, but you have to be in the zone. Open, accepting, trusting, believing. Then it works for you. It’s the same with astrology. It’s about synchronicity (Jung liked astrology too).
Synchronicity by Chris Mackey
Published in 2015 by Watkins, London, this book is about ‘the uncanny and fortuitous timing of events that seem to go beyond chance. Synchronicity can act as a guide along our life path, helping us through challenging times and nudging us towards self-fulfilment. And that’s really where the spirit world comes in, either because someone has passed there, who matters to you - or because spirit itself might have slipped into world with you, where synchronicities function as advice. Signs of guidance. Chris Mackey is an Australian psychologist and this is a really good book about using those ‘gifts of coincidence’ in a practical way.
Dragons and Dragonflies
It very much depends on what it means to you. The Dictionary of Symbols (Chevalier, Gheerbrant and Buchanan-Brown, Penguin, London, 1994) lacks an entry on dragonflies, but dragons receive four pages of dense text. They are either guardians of treasure or symbols of evil. Take your pick! This takes me back to the very beginning of this Substack storyline.
Remember, we began with Scorpio Season (November 2021) with the Sun, Mercury, New Moon and Mars all in Scorpio.
In the year 2022, for the first time in around 19 years, the South Node will enter Scorpio. The nodes are picked up under the ‘Dragon’ entry in The Dictionary of Symbols: “In astronomy, the head and tail of the Dragon are nodes in the lunar orbit.” This is the well known Dragon’s Head (North Node) and Dragon’s Tail (South Node) of astrology. The shape of the Dragon’s Head can be seen below in this optometrist’s sign, photographed on The Strand in London. I rather like the double message. This is the North Node symbol which astrologers use, but it also instructs us to test our vision. To make sure we are seeing clearly. When you know the nodes, you do in fact see straight.
A Developing Story
Beyond the Dragon’s Head (North Node) and Dragon’s Tail (South Node) and dragons, and China, and dragonflies, there is a developing story here about Scorpio (traditionally, sex, death and money in the stars) and what 2022 and 2023 will bring, on the back of November 2021, as the two are very much connected. The back of the dragonfly. There is more on Scorpio, and the Tarot, and Synchronicity, on my website.
Synchronicity and the Spirit World
Wow. I can’t believe you did all that in such a short amount of time. This is Wildflower again, and I have to add one more thing. While you were writing this I was texting back and forth with my niece about my mother, her grandmother and the dilemma she left behind of unequal amounts in cds she left her grandchildren, and in one case no cd at all to an adopted child. The solution we came up with was to lie and tell everyone they received an equal amount, including the adopted child. I actually told my niece about the dragonfly visiting me and told her that her grandmother was a dragon as well as a dragonfly. Inexplicable and infuriating. I loved her but couldn’t deal with her. This was while you were writing your article.
Thank you again.