Roosting Chickens

Regular readers and members of the Comforting Words Community will recall the drama of our moving house last year. Well, less than twelve months later we did it again – moved that is.

Unlike last year, however, there was no major drama. Yes, we hired professional movers, not a drunken one-man outfit. I made sure of this by calling at least four times to confirm the size of the truck, how many crew members would be assigned to our job and the time of their arrival. We went further and had all this information in writing.

Yet, the lesson remained the same as again I was reminded that “I have the power to choose how I will respond in and to any situation or circumstance that confronts me.” (Paradoxically Vulnerable, June 2006)

Last year we moved because the financial and physical stress of maintaining the house and land was too much for us. Our decision then was to relocate to a smaller place, a townhouse, where the property management company would take care of the snow-shoveling and the landscaping. More important, this place would cost us less and provide each of us the space we needed to get our thoughts together.

It was the latter piece I forgot as the possibility of moving again this year arose. Instead, I was busy focusing on my daughter’s abrupt decision to move out, then her request to return two weeks later until she saved enough to move out, my job search and, finally, my daughter’s decision to take time off from college for a year and move into her own apartment.

My woman-friend A loves when I use this word – Synchronicity – it is one coined by Carl Jung which for him meant that there is an “acausal principle that links events having a similar meaning by their coincidence in time rather than sequentially. He claimed that there is a synchrony between the mind and the phenomenal world of perception.”

As things unfolded this past month or so, including my return to a book by Dr. Raymond N. Holliwell entitled “Working with the Law,” the pattern of synchronicity became clear to me. The seemingly unconnected events of my daughter’s decisions, my seemingly unsuccessful job search and moving yet again were really ‘results’ of my (and Juds’) thoughts and decisions the previous year.

Opening my journal of 2005 to the pages around March through May, I found my prayers (thoughts/desires) and notes of our decision to find a new place to live that would help to ease our financial and emotional burdens. As I read on, the central theme of those prayers struck me.

I know for sure that some of you share my spiritual/faith beliefs, while others share my understanding of the human sciences and the body-mind-spirit connection. You will therefore more readily understand this statement by Holliwell: “Only your own can come to you, and be sure that all that is yours will become manifest.” (Working with the Law, 1992, pp. 122)

Another way of saying that, a more Jamaican way, is “the chickens have come home to roost.”

Reflecting on the experiences and challenges of last year and the thoughts we held, I said to Juds, “Things could not be any different now!” Looking at me as she always does when I make these hanging declarations, she dryly responded, “What?”

“I found it in my journal…we declared that we would give ourselves a year in this townhouse to sort ourselves out and that is precisely what has happened!” I also reminded her how many times over the past fifteen years she would gleefully say to our daughter, “Come on eighteen!”

We had both forgotten that prayer, thought, desire, deal - whatever you choose to call it. Neither of us remembered that lesson that was taught to me (and shared with Juds) when I became conscious of my spiritual journey and the body-mind-spirit connection. It was a simple enough teaching that brought to my awareness that our thoughts and words have power.

Daily and minutely we consciously or unconsciously speak or release our desires/thoughts/prayers to the Universe, without being fully cognizant of how creative they are until we see chickens roosting on our proverbial window sills.

Once Juds and I realized that we were experiencing exactly what we asked for – that we are now empty-nesters, enjoying an improved relationship and living in a smaller apartment just under a year since our last move – we both said in our own ways, “Thank you God,” and finished unpacking.

For those who prefer a less spiritual tone, what this experience has reminded me and I now remind you is to “be careful what you wish for…as you will surely get it.”

Blessings,

Claudette

Photograph available at Yahoo Images