One of the ways that I — and I think any good magician — deals with the world is through the use of synchronicity; and we create opportunities for synchronicity by deliberately engineering our world so that synchronicity happens more often.
In order for synchronicity to occur, though, you need to have some triggers or tools that help you notice the synchronicity. These tools need to be connected to questions of time and space. For the practitioners of the seven liberal arts, time is one of the key components of music, and space is one of the components of astronomy (which for medieval astronomers was just as closely connected with astrology, or the belief that the stars had some effect on who we are as people).
Choose Your Tools
In that spirit, I put the Marini Consort’s album, “Secrets of the Heavens” (which is itself an initiatory journey through the music of the spheres); and Gustav Holst’s “the Planets” on my phone. Whenever I’m driving somewhere, the music is on random shuffle, and I generate synchronicity wherever I go. Here’s how:
As I drive around, some piece of music comes on. If it’s from “Secrets of the Heavens” or from “the Planets”, I check the Hours app on my phone that shows what astrological hour it is, and I note the time. Yesterday (a Tuesday), II. Venus from “The Planets” came on during a Venus-hour. That’s a synch! The next song to come on was the VII. Neptune movement of the same suite. Neptune in Holst’s “Planets” is “the Magician”, which itself is another synch. It’s saying “pay attention, magician.” The next three or four songs were, if you will, some advice about some creative and romantic projects about the next few days; and then one of the Mars songs from the Marini Consort album came on, closing out the communication.
About twice a week, this happens — the song that comes on is connected to the planetary day or the planetary hour. The next few songs, or the next few moments of physical location where I am, and what I’m doing, have particular relevance. It happens more frequently, in a sense, now that I notice it and look for it. Some of that is psychological, of course — it can’t always be the case that the spirits of the planets are somehow looking in on me personally, and changing the randomness of my phone… but when I behave as though they are, I have a sense that the larger sweep of forces in the cosmos are providing me with synchronicity that empowers me and makes my day more beautiful. It doesn’t have to actually be that way, at the level of objective reality, for me to gain benefit from it.
But that’s sort of the point.
Working It
Ancient and medieval peoples divided up time differently than we do. They invested it with meaning in a different way than we do. They trained their minds to think about time differently than we do. They developed creative ideas and intentions around projects differently than we do. We know this — and we think that they were stupid for doing it, because they didn’t have iPhones and bicycles and automobiles and computers and nuclear weapons.
And yet… ancient and medieval peoples didn’t have access to the same kind of energy that we do. They didn’t have access to coal or oil; they couldn’t make gasoline and kerosene and jet fuel in the quantities that we do, and they couldn’t collect and burn natural gas. So many of the wonders of the modern world are dependent upon fossil fuels, both for the energy to make them run, and the plastics to house them.
So is there benefit to combining the medieval ideas about music and timekeeping and astronomy with the tools of the modern world?
I’ve found that there is. But it’s impossible to explain how I’ve benefited — only that I have. How does hearing three or four songs in a row, and treating them as a message from the spirit of creativity and beauty in the world, benefit anyone? It’s the case that I must treat this message as one intended for me, rather than for everyone.
But I invite you to try the technique. The tools are available to anyone; the trick is in using them, and treating the results as relevant. Let me know in the comments how it goes.
