Ecological Intelligence (18 page)

In his delightful book
The Tao Of Physics
, Fritjof Capra describes this field as “a continuous medium that is present everywhere in space.” He adds that “particles are merely condensations of the field; concentrations which come and go, thereby losing their individual character and dissolving into the underlying field.” We are living in a mindfield, and if this sounds ecological, then say yes quickly.

SYNCHRONICITY

I
f thoughts, secrets, intuitions, and intent are indeed mobile, then synchronicity, the meaningful coincidences in our lives, will begin to make sense. Synchronicity describes events that do not appear to have any causal link, but because of the so-called coincidences of these events, they are linked, instead, by meaning. We all have experiences of such coincidences: we may be thinking of someone we haven’t heard from for a while and then the telephone rings; we pick it up to hear that person’s voice on the line. Or perhaps, somewhere in the wild, while thinking about a particular elephant, it suddenly appears from out of a thicket. We sometimes need a particular item, wondering where or how we might find it and then, inexplicably, it presents itself—exactly what was needed. We all have stories, incidents, and co-incidents when we say we just happened to have been in the right place at the right time. It is as if, however briefly, there is a palpable meeting between psyche and substance. The feeling is one of being immersed in a field of actions, interactions, and feedback. It is as if we have touched a potential that has been lost and if not, a gift of Nature that we are beginning to unwrap. It is an implacable sensing that everything in the universe is connected.

To illustrate what could be a link between the mobility of ideas and synchronicity, analytical psychologist Marie-Louis von Franz, in her essay “Science and the Unconscious,” draws attention to Darwin and his theory of the origin of the species:

Darwin had developed his theory in a lengthy essay, and in 1844 was busy expanding this into a major treatise when he received a manuscript from a young biologist unknown to him. The man was A. R. Wallace whose manuscript was a shorter but otherwise parallel exposition of Darwin’s theory. At the time, Wallace was in the Molucca Islands of the Malay Archipelago. He knew of Darwin as a naturalist, but had not the slightest idea of the kind of theoretical work on which Darwin was at the time engaged. In each case, a creative scientist had independently arrived at a hypothesis that was to change the entire development of biological science. Backed up later by documentary evidence, each had initially conceived of the hypothesis in an intuitive “flash.”

The logic of cause-and-effect thinking tells us that synchronicity is statistically improbable, and yet it happens time and again. What is striking is the way it promotes a sense of continuity, how it narrows the gap between our inner and our outer lives, and how it links subject and object. It can’t be pinned down or called upon at will, a reminder that it is not an ego skill such as memory or intellect, something to be measured or worked at. Rather, it is mercurial, experienced as something that happens to us unexpectedly, dramatically, and, sometimes, poetically.

B
ut why should we be interested in this? Well, if we are interested in the human factor in Nature, then we need to be interested in everyday life and everyday people also. Meaning and the quest for it, as suggested, is a defining characteristic of the human animal. It is central to the goal of psychotherapy also—the task of trying to derive and to establish meaning out of our situations, our personal suffering, and our discontent.

In addition to living in a world of cause and effect, ours, by virtue of the importance of meaning, is also a world of correlation and affect. This is to say that the logical connections we make about our world are often incomplete until there has been an emotional connection as well. We are born patternmakers, linking the whirling patterns of fingerprints to the spiraling shapes of galaxies, and we do it because it feels right. We find elephant footprints and other animal images in cloud patterns and we are all experts at reading the signs of the times. We are superstitious even when we try not to be. Predictability and control are sides of the same coin. We say things come in threes, what goes around, comes around, and we warm to the alchemical admonition: as above, so below.

As irrational as it may seem, symbol formation and pattern making are part of our survival. We can’t help it. If we can’t find the connecting patterns, we tend to create them, and it does not matter that they do not obey the laws of cause and effect. We correlate because it is intrinsic to our search for meaning. “Whatever else the unconscious may be,” said Jung, “it is a natural phenomena which produces symbols and these symbols prove to be meaningful.” And then there is synchronicity—that occasional yet deep sense of being part of a field of meaning. What follows is a true story.

A friend of mine, a retired architect and long-distance runner, began feeling tired and short of breath during a sequence of early morning runs. At first he ignored the symptoms, putting them down to the summer heat and a lack of physical fitness. At the same time, the pump at the borehole on his property began to malfunction. Upon closer examination, he concluded that the water pipes leading from the pump had become corroded and clogged, increasing the pumping pres-sure on the machine. Instead of replacing the pipes, he made intermittent attempts to unclog them, providing temporary benefit to the pump and to the flow of water into a reservoir near the homestead.

He then began to notice that each time he went down to investigate the borehole, he would experience the strange shortness of breath that he had experienced while running. Two seemingly unconnected actions followed. Firstly, he had the pipes replaced with new ones, and secondly, he consulted his doctor about his symptoms. The visit to his doctor resulted in triple bypass surgery for advanced occlusion of his major coronary arteries. Upon returning home from the hospital, he took a walk through his garden. What he saw—the strong clear flow of water pumping out of the borehole into the reservoir—had a huge impact on him. In an instant, this highly educated, mechanically minded man ventured into the realms of the absurd—he linked the blocked pipes of the water system with his blocked arteries.
Were
the clogged pipes a reflection or a forewarning of his own cardiovascular
condition?
he asked of himself. I don’t have to tell you the answer to his question other than to say that for him, correlating the two seemingly separate events was inescapable, or at least necessary. It is likely that we would have done the same.

Another facet to this story, seen from a depth psychology perspecttive, addresses the difference between healing and fixing. This man, by virtue of the cause-and-effect nature of the surgical procedure, had every reason to regard himself as fixed. His sense of healing, on the other hand, came through the powerful synchronistic correlation between the conditions at the borehole and his own cardiovascular condition. To try and convince this rational man otherwise would be to waste one’s breath. Neither you nor I could have stopped him from adding depth to what was superficially an irrational association. He knows about irrationality, but he will never forget the profound sense of connection and meaning he gained from that man-machine interaction. It was as if they had spoken to each other. Sometimes irrationality has its own rationale.

A
word of caution: I think we need to be careful of confusing synchronicity with the notion that every life incident is meant to be. Certain life events do not appear to have any meaning at all and it is up to us to decide whether or not to give them meaning. In other words, I disagree with those who support a deterministic view that everything from life-threatening illnesses to personal and collective tragedies are meant to be. How can we possibly believe that tidal waves, earthquakes, human poverty, starvation, AIDS , and man-made ecological crises are meant to be? We either give these tragedies meaning or not, and, with time, we usually do. Sometimes it is precisely what happens after the second act—the act of giving meaning to an event—that determines one’s openness to the events that are bound to follow. “Nothing has changed,” says the unknown poet, “except my attitude—so everything has changed.” On the other hand, even the skeptics among us, when we are honest, will admit that there have been certain events in our lives when the sense of meaning has been immediate and profound. There was no need for the second act. This is synchronicity.

T
o understand the deeper significance of synchronicity, I believe it is important that we remain open to the likelihood that it works both ways. Events not only happen to us—we also happen to them. In other words, I think we need to become more aware of our personal contributions and influence (conscious or unconscious) to events that

we tend to describe as synchronistic. Gary Zukav, in describing the observer effect in physics, offers a quantum perspective: “since particle-like behavior and wave-like behavior are the only properties that we ascribe to light, and since these properties are now recognized to belong not to light itself, but to our
interaction
with light, it would appear that light has no properties independent of us!” The observer happens to light and vice versa.

Ancient wisdom reminds us that this kind of thinking is not new, for, in its essence, it describes the traditional Nguni African notion of
Umuntu…Ubuntu
, which means “Because of you, I exist.” To me, our humanity is not defined by human fellowship alone but includes a subtle yet essential dependency on animals and landscape as well. The web or the field of life is inclusive not only of our immediate surroundings, our geology, and our biology, but of deep space and time also. Could synchronicity be another name for the language of this field? If it is, then we have little choice but to see what we call “mind” differently. It is to see it as existing not encased by a skull, but in an extended field for which we are in our own way accountable. We are responsible therefore not only for what we take from it, but for what we put into it.

T
o take on this responsibility is to take the notion of a mindfield seriously. It is to add another dimension to what it means to think molecular—intention. A bushman hunter describing the feeling of oneness that he has with his prey prior to the hunt is describing not only his intent, but the significance of that intent also—because somehow, his prey knows about it. D. H. Lawrence agrees with this notion when he writes that the fox is dead long before the hunter has pulled the trigger of his gun. It is as if the animal knows when it is being hunted, or, as Barry Lopez describes the imminent death of a moose in an encounter with a wolf, “it is engaged in a conversation of death. The moose, standing quite still, its eyes fixed on the grey hunter, knows what is going to happen next. It is an ancient contract.”

The Kalahari bushmen understand this contract. To them there is no hunt unless it is filled with intention, continuity, and connection. There is no hunt unless the prey and the prayer of the hunter become the same thing. Prayer can be seen as a poetic chemistry of intent, effective not so much in its calculating, acquisitive sense, but in a way that Saint Paul may have meant it in his letter to the Corinthians when he said we should “pray unceasingly.” To me, to pray unceasingly is to be continually mindful of the patterns of connections between all things, vigilant to one’s participation in a field of life. It is what Rumi meant when he said: “If you are not with us faithfully, then you are causing terrible damage, but if you are, then you are helping people you don’t know and have never seen.” The poet is asking us to hold the patterns of connection; to hold the chemistry. To pray unceasingly is to think molecular. It is to see the small things, including oneself, in the bigger picture. It means being able to look at a green leaf differently, to see the science and the poetry in it, to be aware that you and the leaf are linked. It is an invitation to experience the transformation process of photosynthesis at work—photons of light combining with molecules of carbon dioxide and water to provide not only the energy necessary for the growth and survival of the plant, but producing the life-giving molecules of oxygen that we breath in. It is to have a sense of privilege at being privy to the powerful yet delicate connection and interdependence between the chlorophyll molecules that produce oxygen and the hemoglobin molecules of red-blooded animals that bind it. It is to hold one’s breath and then to give it back again in the realization that the chlorophyll and hemoglobin molecules are almost identical. What makes them different is the presence of a single trace element in each molecule—magnesium in the former, giving plants their green coloring, and iron in the latter, the reason why blood is red.

Then there is that great and essential element—water. To think molecular is to see it differently and to salute it, for there is no other substance on Earth quite like it. It makes up more than 80 percent of our body mass—a reminder of our aquatic origins. Absurd? Not at all. Salute the salty signature of the sea in the intracellular compartments of our blood and that of the streams and the rivers in the extracellular flow. Feel the electricity of the bonding of those two hydrogen atoms and the one of oxygen that make up the molecules of water, each of them acting like a tiny magnet, and when you have done that, imagine not only the delicacy but the necessity of a molecular bond that lasts a crucial one-billionth of a second before unbonding and then rebonding again—it is what gives water its wetness.

In his hard-hitting poem “Elemental,” D. H. Lawrence has no problem seeing water and fire differently. Here are some lines:

I wish men would get back to their balance among the elements and be a bit more fiery, as incapable of telling lies as fire is.

I wish they would be true to their own variation, as water is, which goes through all the stages of steam and stream and ice without losing its head.