Wyrd Stuff

I Can't Explain

Quote from Mystical Meandering, by Michael Meade:

In old traditions those who acted as elders were considered to
have one foot in daily life and the other foot in the otherworld.
Elders acted as a bridge between the visible world and the
unseen realms of spirit and soul. A person in touch with the
otherworld stands out because something normally invisible
can be seen through them. The old word for having a foot in
each world is weird - originally spelled "wyrd." The original sense
of weird involved both fate and destiny. Becoming weird
enough to be wise requires that a person learn to accommodate
the strange way they are shaped within and aimed at the world.

I became aware of Michael Meade’s, Fate & Destiny, The Two Agreements of the Soul, shortly after it was published in 2010. It was for me one of those books that answered both unknown and known questions I carried. How I came to the book - as if destined to read it - is one of those things I can’t explain.

In short:

Heading off to work one morning, I was about to click off the radio. It was my usual practice to drive the 25 minutes in silence; carved out time for reflection.

Just before turning the dial, I heard a man’s voice say something about soul, which stopped me in mid-action. I soon discovered the voice belonged to Michael Meade and ended up listening to the full interview. It wasn’t just the subject that pulled me in, it was his tone and tenor. As I listened, Michael’s humble yet authoritative command of the subject became clear - author of the book being discussed and in the fullest sense authority on the elusive subjects of fate and destiny.

Once settled behind my desk at work, I did a quick search to buy the book and found myself staring in wonder at this image on its jacket:

This was the exact image - William Blake’s painting Pity - that I had - just days earlier - downloaded to use for my desktop. In other words I had been looking at this image for days. (Before which I’d never come across.) Why I used it for my desktop was a mystery itself. I found it compelling, yet confusing, and even a little disquieting. I would stare at it as if it contained a message I couldn’t work out.

Now seeing it as the cover of a book I was about to order, it was as if Universe - in its mysterious machinations - had sent a pre-message to make sure I wouldn’t miss the significance of this book in my life.

It is a remarkable book - recently updated - filled with stories of mythology that offer insights into our lives, how meaning is fully essential, and how each one of us carries a unique story, seeded within ourselves, that the world needs. All written with a poetic wisdom that goes down like honey on a sore throat. (I sent the author a note after finishing the book and told him the story I just told you.)

A little on the painting itself, taken from the book:

I have many stories that run through my life that could be filed under ‘unexplained’. That I had room for such a folder was largely due to my mother, who not only held space for the unexplained and the mysterious, but had a true curiosity for them.

As I’ve written in other posts, as a child when I would have unusual experiences, rather than damping them down or throwing doubt, she would ask questions, show interest and - perhaps most importantly - believe me. For her, the unexplained was to be explored, appreciated and welcomed.

Synchronicities, odd occurrences and turns of fate often bring us what we need. Lacking a welcoming context makes it more likely we’ll miss their importance and cast them aside as anomalies rather than gifts.

These are often little things, easily overlooked; a Nature sighting that turns a dull day shiny, or a minor interaction that moves us out of our funk and into a small kindness.

Whether we notice or not, the unexplained and mysterious is all around us.

Tereza of Third Paradigm keeps a miracle journal to enhance this kind of noticing. (I truly appreciate Tereza’s inclusion of miracles given her razor-sharp critical thinking skills. This can - for some - turn into a bias that diminishes the importance of what we can’t explain.)

Keep a Miracle Diary

Sometimes though, synchronicities, oddities and the unexplained, land more like an earthquake and radically alter our trajectory. They may come disguised as tragedy - a death, a lost job, an accident. Or experiences that defy normal understanding and flip us into a new way of looking at the world, expanding out normal perimeters.

Like this anecdote.

When I first moved to New York City, in early 1981, I worked for a racquet ball company that opened a street-front office which sold memberships to a new club that would reside in the basement of a hotel still being constructed. It was an administrative job mainly, though over the months I would occasionally take on sales. (Once the hotel was ready, we moved our office into the gym/club itself.)

One day I was sent on an errand to pick up something for the office. I don’t remember what. It was a good way off from our mid-town Manhattan location, so I used the subway for part of the journey and walked the rest.

I found myself on a nearly abandoned street. The block was made up of large ware houses on each side. With the address written on a piece of post-it note, I walked, somewhat tentatively, down the street looking for my destiny.

The sidewalks were wide and I instinctively kept close to the street-side.

About mid-way down the long, mostly-empty block, a door opened from one of the buildings and a man appeared. He called over and asked if I would do him a favor and hold the door so he and his co-worker could carry a bulky package out. Initially my body registered a ‘No’ but I quickly over-road it, thinking I should be helpful. (I was, in my defense, only 20.) As I started to cross the sidewalk towards him, a man - who I had not seen till then, suddenly appeared, walking in the opposite direction. As he passed between me and the man at the door, he quietly said, Are you crazy?

His words jolted me and literally stopped me in my tracks. I looked at the man at the door and said something like, “Sorry, can’t help” and began to move away from him. I turned to look back to the stranger who’d changed my course, and… no one was there. As I continued to walk - faster now - I heard the man at the door, turn to someone behind him - who I couldn’t see - and say, “We almost had one.”

As I continued my journey - walking faster now - I tried to absorb what happened. My heart was beating so loudly it was all I was aware of. I have zero recollection of picking anything up or getting back to the office.

What horrifying fate had I just escaped? How did that life-changing encounter even happen? Who was that? Where did he come from and where did he disappear to?

There, one moment, gone in the next.

What the hell had actually just happened?

Back then I told several people this story, hoping I imagine, for an explanation. The first I told was the man who ran the sales office. (It was just the two of us.) Not because I thought he’d be a good person to tell. It was more that I was still shaken by what happened and had to voice it. In fact this was someone who - even if visibly doing nothing - always seemed immersed in an inner world he didn’t want to be disrupted from. I hesitated to ask even basic questions in order to avoid his annoyed, clipped, replies.

After I relayed the story, he uttered a word I didn’t know. (He was originally from Iran, and this was definitely a foreign language he referenced.) “I don’t know what that means,” I replied.

He smiled - a true rarity. “An intervention.” He gestured to the skies. “Not from this world.” He was pleased. (It was not clear if he was pleased with his answer or my story.)

Other people said I was just lucky and ignored the strange appearance and disappearance of the figure who might have saved my life. Some took the story as evidence of my naiveté (true enough) and used the opportunity to scold me. Another said it was obviously my guardian angel. Some had no opinion.

I still can’t explain it. But that doesn’t change its reality.

I would soon meet my future husband at the same job. (Hire him in fact as one of the racquet ball ‘pros’.) In less than two years - at 22 - we’d have our first son. During this time we lived in a studio on the upper east side. Back then you could still have a mid-wife deliver your child at home, which is what we did. A few days after his birth, my sister was visiting. Our baby slept in a basket next to the bed - in the alcove of the studio - and my sister slept on the couch of the living room.

At some point during the night, I heard her loudly whispering “Kath, Kath! Get up. The blanket is over his face. Kath!” Startled, I bolted upright, turned to look at the basket and found the blanket had fallen over my infant’s face. Oh my God! After a quick, frantic check, I realized he was okay, and whispered back a thank you to my sister, feeling both embarrassed guilt and great relief.

The next morning when we talked, I thanked her again for waking me.

She had no idea what I was talking about.

So who woke me with those urgent whispers?

These are just three examples - anecdotes - of events I can’t explain - at least with any conventional answers. I have more. Not least of which is the story of the rain that fell in one spot in my yard in Southern California for 5 months. (I’ve had people tell me I must be lying about that.)

I didn’t plan on writing this post, but recently Mary Poindexter-McLaughlin put out two posts on The Telepathy Tapes, (more to come) and during a comment exchange she encouraged me to write on anecdotes that broaden our understanding (or lack thereof) of the world. (If somehow you don’t read Mary’s stack already, trust me, you want to!)

The Telepathy Tapes, PART I

We are in a time of great undoing - so much of what we thought we knew is wobbling and falling - sharing these anecdotes may help point us to a new way of seeing ourselves and world - rather than being simply relegated to head-scratching anomalies.

To that end, I’d love to hear your stories that defy conventional explanation!

The control-by-fear version of our world that has hemmed in human understanding, expression and experience, is ending. Wonderful.

As we move, inevitably, into a more expansive version of ourselves and the world, I trust a re-emergence of mystery, magic and miracles will once again find their rightful place.

Who we are as human beings - souls and spirit who embody and live on a shared planet - needs a massive re-interpretation and we’re ripe for that now. The more we shed light on all the things we can’t explain (with the pathetic answers we’ve been given) the faster that re-interpretation can happen.

I’ll end with Michael Meade, who asks these (essential) questions in his final chapter of Fate and Destiny:

In the midst of all the confusion in the great marketplace of life, did you live the life seeded in your soul to begin with? In the twists of fate did you fid the thread of destiny intended for you? Did you become weird enough and finally wise enough to become yourself?

Thanks for reading. I look forward to your wryd anecdotes in the comments.

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