Is the Universe Talking to Me?
Three days, one Social Venture Network gathering, and a string of coincidences I can't explain
I’ve started wondering (okay, obsessing) over whether I should stay in Santa Fe or move back east to above New York City, like Beacon, Kingston, etc. And it seems the universe is telling me something, though I’m not sure what the message is yet. Let me explain.
It started with an email from Marissa, a friend in NYC. She asked if I was going to the Social Venture Network gathering here in Santa Fe. I didn’t know much about the group, so I went online to do some research.
It turns out Dror the Board Chair was a friend from the 1990s who’d slept on my couch for six weeks, and who I hadn’t been in touch with since then. I took that as a sign, and after I was told there was a local resident discount for the ticket, I signed up.
Not being good at mingling alone at conferences, I was super nervous to go, but as I walked into the venue, I was joined by Josh, one of the organizers. We still haven’t figured out how we know each other, but we know we’ve been to conferences or events together.
That eased my nerves a bit. He then introduced me to his partner Amy. Turns out she used to work at Free Range Graphics, the company that created The Meatrix in 2003. I was the executive producer and marketing person for the globally-successful animated short. It won a Webby Award and got into tons of film festivals.
The animation launched my career in sustainable food and eventually landed me a scholarship to the TED conference, which led to one of the first TEDx licenses for TEDxManhattan “Changing the Way We Eat”.
At this point, I was starting to think things were getting a bit eerie.
As I’m speaking with Amy, someone comes up and introduces himself to me. I remembered Charlie from my food days, but what I didn’t know was that he was into The Who, and he’d dated a friend of mine from when I lived in Delaware when I was sixteen years old.
It’s getting super weird at this point.
I then noticed the professor from the UNM entrepreneurial course I took last year and soon found four other women from the cohort before me who were also attending. Not surprising because we’re all Santa Fe-based, but I quickly understood I wasn’t going to be alone for the three days.
But it doesn’t end there.
I met a guy at dinner who’d interviewed and spent time with The Dalai Lama. There was even a woman at my table who looked at my laptop screensaver of a Buddhist deity called Padmasambhava - and she knew who he was! I went to teachings by His Holiness around the world for at least twenty years, and Padmasambhava is a member of my spiritual helper team.
Stay with me.
After lunch the second day, a woman looks at my badge and says, “I know you.” She wasn’t sure at first, but I remembered her from being at temp at GRACE, the nonprofit I worked at in NYC where the coup happened and I lost my job, my career, and nearly my sanity. She sat at reception and didn’t do the work I asked her to do.
And the amazing part of that encounter? I didn’t feel any terror, pain, or anything negative. There was no shame or even anger. I almost laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of everything that had happened at GRACE.
It gets better….
The closing keynote was from Brian, a member of Public Enemy, who brought up the insanity of the music business. His band was signed to Columbia Records in the 1990s, which was part of Sony Music. And I worked at Sony Music in the 1990s.
I wrote Rock Gods & Messy Monsters while surviving the record company, and the book parallels what he was sharing with us.
I had no fear or hesitation, so after he finished his talk, I gave him my book, chatted a bit, and told him it mirrored what he’d talked about.
Is the universe saying something here??
During three days at an event in Santa Fe, I got to re-visit my teenage years, The Who, the music industry, early NYC days, a dip into my spiritual practice, the food movement, my present Santa Fe life, and my new writing career and books.
Oh! And Amy and Josh? They both volunteer at the Espanola Humane shelter, where I do puppy adoptions in Santa Fe every week. I know! Like, is there much more of my life left to bring into the room?
What Would Carl Jung Say?
There were too many coincidences for this to be random, so, naturally, I turned to Jung.
According to him, what I experienced was “meaningful coincidence”, or synchronicity. What happened was connected by meaning, not just cause and effect.
Jung explains that synchronicities tend to cluster around moments of individuation, when a person is discovering who they are as a unique individual, not the mask created by societal expectations or family conditioning.
When the unconscious is reorganizing itself, the outer world tends to mirror the inner process with precision. It’s as if the veil between my inner and outer worlds have thinned.
I also experienced a “constellation of the Self.”
Jung describes this as an archetype that integrates all the disparate parts of a life into one coherent whole that shows up symbolically all at once. It’s the unconscious saying “look, it all connects, you are not fragments, you are one continuous person who has lived a whole, meaningful arc.”
The three days touched on almost every major chapter of my life, with me as a witness rather than re-living any of it.
Should I Move?
I don’t know if this is a specific nudge to move or stay here in Santa Fe, and I doubt there’s a clear answer. What I came to understand is that my past, present, and future can exist at the same time, in the same room.
The inner work I’ve been doing is redefining and healing my past, so I’m able to live fully present while also laying the foundation for the future I’ve always wanted. That’s not a geography issue; it’s an inner challenge.
Maybe the community I’ve been looking for isn’t waiting in Beacon, or Kingston, or anywhere else I keep imagining.
Maybe it’s already finding me, wherever I am, because of who I’m becoming.
***
Want even more? Sign up for my private email newsletter.
And/or interested in my writing? Check out my books on Amazon
