"Flow is at work when things fall into place, obstacles
melt away, our timing is perfect, and whatever is necessary --
money, work people, opportunities -- appears as needed."

The Power of Flow, p. 35

My wife's graduation was in six weeks

 R.E.
 

I was awaiting orders at the Temporary Processing Unit in San Diego. I was told that there were only shore billets available, but they wanted to wait for sea orders to come up so that I could go to sea. I was very nervous but was trying to remain optimistic in spite of my fears. I pulled out my box of uniforms that I had thought never to wear again. I dumped the box out onto the floor and in the bottom of the box I found a folded-up fortune from a fortune cookie. The fortune said "You will travel to many places." I thought it was just a coincidence and decided to ignore it. I was still hoping to be stationed on land. Two days later I was looking for a matching pair of socks in a big sock pile on the closet shelf. At the bottom of the pile I saw another folded up fortune. I was almost afraid to read it. My heart was thundering when I opened it. It said "You will soon be crossing the great waters."

At this point I knew I would be going to sea. That night I had a dream that I was going on a long journey by myself. In the dream I felt sad to be leaving, but confident that I could depend on myself. A few days later I was assigned to a Destroyer. Almost exactly one year from the night of my dream, I left on a six-month deployment.

All of the signs that had told me I was going to sea helped me to see that it was a path I needed to take. I learned a lot about myself and about the world in those three years on a Navy ship, things I could not have learned otherwise. Now I take my fortune cookies seriously!          

Pam, San Diego, California
neversaynever27@hotmail.com

majesticclean@cox.net
 

My wife and I vacationed in the Four Corners area a while back. While there we went to Mesa Verde National Park. I was standing there listening to the park ranger talk about the Anasazi Indians. He mentioned no one knew where they had come from, where they went, or anything much about them at all. He also mentioned they had no written language. I'm standing at the back of the crowd thinking to myself -- if they had no written language, how do we know they were called the Anasazi? At that time a thought began whirling around in my head -- "Listen to the Indian, the Indian will tell you what you want to know."  This lasted maybe five minutes and quit. This was on a Monday, so for the rest of the week I was watching for an Indian to come up to me and explain. No such luck. On Thursday we decided to drive over to Las Vegas.

We arrived late in the afternoon, checked into the MGM Grand and then went down to the casino. We were both very tired so we didn't stay long before going back to our rooms. I then turned on the TV and was flipping channels when I came across the Discovery channel which was just about to start a special on the Anasazi. The very first speaker on this show was an old Navajo gentleman who stated right from the start that Anasazi was an Navajo word which meant "ancient enemy" Here was my Indian telling me what I wanted to know. 

classilove@aol.com

About fifteen years ago, I had driven from my home in a rural area twenty miles outside of Bangor, Maine into Bangor to do some errands. My truck was an old one and not in great shape, but I was still shocked when, with no warning whatsoever, it just went dead in the middle of an obscure side street outside a bakery into whose parking lot I was about to turn. I got out of the truck and stood there with no clue what to do next. A moment or so later, a woman from my town drove past me on her way to the bakery. She not only helped me push the truck into the parking lot, she also gave me a ride home--AFTER she went into the bakery to buy the specially-ordered bread that she had come there to buy. A few years after the previous incident, I was driving to my part-time job as a receptionist at a YMCA in the same area. Traffic was crazy, and although I was in a hurry, I stopped to let a middle-aged woman cross the street in a non-crosswalk section. She waved her thanks. That evening, on my way home from work, I stopped at a store to pick up a few items, but was--embarrassingly--about forty cents short. A voice behind me said, "Don't worry. I have forty cents." It was the woman from the street. She smiled and said, "You let me cross this morning. I recognize your beret."

Greta S, Brownville, Maine 
    

At work this morning I was faced with the question, Could I survive if I lost my job? Today I was asked to do something that was morally reprehensible to me, and if I didn't sign a document, I needed to resign. I sat down at the computer saying to myself,   I do believe in abundance, I can step out and trust that the universe will be there. And voila, a note from a friend of a friend asking for people to come fill a temporary position at more than my current rate of pay.

L.
 

I was on the bus two days ago and thinking about the novel The Catcher in the Rye, and how I had enjoyed reading it years ago and would like to see if I still had a copy lying around. When I arrived at my house, I found that my mother had left a copy of The Catcher in the Rye on my desk that she had borrowed five years ago on a holiday.

Iain, U.K.

It was a beautiful spring morning, cool and crisp, and both my friend and I were really looking forward to our noontime run.  We arrived at the health club and went to the ladies locker room to change into our running clothes.  I opened my gym bag and realized one of my running shoes was missing.  I was in a rush that morning and somehow didn't put that shoe in.  My friend suggested that we check the lost-and-found box that is kept in the office.  I agreed to go and look but knew that the odds were practically impossible.  We both entered the office and looked into the box and there was nothing in there except for one ladies running shoe.  We couldn't believe it!  I picked it up and not only was it the one I needed for that foot (the right one) but it was my size too.  I put the shoe on, it fit perfectly, we went for a lovely run and then I returned the shoe to the box when I returned.  That evening when I went home from work I saw that my missing running shoe was on the floor.  It must have fell out of my gym bag during my morning rush to work.

Micki, Tulsa, Oklahoma
 

I was sitting on the front porch with my daughter. We were having a discussion about spirituality and synchronicities and I interrupted what I was saying to point out a beautiful bird. We could see it sitting on a sign nearby. I explained to her that I had just seen it fly and it was only remarkable when its wings were open. The bird promptly flew down to the walkway in front of us, about 7-10 feet away, and opened its wings. It walked around for three or four minutes opening and shutting its wings and allowing us to see them from all angles. All I could think to say was thanks. 

Wendy
 

The brakes failed on my old car and I drove immediately into a garage. The mechanic said that it would not be reasonable to fix it and that I would have to sign a release if I wanted to take it off of the lot. He suggested that I donate the car to a charity and have them pick it up. As it is with our lives, nowadays, I had a million things going on. I was in the process of moving and needed a vehicle, so I rented a sporty little five seater. I knew that I needed to replace the car but I had a strict budget and no way to get additional financing. I also have four daughters and it was important to me that they like anything that I bought and that all of us and our stuff fit comfortably into any new car. The difficulty arose because there was no way that I could coordinate all five schedules to go out and test drive cars. I was renting a vehicle, which is expensive, so time was of the essence. The rental was working out well. It sat all of us, $700.00 worth of initial household supplies and was quite sporty looking. A week passed and the rental was about to run out so I called the car rental place to see if I could have the car for another week. He said that that wasn't possible because he had just sold the car for a ridiculously low price. I said, "Do you have anymore cars, like this one, for that price?" He did. I bought it.

Wendy, Canada
 

I have always wanted to be a writer, but I have put that on the back burner because of being a wife and raising children.  A few months ago I was asking the question in my heart...Should I pursue this dream I have of being a writer? Well,  I was working at a motel, an economy chain motel, and when I got to work I was in for a shock.  I was told a very famous author I had admired for years had checked into a room. I won't give his name for privacy sake. He was just using the room during the day to finish up his book, some things were going on at his house, so he needed someplace quiet. I never saw this author, but I used the address he registered with and wrote him a letter.  When his next book came out, one of the characters had my first name. I think this was a way of telling me to go for it.  Then I stumbled across your website out of the blue, ordered and read your book. That was two weeks ago and I am going through it a third time. Last weekend I told my husband I wanted to read another book on synchronicity because I am really excited about this. I told him I would just pick a book out of the bibliography. In the meantime, we were watching "One Hour Photo", the new movie with Robin Williams. At one point he is reading a book by Deepok Chopra, and in the film he mentions it has to do with meaningful coincidences, so I think that will be the next book I read!

Donna,  Florida
project583@comcast.net
 

In 1996, my husband, son and I lived in the grounds of my husband’s work place. We had a beautiful collie-cross dog who was 2 years old. Unfortunately he was quite vicious and would bite my son at different times. We had been to the RSPCA and an animal welfare place that was down the road to us, but they all said a) they couldn't take him and b) there was nothing to do but have him put to sleep, as he was a danger to anybody else who might take him on, so I had him put to sleep and I cried all night (this happened on a Monday). Having decided that I would get another dog, as I didn't want my son to be frightened of dogs I went to the library and took out books on different breeds to try and find one that would suit us with a child. I came across two breeds that I thought would be good for us, a King Charles spaniel, and a West Highland terrier. On the Wednesday of that same week, we had a local free rag delivered to us. (This is something that normally didn't happen as we lived on premises that belonged to a place of employment.) I was looking through the paper and came across an advert for a King Charles spaniel, I rang up the people concerned but they only had a boy left and I wanted a bitch. Then I saw an advert for a Westie, but about 60 miles from where we lived. Anyway I rang up and spoke to the breeder who asked me if I wanted a show dog or just a pet. I said a pet and explained why. She then told me that her own Westie had had 3 pups, but due to a condition the 2 bitches had been born with their tales dropping off, the boy dog had taken all the oxygen and he was also bigger. On the Sunday we went to visit the pups, and we fell in love with the smallest of the bitches, who would just lay in the palm of my hand. Six weeks later we picked her up. We call her Tilly, and she is the most affectionate dog out, and loves my son, so much so that recently we had workmen in and they went upstairs she went absolutely mad because she thought "her Simon" was up there. Before I read this web page I thought it was just a coincidence, now I think it was something else. I would also just like to add that we never received another free local rag through the door, after that day.

JAC, United Kingdom
 

On a Saturday, in January, 1994, I was talking to a friend who was having trouble writing a paper. I was telling her about how to use Mind Mapping to describe down her ideas for the paper. I tried to remember the author who wrote about this subject, but could not. I remember thinking to myself, "I wish I could talk to the teacher who told me about Mind Mapping so I ask her the author's name." The next day I was going to a friend's house for breakfast, and had to stop at the grocery store to pick up several things. This was one of a number of grocery stores I could have gone to that morning. It was pretty much empty as I walked around at 8:30 on Sunday morning. I thought I would like to look at the magazine rack for a moment, and I walked over to that isle. To my surprise, there at the magazine rack was the teacher who had told me about Mind Mapping. I greeted her, asked who the author was I had wanted to know about, said goodbye, purchased my items, and left the store.

Tom Klopfstein, San Diego, tklopfstein@bigfoot.com
 

I woke up one morning and had that sudden desire to get a copy of the Serenity Prayer. The first book that I came across that day was the the book Don't Sweat the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson. I opened a page and guess what, I found the Serenity Prayer. I made copies of it and tried to commit it to memory.

T.F.
 

Synchronicity must have a product by its nature. Once, I lost my money at a bus station, in a new city, to me, and the next day practically a girl from a very small town, me, walks into a very sophisticated women's store in a large large city, and is hired immediately, in my line of work, because someone had given their notice unexpectedly, thirty minutes earlier. That, certainly, was a big synchronic event. Another, smaller, was a time when, tired, I could not decide whether or not to see a Fellini movie that was in its last day, whether to get my child from the day care after work, or to see the movie alone. A song kept running through my mind all afternoon, as I worked. I hummed it, tried to sing it, but couldn't remember the words. Dashing at the last moment, I ran to the sitter's, picked up the two year old, and went to the movies. It was "Clowns" by Felleni. In the movie, at its highlight, at its most dramatic point, a single clown, standing on the top of the bleachers, played "la Mer", the song I had heard all afternoon. My son, on whose face I had painted a clown's "face" when he was only weeks old, sat watching, intrigued, popcorn poised mid-air in his little hand, for minutes and minutes. One clown to another.....perhaps I was playing to him in my sadness....."Someday how happy we'll be........"

V.W.
 

Before I entered college, I was living in a women's homeless shelter in a dirty, scary part of downtown San Diego. One day, I was driving past Sea World, and I thought to myself, "I wish I could go to Sea World." Then, it occurred to me, "Why not? Why does my summer have to look so dreary? Yeah, I want to go to Sea World!" For some reason, I believed it was possible, then I soon forgot about it. Three days later, I was eating breakfast alone at Denny's and four men invited me to join them. They were from New York and on vacation. They asked me, out of the blue, "Do you want to come to Sea World with us?" My jaw hit the floor. I told them I was homeless and had no money, but they offered to pay. I had a great time! I saw Shamoo and fed the dolphins. I never mentioned anything about my "prayer," but later that day, they jokingly said to me, "It's a sign from God." Before this happened, I was heavily involved in meditation but agnostic nonetheless. Now, I'm not sure what I believe, but synchronicity is the one thing I am absolutely sure of!

Lisa Woods, Berkeley, California
meercat@uclink4.berkeley.edu

One evening I was sitting at home and remembered that I had scheduled my car for a check up at the dealership the next morning. The dealer was about three miles from where I worked. I had been very busy that day and had forgotten to ask someone to meet me at the dealer to give me a ride in to work. It was about 9pm and I thought it was a bit late to start calling people and I felt irritated that I'd forgotten to take care of this. Then an idea popped into my mind to step out on faith, to let God, the Universe, whatever show up instead of trying to fix it myself. I would say I was inspired to take this course of action - I didn't think it up, it "came" to me. I thought about this and decided the worst that could happen is that I’d have to walk three miles to work. So I decided to go for it. The next day I had checked in my car and was about to begin to walk to work when I heard someone call out my name. I turned and it was a woman who worked down the hall from. She was just dropping her car off and her husband was waiting outside to give her a ride - "Would I like to join them?" So there was my ride.

Donna S., Chicago

I was at a flea market and saw a blue bowl for only $4. I wanted it because I love the color blue of the bowl. Several times I returned to the bowl and couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t buying it, because I kept telling my friends that this was my favorite color of blue and I felt I wanted something new in that color. Later in the day, I was reading a magazine article about synchronicity when my neighbors came by. I had recently taken care of their house and pets while they were on vacation. They gave me a token of appreciation -- a blue suncatcher -- the exact color blue of the bowl!

 R.W., Pennsylvania
 

Many years ago I had an immediate need for a chest of drawers at a time when I couldn't afford a new one. Without a car to track down ads, I traveled by bus and on foot to used furniture stores every day after work without success. It was tiresome and frustrating. I reached a point of downright disgust and while walking home from the grocery store one day I began talking to myself, silently of course, and commanded the "inner me" to get busy on this project and to find the needed item because the "outer me" was sick and tired of not getting satisfactory results. Would you believe that within an hour I had a chest of drawers? Upon arriving home, while getting my door key out, I overhead a conversation going on between a man and a woman a short distance away outside. He was telling her about some furniture for sale in an apartment close by. I approached them with an inquiry about this information, which resulted in my buying a chest on the spot at a very reasonable price.

 Lila Condax, Sacramento, California
 

Last Memorial Day weekend, my son Matt was playing in a Pony Baseball tournament about 200 miles from home. His play was "awesome" as he pitched ten shutout innings and batted over 500. Of the four homeruns hit out of the park by all seven teams, Matt hit two of them! I need to tell you a little about Matt. He looks much older than his age (14 at the time). On Saturday night, the manager of the opposing team, who had been watching Matt play against other teams since Friday evening, talked the umpire into asking my wife for some indentification for Matt. We were stunned as we didn't have any and were so far from home. We had submitted a copy of his birth certificate when we enrolled him in the tournament as was required. The umpire wanted to see an I.D. with a photo on it. When our manager found out about the situation he became livid with anger. Many of the parents of Matt's teammates also began shouting and "getting riled up." Everyone was crowding around the official's booth and I was really afraid something would get out of hand. I was trying to calm people down by yelling,"There is no problem here. Matt is my son. Everybody calm down." Here comes the synchronicity. One on Matt's teammates came up to me and asked, "Didn't Matt go to Juan Crespi Junior High School last year?" I replied, "Yes" and he said "I have a yearbook in my car and I'll go get it and show them Matt's picture!" This he did, as I looked on in gratitude and awe. Later I had to ask the young man why he had last year's yearbook in his car, 200 miles from home. He replied with a shrug, "My cousin lives close by and I wanted to show him a picture of a girl."

Randy Grandin, San Pablo, California
Rlgrandin@aol.com
 

I was bored and decided to go to Bookpeople (my favorite bookstore). It was crowded that day and I was wondering what was going on. I asked some people who were standing in a long line why they were there. A woman said they were waiting to have their books autographed by James Redfield, author of The Celestine Prophecy. I had never heard of it but felt guided to go find it. I went and picked up a book, then went and stood in the long line. As I neared Mr. Redfield, someone told me I had the workbook, not the book. I left the line and found the correct book; by the time I found it the line was gone but Mr. Redfield was still there. I walked right up to him, plopped the book down, smiled and said,"I don't know who you are or what this book is about, but please sign it" He laughed and said with this strange look on his face, "You are going to have fun with this. I'm at the Whole Life Expo this weekend. Why don't you come check out my lecture?" Well, I had never heard of the Whole Life Expo either and put it out of my mind. I read the book that night and couldn't put it down. The next day I took my son to the Children's Museum and on the way home felt drawn to turn down a street I would not normally take to get home. I passed the auditorium where the Whole Life Expo was. I decided to stop and check it out. My son and I walked up to the door and were met by a man walking out. He was smiling and looking friendly but I was a little nervous about being approached by a stranger. He said, "Are you going in?" I told him I didn't know there was a charge. He said, "That is why I am here to give you these." He handed me two tickets to the Expo. Once inside I ran into an old friend I hadn't seen in over five years. I stayed for hours and felt in heaven. When we decided to leave, my son and I were approached by two woman who asked if we were going to see the Tibetan Monks perform. I told her the tickets were too expensive for me ($17-20 each). She handed me two tickets, and my son and I enjoyed the performance. Several days later I took my son to his counseling appointment and on the wall hung a Celestine Prophecy Calendar. Wow, when synchronicity hits, it hits in a big way. I have since noticed synchronicity everywhere.

 A.A., Austin, Texas
Arm30@aol.com
 

I had taken your book (Power of Flow) off the shelf to read a quote I like from Nelson Mandela,"...our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure ..." and decided to begin writing about great experiences, gratitude and appreciation when the following story surfaced.

 I had an audition (actor) earlier in the week . . . I was sitting and watching a movie, a matinee', when my pager went off and I had to step out and call my agent . . . lo and behold I had a "callback" for this big Toyota campaign I had auditioned for a few days earlier. Now, "The 5th Element" (the movie I was watching) is fun and energizing and uplifting too and I was able to finish watching it before going to my callback . . . and I was VERY energized by this film . . . humored, inspired, etc. . . . when I arrived at my "call-time" it was mostly havoc and disorganized . . . there were probably 150 people scattered around waiting to go in and see the Director and Producers and Product Clients as well. I was centered and calm on the outside but buzzing with and radiating energy as big as the building I was in . . . when I  went in (with several other actors at the same time) and delivered my "line", the room broke into laughter as if I was the funniest guy that ever lived, and I mean it wasn't really that funny a line . . . they asked me to say it again, and again out of control laughter . . . I CAN deliver  a line, I'm pretty confident in that department, but I'm completely convinced it was my ENERGY I was giving off that secured my booking that gig . . .after leaving the room ALL the other actors who were in the room together said "you DEFINITELY booked this one !" . . . I was IN FLOW, no doubt about it . . . a good lesson for me; what I'm radiating has an affect on what I will experience . . . 

Robert Mortimer
rmoor@webtv.net
 

Synchronicity happens to me almost every single day. I've been using the saying "I've always been able to pull a rabbit out of my hat" forever. Well, I have been seeking players for my Ozzy Osbourne/Black Sabbath Tribute Band for quite some time and just before last New Year’s, I ran into an old bandmate of mine, a drummer, who was working at the local Wal-Mart store. We'd played together back in the late 80's. His name?  Mark "Bugs" (as in Bunny!)

Randy Fricke
LaCrosse, Wisconsin
www.RockMusicMp3s.com

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