Hmmm, where does synchronicity begin and metaphor end, or vice versa?
I first envisioned framing this post around the old adage timing is everything. But as I turned the idea around in my mind and examined it from different angles, I realized what I was really contemplating was the phenomenon of synchronicity.
The official definition of synchronicity is: The simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection. While technically accurate, that is too clinical for my liking.
I did a bit of Google sleuthing and learned that the concept was first introduced by analytical psychologist Carl Jung as early as the 1920’s. He theorized that events are meaningful coincidences if they occur with no causal relationship but appear to be meaningfully related.
Interesting, but still too clinical for my taste. I prefer to think of synchronicity as precocious moments when the universe tires of logic and lets its whimsical side take control. Let’s put this unplanned event together with that random occurrence and see what it happens. … Aha! Now that is something to behold!
The photograph at the top of this post is by my definition an example of synchronicity at work.
The first element at play is the Comma butterfly which has only recently emerged. All its colours and markings – including the striking white comma on the outer wing – are newly minted and flawless to a degree that can only last a matter of days in the life of a butterfly.
The second element is the pear-shaped, broad green leaf with its serrated edges and spidery white veins. It too is in the full bloom its existence that that will all too soon pass as the heat of high summer begins to drain it of its vitality.
The third element is the lighting – the sun’s rays landing in at the exact right angle to bring out the colours and shadings in sharp contrast while also casting a mirror image shadow of the butterfly on the leaf that plays host to it.
I would like to be able to say that I spent hours prowling the meadow following this one butterfly, studying the lighting, looking for the right leaf, and waiting for all the elements to come together. But that would be a fabrication. I do not have anything resembling that kind of patience.
The truth is that the universe felt whimsical and created this precocious moment. Was it coincidence that I happened along to capture it? I think not. I believe that I – a lover of winged wonders who happens to carry a camera with him in the field – was the fourth element that the universe factored into the equation to complete the moment of synchronicity.
Metaphors have an element of whimsy in them. There is a dash of synchronicity in a good metaphor. And this instance of synchronicity in a summer meadow has a dash of metaphor in it.
I was fortunate to be a player in this aha! moment. Was it because I am a weaver of metaphors?
~ Now Available Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: Hunting Muskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is also the author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel which was a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog.
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