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Throughout my life, this synergy has been very noticeable. Against all intellectual odds, I have been led to the right place, person, book, or class so many times that I have come to trust implicitly that I am being offered all the tools I need at any moment. Actually, everything each of us needs is always there for us, and as we grow and unfold our higher awareness, we can become more and more aware of and interactive with these synergistic tools. It also helps if we take positive action on the hints the universe offers. Let me illustrate. I was only five when my father brought me a new sled so I could join the neighborhood children sliding down the hill by our house. It was my first sled, and I was excited to get out there and do what the older kids were doing, namely throwing themselves belly down on their sleds and skimming down the hill. I had no awareness that my new sled was too stiff for my young muscles to control, and so when my guides (in a clear voice I was used to hearing) said, "don’t," I replied, "But I want to!" and did as I pleased. Of course I couldn’t steer it, and having no previous experience with a sled, I ran right into a parked car. It was a hard lesson, but it taught me to pay attention. Paying attention to this inner communication has saved my life several times. As a senior in university, I had a fifty-mile commute, part of which took me along a two-lane winding road with cliffs, with a sheer drop of over 200 feet, on one side and a rock face on the other. One day, my guiding voice said, "slow down now," so I did. Just ahead was a blind curve, around which two cars suddenly appeared side by side, heading right toward me. Having slowed down as warned, I was at that moment just coming to a small rail-less pull-off area on the cliff side of the road, which was about three car lengths long and one and a half car widths wide. I immediately swung my car into this small space. As those two cars flew by, I pulled back onto the road and continued, having missed a head-on crash that would surely have taken my car, and at least one of the others, over the cliff. Neither my passenger nor I even had time for an adrenaline rush. The synergy of space and time was astonishing. The synergistic experience to which I am most attached began when I was only 12 years old, and continues to this day. It is a clear example of the teacher appearing when the student is ready. At 12, I felt very lost in what seemed to me a very crude and non-integrated way of life. I asked my guides if there wasn’t someone here that I really knew (implying someone I understood and by whom I was understood, and whom I loved and who loved me unconditionally). Though at that age I had never been told anything about spirit guides, I did know that there were some trustworthy non-visible folks with whom I could converse silently when I needed to. What I needed to know was that I was not alone on a planet where people often seemed to me to be crazy, dangerous, generally irresponsible, ignorant, dishonest, and uncaring. My guides showed me the face of a man I immediately recognized at a core level, but was not to meet for another 25 years. He was silver-haired and had twinkling blue eyes and a smile that I would not forget as the years went by. Having seen him calmed me. I decided I could continue, and life went on. I did the usual things — school, marriage, children, job — but something was always missing. Finally I found myself with a personal need to be part of a spiritual growth group of some kind. I was drawn to the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) and eventually started a study group based on the Edgar Cayce Search for God books. In the second year of that group, which met weekly at my home, a brochure arrived in my mail. It advertised various spiritual workshops and courses to be offered later that year at the location where I had attended an A.R.E. conference some months earlier. I was working as a fourth grade teacher in Germany for the U.S. Department of Defense Overseas Dependents’ Schools. Looking at the brochure, I was immediately drawn to one offering, which I absolutely knew I must attend. I did not even know what the course was really about, and was unable to find out over the intervening months. On top of that, the course was scheduled for the first week of school at the beginning of the following school year. My sense of knowing was so strong that I told my principal he would have to get a substitute teacher for me that week, and I made plans to go. The location of this course was a castle in northern Germany about five hours’ drive from where I was living. I drove the autobahn, arriving in time for dinner the night before as suggested when I registered. I had been at the dinner table only minutes when the course leader and his party walked in. To my utter shock, there was the man whose face I had seen 25 years earlier at age 12. He was, of course, teaching the class. The following day in the garden during a break he approached me, asking, "Where have you been all these years?" He had been looking for me since the time I first "saw" him. It seems the view was two-way and we had seen one another as we would look when we finally met physically. I had never told anyone of that childhood experience, but he remembered it too. He also told me that I already knew all he had to teach. We eventually came to the realization that I needed reminding in order to bring this knowledge to the surface in this life. I was fortunate enough to know and interact with this world-renowned healer and teacher of healing until his passing five years later, and from time to time even now. The synergistic steps it took to bring my mentor and myself together in Germany still amaze me. He had to leave aeronautical engineering; open a clinic in London after the Second World War; develop and teach a series of healing courses (taking them also to countries outside of England); and set up a registered esoteric school, known as White Lodge, the College of Spiritual Psychotherapeutics. Then he had to meet the owner of the castle in Germany, agree to teach courses there, and organize and schedule them. I had to get there too. I trained as a teacher and married a man who, like myself, was interested in doing something different, so we both applied to teach American children overseas. Then, we were transferred from our first overseas teaching assignment in Labrador, Canada to an army base in Germany. I had to organize an Edgar Cayce study group and then attend a European A.R.E. conference at that particular castle in Germany so that I would later receive a brochure that would draw me to Ronald Beesley’s class. I had to have already learned to trust my inner knowing and to follow it even in the face of opposition. Teachers do not ordinarily absent themselves from the first week of a new school year, especially for no explainable reason! Synergistically, I came from the West Coast of the United States and he from Kent, England. When I, the student, was ready, the teacher appeared, and two people who had known each other across time could see one another again. What a blessing! I can’t count how many times in my life a book came to my awareness and became available just as I was ready to hear what it had to tell me. Nor can I guess how many times I have turned on the radio or television just in time to hear words sung, or an entire program presented, that filled in a missing part of something I was trying to understand. Sometimes I have even been introduced to a person who, during our conversation, said something that was just what I needed to hear then. We are very blessed in our journeying on this planet, but we must pay attention. If a book falls off a shelf at your feet, it is a good idea to look carefully at it to see if there was a reason that it happened! If you feel impelled to change your speed or switch lanes driving, or to take a different route, there is probably a good reason. When something seems really right, or really wrong, act on it. When you sense that another person is or isn’t trustworthy, learn not to let social conditioning override that awareness. The more you pay attention, the easier it gets. Truly, everything each of us needs is always there for us if we will but notice. The teacher, in whatever guise, always appears when we are ready. Iona Sharron is visionary artist, spiritual healer and teacher residing in the Seattle area. She started Earth-Sky Unlimited in 1978 as a vehicle through which to share her gifts. She is known around the United States and ten other countries for her Personal Mandala-Shield Paintings®. Visit <http://www.earth-sky.com/>, e-mail <spirit@earth-sky.com>, call (425) 640-8872, or write P.O. Box 1633, Lynnwood, WA 98046. |
I am
struck lately by how synergistically the universe responds to
us in our strivings for spiritual growth, understanding, awareness,
and even physical and spiritual safety. We talk about the teacher
appearing when the student is ready, and we speak of our spirit
guides helping us. We also notice that sometimes we seem almost
magically to be somewhere at just the right time to discover
a perfect "next step" in our lives. Admittedly, we
sometimes like, and other times very much dislike, where we find
ourselves, but always we can gain from the experience if we will.