Synchronosophy
A Rough Guide to the Feral Side of Life
As you get up in the morning, as you make decisions, as you spend money, make friends,
make commitments, you are creating a piece of art called your life.
〰 Mary Catherine Bateson 〰
Explorations of the Inner Ecosystem for synchronosophers and intronauts and all legitimate owners of human Consciousness.
Synchronosophy is a Discipline and a Practice
Don’t fight forces, use them.
〰 Buckminster Fuller 〰
Synchronosophy [from Greek syn = together + khronos = time + sophia = practical wisdom] is an invitation to journey into the inner world and gather wisdom from the things that happen in synchrony ~ in subjective experience.
Why would you want to do that?
This practice is particularly helpful in negative situations for which we have no explanation. Instead of dismissing the event as nonsense or insignificant, or resisting the interference as an obstacle, or resorting to any other confirmation bias to make our prejudice seem perfectly reasonable, we embrace random disruptions of everyday life and follow their tracks with the curiosity of beginner’s mind.
Why?!
Here is a simple explanation: All things that trip us up in everyday life carry personal information. They can be seen as private messages, and we can learn to read them. They guide us continuously on an upward spiral of growing awareness, understanding, and personal wisdom ~ provided we listen and assimilate the messages.
How do you know?
It ties in with a universal principle.
What Buckminster Fuller mentions here lies at the heart of Tai Chi and every martial art. It is also one of the core principles of Synchronosophy.
I’ve been practicing this for over 25 years. I’ve been teaching it to others too. It works every time ~ with some provisos.
What kind of provisos?
› You have to be open to challenging your preconceptions and habitual responses.
› You must not be scared to feel your own emotional reactions.
› You must have courage to face your inner dæmons.
These are the three most important ones. If you are unable or unwilling to face your emotions, too scared to meet your dæmons, and can’t imagine that your ways of thinking might benefit from an update, it doesn’t work.
Oh, and a fourth one ›› you must accept responsibility for your own experience.
Can you give me an example?
Think of something upsetting that has happened to you recently.
Oh, there is so much to get upset about these days.
Precisely. That’s why we need Synchronosophy.
Nature is a totally efficient, self-regenerating system.
If we discover the laws that govern this system and live synergistically within them,
sustainability will follow and humankind will be a success.
〰 Buckminster Fuller 〰
We already have a lot of the knowledge ~ in theory. Fuller talked about the discovery of the laws that govern nature as a future possibility. In the meantime, many ingenious scientists, philosophers, independent thinkers have contributed to our understanding of these laws.
Putting them into practice is now the main sticking point. We are overly attached to our old ways of thinking, which affect how we show up in the world, how we do everything we do.
Chilean scientists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, for example, discovered that every living creature is an autopoietic system. We create, and recreate our environment through so-called ‘acts of knowing’.
For us humans this means ~ we create our own environment. We create the world we live in on automatic pilot. We live in this world we create, and suffer from the consequences, in the belief that ‘the world is against us’.
Some part of us is very attached to the idea/myth that we are helpless victims of the world into which we are born. This conviction lies at the core of our suffering.
We are convicts of our own conviction. In a bid to free ourselves we destroy our world, adding to our suffering and driving ourselves mad.
When a living system is suffering from ill health,
the remedy is found by connecting with more of itself.
〰 Francisco Varela 〰
To develop the discipline of Synchronosophy as a field of knowledge, I have collected such gems of insights and translated them into practice.
The practice of Synchronosophy offers the potential to lead us to a brighter future, individually and collectively.
›› It stimulates a gentle growth process.
›› It transforms our subjective experience.
›› It restores harmony in the inner world.
›› It changes the outer world from the inside out.
Love is the only emotion that expands intelligence.
〰 Humberto Maturana 〰
Synchronosophy can teach us what that means in everyday life ~ especially in situations, which we don’t love already. When you can genuinely grow into accepting something that you previously rejected, your whole world expands. This will become tangible in your inner world and your outer environment.
The major problems in the world are the result of the
difference between how nature works and the way people think.
〰 Gregory Bateson 〰
Synchronosophy is a meta-hodos ~ a way of transformation ~ that leads to a greater understanding of how nature works. It trains us humans to align our thinking and feeling with the mind of nature.
If this little introduction makes you curious to find out more about Synchronosophy, and how I came to develop this understanding, here is a good place to start:
