The Rootstock of Synchronosophy (Part I, Chapter 1/6)

The Mycelium of Synchronosophy

I carry my roots with me all the time rolled up, I use them as my pillow.

〰 Francisco X. Alarcón 〰

the author and her brother under a cedar in Lebanon, photo © private collection

Synchronosophy is growing like a tree. Her growth is slow. Growing seasons and bursts alternate with plateaus, forming phenomenal rings in her young and resilient trunk. Her mycelium is entangled with the roots of the two (in)famous specimen from the Garden of Eden ~ the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge.

The story of the Tree of Synchronosophy started with a seminal root system, handed to me in 1999. It was an unexpected gift. To unwrap, grasp, and makes sense of such a gift, it helps to look at the mycelium which nurtured the rootstock, and the soil where such a rare specimen would thrive.

Or in less poetic words 〰 what is now called Synchronosophy has grown gradually over the past two and a half decades as a way of transforming traumatic experience of everyday life into personal wisdom.

Synchronosophy is a way of transforming

traumatic experience of everyday life into personal wisdom

This wasn’t a project I planned ~ or could have planned. Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought of giving birth to such a soulchild. It came as a surprise, like an unintended pregnancy. The gestation dragged on much longer than expected. And then the delivery… I admit, there were times when I thought I would never make it.

So in 1999 I received this unexpected ‘gift’ ~ (how, and what that looked like will be revealed in a later chapter.) I’ve been using this gift ever since. I’ve been calling it ‘my secret weapon’ ~ without ever wanting to keep it a secret.

I’ve shared it with others over the years, often with results they describe as ‘miraculous’. But I haven’t yet been able to fully transmit the knowledge of how to apply the gift without my guidance.

This seemed strange to me, because the actual ‘work’ I do is relatively simple. Whenever I practice with someone, provided they are open to a transformative process in principle, we can do the ‘work’ together. But when they try to do it on their own, they get stuck.

Puzzling over this conundrum, I eventually realised that it must have something to do with my implicit tacit knowledge for which there are no words.

Everyone has such knowledge, which is unique to them. It is woven into the tapestry of your experiences. It is imprinted in the cellular memory of your ancestral trauma. It is encapsulated in the range of skills you have acquired in this life, the loved ones you have found and lost, the angels and devil’s advocates you have met, the lessons you have learned, or refused to take on board…

In short, I realised that Synchronosophy is not just a method which can be taught in 8 simple steps (or 12 tricks, or 63.5 points, or 10,000 repetitions). Synchronosophy is a true meta-hodos a way of change, growth, and transformation.

This realisation has lead to a new idea.

If the basic steps of Synchronosophy are easy to follow (which they are), then the difficulty of practicing this method on your own must lie somewhere else. The mysterious obstacle may be trapped. Somewhere.

Here are some potential traps:

• fundamental rejection of subjective experience as a valid source of knowledge

• deep seated fear of one’s own emotions

• profound self-rejection and sense of worthlessness

• hardcore shame for being an ‘inadequate specimen’ of the human race

Instead of launching into explanations about the value of subjective experience, and how to overcome fear, self-rejection and shame…

~ all of which you have most likely read and heard before, from writers and teachers with far greater eloquence and expertise than mine ~

… I’ll offer relevant snapshots of my own story, interwoven with my understanding of Synchronosophy and examples of working with my ‘secret weapon’.

Although your story will be radically different from mine, you might tap into some tunes of resonance. You might get bored, or befuddled, or bristle at some lines of thought. You might feel envious/ inferior in some scenes and smug/ superior in others. Or you might soak up every word you read like a thirsty desert-nomad after a long dry spell on the inner journey.

It’s all good! We are all intronauts here, embarked on spaceship Earth. This journey is not a race. We all travel and arrive ~ or crash ~ together. We’re all responsible for providing the fuel.

Here’s the first ‘secret power tool’ from my arsenal of ‘secret weapons’: Anything that triggers an emotion can be used to access valuable life energy, which is the fuel we need to travel safely on life’s journey.

The emotions themselves are not the fuel. They can be used as springboards to jump into your own subjective experience and reveal personal elements in your parallel story world.

There you go. The secret is out. This is the first and one of the most essential clues for forging your personal set of tools.

photo © Dale Nibb on Unsplash

My life is a journey of inner growth from utter self-rejection to unconditional self-acceptance. I’ve travelled from catastrophic relationships to the fairytale experience of meeting my beloved and living happily ever after 〰 from having no clue who I am and what I’m supposed to do with my life, to giving birth to myself and growing into my ‘life’s purpose’.

»And you? When will you begin that long journey into yourself?«

Jalal ed-Din Rumi

The journey of life is neither linear nor chronological. The path is often bumpy and windy, full of potholes and booby-traps. Experience happens inside and appears on the outside.

But then again, all of a sudden, without apparent rhyme or reason, life can go so smoothly, it’s almost too good to be true. Like a mountain stream flowing uphill.

Only by following the trail, trusting inner guidance, we might gradually make sense of it all ~ in hindsight.

Ten years before receiving the mystery gift, which cocooned the rootstock of Synchronosophy, I moved from a picture perfect, isolated, and unhappy life in the Swiss Alps, to the charmingly imperfect English South.

A series of unforeseen synchronous events had lead to my decision to make a ‘radical career/ life-change’ which ~ in hindsight ~ was ‘100% organic’.

Old Manor House in England

Before the final transition to England I visited the School of Homœopathy where I would enroll for a three year training. I dropped in at short notice and was received by Misha Norland, the director and founder, at his residence near Exeter. Set into a stunningly beautiful estate, with secret gardens, English lawns, high hedges, and guard geese patrolling the kitchen garden, the old manor house could have been a worthy setting for a Jane Austen novel.

~ When I shared this experience later with fellow students they found it hard to believe. “His Lordship never gives an audience to anyone at short notice,” they told me.

An audience? His Lordship? My first encounter with Misha was like meeting an old friend.

Finding a new place of residence was an afterthought. Where was I going to live as a single mother, with two young daughters? Having been too isolated for too long, I felt in desperate need for social interaction with ‘normal people’.

“Check out Totnes,” said Misha. “There you won’t be lonely for long.”

Natural Health Clinic Café, Totnes

Totnes, now a ‘transition town’, had a growing reputation as the New Age Capital of England. At the time, I knew nothing about either New Age or Totnes.

Misha was right. It was a good place for me ~ for a time. All of a sudden surrounded by ‘spiritual followers’ of an eclectic mix of denominations, I updated myself on the latest menu of theories and procedures, from ‘mind-over matter’ to ‘manifestation techniques’, via ‘positive affirmations’ and ‘transformation of negative beliefs’ by ‘reprogramming the mind’. I even identified as a ‘spiritual seeker’ ~ for a time.

While open and interested in the concepts of this allegedly ‘new human potential movement’, Instinct alerted me to an odd smell, evocative of the musty vapours wafting through my childhood home.

Here’s the second clue from my arsenal of ‘secret weapons’: When you step into the flow of life ~ and things are going really well, after a spell of long struggle with inner and outer obstacles, and you’ve made a personal effort to grow out of and shift some dysfunctional pattern ~ don’t take it for granted!

This is ‘the universe’ giving you a boost, letting you know that you’re on the right track. You can feel what it’s like to be in synchrony with the greater communications network of life ~ in the best way.

When you step into the flow of life, after making a personal effort to grow out of a dysfunctional pattern, you are in synchrony with the communications network of life.

What we call synchronicity is a co-inciding, a synergy, a collaboration of individual internal and external activities, reflected back to us through our own environment, which we think of as our personal life.

We notice such synchrony, when things go well, and call it serendipity. When things don’t go well, we might call it misfortune, or fate, or bad luck.

In reality, we are always moving in synchrony with the life of which we are an inseparable part.

Which leads us straight to the third clue from my treasure of ‘secret weapons’: When something trips us up in the outer world, it is always an opportunity. It is a signal that something within is not in alignment with what we may become.

‘Human inner life is always in synchrony with the world around us.

We’ll pick up on that in another chapter.