An Unexpected Treat

It is by chance that we met, by choice that we became friends.” ~ Author unknown


Two years ago, while I was looking for a literary agent, I set up profiles on every site that could help me get in touch with the right representative; along with the benefits of exposure, also came the less appreciated, infamous e-mails from the sites which regularly clog my inbox.

One morning, about a year or so ago, I received yet another notification of a new member signing up. Instead than deleting the message on sight - as I habitually did after I no longer needed to find an agent - that morning I felt compelled to click on the link. When the page opened, I stared at four profiles: two poets, an agent whose niche was young adult fiction, and a novelist, Renee Otis. Renee had opened a profile to either get the attention of an agent or to get suggestions from fellow writers. On her profile was a short synopsis of her novel – slave ghosts, ancient traditions, a psychic nurse, a comatose man who mentally communicated with her; in short, her novel had all the ingredients for a good story – so I wrote to her, and we began exchanging thoughts. In time, she sent me her novel to read and comment on, and I loved it! As fate had it, she soon signed up with one of my friends who had gone on to open a literary agency of her own after working as an agent assistant for a while.

The day before yesterday I had a surprise. I checked my messages and read that Renee had sent me a note on Facebook; she was coming to Raleigh for a week of training and wanted to know if we could meet. Initially, she was supposed to go to Philadelphia, but at the last minute the schedule had changed and she was sent to North Carolina.

I was very excited to meet her in person; over time we had virtually shared hopes, dreams and fears, and now we had the chance to meet face to face. We decided to meet at the hotel she stayed at, and spent a wonderful hour and a half talking over a glass of wine. If someone there was listening to us, they would have thought we had always known each other – we talked about our current projects and about the woes and wows of the publishing world, but our conversation derailed several times to other topics, and it was absolutely amazing to see how two perfect strangers who had never before met in person could be so instantly connected and comfortable with one another.

Since we both had to be up early I didn’t stay long, but we made plans to possibly get together again before she leaves town. As I drove home I thought of how strange life is sometimes, and how wonderful. If I hadn’t clicked on that link the year before, I never would have known Renee exists – though I am sure I would have discovered her later on once her amazing novel makes it to the printer – and if her company hadn’t switched schedules, it would have likely been years before we met, if indeed we were meant to meet at all.

Each day has the potential of revealing surprises that might not always be welcome, but it also reserves the right to treat us with unexpected blessings when we least expect them; the trick, I suppose, is to remain open to all we can receive.

In this case, I was blessed with the opportunity to meet someone extremely talented, with whom I share many of the same interests, whose name I will see listed some day on the New York Times list of best-selling novelists. For now, I am just happy that a link on a message led me to someone so dear.

United Beyond the Divide

“Synchronicity hints at the unified world behind the illusory veil of the material Universe.” ~ Roger S. Jones


As I was driving home, on Sunday evening, I suddenly thought of an old friend my husband met when both were in the army in Italy. We normally heard from him every year or so, but we had somehow lost touch for some time and could not find a phone listing for him.

Nothing that happened that day led me to think of this guy, yet his face just popped into my mind, seemingly out of nowhere. I told my husband as soon as I got home, and we looked up his name again to no avail.

Two days went by. On Tuesday evening, my husband came home from work and said that he was very surprised when his brother told him that someone had called for him at his house two nights before. The friend, my brother-in-law said, had explained that his was the only listing he could find under the last name, so he called even if the first name was different, hoping to locate my husband. The friend who called was Jason, the man whose face had popped into my mind on Sunday, at the exact time that he was placing the call.

My husband was more surprised than I was. “How odd,” he said, “we were just discussing the fact that we hadn’t heard from him in years and he called the same night.”

I didn’t think it was odd at all. Although each of us is equipped with a unique conscious mind which sets us apart from the next person, the collective mind of our subconscious – the one connected to Universal energy - connects us all.

In the first insight of his amazing book, “The Celestine Prophecy”, James Redfield explains that mysterious coincidences cause the reconsideration of the inherent mystery that surrounds our individual lives on this planet.

What we do to and for others, we unknowingly do to and for ourselves. This simple knowledge allows us to understand a bit of the laws of karma. As we send positive or negative energy to others, part of it is absorbed by the conscious, individual mind of the person we are sending it to, and part of it is absorbed by the collective mind, the one shared by all including ourselves.

Subconsciously, we are all aware of the common denominator we all share, and that knowledge is part of what stops us, when we don’t feel good about ourselves, from being kind to others. We know that if we smile at a stranger we are partially smiling at ourselves, and we might not be ready to accept that kind of reward.

All are one and one is all – no matter how hard we try to set one another apart by listening to the voice of fear, our collective link runs beneath the illusion of the human divide.