Secrets and synchronicities -- Ava Lindberg's blog

My SunResearch blog is a one-year experiment in the intentional paying of attention to synchronicity.  Since about April 2011, I have been recording meaningful coincidences in my professional and personal life, photographing where possible, discussing what they may mean, how they turn out, and following along where such synchronistic occurrences go.

I add in theory, discuss the usages of synchronicity, archetypes, and the semiotics of everyday occurrences in the world of research and innovation, along with new ideas about trends in qualitative research.

These secrets and synchronicities throughout the blog vary widely.  Some seem important; others are recorded to fulfill the nature of the research experiment.   I am fascinated by the subject and have committed to noting individual synchronicities and special qualitative secrets against the greater backdrop of this year-long investigation.

The reader is invited to send in your own synchronicities–professional or personal.

Here is one that is small and associative.   In Toronto on the way to Pearon Airport early yesterday morning, I am riding in a cab on the second day of Divali–the Feast of Lights–celebrated by Hindus around the world.  I talk about Divali with the cab driver who is Sri Lankan; he noticeably brightens when I wish him a Happy Divali.  I had sent, the night before, a Divali card to a client who is a VP of an Indian food company, for whom I’m doing a brainstorming session on November 5.

When I get into Pearson Airport, I notice this Incredible India ad, which is across from the gate of the Air Canada flight I’m about to board.  I had also mentioned my visit to the Taj Mahal with the cab driver.  The Taj is featured prominently in the ad.

Perhaps my wish to return to India on business will be fulfilled.

Posted in Announcements, Synchronicity | No Comments »

A strange coincidence occurs on Air Canada flight 710, from Toronto to New York LGA, yesterday, Thursday, October 27, around 11:30 a.m. until about 1:30 p.m.    I am coming home after a focus group project on Monday through Wednesday night in Toronto that is for a global brand and uses many projective exercises, emotional probes, archetypal imagery, new concepts, and tasting tests of new products.   I am happy with the results, although the project has been challenging and involved some revision of concepts…. and on Thursday morning, am thinking about the analysis.   While waiting for AC flight 710 to leave Pearson Airport at gate 161, and having gone through customs quickly, I have some time.  I discover that the battery in my MacBook Pro seems to be very weak so I decide to buy a book at the local concession and read on the plane, rather than work.

I purchase the book The Winner Stands Alone, by Paulo Coelho, with its bright red cover and its promise of a mixture of philosphy and thriller.  It seems well-written and a fast read.   I take it on the plane when the flight is called and immediately start reading.  I am seated in 17D.

A woman who looks somewhat like me–blonde, similar age, hair length, appearance, pleasant–takes the window seat, and puts her book–Paulo Coelho’s book, The Winner Stands Alone–in the front pocket compartment to read.   I notice it because the cover is red and it is the same book I am reading.

We express mild surprise that it is the same book.  The passenger–name is DW–says that she really likes Coelho’s work; she is a fan; she follows Coelho’s blog which she feels is uplifting; she mentions and recommends The Alchemist and The Valkyries. I say that I have only read Coelho’s Brida.  DW doesn’t know it.  We talk in passing about my work in market research, my travels, and a few market research anecdotes; she describes her life a little and travels; she is checking out a new idea that may be situated in the Cotswolds near London, England.  I used to live in the suburbs of Westport, CT, in a house that was styled as a Cotswold cottage, then moved to mid-town Manhattan last year to be more in the urban action and lifestyle.   DW still lives in the English Cotswolds because it feels right and relaxed for her kids and her at this point in life.

Posted in Synchronicity | No Comments »

This afternoon near the end of an intense Friday work day, there are sudden references to game changers.   A few weeks ago I had not heard of the phrase.    LB writes me today about new, exciting game changer exercises that she’s playing with.  Last week LB also has a dream that we are getting our passports ready to travel together, and suddenly I remember the conference title from a call to papers for workshops for the ACE 2012 creative conference in Atlanta.   It is…

…and LB is intrigued and writes me back immediately.  Can we create a game-changing workshop together?   It seems possible.  I write HV the co-founder of the ACE conference and he replies in the affirmative and invites me to Greece after April 25-27 in Rome for the AQR-QRCA conference.

I go out for a meeting, around 5:30 p.m,. and overhear the words “game changers” in two Times Square conversations.  The same words are spoken very loudly.

Ava:  I was invited to submit (another) proposal for a workshop at the Atlanta Creativity Exchange next year…..the subject is………duh-duh….. drum roll……..

Subject: one more thing

LB:  OMG:   This is too amazing– and makes me think that we should work together — at the very least explore verbally   What a great opportunity

Posted in Qualitative market research, Synchronicity, Uncategorized | No Comments »

The moment I finished yesterday’s blog post on how synchronicity is connected to consensus building in democracy, groups, organizations, and facilitative process (Synchronicity and Consensus, October 19, 2011),  I received an email message from a research colleague.  It’s something I’ve been waiting for because the Rome conference is deeply meaningful to me after my summer of special international qualitative research.

It is…

…a call for papers for the AQR-QRCA International Research Conference in Rome in summer 2012.  I want to create and present a workshop on archetypal process in international qualitative research, a phenomenon which involves key moments of comprehension, concentration, collaboration, and coalition….this is archetypal, synchronistic consensus of the highest order.  The synchronicity I’m writing about today is that–as I was writing about it theoretically–suddenly a dramatic example occurred in the real world, notifying me that I was expanding this idea internationally.

It also makes me feel expectant–positive–that the Rome paper/workshop will be accepted.

Posted in Methodologies and research findings, Qualitative market research, Synchronicity | No Comments »

A page in a book on synchronicity (Synchronicity:  Nature & Psyche in an Interconnected Universe, by Joseph Cambray) has been opened, by me, to arbitrarily answer the question inside myself, “Why was Jung so afraid to write about synchronicity?”  (His seminal book on the subject was published close to his death even though he had been studying meaningful connections for at least 20 years.)  The page unfolds and I read this commentary, which may be relevant:

Jung refers to kairos or the “nick of time.”   ‘”We are living in what the Greeks called the kairos–the right moment–for a ‘metamorphosis of the gods,’ of the fundamental principles and symbols.  This peculiarity of our time, which is certainly not of our conscious choosing, is the expression of the unconscious man within us who is changing.”  His famous disciple Marie Von Franz writes of “the association of kairos with goddesses weaving time…alluding to the idea of a ‘field’ in which ‘meaningful connections,’ are interwoven like threads of a fabric.”

Cambray goes on to explain on page 90 of Synchronicity:  ”In general the emergency of consensus in the democratic processes of an organization tends to reflect self-organizing aspects of the larger field formed by the individual who comprise the voting body.  The moment of consensus in this sense is an act of creation of the whole that has a synchronistic falling together in time at its core and hence evidence of an emerging archetypal constellation.  The feeling of rightness of what comes forth in such moments can often be detected by some sense of the numinous, or of a ‘third” that all partake in.

Although this does not answer why Jung did not publish on synchronicity until close to the end of his life, the idea of synchronicity and consensus building has import for me as a creative facilitator.  There is value in looking for or expecting synchronistic experiences in a research debrief or creative ideation session in which all observers hear and see the same research and are now coming to new insightful, breakthrough conclusions together.

Posted in Qualitative market research, Synchronicity | No Comments »

A number of weeks ago, I am flying back from Atlanta sitting next to a man reading a magazine.  This is nothing unusual, of course, but I was totally intrigued to learn what the magazine was.  It ended up being Singapore Living. He and I spoke quickly as the plane was landing about his imminent corporate relocation to Singapore and how Malaysia is very beautiful, clean, and great for international living–a leaping off place to many other sites in Asia (Bali, India, Indonesia).    He was also currently living in Westport, CT, where I used to reside but moved myself about one year ago.  So, I paid attention to this occurrence.

I had assumed that perhaps this was a signal that my next stage of qualitative research might take me back to India or another area of Asia.

Several weeks later, a Buddhist nun MZ who is a friend of CL emailed me and asked to stay for 3 days at my apartment in NYC.  She is from Malaysia, about an hour’s flight from Singapore.  While she stayed with me and as we spent time going to Buddhist temples in Chinatown and practicing meditation together, she had noticed that I had a statue of Kuan Yin in my living room and a second in another room.  MZ is currently organizing a spiritual conference in 2014 in Malaysia for those with a connection to Kuan Yin–also known as Chenrezig or Avalokitishvara–the Buddha of Compassion (represented by HH the Dalai Lama).  I and TT may decide to go.

This association with Malaysia appears to have been foreshadowed by the Singapore Living association.

Posted in Synchronicity | No Comments »

Today as I was driving to a research appointment out of New York City–to Stamford, CT–in my car, I listened to a radio performance on WQXR of the beautiful Rachmanioff Vocalise.  This piece is one I performed, accompanying a violist, VV, and know to be intrinsically connected with VV.   VV and I have an amazing history of a lost-and-found red viola.  As I heard the Rachmanioff on the radio this morning, strong associations of the lost-viola incident and VV came to mind.  I hadn’t seen VV in about six months.

This evening, about eight hours later, I attended the first concert of the Golden Key Music Institute Salon in mid-town NYC.   I spent time after the concert talking to  performers.  As I was leaving, I ran into VV who was just coming in.  She had missed the concert, was only there to accompany a friend who’s a cellist on a cello errand, and was not expecting to see me.

We hugged, astonished at the “chance” meeting.  I said that I had heard the Rachmanioff Vocalise that morning, and now I was seeing her in actuality.

I introduced VV to the organizer/founder of this musical salon event, MB.

Perhaps there will be an audition.  At least MB and VV have met through fortuitous circumstances.  VV shared with me her new YouTube performance, which I have just checked out.  Go listen.  There are two.  Both are solo viola, amazing and ethereal.

Posted in Synchronicity | No Comments »

I’m noticing that when my blog on synchronicities is first discovered, often the initial comment has to do with orange.   Orange and the transition from orange to green have been written about in my early blog posts–as I noticed the luminosity of orange over time–and it continues to fascinate new readers.  I am not entirely sure why, but it happens enough so that I might call references to orange an ongoing synchronicity.  Others who are new seem to resonate to this color.  Perhaps orange is comforting, flexible, or in tune with themselves in some way.    A colleague in qualitative research said that she read all the posts on orange.  So did another, who said she felt as if she was in an orange state of mind over the past few months.  A new reader on Twitter talks about living in the State of Orange and feeling centered.  So, I dedicate this post to orange.  Again, orange…here are a series of new photographs and commentary on this archetypal color.

This photo is from the current exhibition at MOMA/Museum of Modern Art, called Talk to Me; it features the interaction between objects and communication, a new iteration on art in the digital age.

Orange represents the spirit of divine joy, emotional connections, deep and important relationships, the spiritual path, and the journey from material to higher levels of transcendance.

Orange is a color of the second chakra on development of autonomy and one’s style of the primary formation of relationships.   The sense of self-worthy, judgment, and gender identification is part of the original second chakra phase of childhood, i.e., the toddler time.  However, appearance of or interest in orange in adult life may herald the reworking of some of these choices made early in life.    When there are transitions afoot that cause grief, sorrow, or new way of being, orange comes into play as a signal of deepening one’s spiritual understanding through changes or alienation from how life once was.  Orange can be desperation reviewed and reseen in the new light of alchemical transformation.

Frieda Kahlo was the Mexican artist who studied herself and her feelings through multiple self-portraits.  Below is one that called to me from the MOMA permanent collection in NYC.

Orange is the power of the collective consciousness.  I am reminded of John Lennon’s philosophy, a quote on which I hung as a sign at a recent consciousness party that emphasized the music and mantras for breaking of obstacles and granting of wishes (Ganesh Chaturthi celebration):  ”A dream you dream alone is only a dream.  A dream you dream together is reality!

Orange represents the attributes of adaptability, flexibility, processing information at the speed of light, intelligence, the ability to quickly take advantage of an opportunity, a mirroring of the truth of inner thoughts, strength over matter, curiosity, flitting from idea to idea, humor, and vitality.

Below, a surrealist painting by, I think, Max Ernst or Yves Tanguay, created in the 1930s.  It is from MOMA’s permanent collection.

Linked with the earth element, orange lets us feel compassion for all, able to hold space and listen to others express themselves, and honor all life while we honor ourselves.   Above is The Hierophant or Guide, i.e., the Tarot card that represents Taurus, fixed earth.  Like the Autumn time that teaches us that winter is coming and to store up the harvest for the time of silence and cold, this is the teacher, the one who guides us in sacred ways, the archetype of counsellor, and the initiator into new levels of understanding.

Posted in Synchronicities from readers writing in, Synchronicity | No Comments »