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Field Notes from the Synchronicity-land
While out for a walk this morning, I saw a striped feather on the sidewalk. Back in 2015, when my friend Ophi’s aunt, Oon, was dying of cancer, she told Ophi that she’d use feathers to communicate with her from the other side. Remembering that, I pulled out my phone and sent Ophi a video that opened with the feather.
Though I never met Oon, I heard many stories from Ophi, who, as an astrologer, had a special appreciation for the connection between Aquarius aunties (like Oon) and Sagittarius nieces (like Ophi and her twin sister). Aquarians and Sags have more than a few things in common, especially the need for freedom. I loved hearing Ophi’s stories about how her beloved Oon had influenced her life.
When Ophi found out that I (Aquarius) was close with my niece (Sag), who was then three years old, she would often say, “Every Sag girl needs an Aquarian aunt, you’ll see.” That may be true, and every Aquarian aunt needs a strong, big-hearted Sag niece.
My sister in synchronicity, Ophi has an incredible memory in general, but her ability to recall years-old wink-nods from the universe is truly exceptional. Way back when, we channeled her deceased friend Denise one night (like you do) and had to laugh when Denise guided us to the exact pink winter jacket from the Astor Place Kmart, which she wanted someone to buy for her daughter. Sometimes, Ophi will text when it’s 10:10, which is also Denise’s birthday.
I hadn’t seen Ophi in years until last spring, when I went to visit her at her East Village place. The day prior, I had been invited to read tarot at a PR event for the founder of Hekate Records. In brainstorming how I might connect astrology readings to the event, I fell down a goddess asteroid rabbit hole, temporarily obsessed with Hekate, goddess of magic and liminal spaces, and the stories she might tell in a chart. (She happens to live on my north node in Scorpio and in my house of creativity, so ‘obsessed’ is the right word.) I should not have been surprised, like, at all, to enter Ophi’s garden a day later and discover her sitting there with a Hekate-themed candle, ready to make an offering.
Of course.
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Last week, my friend Dave reminded me it was Groundhog Day. Because Groundhog Day is one of his “top 10 Buddhist films,” he watches it annually. I saw the film when it came out years ago, but remember little beyond the basic premise, Bill Murray is stuck reliving Groundhog Day. In Dave’s telling, Murray’s character eventually realizes the whole point of being here, meaning on Earth: to love and be loved.
They say the universe speaks in threes, and well, this was the third time in the last few days that I’ve been reminded of this sentiment.
On the Friday prior, I’d seen via web analytics that this message from Oon. Before Oon died, Ophi recorded a video of her and this message was excerpted from that video. I had completely forgotten about this message until I re-read it recently. My eyes went straight to a single line: What matters is just knowing that you love people and that they love you—that’s all.
This reminded me instantly of my late friend Dorothee, an incredible and incredibly loving human. The first time I met Dorothee (through her son, who I dated for years in my twenties), I was struck by the depth of love reflected in her eyes. Parts of her life were not easy, and yet somehow, she emerged from extremely difficult experiences with nothing but love pouring out of her eyes.
Dorothee taught me so much about how to love and nurture. For her, love was in the details, in what she noticed, in how the love she embodied was steady and constant, never in doubt. I felt her love consistently through all kinds of challenging phases, including anxiety, depression, immaturity. She was safe and nonjudgemental, the maternal figure I absolutely needed.
A fellow Aquarius, she was also hilarious. Though she looked very elegant with her well-coiffed hair, she could be delightfully edgy at times. We shared so many belly laughs together over the years.
One of my favorite stories: As an eighth grade English teacher at an all-girls Catholic school, she once listened to a student read a personal story about her parents’ divorce and how painful her father’s absence was. Unsure of how to respond, the other students looked to Dorothee, who sighed and said simply, “Life can be really shitty sometimes.” The class was stunned to hear her swear, so she broke the tension by adding, “And it’s going to get a lot shittier if you tell your parents I swore.”
The first Christmas I spent with their family, she bought a bunch of horrid-looking fake teeth and asked me to wear a set when we went for Christmas Eve dinner at her cousin’s house out in Virginia, a former girls’ finishing school. I hadn’t met this cousin or her family. When her cousin opened the door, she greeted me with open arms until I smiled. Dorothee got a huge kick out of her cousin’s confused expression. We all did.
After years of sharing the joys of everyday life, Dorothee’s son and I parted ways, and that made it harder for us to stay in touch but nothing could change those formative years, which were golden.
I thought of Dorothee a lot over the summer of 2019, when I had a massive personal reckoning. Things I’d long denied became undeniable. Despite fearing this inevitable moment, I felt buoyed by gratitude and what I now understood through a retrospective lens—even in the darkest hours, there was plenty of light. In so many ways, I had always been supported, guided, and loved.
I can’t tell you how many times Dorothee crossed my mind that summer. Their whole family had provided a real shelter during a wobbly time in my life, which I did not fully recognize or appreciate at the time. I kept thinking, I need to reach out to her. But I never followed through.
That fall, I met with my friend Sarah, who edited Much to Your Chagrin, and told her about these recent reckonings and how I was determined to tell this story in book form. After lunch, I felt happy and motivated, but most of all, I felt free.
I was crossing Sixth Avenue, when Dorothee came suddenly to mind. I saw her face so clearly. A thought materialized, If Dorothee could have gone through what she went through and come out with her big heart intact, living a good life full of love, then so can I. She had always been a role model, and so the thought, while random, didn’t seem that weird.
When I got home later, I opened up Facebook and was stunned to see that her son had posted a remembrance. Dorothee died that afternoon, right around the time I had that out-of-the-blue thought about her.
Not only did I see this as her parting message to me, but I also believe now that she did feel and know how grateful I was (and am) to her. When we’re talking about what truly matters, like love and gratitude, some things have a life force of their own.
Dorothee wrote her obituary in advance of her death. One line stood out to me: To love and be loved is the whole meaning of life. Everything else is just a small thing to be gotten past so one can get on with those two big things.
It’s striking to me, the similarities between what Oon said, what Dorothee wrote, and what Dave underscored.
“To love and be loved”—what does that mean?
Well, it’s not always for the faint of heart, as some kinds of love call for strength, for going against the grain, for standing up for dignity for all, including and especially children, our future. In the words of the late, great James Baldwin, “The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe.”
Before Oon’s message resurfaced and started this chain of remembrances, I found myself setting an intention to see love everywhere, and I meant everywhere.
When my cousin Karen was in the last weeks of her life, I had set a similar intention. I felt helpless and alone in seeing where things were heading, but after this intention, somehow, later that night, I found myself flooded with an ecstasy that can only be described as divine. I know this sounds really odd. Most days, I was in an exhausted caregiver’s panic, knowing the worst was coming and fearing the inevitable heartbreaks, plural. Yet this one night, when I should have been asleep, I stayed up and soaked in every second of this otherworldly feeling. In the midst of an unfolding tragedy, I felt wrapped in pure love.
When Karen died, she died with a smile on her face. I have to believe she was surrounded by the holy hidden heart of whatever this grand mystery is. I believe I felt what I felt that night because of my proximity to her journey, as witness.
There are so many things we don’t have answers for, so much that makes zero sense, and also so much that is out of our control. Where we focus our energy and attention, however, is not. And in asking to see love where things feel hard, painful, impossible and even unconscionable, is no small ask. But that type of ask can help us surrender what we cannot control so that we have more energy for what we can.
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Because today is Dorothee’s birthday, I fully intended after my walk to share some memories of her here, plus the story of her parting thought, conveyed via spirit. But when I was nearly home, I received a message from Ophi, who was so moved because it is also Oon’s birthday. I must have known that but hey, chemo brain is real. I did not remember that when I saw the feather.
In 2022, when my friend Suzanne was in active dying and semi-conscious, her friend heard her saying, “Hi, hi…my name is Suzanne. So nice to meet you!” which gave him the impression she was making some other-side friendships. The memory of her loss still stings, and also, it’s tinged with this sweetness.
Karen, when she was not quite in active dying, but fast approaching the end of her life, said to me, “I saw my team on the other side and it’s real, Suzie. It’s really real.” So two things: 1) that was not a Karen-like thing to say; though witchy in her own way, she mostly kept her sharp sixth sense to herself; and 2) when she told me she had a “team” on the other side, I imagined her lining up for a corporate orientation, which made me laugh. Wait, they have HR in heaven?! If that is the case, then of course Karen, ever a connector of people, ever helpful, had stumbled upon it.
I love these stories. I’m far from alone in having them. Laura Lynne Jackson talks about this phenomenon in her wonderful book, Signs. One day last year, I found myself telling a client one of my favorite stories from this book, about two grieving moms whose deceased sons met in heaven and came up with a plan to have their moms connect. The client’s situation had nothing to do with grief or loss but the story came up as a reminder: Do we really know what the hell is going on upstairs? Nope. Leave room for what we don’t know (and that is a lot). Leave room for grace, connection, and maybe a little whimsy. What we don’t know could be awe-inspiring. What the delight of a striped feather might could open.
Later that night, my cousin invited me to see a medium perform in front of a group. I was wary of walking into a room with such big emotion in my vulnerable state, but from the start, I really liked the medium. He was caring, funny, and genuine. On a break, he pulled me aside and said, “Are you a healer?” I said I was. He said, “I thought so. What I get when I look in your direction is encouragement and love. Thank you.”
I was surprised. I didn’t realize I was doing anything, except enjoying the break from chemo. I told him that I was in the midst of treatment and happy to be getting by. “I’d say you have a thousand souls at your back but actually, it’s more like the whole universe,” he said. Keep going is what I heard, which is exactly what I needed.
I thought maybe that heartfelt exchange was the gift of the night until in the second portion of his program, when two moms who were sitting next to one another, yet did not know one another, each shared their stories. Each had a child who died from a drug overdose and at the same age. Their daughters’ names even rhymed, something like Letty and Betty. You can’t write this stuff.
Everyone in the room was stunned. It then seemed uncanny beyond comprehension when I remembered telling the story of two grieving moms who deceased children arranged for them to strike up a friendship in this weird landscape of life after loss, just earlier that day.
There is more than HR in heaven, that’s my best guess. And “there” is closer than we think. Sometimes, we get glimpses, like today, when I learned (or was reminded) that it was Oon’s birthday, too. Oon and Dorothee share more than a birthday. They share typical Aquarian traits of light hair and expressive blue eyes. And each, at the end of her life, made a point to leave some gems for the rest of us. Some higher love.
To love and be loved is the whole meaning of life. Everything else is just a small thing to be gotten past so one can get on with those two big things.
May you feel the power of love-in-action in new and unexpected ways, whatever suits your soul’s fancy.
Love always and always love.
❤️