Synchronicity, The Police

I'm reading about Sasha Shulgin, this guy who resynthesizes MDMA in the 60s—a chemical that reveals what’s inside, he says—in this book about the worlds beyond our minds unlocked by psychedelics (Pinchbeck 2002). Pinchbeck leaves me thinking about just yesterday, laughing with someone about their spontaneous want for 2CB for this concert this weekend. I wonder why they don’t more simply find molly, then about my first and last time around 2CB, that bright pink gelatinous powder and its sweet trippy slow weirdness at a rave with someone I ran into (when their friend ran over my bike) months before, thousands of miles away, discovering synchronous travel plans. There was a sunrise, then a going home alone without a phone in a foreign country (chef’s kiss). Emerging from this thought, I’m on the next page where Pinchbeck introduces 2CB, a drug among many of Shulgin’s suspects. [For Shulgin, it was important that we experiment with our own brain and nervous system, viewing drugs as a tool—a telescope—for doing so. For me, one way or another, it makes sense to work with our own soul rather than another’s (one way or another); one’s resource of deepest consent. There, perhaps is found the counterintuitive clarity for likeness, the responsibilities we share with each other and the planet (a cliche for everyone but the individualists).] & This perfect synchronicity with Pinchbeck makes me blush (that redundant word, perfect). Did I just read his mind or did he render mine? Synchronicity: What Jung thinks of as the unity between matter and psyche. (When something in your “private” mind coordinates with the outer world; like, so goes the running example, you’re thinking of someone and they message you). Here, I feel connected, complete... the present pulls through me, wandering—is it always like this—and I laugh, I smile. The I Ching teaches an all-containing continuum. An hour later I’m walking the long way to the train. I smile in sudden reflection of the moment foretold, what a funny coincidence, and look up to a license plate ending in “2CB.” And again I laugh, I smile. This is why I love the long way, and I carry on this way walking. As the joy tapers away, replaced with lost in thought again: its reemergence, “what a funny coincidence,” to which another license plate responds, “2CB." No way, again? Wouldn't it be crazy if it happened again. This time a small motorcycle plate: “2C,” she says, no B, like a wink within a wink. And I’m enamored laughing, thinking, “wow, she really does have a sense of humor.” 

Giggling …. oh shit, 
shudders 

Is the  
meaning
really 
meaningless
meaninglessness

something fucking silly? 

On Vonnegut’s Sirens of Titan: someone tells me it’s about how everything is meaningless, and I could’ve sworn it was that everything happens with a reason. 

maybe making for the meaning is missing the message 
Like 
I’ve been told so 
many times before 
Like,
“You can do it like it's a great weight on you, or you can do it like it's part of the dance” (Ram Dass) 
Like, 
“The light reveals the path, not the lantern” (Yogi tea bag) 
Like,
“You do not ask of what is the value, or what is the use, of this feeling. Of what use is the universe? What is the practical application of a million galaxies?” (Alan Watts) 
Like, 
“The medium is the message” (Marshall McLuhan) 

111, back to square one. 

Then someone tells me about the Miracles 
Have you heard about the Miracles 
About how you can just sorta 
*shift* 
from fear to love 
that this is in itself an expression of love 
The full awareness of love’s presence in one’s life 
as “you were created by love like itself”  
About how this is a miracle 
The miracle 

& what love does not create does not exist 
Has nothing to do with reality 
It is of your own making 
In fear, ego 
And that is meaningless 

the miracle means 
that meaninglessness 
is impossible 

It says
How is it possible for anything to exist if love does not create it?
Love, the source of all that’s real 
From its mind to mine

So miracles are thoughts 
Now trust you will be told 
all that you need to know 
Just as you need to know 

It says
“Why should I continue to suffer from the effects of my
own insane thoughts, when the perfection of creation is my home?” 

It says 
remember the power of your decision 

That this is what it means 
to be meaningful 

And it’s so disastrous 
I’m tempted to tip into tears 
yes make it about I, me 

Instead it radiates
From within and all around
So this is love
unconditional love. 

…… 

Weeks later I think about finishing this story while walking the upper east side. I pass a building covered in branding—CB2, CB2, CB2, CB2, CB2, CB2—& I take a picture in happiness, disbelief. Minutes later someone asks if I want to buy some 2CB, though I’ve never been offered drugs on the streets of New York before. 

And sometimes I think I’m going crazy, 
sometimes I think I just might. 



References

Pinchbeck, D. (2002). Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism. (recommended)

von Franz, M.L. (1986). Number and Time: Reflections Leading Toward a Unification of Depth Psychology and Physics.

Schucman, H. (1975). A Course in Miracles.