Synchrony
Moving with Nature's Order
Introduction
After a 17-and-a-half-month adventure of reflective writing on Substack, I am shifting the course of my work. In a beautiful synchrony of events, I reached the bottom of my archive of Minute Motivators a few weeks after I was told, by someone I respect, that I have the perfect podcast voice. Thus I begin a new series, published via my newsletter and via podcast. Welcome to Mystery’s Voice by Dr. Mac!
My Mysterious Mind
I’ve been told I think too much. According to one personality test, thinking is one of my favorite hobbies. My deeply intellectual default mode is fueled by strong emotions. In the early days of a developing friendship I gave a warning: I am complex. Undaunted, my new friend agreed to take the risk to understand the meaning of my warning.
As a professor of psychology and education, my mind is rich with theories and insights for living and learning. Four decades of teaching and applying the research of other experts, I have developed a unique perspective. From this repository of great thinkers, now archived in my mind, I draw insights and advice for others.
My thinking side is well-developed; but I also have strong, complicated feelings. For many people the functions of thinking and feeling are antithetical, i.e., people of the heart are not also people of the mind. To me, fully-functioning humans are both, that is, their minds are active and their emotions are effectively expressed.
I have also been told I have an “old soul.” I live in a spiritual zone that sometimes transcends the ordinary. I don’t take any credit for being this way; I am not asserting my superiority. If anything, I am verifying my oddness. I experience life in unusual ways. Since childhood, I have seemed different, weird even.
And I know innumerable words. Reading was my childhood hobby, including the encyclopedia. As a child, not only was I a bit bizarre, I was also sometimes called “the dictionary.” As an adult, critiquing dissertations brought abundant vocabulary into my arsenal of words. I love words.
My writing is fueled by emotion and intellect, informed by spiritual sensitivity, and equipped by a vast repository of words. In this first section of Mystery’s Voice, I embrace my complexity, and share with you some of what is happening in My Mysterious Mind. As I begin this new adventure I want to live in synchrony with myself. Being complex is who I am.
Message from Mystery Acres
In the spring of 2019, my husband and I purchased 17-and-a-half acres of undeveloped forest in a rural county of Missouri. After having visited many other pieces of land for possible purchase, this rough strip of wildness called to me. In some mysterious way I felt connected to it, as though I was meant to “own” it.
Every visit revealed something I hadn’t noticed or known before. There were strange rocks, shaped trees, and eruptions of wildflowers. Prehistoric stone tools chinked beneath my feet as I walked along the dry bottom of the wet-weather creek. Peculiar mushrooms emerged randomly, some that looked like dinner rolls strewn along the path.
Referring to this land as “our property” didn’t seem sufficient or fitting. Yes, we had purchased it, but we were, in reality, just the current caretakers. Generations prior to us, the land had been loved by native people, most likely the Osage. No matter how deeply restless or out-of-sorts I felt when arriving for a visit, my spirit, mind, and heart were quieted. The forest settled me, the flowers greeted me, the land grounded me. My complexity made sense here, and became, somehow, not complex at all. Such a mystery!
Thus, I named this sanctuary of nature Mystery Acres. In the second section of Mystery’s Voice, I will share lessons from this enigmatic place. During a recent visit, I pondered how to start writing about what I learned from Mystery Acres. Sitting in my lawn chair, feeling the air move through the forest, watching evening peacefully descend, I felt a profound sense of synchrony. In the forest, everything happens exactly when it is supposed to, in an orchestration of perfect order. Mystery Acres speaks, and its voice calls for synchrony. Not too fast. Not too slow. Gentle and synchronous. Oh, to live in synchrony like the forest!
Ancient Mystery’s Voice
In this section of Mystery’s Voice, I will weave in a bit of ancient text, listening for Ancient Mystery’s Voice. These excerpts will often be drawn from biblical scripture, written by those whose journeys took place at least two thousand years before ours. As I listen to my mysterious mind, and the voice of the forest, I include words scribed by our ancestors as they recorded what they heard the Ancient Mystery say to them. As I ponder synchrony, meaningful text is preserved in the earliest biblical book, the book of Genesis.
In the spring of 2020, when asynchrony captured the world, when days were strangely numbered by “shutdowns” and exposures to other humans by “quarantines,” synchrony continued in the ancient order of the planet. I discovered a verse from the first book of the Bible, which says: “As long as the earth remains, seed-planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, will never stop.” (see Genesis 8: 22)
There, in the voice of ancient mystery, was the voice of synchrony. Seasons would arrive and leave as they always had. Day and night would continue their daily dance. I photographed every sunset for the first thirty days of the pandemic shutdown. There it was each day: the sun was setting again, right on schedule!
COVID is no longer dictating the pattern of our lives, but recent, global events have disrupted our sense of order. In the midst of the senseless chaos, the voice of ancient mystery calmly calls. The synchrony of the days and the seasons continues.
Living in Mystery
Pondering mystery is one thing; applying the lessons of such reflection is another. In the Living in Mystery section of Mystery’s Voice, I explore how to live more fully. Here, I will use the messages of the forest and the voice of ancient text. If mystery’s voice is calling to us, through me, what is it calling us to do? How is it calling us to live?
Synchrony. The forest functions in perfect synchrony, following an order established for thousands of years. Day and night take perfect turns with each other. Seasons enter and fade away each year, always in the same order. What would it mean to live in synchrony like nature?
To understand synchronous living, we should consider what living “out of synch” might mean. When something is asynchronous, its various aspects are happening at differing times. For online education, for example, asynchronous instruction allows students to participate in class whenever they choose. At no point are all of the students “in class” or online simultaneously. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but the sense of community and camaraderie is more difficult to develop when students are “out of synch” with each other. Asynchronous learning also puts the learners “out of synch” with their teacher.
When I think of asynchrony, a piece of Confucian wisdom comes to mind: “Wise man eat when hungry, sleep when tired.” Survivors in our modern jungle often do the opposite, eating when tired, and refusing to eat before resting, insisting food turns into fat at night. Similarly, the proliferation of caffeine stations is a clear indicator of modern jungle survivors who caffeinate rather than rest.
Drawing from these examples of asynchrony, living in synchrony would mean living in rhythm with self and connection with others, resting when tired and eating when hungry. Too simple? Perhaps. But it appears to be elusively difficult for modern jungle survivors. Rushing about, caffeine in hand, with faces magnetized to tiny screens, mystery’s voice of synchrony is unheeded, if even heard.
Listening to the voice of synchrony, we might notice our bodies need rest, not caffeine. Going to bed hungry would sound foolish because quality sleep is disrupted by pangs of hunger. The voice of synchrony might waft a gentle, reminding breeze to notice the person next to you, demagnetizing your face from the screen on your phone.
The voice of synchrony also calls us to be true to who we were designed to be. The trees never try to be anything other than trees. The earth rotates and revolves to create the synchrony of the days and seasons. There is a little bat, a resident of Mystery Acres, who comes out at dusk to hunt for bugs, because that’s the synchrony of being a bat.
As an old mom to young parents, how does asynchrony undermine the cohesion of your family? How might synchrony order the tempo and timing of your days with children? What schedule adjustments might reduce asynchrony and better align the daily patterns of yours and your children’s lives?
For me, my synchrony is to be complex, to free the flow of words from me, pushed by thought, spirit, and emotion. It’s who I am, and what I do flows forth in synchrony.
Who are you designed to be? What part of your life is out of synch? Do you need more rest and less caffeine? Do you need more synchrony with the people in your forest? Mystery’s voice calls to you: Live a life of synchrony. Move with nature’s order.
Connecting with Mystery
In the closing section of Mystery’s Voice, I offer a brief meditation or prayer. This contemplation is offered to help you live the message given by the voice of mystery.
Dear Lord of All Mystery, thank You for the comforting pattern of day and night, cold and heat, winter and summer. Show me the asynchronous patterns of my life and how to bring greater synchrony for myself and the people I love. Help me hear the voice of nature calling for beautiful order, demonstrating the restful rhythm of days and seasons. Thank You for helping me to respond to the voice of synchrony. Amen.
Notes from Dr. Mac
If you want to do your own investigation of any of the scriptures I use, I suggest you go to Bible Gateway. This free online version of the Bible allows a search of words or phrases in various traditional and modern translations. Within the bible, the third chapter of Ecclesiastes offers ancient wisdom for timing in life, bringing synchrony into life’s various seasons.
My special thanks go to Professor Horton for his encouragement and expertise to launch a podcast. And thank you, Jan for walking with me and for working with your son-in-law to record the song given to me by the forest. You, and all my readers, can find the podcast version of this newsletter here.
You can find previous posts of The Adventure of Reflection in my ARCHIVE. You can find the first 64 issues in an organized compilation at Reflective Adventures: Volume One.
You can email me at: Dear Dr. Mac or through the Substack App. You can also offer comments or affirmation (aka “Likes”). I love to hear from you!
