Saturday, January 03, 2009
A good friend tells me of “morphic resonance” – I won’t explain it as he does (he’s an intellectual), but you’ll get the idea.
For instance, he says, let’s say you’re walking along, and spot a rubber band on the ground. You pick it up, but not after making a conscious decision – not, “Hey, I might need that.” No, you just pick it up and put it in your pocket.
And sure enough, he explains, in a short time, you encounter a situation that requires a rubber band. And you have one.
Morphic resonance.
He told me of this little concept a month or so ago, and I’ve been eager to investigate the phenomenon… which might be a bit tricky, since it seems key to not engage with the object you find, you just pick it up with no agenda or expectation.
Today, just as I was leaving to go work on an outdoor project for a client in my neighborhood, I went into my office and fetched a piece of paper. I thought it was an obsolete printed document from a stash of scrap paper, but it was a virgin sheet of 8 ½ x 11. I folded it in quarters and put it in my pocket.
Not long after, I was working away, and hear, down the hill, my friend – who happens to live next door to the client for whom I was working – calls out and asks if I can help him pick up some furniture from a friend here in town.
I walked down the hill and into his house.
He needed to write a note, but couldn’t find a piece of scratch paper. I had one in my pocket, so I gave it to him. He tore off a quarter of it and handed me the rest.
We got the furniture; a bit later, I headed down at his house for hot tea, but wrote a note for my client, telling her I would be back in half an hour to discuss the project, and tucked it in the window of my truck. Then I headed down the hill.
During our brief visit, my friend was telling me about a Bob Dylan tune he thought I should know, and wanted to write the title down. He remembered that I had the paper.
Now I had a quarter of it left.
When I left my friend’s house, his wife offered me a cookie, a gluten-free Pfeffernuss (don’t laugh, it was a killer cookie). She wanted to roll it in the confectioner’s sugar, and after doing so, said, “Oh, now I need a napkin to put it on for you, so you can take it away.”
“No problem,” I said, and whipped out the last of the paper.
I had used it all, and without planning it.
Morphic resonance.