Connectivity and Synchronicity

In the final weeks of 2024, while visiting our daughter in Devon, we went to an event with Susie Ro at St John’s Church in Totnes. I felt at home the minute I walked in. The atmosphere reminded me of West Wales in the seventies, I was back with my tribe, and joy bubbled up and overflowed as I greeted strangers who felt like friends.

The event was ‘in the round’ so we were invited to remove our shoes, and enter the softly-lit church hall, where over a hundred people sat in a semi-circle, on floor cushions or chairs. In the centre was a low altar, covered in candles, flowers, greenery and pictures. Susie told us that eleven years ago they’d celebrated her dad’s life in this very hall, and tonight was a tribute to him. He was a pioneer in the community choir movement, and had taught Susie everything she knew. I was struck by her love and respect for her dad, and thought he must have been a very special man.

The evening was heart-lifting, soul-warming, joyful, inspiring and fun. We sang, we danced, we listened to incredible musicians and I felt fully aligned with every word Susie sang. Her voice is like clear water cascading down a mountain stream, her enthusiasm for life, unity and the power of song is an irresistible force of positivity, and deeply healing. I remember dancing to one song where we just sang ‘Power of Prayer’ over and over and a wave of ecstasy surged around the hall.

Susie spoke about a song book she’s been working on for the past twelve years, and I decided to buy it, and learn some of the songs to share with friends and family. I opened the song book up, and saw Nick Prater’s name at the top of the page. I knew a Nick Prater back in 1969 and, strangely enough, his face had appeared in my mind recently. As I read the page, I saw that Nick was Susie’s dad, and four of his songs were included in the book. Is it possible that the Nick Prater I knew fifty-five years ago was the same Nick Prater that is Susie’s dad I wondered.

That night I googled Nick Prater, but I didn’t recognise the young man who had been so kind to us, and whose twenty-one-year-old-face shone so brightly in my mind.

Smudger and I sailed to Morocco just after our wedding in 1969. We sailed back from Casablanca to Southampton sometime later. We had no idea where we were going to live. On board we met some people from Hampshire and they told us about two friends who were shortly travelling to India. ‘You can stay in Chris and Bobby’s house,’ they said. And, sure enough, we did. Looking back now it seems amazing that Chris and Bobby would leave two strangers in their house for two months, but we were all living day to day in those times, riding this beautiful wave of tribal discovery, of connectivity, of infinite possibilities where everything, and anything seemed possible, and often was.

Me outside our caravan with Chris and Bobby’s son, Peter.

We bought an old gypsy caravan to live in when Chris and Bobby were due back, but we had nowhere to park it, nor did we own a car. Nick’s parents lived in the New Forest, near Brockenhurst, and he arranged for us to site the caravan at the bottom of the garden, in the adjacent field, next to the converted stable where he and his then partner, Annie, were living. As I remembered all this, lying in my daughter’s spare bed, a wave of gratitude to Nick swept through me, and tears filled my eyes thinking of Nick’s kindness, and how precious that time was for us.

The following day my daughter texted Susie’s sister Joy, and asked if her dad ever lived in Brockenhurst. He did! I sobbed when I found out that ‘our’ Nick Prater was actually Susie and Joy’s dad, and that I had unknowingly been at an event held in his honour.

We met Joy and her mum Trish in the Hairy Barista the following day, and spent a wonderful two hours sharing stories about Nick and our lives. Trish told us how she’d met Nick while he was walking around Britain with a donkey and a guitar. I was completely amazed to discover that Nick, Trish AND the donkey had visited us in our first home in Wales, in 1977, when she was pregnant with her son. I had just given birth to our son, and we all had flu, so she said I was very welcoming and friendly, but too ill to be with them so I told them to just ‘do their own thing.’ What amazes me about this is that I have no memory whatsoever of them coming. How do you forget being visited by two people, one who is seven months pregnant, and a donkey? The mind boggles!

The Iris Field Hampshire 1969 left to right: Nick, Victoria, Julian, Josie, Smudger

As I have reflected on re-connecting with Nick and his family I am filled with a sense of the cyclic, miraculous perfection of life. The magic of synchronicity, which unfailingly puts us in the right place at the right time, at key moments in our lives. I see clearly how the threads we weave as we travel through our days, weeks and years create the most exquisite tapestry, each picture telling a story, each interaction instigating ripples that continue to reverberate throughout space and time, touching lives, reaching hearts and sparking light in infinite unknown patterns.

We humans also have a mycelium of invisible channels connecting us. We sense it when we think of someone and they call or message us, or we bump into them, when we intuitively know a loved one needs support, when we meet someone for the first time, yet sense a deep connection that could span lifetimes. Many of us can sense when a stranger needs a kind word or a smile as soon as we enter a room. Some of us receive wisdom in our dreams, which we know with certainty contains messages we are called to act on.

I have always loved watching the murmuration of starlings, the incredible unfurling patterns they make as they ebb and flow in formation across the skies. Recently I learned that each bird is simply aware of the birds around it, and moves accordingly. And in this way, many move as one. And the result is awe-inspiring.

I’ve realised that we too are like starlings. When we sing together, in choir, kirtan, church, concert or football stadium, we listen to the people around us and attune our voices to harmonise with them, and the sound we make together is sublime, and far greater than the sum of our individual voices. When we dance, we are aware of the people dancing around us, and we harmonise our movements as we flow and undulate around the dance floor. Even a river of people surging along a crowded city street is an example of interconnectedness, each individual aware of the people around them, adjusting their movements as they travel to their destinations.

There is a story in the Atharva Veda, part of the ancient scriptures of India, which I love and think of often— the story of Indra’s Net.

Indra is the Lord of Heaven, and he created a vast net to contain and protect all. At every intersection of this all-encompassing net, he placed an exquisite multi-faceted jewel. Every jewel reflects the light of every other jewel, so the light that radiates from any one jewel is infinite, and each jewel is connected and is an essential part of the whole.

We are all jewels in the infinite net of creation, in this eternally spiralling dance of energy.

With love

Josie