Synchronicity Story: Disguised Blessings

“There are no mistakes, no coincidences,
all events are blessings given to us to learn from.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Disguised Blessings

On retiring one Saturday night, I planned going to Trader Joe’s first thing in the morning, for bananas and other needed provisions. But I was unexpectedly delayed for over two hours.

From 6:30 to 9:30 I experienced recurrence of traumatic post-colonoscopy diarrheal episodes. Finally, by 10 a.m., I was pooped out and showered and ready to go to Trader Joe’s. But when I got into my garaged Prius, the battery was dead. Almost another hour passed before AAA had responded to my emergency call and jumped the Prius’ battery to get me going. But instead of heading straight to Trader Joe’s, I needed first to drive for twenty minutes to recharge the battery. So, I finally arrived at TJ’s a couple of hours later than planned.

There I discovered that two important items on my shopping list – gluten-free rice bread and blackberries (which are anti-diarrheal) – were not on the shelf. Disappointed, I was about to check out empty carted when a smiling TJ employee offered to look in the stock room for the missing items. So, instead of checking out, I waited for longer than expected.

While I was waiting, a special friend from my Aquatic Beach kook group appeared in the store. It was Hippy Dave, the singing, cycling, sadhu who is one of the most extraordinary people I’ve ever met. (Dave’s birthday is May 8th, horoscopically exactly opposite my November 8 birthdate.) Because of cold and inclement weather at the beach I hadn’t seen Dave for a couple of months.

But there in Trader Joe’s, Dave and I had our usual wonderful synergistic ‘satsang’, greatly recharging our spiritual and psychic batteries. And while we talked the smiling Trader Joe’s man finally emerged from the stock room, triumphantly holding up my non-glutenous bread and anti-diarrheal blackberries.

The diarrhea, the dead battery, and the empty bread and berry shelves, together proved to be consecutive disguised blessings. But for their unexpected sequential occurrence, I wouldn’t have met Sri Dave and enjoyed our great Trader Joe’s satsang. And but for the smiling TJ man, I would have checked out empty carted before Dave’s arrival.

Moral of the story:

Look for the disguised blessing in every experience, especially in every difficult experience.

Hippie Dave and Ron reciting poetry at Aquatic Beach, 10/29/13

To satisfy possible curiosity about Hippie Dave, here is a rare video of him spontaneously reciting from memory one of his many extraordinary poems: