Excerpt from "Synchronicity" by J.E. Spring

(Wherein my name change is explained as well....!)

Continued excerpt from "Synchronicity" by J.E. Spring on Amazon. HERE:

"I took another deep breath and lowered my voice to a rational level. “And after that she led the match girls in a strike in London that changed everything for them—they were being poisoned by match chemicals, working 10 hours a day for a pittance!”

Mother sighed but made no comment. I wrapped my hands, tightening my grip, around the chipped coffee mug I had long ago made for her. She poured me more coffee, raised her eyelids, and sighed again. “Life is cruel, but what can we do? Were you reading all night? That’s not good for you honey, and now you’ve got to go back and leave me here alone, again.” She looked me straight in the eyes on that one.

I felt the usual twang of guilt, but this time it was layered with a hopeless anger that we would never connect. Mother always felt abandoned when I left her home in Connecticut for Rhode Island. I touched her hand and said: “Mom, you know I always come back.” I comforted myself by remembering that even my new heroine, Annie, had mother problems too.

Returning home to Newport, I made straight away for the Redwood Library on Bellevue Avenue. Here in this private old library there must be some dusty volume on the life of Annie Besant. I inquired; there was indeed such a book; the librarian handed me a faded red tome called “The Passionate Pilgrim.”

Opening this hard-covered book I saw that it hadn’t been signed out of the library for over 15 years—but—there on the inside cover of this old book was her astrology chart! I gasped. This was unusual, as astrology wasn’t that popular at the time of the book’s printing in 1931. I had been a professional astrologer for the last 12 years and was shocked to see that Annie was born on Oct. 1st 1847 at 5:39 pm. A shiver ran through me. I was born Oct 1st 1947, at 5:34 pm —the same day, exactly 100 years and 5 minutes apart. We were both Libras with Aries rising, and our charts were similar. Our North and South Nodes were aspecting each other in a way suggesting karmic entanglement.

I poured over Annie’s chart and my own. I’m a professional astrologer who accepts the influences of reincarnation on the chart and the theories of Carl Jung, particularly on synchronicity or “meaningful co-incidences.” As I looked at the charts I noticed there were differences, but many similarities, aside from the fact that we were both Libras. My astrological “niche” is about the North and South Nodes in the birth chart—these are the places where the re-incarnational life story and life lessons interact and this is where I caught my breath again—Annie’s North Node pierced through my Sun like an arrow.

I knew that the North Node guides us to where the Soul wants to go to fulfill its karma in this life while the South Node represents what the Soul yearns to move away from: our old karmic patterns best left behind.

What was most compelling about comparing our charts was that we appeared to have a soul connection regardless of the time we each lived in and regardless of the outer facts of our lives. Annie’s North Node, the direction where the Soul wants to move towards, conjoined or pierced my Libra Sun sign, meaning that something about who I am might echo a soul-wish of hers. It could be as simple as having a simpler more peaceful life, because I have my North Node in the Sign that longs for serenity: Taurus. And her South Node, reflective of the past and past lives, lodged itself right on my Aries Rising Sign, pointing to problems we both have faced, including indignation at social injustices. With Aries Rising there’s a tendency to be a “spiritual warrior.”

And if we want to think bizarre, my Moon, representing something of my maternal and emotional experience, aligns perfectly with Annie’s Pluto, the Lord of the Underworld. Pluto is the planet representing death, rebirth, and “life on the other side.” Maybe it’s not that strange then that I’m trying to reach a woman who’s “on the other side?”

So it was the Nodal aspects of the charts that pointed to something unusual: if I were talking to a client about the comparison of these two charts with these particular aspects, I would tell them that there was a very good chance these two people had some kind of connection via reincarnation. But what that connection was, wasn’t clear. Were these similar life lessons, or was there a previous life connection, or had one Soul actually been born again in the other?

As I read this old book, "The Passionate Pilgrim" I found out that Annie was ¾ Irish, same as me, but she was born in England whereas I was born in New England. Annie was born Annie Wood, and I was born Janet Fenn. In marriage she changed her name from Wood to Besant, and I changed from Fenn to Spring. When I was forty, I took my grandmother’s first name, Elizabeth. I never felt that I was a “Janet”, but I felt close to my grandmother and loved her name, so I changed it—yet surely this wasn’t good daughterly etiquette.

I was a wife and mother like Annie—I was a woman with a strong Irish temperament that came out in passionate “Letters to the Editor” and in marches for Civil Rights and the Equal Rights Amendment. I was not too different from many people of my generation, but Annie was a much more outrageous public woman in her time—she was consistently on the front page of the London Times for her aggravating attacks on British society—how dare she challenge their sex lives with birth control information and their businesses with labor strikes for women? How dare she challenge the morality of the British hold on India, ultimately taking sides with the Indians till she became President of their National Congress? And most outrageous of all, how dare she adopt a sickly Indian boy, Krishnamurti, and raise him to become what the newspapers called him to be—a “Messiah.”

Why had I never heard of this woman who challenged history in England and India? Was her story simply too outrageous for people to follow past her early social reforming years in London? Annie’s life as a radical reformer was understandable, in fact, the British Broadcasting Corporation created a television series on her life that ended with those radical years in England—but they stopped telling the story of her life when she became forty years old! Was the second half of her life neglected or erased because it was too hard for most people to understand? I think so.

My life would change radically when I was around the age of forty, the same age as Annie was when she wrote her memoir; something most people do towards the end of their life, not the middle. But there was a radical break in her life at that point, and in her memoir she began with a reflection on her horoscope and a small digression on the value of astrology. Hm…

***

The day I finished the last page of the old library book I remember staring out the bay window trying to understand why I was so obsessed with Annie and what I could do about it. Harry walked in the back door from the pottery studio. “What’s happening, Sweetie?”

I attempted a smile. He walked over and ruffled my dis-shelved hair which I tried to keep up in a proper bun on top of my head. My dark blond hair was getting too long and yet I loved that old fashioned look, it seemed to fit me. I must have looked very serious. “Come have a glass of wine, honey, you’ve got to put those books away.” "(to be continued)

Excerpt from new book: "Synchronicity" by J.E. Spring on Amazon