Coincidence: Light, When Paths Cross

Photo: "Masked" by Athines (stock photo purchase)

"Metaphysics, or the attempt to conceive the world as a whole by means of thought, has been developed, from the first, by the union and conflict of two very different human impulses, the one urging men towards mysticism, the other urging them towards science." (Bertrand Russell, 2008).

In Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays, Bertrand Russell explores intuition, coincidence, and related sensations from the point of logic (science) and from mystical sensations. Of course, there is no satisfactory conclusion. However, along with logic, the subjective nature of these experiences needs further consideration; for example, statistical theory supports the idea that coincidences can be explained by the Law of Truly Large Numbers. In other words, in large populations any weird event is likely to happen. Likewise, there are no coincidences, just random events. Part of me believes that both theories hold some truth. What's more, I am interested in the possibility that there are no coincidences may sometimes mean that the universe has a divine plan for us, which includes these seemingly random, curious, and intriguing occurrences. That is, we are meant to cross paths with a person, at a particular time because of the meaning this holds for us. Also, there is much to be said about imagining and inventing the future. Perhaps our coincidental experiences hold an element of un/conscious intent. After all, we are intentional actors in our life experiences.

With these questions and curiosities in mind, I embarked on the writing for my fifth book of poetry Coincidence: Light, When Paths Cross. In this collection, I explore coincidence, premonition, and intuition, and related phenomena. As anticipated, no definitive answers to coincidental events were revealed. Instead, my hope is that these poems incite curiosity about these fascinating and distinctly human experiences!

Coincidence: Light, When Paths Cross includes black & white photos by my sister Lisa Bayer, and will be released in September 2018. Please check back for updates on my homepage. In the meantime, here is a poem from the book:

Opening Doors

Walking away from old hurts

leaving tired endings to die

moving toward new beginnings

bravely turning away, as he offered

nothing more, recognizing the delusion

of thinking he ever had ‘been had

closing one door, opening another

Unlocked, set free, she knew

the emptiness in her world

would be replaced with you

near & beside her all along;