I am compelled to note an incident occurring many years ago in the dazzling, sweet veneer of the late 1980’s. It happened whilst I was working for my employer in a spiritual shop called The Mystic Trader. Yep, it sold all things spiritual.

It must be said that the prevailing new age wisdom at the time was that there was a special reason for events in one’s life. If you got a carpark immediately it was because you had positive vibes flowing out from your being. If you didn’t — well you were out of balance and your throat chakra was all closed up. It was all tied in with the Law of Attraction. Which in simple terms states that whatever you focus on is what you pull to you. Fair enough — nothing revolutionary there. For the most part this makes sense, although there is a whole gaggle of hypochondriacs living on this extraordinary planet whom are advancing well into old age (and I am sure they are more than happy to admit that the Law of Attraction has failed them dismally).

In those holistic years of dazzling about and attracting stuff, reasons for events in one’s life desperately needed explanation from those “in the know”. So if you told an enlightened soul about a certain event, then they would offer a sharing — the reason that you smashed your car into the laundromat was that Jupiter was in ascension or you had gluten for breakfast, or that you had some dark thoughts about your neighbour, entertaining the marvellous idea that an alien spacecraft would land in their backyard and gather up the whole family to be taken away to a far off planet never to return.

Anyway back to The Mystic Trader. The shop sold crystals and there was a bunch of them in a glass cabinet. Too many obviously because on this special day the glass shelves came crashing down. My boss, wisened to the latest in new age thought, pointed out that the crash happened likely because he put too many crystals in the cabinet — not because the energy in the shop was dark or that his meridians were out of whack. It happened. That’s it!

Which brings us to a famous little instructive story from the 19th century. The great fortune of Britain at the time was not due to the people being smarter or drinking copious amounts of beer but they ruled over a large chunk of the planet because of: cats. Why cats you may well ask? Well, the British, especially spinsters, loved cats. So there were plenty of them around. The cats loved mice which somehow meant bumblebees got a leg up, which led to increased pollination of clover, which the cows loved, which were fed on by sailors. As a result of this exceptional chain of events the British ruled the oceans becoming the greatest empire the world has ever seen.

All because of cats.

One can see where we are going with this — we can connect things up any which way because everything is connected.

It made sense to me at the time with my studies of ecology where often cause and effect crumble in a sea of information (one may wonder if there is actually any true cause and effect).

An obvious explanation for why the car ended up careering and crushing a few washing machines is that we weren’t paying attention. But why is that? Was it that extra cup of coffee giving us the jingle jangles? Was it Jupiter? We don’t know. It’s a mystery. It may be the cat. It may be our pancreatic enzymes playing up.

Trying to figure out why every event occurs in our lives takes energy. Why did my husband leave me for Bruce our dearest friend? Why on earth did I forget to shut the gate letting the fox into the hen house? Why did I not take the other road? Too many questions and letting your mind run in this way invokes the Law of Distraction. We lose focus on what is important right here, right now.

By overestimating our ability to to explain complex scenarios and events we wring from the unknown the answers already in our minds. That burst of ‘knowing’ releases feel good chemicals in our brains. It’s instinctive, soothing and gratifying. Uncertainty brings anxiety and disquiet so it’s a challenge to “not know”.

We can free our minds by facing uncertainty rather than audaciously finding reasons for things.

Ok, of course we need to focus on certain things and sort them out. That’s a given.

However, freedom in thought is understanding that some things have no explanation at all. While there is a natural randomness woven into the universe, there are patterns we can observe which may or may not be the truth. Self-knowledge is understanding that those patterns, the dynamic energies in the universe we inhabit, are in a constant state of flux.

Let some things be. Let them go. We can all relax in not understanding and embrace the mystery of this wonderful gift of life.