There was a vehicle several car lengths behind me, and a truck with a tarp about 50 feet ahead, but no one near me. It was a seriously scary and sudden bang, and so mysterious that I was completely bewildered; I was even more perturbed a minute or so later when I spotted a semicircular crack in almost the exact center of my windshield.
I got to the church where the lecture was being held still in a little bit of shock. I literally didn't know what had hit me and was now facing a windshield repair, so I was feeling pretty cross -- not to mention rattled -- when I left my car and walked down the street. Once I got inside and sat down (safe for the time being from falling objects), I felt a little calmer and better able to reflect. It seemed highly coincidental to have such an experience on the way to a talk about Jung, who said so much about synchronicity and the way outer events sometimes reflect inner reality.
Jung once defined God as "the name by which I designate all things which cross my willful path violently and recklessly, all things which upset my subjective views, plans and intentions and change the course of my life for better or worse." Whatever cracked my windshield certainly had some of those qualities.
Our speaker, Richard Sweeney, talked about Jung's research into medieval alchemy and his interest in the way its processes mirrored the psychological processes of individuation. There are fancy names for these stages, including calcinatio (burning), coagulatio (hardening), and separatio (separating). Of all the processes, the one that seemed to resonate most for me was coagulatio, which has to do with getting down to earth and solidifying what has been overly conceptual or ephemeral. This stage evokes images of rocks, stones, and other solid things, such as mysterious objects that might smash into your windshield while you're driving.
According to Dr. Sweeney, coagulatio eventually leads to another stage, mortificatio (killing or destroying), in which the ego or one of its attitudes is defeated by the Self, which always persists in pushing us in the direction we need to go. The idea is that something that's holding us back, an attitude or belief that we cling to, may have to die before we can move ahead. I'm sure there are many ways in which this is true for me, and maybe the weeks and months ahead will reveal why I needed to be brained by falling rocks to realize it.
Whatever the real explanation for the incident, there's definitely a lot the imagination (my imagination, anyway) can do with a bolt from the blue. Debris from the road that somehow bounced up and smacked my glass? Possibly, but kind of boring. A tiny chunk of ice from a passing plane? Oww! The hammer of the gods? OK, they have my attention. Dust from a falling star that I once wished on, finally come to earth to find me? I like that one, but I have to say I somehow imagined stardust to be a little lighter and more delicate.
I'm just glad I don't have a sunroof.
When You Wish Upon a Star (Louis Armstrong version)
