I was walking south on Broadway at 86th Street and heard my name. A gentleman I know from church was walking uptown with his Fairway Market bags. I told him he looked wonderful (he did) and he gave the credit to his new acupuncturist. Now, this was interesting because I’d been dealing with tendinitis about the ankles for over a week, and I had said to my husband not thirty minutes prior: “I know a good acupuncturist could take care of this; I just don’t know of one.”

Voila! Somebody good and reasonably priced and easy to get to is presented to me gratis by a charming acquaintance out on a grocery run. I believe this is what Deepak Chopra refers to when he talks about “spontaneous fulfillment of desire.” It’s expressing a need to the
universe, expecting the answer to surface, and being delighted by how seamlessly it appears.

I find that this happens most readily—no, scratch that: I find that this only happens (I’d have underlined that “only” if my Movable Type worked properly and I could underline) when I’m in a light-hearted and expectant frame of mind. Worrying and whining and working too hard nix it. In the current example, I could have said, “I’m so scared that if I don’t find an acupuncturist soon, I’ll get chronic tendinitis and will have to be on drugs and stop going to the gym and taking walks with my husband and feel old and gain weight and be miserable.” Or, “It’s just not fair that people who’ve lived in New York their whole lives have all the good acupuncturists and gynecologists and astrologers and I’m stuck with craigslist, but damn it, I’m going to call every acupuncturist on there, or beat down every door in Chinatown, but I’m gonna make this happen!” But the woe-is-me and the it’s-all-up-to-me would have just worked together in opposition to my highest good. And I doubt that I’d have an appointment for tomorrow afternoon.

I believe there is also the subtle but sure hand of karma at work here. Just this morning I was on the phone with a friend who’s dealing with a health issue and looking for the right holistic medical doctor who has experience with this particular condition. I thought I knew of someone, a physician who was once a guest on my radio show. When I told her his name, she said, “Oh, my God: someone recommended him last week but when I called they said he wasn’t taking any new patients.” I told her I’d write him a note, remind him of the show, and ask if he’d take her on as a professional courtesy.

I have no idea if he will or if he won’t. It’s not as if he and I are close or anything. He might get my note and think, “Some nerve this woman’s got. I met her once, wouldn’t recognize her on the street, and don’t owe her a thing.” Or he might become my friend’s new doctor.

Either way, she needed an MD and I offered my help; I needed and acupuncturist and my grocery-shopping friend offered his. It’s not always this clean and clear and immediate, but universal laws are at work all the time. When we work with them, all we need to worry about is the quality of the magazines in the waiting room.

***Note on previous entry, “Red Rubber Boots”: Someone asked for a picture—well, I can’t add pictures till this program gets fixed or replaced. Then I have to learn how to get pictures from my phone to my computer (I know: pitiful, right?), but see: you’ve inspired me to learn and grow. And as for where I bought them, there are rubber boots in the low-to-mid-priced indie shoe stores all over the city. Since it rains so much and we’re out in it, there is usually a permanent display of them in or near the front window. I got this pair in a little shoe store on Lexington Avenue, east side of the street, between (I’m pretty sure) 54th and 55th (anyway, for East Siders in the market for boots, it’s the block with the small Starbucks on the southeast corner).