The Cynnergist

Hello and welcome to The Cynnergist. Let me introduce myself and my blog to all of you who’ve stumbled upon this crazy journey I’m taking! You might be thinking, ‘What is a Cynnergist?, is that even a word?’ Well, you’d be right in asking that – The term ‘Cynnergist’ is a play on two words: both my first name – Cynthia – and a concept I’m fascinated with, which I’ll explore in this blog over time, and that’s the concept of synergy. I’ll explain the term and my spin on it, as a way to live an integrated – and hopefully happier – life.

Synergistic living is not a new term, nor is the term synergy itself. The latter is a buzz word used in business circles – ‘we need to achieve better synergies in our projects’, etc. It’s broadly meant to convey the need to leverage existing resources in order to provide a cost-effective outcome. The word ’synergy’ means the effect of different components combined to create a whole greater than the sum of the components themselves. It’s the classic ‘whole greater than the sum’ metaphor. Lately, people have begun to see the benefits of this term to suggest a way of cohabiting with Nature and with living in balance. But these views tend to see the person as one component being synergised with another component. My view of synergy is somewhat different.

I believe that each person, each human on the planet is a synergy unto himself, that within each person are components which combine to define the person – his ideals, goals, relationships, accomplishments, wisdom gained from failures – and that one’s quality of life is an indicator of how well those components are cooperating synergistically.

Again, this is not new stuff. What I via this blog will attempt to do is to put my own spin on this concept, filtering through my own perceptions and experiences, and with my own metaphor of how to achieve inner synergy.

The epic mythologist Joseph Campbell came up with a splendid take on how people can recognise the light inside themselves and the light of the Eternal Spirit, and whether differentiation is necessary. If you took a string of lights, so his metaphor went, and plugged them into an electrical socket, the electrical charge would enable each bulb via its internal mechanism to produce light. The bulb’s inner construct is just as important to manifest light as is the electrical charge – without them both, a particular bulb may not function as expected. Campbell went on to ask if people represented the bulbs, or the electrical charge: “Am I the bulb that carries the light,” said Campbell, “or am I the light of which the bulb is a vehicle?”

It’s a brilliant starting point for looking at synergy, because I believe each person is both the bulb and the light, and it’s the quality of the bulb’s internal mechanism which determines how brightly the light shines within it. That quality can be enhanced or diminished via the quality of synergy in your life.

Earlier I mentioned components creating synergy. This seems like a good place to tell you a bit more about myself: I’ve been a banking professional for the last 20+ years, a student of the Tarot for 10, a Reiki practitioner for 9, and a sustainability proponent for 4. These separate yet seemingly opposing interests have been fundamental in shaping my views and insight into how the world works. Through these experiences and the wisdom acquired from them, I’ve arrived at a place where I feel most comfortable expressing the world in the context of Nature. Nature manifests Light in so many ways that cannot be catalogued here. But if you’ve ever walked in a park, surrounded by trees, with the sun beaming down on your face, feeling soft, growing grass between your toes while the wind caresses your arms, or walking down a beach looking at a sunset while the rush of waves break off to meet you in saying hello, then you get what I mean. To me, Nature is Synergy in Motion. In particular, the context of the Four Elements, and their metaphorical correspondences, can help me begin expressing my understanding of synergy to you:

Air:
Air is associated with mental activities, such as rational thought, logic, intellectual pursuits, mental strategies.
Earth:
Earth is about material possessions, concretising ideas in the real world – it’s one thing to talk about having a business, it’s another to actually take it from idea to reality. So money matters and physical security are key points here.
Fire:
Well, not hard to guess this one passion, initiative, creativity, enterprise – this element is most likely highly developed in the entrepreneur, but is necessary for all of us.
Water:
This is the element of the emotions…Sensuality, love, relationships of all kinds – friendships, family, romantic, even business colleagues

These elements, working in cooperation, contribute to creating the Fifth Element, which is referred to as Spirit in many belief systems. This 5th Element is you in totality, it’s the Light coming through the Bulb, housing the 4 Elements working together as equally important components. Each element needs to be fully engaged in order to allow the Light to manifest itself as brightly as possible. If any component is defective or not as developed as it could be, or is even overdeveloped, then this will contribute to the quality of light manifesting itself within the bulb – in other words, a ‘dimming’ effect (in the case of underdevelopment), ’shorting out’ (in the case of over-development in either one or more components at the cost of the others), when the goal should be a consistently shimmering brightness indicating your Soul’s full potential.

In future blog entries, I’ll talk about each elemental component, how it relates to everyday life, to include a description of what I call an ‘Elemental Trap’ – where one element may take over in everyday life how to spot them before they start dimming your potentiality, and how to enhance the combination of them all.