Contents
Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Denise Linn
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
1. How Signs Work
2. How Signs Appear in your Life
3. Calling for a Sign
4. How to Interpret Signs
SIGNPOSTS DICTIONARY
Further Information
Acknowledgements
Copyright
Whether we are conscious of it or not, the universe is communicating to us through signs. Native peoples have always known how to interpret these powerful messages, but with the development of technology and the increasing stress of our modern lives, we have become more and more removed from our connection to the earth and from our inner wisdom. We have lost our ability to decipher the signs that surround us and that appear in our dreams, and we are largely unable to tap in to our innate intuition. Drawing on her Cherokee Indian heritage and her experience with the native tribes of Africa, Australia and New Zealand, international healer Denise Linn helps us to reconnect with the magic of our inner selves so that we may properly interpret these signs and the true meanings of our dreams – and make the right decisions and choices in our lives. Including a comprehensive dictionary of signs and dreams for ease of reference, Signposts is essential reading for anyone who wishes to truly hear the `whispers of the universe'.
Denise Linn’s personal journey began as a result of a near-death experience as a teenager. Her unique experiences at that time set her on a spiritual quest to study the traditions of many cultures including her own Native American heritage. Over the last 25 years she has studied with a Hawaiian kahuna (shaman), Reiki Master Hawayo Takata, a Shiatsu master, a Pueblo Indian medicine man, the Aborigines in the Australian bush, the Zulus in Bophuthatswana, and she has been adopted into a New Zealand Maori tribe. In addition, Denise lived in a Zen Buddhist monastery for over two years.
Denise is an international lecturer, healer and writer. She regularly gives seminars on six continents, appears extensively on television and radio shows throughout the world, and has written seven books, including the bestselling Sacred Space.
With loving gratitude to:
Judith Kendra, my editor, for her thoughtful feedback.
Joseph Winterhawk Martin, Credo Mutwa, Claire Brown,
Ken Colbung, Lily Kauler and Sarah Broadhurst for their contributions to this book.
POCKETFUL OF DREAMS
DREAM LOVER
PAST LIVES, PRESENT DREAMS
SACRED SPACE
QUEST
DESCENDANTS
ALTHOUGH A FULL understanding of how signs work cannot be fully captured within the confines of the written word, it is possible to provide an underlying perception of the dynamics of signs and their corresponding symbolism. Signs capture abstractions of the human condition and create a bridge between the realm of spirit and the realm of form, as well as revealing the connection that exists between seemingly diverse objects. They can also reflect our feelings and reveal our fears. The study of signs spans the ages, therefore signs are best understood in the context of their religious, cultural, historical background and the soil from which they arose, as well as how they operate in your life. Fundamentally signs have two functions. They serve as messengers of important information about your present circumstances and even about your future. They also act as reflections of where you are in your life.
Messenger signs can come on the waft of a candle’s smoke, or the gentle murmur of the wind, or in a dream, or from the thousand swirls of consciousness around you. These kind of signs can give you direct messages from spirit. They can give you guidance about your spiritual development or they can come in the form of a warning regarding future events. They can also give you a deeper understanding of the relationships and situations in your life.
One day when Rick was leaving for work, his front door was jammed. He had to throw his entire weight against it to get it open. Then, as he tried to open the garage door, the opener malfunctioned and he had to open the door manually. As he went to get into his car, the car door lock was obstructed and he had to struggle to get it open. Realizing that the universe was trying to tell him something, he sat in his car in silence for a few minutes. In the stillness, as he tuned in to his intuition, he felt that the signs were telling him not to leave home just at that moment. So he got out of the car and went back inside his house. As he walked around his home, everything seemed in order. However as he entered a basement bathroom, he was aware of a slight smell of smoke. Some bathroom tissues, which were in close proximity to an electric heater, had started to char. If left unattended, they most certainly would have burst into flame. Rick then realized that all the difficulties leaving his house had been messenger signs warning him of danger.
Thomas was about to enter into a partnership on a boat ownership. Just prior to the signing of the agreement he had a dream about his new partner. In his dream he saw the man looking friendly, but as he looked closer he saw that the warm countenance was, in fact, a mask. In the dream, the partner-to-be took off the mask and Thomas saw that his true face was devious and untrustworthy. Thomas recognized that his dream was a messenger sign that things were not as they seemed, so he stepped away from the partnership. In subsequent years, his dream proved to be prophetic and Thomas saw the wisdom of his decision.
Both these stories are examples of messenger signs which are always surrounding you in every moment. These signs do not always signify some grand and magnificent future event or warn you of some devastating and dangerous occurrence to come. Sometimes, and most often, they are gentle little messenger signs telling you things like, ‘Love yourself more today,’ or ‘Remember to pay the gas bill,’ or ‘You are wonderful.’ Learning to hear these gentle nudges can make your life so much more balanced and harmonious.
Another function of signs in your life is as reflections of your inner state of being. For example, those who think the world is full of lonely people and only see lonely people wherever they go, are most often lonely people themselves even if they are not consciously aware of it. All the lonely people they see in the outer world are signs or reflections of their inner loneliness. What you are aware of consciously is such a small part of what is actually occurring within your subconscious mind. However, the signs around you are always giving you clues to the deeper reality within you.
Sarah was sitting on a park bench for her lunch break. An old dog sidled up to her and looked at her with dark pooled eyes. Sarah’s heart went out to the dog and she shared her sandwich with him. Like attracts like, and Sarah felt much sadness and sympathy for the dog. She said, ‘Oh, you poor downtrodden thing. You look so unhappy. Everyone is taking advantage of you, aren’t they?’ After Sarah got up from the bench, an old man sat down to eat his lunch. Once again the dog scuttled up for a handout. The old man said, ‘Come here, old boy. Hey, you’re a real fighter, aren’t you? You’ve shown ’em. Nobody was ever your master. That’s a good boy.’ Sarah and the old man would both swear to the reality of their perception of the dog. And in both cases the dog was a reflective sign. The dog was a sign reflecting to Sarah that she felt downtrodden in life and that everyone was taking advantage of her. The old man had been a rebel all his life, so the dog was a reflective sign mirroring that he felt he was up against the world.
A very sad example of a reflective sign occurred when a pregnant woman asked me about something that had been perplexing her. She kept seeing dead animals: a dead bird, a dead mouse and a dead raccoon, and wanted to know what they were signs of I replied that usually when death appears as a sign, it is a powerful indicator of renewal and rebirth; for life must end in order to begin again, just as winter precedes the spring. That made sense to her at the time; however she later wrote to tell me that the doctors had found that her foetus was not viable, and hadn’t been for a long time. The dead animals that she was seeing were a reflective sign that the unborn child within her was no longer alive. Synchronously, she also did begin a completely new spiritual cycle in her life as a result of her baby’s death.
Reflective signs can also give an inner view of deep emotional processing occurring within you. If there is an old karmic pattern that is just about to surface, it will first appear in your life as a reflective sign. If there are old childhood issues that are ripe to be resolved and healed, they will appear in your life first as reflective signs.
Samantha’s father left home when she was a young girl and never returned. She suppressed a child’s natural inclination to grieve over the loss of a parent. Instead she offered a shoulder for her mother to lean on and she seemed to cope with the situation very easily. She never allowed herself to process the myriad of emotions that she felt as a result of the loss. As an adult, though memories of childhood and her father were hidden in the far recesses of her mind, she often had difficulty with relationships. She would enter a relationship and then her partner would abandon her. This negative relationship pattern occurred again and again, and true love eluded her. Just after Samantha’s thirty-fifth birthday, she began seeing and hearing things that reminded her of her past. Twice she walked down a city street and saw someone who looked exactly like her father. There seemed to be a surfeit of articles and documentaries in the media about parents abandoning their children. No matter in what direction she turned, the universe gave her signs that stimulated memories of her own childhood abandonment. These signs were indicative that the pain that had been buried so deep within her was rising to the surface to be released. As a result of the myriad of reflective signs stimulating memories from childhood, Samantha went into therapy and eventually healed and released her fear of abandonment. Within a year, Samantha began a loving (and lasting) relationship.
Reflective signs are valuable because they allow you to be aware of the underlying reality present in your life, and this self awareness leads to wisdom and ultimately peace. It is important to be aware of your subconscious emotions because, if left unattended, they can perpetuate illness and physical and emotional difficulties.
The visible realities surrounding you are symbols of your inner invisible world. Everything around you, every situation you encounter, every experience you have is filled with signs regarding your life. In order to understand this, it helps to know the underlying dynamics of why this occurs. To comprehend why signs work, it’s valuable to understand how beliefs work, because the signs in your life emanate from your beliefs. A belief is a thought or a perception that you consider to be a fact or a reality. Beliefs are very powerful. They determine the way you think, feel and behave. In fact, they determine the fabric of your life. They can literally create the circumstances of your life and your personal signs emerge directly from your beliefs.
We all have conscious and subconscious behefs about ourselves and our life around us and sometimes they are at odds with each other. The beliefs that specifically dictate the quality of life, however, are our subconscious beliefs, which are generally so deep-seated that we’re not even aware of them. They affect our perception of reality just as tinted glasses allow only certain colours to reach our eyes. For example, a man’s conscious belief might be that men and women are equal in their ability to drive vehicles; however, subconsciously he may believe that men are superior drivers. His conscious mind may not even know what his subconscious mind believes. Yet he subconsciously selectively sees only the reckless drivers who are women, which validates his subconscious belief.
Our subconscious programming directs the way we see the world around us and also prescribes the way others see us. This programming comes from the way others related to us when we were children, from decisions that we made in past lives, as well as from the collective consciousness of the society in which we live. If you are not sure what your subconscious beliefs are, just look at your life. Your life is an absolute projection of your subconscious beliefs about yourself and life.
Perhaps you’ve heard the expression, ‘You are what you think.’ This doesn’t mean only what you know you think consciously. It also refers to what you don’t know you think (your subconscious beliefs). A young girl being repeatedly told that she is clumsy is an example of how subconscious beliefs begin to develop. The child’s critical faculties are not advanced enough to reject this negative programming, so her subconscious accepts the idea of her being clumsy. This belief of clumsiness begins to become a part of the girl’s reality so that she begins really to feel that she is a clumsy person. Whatever is expected tends to be realized, so the child grows up constantly being clumsy. Her inner programming is so deeply imbedded in her mind that it becomes part of her ‘ground of being’. When a subconscious belief becomes part of your ground of being it doesn’t seem like a decision or belief, it seems like the true reality.
Our inner core beliefs can be likened to gravity. Gravity is so much a part of our ground of being that we don’t have conscious awareness of the many pounds of pressure that are being exerted on every square inch of our body at every moment. Gravity is such a fundamental part of what we take for granted as reality that we almost never think about it. Core beliefs become so much a part of our view of ourselves and the world that we don’t even know that they are beliefs. They are glued or imbedded into our personal energy field. And these subconscious beliefs continually coalesce into form in the manifest world. As your energy projects from your body in undulating waves all around you, it projects your beliefs into the world. Beliefs act as magnets, pulling to you situations and people that are congruous with your subconscious beliefs. This means that your personal world is created or manifested by the core beliefs that exist in your subconscious mind.
Here is an example of the way that core beliefs work. If you have a subconscious belief imbedded in your personal energy field that people can’t be trusted, this subconscious belief is constantly projecting from you; this occurs even when you are feeling consciously very trusting. The emanations from your energy field will draw people into your life who aren’t trustworthy. So if you constantly have people in your life whom you can’t trust, this is usually a sign that either you have a subconscious belief that people can’t be trusted, or you are not trustworthy or, more likely, that you don’t trust yourself.
Sometimes people will attempt to adopt new beliefs and this will be effective for usually only a short period of time because the power of the subconscious mind is so strong. (A method to begin to reprogramme the subconscious mind to develop more positive beliefs is discussed in Chapter 3 ‘Surrounding Yourself with Signs’.) The signs in your life constantly reflect your subconscious beliefs about the world around you. If you want to discover what is occurring within the depths of your being at any given time, just look and listen to the signs around you.
Signs can also help you be aware of what you are focusing on in life. For example, if you buy a yellow Volkswagen, suddenly you might see lots of yellow Volkswagens where previously you didn’t. You might even be led to think that there is a sudden spurt in the sales of yellow Volkswagens, but actually you see more Volkswagens because you have put your focus on these cars. The universe around you is a sign of your focus.
We live on a busy corner in Seattle. Our house is close to the street (about twenty feet away). One day my husband casually mentioned that 200 buses a day pass our home. I was shocked. We had lived in our house for two years, yet I had never heard or seen even one bus pass. Even though huge buses constantly rumbled by our home, I had no focus on them, so I never saw or heard them . . . for two years! As unlikely as this sounds, it is true. However once my husband shifted my focus to the buses, I began to see them and hear them all the time.
Since the beginning of civilization, people have received accurate signs regarding the future. Ancient predictions have been fulfilled, dreams have correctly foretold the future, and every day people have received clear premonitions about the future. Questions about how this can occur have fascinated philosophers and scientists for centuries. The pivotal point in understanding this phenomenon is the examination of the nature of time. In the day-to-day world, the space around us is measured by height, length and breadth. However, scientist Albert Einstein declared that space and time were inseparable and together they were what he called a space-time continuum. He declared that both time and space were elastic and they both expand and contract, and in fact can warp themselves into four-dimensional curves. Hence time can loop back upon itself. Though this sounds confusing, in the realm of sophisticated mathematics it is completely logical. And to those who live in native cultures the cyclical nature of time is as natural as the air that they breathe.
An example of the malleable nature of time is the fatal maiden voyage of the Titanic in 1912. Phenomenal similarities occurred between the real Titanic and the fictional ship Titan whose sinking was chronicled in the novel Futility, by Morgan Robertson in 1898. The similarities are uncanny. In the book the Titan was an unsinkable ship with passenger capacity of 3,000 (more than had ever sailed on one ship), that collided with an iceberg during an April voyage in which many lives were lost because she didn’t carry enough lifeboats. He wrote: ‘She was the largest craft afloat . . . unsinkable, indestructible, she carried as few [life] boats as would satisfy the laws . . .’ This is the exact scenario that occurred in real life fourteen years later for the Titanic ocean liner, which sank in mid-Atlantic. Many of the technical details also concurred between the two ships.
Morgan Robertson was one of many people to receive signs prior to the sinking of the Titanic. Though there were common themes, each person who received a sign about the sinking of the great ship was given a different aspect. Every person’s psyche is unique, so it may be that when signs from the future present themselves they are seen from varying angles and points of view, just as present events are seen from various perspectives.
Signs bringing messages from the future can be likened to a time overlap, or a fold in time, where you have a window into the future. Scientists call these windows in time ‘cosmic wormholes’, from the idea that a worm can take a shortcut by boring a hole through an apple rather than going around it. Whenever you receive a sign from the future there is a reason; it may be to prepare you for future events or it may be to help you avert disaster. Whatever the reason it’s important to listen to these portents of the future.
The signs that appear in your life come from many different sources. Some signs originate from what is called the ‘collective consciousness’. It was the well-known Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung who brought attention to this subject. According to Jung, the unconscious mind contained two parts: the personal unconscious, which contains the memories of an individual’s entire experience; and the collective unconscious, which was a receptacle for the experience of the entire human history. He felt that the unconscious mind contained layer upon layer of information from all humanity’s past, and all human beings shared in this collective consciousness. Jung based his belief on the fact that certain symbols are used universally around the world. In addition, part of his proof was the repetitive occurrence of certain symbols in his patients’ dreams and their drawings. Jung believed that within the collective unconscious exists a number of primordial images or archetypes that take the form of intuitive knowledge or even universal apprehension. He thought that these archetypal images were particularly likely to occur during sleep, because when the conscious mind is off guard, the archetypes can then emerge.
Some of the signs that appear for you may indeed be from the collective unconscious. For example, the cross is a universal symbol from even the most primordial times. It has been a symbol of the cosmic axis between heaven and earth, the union of opposites, and all aspects of God. The cross has represented the merging of all existence on the horizontal and vertical planes, as well as the infinite expansion in all directions that denotes eternal life. It was also thought to represent the four elements that comprise the world, united in the cosmic centre. And of course, in the present day, the cross represents Jesus, the life and the resurrection. So if a cross appears to you as a sign, it can be one of the universal signs that exists in the collective consciousness that connects us all.
When thousands of people for hundreds of years focus on a sign or a symbol, an etheric energy is generated around that sign that exists in the collective consciousness. Anytime someone focuses on a particular sign, they are locking onto that force that has been created through the years by others who have used that same symbol.
Some signs come from your culture, your society or your personal religion. For example in some cultures black cats are signs of bad luck and in other cultures they are good luck signs. If you live in a culture where black cats are bad luck, even if you don’t believe in superstitions, you very well might encounter bad luck because you have tapped into the cultural collective consciousness of your society. The signs of your culture can appear to you, even if you don’t believe in them, because they are ingrained in the psyche of society.
Your heritage can be a source of your personal signs even if you are not aware of what those ancestral signs are. It is not uncommon for someone who has been removed from their heritage or adopted into another tradition to retain a subconscious alignment with the signs of their heritage. There is great value in researching the signs of your ancient heritage, for often this can give you powerful clues for understanding the signs that appear in your life. Everyone’s ancestors originated in native cultures where signs were used to dictate the daily circumstances of life.
John was born in China, but as a baby he was adopted by an American missionary family. Growing up in the midwest of the United States he always had an affinity for grasshoppers. He would catch them and then would lie on the ground to observe them more closely. As he grew older he associated grasshoppers with good luck. He mentioned this once to his adopted father and he said, ‘No, grasshoppers aren’t symbols for good luck. They symbolize irresponsibility and improvidence and indolence,’ and he told John the fable of the grasshopper and the ant. However, grasshoppers continued to be a good luck sign for John. Later in life, he had occasion to visit China and he was delighted when he found that, in his birthplace, grasshoppers were considered to be signs of good fortune.
It is valuable to examine how heritage signs are used in other cultures for this can assist you in understanding your own. In my travels throughout the world I have had the opportunity to spend time with native peoples and learn about their signs. In New Zealand I was invited to spend time on a Maori marae with the Teranaki people. In time, I was honorarily adopted into their tribe. The Tohunga (spiritual leader and medicine man) of this particular tribe is a remarkable man named Joseph Winterhawk Martin, who had been groomed since early childhood by the elders of the tribe for his position as a leader of his people. He was kind enough to share some of his tribe’s signs with me.
‘When the owl flies over a house at night or calls three times we know it is telling us of the passing of a loved one. If it appears in a window ledge or sits on a post or gate outside your house we say to the owl, “If you bring sad news take it away and if it is good news stay with us and talk to us.”’
‘We listen to the wind’s sound and this can tell us of sickness, death, people coming to visit us, Mother Earth’s changes and moods, good news, changes with the seasons and our own moods.’
‘The formation of clouds may tell us things of ourselves or those around us.’
‘The rivers, streams and lakes can tell us many things by observing the way they flow. The mood of the water, the colour and the flow; these are all sacred to our people.’
‘If the rainbow blocks our journey by going across the road in front of us, we will not go underneath it as it tells us of danger ahead.
‘If the rainbow is cut in half, we are going to have a fight with someone.
‘If there are two rainbows, one either side of you or your car, these are the guardian rainbows clearing the way for a safe journey.
‘When a rainbow is pure white with no clouds in the sky, it is called Uanuku and we will be visited by the people of Tuhoe [magical beings who live in the mists].
‘If it is a small coloured rainbow, it is a blessing from our ancestors and the Creator.’
‘This is our sacred messenger. It is said that we should see this bird only once in our lifetime; some are lucky and see the white heron many times. This bird is a good omen to our people. Feathers of this bird are worn by Chiefly persons or a gifted person such as a holy person.’
‘Moths tell us if it’s good to go fishing and to collect seafood.’
‘If we are in the sea and a white shark appears close to us, it tells us someone is in the water that should not be there or a female is in her moon time. [If] the sea becomes rough, this tells us it’s time to get out and go home.’
‘Feeling the base of the flax bush can give us a daily reading of the weather. This was common for the children to do daily for the grandmothers. Watching insects also enables us to quickly know the changes of Mother Earth.’
Another tribe that I had the good fortune to spend some time with was the Zulu people in Bophuthatswana. The most honourable Credo Mutwa, a revered Zulu Sangoma (healer and medicine man) said, ‘We live by omens and we die by omens.’ These are some signs that the present-day Zulus pay attention to.
‘Birds that fly near you and then turn and fly to the left are not a good sign. The Zulu will then turn to the other side. Two or more birds means much joy; one bird means much sorrow.’
‘Three pigeons means guests are coming. Six pigeons flying means falling in love or being kissed. Seven pigeons flying means a letter or a good message. Many, many pigeons together means a wedding is coming.’
‘It’s bad luck to find a fish-eagle or even their feathers, or any fish-eating bird. It is an omen of death. Even their call is a sign of death.’
‘These birds are a sign of self-sacrifice and heroism.’
‘This is a good sign to Sangomas, but a bad sign for ordinary people. It is a bird of mystery. The Great Earth Mother has both an eagle and an owl on her shoulders to advise her by telling her what to tell the people. The owl is associated with the Great Mother.’
‘The crow is not a bad sign. He is good luck and the cleaner of the world.’
‘If a rhino crosses your path, life is going against you. If a rhino is going the same way as you, your journey is blessed by Great Spirit.’
‘If you go for a walk and people don’t greet you it is a sign that you must purify yourself.’
In addition to telling me some of his tribe’s signs, Credo also said his people have always used the signs to foretell events. He told me some of the ancient Zulu prophecies that have come to fruition:
‘People will talk over wire thinner than the queen’s necklace.’
‘Great wars will come with metal elephants with trunks of death, and metal birds dropping eggs of death . . . and metal canoes that would go under water.’
‘Women will grow a child in their womb that is not theirs.’
‘You will look at a piece of skin and see mother and father.’
‘Baboon’s heart will beat in a human.’
Ken Colbung, (Nundjan Djiridjakin) spiritual leader and senior male clan leader of the Australian Aborigine Bibulmun Tribe generously shared some information about signs. Ken said that aboriginal lives are governed by signs. Though they have many in the natural world, one universal sign is the willy wag tail bird (djitti djitti) which is the prime bird messenger of the gods. They watch this bird’s actions to see what the gods are telling them.
Ken further explained that signs are used by the Aboriginal people as a way to communicate with each other because they often live great distances apart. They are ‘like a telepathic telephone. It’s imporant when a sign comes to stop whatever one is doing, to hear the message of the sign. Examples of the kind of messages that one might receive are: “I’m sick, please come to me” or “Uncle is speared and needs your help”.’
Here are some of the Aboriginal signs which tell you someone is thinking of you or trying to reach you:
‘Whistling or ringing in the ears means an elder brother or someone with clan authority is thinking of you or trying to reach you; throbbing in the upper arm indicates your parents; heart throbbing indicates your mother’s brother; throbbing in the groin or thigh indicates your husband or wife, and throbbing in the calf means an elder sister or brother is thinking of you. In addition, a cracking sound in the nose can mean a visitor or a big event is coming.’
Though the exact signs vary from tribe to tribe throughout the world, almost all tribes gain messages by listening to the wind, watching the clouds and watching flowing waters. Some tribal signs are based on practicality (e.g., ‘If you see a shark, it’s a sign to get out of the water’) and some are unique to the area (e.g., Rhino crossings). Though signs vary and the same sign can mean different things in different cultures, the importance given to signs in native cultures is the same worldwide.
Some of your signs can come from your own family and even from distant relatives, sometimes passing down through generations.
Some of your signs will appear directly as a result of your own personal history. If you had a brush with death because you were thrown off a horse as a child, horses might be a sign for you of danger. Therefore, anytime you are in danger, your inner self might tune in to images of horses as a way to warn you. Yet someone else might associate horses with the qualities of strength or grace or freedom.
Every experience that you have ever had from previous lifetimes is lodged in your subconscious mind. Included in these submerged memories are subconscious recollections from signs that were important to you in past lives. For example, in most cultures the rainbow is a great sign; however, in some African cultures the rainbow is not always a good sign, for it can foretell the end of the rainy season and the beginning of the drought. So if you’ve had a past life in that particular African tribal area, you might have a residual memory of rainbows signifying the end of abundant and fertile times. Therefore in your present life, a rainbow would appear as a sign of coming lean times, whereas for almost everyone else, it is a wondrous sign. To this end, it is valuable to explore your past lives to discover what signs were important to you then.
Sometimes your signs will reflect your peripheral awareness. This means that there are always things occurring around you that you are not consciously aware of, but nevertheless your subconscious mind is recording everything in your environment and this information is often reflected back to you in the form of a sign.
Sandy stopped at an all-night petrol station to buy a chocolate bar because she was staying up late studying for an exam and had a sugar craving. As she was walking through the small convenience store she tripped and knocked over a can. When she knelt to pick it up she saw a picture of a skull and crossbones on a can of insecticide poison. The image of the skull and crossbones seemed to sear into her to the point where it made her feel so uncomfortable that she left the store immediately without buying a chocolate bar. The next day she read in the paper that the convenience store had been robbed at gunpoint just about the time that she was there. Though she wasn’t consciously aware of someone sinister in the store at the time, her subconscious mind sensed danger and nudged her into tripping into the can of poison with the sign of danger that, fortunately, she acted upon.
The most wondrous signs we receive are from our guides and guardian angels and spirit. These signs defy definition. They come from a realm beyond collective consciousness, your culture, your heritage and your past. They touch your soul like a leaf falling softly on the still pool of your consciousness with ripples growing outward in ever-expanding circles. They are divine signs.
In the Bible there are numerous references to these divine signs. In Genesis 9:11–13 God said, ‘“I establish my covenant with you, that . . . never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” And God said, “. . . I set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”’ This Bible verse (Revised Standard Version) refers to the concept that the rainbow is a sign from God promising that the earth will never be destroyed by flood.
Divine signs are real. Angels are real. Guides are real. The spiritual realm is real. Now is the time for the realm of spirit to manifest for humanity. From the archangels to your guardian angel, who is your personal comforter and friend, to your guides and cherubs who bring joy and laughter, right now they are bridging our physical reality with their pure spiritual energy. There are some ways that you can tell when signs come from the heavens rather than another source. Often in conjunction with a heavenly sign there is a warm expansive feeling in the centre of your being, accompanied by an infusion of love. Sometimes when a divine sign appears, the colours of your environment will seem richer and more vibrant, almost as if lit from within. In addition, often there can be a ‘knowing’ that occurs in conjunction with the sign that your life is unfolding exactly as it should, that your life is guided and that you are perfect just as you are. These celestial signs occur in many forms and they are important signposts on our path in life.
SIGNS ARE ALWAYS around you and they manifest themselves in a myriad of forms. In fact, there is never a time in your life when you aren’t surrounded by signs. Though most signs appear visually, they can present themselves through smell, sound or touch or they can appear as a hunch, an intuition, or even in a dream. For those individuals who are raised in native cultures, signs usually appear in natural forms such as in the clouds or in the movement of animals, but to people raised in Western cultures they can appear in manmade as well as natural forms. Here are a number of ways that your signs may appear for you.
Everything around us has energy and that energy responds to our expectations. Whenever you consciously (or subconsciously) project a question or a concern into the universe, people who cross your path in life will often have a sign or message for you. Sometimes people will mysteriously appear in your life who have an answer for you. Every person in your life is there for a reason. You couldn’t see them otherwise, they would take another path. Often, however, we don’t hear the messages because we rarely listen to what is being said. When someone is talking we usually spend almost all the time thinking about how we are going to respond, rather than purely listening. If you go beneath the surface, every conversation has the potential of deep meaning. Beneath the words are deep, powerful and personal signs.
If you stop and really listen to the people who come into your life, you can hear remarkable wisdom and you can be given life-changing information. Even talking casually to strangers, such as when you are waiting for a bus, can garner amazing messages. This works because there are two parallel universes. There is a normal mundane universe and there is an underlying mystical universe. Although these realities can look the same, when you shift your focus from the ordinary reality to the non-ordinary reality (such as when you quiet your mind and really listen to someone) you can gain great wisdom.
Anyone can shift from one reality to another just by conscious listening. This means when someone is talking, listen . . . without thinking of how you are going to reply. Don’t spend time recounting your past or projecting your thoughts into the future. Just keep listening. Be in the present . . . right now . . . right now . . . right now. You can get very high doing this because usually when you really listen, after a while you will begin to hear signs, inner truths and personal messages being spoken beneath the words that are said out loud.
Charley was heading towards the Isle of Wight from London and his journey included a long train ride from London down to Portsmouth where he could catch a ferry to the island. He was tired and was hoping to have a seat to himself and was delighted when he found himself seated alone. However, just before the train was scheduled to leave Victoria Station a large, lumbering man, breathing heavily from the exertion of the walk, waddled along the aisle and plopped down next to Charley. Charley lowered his eyes and turned his head towards the window in an effort to avoid the portly gentleman.
As soon as the train pulled away from the station, the man began to talk to Charley about inconsequential matters. Charley began to feel more and more irritated. Then he remembered that ‘There are no accidents,’ and ‘Every person you encounter has a message for you.’ So instead of occupying his mind with disgust and distrust, he quieted his mind and began to listen. As soon as Charley began to really listen, the conversation turned from politics to farming. The gentleman began to talk about his years as a child growing up on a farm. He talked about how wonderful it was to work the land. He kept saying, ‘When you support the land, the land will support you.’ Charley was astonished, for when he was growing up his father, who was a farmer, always used to use exactly the same expression. Though Charley had grown up on their small family farm, when he was eighteen years old he left to go to work in the city. It was always his father’s greatest wish that Charley would work on the farm, but Charley had not been inclined to do so because he felt that farming was a hard and financially unrewarding life. Charley was now in his mid-forties. His father had died recently and the farm had been left to him, and he was just in the process of selling it.
As he began to really listen to the seemingly rambling words of the man seated next to him, he was flooded with wonderful images of his own life on the farm as a young man. Yes, he had worked hard, but there was a richness of spirit that had been missing since his move to the city. When the gentleman got off the train after several stops, Charley sat in stunned silence. He felt a certainty about his future life path begin to grow within him. In that moment sitting on the train heading to the Isle of Wight, he made the decision not to sell his father’s farm. He decided to quit his city job and try to make a go of the farm himself He said it was a decision that he has never regretted. Charley took the time consciously to listen to the signs and hence was able to hear and decipher the messages that were being given to him.
The universe responds to our inner yearnings by mysteriously bringing people into our life to answer our questions and help quell our conflicts. Every time you follow your intuition, your personal vibration intensifies. This can be likened to turning up the volume on a stereo. The more your personal vibration is intensified the more you will pull people into your life who carry messages for you. It is a universal law.
The people around you can also be signs of relationships that you need to resolve. If someone enters your life who looks remarkably like someone whom you had difficulty with in the past, this can be a sign that it is time to resolve that past relationship either with therapy or by communicating with them. Sometimes a past relationship can be too painful to resolve in person, particularly if the individual is unruly or hard to communicate with, or if they are not still alive. However, if someone looks or acts exactly like a difficult individual from your past (except that they are kind or friendly etc.) this is a sign that the relationship is in the process of being healed. The unresolved past relationship is helped when new emotional patterns are created with the new look-alike person. As you are able to relate to the new look-alike individual in a positive way, this promotes clearing the negative energy between you and the original person.
Whenever you think of someone, often it is a sign to call or contact them. By adopting this habit, you may be surprised how often the person you contact will have a message for you or will have been thinking about you. Even if you don’t always know why you needed to contact that person, the more you follow your intuition the more balanced and in tune you will be.
Arnold was walking through Central Park in New York and he passed someone who looked exactly like Leonard, an individual he had gone to school with thirty years earlier. He took his casual encounter as a sign to contact Leonard, with whom he had lost touch and hadn’t talked to in almost as many years. When he tracked him down Leonard said, ‘Hey! It’s great to hear from you. I’ve been trying to find you. We are having a school reunion in a couple months and everyone wanted you to be there. Thanks for calling.’ By listening to the signs Arnold was able to reconnect with old and valued friends.
One of the most potent ways that signs appear is in the conversations of other people and sometimes even in your own. If you take the time to really listen to what is being said around you, you will begin to hear the most remarkable personal messages.
Often signs will appears in conversations of others that you happen to overhear. Carol was waiting in a queue in the grocery store when the women ahead of her began to talk about bulging tyres and the danger of tyre blowouts on the motorway. Carol never looked at her tyres and never even gave them any thought. However, since the conversation impressed itself on her mind, when she went out into the car park to put away her groceries, she looked at her tyres. She was astonished to find a large ballooning spot on one of the front tyres. She drove directly to a garage and the service man told her it was lucky that she had come. The tyre was so thin that she could easily have had a blowout, and even a serious accident, if she had been on the motorway.
Sometimes signs can appear to us in our own casual conversations. Josh was talking with an old friend from college whom he hadn’t seen in a long time and the subject of mountain climbing came up. Without any forethought, Josh said, ‘I’ve decided to take up mountain climbing.’ He was surprised that he had said those words because, until that very minute, he had never considered mountain climbing. He decided to heed his own subconscious advice and enrolled in a mountain climbing course and subsequently became an amateur mountain climber.
Signs can also present themselves in the casual conversations of others. Sharma was at a dinner party sitting very quietly, not taking part in the conversation. She was partially withdrawn because she was contemplating a very big decision in her life. She was not in a committed relationship, and she was over forty . . . and pregnant. No one at the dinner party knew that Sharma was pregnant, in fact, only her doctor knew about it and he was urging her to consider a termination because of health risks to both Sharma and the baby. Remarkably, during the course of the conversation the subject of pregnancy for single women over forty came up. Though Sharma didn’t participate, there were so many positive comments shared that Sharma took the conversation as a sign to keep her child. Her pregnancy went well and she is now the happy mother of a healthy boy.
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