On the nature of signs and portents
I have a pot in which I put things that I am certain of, there is a lot of spare room in it. One thing that I am convinced of is that it is our busyness that is our energetic downfall and our spiritual darkness. Wow! That’s a powerful conclusion to draw isn’t it? But I stand by it. As you know, if you follow my exploits herein, I am a great follower of signs. I used to believe that we attracted signs because of our energetic alignment. Thus the more aligned we were the more signs would come our way. Funny, because I still do believe that, however I make a very curious distinction (or set of distinctions).
Before I go into it, I want to be excused. The discussion below is just my humble view. It is not meant to persuade you to my way of thinking or to detract you from your own personal view on these matters. What I am doing is describing my understanding of things, that’s all.
The essence of my distinction is this, we have many sources of sign type information. However what I understand is that there are three main categories (oooh don’t you just hate it when people categorise stuff?) These categories are:
- Our Energetic Self (until now known as our higher self, a term that I have come to dispute)
- Our spirit (whatever that maybe, but for me it isn’t our higher/energetic self)
Hang on though, that’s only two. Yes it is. What I say is that our Energetic Self can provide us with intuitive knowledge or it can be an access point for other worldly beings to give us knowledge.
I’ll talk about Spiritual Guidance in another post (not that it matters, in my humble opinion, Spirit is a deeply personal affair and your own faith about it is much more precedent than my views, which after all are only my views).
Anyway, whether it is our personal Energetic intuition, other worldly guidance or spiritual guidance the obstacle remains the same. In Castaneda’s view of things it was our self-talk that was the ultimate culprit and the practice which stifled our genius (spirit). I don’t dispute it. However the journey to mastering our monkey chatter begins with a practice of stepping (as oppose to stopping) out of the busy world.
I was asked recently by a blog reader, on many occasions, you go out into the wilds with Gwas and it is he that is on some purpose whereas for you it is a case of just be how come you do that? Seriously? Surely the depth of friendship between Gwas and I is sufficient an answer? If not, then I will let you into a secret. Creating a habit of stepping out of the busy world and into nature is one of the best things you can do to get access to the constant signs and portents that the universe in one form or another is laying before your feet.
It isn’t that signs are more readily found in nature (after all isn’t everything nature?) it is more the case that stepping into nature gives us the clarity and emptiness to see signs wherever we are.
Other activities that support our access to the perception of signs is meditation, keeping a journal of what has happened (this blog forms a good one for Gwas and I, with all that has been said here we would be hypocritical in the extreme if we claimed that signs are non-existent). Listening is another.
It is completely unsurprising to me that the 5th and 6th energy centres are empowered by listening and silence, respectively (among other things).
“The catalyst for understanding is listening, the catalyst for perception is silence” Kal Malik Active Enlightenment
Am I leading somewhere with this post? Yes, This, if you like is an introduction to a few posts with regards to a recent night that I spent with some Sufi Mystics. The meeting between us occurred through some serendipitous events and I feel not in some small part to a cohesion of several disparate (and yet not so) parts. Are you curious? Stay tuned.
Kal Malik
Your dreams are your creation and yet there is more freedom and flow in your dream state you would not experience in your waking state, because you do not believe you can experience in your waking state much of what you do in your dreams. In your dreams you can walk through walls, you can fly, you can recognize yourself as YOU even though the YOU in your dream would be unrecognizable in your waking state. You can experience all manner of things in your dream state because you hold no limiting beliefs about what is possible there.
I think sometimes you can have no intention and ‘just be’ and then find yourself being guided into a quest, other times you can try until the cows come home to do /find something, and nothing happens! The universe is funny like that 😉 I’ve often found the most amazing things happen when something is spontaneous, a side to life that has slipped for me, bringing up a family and living in a city, for me rare breaks from home provide that opportunity and I’m certainly enthusiastic to enjoy whatever unfolds! For instance, we went to Glastonbury while I was away last week, it was very odd – the heavens opened the minute we got there, so I rushed into a bookshop to shelter. Browsing in this shop, I came across the answer to a little prayer – I’d said to myself a few weeks ago, for my research and the work I’m doing, what I could do with is a map of all the Sheela-na-gig carvings in the country, yet I suspected nothing like that existed. As I looked up (and this was next to those dowsing rods I just mentioned!) there it was – a map of all the Sheela-na-gigs in Britain and Ireland! Not only that, but ‘The sun and the Serpent’ a book that has just escaped me until now – and wow – what a fantastic book it is! I came home so excited about my little adventure – mind you I’m easily pleased!! 😉
Intuition is a wonderful blessing in our lives if we can be silent enough to listen to its song. I have some ideas on these matters that are being mulled over in the draft stages. I’m looking forward to sharing them with you guys and hearing your thoughts.
Kal