Seeing The Signs
- Divination for the Psychically Challenged -
by Linda Johnson
9th January 2003
You've probably heard this old joke but.....
A devout man was drowning and he called on God to save him. Presently a guy in a canoe came along and said 'Let me help you'.
The drowning man said 'No. I have no need of you. God will save me'.
Shortly a fishing boat saw him and offered to take him aboard but he refused to go. 'God will save me', he said.
As he was gulping sea water and calling for God an ocean liner arrived and offered to rescue him. 'No, no', he said. 'God will save me!'.
Eventually he drowned. Upon arriving at the pearly gates he said to God. 'I have prayed to you all my life. Why didn't you save me?'
God said 'Have you any idea how much organising I did to get that canoe, boat and ship there to pick you up?' !!!So the moral of the story is that 'signs', messages and communication are not always presented in the way you expect, or the way you're used to. However, there are many clues to what your guidance is trying to communicate if you look a little harder and think outside the square.
Not everybody is clairvoyant, but most people interested in spiritual growth have awakened their intuitive abilities to various degrees.
I have written elsewhere about the benefits of learning to muscle test or use a pendulum to contact your guidance. This is great if you're the one initiating the communication with your guidance - but what if your guidance wants to get your attention? Often the signs are all around you but you don't realise what they are. This will be more so when you start consciously working on your spiritual growth and increasing the communication with your guidance.
SIGNS FROM NATURE
Your guidance may work with the nature kingdoms - animals, plants, minerals and elements - to bring messages, warnings or communications to you. Once you realise they are trying to get your attention, you can muscle test, pendulum or meditate upon the course of action.I'll give you an example of a sign my guidance sends if there is something I need to look at. As I am consciously working on my ascension I regularly check all my subtle bodies, moving energy systems, gridwork, records and the like - usually every day, but sometimes I get slack. This is usually when I lose something or something is added that I need to be aware of.
One morning I was driving to work and there was a dog standing on the road. I had to slow right down and mentally ask it to move. I then drove on oblivious for a few more miles and another dog was standing in the middle of the road. I had to come to a complete stop. It looked me straight in the eyes until it knew I'd noticed then calmly walked off the road. 'Wow - that was weird' I thought. Later on I was meditating and noticed there was something wrong in my field that needed urgent repair. It was then that the penny dropped and I realised the dogs were trying to give me a warning.
Once the dog kingdom (through my wolf guide) had got my attention this way, they knew they had a means of communication that I would understand next time it was used. Since then I have had a lot of 'danger dogs' as I call them. They are a good early warning system for me. They just stand on or near the edge of the road and get my attention. Once I say 'OK - I got the message', they move off the road. Thankfully, none of them ever seem to get run over.
Sometimes the birds give me warnings when I'm at home as I have no dog. When birds fly into my glass doors there's something happening I need to look at. It's a shame they have to concuss themselves to get my attention! The kamakaze animals were much more active when I was working on mapmaking ascension. A lot more drama happens during that job - but that's another story.
For those simply working on their spiritual growth the signs may not be so frequent or obvious, but what you are looking for is something out of the ordinary - but not necessarily extraordinary. Then simply check with your guidance and ask 'was that a sign for me?', so you know whether to delve further.
You may find a dead bird on your lawn, or have a low-flying bird zoom across in front of you when you're driving. I seem to get a lot of messages from birds - but then they are the most populous and obvious of the nature kingdoms and able to move freely around the city - you can't always find a roaming dog when you need one!
Not all the bird signs are warnings. They also bring a lot of joy. As I write I have had a 'Peace Dove' practically living in my yard for around 2 months (see photo). He is a very calm, beautiful, ascending bird and often flies round and round my house clearing the space - he even does aerobatic flips and fly-pasts. He gets very close when we feed him without seeming afraid and never fights with the other birds - he just minds his own business. I do feel he is anchoring the vibration of peace in the area and I am honoured he is using our home as his headquarters.
Signs from the plant kingdoms are usually a bit more subtle, but if you are a person who spends a lot of time in your garden and knows all the different plants, then your guidance may work with the plant kingdom to get your attention. For example you may get a flower blooming completely out of season, or a hardy plant suddenly die. As a gardener you are more likely to notice this than someone who is not.
Signs are not always from the nature kingdoms. Something like a broken glass or crystal could represent 'shattering' or breaking up. Losing something could represent a loss of moving energy systems, records or gridwork from your field.
Because I spend a lot of time on the computer at work and at home my guidance kindly makes it play up to get my attention. Like recently when I turned everything on and the keyboard wouldn't work and nothing would type on the screen. I then picked up a pen that despite working fine when I scribbled it, would not write any words. I got the message. There was a bit of a 'communication problem' in my field I needed to repair. Once I got the message everything worked again.
So you see, your guidance will try to find ways to attract your attention through a medium you are familiar with - so that you know when something is out of the ordinary. There are no hard and fast 'meanings' assigned to each sign, animal, kingdom or incident, but between you and your guidance you will learn what various signs mean for you, then they will be used more frequenly as a language between you.
INTERPRETING THE SIGNS
OK, you've seen the sign, but what does it mean?
Again, interpretation is a subjective and personal thing. This is where regular contact with your guidance will narrow down the possibilities and you can then use your pendulum or muscle testing to check. For example, if you are working on ascension and understand about 'shattering', something breaking could mean shattering in your field. Something becoming unattached could indicate the releasing of attachments (or the need to).
When a sign happens, try to think of the key words that are associated with the sign, including feelings, to narrow down the possible meanings. Once you have understood the interpretation your guidance was trying to give you, the sign may be given more frequently when that same message needs to be imparted.
There are other ways to narrow down the meaning of your messages using existing methods of divination, or by making your own system.
Tarot cards are a way of receiving guidance about possible future events and influences that are moving down towards the physical plane.
The original Tarot Cards are a very ancient system put in place to assist mankind in remembering the spiritual initiations from long ago. From Atlantis they came to Egypt, and from there the Egyptians (Gyptsies) carried them throughout Europe. As a harmless set of cards and pictures they were mainly ignored when other religious and spiritual texts were lost, burned or suppressed through the ages.
There are many tarot sets now available based on the traditional deck of 78 cards. One deck I recommend is The Mythic Tarot. This set has a different illustration for each card, a very comprehensive book, and an excellent workbook available for you to learn the cards. In addition to learning how to read the cards it is a great personal exercise and karma releaser. There are other beautful decks also available.
With the Tarot, there is already a traditional meaning associated with each card which will be reinterpreted by the author of the deck you buy and your own personal associations with that card. So with tarot it's best to start with the existing meaning - as the basis of your understanding, and your own intuition will build on that.
There are also a lot of newer 'tarot' style cards that don't use the traditional deck, but have new illustrations and meanings attributed by the author (ie: dream cards, crystal cards, angel cards etc). Again, if you are attracted to these, and you like the associated meanings, learn these meanings.
However, you don't have to buy existing cards to contact your guidance. You can get some blank cards and make your own with whatever meanings you like, or get some tumble stones in a pouch and associate a different meaning to each (easy to add to as required). Choose 3 at a time for a reading.
What is important with these divination tools is that You and Your Guidance have agreed on what a particular card/rock/sign means to YOU. Whether that is a meaning handed down through time, from a recent author, or made up by you is not important. When you pull out a particular stone or card you know what your guidance is telling you because you've already established the meaning in advance.
Having said that, I recommend using the traditional explanations with Runes, as these ancient symbols (like the original tarot and i-ching) are part of the existing human unconscious and ancestry, not something just made up recently. As such you will find you can ask for guidance, pull out a rune and read the explanation in a book without ever having learned the meaning beforehand and find it quite accurate. I find pulling a rune is a good way to sum up a reading or for some quick guidance.
Learning or using an auxiliary divination system in addition to getting the yes/no answers from your pendulum will give you a broader idea of the influences leading up to the 'sign', the current influences, and possible outcomes.
So you see, you don't have to be psychic or clairvoyant to use your intuitive abilities. Like most abilities, using and practising them regularly will make communication more fluent and signs more obvious. And don't just look for external signs. Start to notice feelings you may get about a place or person, or 'vibes' you feel as these are your subtle bodies at work. The more you notice them, the less isolated you will feel from your non-physical self, and you'll know that you are more than your physical body, and using more than your five physical senses.
IMPORTANT TIPS
As always, I stress the importance of being Grounded and Protected before you do any sort of divination work to ensure that the guidance you get is from your highest self and not personality entities or entities outside of yourself which may not have your best interests at heart. I also do not recommend using a ouija board for guidance as these are designed to attract entities from a low level, and involves other people who may not be as spiritually aware as you are. Do your grounding and contact your own higher self, earth, the ascending nature kingdoms and elements who are willing to help and guide ascending humans.
KEEPING TRACKI recommend getting yourself a diary or exercise book to keep all your spiritual stuff in. You can write up dreams, readings you do, signs and their interpretations to look back on and check your progress and accuracy. There are often messages in dreams which are quickly forgotten. If you write them down while they are fresh in your mind you can interpret them at your leisure.
You can write lists of intents and affirmations, snippets of information, diagrams, poems, stories, feelings and ideas. Write up the visions and messages from meditations. It not only makes a very useful tool, but also allows you to look back and see how far you've come - especially on days when you feel you are not making progress.
So to conclude... nobody reading this site is so psychically challenged that they cannot learn to use a pendulum or muscle test. For many people, this is a stunning breakthrough and they can't believe it actually works. It's an excellent starting point to develop your intuitive abilities and connect to your own guidance/higher self. Tell your guidance 'I want to communicate. Give me a sign when you want to talk'....... and see what happens!
Copyright 2003 Linda Johnson www.newage.com.au