Omens

[louise]

Hi everyone, I'm thinking about how much credence we give to omens. That is where we interpret some external factor as indicating a direction for us. I recall that Dharma said that she constantly read the signs in her day to day life. I remember her once saying in response to a
post in the friends area, that she would take the fact that a lady lost her keys on her first date with a man as cause to think carefully about the relationship. I find this really intriguing and it has influenced the way I sometimes view seemingly random events. {Dharma, where have you gone ?

).

This has come up for me today in the following way. I was due to start a job this evening that I had very ambivalent feelings about, but thought anyway I must give it a try. The only way for me to get there is by car as it is in quite an isolated spot and I would not be off duty till 11pm. I got in the car and it would not start at all, despite efforts of various neighbours.

My feeling is that my car has done me the great service of making it impossible for me to get to that job tonight.
Earlier I had consulted Yi about how the job would be and got 8, lines 1 and 6 moving. This fitted perfectly, as when I rang the job agency to say I would be late they said that if I were not bang on time I would miss the induction and would be sent home anyway. What a perfect expression of line 6 !

Anyway it would be interesting to hear anyones experiences of omens in their lives and how far you think we should pay attention to them. I presume if we took it too far we'd all go mad, then again I'm sure the universe can communicate with us on many levels.

 

[willow]

What a topic for us all to overlook! I find that if you go about looking for omens, or *trying* to see them, that's when you go mad. But if (while you're not bothering too much about omens at all) you stay open to hearing that little, "wait a minute, what's this?" from the corner of your mind, then there's quite a bit you can learn from the omens that come 'round.

Another thing I think is that you have to take the attitude that omens are more like teachings than warnings or go-aheads. (Maybe that's just restating the first point?)

I was turning over some soil the other day, rather distractedly, mostly worrying about other things. When I took a break, the patch where I'd been working looked rather a mess to me, and I felt no better either. But no sooner had I moved 20 feet from the digging than a bird flew down nearby. Right away, it went over to the dug area and perched on a crazy-angled root pulled half out of the ground. Instantly, I could see what the bird saw. Where a second before I'd seen chaos, it saw order. Where I saw a failing and dubious plan, it saw breakfast, served up sweet and simple. Then, of course, on to the perspective of the bugs, who had been so safe and cozy before I came along. Thank you Bird, for reminding me that chaos is only order viewed from another perspective. Thank you for lifting me out of the gloom that comes from too narrow a view.

Now, it's true that pretty much whenever someone digs and walks away, a bird is soon to happen by, and sometimes a bird is just a bird. But sometimes the bird is also a Teacher, and when it is, if you're the student, you just know.

 

[louise]

Haha my lost and lonely thread has been resurrected. Thankyou Willow.
In another thread Cassandra says she sees omens as a kind of foreshadowing. She also says if I understand her right, that after some major event there are often clusters of unusual synchronistic events, like echoes.
Birds especially seem to carry omen. I've heard they are vehicles of the soul. The day after my partner died my garden was full of birds - usually there are no birds there, or maybe the odd one or two, as it is quite a barren spot. I can't say exactly what this signified to me, but on a gut level I sensed it to be quite a joyful thing - lots of them all fluttering and hopping around. It lightened my heart and seemed like a greeting - somehow symbolising the release of his soul from physical struggle.

Last week I was walking down the street and what looked like a white dove swooped close in front of me at the same moment a man passed by and looked into my eyes and snow began to fall. It felt quite magical and I felt unaccountably happy.
I wasn't thinking about or looking for omens at the time and have no idea what i could say that meant. It just felt like it meant something on a soul level and I felt all warm inside.

 

[louise]

The other night, maybe 3am, a crow or rook was cawing nearby. I've never heard them call at this time before. Anyone know anything about birdlore ?

 

[binz]

Hi Louise,

your experience with the birds in your garden reminds me of an experience of someone I know.

He runs seal watching trips, here in Essex, and used to run them with the skipper of a Thames barge. They would often run trips together out to the same group of seals, and the seals would silently watch the people watching the seals. On one of these trips a few years ago, the skipper died.

Following his cremation, they took his ashes to be sprinkled on the water, near where the seals were. As they did so, the normally quiet seals began to sing/cry (or however you would describe their sound). There are some seafairers who believe that seals are the reincarnation of sailers who died at sea, and I now understand why they would believe this (but am not sure what to believe myself).

I went on one of these seal watching trips (now with a new skipper and new boat), and it was incredibly moving to be in the same place as this happened, being 'with' the seals, as the experience was recounted to us by our friend with tears in his eyes.

Binz

 

[cassandra]

This is truly one of my favorite subjects. I loved Candid's 'pig tale' and the ones above. As for foreshadowing and postshadowing, I'm not sure it makes a difference at all... it just depends on which way you happen to be looking on the timeline.

Bird omens have become so familiar to me that I have begun to call them 'bird sign'. They usually are somehow related to relationships for me. Once when I started dating a man, I found a broken bird egg on my front step. I didn't have a cat at the time so it was unusual. No nests were nearby either. Needless to say, that one didn't get off the ground.

Another time, a bird kept trying to build her nest in my mailbox. She even layed eggs but they didn't hatch. I had the postman put the mail somewhere else once I discovered the eggs but it was too late. I felt that if there were any meaning in it, it was that I was trying to build my nest in an innappropriate place. I knew that to be true at the time but had trouble extricating myself.

All these things serve to remind me that everything is connected on some level. Back to the idea of past/future as it relates to omens and syncronicities... my thoughts on this are that everything exists in the here and now but our consciousness is like a projector screen that can only show a frame at a time. We exprerience time as linear so what exits can be perceived. If someone were to cut each frame from the tape reel, and place them all in a stack, then project that onto the screen (consciousness) it would just be a void. No images would appear because they would all be superimposed on each other and be meaningless. That equates to creation as whole. Time is just a means of experiencing it. So, it doesn't matter if the bird or the egg came first, so to speak! Foreshadowing and postshadowing are one and the same.

 

[cassandra]

Louise,

Your backyard birds gave me goosebumps. What a great story!

 

[cassandra]

Louise,

Were you having a dream when the bird cawed? If so, I would think it was about something significant. If you weren't asleep, then maybe you were mulling something over. The bird was signaling that something is about to occur. Or it could just be that a cat was getting into it's nest... who knows. Did you have the funny feeling that accompanies omens and syncronicities?

 

[louise]

Hi Cassandra, I was lieing in bed awake heavily pondering the whys and wherefores of my life when I heard the crow. Thinking of it it was around the same time the dove swept in front of me in the street. Also within that 48 hours I was sitting by the fire downstairs when I distinctly heard the sound of a wood pigeon cooing, seemingly echoing from the chimney. It was evening and I don't think wood pigeons make that noise in winter do they (totally ignorant of birds habits)its the sort of sound I only recall in spring and summer - maybe its a mating call.
So altogether there were 3 unusual bird happenings. Well unusual to me anyway. I don't associate white doves with the grimy city street I was on at the time. The similarity between them I suppose was that all ocurred out of time and place you would normally expect them. Yes I did have that funny feeling.

 

[lindsay]

Cassandra wrote, ?Did you have the funny feeling that accompanies omens and syncronicities?? Yes, I remember that funny feeling, but I can?t quite recall how it felt. Was it a sudden clarity of focus, a sort of jump into high definition, all objects appearing extremely clear and well-defined for a split second? A kind of golden light over everything? A little shiver in the shoulders? A dryness at the back of the throat or maybe a flutter in the chest or stomach? I can?t quite bring it back. Obviously, I don?t have these experiences very often, and they (the ?special effects? part) tend to flash by very fast. I?d really like to hear someone else try to describe the feeling Cassandra mentions.

Somewhat related to this is the experience of déjà vu, the absolute conviction you have seen or heard something before or been in a certain situation or place before. I used to have deja vus rather often at one point in my life, but now they are uncommon. Anyway, these experiences are also accompanied by a similar kind of ?funny feeling?. I have heard that déjà vu has been scientifically explained as a trick of perception/cognition, but I swear it feels like an eerie spiritual occurrence when it happens.

Anyway I have always felt that Cassandra?s ?funny feeling? was a hallmark of the real thing, even though I do not know exactly what that ?thing? is. Once in awhile I feel this way during a reading of the Yi. I wonder if we should trust these feelings? It?s awfully illogical.

Lindsay

 

[cassandra]

Hi back Louise,

It could be they are foreshadowing something about to occur but from reading your post, I almost get the feeling that something is trying to get your attention. Let's imagine that the birds are a part of you that is non-verbal. This part of you is trying to draw your attention for some reason. You won't be able to talk to it with words but rather on the feeling level.

There is an excellent little book that I believe is called "The Soul Bird". It has a blue cover and is written on a childs level but it is very accurate in describing that part of us that does not communicate with words and sometimes thwarts us by persisting in feelings that are contrary to what reason would dictate. Has anyone else read this book?

In ferreting out your bird sign, I would also take into account the mood. Were the birds in distress or were they just doing bird things? Was there any urgency to the signs? Feel free to use your imagination as you imagine what the birds were experiencing.

 

[louise]

Aha, the first thing that popped into my mind after reading your last paragraph Cassandra was the birds were awake/singing when they normally would be dormant - in night/winter. So maybe its all about awakeness. I'll dwell on it some more, I hadn't thought of imagining what the birds were feeling.
Thanks for your ideas Cassandra. Anyone know who wrote "The Soul Bird" ?

 

[heylise]

I made myself an omen some years ago, a reversed one. Or maybe I should rather call it FengShui.
I was completely locked in, physically and mentally. But I was making an I Ching-book and I wanted to publish it. I had not the faintest idea how, it was absolutely impossible.
So I put a big globe at the foot of my bed and every evening I turned it around three times. Europe-America-China-Europe. That?s what I had in mind, but it was complete nonsense.

I don?t know how much later I got a computer, maybe a year or less, and now I travel from Europe to America to China to Europe .. And I published my book.
I did not know that one could do this with a computer, my omen-making was totally irrational.

LiSe

 

[cassandra]

Linday,

For me it is pretty much the same whenever it happens. I get a feeling that I am suddenly (but not violently) jolted out of everyday reality and the usual mental chatter. There is a moment of mental silence as if I'm listening to something I can't really hear. Then, I am back to the norm and left pondering the sensation and meaning. Call it superstitious, but if I have a negative feeling about it, I am cautious in things that I am involved in, whatever that might be.

I don't think things are written in stone either. Here is another can of worms... if something is foreshadowed, is it inevitable? I don't believe it is. What do others think?

 

[lindsay]

I have heard ?superstition? defined as what we call other people?s religious beliefs.

That is not quite true, I think. Religious beliefs ? reincarnation, karma, creation, God, heaven, and so on ? tend to be big, abstract, important concepts that cover all people, all life, all time, all the cosmos. We have spent a lot of time lately talking about this sort of thing.

But I think there is also a little religion, composed of the little religious or spiritual acts we perform in everyday life. We seek omens. We try to find and keep our luck. We wear or display special objects to protect ourselves and our loved ones. We try a little white magic (like LiSe) to help us find our way or achieve our goals. Sometimes the magic gets a bit gray or darker to deal with people or things we want to avoid or do not like. We have our guardian spirits or angels. Sometimes we leave a little something out for the spirits. We call our automobiles or washing machines by name. We still have our household gods. We practice our own personal rites. We burn candles and incense, not just for their beauty. Here and there around the house we keep little shrines, even though we don?t call them that. And so on.

All this is obvious, but the point I?m trying to make is there are two levels of spirituality: (1) High Religion or Spirituality, which people discuss and argue about all the time, and (2) low religion or spirituality, which is hardly ever mentioned or discussed seriously. I think the Yi belongs to both levels. Most of us use it on the lower level, but talk about it on the higher one. A few creative people like LiSe try to build a bridge between the two.

I would guess the almost invisible little religion has existed far, far longer than the big, institutional, philosophical religion. And perhaps it is more important to us in the end, because it is always part of our day-to-day lives. Also it is understood and practiced in very similar ways by people everywhere in the world. So it?s odd we all feel a little embarrassed about it, and laugh about it as ?superstition.? I think we take it very, very seriously. I think we should.

Lindsay

 

[hilary]

... but probably we also shouldn't forget the possibility (I think Candid mentioned it once) of going barking mad through turning everything into a sign with personal significance. Though having said that, and having recently encountered someone who was teetering on the edge of exactly that kind of madness, I suspect that the madness comes first - that it's not something you can bring on through too much omen-hunting. Anyone else have any wisdom on this?

Lindsay, that's a very insightful post on 'superstition', or whatever we call it. One of the paths in my school ran between the back of a building and the low wall of a tennis court. Workmen would quite often put a ladder up to the building, with its base propped against the low wall - covering the whole path. The majority of girls (including some Christian Union members, come to think of it!) would climb the wall to avoid going under the ladder. I, of course, made a point (a ritual?) of walking under it, every time. In fact, I think I might have felt something was very wrong if I'd climbed over...

 

[cassandra]

Going to look for an omen is what we do when we consult the Yi. Being pecked on the shoulder by an omen is different. One of the differences is the feeling that accompanies the event. A broken bird egg is just a broken bird egg unless something taps me on the shoulder to whisper to me that it's more than that.

 

[louise]

Thats really well put Cassandra, I agree with that. I would never seek an omen in the outer world, they tend to come to you, and you just know the difference say between a broken shell and a broken shell that means something more.

Perhaps 'omen' is the wrong word for me I just can't think of a better one. I don't actually think of these events as predicting something, rather they are part and parcel of the event/meaning in our lives. Synchronicity at work.
They are helpful to us being like mirrors and echoes of events in our lives.

Superstition is a word with phoney connotations to me. I've read that superstitions tend to come from one event being an omen to someone and they then generalise it to that event always meaning that thing. For example one day a black cat crossed someones path and they had some good luck, they tell the story and it soon becomes a superstition. I give little credence to these, omens are only understood by the individual experiencing them.

I rather cringe at Lindsay putting in Angels and guides alongside giving ones washing machine a name !! Angels, well, they are real !

 

[willow]

If omen is the wrong word, maybe it's because we're sort of talking about omens, premonitions, and synchronicity all at once, and they're each a little different.

For madness that comes from too much omen-hunting, I think it's a matter of the hunter expecting omens to take the place of decisions. There's that Goethe line, something like, "If you commit, that is when providence also moves." I think you can lead a pretty magical life, full of all sorts of conversations with the universe, if you don't let all that conversing and hinting and advising ever take the place of your own responsibility to choose.

I do like Lindsay's point about big and small religion. For the small religion, maybe it has to do with how at some level we just naturally carry on this conversation in an innocent, childlike way.

 

[anita]

I've been hunting around in my head for omens and remember how my boyfriend sent me lyrics of a song called "I would walk a hundred miles" -- about how a lover would walk hundreds of miles to be with his love and the same day I saw the tail end of a movie on TV where this song was being played. Amazing because I'd never heard of this song.

In the days when I worshipped Isis, I very often came across Her mention in unlikely places like books that had nothing to do with Her.

I think it's all about synchronicity. The stronger the thought, the more the connections.


Candid, I really adore your little poem -- especially that part about the sunset and the following lines too. I make it a point to drive out about 25 km every weekend to watch the sunset from a very beautiful spot. Write some more! A similar thought -- when my father died at a young age from cancer, I looked at the sunset from a very different angle -- that it would happen, no matter how anyone grieved and so soften the grief.

Best for your Quest

 

[cassandra]

The Soul Bird was written by Michal Snunit, for those of you who are interested.

 

[candid]

...that it would happen, no matter how anyone grieved and so soften the grief.

Just thought it beared repeating... very nice