• I Need a Sign

    • May 16, 2023 9:00 pm
    Dearest Readers,

    Last week, a client of mine said, “I need a sign!” They were feeling stuck in a pattern and looking for a way out.

    Being a person who looks for signs and spiritual messages when things are tough, I could relate. I’m also someone who’s received signs and spiritual messages without looking and I wrote about this in the last Healing Journey Letter.

    At the very beginning of my own healing journey, it was suggested that I “look for the coincidences” as evidence that a Higher Power was at work in my life. Nearly 25 years later, I’m still taking this suggestion.

    One of my most faithful sign-bringers is Woodpecker and I’ve written several times about how this comical bird’s coincidental materialization reassures me that I Am Known.

    On a retreat I was leading last month, I shared with the group that I’d had yet another woodpecker encounter  the week before and one of the women spoke up, pointing to the window excitedly and proclaiming, “There was a woodpecker right out there this morning!”

    Since then, I have literally been bombarded by woodpeckers. (Okay, not literally.)

    For many mornings in the last few weeks, I’ve been waking up to the bird’s percussive hammering. I leave the house and hear the rat-a-tat-tat echoing in the neighbourhood. I arrive home and the rhythmic patter is again sounding somewhere in the nearby trees. On several occasions, the bird has been close enough to see, making its way around a nearby trunk or flying from one tree to another in our yard.

    A few days ago, not one but two woodpeckers were pecking at the trees right outside the kitchen window. I felt like my “sign” had become a Times Square billboard.

    I watched in awe as the pair jabbed at rotten bark and darker crevices. I marveled at the precision of their work and the singular markings on their feathers.

    My heart felt happy and my day got better.

    *

    After I wrote the above sentence yesterday, I saved the Letter and went to work.

    On the way home from work, I stopped and got gas.

    Later, after an evening walk, I noticed the fuel door was still open and the gas cap was missing. Ooops! I had forgotten to close the fuel door and I’d driven away with the cap on top of the car.

    I got in the car and drove slowly back to the gas station, looking for the gas cap on the road.

    I spotted it, pulled over, got out, picked it up.

    A man, mowing his lawn, saw me and shrugged, puzzled by my action.

    “It’s my gas cap!” I shouted above the mower.

    He couldn’t hear, turned the mower off and walked over. I repeated what I’d said.

    “That’s funny. The same thing happened to my wife this afternoon.”

    “What?!”

    “Yeah. She left the fuel door open, gas cap dangling. Some guy flashed his lights to indicate for her to stop.”

    “That just happened to your wife today?” I asked.

    “Yup.”

    Okay, seriously. What are the chances that my gas cap falls off the car in front of the house of a guy who just happens to be outside when I come by and whose wife had the exact same thing happen to her on that day?

    In a world that sometimes seems to have gone completely mad, when the cauldron of human hatred and fear seems ever closer to boiling over, I look for the coincidences to land me back in the joyful notion that We Are Known.

    From the fires of love,

    Celia

    Good Timing!

    • January 28, 2010 12:13 pm

    Dearest Readers,

    In the middle of this past December, my parents sent me a gift package from their home in the US, which is about 2800 miles from where I live. A few days before the 25th, my mother asked if I’d received the parcel. I told her I hadn’t. Christmas came and went. No package. We passed through mid-January, a month since the posting, and I still had not received their gift.

    “Did you get a tracking number?” I asked my mother. She hadn’t.

    “Should I send you something else?” she asked me.

    “It’ll come,” I assured her.

    The day before yesterday I received a FINAL NOTICE slip for a parcel. (Don’t you love it when you receive a FINAL NOTICE and you haven’t ever received an initial one?) I sensed that this was the package from my parents.

    Yesterday I went to the post office to pick up the parcel. Sure enough, it was from my folks. On the customs sticker in my mother’s unique handwriting was written “one book”.

    When I got home I sliced open the box and unwrapped the silver Christmas paper. The book staring back at me? Wait for it: Decoding the Spiritual Messages of Everyday Life.

    Now if you did not read yesterday’s blog post, Eye See, please go and do so now. If you did, well, you might now be as amazed as I am.

    Think of all the things that had to happen for me to get this particular book on the very same day of that particular post. It’s absolutely fantastic!

    Inspiring Message of the Day: Trust the Flow. Everything is happening exactly as it should. If we can remember this in times of great struggle we can actually relax and let go of trying to plan everything ourselves. The Higher Plan is always at work!

    Eye See

    • January 27, 2010 10:17 am

    Dearest Readers,

    You know how clouds can sometimes take the shapes of earthly things? We’ve all seen the cloud that looks like an animal or an every day object. Yesterday I saw an eye.

    This eye was so big, it took up so much room in the sky and it was so real-looking, with the pupil and the upper lid clearly defined, the first thought that came to me was, “That’s the Eye of God.”

    It was about 8:45 a.m. and I was driving out of town to work at a colleague’s studio. The sun was just beginning to rise above the mountains. The nearest clouds were lit from behind with yellow light and a strip of hot gold ran across the length of the distant peaks, illumining their snow-covered edges. It was a staggering sight to behold.

    Then I noticed The Eye. It was dead straight ahead of me, the new morning light shining through its centre. I obviously had to watch the road but I couldn’t take my own eyes off it. I felt it looking at me.

    Have you seen Avatar? One of the lines that has stayed with me from the movie (paint-by-numbers story, stunning cinematic execution) is something the Na’vi, the big blue creatures who live as One with Nature, say to one another: “I see you.”

    This Eye in the Sky seemed to be saying just that. “I see you.”

    For me, believing in a benevolent, loving Force of the Universe is one thing. Believing that this Force knows me and supports me unconditionally is another. It’s the difference between faith and trust.

    The more I have practiced trusting the more I have been shown that I have reason to trust. It’s that simple.

    You might say, “It’s just a cloud,” but when one’s prayer is, “Show me your Presence,” it’s fun to believe that a big giant eye shining in the sky is the answer.

    Inspiring Message of the Day: When we keep our eyes and our ears open to the spiritual messages, an everyday object can become a Power symbol, which can then serve as a reminder of Higher Guidance.