Looking for a sign - #136

Is this it?

We often only see the signs we are looking for. Say you’re on the road. Say you’re a… peasant. It’s vaguely medieval times, and you’re in a nice wooded area. You are out of work, the debtors are hunting you down, you’re not very good at blacksmithing or leatherworking or really anything, but you’re a reliable type, and you’d like to pay this debt. Then, on the side of the road, there’s a sign:

“Coins for work. Looking for anyone willing.” Or whatever a sign would say then. 

And you think, anyone willing? Sounds… troubling. You keep walking. Then, a bit down the road, through the forest, you overhear a woman in her doorway saying to her friend, “only a fool passes an obvious opportunity.” It is not about you. But it is precisely because it is not about you that it feels like a sign. 

So you head back to the actual sign, and begin the journey to coin.

These were signs precisely because you were looking for work. What you did not notice was that across from the coins sign, on the other side of the street, there was a somewhat gate-like structure leading into the densest part of the forest. Two trees who should have been straight were not. Instead, they had leaned toward one another to create an arch, and in that arch hung a vine covering the opening, very much like all the other vines but with a second glance indeed quite different because if you had leaned closely toward this vine, it would have begun to part. 

You did not see this, because like I mentioned, you are a reliable type. You like to pay your debts. But had I described you as something else, maybe adventurous or wronged or tired of the class system, you might have gawked at the coin sign and, in turning away, noticed the peculiar entrance.

You had, after all, been looking for a way out of paying your debts. Perhaps this was the way. You’d seen the literal sign for work that signaled a life of duty and debt, and you turned away from it only to find the sign you were looking for. 

A sign can only transform to a sign if it’s the one we want. Which leads me to my conundrum: I am looking for a sign but I do not know what I want the sign to say.

In the past month where I have nary left the valley that I live in primarily because something (a child) is living on me, I have started to ask the universe for a sign. I’d like it to steer me toward what I am meant to be doing, or what, at the very least, would make me feel happy, secure, and also allow me to spend a lot of time in nature. 

At the very least? the universe asks, incredulous. 

But as they say, you need to ask for what you want in order to get it.

And who, exactly, is they? 

Anyways, there are not a lot of places to find signs here other than the road and the woods and the not very old ruins. In the ruins you can find things like Gayla soda cans and broken license plates, but these aren’t signs. In fact, they’re only a few decades off from being actual trash. 

You have to work with what you’ve got, so I started with the road. Let’s take a look:

Ok, slow. Sure.

Yes, we’re moving lowly.

Right.

I mean for fuck’s sake. Slow. Look around. Go slow. Go even slower. No, slower than that. That’s the only message in town. You are in a place of spectacular beauty, and you’ll appreciate it better if you slow down. No one chugs wine or hot chocolate and you ought to not chug this place either. This is a sipping town. Now, get into first gear and slow down. 

I see all these signs when I walk around, and I say, “no, not that sign. No, sorry, not that one either.” 

You asked for a sign!

And I keep walking, pretending not to hear. The electricity bill cannot hear slow down. The mortgage cannot look around. The insurance agents cannot hear these signs either (unless you’re violating those signs and then yes they can hear them, that will be $200 more per month please.) 

The sign I am asking for is not one of speed, but one of change. I’m not doing something right, and I can feel it bone deep, though I cannot tell what it is. And it is very hard to see the sign when you don’t know what or who you’re looking for.

The easiest signs for us to see are for people we have lost because we know those people so well we cannot miss them. You could recognize them from the back 100 yards away, even when you weren’t looking for them. You saw them, and you still see them. In herons and rainbows, in foxes and heart rocks. We know what they look like. The signs are easy if we believe we can see them.

Signs for change are a little less obvious, and they often take a bit of bludgeoning, a real whacking for the oblivious. But if you miss too many, if you’re simply too far down the road, the signs run out. And then, even if you see it, and take it, it doesn’t always take you where you thought. 

If we are in the forest, taking the coin for “anyone willing,” it might be that we are tasked with hunting the dragon who is destroying the crops. If we take the mystical arch, it might lead us to the witch who turns us into a dragon. Either way, we’ve got a dragon to deal with, because regardless of the sign, there is always the work that follows. Maybe that work is healing or grieving. Maybe it’s moving or applying. Maybe it’s admitting or omitting. But there is work and often a lot of it.

Earlier this week, after some 30 miles of just walking around looking for signs, I turned to the Tarot. Like astrology, I don’t believe the Tarot tells us some preordained fate, but rather tells us what we’re willing to hear. It only goes as deep as we will allow ourselves to go. And so I asked if it had anything it wanted to tell me. I pulled the Judgement card reversed.

The Judgement Reversed often appears when the Universe is trying to send you a message and invite you to something bigger, but you’re not listening. Maybe you’re afraid of the sacrifice you will need to make to heed the call, or you’re worried you are not ready to step into a more prominent role and just want to play it safe. You are doing your best to pretend you didn’t receive it and are carrying on with your daily life, hoping it will go away. But let’s be honest – the ‘call’ never goes away; it just gets louder and louder until you pay attention. It’s time to push past your inner fears and self-doubt, and trust that the Universe has your back. This is happening for a reason. - Biddy Tarot

I thought of the slow signs, one after the other, all over town and realized perhaps I had been reading them wrong. Maybe “slow” wasn’t a command, but a description. This work is slow. You have to do it slowly. You cannot ignore the work merely because it is slow. You can either tackle it or tackle yourself — it is a dragon either way.

You just have to know your dragon. Then the sign part is easy.

---

Thank you to the many subscribers who inspired me with their own signs over on Instagram. It was a real treat to see the world through your eyes.