I don’t make a good circus-style fortune teller, with the big hoop earrings and mysterious accessories. It might make for good theatre, but I don’t like to make people think I have some special ‘gift’ that others do not and I don’t like to stand on the people I am reading for to make myself seem more grand or mysterious.
Intuition isn’t mysterious. We see it in action all the time in the natural world. Animals see a lot and know a lot that we don’t seem to. We all know people who have dogs that know when their people are going to be home from work. Animals head for the hills when a tsunami draws near. In time we may be able to see the science behind these things. I just read an article about how scientists have found that bees respond to specific electrical signals of flowers. That could explain their mysterious ability to hone on on what they need. Scientists think that sperm whales may be calling each other by name. This is new to the scientific world but not new to those who have been with whales and studied them. Jane Goodall discovered a lot about chimps when she was in the forest with them that the science of that time couldn’t imagine to be accurate. But she lived with them. She knew.
So what do animals have that we do not? Access to a quiet state. The ability to be still and listen or sense what the world is telling them. I don’t know how much mental chatter and worry dogs or cows have in their minds, but I’d be willing to bet it’s a lot less than we do.
Intuition, gut feelings, psychic ability kicks in when we are at rest – when we aren’t thinking about anything in particular, when we least expect it. In the Spring, we may have an inner urge to tidy our workspace or move house. When waiting at a traffic light, we may have a sudden impulse to turn right instead of left. Before thought kicks in and we start to worry, plan, analyse and interpret, there is a small window where we are in communication with the world around us. It may bring a sudden thought of an old friend just before the phone rings. Guess who’s on the line?
As kids, we are drawn to stories that have talking animals. We may somehow know that there is some truth to this. But then our current societies and cultures ask us to turn away from that sort of thinking. Maybe we long for the type of connectedness that puts all of us – human and animal, plant and earth in this world together. Maybe we know it already is there – we’ve just moved too far away from it to hear.
In the end maybe the whole sphere of psychic stuff will be explained by science. Maybe we’ll be able to track the energy of thoughts into the past or future. Maybe we’ll know what pathways these transmissions take. It’s an exciting thought. It wouldn’t take away my job, though. There are those of us who focus on these things because of our interest in exploring them, just as there are those of us who love to work with numbers, or paint, or heal.
Intuition is not mysterious, but to be good at it, we need to learn to quiet our minds and rest in the stillness of not-knowing so we can hear what the world around us is saying to us.
First published March 2013 in my free monthly email newsletter, Starry Night. Sign up here.
